Women in Black by Madeleine St John

The Women in Black is a fairytale which illuminates the extraordinariness of ordinary lives. The women in black are run off their feet, what with the Christmas rush and the summer sales that follow. But it's Sydney in the 1950s, and there's still just enough time left on a hot and frantic day to dream and scheme ...

By the time the last marked-down frock has been sold, most of the staff of the Ladies' Cocktail section at F.G. Goode's have been launched into slightly different careers. With the lightest touch and the most tender of comic instincts, Madeleine St John conjures a vanished summer of innocence.



The level of enthusiasm for Women in Black turned out to be understandable when we discovered how much personal knowledge of 1950s Sydney, and in particular David Jones, there was amongst our group. Most found this book a nostalgic trip into a past world where things seemed less complicated and there was much more goodwill around. The whole group felt St John captured the era perfectly and her focus on the characters rather than the plot helped to make it the enjoyable read it was.


There were plenty of laughs around the table as memories of fashion shopping and joining the work force were discussed and although we agreed the past is more often than not looked back on through rose-coloured glasses, it was still fun to relive this innocent time through the security of, dare I say it, mature wisdom!

All this praise is not to say there were no negatives. Joan felt the whole story was some what superficial and that the writing style lacked creativity. There were also a few who did not really consider this a 'novel' but more a nostalgic commentary.

Either way, it was an enjoyable read for our group after the heavier content of our last book, and the agreed 3 stars is a good indication that we found it worthwhile.

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht

The Balkans, 1941. As German bombs fall, a tiger escapes from his zoo and heads to a ridge above the village of Galina. His nocturnal visits hold the villagers in terrified thrall. But for one boy, the tiger is a thing of magic – Shere Khan awoken from the pages of Jungle Book.

Natalia is the granddaughter of that boy. Now a doctor, she is visiting orphanages after another war has devastated the Balkans, when she hears of her beloved grandfather’s death.

From fragments of stories told to her as a child, Natalia realises her grandfather may have died searching for the immortal ‘deathless man’. Struggling to understand why a man of science would undertake such a quest, she stumbles upon a clue that will lead her to the extraordinary story of the tiger’s wife.

The Tiger's Wife filled a two month slot for our book club as it was considered a challenging read and it worked well for us not to rush this one. As quite often happens with this style of literature, our scores swung widely from 3 to 8 stars. There will always be someone who finds something where others find nothing. A good motto for a book club!

To break it down ... most enjoyed the writing, language and description, but many also agreed that there were too many words and the continuity was a bit awkward at times. Everyone found the significance in the contrast between medicine and supersition which was very powerful in the cultural identity of the people. A strong theme and important to the overall impact of this book.

The characters did not appeal and they were hardly discussed, but the history thread kept us interested even though the protagonists became lost in the lives of the people and bogged down in their superstition.

As a group we do enjoy a challenge and this young writer's style and effort was appreciated by us.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Enter a vanished world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren’t trusted not to steal the silver …

There’s Aibileen, raising her 17th white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son’s tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue; and white Miss Skeeter, home from college, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared.

Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny. No one would believe they’d be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another. Each is in search of a truth. And together they have an extraordinary story to tell.

This was always going to be a good meeting. This book has got everything needed for a lively discussion on all the emotional issues close to our hearts. Racism, apartheid, inequality, social standing and women’s rights. The fact that it takes place during the 60s in the southern states, USA did nothing to diminish our enthusiasm and in fact tended to educate some of us more in the ways of this part of the world.

We all loved the characters, found them well-rounded and believable, even if a little stereotypical.

Most of us were aware of the tension running through the story and felt some fear for the blacks as Skeeter continued to meddle in the long standing way of life in Jackson. Ann found it interesting that we, as white people, felt compelled to point an accusing finger at Skeeter, believing she was putting herself first in pushing for the Help’s stories. Did she really care about the danger they were placing themselves in? It was an interesting turn of the table. Would any of us have had the courage to go through with such a plan?

Some wanted a little more history and thought the writing purposely kept light for the popular audience. We touched on the Freedom Rides and Rosie Parks a little, and someone mentioned that the ending seemed a little abrupt. This, we generally considered to be unavoidable, as this story has the possibility to be eternal. How much of this is still going on today we all wondered and were able to admit that America is not the only place one finds such attitudes. South Africa and closer to home, Australia itself, has been guilty of racism and apartheid, so throwing stones was never going to work.

