Summer reading

I'm in a book group and each year the members put forward their suggestions for the twelve months ahead. Each person is given just a minute or two to 'sell' their proposal, which will later be put to the vote.

Ours is a very sociable group. Everyone brings a contribution to the meal and we always eat well and have a lot of opinions!

 I have learnt to beware the choices of the silver-tongued Welshman in our group, but this year all was forgiven because he suggested 'Tender'. I hadn't read it for over thirty years and couldn't find my old copy anywhere. I bought a new edition at the airport terminal and was so pleased that I did so, not only an excellent introduction to the novel, but also Scott Fitzgerald's original structure. 

My new book starts on the beach and we first see Nicole and Dick Diver through other characters' eyes. Their history is only later revealed in flashback. I much preferred this structure, it is how we get to know people in real life. 

It was the perfect book to read whilst lying under a woven sunshade in total indolence, having noted with satisfaction that the sand each morning had been carefully raked!

I find this such a moving book. Making the link between Dick and Fitzgerald's own life, it disturbs me that he could write so knowingly of all that goes wrong and yet do nothing to help himself. The ending is very quietly and ironically written, which makes it incredibly powerful.

Of course, as soon as I got home, not one, but two copies of the book were easily spotted in the bookcase! Both were the reconstructed text, where the 'flashback' chapters had been rearranged to be in chronological order.

I looked a little more carefully along the bookshelves and discovered three books of his short stories. And 'Love in the Night' even ends happily - how wonderful is that!

A book group choice that I absolutely HATED (suggested by the infamous Welshman!) was Ivy Compton-Burnett's,  'A Heritage and it's History'. It befell me to introduce it, so I know far more about her than I would wish to know, having plowed through a large and, oh, so thorough biography. her writing seemed to me to be everything that Fitzgerald's is not.

If you are a fan of her work, please explain to me why.

  
This was another book group choice for this summer and demonstrates why it's so good to be in a group. I didn't vote for it. Beneath the title it states, "his masterpiece of war and military life." That and a name that sounds like a member of the rat pack would be enough for me to ignore the book completely. But other members voted it in, and I'm so glad that they did. It defied all my expectations.

The other books that I read come from the fortnightly mobile library, which very conveniently stops right outside our gate. There isn't a huge choice, and it is pot luck as to what's on the bus.

'The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society' was a happy choice, one of those feel good novels that it's great to escape into now and then.

For our next book group meeting I'm reading 'What I Loved'. Not very impressed so far, and I keep arguing with the main character's/author's statements about art, among other complaints.

Should make for a lively evening!