LBC is proud to announce...LBC Outlaws!

After her very successful week as Person of Leeds, Sharon (@Pixlz) got in touch about starting a crime based book club. At first I was a little unsure about a book club I wouldn't actually be obliged to attend but the moment I met her, I knew that the book club was mighty and inevitable! Sharon is a force of nature and her crime/thrillers/books that make you go oooo is going to be amazing!

With regards to LBC, I'm very excited that this is a move towards our little blog becoming a genuine community of readers and book clubbers with a diverse variety of reading tastes. 

Here is a mini-interview with the indomitable lady herself!

LBC Outlaws otherwise known as 'Books That Make You Go OOOooooo' started after Sharon Dale (@Pixlz) had various discussions on twitter about crime dramas and books while looking after the @PeopleofLeeds rotation curation Twitter account at the beginning of May 2013.  

Sharon told LBC "There seemed to be quite a few people who liked the same type of books as I do who might be prepared to show up and talk about them."  

She went on to say that she wants to discover different books that she would not normally read and that this year she is experimenting with doing new things though she has never before hosted a book club or allow other people choose her reading material (not since her schooldays anyway). 

The book choices will include Crime novels, Thrillers and Mysteries or indeed anything with a great twist - books that make you go OOOoooo!

Venue: Outlaws Yacht Club
Date:  Inagural meeting on 28th of May, thereafter the last Thursday of each month
Time:  6pm for a 6:30 start

The first book is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles which is available from libraries, bookshops and free from the Gutenberg project www.Gutenberg.org/ if you are happy to read it using an electronic device.

The format for the evening will be chat until 18:30, the review of the book including scoring, then selection of future books with everyone putting in a suggestion and the book being picked at random followed by more chat.

The club will be very informal so please feel free to come along and see if it is something you would like to do regularly.

Below is a list of authors and books that have been suggested to us so far.

Sherlock Holmes - Hound of the Baskervilles

Project Gutenberg and Kindle: HERE

DropBox: HERE
i-Book:  HERE

If your friends want to do something awesome, why not suggest that they pick up a copy of 'How to get things done', it's being sold in aid of a fantastic charity called READ International, so please - just this once - don’t share a book for free - ask them to ‘buy a book and change a life’!

Agatha Christie
Ann Rule
James Patterson
Jeffrey Deaver
Michael Connelly
Ian Rankin
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Patricia Cornwell (particularly the Kay Scarpetta series)
Jo Nesbo
Deon Meyer
The Almost Lizard - James Higgerson
Stones Fall - Iain Pears
Elmore Leonard 

Please feel free to add to the list list via Twitter or by coming along to the first meeting on Tuesday 28th May.

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Book Club - Table of Contents

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Full Table of Contents

Mental Health Reading Challenge - Let's Meet!

Leeds Book Club will be participating in the Arts and Minds Network's new project on raising awareness of mental health issues. 

Tom (@ArtsMindsLeeds) and I were geeking out about the Mental Health Reading Challenge - because *that's* how cool we are - and thought that it would be a great idea to get our various readers and reviewers together for a general book club and chat about mental health, learning difficulties and the way that these are depicted in fiction. 

Naturally we'll also be chatting about our first few books in details (The Silver Linings Playbook, The Psychopath Test, I had a black dog and Why be happy when you can be normal). 

So, grab your diaries, phones and calendars and book in the following date! We'd love to see you all there!! 

Yup, every single one of you. 

Even you! 

Date:   Tuesday the 4th of June 2013

Time:   6pm 

Venue:  Giraffe Bar and Restaurant (on Greek Street)

Chat with Peter Bullimore
Mental Health Reading Challenge
Blurbs for the books!

