“The Vegetarian” by Han Kang (3 August, 2016)

Last month's book, The Fight by Norman Mailer was a great read, vivid and engaging and as Mark said "far and away the best book on boxing that I've ever read."  I thought it was a surprisingly thoughtful book which talked a lot about the world surrounding the boxers and the milieu of the fight in Kinshasa, gave some background of the African man and some tribal customs, of the corruption and inefficiencies of such a nepotistic system of government under Mobutu, and the assorted personalities of the fighters' entourages.  The language in the book reminded me of the best of Hunter S Thompson's work where simple expression and powerful imagery makes the words leap off the page.

I later learnt that there was also a 3 day music festival – Zaire '74 – scheduled for the same time as the fight with many black American and African artists.  The fight was delayed by six weeks because of an injury that Foreman sustained but the concert went ahead and was quite successful.  I don't recall that being mentioned in the book.

Tom suggested this month's book, The Vegetarian by Han Kang, an interesting choice because it's a recent Korean work which won the Booker prize this year.

“The Fight” by Norman Mailer (1 June, 2016)

Great turnout to discuss Seneca’s On The Shortness Of Life and it was terrific to be able to welcome some new members to the group, Chris and Michael.  The book was a real handful to read, very long-winded with paragraphs that stretched over page after page, but it was still quite thought provoking in talking about our lives and how we live them.  The other two essays were similar but also good.

I was very struck by how this was a window to a very distant time: Seneca speaks of people wasting time waiting for things that are coming in the future and when the gladiatorial contest happens, it’s all too short after such a long lead in, of how when someone’s slave runs away how must he feel when his former slave has exceeded the wealth of his former master because he’s got more slaves now, of reading something and going to speak at the Forum with a fire in your belly.  Gladiators! Slaves! The Forum! It really spoke from another era and yet the themes that he spoke of seem just as relevant today.

Chris suggested that we should read Norman Mailer’s The Fight which he said had passages that had the hairs standing up on the back of his neck.

“On The Shortness of Life” by Seneca (4 May, 2016)

Great turnout to discuss  Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a terrific book that seems amazingly fresh 200 years after it was written.  We talked about a lot of themes in the book, a parent’s relationship with their child, loneliness, Frankenstein’s wilful obliviousness to his actions and a lot more besides.

While the book was written in a time when the reader was expected to enjoy the writing, the underlying story still had an incredible force that drove the narrative along.  We were surprised that Shelley was only 22 when she wrote it.

David Murphy bought along some books and we chose one of those: a collection of essays by Seneca called On The Shortness of Life.  We’re looking at the 2004 Penguin edition which is only 105pp – hooray!

If you can’t get that exact book, the three essays it contains are:

• On the Shortness of Life
• Consolation to Helvia
• On Tranquility of Mind

The next meeting will be on May 4 at the The All Nations Hotel and usual.  There will be the normal extraordinary meeting out during the school break on April 6 for those who are around.  I refer attendees to the rules regarding extraordinary meetings.

“Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley (2 March, 2016)

Very good turnout for the first meeting of the year and lots of people had read the book.  In spite of that, it was quite difficult to keep the group focussed on talking about that because everyone wanted to talk about other stuff (which, of course, is fine).  The Warden really excelled as a novel of its time, with a lot of description and prose written to be read enjoyably and to revel in its writing.  That can become cloying and clumsy but here it works really well. It tells a its story of a man with great conscience who found himself running a hospital with impropriety not of his making and who is then undone by another man who acts, perhaps naively, according to his own conscience.

The next book was chosen with a minimum of fuss, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which I was delighted about: I'd always wanted to read the book, it seems to provide such a potent metaphor for all sorts of aspects of our own society.

The next meeting will be at the All Nations as usual.

“The Warden” by Anthony Trollope (3 February, 2016)

It was slow start to the book group last night with most attendees arriving late for various reasons.  There were only two of us who had actually read the book, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, which I thought was a pity.  It’s really well written and tells its story as if a narrator is speaking to an unnamed acquaintance in a market in Lahore.  The story is of a Pakistani who’s successful in the US, falls in love with a damaged girl and ultimately turns his back on the Western way of life.  It’s set across the time of the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York and speaks of the change in US attitudes over that time.  I really enjoyed it.

The first book for next year is slightly longer than usual, Anthony Trollope’s first book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, The Warden.

This seems to be available for free from the Apple iBooks store, here’s a link.  It almost certainly available electronically elsewhere presumably because it’s out of copyright.

"The Reluctant Fundamentalist" by Mohsin Hamid (2 December, 2015)

I think people were happy to have read Periera Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi – they enjoyed the way that the pace built steadily through the book as Periera's conscience grew as he noticed society changing around him in pre-war Portugal.  There was also a subtext that immersing yourself in the culture page (or perhaps to translate to the current day, paparazzi journalism) and just digesting what's in the established media can lead one to a rose-coloured view of the world, through someone else's glasses.  There was wide agreement that the book's cover really oversold the story itself and that let the book down.

After quite a deal of discussion (largely about page count), we agreed our next book is The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid.

The next book group will be the last official one for the year and will be at The All Nations Hotel as it has been.

"Periera Maintains" by Antonio Tabucchi (4 November, 2015)

Evelyn Waugh's Scoop was a terrific read that everyone enjoyed.  We were surprised at its currency: even some 70 years after it was written, it felt like you could just have replaced some the names with Rupert Murdoch and Rebecca Brookes and still have the same feel to the story.

There was also a lot of discussion about the China trip which was very thoughtful and enjoyable.

Mark strongly recommended Periera Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi and we agreed to that in spite of him having another fine looking book (whose name I've forgotten) and then there was some discussion about following on from Scoop with another gonzo journalism style book, Hunter S Thompson, William Burroughs or similar.  That might be a theme that we can return to later.

The next meeting will be back at The All Nations on 4 November, 2015.