May Books

THE GREAT GATSBY - is showing at the Printworks Manchester on Tuesday 11th June at 17.25.

If anyone would like to come along either on the tram from Prestwich or meet at 5pm outside the Printworks, please contact either Jill or Vicki over the weekend.

Next Meeting Tuesday 18th June from 5.30pm at Costa Coffee, Longfield Centre

Our Books for May 

 

Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin

Meet Angel Tungaraza, professional cake-baker, amateur matchmaker, an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on. A uniquely charming, funny and touching novel of life, life and food set in Rwanda, a country recovers from unimaginable terror and violence. Angel Tungazara has recently moved to Rwanda from her native Tanzania. With her husband, Pius, and the five orphaned children of their late son and daughter, she is hardly short of things to do. But she still finds time to pursue her hobby and her passion, her small but increasingly successful business, baking individually-designed cakes for the parties and celebrations of her neighbours and their friends. Angel is entirely aware that many of the Rwandans around her have witnessed and survived horrors she can barely imagine. But she also knows that their lives continue, that they also have reasons to celebrate, to be joyous and to be happy. As she gets to know her neighbours and as they tell her their stories, she comes to realise how much each of them has to mourn as well as how much they have to celebrate. And, finally, she comes to accept how much that is true of her too.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything. But one thing will always be out of his reach...Everybody who is anybody is seen at his glittering parties. Day and night his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young things drinking, dancing and debating his mysterious character. For Gatsby - young, handsome, fabulously rich - always seems alone in the crowd, watching and waiting, though no one knows what for. Beneath the shimmering surface of his life he is hiding a secret: a silent longing that can never be fulfilled. And soon this destructive obsession will force his world to unravel.

Review of Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome and Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Both of the books for this month provided a split opinion of the group. Firstly to three men in a boat, mostly we were all glad to have read the book and we enjoyed some of the observations and description of the trip. However, some felt it was not as funny as they were expecting commenting that this was just a jolly trip for three men who had too much money and time on their hands. The tangent stories didn't add to the book and in some cases only served to confuse. The book was originally intended to be a travel book, perhaps the resultant in between story we see, along with the passage of time, has led to the split view.

Moving on to Cutting for Stone, this was a dense book which contained a great deal of medical language and several story threads, upsetting in places which meant that some of our readers did not enjoy the book. We all agreed that this is perhaps a book we would not normally read, but the opportunity to review it was welcomed. Those in the group that enjoyed the book found the story compelling and very sad in many places, but once past the first section of the book you wanted to follow the life of the Stone twins and their extended family and connections.