EVENING BOOK CLUB
For our first meeting of 2022 we'll be reading Loop Tracks, by Sue Orr. We’re excited to read our first NZ title--and one set in part during last year's Level 4 lockdown, too. Too soon? Or does everything pre-pandemic now feel weirdly out of date? Come tell us what you think!
Next Meeting: Loop Tracks, by Sue Orr
When: Wednesday 2 February, 7-8 p.m.
Where: Online via Zoom.
Sign Up: Sign up here.
Questions? Email WLS Reading Champion Dan Keane at dan@wls.org.nz
The Blurb: It’s 1978: the Auckland abortion clinic has been forced to close and sixteen-year-old Charlie has to fly to Sydney, but the plane is delayed on the tarmac. It’s 2019: Charlie’s tightly contained Wellington life with her grandson Tommy is interrupted by the unexpected intrusions of Tommy’s first girlfriend, Jenna, and the father he has never known, Jim. The year turns, and everything changes again. "Orr explores the patterns we generate and perpetuate through our own choices, and the tunes we are forced to dance to, the larger political and environmental factors outside our control." --
The Spinoff
How to get a copy: Sign up here for a library copy, or buy your own in one of the Wairarapa’s fine local bookstores.
Some links!
Orr's interview about the novel with RNZ's Kim Hill.
Orr wrote an essay about how she based the novel on a friend's real-life story, in response to the recently viral 'bad art friend' controversy.
An incisive review by Holly Walker: "But that’s just it, isn’t it? We contain multitudes."
PAST TITLES:
Here are the books we’ve read and enjoyed! Want to them in your own book club? Contact dan@wls.org.nz about checking out a free book club set of any title.
December 2021
Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat
“This is a female text, written in the twenty-first century. How late it is. How much has changed. How little.”
November 2021
Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You
“Maybe we’re just born to love and worry about the people we know, and to go on loving and worrying even when there are more important things we should be doing. And if that means the human species is going to die out, isn’t it in a way the nicest reason to die out, the nicest reason you can imagine?”