BOOK CLUB - Galway

Hi D,

Would you consider moderating yourself at another BookClub meeting if there was sufficient interest? Another meeting would also be good for current members who cannot make their usual night. I suppose it all depends on numbers anyway.


In relation to our last meeting where we discussed The Motel Life, there were 6 attendees. Poor show :mad:

These were:

Karl W
Pope Buckfast
Damien G
Tristan C
Myself
and Matt Kidd


Overall, everyone seemed to enjoy the book. It was very bleak but it did give a very good insight into some aspects of poverty and alcoholism and their affects on people. It was also a good study of family relations during good and bad times and of the extreme differences in personalities of the characters for example Jerry Lee and Annie's Mother. Addictions either to gambling or to alcohol etc. was a strong element of the story as was people's dependence on one another for good or for bad reasons.

This was possibly my favourite book read so far in BookClub. I found the main characters (The Flannigan Brothers) to be very likable and so it was easy to focus on the story. I highly reccommend it



Pope Buckfast wants to start our next meeting slightly later than usual so instead of 7:30pm, we will aim to meet at 8:00 and start our discussion for 8:30.

Our next meeting is on Tuesday 15th April to discuss Fahrenheit 451 (hope that's the correct title:confused). We also discussed having a bit of a sesion at one of our upcoming meetings whereby we would discuss the relevant book and then hang around afterwards for drinks or coffee or whatever.

Any suggestions?

Thanks for moderating at the last meeting Pope Buckfast

The book that Karl W has chosen is called...wait for it; The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley.
Well Holy God! Sounds like an easy read :rolleyes:

http://www.amazon.com/Doors-Perception-Heaven-Hell/dp/0060900075

Great idea! Count me in

Hi All,

Just a reminder that our next BookClub meeting will take place tomorrow evening (Tuesday 13th May) at 8pm in Bar No.8 to discuss The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black.

Looking forward to it.

Hi Everyone,

Just a bit about our last BookClub meeting where we discussed The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black. First off, I'd like to welcome our newest members; Kate and Frances.

I think that the overall feeling towards this novel was that it wasn't very good at all. It was overly descriptive of scenes and settings. The characters were not very likable and also, it wasn't much of a "mystery." From the beginning of the novel, it was quite obvious who the killer was (not to me though because I didn't manage to finish it on time. Tut tut!). It was suggested that John Banville tried to adapt his tried and tested manner of writning to a different genre of novel, and the end result was that it just didn't work. Perhaps highly descriptive passsages are more at home in his other books such as The Sea etc. for which he was nominated (or won?) the Booker Prize. Personally, I think that he was trying to break the mould in terms of the formula that runs through crime thrillers in the main...even if it didn't work very well. The hero of the story, Quirke, in the end didn't even solve the crime, It was a lesser involved character, Hackett! This is one of the reasons why I believe that Banville was trying alter traditional story-telling formulas. Also, I believe that he was trying to avoid the "easy-read" style associated with this genre by being highly descriptive and historically accurate. The Swastika Laundry did exist in Dublin during the period in which the novel is set for example.

Some of the scenarios in the story were very very unlikely, especially his daughter Phoebe falling in love with one of the villainous characters, Leslie White, who was Quirke's nemesis I suppose.

Ok, I admit, I still haven't finished it yet either. It is a tough read. I find it very easy to loose concentration. The pace is slow and there is no real need for the copiously descriptive passages or the flashbacks (Phoebe and the leverets when she was a child...). However, I'm still enjoying the book. I do like the historical aspects of it and it does paint a vivid picture of Dublin City, even if it is hard to differentiate the period of the story's setting from the present or any other time within the last 100 years.

To surmise, the majority of the members who read the book didn't enjoy it at all apart from myself and Tristan C. But I want to give John Banville the benifit of the doubt. I do think that he was trying something new, not just in terms of the kind of books he generally writes himself, but of the style of writing associated with the mystery/thriller genre overall. That can't be a bad thing altogether in my opinion at least. So, as I won the BookClub lotto this week, I get to choose the next book. I really want to see how The Silver Swan compares to John Banville's other works so therefore, I am choosing another of his books, The Sea. It could be a quiet week in Galway BookClub

By the way, those who attended the meeting were as follows:
Tristan C
Hugh
Anne Marie
Paul P
Sandra
Kate
karl
Hazel
Frances and
TristanPeter

Looking forward to our next meetin and hope to see you all there

p.s. I don't know how to do a spell check on this so please forgive my terrible spelling.

I bought the book online with Amazon. It was delivered within 3 days but it was more expensive than on the Irish site just mentioned by Dafunk, exclusive of postage.

I used booksunlimited.ie 4 days ago to order a book (a recent best-seller at that) and it still hasn't arrived, even though I paid €5.50 for postage by Fastway (affiliated)! So an Irish company that takes longer to deliver a book within Ireland, longer than it has ever taken Amazon UK to deliver a book I bought from them to be delivered to Ireland. Surprise surprise. I won't be using them again. Trying to contact them by phone was even a problem. I got put through to a message minder during business hours. They never even issued me with a track & trace number for Fastway.ie either until I called them to ask for it. It would have been cheaper to send it via An Post by regular mail...and quicker.


Anyway, for all who are interested, don't forget our next BookClub meeting, Tuesday 10th June @ 8pm in Bar No. 8 when we will be discussing The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell.