Hello everyone,
I hope you’re well and in a suitably festive mood.
Following numerous problems with our usual book group venue, the Living Room on Grey Street, which culminated in them booting us out of our spot yet again in December, Caroline and I have decided to move venues.
Our new home, from January 2012, will be The Carriage pub in Jesmond. It’s really easy to get to by Metro, as the pub is the old Jesmond station so it’s right by the new Metro station too. There’s also plenty of parking for those of you who drive, and you can walk there from Newcastle city centre in about eight minutes.
More importantly, the staff could not be more helpful or enthusiastic about hosting the book group from next month.
Click here to see the new venue on a map.
And here’s the address and phone number:
The Carriage
Archbold Terrace
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE2 1DB
Tel: 0191 281 2151
The next meeting will be Tuesday 3 January 2012, with one meeting at 12.30pm and one meeting at 6.30pm, as usual. We’ll be discussing A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.
Have a good break and I look forward to seeing you there!
Liv
Thanks to all of you who came yesterday both at lunchtime and in the evening to chew the cud over ‘Mr Chartwell’ – and an especial thanks to Ruth and Steve who are expecting their first baby any day. I’m hoping next month you might bring the baby for us all to coo over. It made me think about how important books are for new parents. In those first few months when the world feels hyper-real and you’re swamped by huge tides of emotions books provide an anchor. I read avidly when both my daughters were born – when I was feeding them, when I was lying alongside the crib trying to get them off to sleep, when they were ill with chickenpox, raging colds and in one memorable case ‘Hand, Foot and Mouth’ virus (yes, it exists in humans too) and the books kept me sane. I wasn’t able to concentrate for any length of time so short stories and poetry were a lifeline and their intensity fitted in with my feelings at the time. Then I went on to experience the pleasure of reading to them myself, watching them light up when familiar books were read to them each night, and then see them read on their own. My eldest daughter is now taking English at ‘A’ level and as I looked through her essay the other night I thought about all the books that have accompanied us along the way. I recently put some of those old favourites in the attic the other week, unable to bring myself to clear them out. What are the children’s books you’d never part with?
There’s no official book club in August but a few of the regulars have decided to have their own impromptu gathering. Same drill as usual, Tuesday the 2nd at 18.30 at The Living Room. The book is Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair, as suggested by Kathryn. No official chair/leader unless someone particularly fancies it. Drinks and food afterwards for those who wish to partake.
Thanks to all who turned out last Bookclub for the MJ Hyland event – I think she was surprised to see so many of us. It’s always great to have authors to our events as it gives a real insight into how novelists work. The amount of research Maria Hyland had done for this book, including interviewing prisoners in Strangeways prison, was impressive and it paid off in the writing. She was very entertaining, shouting me down when I asked about why she wrote under the title MJ instead of her first name. She said the reason was because Maria sounded like a florist! I liked her – combative and funny.
The next book is ‘This Party’s Got To Stop’ by Rupert Thomson. I interviewed him last October as part of the Durham Book Festival and liked him and his book. Let’s see what you think when we meet on the 7th June.
Thanks to all of you who wished me and my daughter well over the past few months after her operation – it’s been a horrible time, especially in those early days after coming out of hospital, but now that seems a mercifully long time ago. As she’s off school for eight weeks and I’m looking after her we’ve been taking the opportunity to do lots of reading, especially in these unexpectedly warm sunny days of late March. Last Monday was Eve’s 12th birthday and we went into town – Top Shop and Waterstones being on the priority list – and browsed through books and funky T-shirts. If there was a shop that marketed the two together we might never have emerged into the daylight. My memories of books at the same age was a furtive scrabble about in the ‘young adult’ section of our village library and trying to sneak rather risque books past the hatchet faced librarian, who was also a friend of my Mother. Once I tried to get out Erica Jong’s “Fear of Flying’ and before stamping it she eyed me firmly and put it in the returns shelf. Lucky Eve. She spent ages in the friendly, warm bookshop and came out with a pile of books none of which I would have presumed to censure. ’Try everything once’ counselled my Grandfather, ‘apart from incest and Morris Dancing’. Sage advice.
See you next Tuesday for ‘The Vagrants’ a book I’m really enjoying. Hope you are too.