Silversurfers Book Club – Spring 2014

Welcome to the Silversurfers Book Club!

Each season we will share a selection of popular book titles and new releases which you may like to read. You can choose to read them on a tablet or as a paperback, and you can read them in your own time. As and when you are ready, it would be great if you could write a review of the book at the bottom of our comments section and share your feedback with all who have read and reviewed them on Silversurfers, and give it a star rating from 1-5.

Below are seven suggested titles to kick off the new Spring 2014 Silversurfers Book Club Season… Simply select the title you would like to read, and if you would like to buy it or download it for your Kindle or other tablet, there is a link next to the book title, which will direct you to Amazon, making it simple for you to buy. Alternatively, you may wish to buy the book elsewhere, or borrow it from you local library.

SIMPLY CLICK ON THE IMAGE OF THE BOOK YOU FANCY AND YOU WILL BE DIRECTED TO THE BOOK ON AMAZON … most titles are under £4.00 to purchase and less on a Kindle!

If you have previously read another book, and would like to recommend it as a future read for the Silversurfers book club, please also leave the title and author in the comments section, with a brief synopsis, and your review.

 Ghostwritten by Isabel Wolf – Available from Amazon >>

Book Synopsis

‘The new Tenko’ is how Isabel Wolff’s latest novel, Ghostwritten, is best described.

Ghostwritten is set in present day Cornwall, and on wartime Java. It’s about a young Dutch girl, Klara, who grew up on a rubber plantation but whose idyllic childhood ended the day the Japanese invaded. Interned in a prison camp with her mother and little brother, Klara struggles against starvation, brutality and neglect. She has never spoken of her three-year ordeal, but now, about to turn 80, Klara’s decided to write her harrowing tale, and her son commissions a ghost writer, Jenni, to help. Being a ‘ghost’ suits Jenni very well. Still haunted by a childhood tragedy, her job means that she can seek refuge in the memories of others and not think about her own memories too much. But as Jenni listens to Klara’s extraordinary story of survival, she’s shocked to find heart-breaking parallels with her own life. The growing bond between the two women, one old and one young, may help both lay to rest the ghosts of their past. Poignant, powerful and meticulously researched, Ghostwritten is a story of survival, of love, and of hope.

The Story Teller by Jodi Picoult – Available from Amazon >>

Book Synopsis

Jodie Picoult is herself a phenomenal storysteller who doesn’t shirk difficult ethical issues. This book is about Sage, who has a past she wants to hide, and an old man, Josef, whom she befriends. Josef has an ancient, evil secret which concerns Sage’s own heritage and past. Can she offer Josef redemption and forgiveness, as he begs her to? This is a gripping, terrific novel – worthy of Picoult at her best.

Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty – Available from Amazon >>

Book Synopsis

Happily-married, middle-aged Yvonne has a random encounter with a complete stranger while she is on a formal visit to the Houses of Parliament. Within minutes of meeting him in the cafeteria there, she is having raw, passionate sex in a secluded corner of the ancient building. Events spiral chaotically out of control and end in deadly violence and a Crown Court trial. Apple Tree Yard sometimes reads like an extended parable. You will be haunted by it.

Longbourn by Jo Baker – Available from Amazon >>

Book Synopsis

What a clever, almost mischievous book this is; to look at Jane Austen’s Bennet girls from backstage – or, rather, from below stairs. Jo Baker writes utterly convincingly about the lives of servants labouring in the Longbourn of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Of the ceaseless, thankless tasks involved in keeping the Bennets clothed, fed, watered and tidied-up after – and not least, helping to prepare the troupe of unmarried sisters, Lizzie and the rest of them, fit for suitable male inspection. A funny, often moving, take on a timeless literary classic.

A Commonplace Killing by Sian Busby – Available from Amazon >>

Book Synopsis

The author of this wonderful novel died shortly before it was published. Siân Busby was married to the BBC’s economic correspondent, Robert Peston. It was he who found and transcribed the final pages of her manuscript. After her passing, he added a moving foreword to the completed novel. A Commonplace Killing is exactly that – a grubby, tawdry sex murder committed in immediate post-war London. The author wonderfully re-creates the shabbiness, bombed-out, rationed-to-the-hilt atmosphere of the shattered capital and the grey, pinched lives of those who had survived Hitler’s war. It is the compelling backdrop to a murder mystery that increasingly baffles the worn-out detectives trying to solve it. Totally unput-downable.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion – Available from Amazon >>

Book Synopsis

Don Tillman, a scientist and geneticist, has rampant Asperger’s Syndrome – but he doesn’t know it. Don takes everything in life seriously and literally. If someone says to him ‘give me a minute’ he will set the timer function on his wristwatch and count the seconds down. Unsurprisingly, Don has never been on a second date. Until he meets Rosie – subversive, unconventional, irreverent: everything he is not. Their subsequent adventures will have you in tears of laughter.

The Never List by Koethi Zan – Available from Amazon >>

This is a stylish debut novel, both gripping and original. Two young women are kidnapped and imprisoned in a cellar for years by a psychopathic psychiatrist who uses them, and his other victims, for sadistic experiments. Eventually they escape – but one of them disappeared before their salvation. Can her best friend, also a victim, discover what happened to her? A terrific psychological thriller.

ENJOY YOUR READING AND DONT FORGET TO SHARE YOUR VIEWS WITH US BELOW