April Book Club

Hello everyone,

I hope you're all well into the next bookclub book! Here are some questions you might like to think about:

- Were you drawn in by the plot?
- How is Young's description of God different from your concept of God? What parts of his description did you like and what parts didn't you like?
- Does the theological incorrectness bother you, or does it even matter since it is a work of fiction?

I'd also like to say thank you for all the suggestions for books for the months after September. I need to collect them all together, then we can have a discussion about them later on.

Questions from PPH bookclub.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - March Book Club

This book divided the bookclub into those who read it as a book that should be historically accurate, and those who felt it was more about friendship. It was said in the meeting that it could be read with the head or with the heart.

Some readers thought it would be read differently by people who had prior knowledge of the topics in the novel, like Auschwitz and the Nazi's. We weren't sure if prior knowledge would have a positive or negative effect on how you felt about the book. In fact it might be a prompt to younger people to talk about the war, so might be a good idea for school children studying the war to start with something like this.

We were also uncertain about the naivety of Bruno, we came to the conclusion that it was necessary for the story and could be realistic given that children from earlier generations were naive for longer.

Overall we would recommend this book to other people and we gave it an average of 8 out of 10!

World Bookclub Interview with John Boyne

I've just been looking for some bookclub discussion questions about our book of the month and i found this radio programme which might be interesting:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/2009/03/000000_worldbookclub.shtml

March Book Club

Hello everyone,

Hopefully you will all have read the book for this weeks bookclub. Here are some questions to get you thinking about what we might discuss on Thursday.

- What did you think of Bruno’s character? What did you like about him? What didn’t you like?

- How would you describe Elsa? Were you surprised that Elsa (Bruno’s mother) was unaware of the true nature of the camp? How would you have responded to this situation if you had been in her position?

- How do the characters in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas exemplify Hannah Arendt’s notion of ‘the banality of evil’, that evil arises out of the tendency of ordinary people to follow orders, to accept what they’re told by authorities, to conform to the prevailing opinion? How easily could such evil arise in our own society? What might lead to it? What could prevent it?

- What would you identify as the most important messages from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas?

I'll see you all on Thursday!

The Soloist - February Book Club

The cakes were kindly supplied by Anna Evans, and they were enjoyed by everyone!

This novel proved to be not such a hit with the bookclub. We all agreed that it felt like a series of articles rather than a flowing novel. We also had the impression that a lot of the very complex issues dealt with in the book were only really skimmed over. There could have been a lot more depth to the book which would have engrossed us a little more.

I'm not sure if this was the librarians in the group but we thought that having an appendix with fulltext or references of the actual articles which created the base for this novel would have been interesting.

Most of the group felt very bored with the novel and would not recommend it to a friend. Overall we gave the book an average of 4 out of 10.

February Book Club

Hello everyone,

I hope you're all enjoying or about to enjoy reading The Soloist. I thought i'd send out a few questions for you all to think about:

- Are you a fan of classical music, do you think you need to be to understand this book?
- How did you feel about the relationship between Steve & Nathaniel? Did this change as you read the book?

Also, i've recently found out that everyone can join the public library service in Swansea by taking along a piece of ID. You don't have to live in Swansea to be a member as i previously thought.

First Book Club Meeting

We had our first bookclub meeting on January 28th and it was felt by all to be very successful! We had a full house in terms of members, we very nearly ran out of chairs.

Discussion on the book started with everyone having enjoyed it to varying degrees. Some people (myself included) found it hard going for the first 50 pages or so, but we all felt pulled along by the story at the end. We then went on to discuss the many inconsistencies we felt were in the book.

Lots of situations happened in the book which we felt were very contrived on looking back, but when you're reading the book they all seem to be appropriate and you don't notice them. We felt that the fact that the inconsistencies aren't noticable on first reading is because the language in the book is so well written.

We all felt that Vinnie was a lovely character, we weren't impressed with Jeremy or Cynthia. We discussed whether their character was a product of their upbringing, we decided this was probably true especially when you look at Grace as well.

We took a vote at the end of the evening and marked the book out of 10. The marks ranged from 1 to 9 out of 10 with most people voting for 8. At least three members of the bookclub have recommended the book on to friends and family.