Atonement, our new book choice

I don’t know much about Atonement, either the book or the movie. Having not read a single page yet, my main objection to the book so far is that my copy has a nasty discount sticker plastered all over James McAvoy’s face. How rude!

This is the book chosen for our second Book Night, so I look forward to getting stuck in, once the mulled wine and mince pie endurance test has been won.

The Observer calls this book impressive, engrossing, deep and surprising, so I must be in for a treat, albeit a dark one, as it’s also described as: “a private drama of loss of innocence or betrayal… played out against a larger history of bad faith”.

After the simian satire we’ve just read, it sounds like we’ve hit on something completely different here.  I can’t wait to see which is more to the taste of our group as a whole… Be it a clanger or a winner, I look forward to sharing our views at Book Night II… date TBC.

The first Book Night: me casa, Me Cheeta

My first Book Night has taken place. Over a week ago, to be honest, but Christmas chaos got in the way of me spilling the beans. But here goes:

The day of Book Night arrived and my dog eared copy of Me Cheeta still had 40 unread pages. Scrawls in the margins had to be revisited and notes made (I did study English at University, so old habits die hard!). Nibbles needed to be bought & the house required serious spit and polish before it was fit for guests. That’s not to say that every Book Night would demand such attention… but, as it was the first, I wanted it to be fun and for conversation to flow as easily as the wine… and, most of all, I wanted all three of my Book Buddies to want to continue with Book Night.

My notes were a bridge too far… my theory was that I’d have something at my fingertips to kick start chat about the book if conversation flagged.  I jotted down the themes of the book, strikingly good description, tear-jerking bits, confusing bits and irritating bits.

In the event, of course, hardly any of this was touched upon. Because what I had hoped for happened: we had a very natural, fun chat about the book, discovering quickly that many of our views were the same. The overall impression we got was that Me Cheeta was an interesting concept: a chimp writing a memoir. The idea was funny — aping the celebrity memoir. After all, what difference a ghost writer penning Kerry Katonas autobiography than that of Cheeta, simian star of the Tarzan films?

So, that much we admired. But, where the book fell down for us was the name-dropping of Hollywood icons that we didn’t know, making it hard to distinguish fact from fiction, jokes from serious comment. As one girl said, had Cheeta been talking about Brangelina, our appetite would have been whetted. As it was, many of the names of Hollywood’s Golden Age meant, well, not a lot.

For my part, I was touched by the unexpected love story between Cheeta and Tarzan/Johnny Weissmuller. The story of a meeting between Cheeta and Johnny in their old age is so moving. Maybe it’s my hormones, but I confess to shedding a tear or two.  I also loved the description in the book… like, when an aged Cheeta pines for his Halcyon days being close to Johnny and successful in Hollywood: “My heart has tinnitus, a continuous, faint, high-pitched background scream. Love friend sad stay heart pain big stay heart pain big stay.” 

Cheeta also rips apart Hollywood’s golden shell and reveals something rotten inside. Whether you know of the icons he name-drops, or not, you can’t fail to soak up Cheeta’s impressions of a seedy, animalistic world, not unlike the jungle from which he was “saved”. A world in which Hollywood’s alphas rule and success = survival.

On Book Night, the ratio of social versus literary was heavily weighted on the social — as I had hoped it would be. But, despite picking a book that really didn’t bang my group’s drum, we managed a very respectable 30 minutes “book talk”, sandwiched between banter about anything and everything. It was fun… and there is already talk of Book Night 2, so I’m a happy gal.

Cooking the book: it’s a slow burner

Since the concept of Book Night was thrown into the pot, there followed a froth of bubbling excitement, superseded by a gentle simmer, as books were bought & diaries synchronised. Finally, we have a date in the diary for the first Book Night: Dec 3rd.

Some of us (me included) have not even read the book yet. Me Cheeta has been exceedingly good so far — funny, moving, clever and beautifully written, with impressive descriptive powers (that had me reaching for a pen to underline passage after passage).

But still, I have not finished it. Sleep deprivation (let me use the new parent card just this once) has played a part, easing me into a nasty habit of post-dinner sofa coma. I will do better — and, by Dec 3rd, I’ll have a thing or two to say about that Hollywood chimp’s memoirs.

The key to a good book group read? A healthy bust-up!

Just discovered the Flashlight Worthy site, which is loaded with excellent book recommendations. It’s compiled a list of the top ten books for book groups. The crucial ingredient: to get people thinking… and arguing!

Apparently, the most fruitful book group reads get members tearing strips off one another. After all, if the gang all agreed on a book’s merit, conversation could be dull. The idea is to be provocative, polarising viewpoints and delivering a fur-flying, nerve jangling debate.

So, if you’re feeling brave, here are the ten best books Flashlight Worthy recommends for the job of fuelling an almighty book club fracas.

Amazon Kindle versus the romance of books

The smell of ink on paper, the touch of the page between your fingers, the joy of opening a pristine new book… versus soul-less electronic reading devices like the new Amazon Kindle. So you may have guessed which camp I’m in.

While I’m not exactly sitting on the fence, I am trying to be objective. But, to me, e-readers seem like a solution to a problem that just doesn’t exist. They take about as much space in your handbag as, um, a paperback. And Amazon boasts that the pages read “like real paper, with no glare”. Ah, just like a book then.

I’ve always thought that the expression “You can’t judge a book by its cover” was, frankly, wrong. Which is why I would lament the loss of a beautifully illustrated book covers: in its stead an ugly plastic case as the gateway to your favourite stories.

To be honest, I’m usually a sucker for “pretty tech”. But, even if Apple get on board and make e-readers in every Opal Fruit shade, I will remain steadfast in my view: long live books!

