Bibliofemme Bookclub An Irish Bookclub

January 10, 2012

Embers by Sandor Marai

Filed under: Bookclub Books,General Fiction — The Connoisseur @ 3:07 pm
embers
Title: Embers Author: Sandor Marai Genre: Fiction Publisher: Vintage Release Date: 2002 Pages: 213 Meeting: Saturday 29th January 2005

Two best friends grow up together in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the early 1900s. As young boys, they were inseparable in the military academy. The boy from the privileged background was destined to become Army General and the other, well, he was always destined to be different, and never did quite fit the military mould. The rich lad pleasured

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Leviathan by Paul Auster

Filed under: Bookclub Books,General Fiction — The Artist @ 3:07 pm
leviathan
Title: Leviathan Author: Paul Auster Genre: Fiction Publisher: Penguin Mass Market Release Date: 1993 Pages: 275 Meeting: Thursday 18th September 2003

Benjamin Sachs’ story is conveyed through the eyes of his friend Peter Aaron, a novelist who discovers in the book’s opening pages that Sachs has died in a mysterious bomb explosion. Aaron sets out to write the definitive version of Sachs’ story before the FBI can formulate theirs. Sachs is a writer, a philosopher, a man with loyalties

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The PowerBook by Jeanette Winterson

Filed under: Bookclub Books,General Fiction — The Writer @ 3:07 pm
powerbook
Title: The PowerBook Author: Jeanette Winterson Genre: Fiction Publisher: Vintage Books Release Date: 2001 Pages: 289 Meeting: Monday 10th December 2001

The pitch sounds so good: “An e-writer called Ali or Alix will write to order anything you like, provided that you are prepared to enter the story as yourself and take the risk of leaving it as someone else.”

Set everywhere and nowhere (London, Paris, Capri and cyberspace) The PowerBook does contain some powerful images and concepts that

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The Body Artist by Don DeLillo

Filed under: Bookclub Books,General Fiction — The Writer @ 3:07 pm
bodyartist
Title: The Body Artist Author: Don DeLillo Genre: General Fiction Publisher: Picador USA Release Date: 2011 Pages: 124 Meeting: Thursday 11th December 2003

There is a constant chill running through this short, complex narrative. It never lets up and it has led some to think of The Body Artist as a ghost story; I prefer to see it as an uncannily taut evocation of loss.

When the death of her husband leaves Lauren in a trance-like state she shuts herself away from the world. Thus begins a tentative relationship

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Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler

Filed under: Bookclub Books,General Fiction — The Writer @ 3:07 pm
grownups
Title: Back when We Were Grownups Author: Anne Tyler Genre: General Fiction Publisher: Vintage Books Release Date: 2002 Pages: 273 Meeting: Thursday 22nd May 2003

This book sold itself to me on the first line: “Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong personÂ…” Who hasn’t felt like that at times in their life? The central character Rebecca is 53 and wakes up one day to wonder if her choice of man all those years ago brought her to a life and a personality

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First Love, Last Rites by Ian McEwan

Filed under: Book Reviews,General Fiction — The Artist @ 12:55 pm
firstlive
Title: First Love, Last Rites Author: Ian McEwan Genre: Fiction Publisher: Random House Release Date: 1997 Pages: 161

First Love, Last Rites is Ian McEwan’s first collection of short stories; it won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976.

McEwan’s characters are a strange lot; a man who ‘disappears’ his wife, a paedophile, a rapist, orphans and an infantilised man. What is stranger, however, is that any shock value one could attribute to the choosing

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Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Filed under: Book Reviews,General Fiction — The Techie @ 12:55 pm
housekeeping
Title: Housekeeping Author: Marilynne Robinson Genre: Aunts Release Date: 2005 Pages: 219

I was fortunate enough to read Gilead by Marilynne Robinson this year. Blown away by her brilliance, I then set out to read Housekeeping – the only other work of fiction Robinson has written.

Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly. First they are under the care of their competent grandmother

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A Widow For One Year by John Irving

Filed under: Book Reviews,General Fiction — The Historian @ 12:55 pm
widowforoneyear
Title: A widow for one year Author: John Irving Genre: Fiction Publisher: Random House Release Date: 1999-06-01 Pages: 667

Despite the fact that this book has been at hand for more than a year, somehow I never got round to reading it. The curse of the familiar bedside book, the “oh, I’ll read it soon” book! Somehow, though, it made its way through several culls as I moved and packed, managing to land in my travelling bag as something a captive audience

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Grace and Truth by Jennifer Johnston

Filed under: Book Reviews,General Fiction — The Writer @ 12:55 pm
graceandtruth
Title: Grace and Truth Author: Jennifer Johnston Genre: General Fiction Publisher: Headline Review Release Date: 2005 Pages: 250

Jennifer Johnston is a great storyteller, that much is true. I’m told graduates of the Irish secondary school system are likely to have encountered her coming-of-age novel Shadows on Our Skin, which was Booker Prize listed in 1977, but I had never come across her work until I read and thoroughly enjoyed This is not a Novel in 2002. I was quietly

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The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

Filed under: Book Reviews,General Fiction — Femmes @ 12:55 pm
janeausten
Title: The Jane Austen Book Club Author: Karen Joy Fowler Genre: General Fiction Release Date: 2004 Pages: 288

This delicious book is a witty comedy of contemporary manners, as well as a charming homage to the art of novel-writing. Brought together by a shared love of Jane Austen, five women and one man meet monthly to discuss her six novels. As the six characters go in search of the author – each has their own “private Austen” – they

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