Category Archives: Book Clubs

Book Review A Spool of Blue Thread

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Anne Tyler

Summary

This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she and Red fell in love that summer’s day in 1959. The whole family on the porch, half-listening as their mother tells the same tale they have heard so many times before.

From that porch we spool back through the generations, witnessing the events, secrets and unguarded moments that have come to define the family. From Red’s father and mother, newly arrived in Baltimore in the 1920s, to Abby and Red’s grandchildren carrying the family legacy boisterously into the twenty-first century – four generations of Whitshanks, their lives unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly worn Baltimore house that has always been their home…

Comments

Many of our readers really enjoyed this book while some were disappointed by the structure of the story. There was real division within our readers with this structural format.

The story centres around three generations of the Whitshank family and the house in which they live in Baltimore. The Whitshanks are an average family and the house itself is presented as a real character in the book. Each generation’s connection to the house is quite well detailed and each of the key inhabitant’s special feelings toward the house outlined.

Most readers agreed the book is well written. The author’s use of dialogue was excellent and the attention to descriptive character detail all throughout the book was very good. Some readers were transported easily to the time and place in the story while other readers found the abrupt transitions in time confusing and irritating, distracting them from the story line.

Some readers also found the story line laboured on and on at times and was really not taking them to anywhere that they felt was interesting.

There was also a feeling by many that the story had an anticlimactic ending with some readers feeling unfulfilled by the story.

There is definite humour frequently throughout the book and moments that are emotionally very touching. There is also one very big shock incident in the middle of the book that none of us saw coming.

For those readers who had read Anne Tyler before it was a good book but not her best.

Many readers however did enjoy the story, the characters involved and the descriptive skill of the writer.

A recommended read.

Read by MJ Readers

Book Review The Alice Network

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The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

Summary

In an enthralling new historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.

1947. In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She’s also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive. So when Charlie’s parents banish her to Europe to have her “little problem” taken care of, Charlie breaks free and heads to London, determined to find out what happened to the cousin she loves like a sister.

1915. A year into the Great War, Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and unexpectedly gets her chance when she’s recruited to work as a spy. Sent into enemy-occupied France, she’s trained by the mesmerizing Lili, the “Queen of Spies”, who manages a vast network of secret agents right under the enemy’s nose.

Thirty years later, haunted by the betrayal that ultimately tore apart the Alice Network, Eve spends her days drunk and secluded in her crumbling London house. Until a young American barges in uttering a name Eve hasn’t heard in decades, and launches them both on a mission to find the truth…no matter where it leads.

From the publisher

Comments

As a group, we had not read much historical fiction, or knew very much about the role female spies had played in WW1 and WWII. However,  we were impressed and enjoyed the history lesson! We quite liked The Alice Network.  We love a story told from different points of views, through alternating chapters.  In this case, moving back and forth between Eve during the war, and Charlie, after the war as she searched for her lost cousin.  While we loved Eve’s story, riveted and turning pages quickly to get back to her side of the story; we struggled a little with Charlie.  We didn’t connect as well with her, however, we loved the small cast of supporting characters. We were amazed to learn at the end that some characters had been based on real people and that some of these events had actually happened. Overall, we would recommend this one for anyone who loves a historical fiction read. 

Read by Cultcha Club

Book Review French by Braid Anne Tyler

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Summary

When Mercy Garrett moves herself out of the family home, everyone determines not to notice.

All she wants is space and silence. No clutter. Not even their cat, Desmond.

But it turns out family life is impossible to escape – particularly when it’s in your past. For Mercy it all begins in 1959, with a holiday to a cabin by a lake. It’s the only one the Garretts will ever take, but its effects will ripple through the generations.

Comments

French Braid is a story about family dynamics and the reality that sometimes we can be closely related but are in reality, almost strangers. Anne Tyler offers insights into family relationships and human nature through the recounting of the lives of the Garrett family. The characters are not particularly interesting and very little of interest takes place in the story.

This book met with mixed responses from our group. Some found it to be a very satisfying read which they could relate to from their own family experiences. Others found it tedious to read and could not see the point of the book or what it was trying to achieve.

5/10

Read by Dundas Readers

Book Review Apples Never Fall

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by Liane Moriarty

Summary

From the outside, the Delaneys appear to be an enviably contented family. Even after all these years, former tennis coaches Joy and Stan are still winning tournaments, and now that they’ve sold the family business they have all the time in the world to learn how to ‘relax’. Their four adult children are busy living their own lives, and while it could be argued they never quite achieved their destinies, no-one ever says that out loud.

