Purple Coo Book Club Winter Read 2010

Hi Everyone,

Please read the list below and type your 1st and 2nd choices in 'comments' . Once everyone has voted, I'll collate the votes and announce the Purple Coo Winter Read on the Purple Coo main site.

Antimacassar City by Guy McCrone

(The first book of the Wax Fruit Trilogy) The chronicle of the life and times of the Moorhouse family as they rise from the obscurity of a family farm in Kilmarnock, to prosperity in Victorian Glasgow.

Any Human Heart by William Boyd

(Currently to be seen on UK TV – Channel 4) The fictitious intimate journals of a writer, lover, art dealer and spy during the defining years of 20^th C ie 1906 -1999)

Dissolution by C J Sansom

Intricate murder mystery set in Tudor England. The year is 1537 and the country is divided between those faithful to the Catholic Church and those loyal to Henry VIII and the newly established Church of England. A real thriller of a book.

Napoleon’s Master by David Lawday

A biography of Talleyrand, and an excellent read (It might be interesting to go for nonfiction for a change)

Purge by Sofi Oksanen

The story of Estomia’s long occupation by the Russians underpins a tale of sex trafficking, abuse and betrayal.

Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan

Re-write of the Snow White and Rose Red fairy tale – very suitable seasonal reading

The Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett

The third title in the Tiffany Aching part of the Discworld series, with all Sir Terry’s usual zany wit and charm – a satire on teenage behaviour and a cheeky reworking of the Orpheus myth.

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani

In a similar genre to ‘The Glass Room. Set in 1930’s this book captivates the mood and atmosphere of Italy as an aristocratic Jewish family move inevitably towards doom. The family invite a number of young people to join in with tennis at their home after city clubs ban them due to racial laws. There is a love theme also running through the story.

The Help by Catherine Sockett

(Okay I know it was on the list last time – but it’s back again by special request and as I’ve just read it myself, and loved it, so it comes thoroughly recommended.)

A story of three very different women who are prepared to take huge personal risks to change the way folks think in a southern American town. Considering the seriousness of the topic – racism at its apartheid worst – this is a very heart warming and at times very funny book.

The painting is 'Two Cats' by Elizabeth Blackadder

The Purple Book Club Autumn Read 2010

Please list your 1st and 2nd choice for the Purple Coo Book Club Autumn Read in the 'comments' section below. When everyone has voted, I'll collate the votes and announce the most popular choice on Purple Coo.

(Thankyou to everyone who suggested books. We really have a splendid selection to choose from this time.)

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

Taylor Greer becomes the guardian of an abandoned baby girl she calls Turtle. In Tucson they meet the proprietor of an auto-repair shop with a safe-house for Central American refugees upstairs and there she builds a life for herself and her child.

The Glass Room by Simon Mawer

The Glass Room is a book about a culture slipping from decadence into catastrophic decline. It's a study of a marriage. It concerns itself with art, music, architecture, indignity, loneliness, terror, betrayal, sex. And the Holocaust. (Guardian)

The Help by Kathryn Sockett

A story of three women determined to start a movement of their own that has a profound effect upon a town and the way women--mothers, daughters and friends view one another. A poignant, humorous and hopeful novel. A timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.

The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory

Mary Boleyn catches the eye of Henry VIII when she comes to court as a girl of fourteen. The story of Anne’s less famous sister and a really good read.

The Prison of Perspective by Rudolf Bader.

The first novel, by a a renowned professor of literature and linguistics. (In the Mud met him in Waterstones where he was signing copies of his book) It follows the life of 3 main characters and how they intertwine with one another at different crucial times in their lives.
The back cover says" A chance encounter, a road accident, an aircrash, a hold up at a bank: How do such events connect people? How do people see the situations from their different perspectives?"

The Swimming Pool Season by Rose Tremain

An early Tremain, set in Dordogne and Oxford, it’s really 16 short stories intricately woven together as a novel. Nothing much happens but reading about it not happening is fascinating. She describes real life so beautifully and also creates in Nadia her own Polish Malaprop, for which alone the book is worth reading.

The White Queen by Phillipa Gregory

History (with the occasional dose of witchcraft thrown in) like you’ve never had it before but great fast moving fun.

This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson

All about Darwin and Fitzroy and the voyage of the beagle and their later adventures including Fitzroy's spell as Governor of New Zealand not very long before the date in which Rose Tremain's ‘The Colour’ is set.

The Piano Teacher by Janice Y K Lee

Janice Y. K. Lee’s first novel, “The Piano Teacher,” opens with the newlywed Claire travelling to Hong Kong in 1951 with her husband, Martin, an engineer. Soon Claire is hired as a piano teacher for the daughter of a wealthy Chinese couple, Victor and Melody Chen. Also in their employ, as a chauffeur, is an enigmatic Englishman, Will Truesdale.

(The picture is High Corrrie, Arran by John Maclauchan Milne)

Purple Book Club Summer Read 2010

2010 Summer Reading for the Purple Coo Book Club

Here is the list of books that have been suggested by the Purple Coo Book Club members. Please make your 1^st and 2^nd choices in the comment box below. I’ll collate the votes and announce the most popular book on the Purple Coo Book Club Forum. Happy Reading and my apologies if yours didn’t make the final list. We had so many suggestions that some will have to be held over for the next time.

A Year in the Woods by Colin Elford

Colin Elford shoots deer for a living, but that description doesn’t do him justice. This is the most marvellous account of how a forest ranger spends his days, alone but for the deer, the squirrels, the rabbits, the birds and mystery that makes up woodland at all times of the year. A wonderful look at nature through the eyes of a true countryman. Even if it isn’t your first choice, I suggest you beg, buy or borrow a copy. It’s only short. It won’t take long to read.