There was much more said and debated, as this book has such a full cast of characters, incidents, and underlying themes that were no doubt written with a screenplay in mind. Some of us have seen the movie, but we were unanimous in finding The Help an extremely readable story. One that we feel confident in placing high on this year’s to read list.

The Report by Jessica Francis Kane

It is an early spring evening in 1943 when the air-raid sirens wail out over the East End of London. From every corner of Bethnal Green, people emerge from pubs, cinemas and houses, and set off for the shelter of the Tube station. At the entrance steps, something goes badly wrong, the crowd panics, and 173 people are crushed to death. When an enquiry is called for, it falls to the local magistrate, Laurence Dunne, to find out what happened during those few, fatally confused minutes.

Based on the true story of the worst civilian disaster of World War Two, this is an evocative, moving and beautifully crafted novel about loss and guilt, and the possibility of redemption.

First and foremost, it was agreed within our group that this novel provided some fascinating reading, in the information it supplied with regard to the actual true story of the Bethnal Green underground crush during the WWII blitz, and also the human story entwined within the facts. Little was known of this civilian disaster by any of us and there were a few who would have liked the novel to travel deeper into the factual history. But overall, we found the read a good one.

There were comments on the dry narrative and its propensity to jump about. Some found it a little repetitive and had a yes/no response to the book’s value.

While these opinions found merit with the group as a whole, the majority loved this book, both for its setting and the moral dilemmas it unearthed. We had a wonderful discussion on the effects of war on the human spirit and we even had some personal experience of London during the war years, which found firm ground with all of us. The discussion humbled us, and gave us renewed respect for those who lived through such a time.

Ann loved the opportunity the book gave for study and could list many ways she would have used it during her teaching career, and finished by remarking that the many “Don’t knows” within the story were its main prize.

Denise felt enlightened after reading it, stating that the insight into the East End community and in particular the underground setup was simply fascinating. The fact that the underground shelters, where everyone had felt safe, had failed them, was yet another human tragedy that needed recognition. Everyone also sensed the thinly disguised veil of anti-Semitism that ran through the community and we had much to say about whether this could have been the case among Brits at the time.

Is this just another World War Two story? Maybe, but the clinical, methodical look into what turned out to be a collective series of unfortunate events gives us yet another look into what we humans are capable of … the good and the bad.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, swindlers and misfits in a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there that Jacob meets Marlena, the beautiful equestrienne who is married to August, a charismatic but violently unpredictable animal trainer. Jacob also meets Rosie, an elephant who seems unmanageable until he discovers an unusual way to reach her. Water for Elephants is a story that has it all - warmth, humour, poignancy and passion.

The circus … love them or loathe them, it was unanimously agreed that they make a great background for a novel! We all loved the world of the travelling circus that Water For Elephants took us to, with a few of us remembering the circus coming to town during their childhood and the sights and smells they conjured up.

Although we were all aware that basically this is a romance, coupled with the hardships of the Great Depression and black market days of the prohibition, we mostly found the romantic element of the story a little wanting. In fact, many of us thought the book could have done without Jacob and Marlena’s doleful looks and unrequited love triangle. But never-the-less, it was well received by our group, with the enjoyment level scoring high.

For the better part of an hour we were able to comb through this novel and come up with some stimulating conversation on animal cruelty, loyalty, discrimination, racism and finally ending up at the movies with memories of films such as The Greatest Show on Earth and Trapeze.

Viti never fails to satisfy with her insight into novels and pointed out that the nursing home where Jacob ended up in his later years mirrored the circus in many ways. They were fed and treated much like animals in the zoo, and it contained an atmosphere and smells quite foreign to those on the outside ... much like a circus. Sharp Viti, very sharp!

Finally, we were impressed with Gruen’s research. Even if she didn’t get right down to the nitty gritty of the human condition of these people and their world, the historical pictures helped to take us there and the little facts and fallacies of circus life planted throughout were all we needed. Then of course there was the enividable happy ending. But we were even willing to forgive that. Not always an easy thing for our group!

So, should you read this book? Our recommendation is yes … before you see the movie. It will be one of your more enjoyable reads this year.

Dubliners by James Joyce

In Dubliners, completed when Joyce was only 25, he produced a definitive group portrait. It is a book, as suggested in the Introduction, ‘rooted in an intensely accurate apprehension of the detail of Dublin life’.

