A lot of us at Rayleigh Vineyard love reading, so we have a monthly book club that meets every 2nd Sunday evening of the month. We choose a book by consensus at each month’s meeting from a list within a certain genre of writing. If you’d like to find out more about the club, send us an email!

CURRENT BOOK CHOICE:

(To be discussed Sunday 14th March 2010)

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

(£2.76 Click here)

19 minutesPeter Houghton, 17, has been the victim of bullying since his first day of kindergarten, made all the more difficult by two factors: In small-town Sterling, N.H., Peter is in high school with the kids who’ve tormented him all his life; and his all-American older brother eggs the bullies on. Peter retreats into a world of video games and computer programming, but he’s never able to attain the safety of invisibility. And then one day he walks into Sterling High with a knapsack full of guns, kills ten students and wounds many others. Peter is caught and thrown in jail, but with over a thousand witnesses and video tape of the day, it will be hard work for the defence to clear him. His attorney, Jordan McAfee, hits on the only approach that might save the unlikable kid – a variation of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by bullying. Thrown into the story is Judge Alex Cormier, and her daughter Josie, who used to be best friends with Peter until the popular crowd forced the limits of her loyalty. Also found dead was her boyfriend Matt, but Josie claims she can’t remember anything from that day. What proves a more intriguing premise is the response of Peter’s parents to the tragedy. How do you keep loving your son when he becomes a mass murderer?

April’s book choice:

Adrian Mole and the weapsons of mass destruction by Sue Townsend

adrianBuy it at Amazon for £2.76

Adrian Mole’s pen is scribbling for the twenty-first century. Working as a bookseller and living in Leicester’s Rat Wharf; finding time to write letters of advice to Tim Henman and Tony Blair; locked in mortal combat with a vicious swan called Gielgud; measuring his expanding bald spot; and trying to escape the clutches of Marigold and win over her voluptuous sister Daisy; Adrian still yearns for a better, more meaningful world. And he is not ready to surrender his pen yet.

Previous books read:

  • White Teeth by Zadie Smith
  • The Senators Wife by Sue Miller (Richard and Judy Bookclub)
  • Five Boys by Mick Jackson
  • Dear Fatty by Dawn French (Autobiographies)
  • The Shack by WM Paul Young
  • Nella Last’s War: The Second World War Diaries of ‘Housewife 49′ (genre: true stories)
  • Catcher in the Rye – J D Sallinger (genre: BBC Top Ten favourite books of all time)
  • The lady in the Lake – Raymond Chandler (genre: crime novels)
  • The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – John Boyne (books about children)
  • Small Island – Andrea Levy (black writers)
  • A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khalid Husseini (set in a foreign country)
  • Lives of Girls and Women – Alice Munro (books about love)
  • Voyage – Stephen Baxter (Sci-Fi)
  • The lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
  • The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding – Agatha Christie (Christmas-titled books)
  • Doctor Jeckyl and Mr Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson (Classics)
  • Its Not About the Bike – Lance Armstrong (Auto-biographies)
  • Chocolat – Joanne Harris (Books about Food)
  • The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger (female writers)
  • The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Attwood (dystopian future)
  • The curious incident of the dog in the night-time – Mark Haddon (disability)
  • The Gravediggers daughter by Joyce Carol Oates
  • Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albon (first ever choice!)