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Re: Book Club

Postby Pepper Pig » Wed Aug 11, 2021 9:44 am

I like her writing Sue. I'll look out for that.

I'm reading Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris. I don't usually do suspense but it's so good.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/151 ... nd_Players

There are two more in the series.

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Re: Book Club

Postby herbidacious » Wed Aug 11, 2021 2:09 pm

I like her stuff, but have not read that one. Will put it on my list.

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Re: Book Club

Postby OneMoreCheekyOne » Fri Aug 13, 2021 11:45 pm

liketocook wrote:Hope you enjoy Hungry as much as I did OMCO


Loved it! Bittersweet and funny…I read loads of paragraphs out to OH.

I read The end of men by Christina Sweeny Baird recently. Very timely and unnerving bearing in mind she wrote it in 2019…about a plague which sweeps across the globe and the race for a vaccine.

I’ve just started the Thursday Murder Club.

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Re: Book Club

Postby RockyBVI » Sat Aug 14, 2021 9:02 am

Stokey Sue wrote:I have just finished Fifty Fifty by Steve Cavanagh

It’s an interesting premise, one of two sisters killed their father, and is in fact a serial killer. Both are on trial but which is guilty?

I also watched the BBC2 Between the Covers book club program that featured it (S1 ep3), I wasn’t as keen on it as they were, I kept going but it felt more as if I were unravelling a puzzle set by the author than really feeling concerned by whodunnit and I think that’s a lack (someone in book club did hint at that). There’s also a terrible logical failure concerning a critical piece of evidence and motive.


I’ve just started Fifty Fifty having read this. I am enjoying it so far but can see exactly what you mean Sue. In one way it is gripping but I think it is the basic premise doing that rather than the writing.

I’ve recently read Trio by William Boyd. Not his best but I love all of his books!

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Re: Book Club

Postby aero280 » Sat Aug 14, 2021 11:25 am

I’m currently working my way through the “Crowner John” series of whodunnits by Bernard Knight. Set in Devon & Exeter in the 12th Century. Quite fun. :)

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Re: Book Club

Postby KeenCook2 » Mon Aug 30, 2021 3:45 pm

Just finished Raynor Winn's The Salt Path, this month's book group choice.

I found it terrific, really well written and enjoyed recognising some of the places from past holidays, but we've never been serious walkers and probably never done more than half a mile of the actual coastal path itself :oops:

I can imagine for those of you who know the walk, or selected bits of the 630 odd miles of it, well, it would be a great read and the back story of the how and why it came about is extraordinary.

There was an extract from the sequel, The Wild Silence, at the end of my Kindle version and I'm very tempted to get it!

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Re: Book Club

Postby Pepper Pig » Mon Aug 30, 2021 4:13 pm

How odd KC2. Just shows how different we are. I stuck with that book but absolutely loathed her and her lack of planning, and the awful way she treated Moth. I gave it to my mum afterwards and she loved it. :o In fact I bought mum the sequel for her last birthday!

I don’t know that coastline at all really. Maybe that would have helped. :oops:

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Re: Book Club

Postby Earthmaiden » Mon Aug 30, 2021 5:00 pm

Funny you should say that, PP. I felt terribly guilty because despite the rave reviews and the back story I hated it and skipped to the last chapter in the end before giving it to a friend who loved it. I don't know the places either.
I feel quite comforted that I am not totally alone!

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Re: Book Club

Postby KeenCook2 » Mon Aug 30, 2021 5:17 pm

It did take me a bit of time to get into it and funnily enough I've just spoken to another friend in the BG, and she's not getting into it at all, either, but she's only got about 80 pages in so far. We're zooming about it on Thursday - it'll be interesting to see what the others make of it. My friend said that she is finding it all too moany - sore feet, blistering nose etc - but I saw that as more observational than complaining!

Where did you used to go on holiday when the children were little, PP and EM? I think we went to Cornwall about 2 or 3 times then (stayed in Polzeath, Boscastle and I can't remember where else, did Tintagel, went to Port Isaac etc), and OH and I went to Devon a few years ago.

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Re: Book Club

Postby Pepper Pig » Mon Aug 30, 2021 5:26 pm

KC2, when I was a child we always used to go to a caravan at Selsey Bill in Sussex or to stay with relatives in North West Norfolk. Never anywhere else. My dad hated holidays and always brought us home a day early in order to “miss the traffic”. :roll: :roll: He could be a right miserable bugger.

