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Men's Book Club goes electronic
© by Mike Keenan 
The retired life is so incredibly busy that I completely forgot to send you off last summer with a list of must-reads to better idle away your time, entranced by fiction. Oh well, retirees can read any time of the year, so I will now report to you on last season's Men's Book Club.
Last year, we lost a second member of our club, Charles, from Thorold, and we will certainly miss his unbridled enthusiasm and humour. Charles was a retired worker at the St. Lawrence Seaway where he guided ships through our Welland Canal. He also helped pilot some of our discussions with his common sense, no-nonsense approach when many were too involved and attached to metaphors and similes. We read some great titles starting with Linden Macintyre's The Bishop's Man, the story of a Catholic priest named Duncan MacAskill who resolved potential church scandals quickly and quietly but was forced to accept a low-profile position at a remote parish on Cape Breton Island. MacIntyre, you may associate with the TV series W5 and as a native of Cape Breton, he brings a vivid sense of that rugged coastline. The Men's Book Club doesn't fool around. This novel won the Giller Prize. Next, we tackled Stendahl's classic The Red and the Black which nobody enjoyed. It's the story of young man's attempts to rise beyond his blue-collar upbringing with a combination of talent and hard work, deception and hypocrisy. Sounds like modern day politics, eh! Wibke Bruhns' My Father's Country was difficult, but most enjoyed reading the story of why her father and his country, Germany, became enamoured of Hitler and the Nazis. Gees, we pick some tough sledding, don't we? We returned to another classic, J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, and I was surprised that several of our 11-men group had never read it. I loved it and still do. Holden Caulfield is the ultimate anti-hero and his misadventures in New York City was required reading in the 60's. From Salinger, we drifted to Muriel Barbery's Elegance of the Hedgehog which I highly recommend. The book follows events in the life of a concierge, Renée Michel, whose concealed intelligence is uncovered by Paloma, the young daughter of an upper-class family living in the upscale Parisian apartment building where Renée works. It's deceptively simple and a joy to read. Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia was next and not highly regarded followed by Paul Theroux's Hotel Honolulu and Robertson Davies' World of Wonders to complete the Canadian trilogy. Davies is probably our favourite author. From Mark Kurlansky, we learned everything possible to know about Salt which for some of us was a bit too much condiment and finally, we finished the season off with Will Ferguson's travel humour, Beyond Belfast which everyone liked. That's it. More winners than losers and a few surprises along the way, but the Men's Book Club does not rest on past laurels. We strive to improve. Thus, this season which soon begins at Tony's place in Welland, we will try something new. Instead of our customary practice of nominations and votes on books, each host will select the title and then guide our discussion. This has great promise, or it could be a disaster for it does place a lot of pressure on the host who no longer can hide whenever an unruly reader shouts, "Who picked this stupid book, anyway?" Alas, now it's the host. Tony has picked Rebecca Skloot's The immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, about a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations 
in modern science possible.
I should mention another innovation. Three of us now have purchased electronic book readers. This is rather neat for seniors. I can now travel with a complete library of books and Miriam no longer has to act as my porter, struggling to carry the lot. My prediction is that the entire club will soon resort to electronic readers. After all, as retirees, we pride ourselves on being on the cutting edge of fiction. |
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