American Gods

Our American Gods (by Niel Gaiman) evening was held at Paul and Maite's place on the 3 March.  Again we were treated with a spread of ethnic foods to nibble on throughout the evening.  Present were: Rebekah, Lona, Maite, Paul, Chez, Anne, Nicole, Greg, Marnie, John and Georgia...a good turnout. The book engendered some very lively discussion - and on some issues, divided the room. In one camp was Paul, a Gaiman fanatic.  In the other, Marnie, who thought the book sadly lacked a good editor. 

This is how everyone viewed it in a nutshell. Lona said he imagined the novel as a movie, saying "everything worked".  He scored the book a 9. Greg thought the digressions added to the richness of the book, and enjoyed it as a commentary on America, giving it an 8. John got drawn in "despite the genre", scoring it an 8. Anne thought the descriptions were brilliant, giving it a 7. Georgia enjoyed the diversity of characters but found it in some places disjointed. Georgia gave it 6.5. Nicole admired the telling of classical stories in a contemporary setting, scoring the book with a huge 9.5 - her favourite so far. Chez liked the digressions, but thought there were some parts of the story-line which were unnecessary. Chez gave the novel 6.5 - still higher than Oscar Wilde! Maite enjoyed the mystery aspect, but thought it was not that well structured in places and may have worked better as a collection of short stories. She commented that it was like a soap opera in parts.  She scored it a 7. Marnie thought that he was, overall, a good story-teller but abhorred his "gratuitous horror" ie. his progressively decaying undead wife. Marnie scored it a 7, "loving the ending". Rebekah hadn't finished the book but had really enjoyed what she read, giving it an 8. Unsurprisingly, Paul gave it the perfect score - 10 - finding the book transported him...."it was ambitious"..."by far the most layered book we've done so far".

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night

Lona picked The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.  Book club was held at Anne's place.  Rebekah and Lona had organised a lovely platter of cheeses, salami, crackers and sweets.  Present were: Lona, Rebekah, Chez, Marnie, John, Anne, Paul, Greg, Daniel and Nicole.  The novel was an upbeat choice which reflected Lona's passion for the sciences. We had earlier teased him that he would not be permitted to choose a physics textbook for book club, but he cleverly managed to choose a novel which featured a protagonist with a strong scientific bent.


The novel's protagonist, Christopher is an autistic teenager who struggles socially.  Christopher's affliction is a strong theme in the book and the story is coloured by Christopher's unique world view. Amongst the group there were varying reactions to this, from gloominess to irritation to real humour. One of the key discussions was the relevance to the author's life.  Haddon is recorded as having no particular experience or knowledge of autism, which to some seemed implausible given his apparent familiarity with higher level autism. It should be noted though that Haddon does not state that Christopher is autistic.


Enjoyment level of the book varied from the perfect score (Rebekah) down to 6.5 (John, Paul and Nicole).  Other scores were: Greg and Anne - 7, Marnie and Chez - 7.5, Daniel - 9, Lona - 9.5.