The book we’re reading for our next book club night in late May 2011 is Joseph O’Connor’s novel Ghost Light. In early May 2011 we read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s autobiography Infidel, an extraordinary and compelling book of a brave, free thinker.
Book Club
Jenn Ashworth: A Kind of Intimacy
Our next Wise Owl Book Club, in April, is Jenn Ashworth’s A Kind of Intimacy. If you are interested in joining the book club, email me editor AT joearmstrong.ie
Voltaire and Bees
Voltaire’s Candide intrigued the book club not least by the realisation of two apparent endings. One with ‘cultivate your garden’ and another where he said ‘Sod it. I’m bored. I’m off to Lisdoonvarna’ – or something like that. As evening turned closer to dawn and one member was in danger of missing a flight, The Diving…
Joshua Ferris: Then We Came to the End
Next club night, in June 2010, we’ll be discussing Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came to the End.
J.G.Farrell: The Siege of Krishnapur
Members loved J.G.Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur. It’s one to read and to keep. It’s hilarious. Excellently written. It had one member in stitches of laughter. A work of genius, so well-observed. It shows, doesn’t tell. Ten out of ten.
Some books we’ve read in Wise Owl book club
Ali, Ayaan Hirsi: Infidel Amis, Martin: Experience Ashworth, Jenn: A Kind of Intimacy Barbery,Muriel: The Elegance of the Hedgehog Bayley, John: Iris Barry, Sebastian: A Long,Long Way Ben Jelloun, Tahar: The Blinding Absence of Light Browne, Dan: The Da Vinci Code Capote, Truman: In Cold Blood Carey, Peter: Theft Carter, Angela: The Magic Toyshop Cervantes: …
Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls
On balance, most of us loved it. Some of us ended up thinking, if not talking, in Spanish syntax. The raw honesty of the book. The complex characterisation. The reader’s desire to know what happened at the end. The butchery of war – no matter what side you’re on. And yet how life can be lived in…
Zafon: The Shadow of the Wind
In a word, we hated it. All of us. Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind, some felt, started well; although one sharp member had the book rumbled by page three. Could seven million people be wrong? Eh, yes.
Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Our next meeting is on Monday 5th April, Easter Monday, at 7 p.m. at the Newgrange Hotel, Navan. This month we’re reading Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. You are welcome to join us.
Wise Owl Book Club
The Wise Owl book club – by far the finest and most convivial book club in this part of the Milky Way – meets at the Newgrange Hotel, Navan, County Meath, once a month, generally on a Monday evening at 7 p.m. If you love books and tend more towards Anna Karenina and Hemingway than chic lit,…