The Small Hand, Time of Gifts and a slap!

We opened the meeting with a discussion of the BBC4 series of Slap (our August read) which began on Thursday. It is in weekly editions - 8 parts - one for each chapter. I'm not sure Chris will be delivering a final verdict at the end but I certainly aim to!

It was two months since we'd last met so we had two books to cover - A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor and The Small Hand by Susan Hill.

The unanimous verdict concerning A Time of Gifts was that, although it was essentially a travel book, it seemed in dire need of more storytelling and character building with the author drifting from place to place without any real sense of occasion. We felt that this could have been in no small part due to the the fact that the author didn't write the book until much later in life. The descriptions were at times engaging, as were the author's demonstration of his knowledge of history and the arts throughout the book. For example, at one point he depicts his backdrop to famous artists and their paintings and another time sees him embracing the charm of a wise old sage, with him musing how this experience provided more education in minutes than in years of history lessons.

We concluded that we wouldn't be seeking out Fermor's subsequent travelogues - life's too short!

Everyone greatly enjoyed The Small Hand, especially its short length - Mary even managed to finish it in one sitting on the train to London. The book felt a lot older than it was and apart from a couple of seasoned chiller readers in the group, most were mainly relieved it wasn't too scary. Our collective review of this book was short and to the point - just like the story - with the conclusion of a 'very satisfactory read.'

A lively debate ensued about future reads and we settled on Human Stain by Phillip Roth for December and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby in January. I think there was then general acquiescence towards Chris's suggestion of Hunger by Norwegian author Knut Hamsun - and after reading a few reviews on Amazon I can't wait - so we can make that our February read.

Thanks for all of your valuable input! I think that's all for now - see you next week x