Our American twin!

Two days of excitement in a row for the Glos Litlovers. We now have an American twin. To be fair, our American twin is more mature and a lot more classy than us, but we don't mind being the country bumpkins - we are officially INTERNATIONAL!

My new friend in the USofA is Molly Lundquist. She runs a fab website called - wait for it LITLOVERS!!!!
http://www.litlovers.com/

I found it and her by accident on Google and had to make contact, continuing our already well established stalking of all things literary. Molly turns out to be fabulous and has asked if we want to join her on-line community of book clubs.' Is Charles Dickens an author?' I said!

Her website is amazing. It is predominantly American, and not all the books are available over here, but lots of them are. It even has a recipe section, and we know that is going to be a hit with the Glos Litlovers.

To quote Molly:
'LitLovers has brought together my lifelong love of reading, writing, and teaching. The site is about WHAT we read, HOW we read, and HOW we THINK about our reading. Approaching literature in that way can change how we see our lives and the world around us.'
I am loving her style!

Susie and I are already planning live Facetime chats with book clubs in the States. We did a Facetime feedback with Lucy while she was in Portugal, so we know it is possible.

God Bless America!



Nicki

Movie time

There is much excitement among the Glos Lit Lovers, as one of our favourite authors has just landed a movie deal.

A Lit Lovers road trip to our local cineworld is on the cards. In the meantime, I am going to look into buying shares in Kleenex. 

Happy days.



 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. (MGM) has secured the feature film rights to Jojo Moyes' critically acclaimed, bestselling novel "Me Before You" it was announced today by Jonathan Glickman, MGM's President, Motion Picture Group.

"Me Before You" tells the story of two very different characters: Lou, a small town girl caught between dead-end jobs and Will, a high-profile, successful man who becomes wheelchair bound following an accident. Will has decided his life is not worth living until Lou is hired for six months to be his new caretaker. Worlds apart and trapped together by circumstance, the two get off to a rocky start. But, Lou becomes determined to prove to Will that life is worth living and as they embark on a series of adventures together, each finds their world changing in ways neither of them could begin to imagine.

The novel has sold over half a million copies and quickly landed on The New York Times bestseller list. Global E-book sales have crossed 250,000 and the book is now sold into thirty-one translations, including an upcoming first printing in Germany (March 2013) with 120,000 copies. Critical raves include The New York Times Book Review: "Moyes story provokes tears that are redemptive, the opposite of gratuitous. Some situations, she forces the reader to recognize, really are worth crying over...with Lou and Will she has created an affair to remember;" The Daily Mail: "A deftly plotted narrative populated with likable engaging characters...a bittersweet story about love, learning and letting go. It's a tremendous read;" and People Magazine: "Funny, surprising and heartbreaking, populated with characters who are affecting and amusing...This is a thought-provoking, thoroughly entertaining novel that captures the complexity of love."

"Jojo's book is frankly one of the most unique, emotional and engaging love stories written in recent years," said Glickman. "We're so thrilled to collaborate with her on creating a classic film romance that lives up to this exceptional novel."

Said Moyes: "I could not be more excited about MGM and their plans for 'Me Before You.' The studio is so passionate about the book and I'm thrilled that a story that seems to have come alive in so many readers' imaginations is about to have a whole new life on-screen."

The film rights were negotiated by Jessica Cooper of Curtis Brown for Moyes. Cassidy Lange, MGM's senior vice president, production, will oversee the project on behalf of the studio.

Sadly often the case...

Litlovers admin

Here it is - the list of meetings past and meetings to come, as promised.

Date		Host	Book Choice		Book
December 2011		Karens Breakfast Bar	Nicki		The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Shafer
January 18th 2012		Nicki	Karen		Before I Go To Sleep SJ Watson
February 29th		Karen	Lucy		Legacy of Eden Nelle Davy
March 28th		Lucy	Michelle		Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Deborah Moggach
April 25th		Michelle	Susie		Bel Ami Guy de Maupassant
Extraordinary Meeting		Lucy	Karens 2nd Choice		Me Before You JoJo Moyes
May 30th		Susie	Clare		Secrets Between Us Louise Douglas
June 27th		Clare	Sally Savage		Fifty Shades of Grey E L James
July 18th		Sally Savage	Sarah		Landfall Helen Gordon
September 5th		Sarah	Bev		The Painter of Silence Georgina Harding
September 26th		Bev	Celia		The Man Who Forgot His Wife John O'Farrell
November 7th		Celia	Sally A		The Girl You Left Behind JoJo Moyes
November 28th		Sally A	Nicki		Jubilee Shelley Harris
January 23rd 2013	Nicki			Karen		After the Fall Charity Norman
February 27th	Karen			Lucy		The Last Summer. Judith Kingholm.
March 20th	Lucy			Chantel		The Vintage Teacup Club Vanessa Greene
April 24th	Chantel			Clare
May 22nd	Clare			Susie
June 26th	Susie			Sally S
July 17th	Sally S			Sarah
September 4th	Sarah			Bev
September 25th	Bev			Celia
October 30th	Celia			Sally A
November 27th	Sally A			Nicki
December TBA	Christmas			Bash

Book choices for our February meeting

Karen provided us with a very interesting selection of books for next time. From the three choices we have to select what we will read for next time. We have a proportional representation model, but after an initial vote of 6 for number 1, we have agreed to read After the Fall by Charity Norman. 

