Dragontree

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

2009-10-12T20:08:00.005+01:00

Charlie is a freshman. And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it. Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But Charlie can't stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.

Christie's choice - We met at The Chocolate Factory near London Bridge. The scores were as follows: AS - 7.5, SB - 6, RB - 9, CE - 7, ZH - 7.5

The 19th Wife - David Ebershoff

2009-07-02T10:13:00.004+01:00

Jordan returns from California to Utah to visit his mother in jail. As a teenager he was expelled from his family and religious community, a secretive Mormon offshoot sect. Now his father has been found shot dead in front of his computer, and one of his many wives - Jordan's mother - is accused of the crime. Over a century earlier, Ann Eliza Young, the nineteenth wife of Brigham Young, Prophet and Leader of the Mormon Church, tells the sensational story of how her own parents were drawn into plural marriage, and how she herself battled for her freedom and escaped her powerful husband, to lead a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. Bold, shocking and gripping, "The 19th Wife" expertly weaves together these two narratives: a page turning literary mystery and an enthralling epic of love and faith.

Anjan's choice (A Richard & Judy book club book no less!)
We met on 30th June 2009 at The Feathers pub in St James park. Making a rare one-off return to the book club were ex members Cristina and Liam! Scores were: AS - 5, CE - 7.5, RB - 7, ZH - 6, SB -

Sepulchre - Kate Mosse

2009-02-17T12:29:00.004Z

1891. Seventeen-year-old Leonie Vernier and her brother abandon Paris for the sanctuary of their aunt's isolated country house near Carcassonne, the Domaine de la Cade. But in the nearby woods, Leonie stumbles across a ruined sepulchre - and a timeless mystery whose traces are written in blood. 2007. Meredith Martin arrives at the Domaine de la Cade as part of her research for a biography she's writing. But Meredith is also seeking the key to her own complex legacy and soon becomes immersed in the story of a tragic love, a missing girl, a unique deck of tarot cards, an unquiet soul and the strange events of one cataclysmic night more than a century ago...

Han's choice - We met on 6th May 2009 in Arang 2 for Korean food (lovely apart from the wildlife inhabiting Ruth's plate!)

Scores: CE - 5, AS - 1, ZH - 6, RB - 6, SB - 5

The Believers - Zoe Heller

2009-02-17T12:24:00.004Z

When Audrey makes a devastating discovery about her husband, New York radical lawyer Joel Litvinoff, she is forced to re-examine everything she thought she knew about their forty-year marriage. Joel's children will soon have to come to terms with this unsettling secret themselves, but for the meantime, they are trying to cope with their own dilemmas. Rosa, a disillusioned revolutionary, is grappling with a new-found attachment to Orthodox Judaism. Karla, an unhappily married social worker, is falling in love with an unlikely suitor at the hospital where she works. Adopted brother Lenny is back on drugs again. In the course of battling their own demons and each other, every member of the family is called upon to decide what - if anything - they still believe in.

Ruth's choice - We met on 29th January at the Imperial China restaurant in chinatown. Scores: CE - 4, SB - 4, ZH - , AS - , RB -

The Closed Circle - Jonathan Coe

2009-02-17T12:15:00.006Z

Set against the backdrop of the Millenium celebrations and Britain's increasingly compromised role in America's war against terrorism', The Closed Circle lifts the lid on an era in which politics and presentation, ideology and the media have become virtually indistinguishable. Darkly comic, hugely engaging, and compulsively readable, it is the much-anticipated follow-up to Jonathan Coe's bestselling novel The Rotters' Club, and reintroduces us to the characters first encountered in that book. But whereas The Rotters' Club was a novel of innocence, The Closed Circle is its opposite: a novel of experience.

Silke's choice. We met at Han's flat on 25th November and had a delicious chinese meal prepared by Han.

Engleby - Sebastian Faulks

2008-08-20T16:03:00.002+01:00

Mike Engleby says things that others dare not even think. In the 1970s, he is a university student, having survived a 'traditional' school. A man devoid of scruple or self-pity, Engleby provides an account of English education. Yet, beneath the disturbing surface of his observations lies an unfolding mystery of gripping power.

Christie's choice. We met on 6th August in Le Pain Quotidian near Waterloo.
Scores: CE 8, SB 6, RB 8, AS 9.5, ZH 10.

Remainder - Tom McCarthy

2008-08-20T15:58:00.003+01:00

Traumatised by an accident which 'involved something falling from the sky' and leaves him eight and a half million pounds richer but hopelessly estranged from the world around him, the hero spends his time and money obsessively reconstructing and re-enacting vaguely remembered scenes and situations from his past.

Anjan's choice - we met at Fish! in Borough Market.

The King's Last Song - Geoff Ryman

2008-04-27T14:50:00.004+01:00

A great king brings peace to a warring nation. Centuries later, his writings will bring hope to those facing the tragic legacy of modern Cambodia's bloody history. When archaeologists discover a book written on gold leaves at Angkor Wat, everyone wants a piece of the action. But the King, the Army and the UN are all outflanked when the precious artefact is kidnapped, along with Professor Luc Andrade, who was accompanying it to the capital for restoration. Luckily for Luc his love and respect for Cambodia have won him many friends, including ex-Khmer Rouge cadre Map and the young moto-boy William. Both equally determined to rescue the man they consider their mentor and recover the golden book, they form an unlikely bond. But, William is unaware of just how closely Map's bloody past affects him. The book contains the words and wisdom of King Jayavarman VII, the Buddhist ruler who united a war-torn Cambodia in the twelfth century and together with his enlightened wife created a kingdom that was a haven of peace and learning. His extraordinary story is skilfully interwoven with the tales of Luc, Map and William to create an unforgettable and dazzling evocation of the spirit of Cambodia and her peoples in all their beauty and tragedy.

Han's book choice. We met on 26th April 2008 in Reigate and went for lunch at Chez Gerard. Honorary book group members for the day were Kevin, Dave & Emily!

Blindness - Jose Saramago

2008-02-01T19:31:00.000Z

A city is hit by an epidemic of sudden blindness. The authorities segregate the newly blind people from all who have come into contact with them. It is not long before the criminal element take over, the compound is set on fire and the blind escape -- only to find a deserted, looted city ...

Ana's choice.
We met on 29th January at Benugo in the BFI on the South Bank. The book inspired a good discussion and was particularly polarising.

Scores: CE - 9, AN - 9, AS - 5, RB - 4, ZH - 3, SB - 8

Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

2007-10-24T17:18:00.000+01:00

Half of a Yellow Sun is set in Nigeria during the 1960s, at a time of the vicious Nigeria- Biafra war in which more than a million people died and thousands were massacred in cold blood.
Three characters are swept up in the rapidly unfolding political events. Ugwu, a boy from a poor village, is employed as a houseboy for a university lecturer.
Olanna, a young, middle-class woman, has come to live with the professor, abandoning her privileged life in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charismatic idealism of her new lover.
Richard is a tall, shy Englishman, in thrall to Olanna's twin sister Kainene, who refuses to belong to anyone.
They are propelled into events that will pull them apart and bring them together in the most unexpected ways. As Nigerian troops advance and they run for their lives, their ideals – and their loyalties to each other – are severely tested.
This novel is about Africa, about moral responsibility, the end of colonialism, ethnic allegiances, class and race, and about how love can complicate all these things.

We met on 16th October in The Oratory in South Kensington (Good choice Ruth!) Scores were as follows:

CE: 8, ZH: 8, AN: 7, AS: 5, RB: 7.5

Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky

2007-07-22T09:25:00.000+01:00

Synopsis
In 1941, Irene Nemirovsky sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through, not in terms of battles and politicians, but by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France. She did not live to see her ambition fulfilled, or to know that sixty-five years later, "Suite Francaise" would be published for the first time, and hailed as a masterpiece. Set during a year that begins with France's fall to the Nazis in June 1940 and ends with Germany turning its attention to Russia, "Suite Francaise" falls into two parts. The first is a brilliant depiction of a group of Parisians as they flee the Nazi invasion and make their way through the chaos of France; the second follows the inhabitants of a small rural community under occupation who find themselves thrown together in ways they never expected. Nemirovsky's brilliance as a writer lay in her portrayal of people, and this is a novel that teems with wonderful characters, each more vivid than the next. Irene Nemirovsky conceived of "Suite Francaise" as a four- or five-part novel. It was to be a symphony - her War and Peace. Although only two sections were finished before her tragic death, they form a book that is beautifully complete in itself, and awe-inspiring in its understanding of humanity.

