July reading-group round-up
Looking for ideas for new titles to read with your reading circle or book group? Let us help. Here are some titles which have reading guides ready and waiting for you to stimulate discussion and debate.
One Morning Like a Bird, by Andrew Miller
Tokyo, 1940. While Japan’s war against China escalates, young Yuji Takano clings to his cocooned life: his beloved evenings of French conversation at Monsieur Feneon’s, visits to the bathhouse with friends, his books, his poetry.
But conscription looms and the mood turns against foreigners, just when Yuji gets entangled with Feneon’s daughter. As the nation heads towards conflict with the Allies, Yuji must decide where his duty – and his heart – lies.
Download the One Morning Like a Bird reading guide (PDF, 500KB)
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
One boy, one boat, one tiger… After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan – and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary and best-loved works of fiction in recent years, now reissued by Canongate in advance of a worldwide readalong – and the new edition has a number of topics for discussion included in the back of the book.
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, by Rebecca Miller
Pippa seems to have everything in life. But suddenly she finds her world beginning to unravel. Amid the buzzing lawnmowers and suburban coffee mornings, she starts to wonder how she came to be in this place. The answer is a story of wild youth, unexpected encounters, affairs and betrayals, and the dangerous security of marriage. It brilliantly reveals the challenges of modern life – and all the possibilities that it holds.
Now made in to a film, you can find reading group questions on the Pippalee.co.uk website.
The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro
To tie in with the audio interview featured on Bookhugger (Part 1, Part 2), we have a reading guide for the book that won the Booker Prize in 1989.
In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside and into his past . . .
A contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro’s beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House, of lost causes and lost love.
Download The Remains of the Day reading guide (PDF, 621KB)
