Reading group calendar in 2025

Wednesday 15th January at Paulette's: " WHERE WE COME FROM " by Sasa Stanisic (Bosnian).

Wednesday 12th February at Loeky's: " IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK " by James Baldwin (American).

Wednesday 12th  March at Blanka's: "we will each present a good book we have read independently and of interest for the others".

Wednesday 9th April at Anne's : "JAMES" by Percival Everett ( American)

Wednesday 7th May : no meeting

Wednesday 11th June at Loeky's: " THE WIDE WIDE SEA" by Hampton  Sides (American historian and writer).

Wednesday  16th July at Paulette's : "WIFEDOM" , MRS ORWELL'S INVISIBLE LIFE  by Anna Funder (Australian)

If Beale Street could talk

by James Baldwin

This 1974 novel by American writer James Baldwin is a moving love story set in Harlem in the early 1970s. The title is a reference to the Handy Blues song "Beale Street Blues” named after Beale Street in Downton Memphis, Tennessee.

It is narrated through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl

in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child. They grew up in the same neighbourhood in New York city and are childhood friends.They fall in love and pledge to be married. 

At the beginning of the story, Fonny has been falsely accused of raping a woman, then arrested and jailed, awaiting his trial. Tish learns she is pregnant after Fonny is imprisoned and must rely on her and Fonny's family for support.

Baldwin analyses the American psyche  and the complexities of the human heart quite well. He creates a story in which  love and sadness are intertwined in a Blues ambiance.  He explores love within Black life, highlighting the emotional bonds holding two African American families together

During our discussion of the book, our group had to recognise that unfortunately racism, injustice and inequality of rights between white  and black people are still a reality in some parts of the United States, especially in the South East. 

Although the whole story is very sad, Baldwin sends a message of hope at the end. A definitely good book.

Paulette Duncan

Where you come from

by Sasa Stanisic           

His new novel “Where You Come From” is a powerful exploration of identity and belonging. It is about a village where only thirteen people remain, a country that no longer exists, his own shattered family, whose world is uprooted and remade by war: their history, their life before the conflict, lost in made-up memories, coincidences, choices, and in a dragons’ den. Mixing auto-fiction, fable, and some magic realism, Stanišic traces a family's escape during the conflict in Yugoslavia, and the years that followed as they built a new life in Germany. As he explores what it means to be European today, he describes how it feels to learn a new language, to find new friends and new jobs, and to build a new identity between countries and cultures.

In August, 1992, a boy and his mother flee the war in Yugoslavia They arrive in Germany and six months later, the boy’s father joins them, bringing a brown suitcase, insomnia, and a scar on his thigh. Saša Stanišic’s is a novel about homelands, both remembered and imagined, lost and found. A book that cleverly plays with form and genre, to explore questions that lie inside all of us: about language and shame, about arrival and making it just in time, about what role our origins and memories play in our lives.

This inventive and surprising novel asks: what makes us who we are?

What we all found very moving was the author´s relationship and interaction with his left behind grandmother, who suffers from dementia.

Blanka

Mazel Tov

 by Margot Vanderstraeten

This book tells the story of the friendship that develops between a young student in Antwerp and an orthodox Jewish family who hires her as a tutor for their children.  Through the period covered by the book, the narrator describes the life lived and the customs and traditions practiced by the family.  Having had no contact with Jewish people until then, many of these seem very strange and often very restrictive to the author.  Nevertheless, as time goes on,  she develops a friendship with the family, in particular the elder daughter and son, as well as the parents, and an understanding of their way of life.   As the story follows the various events which the family goes through during the author’s time with them, we learn a great deal about life in an orthodox  Jewish family.

“Mazel Tov“ is by no means a work of literature.  It is written in a straightforward, simple style which makes it a pleasant, easy read.  It  is certainly  very informative and the reader learns a lot about this particular group of people, who live such separate lives in the middle of the bustling city of Antwerp.  

Christine

November 2024

Kantika

 By   Elizabeth Graver 

Kantika ( « song » in Ladino), is a multigenerational portrait of a Sephardic family moving across four countries : from Istanbul to Barcelona, Havana and New York.

The Cohen family, of the Sephardic elite of early 20th century  Istanbul, lose their wealth an status ( end of the Ottoman Empire , transfer of populations), are forced to move to Barcelona. The place is unknown to them, although the Sephardic Jews have a deep knowledge of their Iberian origins – before 1492- !

The family has to start anew.

The main character REBECCA, mother of two boys,  after a failed mariage, has to reinvent herself from what comes her way.

 Self reliant , she finds a new job she enjoys  and relishes the pleasure of motherhood. «  I took a chance, I made a life »

Moving from Spain to Cuba and then to New York for an arranged 2d marriage, she faces her greatest challenge : her disabled stepdaughter LUNA.

Rebecca had decided right from the beginning to make Luna transcent her disability, both physically ( with exhausting exercises)  and mentally :

 «  love yourself Luna , you can be like the other girls. It’s your life, you only get one » 

This book explores the themes of exile, displacement and belonging.

It celebrates the resilience of women and the importance of seizing beauty and grabbing hold of one’s one and only life .

Our group  ( but for one lady ) really  enjoyed reading this book for its humanity, Rebecca’s strength  of character  and new positive approach to disability.

                                                                            Anne Van Calster

                                                                                              November 2024

The Island with the Missing Trees

By  Elif Shafak

 

This book gives us many insights into the story of Cyprus and its divided history, although the historical part is only the background to the main subject, which is the love story between Defne and Kostas, a Muslim girl and a Christian boy and the consequences this love has on themselves and their families.  The other main theme is the story told by a fig tree, which becomes a full-fledged character in this book and gives the reader a whole new perspective on the life of the plants and animals among which we live.   

All our members liked the book and found it easy to read.  We learned about the conflict in Cyprus, which most of us didn’t know much about.  The parts in which the fig tree becomes the narrator and we learn about its life and the life of the animal world are written very poetically.  Moreover, we learn a great deal about the life cycle of trees, insects, birds and other animals from these passages. 

I personally was struck by the love for the island of Cyprus as expressed by the author whereas she has no particular connection to it, according to her biography.    This, to me, is the sign a talented writer, able to transpose her feelings for a place she doesn’t really know into a deeply felt attachment. 

Christine  

August 2024                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Enter ghost

 by Isabella Hammad

A timely read !

It narrates the story of how a cast of actors from mixed nationalities is going to put on Shakespeare’s play  «  Hamlet »,  in classic Arabic,  in Ramallah.

This production has to face enormous challenges : the Palestinians’ poor living conditions in the West Bank, the checkpoints, the uncertainty as to when protests might erupt …

With references to the past History of Israël and Palestine,  «  Hamlet’s » story is transposed in our 21st century in the West Bank.

The questions are  :

What is the point of playing » Hamlet » in the West Bank ?

What is the role of theatre  ( and Art in general) ?

The book answers : «  we can do resistance without going full-on political, without slogans ».

If only it were that simple … 

                                                                                       Anne Van Calster , Mai 2024