CCFB - Cercle de Lecture 2019-2020
SCHEDULE and SELECTED READING LIST:
PROPOSED MEETING DATES:
Session 1 - Monday 28th October: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. (Published by Alfred A. Knopf, 2013). 477 pages. ISBN: 978-0-307-96212-6
Session 2 - Monday 16th December: The Runaways by Fatima Bhutto (Published by Viking, 2018). 432 pages. ISBN: 0241346991 (ISBN13: 9780241346990)
Session 3 - Monday 3rd February: Good Omens - The Nice & Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman (First published in 1990. New edition published by William Morrow, 2006). 412 pages. ISBN: 0060853980 (ISBN13: 9780060853983)
Session 4 - Monday 23rd March: Warlight by Michael Ondaatje (Published by Jonathan Cape, 2018). 304 pages. ISBN: 1787330729 (ISBN13: 9781787330726)
Session 5 - Monday 11th May: I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh (Published by Sphere, 2014). 371 pages. ISBN: 0751554154 (ISBN13: 9780751554151)
Session 6 - Monday 22nd June: Right Ho, Jeeves by PG Wodehouse (First published 1934. New edition published by WW Norton Company, 2011). 272 pages. ISBN: 0393339785 (ISBN13: 9780393339789)
CCFB - Cercle de Lecture 2019-2020
BOOK 1: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (a Nigerian author)
Americanah tells the story of a young Nigerian woman, Ifemelu, who immigrates to the United States to attend university. The novel traces Ifemelu's life in both countries, threaded by her love story with high school classmate Obinze. It was Adichie's third novel, published on May 14, 2013 by Alfred A. Knopf. A television miniseries, starring and produced by Lupita Nyong'o, is currently in development. As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Nigeria at the time is under military dictatorship, and people are seeking to leave the country. Ifemelu departs for the United States to study. Through her experiences in relationships and studies, she struggles with the experience of racism in American culture, and the many varieties of racial distinctions. Upon coming to America, Ifemelu discovered for the first time what it means to be a "Black Person”. Obinze, son of a professor, had hoped to join her in the US but he is denied a visa after 9/11. He goes to London, eventually becoming an undocumented immigrant after his visa expires.
Years later, Obinze returns to Nigeria and becomes a wealthy man as a property developer in the newly democratic country. Ifemelu gains success in the United States, where she becomes known for her blog about race in America, entitled "Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non- American Black”. When Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, the two consider the viability of reviving a relationship in light of their diverging experiences during their many years apart.
The critically-acclaimed book was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013 by the editors of the New York Times Book Review. It won the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award (Fiction), and was shortlisted for the 2014 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction of the United Kingdom. The Chicago Tribune awarded Adichie its 2013 Heartland Award for Fiction, "recogniz[ing Americanah as a novel that engages with important ideas about race, and does so with style, wit and insight. In March 2017, Americanah was picked as the winner for the "One Book, One New York" program, part of a community reading initiative encouraging all city residents to read the same book.
BOOK 2: The Runaways by Fatima Bhutto (a Pakistani author)
In 1998, at the age of 15, Fatima Bhutto published her first book named Whispers of The Desert. Her second book 8.50 a.m. 8 October 2005 marks the moment of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake; it records accounts of those affected. In 2010 her family memoir Songs of Blood and Sword was published with acclaim. In the book Bhutto accuses her aunt Benazir and her husband Asif Zardari for killing her father Murtaza. The book got mixed to negative review from critics for being biased on history of her family. Several family members have accused her of falsifying information. In November 2013, her first fictional novel The Shadow Of The Crescent Moon published. The book had long-listed in 2014 for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. In 2015 Bhutto's short story titled Democracy, an e-book, under Penguin Books was released. Bhutto's latest novel The Runaways is published by Penguin Viking. Anita lives in Karachi's biggest slum. Her mother is a maalish wali, paid to massage the tired bones of rich women. But Anita's life will change forever when she meets her elderly neighbour, a man whose shelves of books promise an escape to a different world.
On the other side of Karachi lives Monty, whose father owns half the city and expects great things of him. But when a beautiful and rebellious girl joins his school, Monty will find his life going in a very different direction. Sunny's father left India and went to England to give his son the opportunities he never had. Yet Sunny doesn't fit in anywhere. It's only when his charismatic cousin comes back into his life that he realises his life could hold more possibilities than he ever imagined.
These three lives will cross in the desert, a place where life and death walk hand in hand, and where their closely guarded secrets will force them to make a terrible choice.
BOOK 3: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman (British authors)
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (1990) is a World Fantasy Award- nominated novel written as a collaboration between the English authors Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. The book is a comedy about the birth of the son of Satan and the coming of the End Times. There are attempts by the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley to sabotage the coming of the end times, having grown accustomed to their comfortable surroundings in England. One subplot features a mixup at the small country hospital on the day of birth and the growth of the Antichrist, Adam, who grows up with the wrong family, in the wrong country village. Another subplot concerns the summoning of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, each a big personality in their own right. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 68 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.
