Tag: Bookclub

#1251 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books1 Comment
Not this one, 3 times is quite enough.

What book could you read over and over again?

I am not much of a repeat reader. If I reread a book it is often circumstantial rather than a choice. Book Club is a good source of a re-read but with the added benefits of being able to talk with a group of fascinating people about the book. This last month I read the book club book twice and I had also read it a few years ago. 3 times for a book I consider to be not worth reading. I probably didn’t finish it the first time. I didn’t plan to give it such diligence this month but after the first read I researched the reviews from when it was first published and gave it a skim-read second/third go.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/may/22/beryl-bainbridge-polka-dot-dress?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I am an ardent reader for pleasure. The more I read this book the more I took from it, but pleasure was not something extracted on any one of my three adventures between its covers.

I feel I have failed by not thinking that this book is an insightful and fitting final novel by a great writer. But in truth this is not her final novel. She didn’t finish it and her hastily written manuscripts fueled by end-of-life medications were assembled by her much respected editor. Would she have sent it out in that form to her adoring public?

Could it ever be accurately judged as it was published after her death. Once one critic, from an unreliable cohort,  mostly white men, had said it was her masterpiece ( mistresspiece) could anyone have disagreed?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/jul/02/beryl-bainbridge-favourite-book?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Much better to read this article and the books mentioned. Written a day after her death the  article mentions my personal favourite The Birthday Boys about Scott , a local Plymouth hero. But read by me long before I lived here.

I am going to read it again now. I suppose despite what I said earlier I am a re-reader. Just not over and over again. Life is too short!

#1112 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Poetry2 Comments

The book club I belong to is many things. Most definitely a meeting of minds. Our WhatsApp group bubbles with random thoughts that we share in between our monthly gatherings.

Yesterday an absolute gem of a poem was shared.

If Adam Picked the Apple by Danielle Coffyn.

There would be a parade,

a celebration,

a holiday to commemorate

the day he sought enlightenment.

We would not speak of

temptation by the devil, rather,

we would laud Adam’s curiosity,

his desire for adventure

and knowing.

We would feast

on apple-inspired fare:

tortes, chutneys, pancakes, pies.

There would be plays and songs

reenacting his courage.

 

But it was Eve who grew bored,

weary of her captivity in Eden.

And a woman’s desire

for freedom is rarely a cause

for celebration.

The Creation Myth was never high up on my Believable Stories List.

The practicality of attaching a leaf to anyone’s genitals for modesty was the first reality check.

In consequence I have never given the story much thought.

But what if the story was flipped?

So much to ponder.

Gathered Apples ©theoldmortuary

 

#823 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, pondering, SerendipityLeave a comment

I’m not entirely sure where this blog is going today. After a morning of rather dull admin I gave myself a little break and did some test printing and gave some new watercolours a bit of a run out as a reward for tasks achieved.  A little digital tweaking and I created this header post. Big thanks to everyone who responded so positively to yesterday’s blog, I love feedback, you all make my pondering a positive experience.

#822 theoldmortuary ponders.

I suppose yesterday’s blog was loosely about books and today’s mild ponder is also about a book, one that I have not read.

A quote from this book was shared with my book group and I felt that I disagreed with the writer to some degree.

It didn’t exactly keep me up all night but now I am going to have to read the book and see why the author felt the need to take such a cavalier attitude to her past. It is my safe past experiences that give me the confidence to press on into the cloud, as she puts it, of the future. Like many people not everything in my past was fabulous, but all past experience is useful. I suppose what shocks me is that she considers past experience to be ‘ dead’. It is unalterable, but surely it is as alive and vivid as I allow it to be.

And this is exactly why I have a book pile problem. This quote will piss me off until I have read the whole book. Pondering. Is it ever possible to turn it off?

And this is why my book piles are out of control…

Pandemic Pondering #441

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity2 Comments

Domestic admin was the unplanned event of yesterday. There are times when unplanned events can make a days outlook not dissimilar to this beautiful sheep. Thankfully the whole day was not so complex. The day was not particularly photogenic so the illustrations to the text come from the Cornwall County show held on this day a few years ago. The big event in Cornwall this week is the G7 conference. Our garden bookclub meeting, where we discussed a novel that was somewhat sympathetic to fascists was slightly disturbed by some very heavy duty helicopters flying overhead. The cows in the surrounding fields did not bat an eyelid.

There is something incongruous about nattering in an English country garden while the hardware of defence passes overhead. But it is good to be in the company of people who are happy to talk, a lot, about a book with a difficult subject at its heart.

Our evening was also spent deep in conversation as our friends Sophie and Stephanie came over for supper. We haven’t seen Sophie for a long while.

Not such heavy topics as the afternoon . Among other things we discussed the drinking habits of the first Professor Dumbledore and Darth Vaders codpiece, and of course with G7 in mind the navigational aids used by miliary helicopters. Do they still follow the railway line into Cornwall or are there more sophisticated options available?

Steph and I have been friends forever and our families are intertwined. I think that is why we can talk nonsense for a whole evening.

Pandemic Pondering #325

On By theoldmortuary.designIn BooksLeave a comment

Book club reading gave me the perfect word for the current Pandemic. Perturbation! The word came from Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. Time to find some Welsh landscape.

Perturbed is a very useful word but I had never expanded it to perturbation.

It works so well with Pandemic and encapsulates our current times without too much jingle jangle alarm.

This months book choice is anything Welsh. I chose Dylan Thomas mostly because I remember Richard Burton narrating Under Milk Wood very effectively. Our next meeting is scheduled for March 1st St Davids Day the Patron Saint of Wales hence the theme.

This blog has accidentally become a book club blog, possibly the only sort of place I could share this odd photograph.

Here I am finishing last months Book Club book, inadvertently dressed to match.

Pandemic Perturbation in a nutshell.

Pandemic Pondering #200

On By theoldmortuary.designIn BooksLeave a comment

@theoldmortuary are having a strange old week. Lots of work to do towards an anticipated end point without ever quite knowing where that end point might be. As a consequence we’ve had no wi-fi and poor signal coupled with too much physical work for pondering. On a positive note there has been time for reading this week. I’ve finished the book club book mentioned in Pandemic Pondering #236. Some bits needed rereading before the Monday Zoom meeting.

My choice of reading has changed with the pandemic. With more time I’ve given myself the chance to enjoy a broader range of styles. This book is as marvelous as it’s title. A contemporary dose of magic realism. A tale of the West Country with the cliché content woven in a unique way.

Book number two in the informal @theoldmortuary Book Club is…

This is quite a ride. Is it poetry or prose? A breathtaking, stay awake long-after-bed-time read. No spoilers here. I’ve never read anything quite like it in its style. It has the punch of a short story with twists and turns that made me squirm with anticipatory caution for the protagonist.

Finally number three

This has everything that book one has in using geography I am really familiar with, London. Coupled with Modernist Fine Art and a Windrush generation narrator. The Spanish Civil War is also a massive character in this book.

In my Covid Friend Collection I have gathered a scatty English teacher who probably winces at my punctuation and grammar but can also talk the hind leg off a donkey. I’m pushing these three in her direction so we can have a good old book natter. Happy Sunday xxx