A Modern Mother

18 really good book club suggestions from mums that read (and blog)

It's book club time again! I'm always looking for suggestions on book that are interesting and entertaining yet gritty enough to spark heated discussion. I asked my mum blogger friends for some ideas and it resulted in a plethora of good reads.

1. One Day by David Nicholls. "It's about a couple who meet each other on 15th July (their graduation) and it follows their lives on the very same day until they are older. The ending is fab and totally unexpected. They're making it into a film and Anne Hathaway plays the main female character! x" (Jo Jo Kirtley)

2. The Help by Kathryn Stockett. "About the American deep south at the time when slavery was being abolished in the north. It's written from the perspective of one of the maids and is a really easy brilliant read." (Kate Takes Five)

3. Fingersmith By Sarah Waters. "By the same author as Tipping the Velvet. Victorian crime novel - lots of twist and turns in the plot and I haven't even reached the end yet..." (Kate Takes Five)

I really need to watch more telly

I've always been hopeless when it comes to recognising celebs. Fifteen years ago when I was fresh-off-the-silicon-valley-boat and seated right next to Chris Evans at a press lunch at Langhams, I was more interested in the tech exec at the table. Later, the agency director whispered in my ear, don't you know who that was?

Well not much has changed. Last night I went to the launch of Sarah Brown's new book, Behind the Black Door. There were all sorts of celebs there, including Pamela Stephenson, Tim Vincent, Katy Brand, Jimmy Carr, Fiona Phillips, Kathy Lette, Caitlin Moran, Sue Perkins, Duncan Bannatyne, and Dan Stevens. The only reason I know this is because Liz Jarvis from Living with Kids sent me a list of names! I'm hopeless.

I did recognise kids cookery guru Annabell Karmel! Yay!

 

Here's a pic of Dan Stevens of Downton Abbey. I am the period drama's newest fan.

Something OTHER than Jacqeline Wilson to read

Sponsored post

 

Randon House sent us a pile of books for the girls to peruse. My 9-year-old found her new favourite author. Alex Carter writes The Mayfair Mysteries series. All I can say is thanks be to God she has found something other than Jacqueline Wilson to read!

Little House in the Thames Valley

I was a bit of a book worm as a child. I would close my bedroom door, away from the noise of my four siblings, and get lost in a story. My favourite was the Little House on the Prairie series. I imagined myself as Laura, living in a dug out in the wild west, fighting grasshopper swarms and looking after my blind sister. I begged my mother to buy me a bonnet and make to hush puppies for dinner.

In the summer of 1976 my ten-year-old self, my parents and two of my brothers, jumped into our light brown station wagon (estate) and drove 3,000 miles across the United States. It was the Bicentennial, 200 years after the US had signed the Declaration of Independence, and my parents were teachers so we all had all summer to discover America.

Who would you cast for The Help?

I was so excited to hear that Kathryn Stockett's The Help is being made into a film, as we speak! Apparently it is the most excitement Mississippi has seen in a long time.

Last Spring I suggested that my book club read The Help, and everyone really liked it. The group is usually split, but the general consensus was that it was a good read and it sparked a whole evening of interesting conversation (sometimes we only spend a half hour on the book and then go on to more meaty subjects such as school gossip).

The Help takes place in Mississippi in the 60's and is about the relationship between women and the almost exclusively black maids that cleaned their homes and helped to raise their children.

Khaled Hosseini's flea market

 

The San Jose Flea Market, made famous by Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, is not far from where we are staying in California. One of the reasons the book resonated with me was because of the author's connections with Silicon Valley, where I grew up. I visited the flea market as a child, and remember the stalls, often manned by families.

Fifty great book club suggestions from British mum bloggers

The best  book club recommendations come from those that write and read, a lot. I asked the British Mummy Bloggers social network for their best reads  ... and they sent me more than 50 recommendations! This list has a summer slant, but all look like good picks. I've given credit to the contributor after each entry. Enjoy!

1. The Boy With the TopKnot: A Memoir of  Love, Secrets and Lies in Wolverhampton by Sathnam Sanghera. Growing up as a punjabi in Wolverhampton in the eighties. (Living with Kids)

2. Are you Experienced by William Sutcliffe. A funny novel about back packing in India. (Living with Kids)

3. Wish you were here by Mike Gayle. A heartwarming story about friends and growing up. (Living with Kids)

My perfect day in San Francisco, kids included

Everyone has their own idea of a perfect day in a favourite city-- a secret haunt, restaurant, coffee shop or that special view. If you get it right, it's like putting on your favourite sweater. I lived in San Francisco in the 90s when I was single, upwardly mobile and thought I was the luckiest person in the world. If I squint, I can just about remember it. Now I live in the UK and have three gorgeous girls (ages 5, 6 and 8). Of course I wanted to share my favourite city with them. Oh, just an aside, please never say Frisco in my presence.

