The August meeting of the group discussed Kathryn Stockett’s novel The Help. Those who attended the session had enjoyed this compelling novel which presents vividly drawn characters like Aibileen and Minny who, from page one, give voice to their experience of life in a closed community in Mississippi, where, as black maids employed during the [...]
Filed under: America, Book review, Family, History, New Cross reading group, Racism, Women | Tagged: Kathryn Stockett | Leave a Comment »
When the author of The Hayseed Chronicles, Arthur Hayman, is mown down by a concrete truck in Soho, his legacy passes to his widow, Martha, and her children – the fragile Rachel, and Luke, reluctantly immortalised as Luke Hayseed, the central character of his father’s books. But others want their share, particularly Laurie, who has [...]
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‘Caught’ tells the story of a missing girl, the community stunned by her loss, the predator who may have taken her, and the reporter who suddenly realizes she can’t trust her own instincts about this case or the motives of the people around her. What I say about it I really love Harlan Coben books [...]
Filed under: Book review, Crime, Family | Tagged: Harlan Coben | Leave a Comment »
The New Cross Reading Group has now relocated to Wavelengths Library. The July meeting looked at Kate Summerscale’s novel The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. Those who attended the meeting were intrigued by this incredibly detailed consideration of the investigation, made during the 1860s into the murder of a small child which seemed to scandalize the local [...]
Filed under: Book review, Crime, Family, History, New Cross reading group, Victoriana | Tagged: Kate Summerscale | Leave a Comment »
What they say about it Anthony Farrant has always found his way, lying to get jobs and borrowing money to get by when he leaves them in a hurry. His twin sister Kate persuades him to move and sets him up with a job as bodyguard to Krogh, her lover and boss, an all-powerful Swedish [...]
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What they say about it: “Jane Eyre is the first fictional heroine to give women permission, as it were, to have an intense inner life.” Joanna Trollope What I thought about it: I have read this book repeatedly since my childhood and each time I read it again I am struck by depth of feeling [...]
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The June meeting of the Lewisham Reading Group discussed Kathryn Stockett’s debut novel The Help. What they say about it Enter a vanished and unjust world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren’t trusted not to steal the silver… There’s Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the hurt caused by [...]
Filed under: Book review, Death, Family, History, Lewisham reading group, Racism | Tagged: Kathryn Stockett | Leave a Comment »
Those who attended our May session had enjoyed The Distance Between Us, where it is perhaps Maggie O’Farrell’s ability to present a retrospective view of what has already occurred in the lives of her central characters, Jake and Stella, which reveals most to the reader. Initially the narrative, almost in the style of a quality television drama, [...]
Filed under: Book review, Family, New Cross reading group, Women | Tagged: Maggie O'Farrell | Leave a Comment »
What they say about it: Alice Shoemaker habitually goes to great lengths to avoid telling the truth about herself and her past. After agreeing to help out a friend, by shopping and cleaning for the unknown man staying at Cuckoo House, she soon becomes suspicious that her strange and obnoxiously rude client has something to [...]
Filed under: Book review, Children, Family, Romance | Tagged: Erica James | Leave a Comment »
