This month's choice is "No, I don't want to join a Book Club" by Virginia Ironside
I think that Elizabeth Taylor (yes, really!) of Lincolnshire Libraries chooses all the books with book club in the title to put on the list regardless of quality, and they have all been among the weakest books we have read. This one is entertaining enough, but in a couple of weeks if anyone asks me whether I have read it I shall have to check, and in a couple of months I shall have no recollection whatsoever of any of the characters or the plot (such as it is). I can't imagine it bringing about much discussion except for the fact that the majority of the Swallow Bookworms are in the same sort of age-group as the narrator so we may compare it with our own experience of life - if we can be bothered.
Much more interesting was the last book I read: The Return by Victoria Hislop.
We read Mrs. Hislop's earlier book The Island as a book club choice and very much enjoyed it. 'Enjoyed' is perhaps not quite the word to describe these books as they are rather harrowing, but we discussed them with enjoyment. This one was recommended by a member who had read it because we had read the earlier one. The Return is set in Spain both in the present and during the 1930s. I must admit that the Spanish Civil War is a subject about which I have fought shy over the years, skimming even Laurie Lee on the subject at a time in my life when, in the wake of 'Cider with Rosie', his other books were something of a 'must read'. Anyway, I persevered with this even after the graphic description of the bullfight partially prepared me for the later horrors. It was a really gripping read, although not, I think, a book I shall ever want to re-read.
On a side issue, Mrs. Hislop is probably the most envied author of all those we have read as she has not merely written two books which achieved both critical and popular success but is also married to the delightful Ian - a great favourite with both book club members and their daughters; and any one of us will have the pair of them to dinner anytime they happen to be in Lincolnshire.
