Winter Reading for the Purple Book Club
Here is the list of suggested books.
Please make your 1st and 2nd choice in the comment box. I’ll collate the votes and put the most popular book choice on the Book Forum. Then we can all get reading!
A Hatful of Sky Terry Pratchet
Wacky magic and witchcraft. Fast moving and really good fun. You’ll either love it or hate it! Chosen by our beloved WW. (I have to put it on the list or she’ll poke me with her pointy stick! You have been warned.)
Armies of the Night Norman Mailer (non fiction novel)
Does history teach us anything? Mailer’s first hand account of the events surrounding the anti Vietnam War rally on the Pentagon in the Autumn of 1967. A good read to honour his memory.
Blind Assassin Margaret Attwood
A novel within a novel, a sister’s mysterious ‘accidental’ death , a science fiction story, a sailboat with a husband’s dead body - disparate elements woven together in a collage of ideas…. Have I given anything away?
Dress Your family in Corduroy and Denim Davis Sedaris
A collection of, off kilter, short stories about the author’s life growing up in the Southern States of the USA. Funny, poignant and sad.
Labyrinth Kate Moss
3 secrets, 2 women, 1 grail, complicated plot, intriguing story set in Carcassonne. (I bet Sally has read this one.)
Mad Bad and Dangerous to know Ranulph Fiennes (autobiography)
About an obsessive, rebellious and completely mad explorer. You’ve got to be mad if you attempt to walk solo to the North Pole.
Number 9 Dream David Mitchell
Eliji Miyake arrives in a Japanese city to track down the father he has never met. He is broke, 18 years old and mapless. Oh yes, and John Lennon somehow fits into the story.
Spilling the Beans Clarissa Dickson Wright (autobiography)
The surviving “Fat Lady” tells all about her remarkable and rather racy life. I didn’t realise she was the youngest woman ever to be called to the bar and what she did behind the Speaker’s Chair…Well!
The House on Beartown Road Elizabeth Cohen
There are lots of details about this book on Cait’s blog. Look there as she does a better job than me!
The People’s Act of Love James Meek
1919 Siberia. A revolutionary finds himself cut off in a very strange community. A community where it is very unwise to go on a journey with the locals if you are naïve. Oh! and there is also a love story in it somewhere.
(I declare an interest in this one as he is to be the guest of my other book group in January)
The Thirteenth Tale Dianne Setterfield
Angelfield House stands abandoned and forgotten. It was once the home of the March Family, but Angelfield House conceals a chilling secret - a riveting, multilayered mystery that twists and turns.
War Horse Michael Morpurgo
Spoken from the point of view of a horse. At the outbreak of WW1, Joey, young Albert’s beloved horse is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. The horse has many adventures, serving on both sides until it finds itself on its own in no man’s land. Albert can’t forget his horse and, though not old enough to enlist, sets off to find Joey and bring him home. A very exciting and moving tale. ( How I sobbed when I read Black Beauty!)
(Picture - Composition by Piet Mondrian - oil, painted 1917)
22 comments:
#1The House on Beartown Rd
#2The People's Act of Love
Thank you LWB!
Armies of the Night
War Horse.
Not been a member before, but might join you this time.
Beartown Road
Thirteenth Tale
Armies of the Night
Number 9 Dream.
(Just an aside, I once gave Clarissa Dickson Wright a cookbook - a compilation of favorite recipes of various Metropolitan Museum of Art employees. Hoped that she would put it up for sale on a shelf in her bookshop.)
xo to all readers.
#1 Blind Assassin
#2 War Horse
Soooooo looking forward to being part of this group!!! Thanks, LWB!
War Horse
Blind Assassin
Thanks!
I have to say that The People's Act of Love is one of the best books I have ever read! Truly. And I think I have bored enough people swooning over the sublime David Mitchell whom everyone MUST read! And am doing the Blind Assassin for one of my book groups. So I won't vote this time, but will be interested to see what you all come up with.
Ditto Milla on People's Act of Love and Number 9 Dream. War Horse is lovely - but very short. Labyrinth is....aaaghhhhh...sooooo irritating. Am in the middle of Thirteenth Tale and love it to bits. Think I have read Blind Assassin but can't remember! Sorry, not voting, am I? Shut up Jane.
1. Dress your family....
2. The House on Beartown Road
1)Dress your family in....
2)No 9 dream
even though some of the others sound very tempting too
Here it is:
The House on Beartown Road.
The first book I just want to mention is one called The House on Beartown Road, by Elizabeth Cohen. It's a memoir written by an American woman who is caring for her father, who has Alzheimer’s, at the same time as she is bringing up her young child. It sounds like a depressing book but it is a real gem and a positive one that will stay in your memory long after you have read it. Especially if you have a member of your family with this disease, but even if you don’t I would recommend it. Everyone I know who has has read it, liked it.
OK, sold to the woman in black. I'll go for Beartown as number one and 13th tale as number 2 as have never heard of either which appeals. Is the Morpurgo not a child's book? If it is, am bound to sob, I always sob at his - Butterfly Lion? Aaaah.
1 blind assasin
2 peoples act of love
Guess I'd better put mine on, so that everything is fair.
1. The People's Act of Love
2. Mad Bad and Dangerous to Know
but you know I will enjoy reading the book, whater the outcome.
War Horse
Peoples Act of Love
13th tale.
Never got round to joining in before, but might if this gets chosen.
I haven't been a member either. I'd go for either the Clarissa Dickson Wright Autobiography or War Horse
I never got around to joining this, but it looks interesting!
Blind Assassin
Mad Bad and Dangerous
Thes two look good to me!
Peoples Act of Love
Mad Bad and Dangerous to know
Thank you for carrying on with this ..have read books I would never have done otherwise
War Horse
Clarissa Dickson Wright
1. The People's Act of Love
2. The thirteenth Tale (cheating 'cos I've already read it but I did love it).
Please announce the outcome a little in advance of the start, so I can order the books and not be too far behind!
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