Larbert Library Book Group discussion

Greetings all!

Just a few wee suggestions to get us started on our discussions next month. Please add your suggestions in the comments below :)


Travelling anti-clockwise, David M. Addison seeks his kicks on Scotland's equivalent of Route 66. Otherwise known as NC500, the route takes you through five hundred miles of some of Scotland's most spectacular scenery. No wonder it has been voted as one of the world's five most scenic road journeys.


Originally published in 1983, 'The Curse of Lono' features all of the zany, hallucinogenic wordplay and feral artwork for which the Hunter S. Thompson/Ralph Steadman duo became known and loved.


Campaigner, publisher and wanderer Alastair Sawday has spent his life travelling. En route he has unearthed a multitude of stories - stories of people ploughing their own furrows, of travellers' tales, stories from the 'front line' of his publishing, ruminations and reflections about places, people and ideas. In this deeply charming, erudite and spirited book, he shares his experiences and explores the value of travel.


Robert Crisp's account of his travels, originally serialised in the Sunday Express, is an honest, funny, touching account of this charming rogue's journey through a foreign land and culture in search of inner peace and happiness.


At 26, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family disbanded and her marriage crumbled. With nothing to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to walk 1,100 miles of the west coast of America - from the Mojave Desert, through California and Oregon, and into Washington State - and to do it alone. She had no experience of long-distance hiking and the journey was nothing more than a line on a map. But it held a promise - a promise of piecing together a life that lay in ruins at her feet.


Lise is driven to distraction by her office job so, leaving everything, she flies south on holiday. But what is she looking for? Infinity and eternity attend Lise's last terrible day in an unnamed southern city.


Featuring all the characters you've come to love from the Outlander series, this collection of short stories throws you into the magical world of Outlander.


'In Other Words' is at heart a love story - of a long and sometimes difficult courtship, and a passion that verges on obsession: that of a writer for another language. For Jhumpa Lahiri, that love was for Italian, which first captivated and capsized her during a trip to Florence after college. And although Lahiri studied Italian for many years afterward, true mastery had always eluded her. So in 2012, seeking full immersion, she decided to move to Rome with her family, for 'a trial by fire, a sort of baptism' into a new language and world.


Cadiz, Palermo, Copenhagen and more; Rick Stein goes in search of good food in fabulous locations, and all of them just a quick hop, skip and a jump from the UK. Rick Stein's Long Weekends wil accompany the second half of the BBC One series, airing in Autumn 2016.


The story of Hassan Haji, a boy from Mumbai who embarks, along with his boisterous family, on a picaresque journey first to London and then across Europe, before they ultimately open a restaurant opposite a famous chef, Madame Mallory, in the remote French village of Lumière. A culinary war ensues.


Lindsay introduces a range of quirky and amusing details about Scotland's past. Containing information on curious places, bizarre happenings and perplexing oddities, this book is aimed at students of Scottish culture. It also includes instructions on how to get to all the places mentioned in the book.


Lars Gustafsson and Agneta Blomqvist present a very personal guide to their Swedish homeland. Setting off from the far South, their journey takes them up to Norrland, from the farms of Scania to Laponian, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But it is the idyllic fjord in Bohulan, located in the Vastmanland region, as well as Malar Lake and Stockholm that they call home. Throughout, Gustafsson and Blomqvist are full of entertaining suggestions for excursions, including journeys through forests and moors where you can take in the odd elk or wolf along the way and visits to Strindberg's and Kurt Tucholsky's graves.


It was 1934 and a young man walked to London from the security of the Cotswolds to make his fortune. He was to live by playing the violin and by labouring on a London building site. Then, knowing one Spanish phrase, he decided to see Spain. For a year he tramped through a country in which the signs of impending civil war were clearly visible.


A new biography of the charismatic Georgian society hostess Lady Anne Barnard, who became defined by her defiance of convention. Lady Anne Barnard lived at the heart of Georgian society, yet was never fully part of it. The Prince of Wales counted among many friends and she was brilliant in company. But she was seen as an eccentric - an outsider. What defined this poet and musician, artist and hostess, was defiance of convention. High-born yet an egalitarian, she rejected numerous suitors, lived independently by buying and renting houses and travelled alone to observe the French Revolution. When she did marry it was to a junior army officer, 12 years younger than she, and together they withdrew to Africa. Her curious ways attracted gossip right to her final years.


I didn't realise my mother was a person until I was thirteen years old and she pulled me out of bed, put me in the back of her car, and we left home and my dad with no explanations. I thought that Ma was all that she was and all that she had ever wanted to be. I was wrong.As we made our way from Virginia to California, returning to the places where she'd lived as a child in foster care and as a teenager on the run, repaying debts and keeping promises, I learned who she was in her life-before-me and the secrets she had kept - even from herself. But when life on the road began to feel normal I couldn't forget the home we'd left behind, couldn't deny that, just like my mother, I too had unfinished business.


When a reckless young Scotsman wins a ship in a game of chance, he sails to Gothenburg to make his fortune. Here he meets a strong-willed merchant's daughter who has been swindled out of her inheritance. Together, they embark on a disastrous marriage of convenience and, ultimately, a daring voyage to the Far East.

There we go, just a few ideas to get the ball rolling :)

Happy reading,

Laura

Larbert Library Book Group wrote: "Greetings all!

Just a few wee suggestions to get us started on our discussions next month. Please add your suggestions in the comments below :)

[bookcover:Exploring the Nc500: Travelling Scotland..."

Hi Laura,

As I couldn't make it on Monday I went to the library for a copy of the next book. I was given the choice of 'Ove' or the latest Ann Cleeve novel and as I've read them both I just left them. Am I correct in thinking that they were maybe not this month's books? Maybe a travel book instead?

Thanks
Elvine

Hi Elvine,
Your thinking is correct! We can read a book on travel and talk about it next month. I'm about to start mine! June

Thanks, Laura, for such an eclectic list. Of these books, I've only read the Spark - which I found terrifying and disturbing, but good - and Laurie Lee's 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning'. The Jumpha Lahiri is actually in my TBR pile from the library. I have read all of her books (both short stories and novels) and really admire her clean concision. So looking forward to this. I note it is translated by Ann Goldstein who has also translated the Elena Ferrante books. Has anyone else in the Group been gripped by 'Ferrante Fever'? Although not travelogues, they certainly transport you to Sicily!

In keeping with my walking theme from last month, I intend to read about another flaneuse in 'Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk' by Kathleen Rooney. This is set on New Year's Eve of 1984 as 85-year-old Lillian, once the highest paid advertising woman in America, walks the length of Manhattan. As she strolls, she recalls her life 'from the Jazz Age to the onset of the AIDS epidemic, from the Great Depression to the birth of hip-hop'. If anyone is interested, here's a link to an interview with the author, describing Lillian, who is based on Margaret Fishback who really was the highest paid American female copywriter in the 'Thirties.

http://www.dauntbookspublishing.co.uk...

Also on my list are 'Illyrian Spring' by Ann Bridge set in the Dalmatian Coast of Yugoslavia in the 1930s, and Shirley Hazzard's 'The Evening of the Holiday' which is set in Italy.

Sorry, I see that the link isn't quite working. I'll try once more:

http://www.dauntbookspublishing.co.uk...

Otherwise, you can follow link from Daunt's homepage which the above does take you to.