Write Up's
Dec - Jane Eyre - GUEST
Nov - A life too short - GUEST
Oct - Notes from an exhibition - GUEST
Sep - Day
Aug - Tender is the Night - GUEST
Jul - Ariel - GUEST
Jul - Birthday Letters - GUEST
Jun - Poppy Shakespeare - GUEST
May - Why be happy when you can be normal - GUEST
Apr - I had a black dog - GUEST
Mar - The Psychopath Test - GUEST
Feb - The Silver Linings Play Book - GUEST

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Table of Contents - Guest Stars

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Full Table of Contents

Interview with Mark Catley

Leeds Book Club is thrilled to be joined by Mark Catley - a scriptwriter for TV (such as Casualty, Eastenders and a Call the Midwife episode here and there) and the stage (Angus Thongs and Scuffer). 

We discuss his upcoming production at the West Yorkshire Playhouse of Sherlock Holmes - Best Kept Secret (squee!); his love for Conan Doyle and the challenge of creating a new story for illustrious pre-existing characters. From there we also chat about the differences between writing for TV versus the Stage; his writing approaches and the cultural landscape of Leeds. 

So far so intellectual right?

We might have also had a mini-geek out over Joss Whedon and Buffy. And Doctor Horrible. 

It's kinda awesome. *ahem*

Anyhoo - to the Podcast mobile!

There are no spoilers for anything that isn't old enough for us to no longer feel even a scrap of guilt about it and very minimal language warnings. 

Say hi to Mark on twitter here @DukeOfBeeston

Sherlock Holmes - Best Kept Secret will open on the 18th of May and run until the 8th of June.  

To listen from a mobile device, please click HERE

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Table of Contents - Podcasts! * * * * *

Our Podcast Page 

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Full Table of Contents

Blonde Bombshell and The Fields of Fortune Reviews - Guest

Thanks to our Guest Star Michael for contributing the following reviews. He's becoming a regular book-reviewing wizard!

BLONDE BOMBSHELL

TOM HOLT

Like other Tom Holt books, you either get the humour or you don’t! Having read “May Contain Traces of Magic” by the same author, I was looking forward to another rather zany novel. The Ostar, who we later find out are actually intelligent dogs, have sent an equally intelligent bomb to blow Earth to smithereens, all because us humans are being very noisy. The bomb gets cold feet about the whole blowing oneself up bit and decides to send a probe down to Earth to see if it can find out why the natives are making so much noise and whether the defences are up to saving Earth from an alien invasion and whether it really can get away with a nice peaceful life.

So, lots of role reversal and personification of normally inanimate objects, an outsider’s rather skewed view of humans and a race against time to save the Earth.

9/10

THE FIELDS OF FORTUNE

JESSICA STIRLING

I’m getting quite into period fiction, especially books set in either Victorian or from the first half of the 20^th Century. However, this novel goes back a bit further to Scotland not long after the Jacobean Revolt (As an aside I’ve read John Wesley’s eye witness account of the panic caused in Newcastle by the advance of the Pretender and his army, I can’t really imagine how it would be to suddenly find an army on your doorstep!).

Anyway, Nicola Morrison and her sister Charlotte are the rather privileged daughters of John James Templeton, known as Lord Craigiehall and a senior judge in Edinburgh. Lord Craigiehall, I suppose like many of the landed gentry of the time, has plans to marry Nicola off to a much older other lord, in order to get access to land and mining rights. Nicola is having none of it, and runs away to her sister’s house in Edinburgh. There she meets Charlotte’s husband and his wayward brother, who is deep in gambling debts and with a supposedly valiant past in the American Civil War. Thus follows a tale of Nicola’s coming out into Edinburgh society, as her sister and her father expect, but this does not suit her and her preferences lie in a completely different direction. There’s a plot to bring about Lord Craigiehall’s downfall as well.

The author has put a lot of research into the lives of people of the period, and of Edinburghat that time, and this together with some strong characters makes a very good read. If you want something more working class than this book but set in the same sort of area but slightly later period, try The Hiring Fair, also by the same author and part of a trilogy.

8/10

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Visit Michael's Blog HERE

Read more reviews here!
Books 04 & 05 - Blonde Bombshell and The Fields of Fortune

Book 03 - Rich Girl, Poor Girl
Book 02 - Legends of Shannara
Book 01 - Dark Tower 01 - The Wind Through the Keyhole

Wighill Book Swap Shop

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Guest Stars - Table of Contents

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Full - Table of Contents
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Mental Health Reading List - I had a Black Dog Review - GUEST

Leeds Book Club will be participating in the Arts and Minds Network's new project on raising awareness of mental health issues. 

