May Meeting

Apologies : Heather, Lynette, Catherine, Beverley, Mary, Sharon
Attendees : Gabrielle, Heidi

Business : There were only three responses to the Anh Do Happiest Refugee Show Live doodle poll. As only one of the three were able to go so this is not an excursion we will be embarking on.

Discussion : Gabrielle explained that she chose this book after an outing to the library where she discovered Rocks in the Belly as an audio/talking book. The print version was also on the shelf so she borrowed them – Gabby likes to listen to the talking book in the car to and from work then read the book later. The author, Jon Bauer, narrates the talking book himself and Gabby thought he did an excellent job of it and was very engaged by his reading.

The narrative is told by two voices of the same person; the un-named narrator as a 28 year old and as an eight year old, in alternating chapters. The adult narrator has returned to his childhood home to look after his terminally ill mother and is thinking back to a childhood tragedy of his making. The eight year old has a rich internal life but is struggling to accept the foster child, Robert, that has recently joined their household.

Both those present enjoyed this book but felt that after all the build up, the tragedy was not so great. We thought the voices were well done – trying to write like an eight year old might speak could have been trying but it wasn’t.

We both scored it 3.5.

April Meeting

Apologies : Heather, Lynette, Catherine, Margaret, Vic, Gabrielle

Attendees : Mary, Katie, Ros, Beverley, Heidi, Trish (at the 11th hour!)

Business : Anh Do is doing a ‘The Happiest Refugee’ show at the State Theatre on Friday 20th and Saturday 21st July 8pm. Tickets cost $49-$59.

Who’d like to go? I’ll try and set up a poll.

 

Discussion : Discussion was fairly brief as we all pretty much agreed this was a good easy read by a likeable celebrity but this was not great literature. Some felt Anh Do maybe leant too far in favour of levity and didn’t care for awful events being treated so lightly. There was some discussion of controversy whether this book was ghost written or not. A quick Google search showed that a Michael Viscontay had been engaged to research and interview people for this biography and provided a manuscript which Do then rewrote in his own words.

The Happiest Refugee scored 2.9

For those who enjoyed Anh Do, Katie recommends The Life of Akmal by another Aussie comedian, Akmal Saleh.

March meeting

Apologies for the late posting.

Present : Ros, Beverley, Gabrielle, Mary, Katie, Heidi

Apologies : Vic, Catherine, Lynette, Margaret

Business :

1. A member asked about inviting a new member. Those of us at the meeting agreed that we have enough members.

This led to a discussion of the reading list. With 14 members and breaks over Christmas it currently takes about 18 months for us all to have a turn at picking a book.That means, if we put a list down all at once, we may miss out on a lot of new books before we all get another choice. We decided therefore to choose the books every 7 months, leaving roughly the current order (http://spwdbookthieves.wordpress.com/meetings-2009/). We have got our reading list up to December this year. So by the December meeting the first 7 should provide their choices to take us through to August 2013, then the second 7 by the July 2013 meeting. Then we go back to the first 7 in early/mid 2014 and so on.

First 7
Beverley
Catherine
Heather
Katie
Trash
Vic
Ros

Second 7
Gabrielle
Lynette
Margaret
David
Heidi
Mary
Sharon

We also decided that where a member doesn’t want to make a choice of their own (eg. Trish) that we have a Wild Card where everyone else puts a book title into a hat for Trish (or whoever) to pick. So if you aren’t feeling inspired there’s a way out.

Discussion : Thank you to Ros for having us at her place. We had a very interesting night with the topics in the book, as always, leading us to all sorts of unexpected places.

Sarah’s Key was chosen by Ros because she is a Francophile and she had seen the film. The story was interesting historically; we are used to stories of Nazi oppression in Germany and Poland but tend not to consider their collaborators, especially in Allied countries like France.
We were interested in the French reaction – the denial. They seemed to quite readily accept the Jews were not ” people like us”. We saw parallels with what is happening to boat people coming to Australia and thei isolation and de- humanization.
We also talked about secrets, especially the open secrets that are known but not talked about.
On the whole we enjoyed the book but found it relied a bit on coincidences and was too happily ever after, a bit contrived and aiming at being a best seller.

Sarah’s Key scored 3.3.

February Meeting

Attendees : Beverley, Sharon, Heidi, Ros, Gabrielle, Lynette

Apologies : Katie, Heather, Mary

Business :

1. Can you please have ready your reading choices for this next cycle 2012/2013. You can either enter them yourselves by editing the Reading Lists page, email Heidi or bring them to the next meeting.

