Reading Groups Collection
Brick Lane | Bring Up The Bodies | Burning Bright | Cloth Girl | Cranford | The Daisy Club | Daniel Isn't Talking | The Dead of Summer | December | Back to the List
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Nazneen's
inauspicious entry to the world, an apparent stillbirth on the hard mud floor of
a Bangladeshi village hut, imbues in her a sense of fatalism that she carries
across continents when she is married off to Chanu. Her life in London's Tower
Hamlets is, on the surface, calm. For years, keeping house and rearing children,
she does what is expected of her. Yet Nazneen walks a tightrope stretched
between her daughters' embarrassment and her husband's resentments. Chanu calls
his elder daughter the little memsahib. 'I didn't ask to be born here,' says
Shahana, with regular finality.
Into that fragile peace walks Karim. He sets questions before her, of longing and belonging; he sparks in her a turmoil that reflects the community's own; he opens her eyes and directs her gaze - but what she sees, in the end, comes as a surprise to them both.
While Nazneen journeys along her path pf self-realization, a way haunted by her mother's ghost, her sister Hasina, back in Bangladesh, rushes headlong at her life, first making a 'love marriage' then fleeing her violent husband. Woven through the novel, Hasina's letters from Dhaka recount a world of overwhelming adversity. Shaped - yet ultimately not bound - by their landscapes and memories, both sisters struggle to dream themselves out of the rules prescribed for them.
'Brick Lane has everything: richly complex characters, a gripping story and it's funny too' - The Observer
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Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel
'Bring Up the Bodies' unlocks the darkly glittering court of Henry VIII, where Thomas Cromwell is now chief
minister. With Henry captivated by plain Jane Seymour and rumours of Anne Boleyn's faithlessness whispered by all,
Cromwell knows what he must do to secure his position. But the bloody theatre of the queen's final days will leave
no one unscathed...
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Burning Bright by Tracey Chevalier
London 1792. The Kellaways move from familiar rural Dorset to the tumult of a
cramped, unforgiving city.
Against the backdrop of a city jittery over the increasingly bloody French Revolution, a surprising bond forms between Jem, the youngest Kellaway boy, and streetwise Londoner Maggie Butterfield. Their friendship takes a dramatic turn when they become entangled in the life of their neighbour, the printer, poet and radical, William Blake. He is a guiding spirit as Jem and Maggie navigate the unpredictable, exhilarating passage from innocence to experience. Their journey influences one of Blake's most entrancing works.
'A masterpiece among masterpieces'
George Bernard Shaw
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The Cloth Girl by Marilyn Heward Mills
Matilda
Quartey is fourteen years old when sophisticated black Gold Coast lawyer Robert
Bannerman sets eyes on her and resolves to take her as his second wife. For
Julie, his first wife, this is a colossal slap in the face. For Matilda it is an
abrupt and cruel end to childhood.
On the other side of the colony, Audrey Turton is appalled by her new life in
Africa. Angry, flirtatious and reckless, she drinks away the days, dreaming of
home and waiting for something to happen...
Set in the Gold Coast of the 1940s, Marilyn Heward Mills' extraordinary first
novel is both heartwarming and heartbreaking.
'In the character of Matlida [Mills] creates a richly sympathetic portrait of
a young woman whose warmth and integrity win the reader's heart, along with the
hearts of all those around her'
Daily Express
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The Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
Cranford
is a sleepy northern town, but modern life, in the shape of the new railway, is
pushing its way relentlessly towards it from Manchester, bringing with it new
opportunities and excitement. The arrival of handsome young Doctor Harrison
causes further agitation, not just because of his revolutionary methods but also
because of his effect on the hearts of the ladies. Meanwhile, Miss Matty Jenkyns
watches the comings and goings and remembers when, as a girl, her own heart was
broken.
'A comic masterpiece.' - The Independent
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The Daisy Club by Charlotte Bingham
Twistleton
is a village untouched by time, taking its rhythms from the countryside around.
Daisy, Jean, Freddie and their friends Aurelia and Laura are devoted to the
place, so when war breaks out Twistleton becomes the embodiment of everything
for which they are fighting. For the previous generation the new conflict causes
private despair, increased when Twistleton is requisitioned by the Army. Turfed
out of their houses, the villagers take refuge at the Hall.
It is here that evacuees from the East End, butler and countryman weld together to fight common enemies, whether drunken troops in the village, the bombs from the air, or rationing and the bitter weather.
Many of the women are forced to leave Twistleton to work in factories or hospitals, but whether walking behind a plough or nursing some injured airman, they all know only victory will do. With death haunting their every moment, love is their one all-too-fleeting consolation - and also their final triumph.
'An engaging, romantic and nostalgic read.' - Daily Mail
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Daniel Isn't Talking by Marti Lembach
Melanie
Marsh is an American living in London. She is married to Stephen, the perfect
Englishman - who knew the moment
he saw her that she was his future. But when their youngest child is diagnosed
with autism their marriage unravels at speed.
Stephen runs back to an old girlfriend while Melanie struggles to help her son.
Then Melanie hears about a man named
Andy O'Connor who calls himself a 'play therapist'. Despite his lengthy client
list, she is sceptical.
But when he walks into the house and starts playing with Daniel it changes
everything...
'Powerful and moving, and also surprisingly fun - a love story in every
sense'
Deborah Moggach
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The Dead of Summer by Camilla Way
Anita's mother has just died. The family has moved to a new town, a new home,
and a new neighbourhood and the summer
stretches out interminably in front of them.
Kyle lives across the road from Anita. Cool, surly, laconic, he says the area is
peppered with hidden, disused mines;
a perfect playground for restless kids with nothing better to do.
But what they don't know is that these mines will form the scene of the most
unsettling crime that this community has ever
known. This summer everything will change. This summer, the dead days have come
home to stay.
'Creepy, clever, compelling'
Arena
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December by Elisabeth H Winthrop
It's
December in New England, season of snow, log fires and happy family Christmases.
Except not for the Carters.
Eleven-year-old Isabelle hasn't spoken for months, countless experts have given
up on her, and her parents are at their wits' end. Gnawing away at them is the
thought that it must be their fault, and that their daughter's life might be
ruined for good. Something has to give...
'Winthrop is brilliant at depicting the bewildering world and its assault on the
senses of a struggling adolescent...This extraordinary novel seduces as it also
challenges: curiously provoking and offering small flashed of illumination, like
matches struck in that dim and meaningful space on the far side of language.'
The Times
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Page last updated: 21st March 2014