Tring Book Club - Enduring Love and The Bookseller of Kabul

When I last met up with my brothers, my sister in law Miranda mentioned she had joined a book club. This encouraged me to look for one locally, as it had been on my mind for some time. I found one at Tring School and the book list for the year looked quite interesting. I emailed Tring Learning Centre, found out a little about the group and sent off an application form.

It was only a small group and they had already met for their first meeting. So this gave me a couple of weeks to read "Enduring Love" by Ian McEwan and "The Bookseller of Kabul" by Asne Seierstad. I had already read the former when it first came out 12 years ago which meant I could recap whilst waiting for the other to arrive. So on Thursday evening I found my way and joined six ladies and Amanda, our group leader, for our meeting. I was made to feel very welcome and I enjoyed the contributions from all the members.

"Enduring Love" is a great novel, unlike the poor film which followed. It was quite interesting going back to a book after 12 years, something I have never done before. I had actually forgotten much of the story, although I knew the first chapter very well, having studied it carefully for my walk in July 2008. And as soon as I read about Joe's first visit to Mrs Logan, I remembered the lovely ending. I like books with big emotional tugs, and this certainly has plenty.

I have always thought that McEwan's prose is so magical. I don't pretend to understanding everything he writes first time, you would need to study some passages quite closely to completely get the meaning: "It may have been an illusion caused by visual persistence, or a neurally tripped delay of perception, but it seemed to me that I was still slumped in my smooth leather chair staring at that door even while I was moving towards it". I had forgotten the scene in the restaurant, so I experienced the shattering events there all over again. Brilliant.

I would never have read a book like "The Bookseller of Kabul" unless I had joined the book club, and I must admit I have never read anything like it before. I found it a pretty disturbing story of the plight of Afghan women. Coupled with the fact that I thought the writing was extremely bland (it may have lost something in the translation from Norwegian), and that conversations with the bookseller's family had been turned into a story that had no plot, it was not my sort of book. Although I have to say it has made a deep and lasting impression, and every time I hear about Kabul ( and there have been explosions there this week), I will always think of the family and how they are coping.