September Book Club

Well, last night was the second meeting of the Blue Mountains Book Club.

I had double the guests I did last time (two instead of one) and we had a wonderful time!

The book was meant to be The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. But, because of time constraints, I was the only one who had been able to both get my hands on the book and finish it.

However, this did not matter because we were not short of conversation. Over wine, soda and milo we talked about eachother, about books in general, authors in particular and we had an interesting debate about films and the books they are based on. Which is better?

We also had scrumptious food to nibble on; salami and tomato pizza, chicken vol-au-ventes, guacamole with chips and a mezza plate with dolmades, stuffed olives and stuffed peppers.

Sadly the evening was cut short when my son became ill. But, the ladies told me they enjoyed themselves and they are looking forward to the next month's meeting.

We did managed to decide on the books we will be reading for the rest of the month;

Thursday 7th October 2010;
Eat, Pray, Love
by Elizabeth Gilbert
Plot; At 32 years old, Elizabeth Gilbert was educated and had a home, a husband, and a successful career as a writer. However, she was unhappy in her marriage and often spent the night crying on her bathroom floor. In the midst of an affair, she separated from her husband and initiated a divorce, which he contested. The affair continued for some time but did not work out, leaving her devastated and alone. While writing an article on yoga vacations in Bali, she met a ninth-generation medicine man who told her she would come back and study with him. After finalizing her difficult divorce, she spent the next year traveling around the world. She spent four months in Italy, eating and enjoying life (Eat). She spent four months in India, finding her spirituality (Pray). She ended the year in Bali, Indonesia, looking for "balance" of the two and found love (Love) in the form of a dashing Brazilian factory owner.

Thursday 4th November 2010;
88 Lines About 44 Women
by Steven Lang
Plot; For a while Lawrence Martin had everything. He was the keyboard player in a successful rock band; he had money, his choice of women. It was all a long way from the British boarding school where he met Roly, the charismatic front man who lured him to Australia in the first place, and with whom he shared the song-writing. Only after it all went wrong did Lawrence learn they'd been sharing other things as well.
Two decades on, living in the highlands of Scotland, he's again confronted with those turbulent years, and with the accident that changed everything . . .

Thursday 2nd December 2010;
Morgan's Run
by Colleen McCullough
Plot; Richard Morgan is the wholly noble protagonist of Colleen McCullough's latest historical saga, a man who falls afoul of villains and suffers the degradation of the 18th-century British penal system. But, as even he admits, he has great luck as a convict. His resourceful cousin, a druggist, fixes him up with survival necessities, and wherever the beautiful, strong, educated Richard goes -- overcrowded jails or the hulks of convict transports, suffering the appalling conditions of passage to an unknown continent -- he becomes a leader of men.

So these are the books for the rest of the year, and I am really looking forward to getting stuck into them!

Happy Reading!