Here are the choices we had:

 

In the quiet of a New Zealand winter's night, a rescue helicopter is sent to airlift a five-year-old boy with severe internal injuries. He's fallen from the upstairs veranda of an isolated farmhouse, and his condition is critical. At first, Finn's fall looks like a horrible accident; after all, he's prone to sleepwalking. Only his frantic mother, Martha McNamara, knows how it happened. And she isn't telling. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Tragedy isn't what the McNamara family expected when they moved to New Zealand. For Martha, it was an escape. For her artist husband Kit, it was a dream. For their small twin boys, it was an adventure. For sixteen-year-old Sacha, it was the start of a nightmare. They end up on the isolated east coast of the North Island, seemingly in the middle of a New Zealand tourism campaign. But their peaceful idyll is soon shattered as the choices Sacha makes lead the family down a path which threatens to destroy them all. Martha finds herself facing a series of impossible decisions, each with devastating consequences for her family.

 'Do you need me to pray for you now for a specific reason?' 'I'm going to die.' 'We're all going to die. Does dying frighten you?' 'I mean I'm going to kill myself.' When 20-year-old Lenny Barnes, paralysed in a rugby accident, commits suicide in the presence of Barnaby Johnson, the much-loved priest of a West Cornwall parish, the tragedy's reverberations open up the fault-lines between Barnaby and his nearest and dearest. The personal stories of his wife, children and lover illuminate Barnaby's ostensibly happy life, and the gulfs of unspoken sadness that separate them all. Across this web of relations scuttles Barnaby's repellent nemesis -- a man as wicked as his prey is virtuous. Returning us to the rugged Cornish landscape of 'Notes from an Exhibition', Patrick Gale lays bare the lives and the thoughts of a whole community and asks us: what does it mean to be good?

 

 

The present: Emilie de la Martinieres finds herself alone in the world and sole inheritor of her grand childhood home in the south of France. An old notebook of poems leads her in search of the mysterious and beautiful Sophia, whose tragic love affair changed the course of her family history. . The past: London 1943. A young office clerk, Constance Carruthers, is drafted into the SOE, arriving in occupied Paris during the climax of the conflict. Separated from her contact in her very first hours in France, she stumbles into the heart of a wealthy family who are caught up in a deadly game of secrets and lies. Forced to surrender her identity and all ties to her homeland and her beloved husband, Constance finds herself drawn into a complex web of deception, the repercussions of which will affect generations to come.  Lucinda Riley's new novel is a breathtaking and intense story of love, war and, above all, forgiveness.

Our next meeting is on Wednesday 27th February 2013, at Karens.



January meeting 2013

The whole group managed to make it to our meeting last night, despite the snow. The number of boots in my porch showed the epic journeys undertaken from distant villages and the lengths us Litlovers will go to for puddings and literary debate.

It was our 1^st birthday, and we raised a toast to many more. I wish I had thought to make a cake. It is not like me to miss the opportunity for a big old chocolate fudge cake with a candle on top. But I was preoccupied with my strawberry and prosecco jelly’s refusal to ‘jel’. Fortunately, the Litlovers are more than happy to improvise when it comes to a combination of sugar and alcohol. They also had chocolate mousse, G&T sorbet and white chocolate and cranberry truffles to ease the disappointment.

We very much enjoyed our debate about Jubilee by Shelley Harris. We all agreed it was an interesting book. However some of the group reported a lack of feeling towards the adult Satish which made them ambivalent about what happened to him. There was also some frustration about the some of the undeveloped storylines. Others felt moved by his childhood experience, and sympathetic to his adult choices and reactions. We all agreed it was an accurate reflection of 1977, except perhaps the barbecue?! 

We all very much liked the lists at the end of the book. Lists of songs, TV programmes and food from 1977. A number of the group were not born then, and it was interesting for me (as the oldest in the group) to reflect on this today. For them this book was like me reading a book about the late 1950s, interesting but not easy to relate to. For the rest of us it was a trip down memory lane, and I particularly enjoyed the short rendition of Don’t Give Up On Us Baby.

By the way, those dolls we were talking about were Holly Hobbie.

 

RECIPE 

Strawberry and Prosecco Jellies

(Thank you to the BBC Good Food website)

 

200g Caster Sugar

450g Strawberries plus extra to decorate

6 sheets of leaf gelatine (or you can just use 4, like me, and provide straws)

Bottle of prosecco

 

Put 150ml water and the sugar in a large saucepan and heat gently until the sugar has completely dissolved. Add the strawberries, bring to the boil, then bubble for 5 mins without stirring, until the fruit has softened and the liquid is red, fragrant and syrupy

 

Strain the hot syrup through a sieve into a large jug (be careful not to push the strawberries through the sieve as the jelly will become cloudy), then leave to cool for a few mins. Discard the cooked strawberries. While the syrup is cooling, soak the gelatine in a bowl of cold water. When soft, squeeze the excess water from the gelatine sheets and stir into the syrup until completely melted.