But now Joy Delaney has disappeared and her children are re-examining their parents’ marriage and their family history with fresh, frightened eyes. Is her disappearance related to their mysterious house guest from last year? Or were things never as rosy as they seemed in the Delaney household?

Comments

A long and rather tedious family saga/ psychological thriller. The Delaney family appear to be a normal happy family however when the mother, Joy, suddenly disappears the whole family is scrutinised and their underlying characters are revealed and found wanting. Has Joy been murdered and if so is her husband Stan the killer? To complicate matters a young woman named Savannah arrives on the Delaney’s doorstep in the middle of the night in a distressed state. She has apparently been injured by her partner and has nowhere to go. Joy allows her to stay with them despite opposition from her four adult children and lukewarm suport from her husband.

The background of the Delaney’s obsession with tennis is a crucial factor in the relationship between Stan and Joy and the lives of their four children. They met at a tennis club and went on to own a coaching school. All the children played from an early age and were expected to be champions. Such pressure to succeed has blighted the lives of all four of them in various ways.

One suspects throughout that Savannah is in some way responsible for Joy’s disappearance but we are kept waiting, not in nail biting suspense, but wishing that the end is in sight. When it comes however, like all good fairy tales, the family all live happily ever after and the wicked witch Savannah has the satisfaction of slaying the dragon who ruined her life.

The underlying theme of the damage caused by ambitious parents imposing their dreams of fame and  success on their offspring is a positive in this otherwise rather ordinary novel.

Read by Dundas Readers

Book Review The Cowra Breakout

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The Cowra Breakout by Mat McLachlan

Summary

The riveting story of the missing piece of Australia’s World War II history, told by bestselling historian Mat McLachlan (Walking with the Anzacs, Gallipoli: The Battlefield Guide).

During World War II, in the town of Cowra in central New South Wales, Japanese prisoners of war were held in a POW camp. By August 1944, over a thousand were interned and on the icy night of August 5th they staged one of the largest prison breakouts in history, launching the only land battle of World War II to be fought on Australian soil. Five Australian soldiers and more than 230 Japanese POWs would die during what became known as The Cowra Breakout.

This compelling and fascinating book, written by one of Australia’s leading battlefield historians, vividly traces the full story of the Breakout. It is a tale of proud warriors and misfit Australian soldiers. Of negligence and complacency, and of authorities too slow to recognise danger before it occurred – and too quick to cover it up when it was too late. But mostly it is a story about raw human emotions, and the extremes that people will go to when they feel all hope is lost.

Comments

This book was enjoyed by our readers, with many adding that they were surprised by how much they did enjoy this book.

We found the book to be extremely well researched by the author. With this very factual research the author has then developed a highly detailed and very readable novel about an interesting episode in Australian war history.

The writer was able to take us to this period in time by well researched real personal accounts starting with Japanese Zero fighter pilot Tatsumi Hanada, Australia’s first prisoner of war, shot down over Melville Island following the first Japanese attack on Darwin.

We found it to be a most enjoyable read about the homeland history of Australian soldiers in WW2.

The book also prompted a reflective discussion about how the Japanese prisoners of war were treated by the Australian captors as opposed to how Australian and allied forces along with civilian expats who were captured were treated by the Japanese forces. The Japanese culturally having a completely different attitude to what it meant to be a POW. It was an interesting fact in the book that many Japanese prisoners used false names to conceal from their families in Japan that they were POW’s. Their complete personal shame at being a prisoner, they would rather die in a mass escape than return home after the war to be known as a POW. The Australians treating them well as prisoners only seemed to make them resent their situation more.

This story also gives real recognition to the Australian soldiers who died during this escape and a detailed account of what these soldiers faced on that night in 1944, the night of the breakout.

The cover up following from the Australian authorities, just like the cover up of the bombing of Darwin, evokes hurt and resentment to this day from Australian soldiers and citizens.

As a group we all confessed that we had very little knowledge at all about the Cowra breakout although most of us had heard of the breakout. This bought about a discussion of many other historically important and impressive episodes in Australia’s war history that are not taught in school history as far as we know.

The cover up following from the Australian authorities, just like the cover up of the bombing of Darwin, evokes hurt and resentment to this day from Australian citizens.

A lengthy discussion also followed about Australians’ personal attitudes toward the Japanese after the war. How attitudes have changed over time. Our own grandparents and parents, who lived through this period, had such a different attitude to the Japanese compared to our own generation and that of the current younger generations.

This was a read that we are happy to recommend.

Read by MJ Readers