I’m so sorry for all of those who made the effort to come to this Tuesday’s lunchtime session on ‘The Woman in White’ – despite leaving home at 11am, usually plenty of time, I got stuck in traffic for an hour on the Tyne Bridge and made it at 1.40pm by which time you’d all gone home! I am so sorry and can’t apologise enough. I hope you managed to carry on without me.
And thanks to all those who came on Tuesday evening – it was, as usual, a cracking discussion despite the slightly noisy input from our uninvited guests at the back of the room… I’ll get the Living Room to put ‘Private Event’ on the door to deter any non-reading revellers.
Don’t forget that next month is Kachi Ozumba’s ‘The Shadow of a Smile’ (plenty of copies now available in Blackwells at last) and he’ll also be reading and discussing his book as part of the Hexham Book festival on April 27th at the Queen’s hall.
So see you all, no doubt gagging for some relief from the blanket election coverage, on May 4th and promise I won’t be late.
Huge apologies to all our members but we’ve had trouble getting the paperback edition of April’s book ‘The Shadow of a Smile’ by Kachi Ozumba so we’re going to change things around (again!) and have ‘THE WOMAN IN WHITE’ by Wilkie Collins for April’s book (meeting on April 6th) and then read Kachi’s book for May (meeting on May 4th). That means we also have a chance to go and see him at the Hexham Book festival on April 27th at 7.30pm where he’ll be reading from his book and taking questions.
I’m really sorry about this as I know we’ve switched books around in the past few months – no more changes now, promise!
And a big thanks to everyone who came to see Vesna Maric this Tuesday. She really enjoyed the group and said what a fantastic night it was and how pleased she was that everyone had read her book. She’s halfway through a novel at the moment – we wait with interest!
Next month’s book is ‘Bluebird’ – a memoir of the Bosnian refugee Vesna Maric who left Sarajevo at the height of the brutal civil war and came to seek safety in the UK. It’s a frank and often funny look at life in this country as a young refugee. Although sometimes it’s a harrowing book, it is completely lacking in self-pity. We’re delighted to have Vesna as a guest to come and talk to us about her wonderful book but please note, it will be on TUESDAY 9TH of MARCH and not Tuesday 2nd March as it usually is.
Vesna will come to the evening group but for those who can’t make it we’ll still have our lunchtime group from 12.30pm on March 9th to discuss the book.
Look forward to seeing you there!
Lionel Shriver is coming to ‘The Sage’ to do a special reading group event on October 24th! If you’ve read any of her books, probably the most famous being, ‘We need to talk about Kevin’, you’ll know she can spin a good yarn and keep you reading into the small hours. She’s here as part of Radio 3′s ‘Free Thinking’ festival and has agreed to do an exclusive event for all the ‘New Writing North’ reading groups. Her book, out in paperback, is called ‘A Perfectly Good Family’ (somehow I guess this might be ironic?) and she’ll be talking about the book and taking questions. We’ll then read the book for our November meeting on the 3rd. Don’t forget to present your Reading Group card at Blackwells and you’ll get £2 off the price of the book.
See you all at the next meeting on October 6th where we’ll talk about Jake Polley’s ‘Talk of the Town’.
In my last post I wrote about a scheme whereby you can leave a book on a train/park bench and then trace it’s whereabouts as it’s picked up and passed on – a sort on “Incredible Journey’ for books. Have a look at www.bookcrossing.com