September book group

What? Book group night again already! Time does not seem to have flowed with a rhythmic ripple through the intervening hours and minutes, but has hurtled through this short epoch of space. Little pieces of ‘self’ seem to have come adrift as this trajectory created bumps and collisions with objects and forces along the pathContinue reading “September book group”

August book group

The air is palpable with words. It is book group night and the participants of B.A.B.E.S are in good form. We’re meeting for the first time at the newly renovated home of one of our members. It’s cold out. A toasty fire is beckoning us to gather around the radiant timbers. The ‘bubbles’ are chilledContinue reading “August book group”

Dark, dark, dark

Those of you who have read my earlier blogs will know that over the past dozen years, it has been my privilege to have shared in two separate book groups – both quite different in their membership and dynamics. At the last gathering of my current B.A.B.E.S (Bubbles And Books Every Session) group, the conversationContinue reading “Dark, dark, dark”

Books versus movies, final round

Q. When is a science-fiction book not a science-fiction book? A. When it’s made into a hollywood love story movie. Do you know what book I’m referring to? Actually, the jury is still out on what genre this book falls into. Wiki reveals: Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible contentContinue reading “Books versus movies, final round”

Books versus movies, round 2

I am excited by both of the next books and subsequent movies that I’d like to share with you about, but I don’t know which to start with. Hum, de, dum…okay I’ll go with Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I love it when one book bridges the quite different composition of twoContinue reading “Books versus movies, round 2”

Book versus movie, round 1

‘In the beginning was the word’…and the word was good. We savour it, we roll it around in our minds and often on our tongues as we seek to squeeze every trickle of literary goodness from our favorite books. When we read a book we create our own perfect ‘internal movie’ version of the characters,Continue reading “Book versus movie, round 1”

Do good books make good movies?

Do you ever stop to really question whether you should see the screen adaptation of a book you’ve read and loved? I think it would be fair to say that you would rarely ever read the book after you’ve seen the movie. But we often head off to the cinema after we’ve read a book only to come awayContinue reading “Do good books make good movies?”

Subterfuge, books that sneak under the radar

How do we come to read books that we ordinarily would try to avoid?  Simple. Book groups. As shared yesterday, my avoidance of literature that uses war as the setting or background started many years ago. Over the past couple of years though, four books in particular have crossed ‘no-man’s land’ and entered my sphereContinue reading “Subterfuge, books that sneak under the radar”

I refuse to engage with this subject again

I made a conscious decision in the early 1980s not to actively seek out literature or movies, or any material for that matter, that dealt with war. By about 1983, my tender soul screamed that I had engaged ENOUGH with this subject through various media: Schindler’s List (Ark as book was originally published in Australia)Continue reading “I refuse to engage with this subject again”