It's that time of the year again - book group book choosing time. We're having a meeting on the second weekend of December to select our books for next years. I'm all organised and the Excel spreadsheet is all set up and rearing to go.
We have solid criteria for the two books you can put up for book group. They should fit into the following boundaries:
- Must be fiction
- Preferably under 500 pages - so we can read the book in the month.
- Of a literary or good popular fiction bent
- Easily obtainable in bookstores, libraries or online (thankfully e-readers have made this a bit easier).
We have a voting system where we all get a bag of 25 lollies and a rubber glove. You put lollies on the books you want to read (while not putting lollies on your own books). The top 12 are selected for book group for the year. Then we sort out the order of the books for next year and Bob's a blood relative.
So far there are three books in the spreadsheet. One person selected a book that somebody else had already nominated, so she has to go back to the drawing board. Strangely, there is always a book or two which is nominated by a couple of people. As it's first in, best dressed, the second person in has to find another book to nominate. Most of the group are well prepared and come with a back up.
Being the Book Bitch who organises all of this, I'm the only one with knowledge of the full list until our meeting. It means I also have to watch as books on my longlist slowly dwindle as others pick them off.
I normally start gathering my longlist about this time - we have three weeks until the next book group so I can deliberate, cogitate and digest until the list is two books which will be taken along to the meeting.
Here are some of my front runners - with a few of their pros and cons.
1) Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down
One of the best things I've read in the last year. Extraordinary. Australian author set in modern times. It covers some pretty dark material, but it does redeem itself. At 448 pages it's a little on the long side. It's won a lot of local awards. Stunner of a book.
2) Other Houses by Paddy O' Reilly
Disclaimer - Paddy taught me at Faber and 20 years ago when I did a writing course at TAFE. She's amazing. And this little book is incredible. Great story set locally in modern times. It's also short. The only thing not going for it is that it's in hard cover and may need to be sourced online. But it's a cracker.
3 and 4) The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart or The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding by Holly Ringland
I really admire this author. She young, Australian and she tells local stories. I've read The Flowers of Alice Hart and loved it for its hard-hitting, yet dreamy view. The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding is in my to be read pile. She's a newish author with a bright future.
5) Beautiful World, Where Are You? by Sally Rooney
Sally Rooney penned the marvelous Normal People a while ago and this is her latest. The author is Irish, and the book is set in Ireland. Her prose is known to be wonderful - but are we seeing her on the downslide? This book doesn't rank as well as her others on Goodreads.com - although it's still not bad. It may be a little young for our group.
6) The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell
I adore Maggie O'Farrell. She wrote Hamnet, which we did last year and was universally loved in our group, and I read her This Must Be the Place earlier this year and worshipped it for its brilliant characters and her story telling. This book is her latest, which is set in Renaissance Italy. O'Farrell is a master of Historical Fiction. What is not to love?
7) 7 1/2 by Christos Tsiolkas
Christos Tsiolkas is a polarising writer. I love him, Many really dislike his confrontational writing. Thankfully this is not as brutal as the last book we did by him, Damascus, but I think this may struggle to get selected due to the history. In its defense, this one is set in modern times, looking at a fictionalised account of the author's childhood.
8) Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
I have been tempted to put this up for a few years now as it is a wonderful look at womanhood with all if it's peaks and troughs. This was the joint winner of the Booker Prize (with Margaret Atwood's The Testaments) It's a multi-character story set in Britain across the ages. It's amazing. I wish everybody could read this.
9) The Promise by Damon Galgut
Another Booker winner by a South African writer, set in the last thirty years. This is a family saga
which spans around 30 years, looking at an Afrikaan's family who have a bit of a problem with a will. The writing is stunning. As I listened to this on an audiobook, it reminded me of my ex (who's South African) and listening to the reader's South African accent was strangely comforting. It's a stunner of a book.
10) Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
This has been on my "To Be Read pile" for years. Many of my friends rave about it. It's set in South America and has a lot of Magic Realism about it - this could be a plus or a minus. It's a classic and I like to ponder putting up a classic book for book group. Other classic considerations include:
- Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
- A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
- The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (but they will run me out of book group - I love him, many don't)
- One of the lesser Austens (Northanger Abbey or Mansfield Park)
- Washington Square by Henry James
- Either Mrs Dalloway or Orlando by Virginia Woolf
It will be interesting to see what the group select.
I'm getting excited already.
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