First book choices for 2025

 For the first six months of 2025 members of our group have read and good mix of books:

Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout 
The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese 
Mermaid Singing, Charmian Clift
Romulus My Father, Raimond Gaita 
Plainsong, Kent Haruf

Best books for 2023

Group of 97 book club

 Here's the list of books we read in 2023:

The Island of Sea Women, Lisa See
Still Life, Sarah Winman   
Room With a View E.M. Forster
Where You Come From, Sasa Stanisic
The Glass Pearls, Emeric Pressburger
Horse, Geraldine Brooks
Wifedom, Anna Funder
Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan

Votes for best book of 2023:
1. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan , 2. Still Life, Sarah Winman , 3.  Wifedom, Anna Funder

Voting for best books of 2022

Our book group members read eight books in 2022. 

Here's the list and the votes for the top three books:

Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
The Salt Path, Raynor Winn
Devotion, Hannah Kent
Labyrinth, Amanda Lohrey
Disappearing Earth, Julia Phillips
A Room Made of Leaves, Kate Grenville
Slowworm’s Song, Andrew Miller
Scary Monsters, Michelle de Kretser

Votes for best book of 2022: 1 Slowworm’s Song, Andrew Miller 2. Disappearing Earth, Julia Phillips 3. Labyrinth, Amanda Lohrey

First books for 2022

 Our first book for 2022 is a classic: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Next we'll be doing The Salt Path by Raynor Winn.

September book

Our book for September 2018 is the novel, Extinctions. Extinctions, by Western Australian writer, Josephine Wilson, won the Miles Franklin award in 2017.

After that we'll be reading and discussing Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Books to date 2018

I'm a bit behind in posting our books for this year.
So far we have read
Standard Deviation by  Katherine Heiny and Exit West by Mohsin Hamid        
Our next book is: Butterfly on a Pin by Alannah Hill

First book for 2018

Our first book for 2018 is Poum and Alexandre, a Paris memoir by Catherine de Saint Phalle.

Best books for 2017

The votes are in for 2017. We read six books in 2017. The top ranked ones were:

1. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
2. Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge
3. Hag Seed by Margaret Atwood

August 2017 book

Our next book for the August 2017 meeting is The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Laguna

2nd book for 2017

The second book for our group for 2017 is Margaret Atwood's Hag Seed. We'll be meeting in early April to discuss the book, which is a retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest.

It's hard to believe, but we haven't done a Margaret Atwood book since 1999, when we read The Handmaid's Tale

Best books for 2016

In 2016 we read six books. We voted on the top books for the year and the first three were:

1. All the Birds Singing by Evie Wyld. 2. H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. 3. The Golden Years by Joan London.

All three are by female authors and two by Australians, although Wyld lives in the UK.

Station Eleven

Our next book is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. This is Helen's choice and we will meet to discuss it next year, on 12th February 2017.

All the Light We Cannot See

Our next meeting is on Sunday 13 November at Pat's. Pat's choice is All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr.

The Brooklyn Follies

I have chosen the next book for our meeting at my place on September 18th.

It is The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster.

A Guide to Berlin

We are currently reading Gail Jones' latest novel A Guide to Berlin and will meet later this month at Judy's place to discuss it.

H is for Hawk

I'm looking forward to re-reading Helen Mcdonald's H is for Hawk, a wonderful memoir about raising a young goshawk. We are doing that next at Beverly's on April 7th.

Second book for 2016

For our meeting in March 2016 we will be discussing Joan London's The Golden Years

Votes for best books of 2015

During the year we read:

 

The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan

Nora Webster, Colm Toibin

Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson

Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro

A Possible Life, Sebastian Faulks

The Wolf Border Sarah Hall 

Votes for best book of 2015: 1. The Narrow Road to the Deep North. 2. The Wolf Border. 3.  Nora Webster

First book for 2016

In January 2016 we will be discussing the Miles Franklin winner of 2014, All the Birds Singing, by Evie Wyld.

Bookgroup votes for 2014

Our group voted best books for the year as:

1. Hannah Kent's Burial Rites, 2. Hazel Rowley's Franklin and Eleanor 3. Tim Winton's Eyrie

During 2014 we read seven book altogether.

Eyrie, Tim Winton
Franklin and Eleanor, Hazel Rowley
Burial Rites, Hannah Kent
Elemental, Amanda Curtin
The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, Simon Mawer
Summer House With Swimming Pool, Herman Koch
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez