Blitzcat by Robert Westall

This was a book that everyone enjoyed but no one raved about! It got scores in the 7-9/10 range and I think we were all agreed that it was very well written, as you might expect from such a long-standing, award-winning writer. Some of you reading this will remember Westall’s brilliant classic ‘The Machine Gunners’. ‘Blitzcat’ was not such an immediately appealing read as that – it lacked the cast of endearing, varied and strong children and the sympathetic portrayal of the injured German airman, Rudi – but it is still a very good book. I think we all struggled to some extent with the central character being an aloof cat. The book is picaresque in style, tracking the cat’s journey to find her owner and relating her adventures on the way. She meets a range of different characters, some of whom we warmed to and some of whom we didn’t like at all. In each case, she has a transformational effect so in one sense, it was a bit like reading a fairy story but set against the devastating backdrop of WW2, a backdrop so convincingly drawn that some of us felt we learned a lot and others had difficulty comprehending aspects such as the jargon used. We enjoyed it – but it did feel a bit more like a series of short stories than a novel – and some of us felt the lack of a central, unifying character with whom we could really engage. It was hard to engage with an aloof cat who didn’t seem to care about the people whose lives she transformed – quite right too – she was, after all, a cat – but it did make it a slightly remote read. Afterwards we wondered if the cat had had nine brushes with death and survived – that would have been a clever structure, we thought – but we couldn’t be bothered to check which says quite a lot really! However, it is a very accomplished book and it you want to read a very powerful and moving description of the Coventry blitz, then get it just for that. It is quite heart-breaking.

Our next meeting will be on Feb 23rd at 4.15 – 5.15 pm and our choice of book is ‘Inside’ by Julia Jarman. It is quite a hard-hitting read so it’s a good time for teenagers to join us!

Thanks, Meg Harper

The first 2010 meeting of the ‘Warwick Books’ Book Club was on Wednesday 20^th January at 6.15 at the bookshop.  Frances was rather late arriving from Kenilworth, so profuse apologies.

We had read “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson.  This book has had rave reviews, and caused a sensation in Sweden and around the world. It is the first of a trilogy about a disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, who is asked by the elderly Henrik Vanger to investigate the disappearance 40 years earlier of his favourite niece, Harriet.  Henrik is convinced that Harriet was murdered all those years ago and has collected a huge dossier on the case.  The disappearance also haunts the police officer in charge at the time, Detective Superintendent Morell.  Blumkvist is helped in the investigation by the strange and enigmatic, Lisbeth Salander (the girl with the dragon tattoo of the title).

Sadly, the author, Stieg Larsson, an investigative journalist himself, died in rather mysterious circumstances of heart failure in 2004, before any of the books in the trilogy were published.

There was a mixed response from the group. Most people felt the book was too long, but even those people who don’t like particularly crime novels found it quite interesting.  The point was made that although it is a “who-dun-it”, it is not a police story.  Maureen & Frances are definitely
going to read the rest of the trilogy, Sue & Rob probably aren’t & Elinor isn’t sure(!)

Our next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday 24th Feb and we have agreed to meet up at the Punch Bowl at about 6.00 – a much warmer and congenial environment.  Thanks to Angie for inviting us.  We are continuing our theme of  foreign crime novels with “The Paris Enigma” by Pablo de Santis.  We then have one more novel following this theme, but need to plan ahead, so if you are coming to the meeting, please bring along some ideas for the next few books.

A Review by Keith Smith

I ordered this book as a sample really to see what The New Naturalist series from Collins was like. And exceptionallygood it is too. With a claim to being the longest-running and arguably the most influential natural history series in the world, with over 100 volumes published in over 60 years, if this volume is typical of the rest it is a magnificent achievment.

Regarding ‘Dartmoor’, focusing not only on its extensive history and physical landscape, but also its cultural place within Great Britain, this is a really detailed and inspiring look at the wild and rugged landscape that has inspired poets, painters and musicians over countless centuries. It is a favourite place of mine and so it is wonderful to read an account of the area from one so well qualified to write it. Ian Mercer has not only been the Dartmoor National Park’s Chief Officer, but is also a distinguished naturalist in his own right.

Spanning miles of open moorland, whilst also hiding small secluded river valleys, rare plants and endangered birds, Dartmoor is a place of variety, and has evolved in the public’s mind from a forbidding place to one of romance and mystery. And the great thing is that the author guides us not only through its history and natural landscape, but also looks at its cultural place within Britain, its contemporary usage and its future. This is certainly not a tourist’s guide to the area, unless one of very serious bent, but it is something to which those who love the area and want to know a lot more about it will turn again and again.

A Review by Keith Smith

A cartoon collection from Dave the Vicar. And very funny it is too. In it he reveals: the five worst places to sit in church, reasons to shut your eyes during a sermon, what the church can learn from the retail sector, clergy washing lines – what you can discover from them, sharing the peace – a handy mathematical formula, a tried and tested reality tv method for appointing a new vicar, a guide to deciding whether to go to church or watch the football. Delightful quirky stuff!

 A Review by Keith Smith

An exploration of British history through its most beautiful and influential works of art, not exactly a novel idea but when it’s done by the BBC with David Dimbleby at the helm you know a lot of thought and funding has gone into the project.  Seven ages written up by seven ‘experts’. They wouldn’t have been my choice, as the text is vapid, and either trite or full of generalisation. That is the penalty, I suppose,  of trying to write up an age and its art in a few pages..but it could have been done better. However, that is not to say I didn’t find this book to my liking. I did. I mainly looked at the pictures which are magnificent.

And if the underlying thesis of the book is that you can use art as a mirror to unlock the ‘feel’ of a particular time, get a grasp of its key issues, and see what was regarded as important, then it certainly succeeds. Thus for us with our increasingly secular society it is extremely difficult to appreciate just how important religion was to those who lived in medieval Britain. What enables us to get somehow on the same wavelength is the impulse that went into religious architecture from the humblest churches to the greatest abbies and cathedrals, and into religious art from the paintings that adorned the walls of the richest to the vivid iconolgy and frescoes and doom paintings that were so much a part of the life of everyone else.

I look forward to viewing the whole tv series , the camera is a terrific help in viewing our heritage in revealing ways, but the book will also have its place on my over-crowded shelves.