Tuesday Tipplers - we also read books

[Alec John Moore]

Looking forward to it. I did wonder if it would be a patch on the Mag but I suppose it is at least that.

Alec

[Gubby]

Hi All

Is this group welcome to new joiners?

I've just moved to the area and have been looking to join a book club.

I won't be able to make this month's, but keep me informed abotu what you choose next month and I'll pop along then

thanks!

[waddinac]

Hi Gubby,

We always welcome new members. In December, we chose Anna Karenina as our text and since it is pretty epic, we have given ourselves two months to read it! We are meeting socially on Tuesday (as we quite like to get together for a spot of food and wine) but will be discussing the book itself in February. We will set the date for the meeting on Tuesday and post it on here, so if you wanted to get going on the book in advance, please feel free!

Best

Alex

[waddinac]

Hi folks, very sorry about this evening. Frantically trying to finish assignments for Friday and didn't even notice how late it had got. Hope you all had a great evening and see you in Feb

Alex

[Red_Cat]

We had a most enjoyable evening at the Patch last night, sorry you couldn't make it in the end Alex.

The date for the next book club meeting is 11th February to discuss Anna Karenina.

I volunteered to do the next list, the theme of which is 'Adventure'

[susan_]

~600 pages read.... ~200 pages to go! I'm looking forward to our discussion on Tuesday.

[Forevergreen]

Hi I'd love to come and meet you tomorrow night as I'd like to join a local book club - but only saw this the other day and it definitely was not enough time to read AK! Do you have enough space for one extra tomorrow eve? If so, where?

thanks!

[Alec John Moore]

Hi Forevergreen

I wonder if there is ever enough time to read Anna Karenina. It would be lovely to have you come along tomorrow evening. We meet in the House of Tippler on Lordship Lane, 7.45 for 8.00. Just look for the table with the people holding rolled up copies of a great big 19th century masterpiece of Russian literature.

See you then.

Alec

[Red_Cat]

Hi all,

Here's the link to my list for our next book on Amazon, theme is adventure. I'll bring print outs with the details tomorrow.

Cat's List 2

Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/registry/wishlist/2JV9LH8HHK9P3

Hope it works...

[Alec John Moore]

Hi

I was just thinking about Huck Finn the other day for some reason. So, it gets my vote. I might not be able to come along until later this evening, if at all. I've got a tricky proposal to draft by tomorrow morning at the latest. See you next time if not later.

Best wishes

Alec

[waddinac]

Hi all,

We had an enjoyable evening last week chewing over Anna Karenina and the general verdict seemed to be that it was worth taking the extra month to read it. The vote for this month's book was a close run affair, but Conrad's Lord Jim won out in the end.

I volunteered to do the next list, but we hadn't decided on a theme. I've had a think and given my current working environment, I'd like to use crime as the theme for the list (I can't remember whether we've had a crime list before, but I think it must have been a while ago if we did). I know that this risks reopening the debate on what constitutes 'literature' but I have some ideas for interesting avenues to explore and promise not to present you with a list of Agatha Christies in March! Let me know if you have any objections.

Next Meeting: Tuesday 18th March

Time: 7:45 for 8:00

Place: House of Tippler

Book: Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

See you all in March

Alex

[susan_]

No objections here - looking forward to it. See you in March.

[Red_Cat]

Hi all,

Sorry I won't make it tonight as feeling unwell with a cold. Hope goes well and looking forward to a crime novel - my favourite!

Cat x

[eaneal]

Sorry also not going to make it tonight. I'm not feeling too great.

Looking forward to the next book...

Elizabeth

[susan_]

Oh no! I'm really sorry I missed last night. I added my work email / calendar to my phone and list all my personal appointments in the process (user error I'm sure). Looking forward to next month.

[Alec John Moore]

Hi

Any Tweeters amongst you may be interested in this:

The Howard League for Penal Reform is asking supporters to tweet a 'Shelfie' picture to @MoJGovUK, using the hashtags #booksforprisoners and #shelfie. A 'Shelfie' is a picture of your bookshelf and represents the books that you would like to be able to send to prisoners. If you don?t use Twitter, you can email your picture to [email protected] . An example of the tweet to go with your picture would read:

.@MoJGovUK Here?s my shelfie for prisoners! @TheHowardLeague #booksforprisoners #shelfie

Love it.

Alec

[susan_]

Do we have a date and book selection for April?

[Red_Cat]

Did anyone actually go to the last meeting??