We met on July 11th in Green Park and went for a french meal (appropriately!) nearby.
Scores as follows: RB - 5, AS - 3.5, SB - 6, AN - 3, ZH - 4, CE - 6

The Immoralist - Andre Gide

2007-05-25T18:45:00.000+01:00

Gide's novel examines the inevitable conflicts that arise when a pleasure seeker challenges conventional society and, without moralizing, raises complex issues involving the extent of personal responsibility.

We met on Tues May 22nd for Borris' last visit to the K & Q followed by a lovely Thai up the road! The book inspired an interesting discussion. Scores as follow...

Borris-8 Christie-5 Anjan-3 Silke-7 Ruth-4 Han-6

Silke's first round - (Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene)

2007-04-04T16:21:00.000+01:00

Synopsis:

Henry Pulling, a retired bank manager, meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time in over fifty years at what he supposes to be his mother's funeral. Soon after, she persuades Henry to abandon Southwood, his dahlias and the Major next door to travel her way, to Brighton, Paris, Istanbul, Paraguay. Through Aunt Augusta, a veteran of Europe's hotel bedrooms, Henry joins a shiftless, twilight society: mixing with hippies, war criminals, CIA men; smoking pot, breaking all the currency regulations and eventually coming alive after a dull suburban life. In "Travels with my Aunt", Graham Greene not only gives us intoxicating entertainment but also confronts us with some of the most perplexing of human dilemmas.

We met on 24th April at the Brew yard - a new venue for a lot of us and a nice change to Charlotte Street!
Scores for this book were pretty high overall:

My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk

2007-01-25T14:00:00.000Z

Synopsis:
In Istanbul, in the late 1590s, the Sultan secretly commissions a great book: a celebration of his life and his empire, to be illuminated by the best artists of the day - in the European manner. But when one of the miniaturists goes missing and is feared murdered, their master seeks outside help.

Christinas choice has become obsolete and we are reading Anjan's suggestion now...

We Need to Talk about Kevin - Lionel Shriver

2006-09-04T13:53:00.000+01:00

Two years ago, Eva Khatchadourian's son, Kevin, murdered seven of his fellow high-school students, a cafeteria worker, and a popular algebra teacher. Because he was only fifteen at the time of the killings, he received a lenient sentence and is now in a prison for young offenders in upstate New York. Telling the story of Kevin's upbringing, Eva addresses herself to her estranged husband through a series of letters. Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become, she confesses to a deep, long-standing ambivalence about both motherhood in general and Kevin in particular. How much is her fault? Lionel Shriver tells a compelling, absorbing, and resonant story while framing these horrifying tableaux of teenage carnage as metaphors for the larger tragedy - the tragedy of a country where everything works, nobody starves, and anything can be bought but a sense of purpose.

We meet next on Thursday, 21st September 2006.

Marrying Buddha - Wei Hui

2006-05-15T21:04:00.000+01:00

Synopsis (from amazon):

Her second semi-autobiographical novel of desire and lust in a new city far from China... According to the author, Marrying Buddha is the continuation of her first novel Shanghai Baby, the international bestseller which was banned in China and catapulted her to fame and notoriety in the country of her birth. As in Shanghai Baby, the protagonist is Coco, a young successful female novelist who decides to leave Shanghai for New York. Coco embarks on the next leg of life's journey, a road that leads her through love, desire, and spiritual awakening. In Manhattan she meets Muju. Muju and Coco share a deep, intense passion, experimenting and exploring their desires at every available opportunity. But into this relationship enters glamorous, wealthy and impossibly urbane New Yorker Nick. And when as a result her relationship with Muju is threatened, Coco returns to China, to the tiny temple-studded island of Putu, the place of her birth. It is on Mount Putu where Coco finds some inner peace - but once back in Shanghai she is visited by both Muju and Nick and is once again caught up in the intensity and passion of the two relationships. After both men leave Coco discovers she is pregnant, but has no idea of whether it is Muju or Nick who is the father...

