New blood has joined the band of blokes and yesterday offered insightful commentary on Frankenstein, having only glanced at the text in boyhood... I hate that. I write this from my sick bed the day after the Bookblokes monthly bash having drunk a single bottle of beer (plus poisonous sediment) and paid the price with a trip to the khazi every ten minutes during the night. (Note to self - * don't drink the lumpy stuff - better still, pour carefully into a glass like the instructions say* )
More new blood to arrive next month... Bloke R - send email address for an invite to comment.
editors note: O-Garden from Otley Brewery is a wheat beer flavoured with coriander and orange peel . Also available was Cheltenham SPA form Battledown Brewery in Cheltneham and Ale Mary from West Hewish and Old Scatness from Shetland
Notes from a men's book group in Cheltenham - Beer and books- Erudite and Healthy ( Eruditio et Salubritas) 2002 and still going
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Sunday, 22 February 2009
Frankenstein -- Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was an unexpected treat . Not too long and a step into a different world - not sci-fi but the world of the early 1800s (published 1818) . Cleverly no attempt to explain the "scientific " details of the monster's creation. Victor F the scientist is a most unsympathetic character .
Beer from the Shetlands and Hampshire drank well
Next: Siegfried Sassoon "Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man"
Beer from the Shetlands and Hampshire drank well
Next: Siegfried Sassoon "Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man"
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Books are alway better in the group
It is almost alway the case that having discussed a book we see more in it than any of us did when we first read it .
Discussing it -in our unstructured way us helps to consider the style , content ,authorial voice ,plot and setting , historical or social significance of the work
You don't need the awful "Questions for your reading group... why do you think the sky was blue ...what is the meaning of Ermintrude wearing a red dress ..." .
We read differently-some skim and take a sense of the book , some read and consider every word . Some don't finish ( or even start ) the book. As we talk about it we come to see the book differently from how we did at first .... but perhaps it's just the beer.
Discussing it -in our unstructured way us helps to consider the style , content ,authorial voice ,plot and setting , historical or social significance of the work
You don't need the awful "Questions for your reading group... why do you think the sky was blue ...what is the meaning of Ermintrude wearing a red dress ..." .
We read differently-some skim and take a sense of the book , some read and consider every word . Some don't finish ( or even start ) the book. As we talk about it we come to see the book differently from how we did at first .... but perhaps it's just the beer.
all the books
So bloke T has put up the list of all we have read - at least those we can recall
Quite a variety .Some we would never have read were it not for the group .
Click on the list to see them - and wonder at the range .
Quite a variety .Some we would never have read were it not for the group .
Click on the list to see them - and wonder at the range .
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