Tag Archives: reading

1st Wednesday Book Group – Pied Piper

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2nd October 2013

piedTitle: The Pied Piper

Author: Nevil Shute

Book Summary

During John Howard’s holiday in France, the Nazis invade and he is forced to try to escape back to England with the two small children of some friends. The roads become impassable and Howard also comes across five more children who need his help. He ends up leading this motley group of youngsters through the French countryside constantly beset by danger yet heroically protecting his charges.

Group Comments

NOTE COMMENTS MAY CONTAIN PLOT SPOILERS

  • I was initially not keen to read the book, but I really enjoyed it. Very interesting to read about the War from the perspective of someone who was around at the time? Continue reading →

Last Thursday Book Group – Foal’s Bread

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26th September 2013

foalsTitle: Foal’s Bread

Author: Gillian Mears

Book Summary

The long-awaited new novel from the award-winning author of THE GRASS SISTER tells the story of two generations of the Nancarrow family and the high-jumping horse circuit prior to the Second World War. A love story of impossible beauty and sadness, it is also a chronicle of dreams ‘turned inside out’, and miracles that never last, framed against a world both tender and unspeakably hard.  Set in hardscrabble farming country and around the country show high-jumping circuit that prevailed in rural New South Wales prior to the Second World War, FOAL’S BREAD tells the story of two generations of the Nancarrow family and their fortunes as dictated by the vicissitudes of the land. It is a love story of impossible beauty and sadness, a chronicle of dreams ‘turned inside out’, and miracles that never last, framed against a world both tender and unspeakably hard. Written in luminous prose and with an aching affinity for the landscape the book describes, FOAL’S BREAD is the work of a born writer at the height of her considerable powers. It is a stunning work of remarkable originality and power, one that confirms Gillian Mears’ reputation as one of our most exciting and acclaimed writers.

Group Comments

NOTE COMMENTS MAY CONTAIN PLOT SPOILERS Continue reading →

2nd Tuesday Evening – All That I Am

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all that i am

Title – All that I am

Author – Anna Funder

 

 

 

Book Summary

WINNER OF THE 2012 MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD

When Hitler comes to power in 1933, a tight-knit group of friends and lovers become hunted outlaws overnight. United in their resistance to the madness and tyranny of Nazism, they flee the country. Dora, passionate and fearless; her lover, the great playwright Ernst Toller; her younger cousin Ruth and Ruth’s husband Hans find refuge in London. Here they take awe-inspiring risks in order to continue their work in secret.

But England is not the safe-haven they think it is, and a single, chilling act of betrayal will tear them apart.Some seventy years later, Ruth is living out her days in Sydney, making an uneasy peace with the ghosts of her past, and a part of history that has all but been forgotten. Continue reading →

Last Thursday Book Group – Salvation Creek

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salvation creekTitle – Salvation Creek

Author – Susan Duncan

Book Summary

Susan Duncan’s bestselling memoir about starting again and risking everything to find the only thing you need.

At 44 Susan Duncan appeared to have it all. Editor of two of Australia’s top selling women’s magazines, a happy marriage, a jetsetting lifestyle covering stories from New York to Greenland, rubbing shoulders with Hollywood royalty, the world was her oyster. But when her beloved husband and brother die within three days of each other, her glittering life shatters. Continue reading →

1st Wednesday Book Group – Caleb’s Crossing

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Calebs crossingTitle – Caleb’s Crossing

Author –  Geraldine Brooks

Book Summary

Once again, Geraldine Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha’s Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College.

Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure. The narrator of Caleb’s Crossing is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island’s glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. Continue reading →