Solar by Ian McKewen

A prize winning, much married, world renowned, philandering, womanising physicist finds out his wife, whom he still loves, is having an affair. His professional and personal lives collide due to a freak accident, providing a chance to save himself from his marital mess, reinvigorate his caree and save the world from environmental disaster. A darkly satirical, humorous novel.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

A Gone With Wind story seen from the other side. “Where black maids raise white children, but aren’t trusted not to steal the silver.”

The Nation by Terry Pratchett

Not a witch or a wizard in sight. Mau is the last surviving member of his nation, until he finds out otherwise … Witty and wise from a master story teller. A funny tale about death and nationhood. Classic Pratchett.

The Other Hand by Chris Cleave

We’ve voted on this book before but Blossom thinks it’s such a brilliant read she’d like us to give it another chance. The blurb on this book asks readers not to reveal what happens, so my lips are sealed, except to say it is compelling reading. (A tiny hint – a shocking encounter that reverberates from a Nigerian beach to middle England)

The Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson

Fennie recommends this fascinating novel, based on the voyages of The Beagle to Terra del Fuego. Did you know some Fuegan Indians actually travelled to England, learned English and had tea with the king? I wonder what ‘The Thing of Darkness’ can be?

The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison

It’s England in 1931 and Hitler prepares to invade Poland. Anna is evacuated to a large Yorkshire estate owned by an enigmatic, childless couple. She becomes part witness, part accomplice to a love affair with unforeseen consequences. A debut novel that is both a love story and a story about the nature of love.

(The picture is Nasturtium by Eugene Grasset)

Purple Coo Book Club Spring Read 2010

2010 Spring Reading for the Purple Coo Book Club

Here is the list of book suggested by Purple Coo Book Club members. (Everyone who belongs to Purple Coo is automatically a member) Please make your 1^st and 2^nd choices in the comment box below. I’ll collate the votes and announce the most popular book on the Purple Coo Book Club Forum.

An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel

A bleak but witty tale about a woman’s journey from her childhood home in Lancashire to her eventual anorexic collapse. A ruthlessly demanding mother, with ultra high expectations, means Carmel has to succeed. “Stuffed with education” she eventually gets a scholarship and sets off for Tonbridge Hall, a retrograde women’s residence at London University and the trauma that brings.

One Day by David Nichols

Two students at Edinburgh University have a post finals fling on July 15, 1988; it is not meant to lead to anything permanent.

One Day, revisits the two students on this day over the next 20 years. Their paths diverge and they inhabit radically different worlds, but somehow they are better together than when they are apart.

Sacred Country by Rose Tremain

(Amazon review) "Sacred Country" is about a young girl, Mary Ward, who, at the age of six, realizes that she should be boy. The book is a chronicle of her life from that point on. I found the detailed descriptions of the odd things that captured Mary's curiosity as a child (and as an adult, in a different way) intriguing. I won't lie, this is a very sad story at times, and is hard to read in some parts because of Mary's loneliness. The loneliness is never stated and packs a harder punch because of it. All in all, this book explained to me in stunning writing, the process of finding all of the right worlds in oneself. And, dealing with them when they don't fit or express into a manageable form to the outside world. It is a coming of age story to the self and to life. I like to read to learn - about happiness, sadness, life - this book delivered in a big way for me."

The Little Stranger by Sarah Walters

A psychological thriller, a Gothic tale that focuses on a crumbling mansion in the English countryside in post WWII Britain. It covers the fall of the Ayres family, a dignified, middle aged mother, an unattractive, unmarried 27 year old daughter and her battle scarred brother, who finds himself reluctantly taking over the management of the family estate.

The Other Hand by Chris Cleave

The blurb on this book asks readers not to reveal what happens, so my lips are sealed, except to say it is compelling reading. (A tiny hint – a shocking encounter that reverberates from a Nigerian beach to middle England)

The Photograph by Penelope Lively

A man, who thinks he has been happily married for many years, finds a photograph of his late wife and unravels a side to her he never knew.

(Lily says this is one of the saddest books she’s ever read, but she wasn’t the only Purple Cooer to recommend it. Perhaps we all like a good weep.)

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

... is about an emotionally abused 14 year girl old living on a rural peach farm in South Carolina with her cold, uncaring father. The girl is haunted by the memory of her mother, accidentally killed in front of her when the girl is only four years old. All she has to remind her of her mother is a picture of a Black Madonna with the words, Tiburon, South Carolina written on the back...

The Winter House by Nicci Gerrard

An examination of how the intimacies and entanglements of youth can often exert a stranglehold well into middle age. Marnie, a forty something museum curator finds herself summoned to the bedside of a dying friend, who she hasn’t seen since her early twenties.

With some trepidation she sets off for the dying man’s loch-side cottage, where she’s joined by Oliver, a mutual friend and together they set out to keep vigil by the man’s bedside. What emerges are the memories of the group’s highly charged past, a teenage love-triangle that carries with it all the angst of middle age.

(Psst! This is WW’s suggestion, so beware - you know how bossy she can be if we don’t do as we are told... it’s the first time she’s recommended anything that isn’t by Sir Terry P.)

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

The key events take place over a ten year period, 1520 to 1530, Henry VIII and his first two marriages and the resulting split with Rome. Although the events are inevitably based on fact, Hilary mantel has breathed life into them to make them all the more complex and enthralling

The picture is Periwinkle a floral design by Eugene Grasset