Good Reads gives this book a 4.35, and suggests that “With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn’t offer easy answers.”

The book is certainly challenging, not only raising difficult topics, but challenging our own beliefs and prejudices.  This did not sit comfortably with all of our readers, with some finding Picoult’s observations about white subconscious prejudice to be a broad generalisation which could cause offense. 

On February 8th we met to discuss the book ‘The Readers Room’, by Antoine Laurain. It is a short book, translated from French (everyone agreed the translation was excellent!), with a lot of suspense. We discussed how the author’s greatest source of inspiration – fairytales – might show up in the story, mental health, artificial intelligence and how art/fiction can inspire or even foretell (!!)

January 12th was a cold and rainy evening, but seven TIC members braved the elements – ALL except one came by bike! – and made their way to Donna’s home to discuss our latest book. After getting warm drinks and hovering around a table full of delicious sweet and savory snacks, we made our way to the living room to sit and talk about the book.

When I was searching for the 3 book choices, I could not resist including a “horror” storybook just because it’s already October, which, for some people, means Halloween time!

We had a difficult time deciding on this book because not everyone likes “horror,” but the horror fans showed up, and this book was selected! On the Book Club discussion night, there were 7 members, and as usual, we enjoyed having some snacks and drinks while catching up on our latest activities.

When the Tilburg International Club came into being back in March 2008, the Book Discussion group was created as well. Our first meeting was well attended and our first book was Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami. While members to the group have come and gone, we are still going strong and recently read our 100^th book!