Reading Down the Decades…

RoomToWrite__________________________Reading Down the Decades…___________A FREE Event

A Unique Book Club For Readers and Writers

On the third Saturday of June, August, October & December 2011 RoomToWrite invite  a group of keen readers to join us in Reading Down the Decades where we will discuss iconic novels which define the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s.

This unique group will meet every two months in comfortable places, fortified by delicious tea and cakes. The group will be led by experienced writers and informed readers Wendy Robertson, Gillian Wales and Avril Joy

The books we propose to read are as follows:- (Each second month members of the groups are free to read one, two or three of these fine novels to be ready to join the discussion)

3-5pm Saturday 19^th June

1960s - The Beatles- First Man in Space –Average House Price £2,530- Coronation St starts  – First Concorde Flight …

Novels

John Le Carré The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.

The archetypical espionage novel, set in Berlin during the Cold War.

Harper Lee To Kill a Mocking Bird.

A novel of racial prejudice in 1930s Alabama in which a white woman accuses an innocent black man of rape.

Jean Rhys the Wide Sargosso Sea.

Set in Jamaica in 1830s, tells of the life of the first Mrs. Rochester, the ‘madwoman in the attic’ in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.

2-5pm Saturday 20^th August

1970s – Martin Luther King assassinated – Feminism emerges –Bell Bottom Trousers and Platform Shoes – ‘The Exorcist’ …

Novels

Graham Greene The Human Factor.

Maurice Castle is an aging bureaucrat in MI6. Married to a black African woman with whom he fell in love during his previous stint in apartheid South Africa, he now lives a quiet life in the suburbs and looks forward to retirement. As the book begins, however, a leak has been traced to the African section in London where he works and threatens to disrupt this precarious tranquility.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Heat and Dust

A Grand-daughter journeys to India to uncover the truth behind a family scandal.

Ian McEwan the Cement Garden

Four siblings cope with the death of their parents in an unusual fashion.

 

 

3-5pm Saturday 15^th October

1980s – Fall of the Berlin Wall – First Artificial Heart Transplant – Power dressing for women: make-up for men – Cabbage patch dolls…

Novels

Thomas Harris The Red Dragon

A special agent comes out of retirement to track down a serial killer.  (Notable for the first appearance of Hannibal Lecter from ‘Silence of the Lambs’).

Bernard MacLaverty Lamb

Brother Sebastian leaves his life in the Borstal where he works and escapes to England with a 12 year old boy. This moving novel tells of their doomed misadventures

Toni Morrison Beloved.

The book follows the story of Sethe and her daughter Denver as they try to rebuild their lives after having escaped from slavery. 124 Bluestone, the house they inhabit, is haunted the ghost of Sethe’s murdered daughter which has repercussions on the lives of all in the household.

3-5pm SaturdayDecember 17^th

1990s – Rise of New Labour – New Kids on the Block – Fitness fads – Laptops, pashminas and mobile phones…

Novels

Pat Barker Regeneration

First of a trilogy, a retelling of the story of British combatants in the First World |War. At its focus, the work of Dr William Rivers, a real person, whose job was to deal with men traumatised by their time in the trenches.

John McGahern Amongst Women.

As his family gather around his death bed, War of Independence veteran, Moran, is forced to revisit his past.

William Trevor Reading Turgenev

Set in a small Irish town, Mary, married to a man twice her age, meets up with her childhood sweetheart and past love is ignited with tragic results.

 

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