GROUP GRIPES

My attempt to enact one of my new year resolutions - to join and participate in a book group - is floundering on the rocks of circumstance (and, actually, ineptitude).

My first attempt centred around Jane Smiley's A Private Life. I really enjoyed this novel, which intertwines a beautifully observed, sterile marriage with the major events of early modern American history, taking in theology and science en route. One cannot, however, number brevity amongst its qualities, and I could not make the time to read it before my local book group met. Incidentally, the book has now joined that previously cited pantheon, Books Enjoyed By Both My Wife And I.

Nothing daunted, I noted and bought the next selected tome, Rosamund Pilcher's The Shell Seekers, only to discover subsequently that the date for the group to discuss this novel fell during my visit to New York for the Book Expo.

It has not escaped my attention that the choice of books so far has fallen exclusively into the Large Novels by Female Authors category. If I ever actually get to a meeting, become an influential member and rise to the dizzy height of selecting a work to discuss, it may well be a haiku.


David