BOOK GROUPS TOO

It must be something in the water. Rachel Cusk had an article on joining a book group in the Grauniad review section a couple of weeks ago. It's pretty good, with a couple of terrific anecdotes and some nice turns of phrase, though I find it a bit overlong (like a lot of broadsheet writing). Key line: As if for the first time, I understood that reading is a private matter.

Re: her dismay that the book group women aren't prepared to try something which reflects their own day-to-day experience, that they keep escaping into these impossible fictive worlds, I take her point. However, it does bring to mind the following exchange -

Henry James: I enjoyed Treasure Island, but it's really too much. I have never been on a hunt for buried treasure.
RLS: You've been a boy, but you've never been on a treasure-hunt? Come on!

Just because it's fantastic doesn't mean it can't be true as well. Hence, Mars, Earthsea, Freeside, Vermilion Sands.

A good and fun on-line interview with UKLG here.