Welcome to the first Last Day of the Month Book Club of 2016! I’ve been having a little think about how we can make it a much more interactive group and (with a little inspiration from the marvellous Emma Watson) am going to try using GoodReads as a discussion forum for each book and the questions we want to discuss.
Everyone is welcome to join this group and add to the book talk!
Please follow the link here to find the group and our first meeting on Cassandra Parkin’s New World Fairy Tales.
In contemporary America, an un-named college student sets out on an obsessive journey of discovery to collect and record the life-stories of total strangers. The interviews that follow have echoes of another, far more famous literary journey, undertaken long ago and in another world.
Drawing on the original, unexpurgated tales collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, six of their most famous works are re-imagined in the rich and endlessly varied landscapes of contemporary America.
From the glass towers of Manhattan to the remoteness of the Blue Ridge mountains; from the swamps of Louisiana to the jaded glamour of Hollywood, New World Fairy Tales reclaims the fairy tale for the modern adult audience. A haunting blend of romance and realism, these stripped-back narratives of human experience are the perfect read for anyone who has read their child a bedtime fairy story, and wondered who ever said these were stories meant for children.
Rapture by Carol Ann Duffy will be February’s book of the month. We have yet to try poetry so let’s see how it goes!
Carol Ann Duffy’s seventh collection is a book-length love poem, and a moving act of personal testimony; but what sets these poems apart is Duffy’s refusal to simplify the contradictions and transformations of love – infatuation, longing, passion, commitment, rancour, separation and grief. Instead, Rapture is a map of real love, in all its churning complexity, showing us that a song can be made of even the most painful episodes in our lives. These are poems that will find deep rhymes in the experience of most readers and will, ultimately, prove that poetry can and should speak for us all.
The questions we will be discussing are:
Poetry is so subjective. Starting off at the deep end, how did this collection make you feel? Did you enjoy or loath reading it, and why?
How did you read the book? Many have suggested that Carol Ann Duffy’s Rapture, although a collection of separate poems, lends its self to being read straight through like a novel, rather than being dipped into as with some poetry. What do you think? And what about the themes and style lent to reading it the way you did?
What was your favourite poem? Which poem did you enjoy the most, and why?
Any other comments?
Behind the Scenes at the Library 