Newsletter
No 85
August 2010
“This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room.” We invite you to enter the drawing-room of Margaret Mayfield in PRIVATE LIFE our Book of the Month by Jane Smiley. The other recommended titles this month are the unsettling SKIN LANE by Neil Bartlett and TRAVELLING LIGHT, a brilliant short story collection by Tove Jansson. Do you agree with our reviews? Would you like to have your say? Leave your comments at the bottom of any review (you can add comments to any of the reviews in the archive as well) - we’d love to hear them. Can you Spot the Bookshop? Congratulations to all of our competition winners. The 10 winners of OUT OF OFFICE by Mark Piggott are: Debbie Carpenter, Sandhurst; Barbara Farrant, Devizes; Paul Hanley, Whiston; Steve Marler, Hampton; Lynne Huffam, Radlett; Phil Murden, Billericay; Clare Hallas, Streatham; Lewis Pettit, Ipswich; Doreen Plumridge, Colchester and Eve Kemp-Gee, Carmarthen. Many thanks to Legend Press, the publishers. And the 2 winners of the Booksellers Association prize are Carolyn Hopper and Madelaine Key. Welcome to all the new groups who have recently registered with us. Now is the time to request your FREE BOOKS! Just go to the offers page. This is for ALL registered groups (sorry, UK and Ireland groups only) not just new ones. If your group is not registered then just fill in the form. It’s a very simple process. Read about our Bookgroup of the Month the lively 10 year old St Margarets Bookclub. The fourth Henley Literary Festival, takes place from September 29th to October 3rd. Appearances from Melvyn Bragg, Antonia Fraser and Craig Brown are among the 100 events held throughout the town at a range of venues including the Kenton Theatre and the River and Rowing Museum. Everyone is catered for, ranging from events for youngsters in the Children's Festival and workshops aimed at would-be writers. The hugely popular River Readings return with Love Letters and War Poetry featuring as themes on the boats that cruise down the Thames. Get your tickets for The Hampstead and Highgate Literary Festival, 2010 which will take place between 19th and 21st of September. Tickets are on sale now for the only festival in the UK devoted to the short story, Small Wonder, held on September 23-26 at Charleston, the wonderful country house of the Bloomsbury group. According to Gabriel Josipovici, the former Weidenfeld professor of comparative literature at Oxford University, leading contemporary British authors such as Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes are unworthy of the accolades they receive. He said they were like "prep-school boys showing off" and virtually indistinguishable from one another in scope and ambition. Read more Perhaps McEwan et al should try the massively popular I Write Like website and find out just how indistinguishable they are from one another! See the 2010 Man Booker longlist (where none of the 'prep-school boys' can be found). The closing date for this year’s Prose and Poetry Prizes 2010 from The New Writer magazine is 30 November. Established in 1997 it is one of the major annual international competitions for short stories, novellas, single poems, poetry collections, essays and articles which offers cash prizes as well as publication for the prize-winning writers in The Collection, a special edition of The New Writer magazine. The guest on Radio 4 Bookclub in August is Siri Hustvedt talking about her novel WHAT I LOVED, part love story, thriller, and part family saga. That's on Sunday 1st at 4pm and Thursday 5th also at 4pm and on podcast and the i-player too. Kamila Shamsie is on the BBC World Book Club on Thursday, 30th September, and will be talking about her international bestseller BURNT SHADOWS (see our review). If you would like to attend or put a question to Kamila Shamsie then email worldbookclub@bbc.co.uk Do you own or manage an independent bookshop? We can now list your shop free on the site. Your entry will appear on the town page of the regional directory and on the list of independent bookshops. Just complete the registration form or email us at info@bookgroup.info for more information. If you enjoy Bookgroup Info and find it useful, please help support the site by buying books through us. If you click through from any link to Amazon from this site and buy books (or anything), Bookgroup Info gets a small percentage. It all helps to keep us going! Please do remember to forward the newsletter to other members of your group so that they can take advantage of the offers and competitions.
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