UK Book Club discussion

A- * Chingiz Aitmatov - Jamilia
B- * Katherine Boo - Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
C- Lucy Clarke - Swimming at Night. My copy was called The Sea Sisters.
D- Elanor Dymott - Every Contact Leaves a Trace
E- * Kerstin Ekman - Under the Snow
F- * William Faulkner - As I Lay Dying
G- * Abdulrazak Gurnah- Admiring Silence
H- Rod Humphries - The Last Coal Trip to Tenby
I- Conn Iggulden - Quantum of Tweed: The Man with the Nissan Micra
J- Cynan Jones- Everything I Found on the Beach
K- *Brian Kimberling - Snapper
L- *Danny Laferriere - The Enigma of the Return. 17321594
M- * Camilla Macpherson - Pictures at an Exhibition
N- Nele Neuhaus- Snow White Must Die
O- * A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Ozeki
P- *Per Petterson - Out Stealing Horses
Q- * Matthew Quick- The Silver Linings Playbook
R-*Kate Roberts - Feet in Chains
S- * Muriel Spark- The Abbess of Crewe
T- * Antonio Tabucci - pereira maintains
U- * Jane Urquhart- Sanctuary Line
V- * Célestine Hitiura Vaite - Frangipani
W- * John Edward Williams- Stoner
X- Lovers in the Age of Indifference - Xiaolu Guo
Y- Jacqueline Yallop- Kissing Alice
Z- * Stefan Zweig - Journey Into the Past

Just getting organised. This year I will not leave the 'difficult' letters til the end!! Will be looking at lots of lists for inspiration!

Very organized of you ! I hate the x - by far the most difficult. I was trying to think of an alternative, maybe authors with x in their name ? It's just impossible to search for them.

R - Read for my UK counties challenge. Recommended!

T.pereira maintains Read for World challenge - Portugal. Another supurb book. 2012 has got off to a really good start!

P. Read for my Book Group. Quite hard going but beautiful descriptive language of both place (Norway) and emotions. Isn't it great that at the beginning each new 'read' is a different letter?

Z. I had never heard of Stefan Zweig but decided to try this novella. His short-story writing has been compared to Chekhov, Turgenev and Maupassant. Would be happy to read anything else written by him.

M. I had this on loan for ever from the library and read it because it was the last renewal allowed. It was brilliant. I love going to the National Gallery and there was a lot about some of the masterpieces in it also woven with a dual time story and some family history so I couldn't not like it really.

S. Can't believe this is the first of Muriel Spark's books I have read. This is a short story about the elections for a new abbess in a rather strange situation. Found it quite funny.

H. . Enjoyable memoir of life before and during the beginning of WW2.

J.
Bleak, throught-provoking story set in West Wales.

F. Found this a difficult read and had to resort to 'notes' to fully understand it. Worthwhile though - just loved the ending!

U. Read for Round Canada challenge. The writing is absolutely beautiful and the setting on the shores of Lake Erie is brilliantly described. However the story of butterfly specialist Liz who returns to her family farmhouse unwinds very slowly.

A. Read for Around the World. This short love story is set in Kyrgyzstan and is so beautiful. The characters are so alive and descriptions of the country really add to the experience. Well worth a read.

G. Another read for Around the World. Story set in London and Zanzibar.

D. This one read for Oxfordshire. Overlong murder set in an Oxford college. Beautifully written and I did see it through to the end but it was a struggle at times.

K. Read for USA challenge. Coming of age and nature study in Indiana. Not very flattering to the state but enjoyable.

L. Danny Laferriere - The Enigma of the Return. Dany Laferrire. Amazing book about the return of an exiled author to his native land.

C. My copy was called The Sea Sisters. Story of a sister who receives the news of the other's death in Bali. She decides to travel following her sister's travel journal and try and find out what happened to her. Loved it. Good holiday read.

O I absolutely loved this. The only problem was that the print was tiny and almost had to buy some stronger reading glasses. Tale of how a diary makes its way from Japan to British Columbia and its effect on a novelist there. Both the writer of the diary and the novelist are Japanese and there is a lot about the culture as well as that of remote Canada.

W Although very little dramatic happens the story of Stoner's life is narrated by himself and is always interesting. He is the son of a farmer who becomes an english lecturer at the local university. Unexpectedly enjoyable.

V. Easy read about life in Tahiti through the eyes of mum of three. Interesting.

E. Found this scandi-crime novel quite a difficult read. Short but lots of characters. Beautiful description of Finland/ Sami life in the arctic circle.

X Found on FF under X! Bleak book with little happiness but lots of sense of place in modern day China and abroad.

I Cheated a bit as it was a 'quick read'. Enjoyable skit on the crime genre. So improbable it really made me smile.

N. Really enjoyable crime novel set in Germany. Only downside was the americanisms in the translation which jarred. Better than which I started. 1 more to go.

Y. Well the characters in this book weren't very likeable. But at the centre was a book, stolen by the father pre WW1. The events are told by each of the main characters in chunks. But instead of the same events being told from different points of view, each one moves the story on chronologically. In all it was a study of a family's reaction to child sexual abuse.