Divide the extra strawberries between 6 x 200-250ml Champagne flutes or stemmed glasses. Open the Prosecco, mix it briefly with the strawberry syrup, then pour into the glasses over the strawberries. Chill overnight, then serve.

 

 

ENJOY!

 

Nicki 

A coincidence.

On the very day we are reviewing Jubilee by Shelley Harris, the Independent newspaper did the same. We are obviously in good company Lit Lovers.
We had a mixed view of the book across the 11 of us, as will be revealed tomorrow when I write the post.
In the meantime, have a look at what The Independent wrote, although it obviously won't be anywhere near as interesting as what we had to say!

By James Urquart
Published in the Queen's Diamond Jubilee year, Shelley Harris's remarkably assured debut novel is rooted in the Silver Jubilee celebrations of June 1977. Cherry Gardens, in a small Buckinghamshire village, is throwing a street party. Union Jack bunting is festooned from house to house; trestle tables will carry the vat of unappetising coronation chicken and cakes iced in red, white and blue, as well as the scrumptious chakli contributed by the Patels, who had come to Bourne Heath fleeing Idi Amin's violent expulsion of Asians from Uganda. "Do let's remember this is a particularly British celebration," antique Miss Bissett had sniffily objected to Mrs Patel's culinary offer. Her simple, patriotic reply prompts an awkward pause for the organising committee: "I am British now. She's my Queen too."

Dismissing the chakli is a patronising affront. The street's children are a bit more direct. Young Satish Patel seems to have good friendships with most - but even Cai, his closest pal, doesn't see any injustice in the nickname Splatish, coined by Chandler, the bully, to remind Satish that he is "a little skid mark on the whiteness of Bourne Heath".
Such instinctive, approved prejudice, both condescending and aggressive, is the central artery of Harris's shrewdly observed novel. It pumps a small shot of anticipatory tension into the street-party preparations and a heavier shot into the present life of Satish Patel, who has become a well-respected paediatric cardiologist at a London children's hospital. Thirty years on, Chandler has resurfaced. He wants Satish to join in the lucrative restaging of a photo of the street party that became iconic and made a fortune and career for the local paper's snapper.
Satish retains the scars of the jubilee celebrations, which have modulated into a habit of self-effacement that hides a degree of emotional cauterisation. One of the triumphs of this slow-burning plot is the certainty that something unpleasant will occur during the party, which Harris binds seamlessly with the older Satish's horror at having to relive the incident.
There's a curatorial atmosphere to this novel's use of a photo which recall's Jon McGregor's intricate debut If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things. Also set in a single street, McGregor's measured prose looped in and out of neighbouring lives, weaving domestic upsets and private considerations into a richly textured work. So here, Harris drops sufficient hints of back-story – infidelity, deceit, failed promise, enchanting success – into her characters' interactions. The pitch-perfect children's banter and accurate period detail lend authenticity to her prose.
At heart, Jubilee is a love story, but one whose transgressive origins precipitate the scarring of Satish's childhood. Harris's neat closure offers an ache of frustrated ardour that eclipses the settlement of old scores. It gives balance to an exciting debut that suggests this author will offer many more insightful and compelling stories in the years ahead.

The excitement is building...

Just two days until our next meeting. The book choices for next month have just arrived by email from Karen, and I am busy writing the shopping list for this months puddings. I have taken the day off on Wednesday to make them. Well, I only host once a year, so I want to make the most of it. (Me? Competitive? Noooo!)
There will be an update on what we think of Jubilee and what we ate. So watch this space.
Nicki x
p.s. Also from Karen, we received a nice little logo. 

 

 

Love this.

Discovering other Blogs

It appears that the Gloucestershire Lit Lovers are a bit behind the times. Anyone who is anyone appears to have a blog these days.

Especially for Susie, there is this one

http://www.jojomoyes.com/blog/  (which I can actually recommend as a fab blog)

And for Sarah

http://jbsbigworld.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/do-horses-like-cheese.html

And for Lucy

http://www.twilightblog.net/

And for Bev

http://www.cosyhomeblog.com/

I could go on all day, as there eleven of us, but I think you get the point. I also have a book to read and puddings to research for the next meeting on 23rd January 2013. Oh, and did I mention I have to work for a living?

This month we are reading Jubilee by Shelley Harris.

It's 1977, the day of the Queen's Silver Jubilee, when a photographer captures a moment forever: a festive street party with bunting and Union Jacks fluttering in the breeze and, right in the centre of the frame, a small Asian boy staring intensely at the camera. The photo becomes infamous when it is adopted as a symbol of everything that is great and good about Britain, but what is the real story behind it? Relationships between the neighbours on Cherry Gardens are far from easy, and minor frictions threaten to erupt as the street party begins...

Fast forward to the present and that boy, Satish, is now a successful paediatric heart surgeon, saving lives and families every single day. But he's living with a secret - he's addicted to controlled prescription drugs. A message about a proposed reunion of the children in the photograph throws his life into turmoil as he thinks back to Jubilee Day, and the events that changed his life for ever.
 

 

Show Less

I had better start it...