Thursday, 2 October 2025

Book group weekend

Last weekend we drove to the area where we had lived for over half a century to attend our book group, FAB, (Food And Books.) We miss our friends of long standing, our histories known, the usual jokes, the easy companionship. We always meet up over a meal, the hosts provide the main part of the menu and the rest of us bring whatever else is required. We always sit down to a delicious spread! The person who has put forward the book gives the introduction to it. It is always interesting when the presenter is an enthusiast of the novel in question but sometimes when I hear the introduction I think I must have read a different book! We stayed overnight with friends whose garden wall is also the sea wall to the Bristol Channel. I am forever gawping out of their windows at the wonderful light and at the passage of boats large nd small traveling up and down the channel. We had a lovely time.
Both Steve and Janet are artists and their environment greatly influences their work. One of Steve's paintings hanging above the fireplace.

12 comments:

  1. It sounds most enjoyable and refreshing, too. I often wonder how opinions among friends can differ so widely on books, films, and so forth. Astonishing.

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    1. Until I joined a book group I thought that everyone derived the same information from a book. Not so!

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  2. It always surprises me how close friends have such a different tastes in books. And a lot of other things too...... from fashion to food.
    Makes for interesting company!!
    Your FAB group is a lovely idea.
    Love that painting over the fireplace

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    1. It is a really good format for regular meet-ups. And, yes, lively and interesting company!

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  3. The last three books I checked out from the library just never engaged me. I usually will soldier on to the end but halfway through the first I put it down. The second I got 53 pages and and...nope. the third I'm halfway through and trying to decide if I want to persevere or not.

    Your book group sound wonderful, not for the books so much but the fellowship of old friends.

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    1. I also belong to the local library book group. They supply the books which is good in that it saves me buying a book that I may never look at again. BUT the books that they have lately supplied have been absolutely dire, so I know just what you have been experiencing. They have been aimed at a younger generation and are slick and slight. I just flicked through the last one at speed to say what I thought was so bad about it. The rest of the library group had the same response! Who commissions this tripe?

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  4. Sounds like a great weekend away. Love the painting of the tree and clouds.

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  5. How nice to have such a cool way to get away for a few days. I started several books groups as a librarian, most of them still going. I should join one again; it might get me back to reading. Lately i cannot seem to get interested in any book I gave tried
    The views at your friend's house are the stuff of dreams.

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    1. The light over the water is beautiful, big skies and lovely sunrise and sunset - so much to enjoy.

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  6. Wow - that painting is stunning! Had you not said that it's a painting I would have thought it's an enlarged print of a photo.
    Your FAB group sounds "ab fab" :-)

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    1. Perhaps we are a bit ab fab, the group is noisy, colourful and there is lots of laughter!

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