My virtual book group

01Mar09

…not to be confused with my wonderful Canberra based bookgroup where we meet in person! (and I don’t want any of YOU girls getting cranky with me- this online group will NOT detract from my IRL group at all- you know I love our group!)

I have joined an online book group. Penny, a librarian in NZ who I have met through Twitter first suggested this group and has organised it (hooray!). A bunch of us made a list of books we’d like to read and we voted, came up with a big list and then Pen put it through a randomiser– so we have a list of 12 books to read, one a month over the next 12 months, and the idea is that you blog about it.

The list: a great list of books and I haven’t read ANY of them – and possibly likely not to read in the future had it not been for this group.

1. February: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society/Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
2. March: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close / Jonathan Safran Foer
3. April: In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto / Michael Pollan
4. May: The 19th Wife / David Ebershoff
5. June: The zookeeper’s wife / Diane Ackerman
6. July: Letter to my daughter / Maya Angelou
7. August: PS I love You / Cecelia Ahern
8. September: Beautiful Boy/ David Sheeff
9. October: Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World
10. November: The girl with the dragon tattoo / Stieg Larson
11. December: Love in the time of cholera / Gabriel García Márquez ; translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman
12. January 2010: The book thief / Markus Zusak

I have met one of the people in this group – Con– and only in this last week (again, I met Con a librarian from Perth through Twitter, and we met in Canberra for lunch last week). Con- I have cut this straight from your blog: “reviews from others in the Book Circle:  Penny (more on the book), Kelly, Emma, Julie Maree, Mel, Suzannah, Mim“, and Con’s review.

So what was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society like? Sometimes it’s not the book necessarily but other factors/circumstances that you remember. I read this book over a weekend when I was extremely tired. I started on Saturday afternoon and then finished it on Sunday afternoon lying in bed. Absolute bliss and the perfect book for a weary reader – quite light and fun. A bit Miss Marple-y, a bit 84 Charing Cross Rd-y,  and I felt I was learning something about the history of Guernsey as I had no idea that the Channel Islands were occupied during WWII.

I really enjoyed the book, the letters, the characters. Perfect book for a perfect weekend. I think I liked the letters format as we just don’t write letters like that anymore.

It was only after that I found out the author died before the book was published… and that she was a librarian!

I don’t know anything about the March book- -Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close , but already I love the title. I’m really looking forward to the May book by Michael Pollan as I am (hopefully) about to read The Omnivore’s dilemma: a natural history of four meals.

And Canberra BGG (book groups gals)- I have The Slap and am reading…starting right now…!

Kx

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