[Alec John Moore]

Hi

Some of us turned up but not one had finished Lord Jim by that point. We voted Strangers on a train as the next title but we couldn't agree on a date. I thought Alex was going to let us know which would be suitable between either the 8th or the 15th but I could be wrong about that.

Alec

[waddinac]

Hi everyone,

Sorry, completely forgot I said I'd put something on here! Yep, a few of us met last month and as Alec said, none of us had actually finished the book - I'm pretty sure it was the first time that had happened in the four years I've been going to the group! We voted for Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith as our April read. I finished my list of crime novels late so didn't have time to post it up here - apologies to those who weren't there and didn't get to vote but I've posted it below for those who are interested.

We didn't set a date for the next meeting - we were toying with the 15th or the 22nd and I was going to post a message up here to see whether there was a general consensus. However, as many of you won't have been able to start the book yet (given that you didn't know what it was!), shall we go for the later date of 22nd April if that works for most of us? In which case:

Next meeting: Tuesday 22nd April

Time: 7:45 for 8:00

Place: House of Tippler

Book: Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

Toodles

Alex

Novels on the theme of dastardly deeds

Despair - Vladimir Nabokov

Self-satisfied, delighting in the many fascinating quirks of his own personality, Hermann Hermann is perhaps not to be taken too seriously. But then a chance meeting with a man he believes to be his double reveals a frightening ?split? in Hermann?s personality. With shattering immediacy, Nabokov takes us into a deranged world, one full of an impudent, startling humour, dominated by an egotistical and scornful figure of a murderer who thinks himself an artist.

Th?r?se Raquin - Emile Zola

Zola's Th?r?se Raquin is a story of lust, madness and destruction set within the dingy backstreets of Paris. The eponymous protagonist ? a repressed and silently resentful young woman ? is married off according to her aunt's wishes to her sickly cousin Camille. When Th?r?se meets Camille's robust and earthy friend Laurent, a turbulent passion is unleashed that drives them ultimately to violence and murder. By merging elements of the gothic and tragic with a study of petit-bourgeois banality, Zola created a work of enduring fascination.

Jezebel - Irene Nemirovsky

In a French courtroom, the trial of a woman is taking place. Gladys Eysenach is no longer young, but she is still beautiful, elegant, cold. She is accused of shooting dead her much-younger lover. As the witnesses take the stand and the case unfolds, Gladys relives fragments of her past: her childhood, her absent father, her marriage, her turbulent relationship with her daughter, her decline, and then the final irrevocable act. With the depth of insight and pitiless compassion we have come to expect from the author of Suite Fran?aise, Irene Nemirovsky shows us the soul of a desperate woman obsessed with her lost youth

The Collector - John Fowles

Withdrawn, uneducated and unloved, Frederick collects butterflies and takes photographs. He is obsessed with a beautiful stranger, the art student Miranda. When he wins the pools he buys a remote Sussex house and calmly abducts Miranda, believing she will grow to love him in time. Alone and desperate, Miranda must struggle to overcome her own prejudices and contempt if she is understand her captor, and so gain her freedom.

Brighton Rock - Graham Greene

A gang war is raging through the dark underworld of Brighton. Seventeen-year-old Pinkie, malign and ruthless, has killed a man. Believing he can escape retribution, he is unprepared for the courageous, life-embracing Ida Arnold who is determined to avenge a death. Greene's gripping thriller, exposes a world of loneliness and fear, of life lived on the 'dangerous edge of things'.

The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco

The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. His tools are the logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, the empirical insights of Roger Bacon?all sharpened to a glistening edge by wry humor and a ferocious curiosity. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey, where ?the most interesting things happen at night.?

Strangers on a Train - Patricia Highsmith

Here we encounter Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno, passengers on the same train. But while Guy is a successful architect in the midst of a divorce, Bruno turns out to be a sadistic psychopath who manipulates Guy into swapping murders with him. "Some people are better off dead," Bruno remarks, "like your wife and my father, for instance." As Bruno carries out his twisted plan, Guy is trapped in Highsmith's perilous world, where, under the right circumstances, anybody is capable of murder.

[susan_]

Great list! See you on the 22nd :)

[philosophie]

Hello! Such a great list of books... are you accepting new members? Could I possibly come along to the April one? Thanks!

[charmw]

Hi - I'd love to come along on the 22nd if you are open to new members? Thanks, Charmari

[Alec John Moore]

Hi philosophie and Charmari

We are a very open group so just come along on the 22nd. We are usually to be found towards the back of the pub and usually one or two may well be clutching a book. I can't make it on the 22nd but look forward to meeting you at another sesh. Oh, and putting together the book lists is a very enjoyable part of the whole Tuesday Tipplers experience. Optional, of course.

