Cyrano de Bergerac

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. Time to read another play, and a classic at that. The only other items I can remember on the shortlist were the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Odyssey.

We meet in December for this one.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John Le Carre. A great book, morally ambiguous, interesting, and I'm planning to read his others.

The Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan

The Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan. Well, it's a better science book than the Canon was - it's from a real scientist and a real communicator.

Put together by his widow from the notes and transcripts of a lecture series Sagan did in Scotland, it has an over-ambitious title (the lectures were given in Glasgow in the same place where William James gave the lectures that became The Varieties of Religious Experience ).

It's a good run-through of relations between science and religion in the 1980s and, for me, shows just how much better things could be if they weren't so polarised.

However, it is slightly dated, and suffers from the fact that it is lecture notes - not a "proper" book.

The Gaze by Elif Shafak

The Gaze by Elif Shafak - a Turkish woman, writing about an overweight woman and her lover, a dwarf, who find they can go out unremarked when they both cross-dress. It's got a bunch of other stories in different times, including a woman who is part cat, and some tented show featuring the most beautiful and ugly things in the world.

It seemed kind of affected, till some emotional gears started to mesh two-thirds of the way through, but then it sort of dwindled after that.

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban - a cult book, written in a post-Apocalyptic version of the English language, about the rebirth of culture, through gunpowder and Punch and Judy.

Stunning, and one that stays with you a long time.

The Room Of Lost Things

The Room of Lost Things by Stella Duffy is a Brixton book, and one of the best ones I've read. About an old white man handing over his life's work, a dry cleaner's in Coldharbour Lane, to a young Muslim. There are plenty of characters, and lots of scenes that completely bring Brixton back to life for me. And the ending is a quiet shock.

(April 2011)

Frankenstein

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley turned out to be an interesting read. Profound and moving, though the plot seemed so strange, and it was completely soaked in Mary Shelley's life.

I wondered if the book could consistently be read so that the monster was actually a figment of Victor's imagination, and he actually committed the murders himself. You would have to rewrite parts quite a lot, but basically no one ever sees the monster, except the ship's captain and Victor. And Victor's alibis are strong but not completely unshakeable.

Of course, it turns out that Peter Ackroyd has already done this version.

I also watched Young Frankenstein and read Brian Aldiss's Frankenstein Unbound - neither of which I'd got round to before. The Aldiss book is very interesting.

The Towers Of Trebizond

We've had this on the shortlist a couple of times, because someone in the group heard that it has what is often quoted as the best opening sentence ever: '"Take my camel, dear", said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.'

The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay is a cult book for High Anglicans, and very funny and perceptive about the Middle East. It is a marvellous read, with a moving kick to it. It is also, apparently, autobiographical.

(January 2011)

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (December 2010). Catching up on those books we should have read, and also picking up on classics that are comfortably short.

Dorian Gray is a great book - that scarcely needs to be said. It's got masses of intelligence, flavour and interest, and it is a book that seems like a key to the time it was written. there are odd parts to it, and it's clearly been written and rewritten with an eye on what the public will think, but this really is a book everyone should read.

The Canon - The Beautiful Basics Of Science

The Canon by Natalie Angier (October 2010). It's a travesty of science writing, and we hated it. I advise anyone to stay away.

Instead of actually explaining anything (apart from a good bit about probability near the beginning), Angier layers on inconsequential and irritating drivel about her life, namde-dropping a lot of scientists she has met.

It doesn't give you the basic esssentials of science, it doesn't make them clearer, and it doesn't make connections. I think it's the biggest failure we have read.

The Horse's Mouth

Taking books to a boot sale, I failed to get rid of this one. In fact, someone came up, bought it, and gave it back to me, saying. "This is my favourite book. I have it already. I have bought it for you."

The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Carey is about an artist with a massive urge to make art, and an inability to actually relate to people. It's full of beautiful painterly descriptions of London scenes from the 1940s, with a massively appropriate Stanley Spencer picture on the cover.

We liked it, and I want to track down the film... starring and written by Alec Guiness, directed by Ronald Neame.

The Good Doctor

The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut on June 23, 2010.

Interesting slightly Graham Greene-ish novel about post-apartheid South Africa, and goings on at a hospital a long way from the country's sentre.

A Dog's Heart

A Dog's Heart by Mikhail Bukgakov, 12 May.

Satirical and dark. Well worth a read.

The Great Gatsby

By F Scott Fitzgerald, April 14 2010

Reading Lolita in Tehran

Next up -Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. A literary memoir about a woman reading forbidden Western literature in post-revolutionary Iran.

Meeting at Omar's on 24th,

Just a thought, but should these ladies by showing so much hair?

Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, regarded as an essential classic. Another alienated young man (is this a pattern, guys?) but this time a black American writing before the Civil Rights movement.

This book changed lives and could be said to have changed American literature. It's also apparently still resonant now and regarded as essential reading by many. American Amazon reviews give you a feel for its impact ("A heartbreaking work of staggering genius" - but also a few heartfelt gripes by school student forced to read it).

We're meeting to talk it over on 13 January at Craig's.

The Mighty Walzer

Ping-pong, sex, alienation and coming of age. Howard Jacobson's Mighty Walzer is somewhat autobiographical, given both Howard and Oliver Walzer grew up Jewish in 1950s Manchester and played ping-pong for Cambridge.

Moving and funny when it's implausible tall stories recollected from youth in Manchester, strangely perfunctory when it moves to adulthood.

We discussed it at Peter's

The Brief and Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, a story of a nerd obsessive boy growing up in New York as part of the diaspora of the Dominican Republic.

Sex, comic books, alienation, comedy and police brutality. Can't miss.

Cry The Beloved Country

Next up Cry The Beloved Country, by Alan Paton.

Meeting place to be confirmed, date probably 9 September.

Notes from Underground

Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground is apparently the world's first "existential novel". Like most of the other books we read, it's an awkward guy - this time to the max: it's the "rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator".

We understand it inspired Taxi Driver and American Psycho (Can we have a nice well-adjusted bloke sometime?)

We're reading it because it made Angus the man he is, and because it's shorter than anything else Dostoevsky wrote.

Discussing it at Craig's on 1 July.