September 2016 Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

Megan 9
Cheryl 8
Anna   4

The classic novel Zorba the Greek is the story of two men, their incredible friendship, and the importance of living life to the fullest. Zorba, a Greek working man, is a larger-than-life character, energetic and unpredictable. He accompanies the unnamed narrator to Crete to work in the narrator’s lignite mine, and the pair develops a singular relationship. The two men couldn’t be further apart: The narrator is cerebral, modest, and reserved; Zorba is unfettered, spirited, and beyond the reins of civility. Over the course of their journey, he becomes the narrator’s greatest friend and inspiration and helps him to appreciate the joy of living. Goodreads.

November 2016 The drowner by Robert Drewe

Scores unavailable 

In the warm alkaline waters of the public bath a headstrong young engineer accidentally collides with a beautiful actress. From this innocent collision of flesh begins a passion that takes them from the Wiltshire Downs to the most elemental choices of life and death in the Australian desert. Their intense romance is but part of the daring story that unfolds. Mingling history, myth and technology with a modern cinematic and poetic imagination, Robert Drewe presents a fable of European ambitions in an alien landscape, and a magnificently sustained metaphor of water as the life-and-death force. Penguin Books.

July 2015 A visit from the Goon Squad by by Jennifer Egan

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The novel circles the lives of Bennie Salazar, an ageing former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other's pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa. Dymocks.

March 2016 The reader on the 6.27 by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent

Scores unavailable

Guylain Vignolles lives on the edge of existence. Working at a book pulping factory in a job he hates, he has but one pleasure in life . . .

Sitting on the 6.27 train each day, Guylain recites aloud from pages he has saved from the jaws of his monstrous pulping machine. And it’s this release of words into the world that starts our hero on a journey that will finally bring meaning into his life. For one morning, Guylain discovers the diary of a lonely young woman: Julie. A woman who feels as lost in the world as he does. As he reads from these pages to a rapt audience, Guylain finds himself falling hopelessly in love with their enchanting author . . .Pan McMillan.

February 2016 The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Alison   7
Megan  7
Kirsty    8
Annette 8
Cheryl   8

Average 7.6

Comments: Megan said it wasn't depressing; Kristy - it's all about redemption and Jesus.

The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it's been more useful in communicating grief, mistrust, and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings. Goodreads.

December 2015 - January 2016 Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self by Claire Tomalin

Scores unavailable

For a decade, beginning in 1660, an ambitious young London civil servant kept an astonishingly candid account of his life during one of the most defining periods in British history. In Samuel Pepys, Claire Tomalin offers us a fully realized and richly nuanced portrait of this man, whose inadvertent masterpiece would establish him as the greatest diarist in the English language. Goodreads.

November 2015 Do Androids dream of electric sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Cover of first hardback edition

Annette 7

Anna     7

Kirsty    7

Phil       6 

Megan  9

Average  7.2

Comments: Phil prefers realism. Megan liked it, I think you can tell by her score and she suggested it, thought it was funny and dark.

A science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in 1968. The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco, where Earth's life has been greatly damaged by nuclear global war. Most animal species are endangered or extinct from extreme radiation poisoning, so that owning an animal is now a sign of status and empathy, an attitude encouraged towards animals. The book served as the primary basis for the 1982 film Blade Runner, and many elements and themes from it were used in its 2017 sequel Blade Runner 2049. Wikipedia.

May 2015 Eyrie by Tim Winton

Megan    8
Deb        8
Anna      6

Average 7.3

Tom Keely is a man struggling to accomplish good in an utterly fallen world. Once an ambitious, altruistic environmentalist, he now finds himself broke, embroiled in scandal, and struggling to piece together some semblance of a life. From the heights of his urban high-rise apartment, he surveys the wreckage of his life and the world he's tumbled out of love with. Just before he descends completely into pills and sorrow, a woman from his past and her preternatural child appear, perched on the edge of disaster, desperate for help. Goodreads.

April 2015 Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Megan   5.5
Deb        4
Phil        4
Anna      4
Annette  6.5

Average 4.8

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.  Behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Goodreads.

February 2015 Sea Bed by Marele Day

Scores unavailable.

Buddhist monk who leaves the safe predictability of his mountain monastery and ventures into the world to carry out a fellow monk's dying request. Allen and Unwin 2009.