BOOK 4: Warlight by Michael Ondaatje (a Canadian author)
In London near the end of World War II, 14-year-old Nathaniel and his sister Rachel are left in the care of an enigmatic figure named The Moth, their parents having moved to Singapore. The Moth affiliates with a motley group of eccentric, mysterious, and in some ways nefarious characters who dominate the children's experience early in the postwar period. Warlight reached The New York Times Best Seller list within the month of its publication, and in July 2018 was longlisted among thirteen novels for the Man Booker Prize.
In 1945 at the end of the war, Nathaniel's father and mother decide to leave London for a year to go to Singapore, where Nathaniel's father is being stationed. The parents decide to leave their children, 14 year old Nathaniel and his older sister Rachel, in the care of their lodger, Walter, known as The Moth. The children both have the impression that The Moth is a thief. Nathaniel's mother claims to know The Moth because they were both in charge of fire watching at the Grosvenor House Hotel during the war, but their stories about the war imply that they had other, secretive war jobs.
BOOK 5: I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh (a British author)
Clare Mackintosh's debut novel I Let You Go was a Richard & Judy Book Club pick. It won Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award in 2016, beating J K Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith. In October 2016, the French translation of I Let You Go (Te Laisser Partir) won "best international novel" at the Cognac Festival Prix du Polar awards. In March 2017 publisher Little, Brown announced that I Let You Go has sold over one million copies worldwide.
Her second novel, I See You, was also a Richard & Judy Book Club pick, winning the readers' vote. It charted at number 1 in The Sunday Times original fiction list and was shortlisted for Crime & Thriller Book of the Year in the British Book Awards. In March 2018 Mackintosh published her third novel, Let Me Lie, which charted at number 1 in The Sunday Times original fiction list. It was chosen as a Richard and Judy book club book in December 2018.
In a split second, Jenna Gray's world descends into a nightmare. Her only hope of moving on is to walk away from everything she knows to start afresh. Desperate to escape, Jenna moves to a remote cottage on the Welsh coast, but she is haunted by her fears, her grief and her memories of a cruel November night that changed her life forever. Slowly, Jenna begins to glimpse the potential for happiness in her future. But her past is about to catch up with her, and the consequences will be devastating
BOOK 6: Right Ho, Jeeves! by P.G. Wodehouse (a British author)
Right Ho, Jeeves is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, the second full-length novel featuring the popular characters Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, after Thank You, Jeeves. It was first published in the United Kingdom on 5 October 1934 by Herbert Jenkins, London, and in the United States on 15 October 1934 by Little, Brown and Company, Boston, under the title Brinkley Manor. It had also been sold to the Saturday Evening Post, in which it appeared in serial form from 23 December 1933 to 27 January 1934, and in England in the
Grand Magazine from April to September 1934. Wodehouse had already started planning this sequel while working on Thank You, Jeeves.The story is mostly set at Brinkley Court, the home of Bertie's Aunt Dahlia, and introduces the recurring characters Gussie Fink-Nottle and Madeline Bassett. Bertie's friend Tuppy Glossop and cousin Angela Travers also feature in the novel, as does Brinkley Court's prized chef, Anatole.
Bertie returns to London from several weeks in Cannes spent in the company of his Aunt Dahlia Travers and her daughter Angela. In Bertie's absence, Jeeves has been advising Bertie's old school friend, Gussie Fink- Nottle, who is in love with a goofy, sentimental, whimsical, childish girl named Madeline Bassett. Gussie, a shy teetotaller with a passion for newts and a face like a fish, is too timid to speak to her. Bertie is annoyed that his friends consider Jeeves more intelligent than Bertie, and he takes Gussie's case in hand, ordering Jeeves not to offer any more advice.
Madeline, a friend of Bertie's cousin Angela, is staying at Brinkley Court (country seat of Aunt Dahlia and Uncle Tom). Aunt Dahlia demands that Bertie come to Brinkley Court to make a speech and present the school prizes to students at the local grammar school, which he considers a fearsome task. Bertie sends Gussie to Brinkley Court in his place, so that Gussie will have the chance to woo Madeline there, but also so that Gussie will be forced to take on the unpleasant job of distributing the school prizes. When Angela breaks her engagement to the athletic but heavy Tuppy Glossop, Bertie feels obliged to go down to Brinkley Court to comfort Aunt Dahlia.
In addition to her worry about Angela's broken engagement, Aunt Dahlia is anxious because she has lost 500 pounds gambling at Cannes, and now needs to ask her miserly husband Tom to replace the money in order to keep financing her magazine, Milady's Boudoir. Bertie advises her to arouse Uncle Tom's concern for her by pretending to have lost her appetite through worry. He offers similar advice to Tuppy, to win back Angela. He also offers the same advice to Gussie, to show his love for Madeline. All take his advice, and the resulting return of plates of untasted food upsets Aunt Dahlia's temperamental prized chef Anatole, who gives notice to quit. Not unreasonably, Aunt Dahlia blames Bertie for this disaster.
Old-fashioned ‘So British’ humour!