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.

Schedule for the second half of 2012

The schedule for the second half of 2012 has been added to the Current Schedule (2012) section in the sidebar.

Note that three of the books - A difficult young man, The mystery of a Hansom Cab and The Plains - have recently been published in the new Text Classics series. They have new introductions and are only $12.95 each. If you are a Friend of the NLA you get a discount - and the NLA Bookshop is carrying the full range. These classics are also available as eBooks. Let's support Aussie classics!

We agreed that we would do Hilary Mantel's Bring up the bodies next year, when it is in paperback, and that we would consider Frank Moorhouse's epic Cold light for our summer read.

We hope those who weren't present approve. You missed a great dinner to farewell Susan, too!

Schedule for the second half of 2011

Our schedule for the second half of 2011 as decided at our May meeting is now listed under Current Schedule in the blog sidebar. Those of us who decided it hope the rest of you like it!

Please note that three members have not hosted this year. At the meeting we allocated the last two meetings to two of those members, but later heard that the third member had offered to host one meeting. So, I've decided to let you fight it out! Please look at October and November and let me know whether you're happy to do one of those and which one. I'll update the schedule when I hear from you.

Note: I have also updated the Schedule suggestions based on our discussions at the May meeting. Let me know if you have anything else to add, or change