New year resolutions

Hi everyone,
apologies for the lack of updates, the blog moderator (Pete) has been off and about, but is now back and catching up with the backlog of 'is the book group still running?' (yes! yay!) type emails.

Thanks to Simon for organising the Christmas / new year stuff - report from last time / meeting details for next time are:

A Sense of an Ending was a popular choice, as evidenced by the number of people who chose to brave the winds and the rain to make the first meeting of 2012! The next meeting will be on Thursday the 26th of January, when we'll be discussing The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.

The other nominations were Waterline by Ross Raisin, And The Land Lay Still by James Robertson, The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt and The Gathering by Anne Enright.

As always we're meeting in Mango Landin, from about 7.30pm onwards. New members are always welcome!

Millions of tiny plays about Britain which is actually quite short and we should be able to finish in time

Hi all,
apologies for missing the meeting! so no doodle this time - thanks to Kinga for the update!

I am informed that mostly everyone liked Freedom (I generally enjoyed it, although I'm wondering if Walter's slightly crazy population / mountain top removal ideas get their comeuppance but I haven't got there yet) one member even wrote a review, which is fantastic.

Book for next time is One Million Tiny Plays About Britain and we're meeting on Wednesday the 7th of December in Mango Landin.

The other thing I really wanted to ask was whether or not everyone was up for having some sort of Christmas party - normal tradition is a curry at Khan's followed by some random book swapping (but we don't really have traditions so any feel free to suggest absolutely anything). I'd suggest the 14th?

More or less everything we've read

I was doing a bit of tidying up of our slightly neglected twitter account - which is now @BrixtonBook and it occurred to me to do something a bit more interesting with the background. So I cheated and created a wordle:

Nearly everything we've ever read

Every book we've ever read since 2005 is tagged on this blog - so I think this is a slightly selective wordle. Things Man and Book seem to occur more often. Here's to 2012 and discovering new and exciting things to read..

After all that death some freedom (possibly)

Apologies for the delay in posting - we had a jolly chat about Ian (M) Bank's Transition - with opinions varying from guilty pleasure to teenage sci fi fantasy. It was certainly a page turner.

I cheated, as I don't have that much black ink

The book for next time is Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.

Runners up included Brixton Beach, The Hare with the Amber eyes, Half a Yellow Sun, and Guns, Germs and Steel.

Next meeting is on Wednesday the 9th November in Mango Landin

Transition to (hopefully less chilly book)

Conclusions from Death and the Penguin? Kiev is chilly, you can buy almost anything with the right amount of cash, and people care more about cute animals than people.

Even the penguin who didn't represent a book got fish.

The book for next time is Transition by Iain (M-but only in the USA) Banks which is a work of speculative fiction (as the in-denial Margaret Atwood would put it)

Next meeting is on Wednesday 12th of October in Mango Landin so you have plenty of time to get reading!

Runners up were: American Wife, Blood Meridian: or The Evening Redness in the West, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer and The Carhullan Army.

More death

Sorry I missed the meeting! - so no doodle this time, although I can recommend checking out Fela! - Pete

Notes from Becky:

Loads of new people, we struggled to all fit round a table! Lots of good debate about The Sickness. The winner for next time is Death And The Penguin by Andrey Kurkov.

Runners up were:

How To Be a Woman, Catlin Moran
Nothing To Be Frightened Of, Julian Barnes
The Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall
The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas
Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Adiche
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
Song of the Lark, Willa Cather

We agreed to stick to Wednesday meetings for now, next one 14th Sept 7.30ish in Mango Landin