Full of brutal realism, each chapter is a story within itself. And yet, beyond its bitter truths, lies a book full of enigmas, ambiguities and symbolic resonances.

Dubliners remains an undisputed masterpiece, a work that compels attention by the power of its unique vision of the world.

It is surprising how easily our perception can be influenced. When it comes to classic literature, this is doubly so! How long have you had the idea that reading James Joyce is just too hard? Well this year our book club took the challenge and Joyce’s Dubliners has scored the highest yet. We were all in agreement that the writing was superb and that Joyce has that very Irish knack of telling a tale that is entertaining yet sorrowful. As we have said before … no one does it like the Irish!

It was commented that the narration serves as an observer to what, in anyone else’s hands, would be ordinary, everyday stories. But Joyce has a way of bringing his characters to life with everything that makes us human. Clever turn of phrase and descriptive language all come together to weave a picture of Dublin at a time that it was truly Irish.

Our discussion included an interesting look at Joyce himself and some of the challenges he faced getting published. As a group we always try to do a little background into authors. I helps to round out our discussions and also adds an extra dimension to what we learn from the literature we read.

We shared real life experiences in Ireland and had plenty of opinions on the traditions and uniqueness of the Irish people. We also felt we were able to pin point the difficult position the country and its people were caught in at the time of Dubliners publication. Somewhere between the modern and traditional world.

Something that only a writer of Joyce’s calibre would be able to deliver.

The Roving Party by Rohan Wilson

John Batman, ruthless, singleminded; four convicts, the youngest still only a stripling; Gould, a downtrodden farmhand; two free black trackers; and powerful, educated Black Bill, brought up from childhood as a white man, this is the roving party and their purpose is massacre.

With promises of freedom, land grants and money, each is willing to risk his life for the prize.

Passing over many miles of tortured country, the roving party searches for Aborigines, taking few prisoners and killing freely, Batman never abandoning the visceral intensity of his hunt. And all the while, Black Bill pursues his personal quarry, the much-feared warrior, Manalargena.

This month’s book divided our group in a clear ‘loved it/hated it’ form. A handful of us, although admitting the horror of the storyline, nevertheless found the writing, characterisation and realistic setting a pleasure to read. And where some found the lack of punctuation difficult, others found the narrative flowing and well fitted to the character style.

There seemed to be a deficiency of emotional punch for some of our readers. They could not be moved by any of the roving party or their quarry and Anne went so far as to pronounce it ‘boring’ and ‘pretentious’. This in complete contrast to Jeanette’s ‘marvellous’ and ‘stunning’.

The imagery held strong for the book’s fans though and we found that Wilson’s writing draws a clear and far from glamorous picture of this alpha-male world, with small and subtle reminders that these characters are human, regardless of what they find themselves doing. And as a reader you are forced to acknowledge their weaknesses, and dare I say it, feel some empathy for them!

Our discussion traveled through the obvious territory of racial discrimination and genocide, but also some interesting historical details from Tasmania’s past, sorting out the fiction from facts.

Short-listed for numerous awards and winner of last year’s Vogel Literary Prize, The Roving Party has found its place in Australian literature, if not into all of our club members' hearts.

In a little coffee shop in one of the most dangerous places on earth, five very different women come together. Sunny, the proud proprietor; Yasmina, a young pregnant Afghan woman; Isabel, a determined British journalist; Candace, a wealthy American and Halajan, the 60 year old den mother whose long hidden love affair breaks all the rules.

As these five discover, there’s more to one another than meets the eye, they form a unique bond that will forever change their lives and the lives of many others.

The term Chick Lit has an accepted presence in today’s list of genres, and although we know it can come under many umbrellas; mystery, fantasy etc … it came as quite a surprise to our group that this ‘Little Coffee House’ counted among them.


There was a general underlying disappointment in this light and fluffy look at Afghanistan and its people, but then again, the book’s enjoyment factor rated high and contrived or not, there was value in its insightful information, particularly for the audience it was aimed at.

The majority of us were not really interested in Sunny’s love interests, and in fact we thought the story may have been more digestible without it! We are not known for our romanticising by any means! But the coming together of cultures, the character of Halajan, the 60 year old den mother, and the volatile setting of Kabul was enough to keep all of us reading, even if the tension and danger was down-graded.