So what's my perfect day in San Francisco?

 
Drive down Lombard Street. Enter at the top of Greenwich.

A day at the beach

I'm thoroughly ensconced in California now. We've been here nearly two weeks and the girls are officially "tired" of Mexican food. One can never tire of the beach though, and here are some pics from a recent trip to Santa Cruz... 

We've come a long way baby

As I was drifting off to sleep last night, still warm from the bath and smelling of Body Shop dewberry, I turned to my night stand and looked at my collection of books. I always have a high stack of half read novels, magazines and bits from the papers. I wanted something light. Not too heavy. Hmmm, this will do nicely. I picked up "What Every Woman Ought to Know". The author, Constance Mortimer, sent it to me a while back to check out.

After checking out the table of contents, I opened it up to about the middle of the book and landed in a minefield. I couldn't believe what I was reading. Well, actually, I could.

You read it, and let me know what you think.

I'm warning you now, put on your fighting gloves.

. . . . .

"Women Not Equal to Men -- Scientist Says That Civilisation Makes the Gap Wider" by Dr. Charles Heydemann, PhD. Daily Mirror, 4 October 1909.

Women is not man's equal, never has been and never will. She is the complement of man, but the lesser one, as expressed in the term "minus". No one denies her great qualities, but if she is entitled to the sympathy of humanity, as such, she is not and never will be capable of understanding the duties of a citizen. (WTF?)

Fourteen great book club suggestions from Twitter Mums

It's book club tonight! We just finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and this evening we get to sip on a glass of chardonnay, munch on nibbles and rattle on. Hopefully about the book! (FYI: loved GLAPPPS, a bit predictable at times, but a very comforting read. I felt really happy after and wanted to move to Guernsey and join their society!)

Part of the fun of book club is coming up with suggestions for the next read. Being the social media whizz that I am (ahem), I put out a note on twitter (sorry, I can't bring myself to use the term "tweet") and within a FEW MINUTES I got some really good suggestions. Have a look, it's a varied list with some fab reads.

1.  A Million Little Pieces is a semi-fictional memoir by James Frey. It is story of a young alcoholic and drug user and how he deals with it in a 12-step programme. (thanks Double Trouble).

Do you book club?

Barring my dry spell, I have always belonged to a book club, sometimes several at the same time. I find them fascinating. When it comes down to it, a book club is an excuse to get together with other adults and talk about something other than children.  Have I sold you yet?

They come in all shapes and sizes. My first one was really high brow. We read novels like Pride and Prejudice, Atlas Shrugged and Beijing Comma. Each member championed a book, and the meetings had a university lecture feel to them. I was kicked out for making everyone read We Need To Talk About Kevin. It turned out no one really wanted to talk about Kevin.

So what is it with Lionel Shriver and mothers?

I recently saw Lionel Shriver speak at literary Festival. Wow. She really is bitter and twisted. But she sure can write. The woman can convey about five different meanings in just a few words. Amazing really.

If you haven't heard about Shriver, she rose to fame a few years ago when her novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin, won the Orange Prize for Fiction. The book plays out every mother's nightmare ... what if you don't bond with your child and he becomes a mass murderer? I suggested it for my mummy book club once ... and I may as well asked them to have Adolf Hitler for dinner. No one wanted it talk about it. They couldn't get past the fact that Shriver wasn't a mother and was writing about something she has no experience of... (aah, but does she?)

Hmmm, what shall I do now the girls are in school? I know, read an online serial novel!

Ooohhh, how fun! What better way to fill in my time, now that all the girls are all at school, than to be involved with an online serial novel. How cool!

Corduroy Mansions 2 -- The Dog Who Came In From The Cold, by Alexander McCall Smith (best known for the Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency) starts Monday. Sign up, and every weekday over the next 13 weeks a new chapter will be sent to your laptop or iPhone. Did I mention this was free? (thank you The Telegraph).

McCall Smith, who got the idea for digital serial genre while talking to Armistead Maupin (Tales of the City), only writes the first 40 or so chapters and likes to get feedback from his readers before he gets on with the plot. So you really do become part of the story. How Web 2.0!

The dry spell

I suffered a dry spell after our second child. A major one. One I imagine the Sahara Desert to be like. Long. Flat. Never ending.

I just didn't feel like it anymore. I was too tired. It didn't hold my attention. I would crawl into bed after a day of wiping drippy noses and picking cheerios off the floor and I would just stare at them. I finally put them away in a box. I didn't want to be reminded.

Apparently this is common to mothers of young children.

Now I can't get enough. I have all kinds at my bedside - historical, period, chic lit, classics. I read whatever I can get my hands on. Though I'm still not much of a fan of suspense.

Have you ever had a dry spell? ;-)

Photo credit: Hamed