The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman

The Red Garden

I started listening to this on a CD in the car, but then realized it was a series of related short stories. Listening to a book makes it more difficult to realize when one story finishes and another starts, and so I got the book and decided to read it instead. 

The story is that of Blackwell, Massachusetts, from the founding of the town to the present day. The town is imaginary, but it is typical of others in the area. The first few chapters are the founding of the town, and the separate stories are sometimes linked to previous ones and sometimes stand alones. 

Some of the stories were classics and memorable, but when it came to discussing the book many people couldn't remember a lot of the individual stories. While previous stories were often referenced to, I would have liked more of a flowing feel to the book. It was a little too strange for my linking, and not one of the favorites we have read. 

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go

This was a book that I never would have read had it not been a book club book. Firstly, it's science fiction and I didn't realize it until half way through the book. The people in the book are different from other people, but you don't realize how or why until the second half. 

It's set in England in the 1990s and centered around what appears to be a normal boarding school until one of the teachers lets slip that there's really no point in educating the students in the school. When the teacher suddenly no longer works there, the students become suspicious and wonder what is different about themselves and their school.

I can't tell you any more without spoiling the plot. It's one of those science fiction books that you wonder if it could come true one day. After I read the book I watched the movie and found it very true to the book, but still just as haunting.

Here's the movie:

Never Let Me Go

La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith

La's Orchestra Saves the World

Personally, I didn't like this book. It is set in pre war and then during the Second World War. La is a woman who was educated with a Cambridge degree and I was frustrated that she didn't do anything significant with that degree. A woman with a Cambridge degree in pre war years was just about unheard of and she must have been someone special to achieve one. Yet through the book she doesn't appear to act so well educated. 

Without spoiling the plot, she finds herself alone during the war years in a rural community and with enough money to live on. So she volunteers to help the war effort by assisting an elderly farmer with his chickens. Then she also starts an orchestra. There's actually not much written about the orchestra except that everyone loved it. I was past half way in the book before I read about the orchestra being formed. I thought it would take more space in the book, being mentioned in the title. Also I wondered how they could have had decent performances when they only practiced once a month. 

The first chapter is significant in the story of the plot. So, when you have finished the book, go back and read the first chapter.