Emma - Jane Austen

To kick off the Page Turners book club we agreed our first novel would be:

Emma by Jane Austen

This was chosen because most people are familiar with the basic story and it’s available on film to help you along- the Gwyneth Paltrow/Jeremy Northam (sigh) version is very good.

Next meeting: Weds 20th May 2009, 7:30pm

Where: All Bar One. RSVP to Daksha

Think about: Characterisation, plot, sub-plot, imagery/symbolism (can talk about this), style of writing, the title, key messages/themes

Tip: Write down notes and ideas as they occur to you, and the pages they appear on so you can quote.

Please do not worry if you cannot finish the novel before we meet again or that you will have nothing to say. Just come along and enjoy!

PageTurners is born!

On Wednesday 22nd April 2009 a new book club was born in Sutton.

There was only five of us who met at Katie's house but there was at least 3 others who had said that they would be joining us in the future.

From the start we realised that none of us knew how a book club should be run. However after being fed by Katie, our 'little grey cells' were soon working. The first thing we had to do was to give our group a name. Andy, the creative one, was on hand. 'PageTurners' was born!

Thanks should be given to Frankie for keeping 'minutes' as we chatted about what we wanted from our book club.

Why:

1. To share our individual interpretations of novels
2. Broaden our literary horizons
3. Possibly “re-write” endings, scenarios, write short screenplay: to vary the discussion and only once we feel confident to do so!
4. We may include a “literary word of the month” (more later)
5. To impress people with our extensive literary knowledge!
6. To have fun and socialise!
   

We agreed that anyone who wanted to join could, there is no “criteria” except a love of reading and wanting to talk about books. We would also welcome those who don't read and if a 'Great Adaptation' (film) was available then they would be able to share their thoughts.

We created a list of “Themes” (genres) of novels from which we would try to choose a novel. This would hopefully keep both reading and discussion interesting and challenging and take each of us out of our “comfort zone”.

Themes:

• Classic British/American/Other
• Contemporary (published not more than 5 -10 years ago)
• Historical
• Chicklit
• Biography/Autobiography
• Science Fiction
• Crime (contemporary & classic)
• Travel

As an example, a couple of books were suggested for future discussion:

• The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood (Canadian, contemporary)
• The Corrections Jonathan Franzen (American, contemporary)

We discussed our favourite books, which was difficult as we each had a few! But some of these included:

• Les Miserables Victor Hugo
• Lord of The Rings (trilogy) JRR Tolkien
• To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
• Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen