OCTOBER 2019

A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

Summary:Richard Hughes's celebrated short novel is a masterpiece of concentrated narrative. Its dreamlike action begins among the decayed plantation houses and overwhelming natural abundance of late nineteenth-century Jamaica, before moving out onto the high seas, as Hughes tells the story of a group of children thrown upon the mercy of a crew of down-at-the-heel pirates. A tale of seduction and betrayal, of accommodation and manipulation, of weird humor and unforeseen violence, this classic of twentieth-century literature is above all an extraordinary reckoning with the secret reasons and otherworldly realities of childhood

Host: Jenn P.

BBC's Thoughts: Some of the thoughts from the ladies were that the book was not very interesting. It was also a difficult read. Sharon felt there were some unnecessary sexualization written in the story. Martha thought the book challenged one's perspective and Jenn P liked the antiquated language. But overall the book was not well liked.

Rating: 2.5/5

SEPTEMBER 2019

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Summary:A struggling novelist travels the world to avoid an awkward wedding in this hilarious Pulitzer Prize-winning novel full of "arresting lyricism and beauty" ( The New York Times Book Review).

New York Times Notable Book of 2017

A Washington Post Top Ten Book of 2017

A San Francisco Chronicle Top Ten Book of 2017

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Lambda Award, and the California Book Award

Who says you can't run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes—it would be too awkward—and you can't say no—it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.

QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?

ANSWER: You accept them all.

What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last.

Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less is, above all, a love story.

A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author The New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.

Host: Willow

BBC's Thoughts: As a group we all thought the book was readable but not very entertaining
Rating: 2.8/5

PAST BOOKS

Here are a list of the books we've read over the years