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BookClub

BookClub Feed This page serves as a starting point for our English book club in Zürich, Switzerland.

We have a Meetup page!

To help pick books for future meetings, check our List of Open Books and add your opinions or propose your own. Go there, add books, and vote! We seem to have no clear front-runner for a December read, or for starting the next year with …

To edit a book meeting page:

  1. click on the title of the meeting below
  2. click on Edit this page or Diese Seite bearbeiten at the very bottom of the page

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2013-06 Book Club

What: The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

When: 26 June, 19:30 – RSVP on Meetup (optional ;))

Where: Bistro Lochergut (tram 2+3 ‘Lochergut’)

Description by amazon: 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them bigger than a matchbox: Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in his great uncle Iggie’s Tokyo apartment. When he later inherited the ‘netsuke’, they unlocked a story far larger and more dramatic than he could ever have imagined.

From a burgeoning empire in Odessa to fin de siecle Paris, from occupied Vienna to Tokyo, Edmund de Waal traces the netsuke’s journey through generations of his remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century.

This biography was highly recommended to me! (Karina)

First suggested: November 2012

Supporters: Karina, Louisa, Rene, Nela

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2013-05 Book Club

What: Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

When: 22 May, 19:30 – RSVP on Meetup (optional ;))

Where: Bistro Lochergut (tram 2+3 ‘Lochergut’)

When 14-year-old Sophie encounters a mysterious mentor who introduces her to philosophy, mysteries deepen in her own life. Why does she keep getting postcards addressed to another girl? Who is the other girl? And who, for that matter, is Sophie herself? To solve the riddle, she uses her new knowledge of philosophy, but the truth is far stranger than she could have imagined.

A phenomenal worldwide bestseller, SOPHIE’S WORLD sets out to draw teenagers into the world of Socrates, Descartes, Spinoza, Hegel and all the great philosophers. A brilliantly original and fascinating story with many twists and turns, it raises profound questions about the meaning of life and the origin of the universe.

First suggested: Sep 2012

Supporters: Louisa, Richie, Katie, Kathleen, Dominique, Leon, Rene

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2013-04 Book Club

What: The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

When: 24 April, 19:30 – RSVP on Meetup (optional ;))

Where: Bistro Lochergut (tram 2+3 ‘Lochergut’)

It all starts on the one-hundredth birthday of Allan Karlsson. Sitting quietly in his room in an old people’s home, he is waiting for the party he-never-wanted-anyway to begin. The mayor is going to be there. The press is going to be there. But, as it turns out, Allan is not…Slowly but surely Allan climbs out of his bedroom window, into the flowerbed (in his slippers) and makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash, and incompetent police. As his escapades unfold, we learn something of Allan’s earlier life in which - remarkably - he helped to make the atom bomb, became friends with American presidents, Russian tyrants, and Chinese leaders, and was a participant behind the scenes in many key events of the twentieth century. Already a huge bestseller across Europe, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared is a fun, feel-good book for all ages. Translated by Rod Bradbury.

First suggested: Sep 2012

Supporters: Louisa, Richie, Karina, Dominique, Nicole, Rene

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2013-03 Book Club

What: Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux

When: 20 March, 19:30 – RSVP on Meetup (optional ;))

Where: Bistro Lochergut (tram 2+3 ‘Lochergut’)

For a change, how about some travel literature? One of the best ones from Theroux in my opinion…

Paul Theroux sets off for Cape Town from Cairo – the hard way.

Travelling across bush and desert, down rivers and across lakes, and through country after country, Theroux visits some of the most beautiful landscapes on earth, and some of the most dangerous. It is a journey of discovery and of rediscovery – of the unknown and the unexpected, but also of people and places he knew as a young and optimistic teacher forty years before.

Safari in Swahili simply means “journey”, and this is the ultimate safari. It is Theroux in his element – a trip where chance encounter is everything, where departure and arrival times are an irrelevance, and where contentment can be found balancing on the top of a truck in the middle of nowhere.

(description credit: amazon)

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2013-02 Book Club

What: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

When: 20 February, 19:30 – RSVP on Meetup (optional ;))

Where: Bistro Lochergut (tram 2+3 ‘Lochergut’)

A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified “dinery server” on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation—the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.

In his captivating third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity’s dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us. (description credit: Goodreads.com)

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2013-01 Book Club

What: The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine

When: 23 January, 19:30 – RSVP on Meetup (optional ;))

Where: Bistro Lochergut (tram 2+3 ‘Lochergut’)

Book description (from Amazon): An astonishingly inventive, wonderfully exuberant novel that takes us from the shimmering dunes of ancient Egypt to the war-torn streets of twenty-first-century Lebanon.

In 2003, Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father’s deathbed. The city is a shell of the Beirut Osama remembers, but he and his friends and family take solace in the things that have always sustained them: gossip, laughter, and, above all, stories.

Osama’s grandfather was a hakawati, or storyteller, and his bewitching stories—of his arrival in Lebanon, an orphan of the Turkish wars, and of how he earned the name al-Kharrat, the fibster—are interwoven with classic tales of the Middle East, stunningly reimagined. Here are Abraham and Isaac; Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes; the ancient, fabled Fatima; and Baybars, the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders. Here, too, are contemporary Lebanese whose stories tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war—and of survival.

Like a true hakawati, Rabih Alameddine has given us an Arabian Nights for this century—a funny, captivating novel that enchants and dazzles from its very first lines: “Listen. Let me take you on a journey beyond imagining. Let me tell you a story.”