The first Book Night: gathering a book group

The most difficult thing about planning a Book Night is recruiting a bunch of folks to enjoy it with you. To some (me included), broaching the subject can be a nerve wracking thing.

Thank you, email. It is the greatest way to overcome embarrassment. I put an email together suggesting the idea of forming a reading group and sent it to friends I thought (hoped) might think it was a good idea. I pressed “send”, released my email into the ether and squirmed in my seat. It was as if I had sent an email revealing a penchant for train spotting. I felt flushed with self-consciousness until the first positive response came back.

Ah ha! One of my friends was equally sick of reading her toddler’s choice of books and never thumbing the pages of anything more stimulating than Maisy's Bathtime. Another two friends got back to me to say they were “in!” and — hey presto — my debut Book Night was in the making.

The Game Cook: Inspired by banter at the New Street Butchers

New Street in Horsham is a residential street lined with Victorian terraced houses. Nothing special about it you might think. But you’d be wrong.

In a small parade of shops, you’ll find the New Street Butchers, which is a very special place indeed. Unless a vegetarian, you can’t fail to love what they sell: an array of every delectable meat you can imagine, designed not just to provide sustenance, but a mouthwatering gourmet experience. Animals reared with care by local farmers and prepared by skilled master butchers who take the time to learn your name (and remember what you bought last time).

Almost as good as the beef is the banter — the family run team make it their business to be in good humour and make customers feel looked after. This butchers, despite being a walk from Horsham’s centre, is a jewel in the town’s crown and attracts custom from far and wide. Among them, me. And Norman Tebbit.

My experience and Tebbit’s is that once you’re a customer, you’re a regular. Supermarket meat never tastes as good. Your curiosity about how to cook things you’ve never tried before is aroused. Which is why my eyes were drawn to a book on the counter when I last visited — a book called The Game Cook, written by Tebbit himself.

A relic of Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet, he makes an unlikely celebrity chef for the noughties, but the idea is inspired. I confess to being a little unsure as to what constituted “game” until I looked at the book, but I now know it to be any wild animal that is hunted for food, including pheasant, goose, partridge, quail and rabbit. And, despite the objections that many have to hunting, game is an incredibly eco-friendly food. So the book, although presented in quite an old fashioned style, is actually quite “now”.

So what was the catalyst for a new career in cookery writing? A conversation in the New Street Butchers no less. The story goes that Tebbit came in one day and was looking at the pheasants, which were priced between £4 and £5. He said: “Why do people pay more for a rubber-boned supermarket chicken than they would for a pheasant?” “Well,” replied the butcher, “I think mostly it’s because they don’t know how to cook them – and they think it would be very difficult.”

And there was the start of a bright idea. The Game Cook provides simple, classic recipes collected by Tebbit, with a fluid approach to instruction — measurements are not precise and dishes are meant to be tweaked to taste.

Me Cheeta: Aping the Hollywood memoir with true wit

A shout-out on Twitter for book recommendations yielded an interesting crop of titles. One stands out for its hilarity… Me Cheeta: The Autobiography is billed as the “incredible, moving and hilarious story of Cheeta the Chimp, simian star of the big screen” and a “behind-the-scenes romp through the golden years of Hollywood”.

I remember Cheeta from the Tarzan flicks I used to watch as a kid, but had no idea that the 76 year old chimp has survived both Tarzan and Jane and is now living out his twilight years as an abstract painter in Hollywood.

James Lever has written a novel disguised as his memoir, which is — so the publishers say — “Full of humour, wit and emotion… the truly unique tale of a monkey stolen from deepest Africa and forced to make a living among the fake jungles and outrageous stars of Hollywood’s golden age.”

A novel masquerading as a monkey’s autobiography? Intriguing. An insight into tinseltown in the 1930’s and 40’s? Tantalising. I want to know more.

Carole Cadwalladr at The Observer calls this “a rather joyous satire” and Cheeta’s observations “rude, funny, vindictive, revelatory, brutal”. Anne Billson at The Telegraph finds the best part of the book “laugh-out-loud hilarious”. This sounds like a blast — I’m going to snap up a copy and report back on whether this chimp should stick to finger painting — or actually has a future in writing.

Book Night: an idea to save me from brain mulch

The inspiration for Book Night?  Outing myself as a gossip mag addict. It wasn’t as if I was always like this. Before parenthood, I was quite bookish. My brain could cope with twisted plot lines, three-dimensional characters and words of multi-syllables. Two babies later and my most challenging read is Now magazine.

I realised the error of my ways when quizzing friends over dinner, “What do you think of the Katie Price and Peter Andre split?”  I started a conversation (actually, more like a monologue) that exposed my in-depth knowledge of their marriage implosion.

At that point, I knew my love affair with gossip mags needed to be over: “It’s not you, it’s me…” I whispered to my stack of Heat, Now, New! and Closer magazines as I lowered them gently into the recycling basket (and concealed them beneath a copy of New Scientist, lest passers-by should judge).

I made a decision:  to look for a more suitable reading match for my intellect before my brain becomes a mulch capable of reading nothing more perceptive than Goat and Donkey in Strawberry Sunglasses (though a good book, in truth). It’s something I’ve resolved to do before and failed, so how can I make sure that this time I will succeed?  

What I need are Book Buddies: the human equivalent of a mighty boot up the derriere.  If I arrange a monthly get together to discuss a book we’re all reading, I will simply HAVE to read it. And, to kill two birds with one stone, I can use the evenings to resurrect my tragic social life. With the aid of wine and nibbles, this can actually be FUN.  

Ah ha!  Brilliant.  Now, all I need to do is to find a group of like-minded people who will join me for my very first Book Night…