Cramlington Book Club

The Cuckoos Calling – Robert Galbraith We all approached this one knowing it was written by JK Rowling who of course wrote the Harry Potter novels or in this instance the He Who Must Not Be Named novels. Much to my surprise we had a couple of members who had not read any Harry Pot… sorry… He Who Must Not Be Named and some who had read one or two but hadn’t liked them. Really?? Some of us had read The Casual Vacancy Rowling’s first effort at published adult fiction (not me) but nobody seemed overly impressed by it. So I was curious as to how this book would be reviewed. We initially discussed why Rowling wrote under a pen name. I could certainly understand why she would want to – clean break, to prove to herself more than anyone that she can write successful adult fiction however we were all a little bit sceptical as to the leak to the press. It all worked out very conveniently in the end. I was curious as to why she choose a male name – Robert. J.K. I suppose was open to interp...

I wasn’t too bothered about this one when it was suggested to be honest. It looked a bit light weight and I generally don’t laugh out loud when my husband does at the Big Bang, The IT Crowd, the Inbetweeneers (Insert other similar funny things here) so thought a book described as ‘comical genius’ wasn’t really going to do it for me. Nevertheless I bought it and proceeded to boldly go where I have not gone before and read my first comedy novel. And yes I did find it funny at times. I wasn’t wiping the tears from my eyes but it did raise a smile more than once. I think it was because it was a very visual book and by that I don’t mean there are descriptions of scenery and starry skies. You could just totally see the dance scene taking place as you were reading it and the part where Don tries to buy Claudia a scarf in New York. We all decided it would make a brilliant play or even television show and reading the authors notes it does appear as though it was originally written with thi...

It’s New Year again already so time for a quick look back at the books we reviewed in 2013. Just a quick bonus blog as I’m very busy running and not eating chocolate (it is January) The stand out books for me this year were without doubt Jojo Moyes – Me Before You and The Husbands Secret – Liane Moriarty. It’s hard to pick my favourite out of the 2 as they are quite different but I think for surprising me the most and teaching me never to judge a book by its cover I will choose Me Before You. It made me cry! Must not eat chocolate Worst book We have had a few 5.5 looking back at the scores – Gone Girl, Sense of an Ending, Half the human Race but the lowest result from pretty much every one was Christmas Magic. Not about Christmas, too repetitive and predictable. Didn’t even give off a warm feel good Christmas glow that would have enabled us to give it higher marks. I do not want to eat chocolate. Really. No I don’t. Most attendance We now have a massive 13 members and to...

New Year, new book club – we had to review TWO books this time which is a first and at first a tall order (or so I thought). However even when working right up until Christmas Eve and having more Christmas parties than you could shake a stick at, by New Year I had read them both and was in fact on my second post book club book(s) read. Trueman Capote in Cold Blood and Dark Fire CJ Sansom if you must know. The Silent Wife – ASA Harrison was first on my list as I managed to sneak it in with the weekly shop at ASDA. I read this book super quickly as I found Harrison had an uncanny knack of getting me to read the next chapter without me even noticing. Never the less I found the book dragged and wanted the plot to move on quicker. I didn’t like any of the characters even Jodi which confused me. On the face of it why wouldn’t I like Jodi – a badly wronged wife who was having her home taken away from her by her cheating husband who had gotten a girl half her age pregnant? I should have ...

Short and sweet this one as its Christmas and there are so many things still to do and so little time I didn’t like this book and to be honest I think I knew I wasn’t going to before I started to read it. A collection of short stories all based in Ireland some of which feature Christmas some don’t. Which was the first part I found strange. Why call a book Christmas Magic but then make it not about Christmas? Nobody is going to buy this book in July with a title like that so why not call it something else with a story or two in about Christmas? Since the meeting I have noticed a flood of Christmas books in the supermarkets which leads me to think this is probably another one that is cashing in on the season. I was only present (Christmas book club – present get it? Sorry!) for the first half of the meeting as a Christmas Party beckoned. I didn’t really get chance to properly speak to people about the book but in the short time I was there I got the impression that I wasn’t alone wit...

They say you should never judge a book by its cover but let us do just that in this case. The cover is quite simple - a glass jar (not a box) holding a butterfly, a beautiful butterfly. But oh how that simple jar and butterfly speak volumes (queue the media studies A grade A level student going into hyper drive) Firstly the jar and how (as Moriarty was quick to inform us) it was a jar that Pandora opened not a box as so commonly quoted. And we all know that Pandora opened the box and let loose all manner of things. Cue Celia opening John Pauls letter Secondly the jar is a glass one, designed to keep things in, yet so easy to open. Like an envelope. Yet if the jar is smashed all we are left are its fragments that we have to try to piece back together, possibly injuring ourselves in the process only to find its not repairable. Like Celia discovering that really it’s impossible to recover intact from a secret like John Pauls Next there is the butterfly, so fragile, so easily...

I’m calling this book ‘the creeper’. It got under my skin without me noticing it and suddenly I put it down one day and thought, I love this book! It’s strange as nothing really happens as such – it’s certainly not a plot driven book – but I really thought this worked. The book lounged on like you would in the heat that the author so brilliantly described. Despite this, it is not a boring book and you do want to know how it all works out. So much so that one member of the group didn’t come to the meeting as she hadn’t finished reading the book and she didn’t want to find out the end! I give real credit to the author for not to make it another murder/thriller book which it so easily could have ended up being. Instead it was a brilliantly written book based around 5 main characters all of whom had a section in the book. I will start with Nick as I thought she (yes she not he) was central to the book. One member commented that she was like gravity, everyone pulled towards her even if it...