Song of Achilles

Well, where to start? Our book for this time was The Song of Achilles. General consensus was that it was an enjoyable read, but to be honest, we didn't spend that long discussing it. Which tells a different story, I suppose. It's a tale of love and war between Achilles and Patroclus. I'm not sure anyone thought it was necessary worthy of winning the Orange Prize for fiction, which the reviews would support. It was, however, engaging and thought provoking. When pondering why Achilles chose Patroclus over the other more popular boys, one of our group replied 'probably because he was a nice person'. And that, I think, was a very nice response! Here's an article from the Telegraph which says a whole lot more about the book:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9300843/Orange-Prize-2012-Winning-book-The-Song-of-Achilles-is-a-triumph-of-glitzy-story-telling-over-literary-depth.html

Perhaps our chosen book conversation was brief because there were more exciting titles to debate. Let's face it, who isn't talking about 50 Shades of Grey? Some were quite familiar with the series, others will perhaps be looking these current bestsellers up for some summer respite!

Other books we talked about were:

Persian Boy by Mary Renault
Me Before You by JoJo Moyes
The Blackhouse by Peter May
Pure by Andrew Miller
Running with the Kenyans by Adharanand Finn
Private Games by James Patterson

As an aside, have any of you heard of this place: http://www.astleybookfarm.com/  I was told about it by an academic from the English department who recently stumbled upon the place. She said it was a wonderful find. It also sells cake.

Finally, if you haven't done so already, do pop in to Emily Jamieson's office in B2.01 to collect your library copy of The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad which is our title for September.