This review is provided to us by regular book clubber @MildlyConfused. Barbara is epic, to the tips of her toes and I'm delighted to welcome her to the blogging gang (I believe that you've already met EVERYONE). 

I HAD A BLACK DOG

MATTHEW JOHNSTONE

BLURB
There are many different breeds of Black Dog affecting millions of people from all walks of life. The Black Dog is an equal opportunity mongrel. It was Winston Churchill who popularized the phrase Black Dog to describe the bouts of depression he experienced for much of his life. Matthew Johnstone, a sufferer himself, has written and illustrated this moving and uplifting insight into what it is like to have a Black Dog as a companion and how he learned to tame it and bring it to heel.

When I agreed to write a review of one of #sharingstories books, I chose to review a
book I was not familiar with so I could approach it without any preconceptions. Like
most people, I was familiar with the term “black dog”, used famously by Winston
Churchill to refer to depression, but that was all I knew about the book. After reading
I Had a Black Dog, I felt that I had a far greater understanding of what it must be like to live with depression.

My first comment on the book is that it is very short and I would perhaps classify it as
being a picture book. I found it clever, easy to read, easy to understand and very
informative. It is also one of the most approachable non-fiction books I have read.
The author writes in plain English and does not use jargon at any point. He manages
to convey the way depression can affect everyday life in a very simple, accessible
manner. It is a book that can be read from cover to cover or it can be dipped into.

Perhaps the cleverest and most rewarding aspects of the book are in the
illustrations. There are very few words on each page. Words are not needed. I
know it is an awful cliché to say a picture paints a thousand words, but in this book,
the illustrations do just that: the book is a very visual representation of depression
expressed through the image of the Black Dog. The illustrations are inspired yet
simple, and often surreal. They bring wittiness and humour to the book without
undermining the seriousness of the subject. The author’s Black Dog is not a
frightening or angry image. It is, however, a constant companion colouring the way
the character views and copes with life. There is no escape from it. It appears at
unexpected moments. One of my favourite images and the one that possibly held
most meaning for me was the one of the Black Dog in the form of sunglasses. I
think this image most clearly helped me understand what living with depression must
be like and how it affects the way you view life. Another powerful image shows the
character on all fours with the Black Dog superimposed on his body. His life had
been completely taken over by depression. The device of using the size of the Black
Dog to express the effect depression has on the sufferer in differing situations is a
very good visual tool.

Above all, I found this to be is a positive book. The statistics in the foreword make
sobering reading. We learn that about 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 to 8 men will have an
episode of depression at some time in their lives, and women are twice as vulnerable
as men. However, Matthew Johnstone shows us that while depression cannot be
cured, it can be managed with professional help and by exploring self-help options.
The Black Dog will always be present but strategies are there to help live with the
Black Dog and to keep him down in size. By the end of the book, the Black Dog has
been tamed. He is to heel and on the end of a leash.

In my opinion, Matthew Johnstone has written an excellent book in which he shares
with us his experiences of living with depression. I would thoroughly recommend
reading this perceptive and inspiring book. It has something for everyone. It can be
read by those suffering from depression, those supporting people suffering from
depression and by those wishing to learn more about depression.

Chat with Peter Bullimore
Mental Health Reading Challenge
Blurbs for the books!

Write Up's
Dec - Jane Eyre - GUEST
Nov - A life too short - GUEST
Oct - Notes from an exhibition - GUEST
Sep - Day
Aug - Tender is the Night - GUEST
Jul - Ariel - GUEST
Jul - Birthday Letters - GUEST
Jun - Poppy Shakespeare - GUEST
May - Why be happy when you can be normal - GUEST
Apr - I had a black dog - GUEST
Mar - The Psychopath Test - GUEST
Feb - The Silver Linings Play Book - GUEST

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Table of Contents - Guest Stars

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Full Table of Contents