Castlebar Book Club
The Book Club meets once a month (usually the second Tuesday of the month) in Castlebar Library at 8.00pm. Check events page for next meeting. (Previous Book Club selections)
A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks
As the title suggests, the new novel from the author of Birdsong and Human Traces follows the lives and activities of a group of people during seven days in December. Preparations are well advanced for the annual dinner party thrown by up and coming MP Lance Topping and his wife Sophie. The week kicks off with her fretting over seating arrangements, and the novel takes off on several tangents to follow the various guests as they get on with their lives. There’s the struggling barrister who can’t help wondering if he’s falling for the tube driver at the centre of his newest case, the hedge fund guru who stands to make a lot of money from some very unorthodox goings-on, and the teenage son of a self-made millionaire who is training as a suicide bomber. Faulks takes a long, hard look at life in modern London, and while it’s fairly obvious he doesn’t like much of what he sees, the resulting read is unputdownable.
Faulks's new novel, set in one week in December 2007, is very ambitious. It aspires to be a state-of-the-nation book, a satirical comedy of metropolitan literary life, a sweeping, Dickensian look at contemporary London, a serious examination of Islam and the reasons for radicalism among young Muslims, a thriller, a satire on the Notting Hill Cameroonians and a detailed look at the sharp financial practices that led to the collapse. There's London football, reality TV, cyber porn, a love story or two. As if all that weren't enough, it is a roman a clef, which has already provided fun for metropolitan journalists as they speculate about the identity of the various characters.
The Guardian
A Week in December might as well be called ''State of the Nation’’ it is so nakedly a diagnosis of Britain’s current woes, from the hazards of walking down to the shops to, of course, the credit crunch. There is often more than a whiff of the newspaper column as Faulks fulminates and throws lightning bolts like Zeus on crack, blasting every aspect of life in London.
The Telegraph
Faulks's most vivid character is the odious John Veals, a hedge-fund manager, who relishes all the money that he makes and the power that he quietly exerts... Veals is brilliantly insidious... A thoughtful page-turner ... The handsome sunset is heavily, and rightly, weighed down by dark clouds.
The Times
His book could not be more topical or bang up to date ...Faulks holds a mirror up to our drug-addled, money-obsessed society. The novel is full of Russian babes, venal politicians and bank fraudsters. What more could any reader want? Eat your heart out Charles Dickens.
Tatler
This vast novel, well-plotted and gripping throughout, is the first that Sebastian Faulks has set in our time... the ambition and scope of the book are to be applauded. The conclusion is suitably nail-biting and, pleasingly, love triumphs. Sebastian Faulks has probably got another best-seller on his hands.
Spectator
Faulk's latest novel has been hyped as the defining novel of the noughties - and it doesn't disappoint... The book makes for uncomfortable reading at times, as Faulks explores many of our daily habits - but it is also brilliantly funny.
News of the World
From crosswords to computers, Mr Faulks commands and re-creates our contemporary culture with aplomb.
Country Life
Reader's Area of this site
- Reader's Review site with active discussion board
- Dedicated to book clubs, ReadersPlace.co.uk (Random House) is a website where reading groups can find inspiration, have their say on books, and connect with other book clubs and authors.
- CompletelyNovel.com links readers as well as new writers, offering a one-stop author-reader experience.
- Book Group Links: A selection of sites compiled by the Salt Lake City Library.
- Great Books Foundation: The grandfather of them all
- Reading Group Choices Online: Over 550 guides from publishers. 150 can be printed from the site
- Reading Group Guides: A very useful selection of reading group guides from Random House Publishers
- Writer's Resource site for writers of all abilities