There was a good turnout to discuss Ben Lerner's 10:04 which was considered by everyone to be a very disappointing book, possibly the worst that we've read in the history of the book group. It seems more like a disjointed series of vignettes joined together haphazardly with no story to convincingly join it into a whole. Oh well. I thought that there were a couple of places where the writing did seem really convincing and engaging, his reminiscences about the Challenger space shuttle disaster were great but just as it got into its groove the book moved on losing any momentum it might have found. There was an intriguing "meta" aspect to the book where it had a thread of being a book about writing a book which was this book, but again it never really rang true – another opportunity lost.
The book did prompt a long discussion about what the best or most memorable books that we've read have been which was really enjoyable.
Our next book is a complete change from anything that we've tackled before, Where Eagles Dare by Alistair McLean. See you at the All Nations on June 7!