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2012-12 Book Club

What: Wilt by Tom Sharpe

When: 19 December, 19:30 – RSVP on Meetup (optional ;))

Where: Bistro Lochergut (tram 2+3 ‘Lochergut’)

This is a funny, light read, good for a busy December schedule – still a bit over 300 pages but let’s try!

Henry Wilt, tied to a daft job and a domineering wife, has just been passed over for promotion yet again. Ahead of him at the Polytechnic stretch years of trying to thump literature into the heads of plasterers, joiners, butchers and the like. And things are no better at home where his massive wife, Eva, is given to boundless and unpredictable fits of enthusiasm - for transcendental meditation, yoga or the trampoline. But if Wilt can do nothing about his job, he can do something about his wife, in imagination at least, and his fantasies grow daily more murderous and more concrete.

After a peculiarly nasty experience at a party thrown by particularly nasty Americans, Wilt finds himself in several embarrassing positions: Eva stalks out in stratospheric dudgeon, and Wilt, under the inspiration of gin, puts one of his more vindictive fantasies into effect. But suspicions are instantly aroused and Wilt rapidly achieves an unenviable notoriety in the role of The Man Helping Police With Their Enquiries. Or is he exactly helping? Wilt’s problem - although he’s on the other side of the fence - is the same as Inspector Flint’s: where is Eva Wilt? But Wilt begins to flourish in the heat of the investigation, and as the police stoke the flames of circumstantial evidence, Wilt deploys all his powers to show that the Law can’t tell a Missing Person from a hole in the ground.

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2012-11 Book Club

What: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

When: 28 November, 19:30 – RSVP on Meetup (optional ;))

Where: Bistro Lochergut (tram 2+3 ‘Lochergut’)

How about another Classic? With a capital C? The other day my Spanish teacher waxed poetic about it, to the point that I decided I really ought to read this sometime. Not in Spanish yet :-( but translations to just about any language you read should be readily available. Wikipedia article (also includes links to the full text as well as audio recordings): Don Quixote

Update: Another esteemed member of our book club read it years ago and found it a royal drag at the time. Hmmm. Other views from anyone? Comment (Martin): I have tackled this during my exchange year in Alcala de Henares (the City of Cervantes) and am still keen to discuss it, but it’s quite hard piece of work to get through him! Comment (Nela): I heard that the Edith Grossman translation is one of the better ones in English. Not sure how many there are. – (Uli) A lot, apparently. Some are discussed and sampled here; Smollett’s seems to be another ‘classic’ translation that’s missing there.

First suggested: Sep 2011

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2012-10 Book Club

What: Oscar and the Lady in Pink by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt (original title: Oscar et la dame en rose)

When: 24 October, 19:30 – RSVP on Meetup (optional ;))

Where: Bistro Lochergut (tram 2+3 ‘Lochergut’)

Wikipedia: Oscar and the Lady in Pink

From The Book Nut's Blog:

Just to round off the year, I read this rather sweet little book. It’s very short – 88 pages of widely spaced font, but packs a punch with its story. Oscar is a young boy who is dying of leukaemia, and lives in hospital. He receives visits from the ‘lady in pink’ who he calls Granny Rose, and she is the only person who he thinks understands him. He resents his parents and Doctor for their inability to tell him he’s dying, or to treat him normally. Granny Rose encourages him to see each of the following 12 days – which lead up to Christmas – as a decade of his life, and to write a letter to God each day, telling him what had happened in that decade. Even though Oscar doesn’t even believe that God exists he starts to write the letters anyway.

The book is narrated by Oscar (through his letters to God) and he shares the great things about his life – falling in love with another patient, the friends he has at the hospital,and especially Granny Rose; and the not-so-great – his frustration with his parents, feeling tired all the time. He is a very wise for a child, but somehow this all seems believable. I adored Granny Rose especially and found the myths and tales that she told Oscar to be very entertaining (it was easy to see why he loved her).

Although the book consists of letters to God, it is not preachy in any way – it is just a deceptively simple story. I’d recommend this – it would only take about an hour to read and I think many people would enjoy it.

First suggested: July 2012 – live choice at our July meeting :-)

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2012-09 Book Club

*What*: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

*When*: 26 September, 19:30 – RSVP on Meetup (optional ;))

*Where*: Bistro Lochergut (tram 2+3 'Lochergut')

After The Wind-up Bird Chronicle which we read in 2005, and A Wild Sheep Chase (2008), another Murakami!

Synopsis (from Amazon.co.uk)

The year is 1984. Aomame sits in a taxi on the expressway in Tokyo.

Her work is not the kind which can be discussed in public but she is in a hurry to carry out an assignment and, with the traffic at a stand-still, the driver proposes a solution. She agrees, but as a result of her actions starts to feel increasingly detached from the real world. She has been on a top-secret mission, and her next job will lead her to encounter the apparently superhuman founder of a religious cult.

Meanwhile, Tengo is leading a nondescript life but wishes to become a writer. He inadvertently becomes involved in a strange affair surrounding a literary prize to which a mysterious seventeen-year-old girl has submitted her remarkable first novel. It seems to be based on her own experiences and moves readers in unusual ways. Can her story really be true?

Aomame and Tengo's stories influence one another, at times by accident and at times intentionally, as the two come closer and closer to intertwining. As 1Q84 accelerates towards its conclusion, both are pursued by persons and forces they do not know and cannot understand. As they begin to decipher more about the strange world into which they have slipped, so they sense their destinies converging. What they cannot know is whether they will find one another before they are themselves found.

1Q84 is a magnificent and fully-imagined work of fiction - a thriller, a love-story and a mind-bending ode to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is a world from which the reader emerges stunned and altered.

First suggested: June 2012

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Referrers: Bookclub meet in Zurich - English Forum Switzerland

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