Tag: book clubs

Audiobook review – “The Book Club for Troublesome Women” by Marie Bostwick

This was a book club pick a couple of months ago and I listened to it on audio whilst doing a lot of travelling back in May. It was a very good accompaniment to rolling scenery from the window of a train and a bus, when my eyes needed a rest and I did not want to think too hard! The author describes it as ‘historical fiction’, and it is, although the 1960s don’t seem that long ago to some of us! Set up in a suburban town close to Washington DC in the United States it tells the story of four women who call themselves ‘the Bettys’, after setting up a book club with the inaugural title being the, at the time, controversial book The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Funnily enough, my husband was reading The Feminine Mystique at the same time I was listening to this novel. It was highly contentious when it was first published in 1963 and is credited with having triggered second-wave feminism, based on some research Friedan, an academic, had done which found that the majority of American women were dissatisfied with their roles as housewives and mothers, and those who had received a college education felt their talents and knowledge were wasted. 

The founder of the book club is Margaret Ryan, a happily married mother of three, who comes up with the idea as a way of bringing new neighbours together. She invites her good friend Viv, a happily married mother of six, and Bitsy, a very young woman married to a vet who is much older than her. Bitsy has no children but the need to become pregnant and her husband’s impatience preoccupy her constantly. The fourth member is the newest neighbour Charlotte, an outgoing, haughty artist, who makes it plain that she is a fish out of water on the neat housing estate and that it was not her idea to move there. Charlotte has two teenaged children and a largely absent husband. 

Over time, the reading of The Feminine Mystique, forces the women to ask themselves whether they are happy and fulfilled, an uncomfortable question for some of them. They explore employment opportunities (which they find are limited) and find that their husbands are not all entirely supportive of the changes the women are seeking. Some of the men are clearly threatened by the change to the status quo.

The women meet regularly and begin to form close bonds, despite the obvious differences between them. As each one encounters personal challenges, such as Margaret’s struggles to find a publisher for her writing, Charlotte’s marital difficulties, Viv’s unplanned pregnancy (she was unable to get a prescription for contraceptives without her husband being present) and Bitsy’s failure to fall pregnant at all, they find their little club grows into something much more meaningful and supportive.

The women are on a journey, as are their partners, trying to break through the barriers that the prevailing social norms have placed in the way of their often very modest ambitions, and as they grow in self-confidence, thanks to the support of the group, they find themselves fighting to bring down those barriers, with varying consequences and degrees of success. 

It is hard to credit that some of the barriers facing women outlined in this novel were in place only a couple of generations ago. It is also a reminder that in some parts of the world, freedoms and equality are still denied to many women, either by law or by culture. The job is not yet complete and this book is a powerful reminder.

Very enjoyable and recommended reading. I listened to it on audio and found the reader Lisa Flanagan to be very good.

Film review: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

I was feeling a bit glum last week (two teenagers and one in training, need I say more?!) so I decided that an afternoon at the cinema with a feel-good movie was in order. I’d heard about The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (hereafter shortened to The GLPPPS) on Front Row a few weeks ago and it sounded interesting. It is a really lovely movie, and there is much more to it than just “feel-good” with a bit of romance; it covers historical events about which I’m ashamed to say I knew very little, and it is very engaging.

Successful, beautiful young author Juliet Ashton appears to have it all; she lives in London, where she is planning to buy a new flat, which she can well afford from her fabulous authorly earnings, and is romantically involved with an American military officer, who wants to whisk her off to New York to be his wife. But a dark shadow looms over her existence and she knows there is something missing in her life. Bored with her book tours she accepts a commission from The Times to write an article when, out of the blue, she receives a letter from a farmer in Guernsey, Dawsey Adams, which intrigues her. He has by chance come across a copy of Charles Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare with her name and former London address written in it. Her past home was destroyed in the War, and both her parents were killed, so the contact marks an emotional moment for her. In his letter, Dawsey writes briefly about the GLPPPS and asks if she might forward another book for the group to read (books were very difficult for them to get hold of when the Nazis occupied the island).