Other books suggested by HZ were: Never let me go, by Kazuo Ishiguro; Silk, by Alessandro Baricco; Ghostwritten by David Mitchell

We met on Tuesday, 11th July 1006 in Regents Park. Rating:AS:4.0, RB:4.0, CP:3.0, AM:1.5, ZH:5.0, BH:3.0, SB:n/a

AM: "...she [wei hui] has to explore her literature awakening rather than her sexual awakening"

The Glass Bead Game - Hermann Hesse

2006-03-20T10:11:00.000Z

From: www.amazon.com
The title of this novel refers to an ultra-aesthetic game played by scholars in the kingdom of Castalia around the year 2400. The game involves all branches of knowledge and spiritual values, especially those of the East.

The losing choices put up for selection by Borris were:
Crabwalk - Gunter Grass
Berlin Alexanderplatz - Alfred Doeblin
I'm Not Stiller - Max Frisch

Rating for the Glass bead game: AS: 6.5; BH: 5; CE: 2 and the rest of us is still working on it...

Changing Places - David Lodge

2006-01-23T16:25:00.000Z

From www.bookcrossing.com:
'In 1969 Philip Swallow and Morriz Zapp do a professional exchange between the red-bricked Univeristy of Rummidge in England and the sun-drenched Euphoric State University in the United States. The wildly spiraling trans-Atlantic involvement leads to a swapping of students, colleagues and even wives.'

The non-selected books put up by Sonia were:
- "Neither Here or There" by Bill Bryson
- "The Buddha of Suburbia" by Hanif Kureishi

We will meet on the 22nd of February at Waterstones in Piccaddily.

The scores were the following: RB:7; CP:7; SM:3.5; ZH:6; AS:5; CE:5; BH:2. Thus, the overall score was 5.1.

2005 overview

2005-12-14T01:26:00.000Z

Dear book clubbers,
Here's an overview of the first year of our book club! Well done everyone!!

Kim - Rudyard Kipling

2005-12-13T15:33:00.000Z

Unknown internet source (Anjan do you remember where you've got the synopsis from?):
"Kim, a young Irish boy living in Lahore, India, decides to accompany a Tibetan lama on his search for the River that washes all sin. Kim's canny street smarts and gift for disguise protect the gentle lama along the Grand Trunk Road, bustling with the peoples of various races, castes, and creeds who make up India's complex culture and history. Kim's abilities also inspire Mahbub Ali, an Afghani horse-dealer, to ask him to deliver a coded message to the spymaster Colonel Creighton, who taps Kim to help the British in their Great Game against the Russians for control of the northwest territory of India."

The other books put up for voting by Anjan were:
- 'Herzog' by Saul Bellow
- 'Steppenwolf' by Herman Hesse
- 'Portrait of the artist as a young man' by James Joyce
- 'Buddenbrooks' by Thomas Mann
- 'La Peste (The Plague)' by Albert Camus

We're meeting at Anjan's on the 20th of January 2006 to discuss this book!! From 6pm onwards!! With dinner waiting for us!! Anjan is setting up a great standard!!

It was another wonderful meeting, this time at anjan's. The scores were the following: CE: 5.5; AS: 2.5; BH: 7 which gives us a round score of 5, quite average but it is worth pointing out that SM, RB and CP only read a few pages! ZH, KL and LD missed it completely! This one was hard going!! Waiting for your comments!

Norwegian wood - Haruki Murakami

2005-11-15T21:22:00.000Z

From Haruki Murakami's: The Official Website

'Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman. A poignant story of one college student's romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.'

