The book for discussion tonight at my book club was ‘And The Mountains Echoed’ by Khaled Hosseini. We got together at Phil’s place for 7:30 and sat down with glasses of wine, cups of tea, and nibblies.
So what did we discuss?
- the new décor in Phil’s sitting room
- decorating in general and the problems of carpets vs wooden floors
- Sue’s new business
- the problems with puppies
- Andrea’s degree course
- Phil’s new furniture and curtains
- Judith getting locked in the back seat of the car because there are child-locks on the doors and having to attract the attention of a passer-by to let her out
- the nice nibblies Phil had got from Lidl
- Phil’s mum’s swivel chairs
- my new novel and my National Novel Writing Month experience
- what other books we’ve been reading… most of which we couldn’t remember
- ‘And The Mountains Echoed’
- Judith’s experiences in Pakistan
- who wrote ‘The Alexandrian Quartet’ (no it wasn’t Gerald but Laurence Durrell)
- how nice the nibblies were
- ‘And The Mountains Echoed’
- whether English women in the seventeenth and eighteenth century were in a similar social position to many Afghani women today
- how good-looking Khaled Hosseini is
- when we are meeting next year
- how nice Phil’s room looks
- what we are reading next year
- what we are reading now
- what we are watching on TV at the moment
- ‘And The Mountains Echoed’
- what was it we were reading next year?
- Andrea’s adventures at the dental hospital
- how we were looking forward to the post-Christmas get-together and what we should bring
- … and last of all, how much we enjoyed our book club meetings!
Lois Elsden 
So glad your book club sounds like mine! The only things you left out were: was it red or white wine you wanted? And how do you like your tea? Or just what had our local magistrate (one of our members is one) been called out in the middle of the night to sign this month…? she always has some good tales to tell.
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We could be twinned with your group… I did leave out the red/white wine question, you’re right!
The next book we’re reading is Kate Atkinson ‘Case Histories’ and the biography of Patrick Leigh Fermor by Artemis Cooper.
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And is this a Polish book group?
Ours meets tomorrow at mine but the book discussion will be brief as it is Xmas party time and we have been planning who brings what.. have we got enough mains? enough desserts? important that last item!. The book we will be discussing is Maggie Farrell’s “Instructions for a Heatwave”. I’ll let you know what else we discussed later!
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I look forward to hearing about it! No we’re not Polish… but we’re good at polish-ing off any of the delicious snacks provided! We are having our Christmas celebration in January as we seem to busy before then!
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biedronka online
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Ah but I keep seeing some Polish on your site eg biedronka polsce comment on Dec 12th… I just wonder if it is spam?
Now as for the book club Xmas party – everyone enjoyed it greatly and it was held at our house. We did spend an hour plus (!!!) talking about our book ‘Instructions for a Heatwave’ but this also included reminiscing about what had happened to us in 1976. I remembered living in Sheffield and the tourist trail to the reservoirs to see all the buried villages emerging out of the water. Others remembered the lack of water to bathe in; the water stands at the end of streets; and the instructions to shower together. Lucky we didn’t shower twice a day someone said – I only do that when it is as hot as it was in 1976! There was also the comment about had we recovered our sofas – no they were new; how nice some of our paintings were – all originals; discussions about Irish families and their behaviour; talk about the signs that went up in the 60s and 70s saying ‘no blacks, no Irish and no dogs’; the fact that one our group’s Irish mother was refused service in a shop as this was all around the time of the IRA bombings; so lots of talk about the bombings and just how close to some of them some of us were; and how our Irish member was abused one day as she had been evacuated due to a suspected bomb and people accused her of being IRA and planting it…!; how nice the first course – someone had made some really nice African inspired mini pastries and we ate them whilst talking; and lots of ‘when can I start eating?’ from my husband who was the wine pourer….
Then we got stuck in to the party food, but there was too much pudding even for us and so much was taken home!
So some serious talk but then it all got very light. but we had managed to organise our book but one for February – ‘Offshore’ by Penelope Fitzgerald, and who was going to host it…and I immediately bought it on my new Kindle which was much admired (a Kindle Fire – the old one they were selling cheap as there was a new version coming out and mine had packed in and gone the way of any 2 year old electronic device at exactly the same week as my phone packed in its life – also two years old!).
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Hey there! I know this is kinda off topic however I’d figured I’d ask.
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Hi there – not quite sure who you aimed this comment at – i see that you have a diet youtube site rather than a site about books – not really a blog is it?
Lois: our next book club meeting will be late Jan – so let you know the topics after that! Have a Happy New Year!
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