Avainsana: fiction. novels

Julkaistu

English Book Club (EBC) meeting in January, Sello library

We are glad to announce that English Book Club continues with a new season from January to May!

We kick off the season with an interesting novel, Solar by Ian McEwan. The book consist of themes ranging from climate change to marital problems.

Just this week we met one of the regular EBC members who is currently reading the book and he mentioned that the book is full of science terms. His guess was that not everybody will understand nor like the fact. We will find out on the 23rd of January at 2 pm in the Cultural space (2nd floor) when we meet and discuss the book. There may be some coffee and cake, too… We’ll see. Hope to see you there!

Ian McEwan is a British novelist who has been publishing books since 1975. Solar was published in 2010 and was awarded the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction. So even though the themes and subjects in the story may be serious and big, it has comical sides to it, too.

For more information on Ian McEwan and his literary work and reviews, visit http://www.ianmcewan.com/.

In our last meeting we discussed Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of loss. We talked a lot about India, the cast system and the society there, human rights issues and bar crawling. Yes, our conversation flows to all sorts of directions, we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

 

Julkaistu

English Book Club (EBC) meeting in October, Sello library

In the October meeting of EBC, on the 24th, we will talk about Love by Toni Morrison.

Toni Morrison is an American author (born in 1931) who recieved the Nobel Prize in Literature in year 1993. Love is her eighth novel. It tells a story of several women and their relationship to a charismatic but dead hotel owner Bill Cosey.

The meeting takes place at 2pm as usual on the second floor of Sello library.

Last time we discussed Monica Ali’s Alentejo Blue. The book was controversial. We all agreed that Monica Ali is a talented and creative writer but the storyline in Alentejo Blue jumped around too much. The characters were interesting but it was almost impossible to get a good grip of any of them. It feels that Monica Ali only scratched the surface in these short stories.

You can pick up Love from the 2nd floor of Sello library, from the info desk.

New members are always welcome to join the group. We hope to see you there!
If you have any questions you can contact us at tatu.helander(at)espoo.fi

Review of Love in the Guardian
Info on Toni Morrison

Julkaistu

English Book Club (EBC) meeting in August, Sello library

Welcome to the new season of English Book Club!

The first meeting of this fall takes place on 22nd of August at 2pm in Sello library, upstairs in the Cultural space. For the first meeting we’ll be reading Purge by Sofi Oksanen. Come and join the flourishing conversation and have a cup of tea. Don’t worry if your English isn’t perfect – neither is ours! You can pick up the book of the month from the information desk on the second floor in Sello library.

Purge is a historical novel written by Sofi Oksanen, published in 2008 in Finnish. It is set in Estonia and covers years from 1930s to 1990s. The years hold many significant events in Estonia’s history, such as World War II, the collapse of Soviet Union and the re-independence of Estonia in 1991. It’s a story of two women whose paths cross. The themes of the novel are for example sexual violence and nationalism.

Sofi Oksanen is an award winning author, who received the respected Finlandia-prize for Purge in 2008. She is an active voice in Finnish literary scene, who does not fear bringing up taboo subjects, such as violence against women and the human rights violations by Soviet Union in Estonia during the occupation, which ended when Estonia gained independence.

Sofi Oksanen was born in 1977 in Finland. Her mother is Estonian.

Review of Purge in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/21/purge-sofi-oksanen

Sello library is located in Leppävaara, Espoo in Sello shopping centre.

For more details you can contact tatu.helander[at]espoo .fi .