December Heat
Our book group choice for March 2008 is December Heat by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza. A sultry December evening in Rio de Janeiro. A retired policeman spends a typically alcohol-fuelled night out with his girlfriend, a prostitute.
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Our book group choice for February 2008 is A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. It is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan’s last thirty years, from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding, that puts the violence, fear, hope and faith of this country in intimate, human terms.
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The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders Since 1945
Our book group choice for January 2008 is The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders Since 1945 by Peter Hennessy. “H. H. Asquith, Prime Minister during the first World War, famously said that the job of Prime Minister “is what its holder chooses and is able to make of it.”
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The End of Mr. Y
Our book choice for December 2007 is The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas. A cursed book. A missing professor. Some nefarious men in gray suits. And a dreamworld called the Troposphere?
What a Carve Up!
Our book choice for November 2007 is What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe. A billiant noir farce, a dystopian vision of Britain, a family history and the story of an obsession.
Christie Malry’s Own Double Entry
Our book group choice for October 2007 is Christie Malry’s Own Double Entry by B.S. Johnson. This is regarded as B.S. Johnson’s most humorous book but it is a dark, sly humour predicated on the distaste Johnson had for an oppressive post-war British society.
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Under the Skin
Our book group choice for October 2007 is Under the Skin by Michael Faber. A lone female scouts the Scottish Highlands in search of well-proportioned men and the reader is given to expect the unfolding of some latter-day psychosexual drama.
Hangover Square
Our book group choice for July 2007 is Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton. London 1939, and in the grimy publands of Earls Court, George Harvey Bone is pursuing a helpless infatuation with Netta who is cool, contemptuous and hopelessly desirable to George.
The Bonfire of the Vanities
Our book group choice for May 2007 is The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe. Wolfe’s modern American satire tells the story of Sherman McCoy, a Wall Street “Master of the Universe” who has it all — a Park Avenue apartment, a job that brings wealth, power and prestige, a beautiful wife, an even more beautiful mistress.
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Catfish and Mandala
Our book group choice for April 2007 is Catfish and Mandala by Andrew Pham. It is the story of an American odyssey—a solo bicycle voyage around the Pacific Rim to Vietnam—made by a young Vietnamese-American man in pursuit of both his adopted homeland and his forsaken fatherland.
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