Alec

[sparklehorse]

Dear Tipplers

Looking forward to seeing you all on Tuesday for Strangers on a Train. In the meantime, here's the list for next week, organised very loosely around the theme of "B-Sides" ...

Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut

With his trademark dry wit, Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle is an inventive science fiction satire that preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon - and, worse still, surviving it.

Hoenikker, one of the founding 'fathers' of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to humanity. For he is the inventor of ice-nine, a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. Writer Jonah's search for his whereabouts leads him to Hoenikker's three eccentric children, to an island republic in the Caribbean where the absurd religion of Bokononism is practised, to love and to insanity. Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction is a frightening and funny satire on the end of the world and the madness of mankind.

Franny and Zooey - J. D. Salinger

Franny Glass is a pretty, effervescent college student on a date with her intellectually confident boyfriend, Lane. They appear to be the perfect couple, but as they struggle to communicate with each other about the things they really care about, slowly their true feelings come to the surface. The second story in this book, 'Zooey', plunges us into the world of her ethereal, sophisticated family. When Franny's emotional and spiritual doubts reach new heights, her older brother Zooey, a misanthropic former child genius, offers her consolation and brotherly advice.

Written in Salinger's typically irreverent style, these two stories offer a touching snapshot of the distraught mindset of early adulthood and are full of the insightful emotional observations and witty turns of phrase that have helped make Salinger's reputation what it is today.

Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire, with its wildly original narrative structure, is a postmodern masterpiece from the author of Lolita, skewering the politics of academia, the struggle for interpretation, and the infinite subjectivity of human experience.

The American poet John Shade is dead; murdered. His last poem, Pale Fire, is put into a book, together with a preface, a lengthy commentary and notes by Shade's editor, Charles Kinbote. Known on campus as the 'Great Beaver', Kinbote is haughty, inquisitive, intolerant, but is he also mad, bad - and even dangerous? As his wildly eccentric annotations slide into the personal and the fantastical, Kinbote reveals perhaps more than he ought. Who is Charles Kinbote - could he be the exiled King Charles of Zembla, or the Russian madman, Professor Botkin? Or is he just another of John Shade's literary inventions? Nabokov's darkly witty, richly inventive masterwork is a suspenseful whodunit, a story of one-upmanship and dubious penmanship, and a glorious literary conundrum.

Something Happened - Joseph Heller

Bob Slocum was a promising executive. He had an attractive wife, three children, a nice house, and as many mistresses as he desired. His life was settled and ordered; he had conformed and society demanded he be happy - or at least pretend to be, But the pretence was becoming more and more difficult, as Slocum's discontent grew into an overwhelming sense of desolation, frustration and fear. And then something happened. . .

"It is splendidly put together and hypnotic to read. It is as clear and hard-edged as a cut diamond. Mr. Heller's concentration and patience are so evident on every page that one can only say that "Something Happened" is at all points precisely what he hoped it would be" (New York Times Kurt Vonnegut).

"I used to think Catch-22 was my best novel until I read Kurt Vonnegut's review of Something Happened. Now I think Something Happened is." (Joseph Heller)

The Temple of My Familiar - Alice Walker

A visionary cast of characters weave together their past and present in a brilliantly intricate tapestry of tales.It is the story of the dispossessed and displaced, of peoples whose history is ancient and whose future is yet to come.

Here we meet Lissie, a woman of many pasts; Arveyda the great guitarist and his Latin American wife who has had to flee her homeland; Suwelo, the history teacher, and his former wife Fanny who has fallen in love with spirits. Hovering tantalisingly above their stories are Miss Celie and Shug, the beloved characters from THE COLOUR PURPLE.

Villette - Charlotte Bronte

Villette is the story of Lucy Snow, a teacher at an all-girls boarding school in Belgium who finds herself caught up in her students' romances, reunited with old friends, and searching for a love of her own. Exploring themes of gender roles, repression, isolation, and religion, Villette is best known for following Lucy's psychological state.

"Villette is an amazing book. Written before psychoanalysis came into being, Villette is nevertheless a psychoanalytic work a psychosexual study of its heroine, Lucy Snowe. Written before the philosophy of existentialism was formulated, the novel's view of the world can only be described as existential. . . . Today it is read and discussed more intensely than Charlotte Bront?'s other novels, and many critics now believe it to be a true master-piece, a work of genius that more than fulfilled the promise of Jane Eyre Indeed, Virginia Woolf judged Villette to be Bront?'s finest novel" --novelist Susan Fromberg Schaeffer.