Book Group 3 – Books read

About the books and a review

John Boyne: The Heart’s Invisible Furies  – first published 2017

The Irish writer’s 10th novel for adults examines one man’s life over the course of 70 years to reveal the personal and societal toll of Ireland’s repression of homosexuality.  A story of Cyril Avery’s life, his loves and losses, his heartbreaks and his triumphs.  He will make you laugh and cry in equal measures.

This book was enjoyed by all in the group (Oct 2020)

John Boyne also wrote The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2006).

 

Jon McGregor:  If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things  – first published 2002

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things is British writer, Jon McGregor’s, first novel, which was first published by Bloomsbury in 2002.  It portrays a day in the life of a suburban British street, with the plot alternately following the lives of the street’s various inhabitants.  All but one person’s viewpoint is described in the third person, and the narrative uses a flowing grammatical style which mimics their thought processes.

Jon McGregor is the author of four novels and a story collection.  He is the winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literature Prize, Betty Trask Prize, and Somerset Maugham Award, and has twice been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.  He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nottingham, where he edits The Letters Page, a literary journal in letters.

No review given.

Other works by Jon McGregor: Even the Dogs (2010);  Reservoir 13 (2017)This Isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You (2012)The Reservoir Tapes (2017);  and So Many Ways to Begin (2006).