Rescorla Book Club

The Rescorla Book Club meets on a Wednesday afternoon about 3 times a year. We are currently reading 'Tidelands' by Philippa Gregory and 'The Street Lawyer' by John Grisham.
We don't have a date for our next meeting yet, but it will be in the new year. Watch this space for details!


Book Club Newsletter October 24
Hi Everyone,
It was lovely to see you again.
What an interesting and lively discussion we had! As it was such a long book there was lots to talk about. We all thought that the descriptive writing was very good and really created a sense of place. We found the characters interesting and were caught up in their stories.
Here’s a review:
The Kashmir ShawlWritten by Rosie ThomasReview by Mary Seeley
In present-day Wales, Mair Ellis is intrigued by the beautiful Kashmir shawl containing a lock of hair that she discovers among her late father’s possessions. It belonged, she learns, to her maternal grandmother, Nerys Watkins. Always the free spirit, Mair decides to travel to India to piece together the story of the shawl and how it might have come into her grandmother’s possession.
The narrative moves between the present and the 1940s. As Mair finds out about the “life story” of the shawl and befriends fellow travellers, Bruno and Karen Becker, we also accompany Nerys and her missionary husband, Evan, to the wild mountain country of Ladakh, where the way of life has not changed for centuries, and then to Srinagar in the Vale of Kashmir. Here we see the last days of the Raj played out with gin fizzes and cricket matches as war in Asia looms. Nerys encounters the unhappily married Caroline Bowen and the enigmatic Swiss mountaineer and illusionist, Rainer Stamm, both of whom will be key players in her story. The present finds its echoes in the past, and the two stories intertwine.
Rosie Thomas powerfully evokes both the gilded world of the Raj and the painful contrasts of India, then and now, with its Maharajahs and crippling poverty. She gives us two love stories and two proud heroines, interwoven with tragedy, a splash of melodrama and a haunting mystery. Highly recommended.

What else have you been reading? It’s always nice to find out what everyone else has been reading.
I always like to read a book set in the cold – at the poles – for this time of year – and I’m almost at the end of ‘Minds of Winter’ by Ed O’Loughlin. It’s absolutely fascinating.

I also like a ghost story at this time of year too and I have ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ by Shirley Jackson lined up!
Hope you all have a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I’ll see you in the new year. I’ll let you know at the end of January if I’m coming to Cornwall in February.
Happy reading,
Tracy.