Juliet is intrigued, not only by the request, but also by the strange name of the Society. We have already learned a little of the Society’s origins – its five members were apprehended by a Nazi patrol after curfew after they had shared a roast pork dinner from an illegally concealed pig. At the time of the occupation, locals were forbidden to keep hold of their livestock as all meat was confiscated for the benefit of the German soldiers. As a result the islanders were nearly starved, hence living on delights such as Potato Peel Pie (“no flour, no butter, just potato peel”). The shared meal marks a connection and coming together for the five lonely individuals looking for some togetherness at a very dark time. The Society is ‘authorised’ by the Germans and they continue to meet. It becomes their lifeline. The instigator of the Society, Elizabeth McKenna, is the best friend of Jane, daughter of Amelia Maugery, another of the Society’s founding members.

Juliet decides to go to Guernsey to write about the Society and when she arrives she is immediately won over by their passion for literature, their humanity and their story. She tells them, naively, that she would like to write about them for her article in The Times and assumes they will be only too delighted to give her their blessing. Juliet encounters unexpected hostility, however, in particular from Amelia (played by the marvellous Penelope Wilton), who believes that Juliet, with her London ways, has merely come to gawp at these unsophisticated islanders and that she understands nothing of their lives.

Juliet is horrified that her new friends should be offended by her proposal and desires to dig a little deeper, to understand better and to uncover the truth about what they endured in the occupation. Thus, her weekend stay becomes indefinitely extended, much to the annoyance of Juliet’s fiance, Mark Reynolds. Juliet develops close relationships with other Society members Isola and, of course, the handsome Dawsey. She learns from them that Amelia has never recovered from the death of her daughter Jane, and the unborn child she was carrying, from German bombing at the time of the invasion. She also learns more about Dawsey’s young daughter Kit, and about what has happened to Elizabeth.

I will say no more as it’s a cracking story and I don’t want to spoil it. Multiple plot lines are maintained throughout, and the flashbacks to the origins of the Society and the events that befell them in the War are very well done. The dimension of Juliet’s engagement to her American lover, and her long-standing friendship with her protective publisher, provide interesting side stories.  It has a super cast, the characters are well-played, and the Guernsey scenery is stunning – I predict this film will do much for Channel Islands tourism!

Highly recommended and definitely improved my week!

If you get to see this film I’d love to hear what you thought of it.

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Book Review: “The Life and Loves of a He-Devil” by Graham Norton

I love my little book club – it’s small and very exclusive and, besides books, we specialise in popcorn, gin and tonic and extra-curricular trips. All in the name of literature, of course!

We have been meeting every month for a couple of years now and have read a wide range of books: fiction, non-fiction, YA, thrillers, classics, to name but a few of our chosen genres. Some books we have loved, some we have loved less. Some generate an enormous amount of discussion, others less.

The Life and Loves of a He Devil imgWe decided for our March meeting we’d read Graham Norton’s 2014 memoir The Life and Loves of a He Devil. We wanted to read an autobiography and felt that among the many “celebrity” memoirs out there, Graham’s might have more to offer than most. We all like him as a broadcaster and personality and thought it might be fun. We were not wrong! But when we came to meet and discuss it, we had very little to say. We’d exchanged a number of messages on our WhatsApp group in the preceding weeks, with many laughter emojis, asking each other if we’d come across the dog and condom anecdote yet, or the Dolly Parton story. Some sections of this book, which I read most of whilst on a train journey to London, were laugh-out-loud, or rather “try to suppress a laugh because I’m in public”, moments. It’s a romp and Graham writes the way he speaks, with wit, authenticity and complete honesty. His writing style is similar in his novel Holding, which I reviewed here last year, and really enjoyed. (His second novel, entitled A Keeper, is due out in the Autumn.)

It’s charming and funny, and there is such a lot of name-dropping that it’s a bit of escapism too. Reading it is a reminder of just how successful, Graham is; I lost count of the number of homes he owns and the list of people he calls friends is something to behold. I think it’s because he manages to make you feel that he is a regular guy, just like the rest of us, and just as in awe of all the celebs and their glitter. He also manages to convey a kind of naivety and innocence that make you feel he is very ordinary. He is not of course; he’s supremely talented and clearly unusually astute to have achieved what he has. That does not come from luck alone. Concealing all of that beneath a veneer of self-deprecation is a talent in itself and I admire him enormously.

Back to my book club, we had only one criticism, and that is that the opening chapter (the book is divided into chapters, each of which is about one of his ‘loves’), about the joys of being a dog-owner, was, we felt, by far the funniest, so everything that followed was not inferior exactly, but did not quite meet the same high bar.

Not much to say then, except that it’s hugely funny, and if you like Graham Norton, you’ll love this book!

Have you read this or any of Graham Norton’s other books?

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