Disgrace, War, and Biscuits, Part 2 of Prison Book Group ~ by Minnie Birch

This month we had chosen to read two books, this is never a good idea because it usually means half of us only get around to reading one of the books, then we haven’t all read the same book and it all goes out the window. But that is okay. Book group is mostly about getting together, drinking tea, eating biscuits and putting the world to rights.

Well, I say drinking tea, but we actually have really fancy coffee from a fancy coffee machine! I do not know how a fancy coffee percolator ended up in a prison library and I do not ask, but extremely fancy coffee is the order of the day. I myself just have boring tea, I once had the library coffee and didn’t sleep for a week! So, I only have that on rare occasions where I really don’t see myself staying awake through the session.

The two books we read this month were:

War of the Worlds by H.G Wells and Disgrace by J.M Coetzee.

I was pleased War of the Worlds was on the list. I have never read

it, and it is one of those books that people give you the and-you-call- yourself-a-librarian look if you admit to having not read it.

It is of its time (published back in 1898) and the language is hard to navigate (for me anyway.) I found myself rereading sections, losing the plot line, getting itchy for descriptions to end, and action to begin. In the end, with the book group looming, I chose to listen to the remainder of the book in audio format. This is something I rarely do but something I really enjoyed it. 

The “official report” style of War of the Worlds lent itself well to being read aloud and I found I was able to indulge in the descriptive passages rather than be frustrated by them. The only other book group member who read the book has English as his second language so he, too, found it hard to navigate (although he has a much better excuse than myself, as English is my first – and only – language!) In summary we both felt the same: worth the read, interesting look at humanity, mostly glad we read it, so now we can say we have. 

Disgrace is a Booker prize winning novel and it isn’t hard to see why. It is a short book that packs in a lifetime of stories. It manages to hold up a mirror to you, make you ask questions of yourself, mess with your preconceived notions of right and wrong, and leave you not too sure exactly what might become of characters you’ve gotten to know along the way. 

It was very popular with the group. We are a diverse group both in age, background, and ethnicity; and so far whatever we have read, someone always seems to be able to say “Well this is/isn’t a fair representation – I would know, I lived it in my twenties” or some similar thing. 

We then stopped taking about the book and started talking about each other – which is exactly what a good book group should do, I think. Disgrace allowed me to delve further in to the worlds of some of these people and maybe shed a bit of light on the mystery of how anyone finds themselves facing a prison sentence.

If anybody would like to read along with us, maybe send me some of your thoughts to share with the group before our next meeting-- then we are reading Sinner Man by Lawrence Block and our next meeting is on Monday 20th May.

Minnie Birch is a singer/songwriter from the UK and a regular monthly contributor to Originality by Design. You can reach Minnie by email at minniebirch@hotmail.co.uk