Sunday, 13 August 2023

Tring Book Club- Tidelands by Phillipa Gregory

 

For my last meeting of book club, it was our first by Phillipa Gregory. I was happy with this choice as I had never before read one of her historical novels. But if this is representative of her work, it will be my last. Nothing wrong with the story, I just could not get along with her prose. Perhaps that is just me. It seemed that the author wanted to cram in everything about the history of the two years of 1648 and 1649. Now lets see, how can we introduce King Charles, hiding in Newport on the Isle of Wight, and an absent husband who has a boat. I'm afraid the book lost all credibility. There is a reasonable family drama here, Alinor and her two children Rob and Alys are interesting characters and their home lies in a dramatic place, Sealsea Island on that ragged coast of Sussex. The first part of the book promises something special. Only to sink beneath the unbelievable plot. I didn't mind the introduction of the local squire Sir William Peachey even if he had been recently pardoned for being a royalist. See what I mean. Add in stuff about dowries, witch trials and we have a history lesson instead of a novel. 

Over the thirteen years we have read 147 books. I listed them on the twelfth anniversary, but here is my final update.

TRING BOOK CLUB 

Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime by Mark Haddon

The Black Dahlia by James Elroy

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

An Awfully Big Adventure by Beryl Bainbridge

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Other Hand by Chris Cleave

Headlong by Michael Frayn

One Day by David Nicholls

Gone for Good by Harlan Coben

Room by Emma Donoghue

Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse

Fasting Feasting by Anita Dessai

Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn

Great House by Nicole Krauss

Any Human Heart by William Boyd

The Midwife’s Confession by Diane Chamberlain

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Snowdrops by A.D. Miller

The Silent Land by Graham Joyce

Charles Dickens – Various

Mr Phillips by John Lanchester

Pure by Andrew Miller

The Children’s Book by A S Byatt

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

There but for the by Ali Smith

Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters

The Lighthouse by Alison Moore

The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen

Engelby by Sebastian Faulks

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The Sea by John Banville

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler

The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell

The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas

Dear Life by Alice Munro

Waterland by Graham Swift

A Long Walk Home by Judith Tebbutt

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Harvest by Jim Crac 

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer

Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (and other WW1 novels).

When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant

The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

A Common Place Killing by Sian Busby

The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer 

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

Mrs Hemingway by Naomi Woo 

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale

The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally

The Green Road by Anne Enwright

The Secret River by Kate Grenville

The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall

Sweet Caress by William Boyd

The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

House of Orphans by Helen Dunmore

Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner

The Loney by Andrew Hurley

This Boy by Alan Johnson

Remarkable Creatures by Track Chevalier

Golden Hill by Francis Spufford

The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

Lost for Words by Stephanie Butland

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

The Girl who Fell from the Sky by Simon Mawer

The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon

Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty

The Muse by Jessie Burton

Birdcage Walk by Helen Dunmore

The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Canon

The Cleaner of Chartres by Sally Vickers

The Bees by Laline Paull

The Sealwoman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson

The Mandelbaum Gate by Muriel Spark

Love is Blind by William Boy 

Pastoral by Nevil Shute

Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting

Someday I’ll Find Me by Carla Lane

Milkman by Anna Burns

A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor

Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

The Confessions of Franie Langton by Sara Collins

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The Queen of the Tambourine by Jane Gardam

The Soldier’s Return by Melvyn Bragg

A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter

The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

Heartbreak Hotel by Deborah Moggach

Fever of the Bone by Val McDermid

Girl by Edna O’Brien

The Dig by John Preston

The Overstory by Richard Powers

Far Sweeter than Honey by William Spence 

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Undue Influence by Anita Brookner

The Midnight Library by David Haig

The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal

Holding by Graham Norton

Mrs England by Stacey Halls

Spook Street by Mick Herron

The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel

Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

The Sanest Guy in the Room by Don Black

Still Life by Sarah Winman

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

Dreams from my father by Barak Obama

The Leviathan by Rosie Andrews

Fingers in the Sparkle Jar by Chris Packam

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

 Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Tidelands by Phillipa Gregory

 

 

 


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