March Meeting

We will be meeting for lunch at Schezan on Cunningham Rd. 12:30pm Sunday 1st of April to discuss 'Kafka On The Shore'.

WARNING: Reading can make you talk funny

I came across a nice piece in the Guardian today. Some readers can apparently drop the voice or accent of a favourite literary character into their daily lives. I've just finished a Salman Rushdie and I can't say any of his vocabulary has rubbed off, no dinner parties for me.

The best I can do is to attempt just reading the book in the accent intended by the writer. From the voice in my head it sounds like I'm reading a lot of Irish/Jamaican literature these days.

Book for March

'Kafka on the Shore' by Haruki Murakami

Synopsis:

15-year-old Kafka Tamura runs away from home, both to escape his father's oedipal prophecy and to find his long-lost mother and sister. As Kafka flees, so too does Nakata, an elderly simpleton whose quiet life has been upset by a gruesome murder. (A wonderfully endearing character, Nakata has never recovered from the effects of a mysterious World War II incident that left him unable to read or comprehend much, but did give him the power to speak with cats.) What follows is a kind of double odyssey, as Kafka and Nakata are drawn inexorably along their separate but somehow linked paths, groping to understand the roles fate has in store for them. Murakami likes to blur the boundary between the real and the surreal—we are treated to such oddities as fish raining from the sky; a forest-dwelling pair of Imperial Army soldiers who haven't aged since WWII; and a hilarious cameo by fried chicken king Colonel Sanders—but he also writes touchingly about love, loneliness and friendship.

"An attorney by his trade is at any rate as good as a brewer, and there are many attorneys who hold their heads high anywhere."

Can You Forgive Her? - Anthony Trollope

February Meeting

We will be meeting for lunch at Inch on 100ft. Rd. Indiranagar, 1pm on Sunday 25th February.

Book for February

The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto 'Che' Guevara

Synopsis:

In January 1952, two young men from Beunos Aires set out to explore South America on 'La Poderosa', the Powerful One: a 500cc Norton. One of them was the twenty three year old Che Guevara.

Written eight years before the Cuban revolution, these are Che's diaries- full of disasters and discoveries, high drama, low comedy and laddish improvisations. During his travels through Argentiina, Chile, Peru and Venezuela, Che's main concerns are where the next drink is coming from, where the next bed is to be found and eho might be around to share it.

Within a decade the whole world would know his name. His trip might have been the adventure of a lifetime - had his lifetime not turned into a much greater adventure.

Prim Miss Indeed!

Librarian porn?!?!
I especially like that he still has the book in his hand.

During the 2 years I was a librarian at high school (yes I really was that weird), I can tell you that I NEVER took off my mask of respectability.

January Meeting

We will be meeting for lunch at Infinitea on Cunningham road, 1pm on Sunday 21st January.

Book for January

Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

Synopsis:

Nikos Kazantzakis' most popular and enduring novel, has its origins in the author's own experiences of mining and harvesting in the Peleponnesus in the 1920s. His swashbuckling hero has its legions of literary fans across the world and his adventures are as exhilarating and havoc-making now as they were on first publication in the 1950s.

December Meeting

We will be meeting to discuss Ladies Coupe over lunch at Queens on 23rd December.

Book for December

Ladies Coupe by Anita Nair

Synopsis:

Meet Akhilandeshwari, Akhila for short: forty-five and single, an income tax clerk and a woman who has never been allowed to live her own life—always the daughter, the sister, the aunt, the provider. Until the day she gets herself a one-way ticket to the seaside town of Kanyakumari, gloriously alone for the first time in her life and determined to break free of all that her conservative Tamil brahmin life has bound her to.

In the intimate atmosphere of the ladies coupe which she shares with five other women, Akhila gets to know her fellow travellers: Janaki, pampered wife and confused mother; Margaret Shanti, a chemistry teacher married to the poetry of elements and an insensitive tyrant too self-absorbed to recognize her needs; Prabha Devi, the perfect daughter and wife, transformed for life by a glimpse of a swimming pool; fourteen-year-old Sheela, with her ability to perceive what others cannot; and Marikolanthu, whose innocence was destroyed by one night of lust.

As she listens to the women's stories, Akhila is drawn into the most private moments of their lives, seeking in them a solution to the question that has been with her all her life: Can a woman stay single and be happy, or does a woman need a man to feel complete?

November Meeting

We will be meeting to discuss Hullabaloo over dinner at Konark's on 24th November.

Book for November

Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai

Synopsis

After years of failure, as a student and at work, of days spent dreaming in the tea stalls and singing to himself in the public gardens, it does not seem as if Sampath is going to amount to much.
Until he climbs a guava tree in search of a life of peaceful comtemplation - and becomes unexpectadly famous as a hermit.
News of the guru in the tree spreads and as curious visitors, pilgrims and businessmen arrive, Sampath's family begins to make more money than they'd ever dreamed of. But what should they do when a local band of monkeys develops a taste for liquor, and their hullabaloo envelops the guava orchard?
Written with rich humour and an eye for the eccentric, this is a magical tale of a world gone slightly mad.

October Meeting

We will be meeting for lunch at Koshy's on 29th October

Book for October

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

Synopsis

Gaskell's Last novel, widely considered her masterpiece, follows the fortunes of two families in nineteenth century rural England. At its core are family relationships- father, daughter and step mother, father and sons, father and step-daughter - all tested and strained by the romantic entanglements that ensue.

Despite its underlying seriousness, the prevailing tone is one of comedy. Gaskell vividly prtrays the world of the late 1820s and the forces of change within it, and her vision as always humane and progressive.

The story is full of acute observation and sympathetic character study: the feudal squire clinging to old values, his naturalist son welcoming the new world of science, the local doctor and his scheming second wife, the two girls brought together by their parents' marriage....

September Meeting

We will meet at Three Quarters Chinese for Lunch on 30th September.

Book for September

In An Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh

Synopsis

Once upon a time an Indian writer named Amitav Ghosh set out to find an indian slave, name unknown, who some seven hundred years before had travelled to the Middle East. The journey took him to a small village in Egypt, where medievel customs coexist with twentieth century desires and discontents. But even as Ghosh sought to re-create the life of his Indian predecessor, he found himself immersed in those of his modern Egyptian neighbours.

August Meeting

We'll be meeting for lunch on 27th of August at Roomali with a View, 100 feet Road, Indira Nagar.

Book for August

Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry

Synopsis
Set in (what was then) Bombay against the backdrop of war in the Indian subcontinent and the birth of Bangladesh, telling the story of the peculiar way in which the conflict impinges on the lives of Gustad Noble, an ordinary man, and his family.