Cornwall was deemed “too far” in dad’s book.

When my lot were small we did Eurocamping in Brittany and Normandy (and met half of the kids’ school friends there), Yorkshire, to stay with ex next door neighbour and Norfolk again because I love it. There was one self catering cottage somewhere near Bodmin Moor but nowhere near the sea, another in an Oast House in Kent, and a cottage in Fife when I was playing at the Edinburgh Fringe. Don’t get me started on the villa in Spain which my mum had but wouldn’t let us stay because we made too much mess!!
Last edited by Pepper Pig on Mon Aug 30, 2021 5:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Book Club

Postby Pepper Pig » Mon Aug 30, 2021 5:35 pm

PS. We did Center Parcs a fair bit too.

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Re: Book Club

Postby Stokey Sue » Mon Aug 30, 2021 5:37 pm

I think a lot of these real life stories either resonate with you or don’t
I saw Raynor Winn on the tv and decided against getting the book, I have walked some of the Dorset coast path as day hikes.

My BG read Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk, in which she trains a goshawk while getting over the sudden death of her father. I really enjoyed it, but a couple of people didn’t and someone even said she had “no right” to be so distressed, which struck me as odd - apparently if the rest of us coped more smoothly, HM should have done so too.

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Re: Book Club

Postby Earthmaiden » Mon Aug 30, 2021 6:24 pm

I've only been to Cornwall twice, three times if you count a disastrous half term stay with a boarding school friend in Launceston when we were 11 :lol:. Childhood holidays were Sussex and Dorset until I was 6, then we moved to the Norfolk coast and didn't really have them. When my children were small it was various places but OH loved N. Wales and I hated it. I loved Norfolk and he hated it so latterly we used to go separately (my father was in Norfolk so we stayed there) which was perfect :lol:.

Back to books, I still haven't seen the sort of places the Famous Five went to. That was the retirement plan but Covid postponed it.

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Re: Book Club

Postby Wic » Thu Sep 02, 2021 4:48 pm

Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin. I don’t know how I didn’t read it years ago. It’s very much of it’s time, San Fransisco in the time of the Flower Children, but it’s fun to read and dip into.

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Re: Book Club

Postby Stokey Sue » Thu Sep 02, 2021 5:57 pm

When they made the tv version of that, I'd had every outfit Mary Ann wore in episode 1, but I did read it at the time

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Re: Book Club

Postby KeenCook2 » Thu Sep 02, 2021 6:09 pm

Stokey Sue wrote:When they made the tv version of that, I'd had every outfit Mary Ann wore in episode 1, but I did read it at the time

Ha, I must look for that on YouTube :D I probably did, too!

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Re: Book Club

Postby Stokey Sue » Thu Sep 02, 2021 6:29 pm

There's a new Netflix miniseries that I haven't seen, but the original TV series was very much the 70s as I knew them

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Re: Book Club

Postby KeenCook2 » Thu Sep 02, 2021 6:41 pm

Laura Ashley tent dresses, Kensington Market ... those were the days!

I think OH might have the Maupin as he's got quite a few on the shelf - will have to check. Maybe it would be a good choice for BG when it's my turn, as we are all of a similar age - will have to see how many of us have already read it!

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Re: Book Club

Postby herbidacious » Fri Sep 03, 2021 9:42 am

I love Tales of the City. Maybe the latest modern tv version less than all the rest - tv or books - though. It was one of the reasons I wanted to go to SF... gosh that was 7 years ago now. I read his then latest ToftC while I was there. I really want to go back. Might even do the fan thing and search out locations...
I follow Armistead on social media. He lives near Clapham Common at the moment (he moved here just after Boris was made PM, I think and thus before Covid... inauspicious times...) and is working on another TotC book - one about Mona, I think, set in England.

I am currently reading The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker. It's her second book and a sequel, but on a par with the first, I'd say.

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Re: Book Club

Postby smitch » Fri Sep 17, 2021 2:51 pm

I’ve just finished the Mermaid of Black Conch and really enjoyed it. Before that was The Fair Botanists, also recommended.

Not sure what will be next. I think I’ll just pick something at random on my kindle. I’ve bought a few 99p books recently.

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