Discussion : Discussion on Flock by Lyn Hughes was lead by Beverley.

Beverley choose this book because she had met the author some years ago, because she used to have a copy of the wallpaper novel Lyn Hughes mentions in her acknowledgements (an early feminist one) and because of the Blue Mountains setting. By and large the group had quite enjoyed this book and it scored 2.9.

Margaret and Mary

Whatever they're on, I want some too!

December Meeting

Present : Margaret, Mary, Catherine, David, Sharon, Katie, Trish, Lynette, Heidi, Gabrielle

Apologies : Vic, Beverley, Ros, Heather

Business :

1. We decided our January meeting would take the now traditional form of a pot luck visit to the pictures but with a change of date and change of venue. We’ll be off to the Mount Vic Flicks on Friday 13th January 2012.
2. Next book discussion will be February 3rd 2012 when we’ll read Beverley’s choice, Flock by Lyn Hughes.
3. Please think about your reading choice for the next round – should take us all the way through to mid-2013! See the Reading Lists page for what some have already nominated.

Discussion : David’s choice of Ransom by David Malouf gave us plenty to talk about and we must apologise for not leaving until almost midnight when David had to be at work at the crack of nothing the next morning.

Despite being set in a world at the mercy of gods who are capricious, vicious, unpredictable and beyond mortal control, there were parallels to be seen with today’s economic and environmental climate with capricious, vicious, unpredictable and uncontrollable governments, banks and environmental threats.

With Priam we come to see that there is a simple life where griddle cakes made with love and dipping your toes in the stream are to be enjoyed. David also suggests we read David Malouf’s essay in Quarterly magazine, The Happy Life.

Ransom was well received and scored a very respectable 4.2.

The cover reproduced here is the one chosen by Trish as the winning cover among those brought by members who’d actually read the book!

November Meeting

Attendees : Margaret, Heidi, Beverley, Ros, Vic, Katie, Gabrielle, Mary, Catherine, Heather

Apologies : David, Sharon

Business :

1. Sasha has resigned from Book Thieves. She thanks us for having her for the little while she was a member.
2. Sasha’s place will be offered to Lynette, Gabrielle’s niece.
3. Mary is to find out if Rosemary intends to remain in Book Thieves or not.
4. Mary is to investigate options for a trip to the Hawkesbury in January.
5. Heidi is to set up a Doodle date  chooser to find out which weekend in January would suit most people for the excursion.

Discussion : Margaret led the group in what was an unusually unanimously disappointing read. With such a seemingly charming, erudite subject, expectations were high but most found Stephen Fry long-winded, self-indulgent and dismissive of the most interesting bits (his bi-polar disorder for instance) and we ended up with not a lot more than a list of what projects (film, stage or TV) he’d done with whom. Those who had read it recommend his first biography, Moab is my Washpot instead. The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry scored 2.5.

Next Meeting : Ransom by David Malouf at David’s.

October Meeting

Apologies : Beverley, Sharon

Attendees : Catherine, Katie, Heidi, Mary, Margaret, Gabrielle, Trish

Discussion : All in attendance thought the writing of When Colts Ran by Roger McDonald was great at times but the point of it all eluded us. Scored 2.1

September Meeting

Apologies : Catherine, Margaret, Katie, Mary

Attendees : Gabrielle, Vic, Sharon, Heather, Heidi, Trish

Meeting : No new business.  Next meeting will be on7th October at Catherine’s where we will be discussing When Colts Ran by Roger McDonald.

Discussion : This book provided plenty of discussion about what is percieved by the West as the plight of women in Islam. While trying to approach the book with an open mind, the many stories of women in high and low positions brought us much closer to understanding why they accept a curtailed life. The book was rated quite highly with a final score of 3.8.

August Meeting

Apologies : Gabrielle, Mary

Attendees : Margaret, Sharon, Vic, Sasha, Heidi, Heather, Katie, Trish, Catherine

Business :

1. Sharon to bring results of investigation into accommodation on the Hawkesbury to next meeting.
2. Catherine will be working the night of the next meeting so has arranged to swap with Heather. See Reading Lists page. Heidi to send an email letting everyone know/confirming change.

Discussion : A little like Freedom by Jonathan Franzen a few months ago, those who made it past the first third of the book thoroughly enjoyed it but reading the Jamaican patois was hard going for some. The Long Song scored 2.8.