Minutes 20/3/2006

Book club Meeting – Monday, March 20th, 2006
Present: Amin smith, stClair Trott, Craig Harris
Regrets: Willow Pearce, Ruth Flannery

• The meeting was held in the meeting room of the Bermuda College Library and began at 6:10PM
• The recent Royal Gazette editorial highlighting the club was circulated to all members. Craig noted that, to date, he had received positive responses from 5-6 people who had read the story and were interested in joining the club’s April meeting.
• It was noted that the next book, ‘A Woman in Berlin’, had arrived at the BookMart and was available for purchase. Members who had already collected a copy described it as a powerful and engrossing book.
• The address for the club’s blog site was circulated. Although it is still being added to and refined it is now ready for members to view, use and comment on. Thanks were given to Amin for his efforts in making this site a reality.
• Carrying over from the last meeting, members were still keen to dissect ‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’, the last book read. Unfortunately the book continued to generate only mediocre comments with all members saying that the book was ‘good’ but not ‘great’.
• The current selection, ‘In the Name of the Father’ by Gerry Conlon, was discussed next.
• This book was considered reasonably good, but again, not great. St Clair commented that one of his favourite aspects of the book was the portrayal of family life. He likened it to life in Bermuda in his youth.
• Amin thought it was well written in that it followed the story line logically. He said he could see something like this happening.
• Some debate ensued as to the veracity of the facts as portrayed by an Irish sympathiser of the IRA. It was generally agreed that he was unlikely to see the struggle in Northern Ireland in a fair manner. St Clair noted that the protagonist never believed any of his colleagues were guilty of anything.
• General dissatisfaction between the British, Scots and Irish was noted.
• Wrongful imprisonment was discussed at some length, as was terrorism in general.
• This developed into a conversation on modern Iran and the current situation regarding nuclear weapons.
• In the ‘Page Turner/Page Burner’ segment of the meeting Craig offered ‘how the Irish Saved Civilization’ by Thomas Cahill, a bestseller from the mid-90’s. He commented that the book was a meandering and difficult read that failed to properly support the title. He recommended that members avoid this book.
• StClair agreed to select the next book.
• The next meeting was scheduled for Monday, April 17th.
• The meeting ended at 7:45PM