What We're Reading this January

In our Book Club discussions this month:

What we're reading in Sutton

Many people can only dream about leaving everything to run off and live on a Greek island but for four years in the early 1980's James Chatto and his wife Wendy Martin did just that. This beautiful and touching memoir recounts not only the idyllic nature of Greece which initially seduced them to stay but also how they came to be accepted as locals following the birth of their first son and the tragic illness of their second.

The Sutton Book Club meets Tuesday, January 30th, 7:30pm at the Peter Gzowski Branch.

What we're reading in Keswick

Set in the first half of the twentieth century, but reaching back to Bavaria in the late nineteenth century, The Stone Carvers weaves together the story of ordinary lives marked by obsession and transformed by art. At the centre of a large cast of characters is Klara Becker, the granddaughter of a master carver, a seamstress haunted by a love affair cut short by the First World War, and by the frequent disappearances of her brother Tilman, afflicted since childhood with wanderlust. From Ontario, they are swept into a colossal venture in Europe years later, as Toronto sculptor Walter Allward’s ambitious plans begin to take shape for a war memorial at Vimy, France. Spanning three decades, and moving from a German-settled village in Ontario to Europe after the Great War, The Stone Carvers follows the paths of immigrants, labourers, and dreamers. Vivid, dark, redemptive, this is novel of great beauty and power.

The Keswick Book Club meets Tuesday, January 30, 7pm, at the Keswick Branch

What we're reading in Pefferlaw

Before his return to the U.S. after a 20-year residence in England, journalist Bryson (Made in America) embarked on a farewell tour of his adopted homeland. His trenchant, witty and detailed observations of life in a variety of towns and villages will delight Anglophiles. Traveling only on public transportation and hiking whenever possible, Bryson wandered along the coast through Bournemouth and neighboring villages that reinforced his image of Britons as a people who rarely complain and are delighted by such small pleasures as a good tea. In Liverpool, the author's favorite English city, he visited the Merseyside Maritime Museum to experience its past as a great port. Interweaving descriptions of landscapes and everyday encounters with shopkeepers, pub customers and fellow travelers, Bryson shares what he loves best about the idiosyncrasies of everyday English life in this immensely entertaining travel memoir. Author tour. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Pefferlaw Book Club meets, Thursday, February 1st, 1:30pm, at the Pefferlaw Branch.