<p>The next book group book will be <strong><em>One Morning Like a Bird</em> by Andrew Miller</strong>.</p><p>'Reviewed' by The Guardian who said:</p><blockquote style="margin-right: 0px;" dir="ltr"><p>Tokyo in 1940 is no place for a young poet who fancies himself as a Japanese Rimbaud. Family connections and a weak constitution have so far saved Yuji Takano from military service, allowing him instead to play the flâneur with his Francophile friends and to complain about his father cutting off his allowance while others are moulded into unthinking patriots and sent to fight the Chinese. <a title="More from the Guardian on Andrew Miller" href="
http://www.theguardian.com/books/andrew-miller">Andrew Miller</a> evokes the intimate internal world of Yuji and his family, beset by the grief already caused by the death of an older brother in the earthquake of 1923, and contrasts them with the coarser public emotions demanded by a society heading for war. Yuji focuses on snow settling on his bicycle saddle "like a perfect scoop of sugar" and the beguiling western freshness of Alissa, the daughter of his French teacher, while Miller details conventional middle-class Tokyo life with such intricacy that it is something of a relief when larger events outside Yuji's carefully constructed self-image forcefully intrude and reveal the irony of his pose.</p></blockquote><p>It was chosen by a new-ish book group member who loves it, so come along and argue with her if you hate it! That's when book group gets really fun!</p><p>It has been lovely to see FIVE new faces in the past two months, so as always, new people are always welcome!</p><p>We will meet at <strong>8pm at The Noble</strong>, assuming it has finished its refurb by then. If it looks like it might not be open in time, I will make an executive decision about a back-up plan - checking back here on the day for any updates is always a safe bet.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
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