The Dud Avocado
Our book group choice for February 2019 is The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy. The Dud Avocado follows the romantic and comedic adventures of a young American who heads overseas to conquer Paris in the late 1950s.
House of Names
Our book group choice for January 2019 is House of Names by Colm Tóibín. On the day of his daughter’s wedding, Agamemnon orders her sacrifice. His daughter is led to her death, and Agamemnon leads his army into battle, where he is rewarded with glorious victory.
Normal People
Our book group choice for December 2018 is Normal People by Sally Rooney. Connell and Marianne both grow up in the same town in rural Ireland. The similarities end there; they are from very different worlds.
The Bell
Our book group choice for November 2018 is The Bell by Iris Murdoch. A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an enclosed order of nuns.
Slaughterhouse-Five
Our book group choice for Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. In the book, Billy Pilgrim travels through time. He was captured by the Germans in World War II and witnessed the bombing of Dresden.
Slaughterhouse-Five Read More »
The English Patient
Our book group choice for September 2018 is The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II.
The English Patient Read More »
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
Our book group choice for July 2018 is Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking.
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine Read More »
A Rage in Harlem
Our book group choice for June 2018 is A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes. It’s a ripping introduction to Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, patrolling New York City’s roughest streets in Chester Himes’s groundbreaking Harlem Detectives series.
The Examined Life
Our book group choice for May 2018 is The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz. Echoing Socrates’ time-honoured statement that the unexamined life is not worth living, psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz draws short, vivid stories from his 25-five-year practice in order to track the collaborative journey of therapist and patient as they uncover the hidden feelings behind ordinary behaviour.
The Century Girls
Our book group choice for April 2018 is The Century Girls by Tessa Dunlop. In 2018 Britain celebrated the centenary of women getting the vote; during the intervening ten decades the lives of women in this country have been transformed.
