Schedule for the second half of 2014

Well, a Minervan committee of six (the five who attended the meeting, and the one who put in her bid previously) chose the books for the second half of this year. Since several couldn't make it to the meeting, I thought I'd provide the reasoning for the choices made, so here goes.

• Amy Tan's The valley of amazement: Sylvia, Gerda and Sue had heard Tan speak about the novel (live at the NLA or in her RN interview), and at least one member (Helen) had never read an Amy Tan.
• Simone de Beauvoir's Memoirs of a dutiful daughter: Our absent member, Kate, had suggested that we do one book this year to align with RN's European Classics Bookclub, and proposed this as a good fit. Anne suggested that we do a classic so was happy with this. Helen had read it back in her university days and was happy to read it again.
• Richard Flanagan's The narrow road to the deep north: Helen who's already read this has been waiting patiently all year for it to be scheduled, and Sue who was given it for Christmas was hoping it would be scheduled. Anyhow, it's probably the front runner for this year's Miles Franklin!
• Clare Wright's The forgotten rebels of Eureka: Helen wondered about a non-fiction book, Alain de Boton's newest called News, but Sue suggested that if we think non-fiction, why not one closer to home i.e. Clare Wright's book about women at Eureka. Sylvia piped up that she was given it for her birthday and so planned to read it. And, it was this year's Stella Prize winner!
• Eimear McBride's A girl is a half-formed thing: Gerda liked the sound of this from the interview she'd heard on RN (from the Sydney Writers Festival) and Sue agreed. It won the Goldsmiths Prize for "new" or "creative" writing. It's short! (June 4 Postscript: It won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction - the old Orange Prize - for 2014).

So, there you have it ... the schedule is in the right sidebar (organised so that books recommended by people going away will be done when they are in town.) We still need houses for the meetings as all who were present have already hosted this year. Please let me know if you can host.