The Hound of the
Baskervilles – Arthur Conan Doyle written 1901
Final
comment – If we came across another Holmes on the shelf, we would
read it. We thought that we wouldn't actively seek it out.
We
were surprised by how undated it seemed. Change a few physical things
like the hansom cabs and it could be valid today. It had a great set
of characters. Especially noted were Cartright and the lawyer that
spent his own money arguing any case, and even both sides of a case.
Conan
Doyle has a deceptively simple sort of writing that carries you
along. It is spare, with nothing extraneous. It was a nice easy
read. A first Conan Doyle experience for one of us, and a flash back
to our youths for many of us.
It
was noted that Phrenology had also come up in The Siege of
Krishnapur last month. Conan Doyle had a number of strange
interests.
It
was commented that the Sister/brother relationship was contrived, but
Liz pointed out that there were a lot of cases like that in the
Bible.
Mark
was 7, with +/- 1 variation.
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Flight Behaviour -
Barbara Kingsolver 2012
A
good Book Club choice – everybody read it and the marks varied
widely.
Comments
were on the lines of:
- Struggled to read it due to expectations of Kingsolver. She writes better than this. It didn't flow
- Depressing picture of Society – unfulfilled lives
- Didn't like the book hitting us over the head with ecology
We
expected the Mexican characters to feature more, as they came from
the home of the butterflies.
Liked
some of the comic bits – Preston getting his encyclopaedia, Dovie
videoing the TV interview.
Concern
about the children and poverty,
the
husband was a simple soul, without ambition; she had an unstretched
brain. It was nice to see her develop an enquiring mind as she got
involved with the science.
Ros
thoroughly enjoyed it, thought she did a good job trying to explain
global warming in simple terms, and we all learnt a lot about the
life cycle of butterflies. Others hated the way we were beaten up
again and again about climate change. Called it heavy propagandising.
Dellarobia
was proving a point to her Mother-in-law by staying put, but once she
learnt more about Hester she didn't have to, so took the other
turning.
We
could see where Dellarobia was coming from, how she married because
she had to, made a wrong decision and everything that followed was a
result of that. But, she fought and found a way out. It started with
a sort of suicide, She was desperate to get out of her life. Working
with the scientists and developing her self knowledge gave her the
confidence in her abilities.
It
was pointed out that the headings of the chapters were sociological
and economics terms that grew around the story.
Generally
people thought that 'Prodigal Summer' was better.
Another
comment was that the book was too long, but once she reached page xxx
the author shut it down quickly It was a flawed book, and that make
it easy to analyse.
Mark
6.5 varying from 4 to 9