Other titles put up for voting by Cristina:

- 'A house for Mr. Biswas' by V.S. Naipaul

- 'The impossibility of an island' by Michel Houellebecq

- 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest' by Ken Kesey

Provisional date for the next book club meeting is the 8th of December.

This time we went a bit eastwards to Bloomsbury. We held the book club festive meeting at TAS, a lovely Turkish restaurant! We also had a new member!! Welcome Liam!!

The scores were the following:
RB: 10; AS: 9.5; SM: 4; KL: 3; CE: 5; LD: 6; CP: 5 and ZH: 8. which gives an overall score of 6.3/10 (8 votes).

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

2005-10-18T23:16:00.000+01:00

From amazon:
'From Publishers Weekly - Ruiz Zafón's novel, a bestseller in his native Spain, takes the satanic touches from Angel Heart and stirs them into a bookish intrigue à la Foucault's Pendulum. The time is the 1950s; the place, Barcelona. Daniel Sempere, the son of a widowed bookstore owner, is 10 when he discovers a novel, The Shadow of the Wind, by Julián Carax. The novel is rare, the author obscure, and rumors tell of a horribly disfigured man who has been burning every copy he can find of Carax's novels. The man calls himself Laín Coubert-the name of the devil in one of Carax's novels. As he grows up, Daniel's fascination with the mysterious Carax links him to a blind femme fatale with a "porcelain gaze," Clara Barceló; another fan, a leftist jack-of-all-trades, Fermín Romero de Torres; his best friend's sister, the delectable Beatriz Aguilar; and, as he begins investigating the life and death of Carax, a cast of characters with secrets to hide. Officially, Carax's dead body was dumped in an alley in 1936. But discrepancies in this story surface. Meanwhile, Daniel and Fermín are being harried by a sadistic policeman, Carax's childhood friend. As Daniel's quest continues, frightening parallels between his own life and Carax's begin to emerge. Ruiz Zafón strives for a literary tone, and no scene goes by without its complement of florid, cute and inexact similes and metaphors (snow is "God's dandruff"; servants obey orders with "the efficiency and submissiveness of a body of well-trained insects"). Yet the colorful cast of characters, the gothic turns and the straining for effect only give the book the feel of para-literature or the Hollywood version of a great 19th-century novel. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.'

Other titles put up for voting by Christie:
- 'The island of Dr. Moreau' by H.G. Wells
- 'A blade of grass' by Lewis DeSoto
- 'On the black hill' by Bruce Chatwin

Provisional date for the next book club meeting is the 2nd of November (Wed).

The overall score for this book was 6.4/10 (within 6 votes)!!
Individual scores (AS: 5; SM: 6; CE: 7.5; CP: 6; RB: 7 and KL:7)

Island - Aldous Huxley

2005-10-18T23:07:00.000+01:00

From Harper Academic.com:
'In Island, his last novel, Huxley transports us to a Pacific island where, for 120 years, an ideal society has flourished. Inevitably, this island of bliss attracts the envy and enmity of the surrounding world. A conspiracy is underway to take over Pala and events begin to move when an agent of the conspirators, a newspaperman named Faranby, is shipwrecked there. What Faranby doesn't expect is how his time with the people of Pala will revolutionize all his values and -- to his amazement -- give him hope.'

Other titles put up for voting by Sonia:
- 'The New-York trilogy' by Paul Auster
- 'The man who mistook his wife for a hat' by Oliver Sacks
- 'Hymalaya' by Michael Palin
- 'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov

This book club meeting was held at the king and Queen and we went to Fitzrovia once more!!
Comments are welcome!!

The overall score for this book was 3.7/10 (within 4 votes)!!
Individual scores were: RB: 3; SM: 4; AS: 4 and CE: 4

The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffeneger

2005-10-18T23:01:00.000+01:00

Our second meeting was held on the 21st of July. We started at the King and Queen and ended up in Fitzrovia!!