The author, Rodriguez, was found to be fascinating and a few of our members actually believed the interview at the back of the book to be more interesting than the novel itself. She had spent time in Afghanistan, so this gave some credibility to her story, but it was suggested that the book’s approach may have been publisher driven, focusing on what we said earlier, the Chick Lit brigade.

Regardless of who the book was written for, our group derived something from the reading and had an immensely enjoyable discussion on the life of women in places such as Kabul and even here in Australia. And after dissecting every character; the good, the bad, and the unbelievable, we came to the conclusion that Little Coffee Shop was worth the read.

Just don’t expect to be blown away … you will only be gently lifted in to a world where everything turns out just fine!

February - Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister, 11 year old Harrison Opoku lives on the 9th floor of a block of flats on an inner-city housing estate. The second best runner in the whole of year 7, Harri races through his new life in his personalised trainers – the Adidas stripes drawn on with marker pen – blissfully unaware of the very real threat all around him.

With equal fascination for the local gang – the Dell Farm Crew – and for the pigeon who visits his balcony, Harri absorbs the many strange elements of life in England; watching, listening, and learning the tricks of urban survival.

Our first book for 2012 raised little in the way of enthusiasm for this debut novel. There were numerous comments of its disjointed narrative and lack of character empathy which kept our club scores down, ranging from 3 to 8 points.

Joan mentioned the paradox of Harri and his family moving from the violence of Ghana to the toxic world of gang warfare in a south London estate. She also found an all too real glimpse of immigrants coming to a new country for a fresh start only to be alienated and separated from loved ones.

Viti picked up on a subtle atmosphere of menace that lay beneath the whole story and also pointed to the Lord of the Flies analogy of loss of rules and breakdown of family and social structures. Well done Viti!

Everyone took Harri’s pigeon to be the carrier of his thoughts and emotions. A small but meaningful balance to Harri’s new world of Adidas trainers and gangland murder.

By far the most condemning aspect of Pigeon English would have to be its failure to connect our readers with the main characters and their plight. As a whole, our group prefers to connect with and care about those within the pages, so no matter how clever, innovative or profound a work of literature is, if we cannot relate or feel compassion, our enjoyment level drops and so does our recommendation.

As always, we would be interested in your opinion. If you’ve read Pigeon English, make a comment and let us know what you think.

January - The Long Song by Andrea Levy

July is a slave girl who lives upon a sugar plantation named Amity and it is her life that is the subject of this tale. She was there when the Baptist War raged in 1831, and she was also present when slavery was declared no more.

My son says I must convey how the story tells also of July’s mama Kitty, of the negroes that worked the plantation land, of Caroline Mortimer the white woman who owned the plantation and many more person besides – far too many to list here. But what befalls them all is carefully chronicled upon these pages.

This month’s book The Long Song by Andrea Levy has started our year off in great style with a stimulating discussion, on the book itself and the many issues found within.


We could all be forgiven for our first reaction, ‘another story of slavery’. We have read plenty covering this topic over the years, but as all good book clubs do, we uncovered more than the usual heartbreak and injustice … humour being a major contributor to our club’s enjoyment.

This is not to say we felt the author took her theme lightly. It is more the narrative approach, that of July, in her impatient, slightly defiant senior’s voice that had us chuckling through this biographical memoir that her son has persuaded her to write. The tricks and antics of her forbearers revealed comic insubordination and rebelliousness that is rare in a slavery novel.

However, we did have some conflicting opinions. Nancy read on only through a feeling of guilt, … she felt she should feel empathy and remorse, yet the book left her with no such feelings, and she found the narrative tiresome. Tera could remember little about the story, yet she did remember enjoying the subtle humour, and Anne again was left with nothing more than a few notes that she jotted down simply to keep track of who was who, and what was what.

But overall the comments were positive. It was thought to be a well researched and beautifully told novel. Clever and possibly written for the screen. Viti and a few others would have liked a little more historical background of the place and time, but we all agreed the purpose of the story was more in the form of a personal account of native Jamaicans and plantation slavery.

Regardless which view point you took, we ended up discussing social and economic wealth and distribution, historical and contemporary injustices and what they all mean today. Not bad for the start of a new year.

Were we suitably impressed? Levy’s previous books have all been noted down for further reading. Always a good indication with our group!