Reading Groups Collection
Seating Arrangements | The Secret River | Seeds of Greatness | The Sense of an Ending | Sepulchre | A Short History of Tractors in the Ukrainian | Silver River | So He Takes the Dog for a Walk | Star of the Sea | Back to the List
Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead
The Van Meters
have gathered at their family retreat on the New England island of Waskeke to celebrate the marriage of daughter Daphne to an impeccably appropriate young man.
The weekend is full of lobster and champagne, salt air and practiced bonhomie, but long-buried discontent and simmering lust seep through the cracks in the
revelry. Winn Van Meter, father-of-the-bride, has spent his life following the rules of the east coast upper crust, but now, just shy of his sixtieth birthday,
he must finally confront his failings, his desires and his own humanity.
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The Secret River by Kate Grenville
London,
1806 - William Thornhill, happily wedded to his childhood sweetheart Sal, is a
waterman on the River Thames. Life if tough but bearable until William makes a
mistake, a bad mistake for which he and his family are made to pay dearly. His
sentence: to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life.
Soon Thornhill, a man no better or worse than most, has to make the most
difficult decision of his life...
'Splendidly paced, passionate and disturbing.'
Salley Vickers, The Times
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Seeds of Greatness by Jon Canter
Two
friends grow up in a North London Jewish suburb. David is bright,
parent-pleasing and obviously destined for great things. But somehow he ends up
earning peanuts in a Suffolk bookshop whilst his devious and wayward friend,
Jack, becomes rich and famous as a TV chat-show host.
When Jack dies, his widow and publisher commission David to write his biography;
after all, dependable David can be relied upon not to dish the dirt about the
sex, the drugs and the women. David, however, soon realises that it's finally
time he stopped doing what is expected of him. Instead he must write the true
story of the forty year friendship that has dominated his life and maybe the
he'll get Jack out of his system. But what David soon finds is that
he can never be completely free of Jack...
'Funny, beautiful and strangely moving - stuffed full of belly laughs, but
written from the heart'
Tony Parsons
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The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at
school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a
little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life. Now Tony is retired. He's had a career and a single
marriage, a calm divorce. He's certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer's letter is
about to prove.
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Sepulchre by Kate Mosse
1891.
Seventeen-year-old Leonie Vernier and her brother abandon Paris for the
sanctuary of their aunt's isolated country house near Carcassonne, the Domaine
de la Cade. But Leonie stumbles across a ruined sepulchre - a timeless mystery
whose traces are written in blood.
2007. Meredith Martin arrives at the Domaine de la Cade to research a biography.
But Meredith is also seeking the key to her own complex legacy and becomes
immersed in the story of a tragic love, a missing girl, a unique deck of tarot
cards and the strange events of one cataclysmic night a century ago...
'Ghosts, duels, murders, ill-fated love and conspiracy... addictively readable'
Daily Mail
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A Short History of Tractors in the Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
Two
years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous
blonde Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She
exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water,
bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family
ghosts a kick up the backside.
Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must put aside a lifetime of feuding to save their
migr engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her
proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she will stop
at
nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth. But the sisters' campaign to oust
Valentina unearths family secrets, uncovers fifty years of Europe's darkest
history and sends them back to roots they'd much rather forget...
'Wit, humour, sparkling dialogue, vivid characterization and generous spirit.
Food for thought and a great read.'
Financial times
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Silver River by Daisy Goodwin
When Daisy Goodwin was five years old her mother left their family home to
pursue a Bohemian life with another man. A distant and unreliable figure in her
childhood, Daisy adored her glamorised mother from afar. It was not until
devastating depression following the birth of her own daughter that Daisy felt
compelled to write about her mother's abandonment and to try to understand what
could cause a woman to leave her children.
But Daisy's quest for an explanation takes her further than she could ever have
expected - back 150 years into her family history, following her Irish
forebears' emigration to Argentina. Gamblers and speculators, rash and unstable,
her South American family begins to provide a pattern through which she can make
sense of her mother's decision.
s'A poetic reconstruction of the emotions that allowed her ancestors'
potential to be frittered away in gambling, polo and
suicide... Evocative'
Independent
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A Simple Act of Violence by R J Ellory
No
one wanted to see the truth. But when the newspapers reported the fourth murder,
when they gave the killer a name and released details of his horrendous crimes,
there were few people that could ignore it.
Detective Robert Miller is assigned to the case. He and his partner begin the task of correlating the details of each crime scene and rapidly things begin to get complicated. The victims do not officially exist. Their personal details do not register on any known systems. The harder Miller works, the less it makes sense. And as he unearths ever more disturbing facts, Miller must face the truth about the corrupt world that he lives in. It's a grim reality that will put his life in danger.
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The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
Alaska, the 1920s. Jack and Mabel have staked everything on a fresh
start in a remote homestead, but the wilderness is a stark place, and Mabel is haunted by the baby she lost many years before. When a little girl appears
mysteriously on their land, each is filled with wonder, but also foreboding - is she what she seems, and can they find room in their hearts for her?
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So He Takes the Dog by Jonathan Buckley
A
dog, out for a walk on the beach, returns to its owner with a human hand in its
mouth.
The hand belongs to Henry, a homeless eccentric who has wandered the south of
England for some thirty years. When his murdered body is found washed up on the
shore, a local policeman must painstakingly recreate his last movements. In the
process of his enquiries, he uncovers the story of Henry's extraordinary life
and confronts the fears, prejudices and desires of a small coastal community.
'A novel about what it means to live in today's Britain, about the slow
drawing-in of dreams and the facing of reality. George Orwell would have
approved'
Observer
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Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor
In the bitter winter of 1847, from an Ireland torn by
injustice and natural disaster, the Star of the Sea sets sail for New York.
On board are hundreds of fleeing refugees. Among them are a
maidservant with a devastating secret, bankrupt Lord Merridith and his family,
an aspiring novelist, a maker of revolutionary ballads, all braving the
Atlantic in search of a new home. All are connected more deeply than they can
possibly know. But a camouflaged killer is stalking the decks, hungry for the
vengeance that will bring absolution.
The twenty-six day journey will see many lives end, others
begin afresh. In a spellbinding story of tragedy and healing, the further the
ship sails towards the Promised Land, the more her passengers seem moored to a
past which will never let them go.
'This is Joseph O'Connor's best book. It is shocking,
hilarious, beautifully written, and very, very clever.'
Roddy Doyle
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Page last updated: 10th April 2014