General Chat

Greaders, please add your suggestions for 2 ordinary books to be read by 22 August o7............................................ Vote date 10th July 07............which is also the review date for the June/ July books. Ann Glos

Memory Keepers Daughter. Kim Edwards It should have bee an ordinary birth, the start of an ordinary happy family. But the night Dr David Henry delivers his wife's twins is a night that will haunt five lives for ever. For though David's son is a healthy boy, his daughter has downes Syndrome. and, in a shocking act of betrayal whose consequences only tome will reveal, he tells his wife their daughter has died while secretly entrusting her to a nurse. As grief quietly tears apart David's family, so a little girl must make her own way in the world as best she can. The House at Riverton by Kate Morton Summer 1924 On the eve of a glittering society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again. Winter 1999 Grace Bradley, ninety eight, one-time housemaid at Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet’s suicide. Ghosts awaken and old memories – long consigned to the dark reaches of grace’s mind – begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge, something history has forgotten but Grace never could. Set as the war-shattered Edwardian summer surrenders to the decadent twenties, The House at Riverton is a thrilling mystery and a compelling love story. ann Glos

Hi Ann, and everyone my choices are Umberto Eco – The Name of The Rose Imagine a medieval castle run by the Benedictines, with cellarists, herbalists, gardeners, young novices. One after the other half a dozen monks are found murdered in the most bizarre of ways a learned Franciscan who is sent to solve the mystery finds himself involved in the frightening events… a sleuth’s pursuit of the truth behind the mystery also involves the pursuit of the meaning – in words, symbols, ideas, every conceivable sign the visible universe contains… Umberto Eco has written a novel – his first – and it has become a literary event ------------------------------ Suite Francaise – Irene Nemirovsky In 1941, Irene Nemirowski sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France. Nemirowsky’s death in Auschwitz in 1942 prevented her from seeing the day, sixty five years later, that the existing two sections of her planned novel sequence, Suite Francaise, would be rediscovered and hailed as a masterpiece Set during the year that France fell to the Nazis, Suite Francaise falls into two parts. The first is a brilliant depiction of a group of Parisians as they flee the Nazi invasion; the second follows the inhabitants of a small rural community under occupation. Suite Francaise is a novel that teems with wonderful characters struggling with the new regime. However, amidst the mess of defeat, and all the hypocrisy and compromise, there is hope. True nobility and love exist, but often in surprising places Dee x

My choices for this month are: Lori Lansens - The Girls. (from the Random House site) Rose and Ruby are twenty-nine-year-old conjoined twins. Born during a tornado to a shocked teenaged mother in the hospital at Leaford, Ontario, they are raised by the nurse who helped usher them into the world. Aunt Lovey and her husband, Uncle Stash, are middle-aged and with no children of their own. They relocate from the town to the drafty old farmhouse in the country that has been in Lovey’s family for generations. Joined to Ruby at the head, Rose’s face is pulled to one side, but she has full use of her limbs. Ruby has a beautiful face, but her body is tiny and she is unable to walk. She rests her legs on her sister’s hip, rather like a small child or a doll. Rose has always wanted to be a writer, and as the novel opens, she begins to pen her autobiography. Here is how she begins: I have never looked into my sister’s eyes. I have never bathed alone. I have never stood in the grass at night and raised my arms to a beguiling moon. I’ve never used an airplane bathroom. Or worn a hat. Or been kissed like that. I’ve never driven a car. Or slept through the night. Never a private talk. Or solo walk. I’ve never climbed a tree. Or faded into a crowd. So many things I’ve never done, but oh, how I’ve been loved. And, if such things were to be, I’d live a thousand lives as me, to be loved so exponentially. We learn of their early years as the town 'freaks' and of Lovey’s and Stash’s determination to give them as normal an upbringing as possible. But when we meet them, both Lovey and Stash are dead, the girls have moved back into town, and they’ve received some ominous news. They are on the verge of becoming the oldest surviving craniopagus (joined at the head) twins in history, but the question of whether they’ll live to celebrate their thirtieth birthday is suddenly impossible to answer. P.D. James _ The Murder Room. Commander Adam Dalgliesh is already acquainted with the Dupayne Museum in Hampstead, and with its sinister murder room celebrating notorious crimes committed in the inter war years, when he is called to investigate the killing of one of its trustees. He soon discovers that the victim was seeking to close the museum against the wishes of both staff and fellow trustees. Everyone, it seems has something to gain from the crime. When it becomes clear that the killer is prepared to kill again, inspired by the real-life crimes from the murder room, Dalgleish knows that to solve this case he has to get into the mind of a ruthless killer. Alfie

Nudge up

Hi Ann Have to persevere at the beginning whilst the tale is being woven: The Lollipop Shoes - Joanne Harris. It's the sequel to Chocolat. Got mine from the library. Liz

