Page Turners: Rohinton Mistry’s novel A Fine Balance

Following our December “recess” from meeting, Page Turners will this month be discussing Rohinton Mistry’s novel A Fine Balance. I gave a lengthy description of this acclaimed book in last month’s Seashore News so I will not go into detail here except to reaffirm the novel’s unforgettable impressions of the struggles of India’s working poor during a difficult time in the country’s recent history.
We had a request from the editor of this newsletter to look forward with some possible New Year resolutions for our book club, and I have received the following suggestions. One member thought it would be a good idea to read uplifting books in these stressful times. Another member suggested we have a goal of reading books that we would not normally read if we were not in a book club. I think we pretty much do that in the way we select the books we read.
During our book selection process, members suggest titles and everyone votes for the nine books they want us to read during the months we meet. The books with the highest number of votes are the nine works we read over the year from September through June. We usually have about 25 to 30 titles to choose from, and the ones not chosen make a great auxiliary reading list to be enjoyed at leisure.
Another New Year’s suggestion, which would apply more to the community rather than just the book club, was to establish a “leave a book, take a book” kiosk, per- haps in the Community Center. This is something we can explore further.
This month, Page Turners resumes our regular meeting dates of the fourth Monday and fourth Thursday of the month.. The Monday group continues to meet in members’ homes (with social distancing and good ventilation!) and the two Thursday groups are meeting outdoors or maybe using Zoom, depending on the upcoming weather.
For information on the Thursday groups please contact Steve and Ann Morris at samwrsi@cox.net and for the Monday group me, Frances at fozimec@cox.net.
—Frances Ozimec