WhenWednesday, 30 September and 21 October at 18:00
WhereOnline Zoom meeting / In-person meeting TBD
ContactGraham Tritt
DeadlinePlease register by the Monday before
We discuss short stories occasionally in a chat (please join www.tinyurl.com/ICB-Sophie) and in online Zoom meetings. We have one longer book each month. In this way, we can accommodate a range of interests as expressed by members.
The book for September is The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What's Possible in the Age of Warming by Eric Holthaus (256 pages, published June 2020). This hopeful book shows how to reverse the effects of climate change.
The next book is Haweswater by Sarah Hall (288 pages, 2016). An old village in a northern English valley should be evacuated, flooded and devastated. The love story is clear and Sarah Hall excels with prose as lyrical as poetry.
In 1881, seven-year-old Katharina Ryhner is sent up the mountain to stay with her grandmother while her mother gives birth to a sixth child. The little girl is worried. In her parents' inn down the valley all the talk has been of the danger of landslides, and it has not stopped raining for days. At school, the priest has started telling her the story of the Great Flood.
When the baby is born and the time comes for her to go home, Katharina, filled with an increasing and inexplicable sense of doom, refuses to leave. Soon afterwards she hears a deafening thunderclap. She looks down the valley: a huge chunk of the mountainside is hurtling towards her home.
This beautiful and melancholic novella, set in the Glarner mountains in Switzerland, is told from the viewpoint of a child whose innocence of the world is combined with an acute sense of the danger present beneath the harmony of nature. Seven-year-old Katharina Ryhner is sent up the mountain to stay with her grandmother while her mother gives birth to her sixth child. It rains everyday and all the talk is of the danger of landslides. The little girl worries. When the time comes to go home, Katharina, filled with an increasing and inexplicable sense of doom, refuses to leave. Then, hearing a deafening thunderclap, she looks down the valley: a huge chunk of the mountainside is hurtling towards her home.
130 pages,
Synopsis: One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.
Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.
The book for 25 November is "Haweswater" by Sarah Hall (288 pages, 2016). An old village in a northern English valley should be evacuated, flooded and devastated. "Sarah Hall excels with prose as lyrical as poetry".
Marianne
Sophie's Bookclub meeting from 6- 7: 30 pm. I think this is not enough time for in- depth discussion. Too short in my opinion.
I think it is nice to have time at the start to say hello to everybody, have a cup of tea or coffee and a short exchange. Team spirit, a sense of community grows... Then the book discussion starts. ..
It should last in my opinion at least until 8:00 pm.
What do other members think?
Mary
Really nicely said, Marianne. It is a chance for exchanging and listening to people we sort of know but otherwise all have different programs. I am not sure, is 6 OR 7 PM start what is meant. My preference is 7 til 9 or so.
Jacqui and Ulrike agreed
Graham
Yes for smalltalk and community building, we should have 2 hours. My preference is for 6 to 8 pm or a half hour later, as I play tennis at 9 pm. In September it will be dark at around 8 pm I think
Marianne
Perhaps, if you must leave to play tennis, we can stay longer and talk, exchange ideas and experiences and get to know eachother better.
From my experience, about 1.5 hours is as much as the average persons expects to stay, and a half hour extra is no ptoblem for most of us. Most come to talk about the particular book, and few are impatient with the initial time socializing and talking in general about our current reading. There are many other frequent club events (see www.icberne.ch) where many member meet.
We should also allow for those who would like to take part but cannot get to the physical discussion. So we use this chat group (previously the yahoo email group which also had file archive :-)
Joëlle 11.1.2020
I am also getting confused. It’s the first time I will participate at this meeting. How does it function. ...
Graham 12.1.2020
We normally start with a round of brief opinions. Then we go through the discussion points which we’ve found an advanced. Then we cover any further discussion themes or special views. Then we have a final round of opinions. Total time is around 1.5 hours
Oh, je, Ive registered but I don't have "whats up". My mobile and others are not compatible with "whats up" ((((. Nevertheless, I wish you much fun there! BW. Nadia
Winter Sports www.tinyurl.com/ICB-Winter-Sports
2 or 23 Jan – Snowshoeing Gantrisch
3 or 10 Jan – Schwarzsee
24 Jan – Skating, KaWeDe
14 Feb – Skating, Weyermannshaus
28 Feb – Skiing
Event
added on Tuesday, 1st September 2020 by 
