Bibliofemme Bookclub An Irish Bookclub

The Bone People was one of the books that I considered picking for my last, pre-New Zealand, bookclub. Instead, due to the lack of Kiwi books available in Irish bookshops, we ended up with The Colour. Rose Tremain’s novel wasn’t bad – particularly in its evocation of the landscape and weather of New Zealand – but, having read

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In 1981 Marilynne Robinson published her first novel, Housekeeping. The book was so well received that Robinson has managed to maintain a devoted audience ever since. Now she has published Gilead; although undoubtedly a new masterpiece, it is nothing like her previous success.

Reverend John Ames is 76 and close to death. As a way to soften the blow

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The Lover is a book that will quietly sweep you away in the most unconventional manner. Written with an original and most unsettling fusion of reflection and confession, Marguerite Duras brings us into the life of a 15-year-old girl and her experience with her lover.

Set in Saigon in the time of French colonisation, a young girl and a Chinese millionaire

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Before this I had never read a book that aroused in me such an interest in a country that I previously knew nothing about. In Like Nowhere Else our main character, Vivien, fell in love with Yemen through travel books when she was younger. She has now travelled to Yemen to see it for herself. En route she meets anthropologist Christian Linklater and

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Having read Noelle Harrison’s first novel, Beatrice, last year I was keen to read her second book. As she did in Beatrice, Harrison has created a story about three women whose lives are intertwined and who, despite their best efforts, cannot help but hurt each other.

Also as in Beatrice, the story is told through different women’s voices

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