Hi, here are my suggestions Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd A first novel, Rutherfurd's sweeping saga of the area surrounding Stonehenge and Salisbury, England, covers 10,000 years and includes many generations of five families. Each family has one or more characteristic types who appear in successive centuries: the round-headed balding man who is good with his hands; the blue-eyed blonde woman who insists on having her independence; the dark, narrow-faced fisher of river waters and secrets. Their fortunes rise and fall both economically and politically, but the land triumphs over the passage of time and the ravages of humans. Madame Barbara by Helen Forrester Synopsis A wonderful new novel from Liverpool's best-loved author. A tale of loss and love set in post-Second World War England and France. This is the story of a young Liverpool woman widowed in the Second World War before she can know the happiness of having a family. With the blessing of her mother, with whom she runs a B&B, she goes to Normandy to see where her husband was killed in the D-Day landings. Once she is there, she meets an impoverished French poultry farmer, now reduced to driving a beaten up (and still rare) taxi and looking after his old mother and dying brother. Will these two find happiness together? A touching love story, a compelling portrayal of the aftermath of war and above all a testament to the courage and endurance of oridinary people, xx Jill.

Hi everyone - my suggestion are:- The Little House - Philippa Gregory - a psychological thriller. Ruth is married to Elizabeth's son but appears to be owned by the whole family. 'Gregory at her most chilling and convincing'. The Adoption - David Hill A mother of 3 is desperate another child so she and her husband choose to adopt. How do you care for someone whose own family do not care for him, how do you care for your own family whilst giving a neglected child the love they need. A moving, perceptive and sometimes funny story about childhood and the family ties that never were. Kate

Must be quite a few not spotted this yet.

The Terminal Man by Sir Alfred Mehran The extraordinary true story of the charming eccentric Sir Alfred Mehran who has spent the last 15 years living on a bench in Terminal 1 at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris and dining on MacDonalds every day - the strangest case in immigration history! Knights of the Cross by Tom Harper As the First Crusaders are stuck in an interminable siege of Turk-held Antioch, Demetrios Askiates, a Greek assigned as scribe to the Byzantine emperor's representative, must once again play detective. The discovery of a Norman knight with his throat slit and bearing unusual markings on his corpse threatens the shaky alliance among the varied European armies of the First Crusade. Amid battles and political intrigues, Demetrios desperately pursues the few clues he has, even as the late Norman knight's companions, who may have joined him in promoting a new heretical sect, also turn up dead.

Several here I fancy already Dee xx

My suggestions for July are: - Birmingham Blitz. Anne Murray. Genie Watkins, a Birmingham kid, dreams of having a proper happy family like her Italian friend Teresa. But it's Aug 1939. Genie hasn't reckoned with the outbreak of war, her already rocky family being split up and the strange liberating effect it has on her Mother... 5th Horseman..... James Patterson. A young Mother is recuperating in a top San Francisco hospital when suddenly she is gasping for breath. The call button fails to bring help in time. How and Why did this happen.

Jill, I have just seen the size of Sarum, that could keep me occupied for a night or two ;-)))

Falls the Shadow - Sharon Penman (follow up to Here be Dragons) Simon de Montfort - aristocratic champion of the people, French-born crusader for English rights - blazed across the troubled 13th century to become one of the first true popular heroes of England. He also claimed the heart of the King's sister, Nell, who loved this extraordinary man throughout their stormy, passionate marriage. From the council chambers to the battlefields of Henry III's England and Llewelyn's divided Wales, amid courtiers, politicians and noblemen, Simon alone spoke his mind. And even for the greatest warrior in Europe, the favourite of the King, that was a dangerous thing..... The Sound of Laughter - Peter Kay Peter Kay's unerring gift for observing the absurdities and eccentricities of family life has earned himself a widespread, everyman appeal. These vivid observations coupled with a kind of nostalgia that never fails to grab his audience's shared understanding, have earned him comparisons with Alan Bennett and Ronnie Barker. In his award winning TV series' he creates worlds populated by degenerate, bitter, useless, endearing and always recognisable characters which have attracted a huge and loyal following. In many ways he's an old fashioned kind of comedian and the scope and enormity of his fanbase reflects this. He doesn't tell jokes about politics or sex, but rather rejoices in the far funnier areas of life: elderly relatives and answering machines, dads dancing badly at weddings, garlic bread and cheesecake, your mum's HRT...His autobiography is full of this kind of humour and nostalgia, beginning with Kay's first ever driving lesson, taking him back through his Bolton childhood, the numerous jobs he held after school and leading up until the time he passed his driving test and found fame.

Dee, I read it a few years ago and have just bought it in paperback and as a hardback for my mother. Would suggest its worth a read even if it does not get picked :))) I lived not too far from Salisbury,so was interested to have a read about the area as Stonehenge always fasinated me. xx Jill

Sorry Ann - haven't managed to read last months. Will try harder this month but no suggestions (unless you want to know about the pile I have waiting to be read?) T.O.R. x

TOR Why not choose one off the pile waiting to be read, you may be lucky and get it chosen, then that will be one less on the pile. Ann Glos

Had a message from Daisy to say she wont be joining us for the next 2 months. Ann Glos

Jill, I have it here in the bookcase, hubby read it ages ago and I have always said one day I will read it Dee xx

Lorraine is not joining us this time either. Ann glos