Synopsis from Amazon:
'From Publishers Weekly - This clever and inventive tale works on three levels: as an intriguing science fiction concept, a realistic character study and a touching love story. Henry De Tamble is a Chicago librarian with "Chrono Displacement" disorder; at random times, he suddenly disappears without warning and finds himself in the past or future, usually at a time or place of importance in his life. This leads to some wonderful paradoxes. From his point of view, he first met his wife, Clare, when he was 28 and she was 20. She ran up to him exclaiming that she'd known him all her life. He, however, had never seen her before. But when he reaches his 40s, already married to Clare, he suddenly finds himself time travelling to Clare's childhood and meeting her as a six-year-old. The book alternates between Henry and Clare's points of view, and so does the narration. Reed ably expresses the longing of the one always left behind, the frustrations of their unusual lifestyle, and above all, her overriding love for Henry. Likewise, Burns evokes the fear of a man who never knows where or when he'll turn up, and his gratitude at having Clare, whose love is his anchor. The expressive, evocative performances of both actors convey the protagonists' intense relationship, their personal quirks and their reminiscences, making this a fascinating audio.'

Please comment!!

This book was put up for selection by Kevin
The overall score for this book was 6.7/10 (within 5 readers)!!
Individual scores were: CE: 7; AS: 6; SM: 5.5; RB: 8 and KL: 7

When We Were Orphans - Kazuo Ishiguro

2005-10-18T23:00:00.000+01:00

Synopsis from Reading Group Guides.com:
'From the Booker Prize-winning, bestselling author of Remains of the Day comes this stunning work of soaring imagination.
Born in early-twentieth-century Shanghai, Banks was orphaned at the age of nine after the separate disappearances of his parents. Now, more than twenty years later, he is a celebrated figure in London society; yet the investigative expertise that has garnered him fame has done little to illuminate the circumstances of his parents' alleged kidnappings. Banks travels to the seething, labyrinthine city of his memory in hopes of solving the mystery of his own, painful past, only to find that war is ravaging Shanghai beyond recognition-and that his own recollections are proving as difficult to trust as the people around him.
Masterful, suspenseful and psychologically acute, When We Were Orphans offers a profound meditation on the shifting quality of memory, and the possibility of avenging one’s past.'

The other books put up for voting by Ruth were:
- 'The bookseller of Kabul' by Asne Seierstad
- 'The red tent' by Anita Diamant
- 'The line of beauty' by Alan Hollinghurst

The first book club meeting was held in Kevin's and Ruth's place at the beginning of June (8th??). Please comment on this book.

The overall score for this book was 4.8/10 (within 5 readers)!!
Individual scores: CP: 4; AS: 2; CE: 6; RB: 7 and KL: 5

Dragontree

2005-10-18T01:45:00.000+01:00

Hello fellow book clubers! Yesterday, I was chatting to Christie and we came up with the idea of creating a blog for our book club. As you can imagine deciding on a name would be a difficult task and putting it up for voting seemed even more daunting! Hope you do not mind with the choice! The inspiration came from Christie's dragon tree that she keeps in the office. We can see it as a poetic influence for our book club. Anyway, I have volunteered myself (son :)!!) for creating this blog and keep it running for us. I will post the previous books we have read but we can all post comments on them, give an overview, general ratings, whatever we feal like writing!
Welcome to the 'DRAGONTREE'!!

Dragontree

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

The 19th Wife - David Ebershoff

Sepulchre - Kate Mosse

The Believers - Zoe Heller

The Closed Circle - Jonathan Coe

Engleby - Sebastian Faulks

Remainder - Tom McCarthy

The King's Last Song - Geoff Ryman

Blindness - Jose Saramago

Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky

The Immoralist - Andre Gide

Silke's first round - (Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene)

My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk

We Need to Talk about Kevin - Lionel Shriver

Marrying Buddha - Wei Hui

The Glass Bead Game - Hermann Hesse

Changing Places - David Lodge

2005 overview

Kim - Rudyard Kipling

Norwegian wood - Haruki Murakami

Recommended Reading

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Island - Aldous Huxley

The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffeneger

When We Were Orphans - Kazuo Ishiguro

Dragontree