A friendly London Book Group, based in various places in London, but mainly around the Northern Line. We meet once a month either in bars, restaurants or in people's houses, generally on the last Tuesday of the month.
We are not currently taking new members, but our 'overflow' group (which has now been going for 4 years) is - you can find them at http://www.abibliophobia.com/. Get in touch -
northernlinebookgroup@gmail.com
Penguin Threads is a sumptuous new set of 3 books, with covers hand embroidered.
The three titles are The Secret Garden, Emma, and Black Beauty.
See more at the artist Jillian Tamaki's website. As you can see, both the front and back are embroidered, although from what I can see, the books you can actually buy will be embossed rather than hand embroidered (because that would be pretty impractical). They're available to buy from October.
There's some good inspiration in this list of 50 books that would be ideal for kids starting secondary school, compiled by The Independent.
Selected by Philip Pullman, Michael Morpurgo, Kary Guest, John Walsh and Michael Rosen, there is lots to induce nostalgia, or spark the curiosity, for example:
Emil and the Detectives
A Hundred Million Francs
The Phantom Tollbooth
Just William
The Elephant Child
Refugee Boy
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
Private Peaceful
&
The London Eye Mystery
Lots to think about for our next 'Classics We Should Have Read' month.
Penguin Essentials is a new collection from Penguin. Essential books, with specially commissioned covers, capturing the feel of the book, and the time in which they were published.
We've read several of the books (we're so damn essential), including The Great Gatsby, On The Road, Lolita, and A Confederacy of Dunces.
I think I like the Confederacy of Dunces cover best (by Gary Taxali)
Great books, great covers, would make great presents!
"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a fascinating book for people interested in scientific or medical research, but its real achievement lies in it’s humane – and deeply human – look at both Mrs. Lacks and her descendants. It’s a wake up call to the medical community to remember that while they may be working with highly advanced technology and science, there’s a human being – a suffering human being, with people who love him or her – at the bottom of it all."
"It would have been better to trust the story and tell it in as straightforward a way as possible. Skloot's final discussion of the ethics of the use of human tissue is followed by nine pages of acknowledgments that are more than usually fatuous and self-regarding, and the author's determination to write herself into the story distracts the reader from the dense factual background. But The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks succeeds despite itself: it is a fascinating, harrowing and necessary book, marred only slightly by the fact that the author wishes to be considered a heroine for writing it."
"In an essay published two years ago in Time magazine, the writers of The Wire made the argument that we believe the war on drugs has devolved into a war on the underclass, that in places like West and East Baltimore, where the drug economy is now the only factory still hiring and where the educational system is so crippled that the vast majority of children are trained only for the corners, a legal campaign to imprison our most vulnerable and damaged citizens is little more than amoral. And we said then that if asked to serve on any jury considering a non-violent drug offense, we would move to nullify that jury's verdict and vote to acquit. Regardless of the defendant, I still believe such a course of action would be just in any case in which drug offenses—absent proof of violent acts—are alleged."
Modelled on Dave Eggers' Pirate Supplies Store in San Francisco, it "provides a free space for fresh writing by young people. Here in Hoxton we provide workshops and one-to-one mentoring. The services are provided by volunteers: local writers, artists and teachers, all giving their time and talent for free.
The MoS is inspired by young people, and aims to inspire them to transform their lives through writing. We work closely with schools, supporting the work of teachers, but our great benefit is that we provide one-to-one mentoring for young people to enjoy imaginative stories, improve language skills, increase abilities in communication, add to social and educational confidence."
To donate money through Just giving, visit this page and donate the amount that your favourite book costs. Stephen Fry picked one of our previous reads, The Confederacy of Dunces as his favourite, so presumably donated £8.99.
On Saturday 3 of us went to Waterstones in Piccadilly to take part in the book quiz for World Book Day, sponsored by Grazia. (Grazia run their own book club in the magazine).
It was interesting to see so many other book groups in one place, and it was great to see so much free booze on the table!
The quiz was about 7 rounds (characters, pictures, first lines, missing vowels etc) and was great fun.
David Nicholls was there, and we managed to ask a couple of quick questions about the film of One Day. ;-)
We didn't win, but we didn't come last either, and in our defence there were only 3 of us...
