In January this year the group had been going for 4 years. This was naturally celebrated, but during four years a group like ours has, as could be expected, developed traditions. The annual Christmas lunches and summer lunches are ‘a must’.
This year we celebrated our summer lunch in Restaurante Amapola in Bolnuevo. Over a lovely meal with wine etc, at a reasonable price, the chat flowed. It was not only books that were the subject of the conversation around the table. We always have a good debate about life in Spain and current affairs in general. Books were of course mentioned – we are after all a reading group.
One book came up in the conversation in connection with another reading group; Totana Book Club. They have been reading ‘Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman‘ by Stefan Zweig, which had inspired some of our members to read it too. The opinion was that the book is a bit ‘old fashioned’, but surely a page-turner. Zweig (1881-1942) is not that well-known by the British public, but was extremely popular in the United States, South America and Europe. He was a Jewish Austrian, although he identified himself as ‘cosmopolitan’. He was a novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920’s and 1930’s he was one of the most popular writers in the world. Zweig acknowledged his debt to psychoanalysis and counted people like Sigmund Freud and Richard Strauss among his friends.
The books chosen for our September meeting are:
‘The Disappearance of Emily Marr’ by Louise Candlish
‘My Sister’s Lies’ by S.D. Robertson
‘Blood Sisters’ by Barbara & Stephanie Keating
We normally meet every first Thursday of the month from 2pm-4pm in The Social Centre, Camposol B. Everyone is welcome; the only requirement is that you like to read!
The next meeting will be Thursday 5th September. You can follow us on Facebook if you cannot come to the meetings. Please email creadingg@gmail.com for further information.