The Bridge Over the Drina - Ivo Andric

Ivo Andric's The Bridge Over the Drina is an excellent historical novel which won Andric the Nobel Prize for literature. Set in Bosnia, its storyline spans three centuries and centres on the town on Visegrad and, specifically, the bridge over the river Drina. Notable is the absence of a central human character - the only object present from start to finish is the bridge.

Essentially this book is history through narrative. Reading it has taught me lots about the history of the Balkans, from the Ottoman Empire through to World War One. It covers things like the religious tension in Bosnia between Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Muslims. All this is taught, however, through stories about ordinary people - stories that happened on or around the bridge. In that respect it's very different from most novels. Getting to follow the history of a community is not something that most novels allow you to do - and that makes it very interesting. I highly recommend it.

This month's book...

is The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Soul Survivor by Philip Yancey

Here's a book review I posted on my blog (well, not a review as such, but a blurb):

Soul Survivor (Philip Yancey)
The tagline for this book is 'How My Faith Survived the Church', which, as you can imagine, was what made it stick out to me. Yancey recalls his oppressive church upbringing in a racist congregation in the Deep South. As he grew up he started to reject that church - and, at first, God too. This book is a description of the people who helped him to see that God and the church are not the same thing - the people who 'saved his faith'. Some of them are famous names - Gandhi, Martin Luther King - whilst some of them are less famous. Others you'll probably have heard of include G.K. Chesterton, Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He tells the story of their live and makes it clear how they inspired him in his faith.

PSP

There are several copies of this in the county libraries and I have ordered the CD version as Joolian would like to read it too. He's more likely to listen to it on his iPod on the way to work.

I'd also like to welcome Carl to the Club! I know he's an avid reader and even though he's not in Norwich most of the time, a blog is an ideal way to keep in contact and get his views.

This month's book...

...is "Penguins Stopped Play"

Hello and welcome to the NCBC book club online!

This is a blog to discuss books in general. You are very welcome to join us whether you are a member of the "real life" book club or not! It's my aim that lots of people will be contributors to this blog and the books in question could be any that are being read or have been read previously. Maybe you've read an inspiring cereal packet! That too could be discussed here! The aim is for interaction. We may not gain wisdom in all that we read but we can certainly have a good time in laughing at our folly. Let me know if you'd like to be a contributor. And enjoy!