Once a year, a small group of readers meet in a tea-room or at a member’s own place to evoke, in English, a book that they should have read beforehand (preferably in English or if it’s too difficult, in the French version).
2026
The book chosen for our 2026 book-club took place on June 3rd 2026 in Christine’s garden. It was ‘THE UMBRELLA MAN & OTHER STORIES’, a selection of short stories by ROALD DAHL.
To debate on the four short stories by Roald Dahl that had been selected, the 14 ladies present at Christine’s took shelter under her veranda to avoid the wind and predicted showers .
Most of the readers knew the writer, only through his children’s books or the films that had been adapted from them, particularly ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory‘.
The choice of this year’s selection was approved at unanimity. ‘Mr Botibol’ and ‘The Umbrella man’ were the readers’two favourite short stories. ‘The Butler’ was also appreciated but ‘Vengeance is mine Inc. ‘ wasn’t too much enjoyed except by Elisabeth and Claudine.
Everyone read some passages of the four short stories and commented their content, praising the author’s humour, caustic wit, unpredictable plots and distinctive style. Claudine read the comments that Marie-Madeleine, who couldn’t attend the meeting, had sent. She had also sent a copy of one of her stamp collection featuring ‘James and the Giant Peach‘ edited in 2012.
‘The 3 Ladies of Bourges’ (Christine, Marie-Chantal and Claudine), who’d visited their zoom correspondents in REPTON in the Midlands in 2024 had had the opportunity to see the school where Roald Dahl had studied as a young pupil but not being an illustrious element at the time, no statue or plaque testify of his presence on the premises.
If Roald Dahl’s short stories gave us ‘food for thought’, after the debate in English, we enjoyed ‘food for pleasure’, sharing the lovely treats brought by the attendees. Annie’s home-made chocolate cake (not bought from a chocolate factory !) was absolutely delicious. So were Marie-Claire’s plum tart and the many other desserts supplied by the participants. We also took the opportunity to bring a toast to Claudine G.’s birthday, having a glass of the delicious champagne she had brought ! Althought it wasn’t ‘Château Laffite 1945‘, as in the short story ‘The Butler‘, we relished its premium quality ! And it was a perfect tributary note to the allusions to wine in Dahld ‘s short stories !
Ready for FGB’s next short story ? ‘The Umbrella women’!
Below : 2 Youtube video documents about the author
2025
June 10th at 4 p.m at Claudine’s
The book that was chosen : ‘Miss Benson’s Beetle’ by Rachel Joyce
(En français ‘L’Inoubliable voyage de Miss Benson’)
The meeting to debate on Rachel Joyce’s book ‘Miss Benson’s Beetle’, took place in Claudine’s garden this year with 11 participants. Most enjoyed the novel, finding it moving, instructive, sometimes funny and humorous. Two found it sad. Everyone had a lot to say, including Marie-Madeleine who couldn’t attend the meeting but had sent her notes which we shared. The debate ended, as usual, over cool drinks (too hot for a cup of tea!) and cakes galore !
Septembre 2024 : Partenariat avec ‘Paroles Publiques’
Vendredi 13 septembre, à partir de 19 h, à La Courcillière , PAROLES PUBLIQUES, en collaboration avec FGB, a proposé une lecture théâtralisée, en français, du roman ‘Le Chemin de Sel’ de Raynor Winn que certains adhérents avaient lu en version originale. Paru en 2022 en Angleterre, ce roman autobiographique, salué par le Sunday Times, raconte le périple, à pied, entrepris par un couple devenu sans abri, sur le sentier de randonnée de plus de 800 km de la Cornouaille anglaise. Un récit saluant ‘le triomphe de l’espoir sur le désespoir et de l’amour sur tout le reste’. La quinzaine de membres FGB a beaucoup apprécié la mise en scène et prestation des 2 acteurs accompagnés d’un musicien.
2024
The book chosen for our 2024 Book-Club edition was « CHOCOLAT » by Joanne HARRIS
On Wednesday June 5th, 8 ladies met at the Patisserie ‘Feuillette’ to debate on ‘CHOCOLAT’ . They all had enjoyed both the book (read either in English or French or, for some of them in both languages) and the film. Claudine had read the book twice and had discovered many details she had missed on her first reading ! After the debate they shared some drinks and …. a chocolate cake !
Chocolat is a 1999 novel by Joanne Harris. It tells the story of Vianne Rocher, a young single mother, who arrives in the French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes at the beginning of Lent with her six-year-old daughter, Anouk. Vianne has arrived to open a chocolaterie —La Céleste Praline— which is on the square opposite the church. During the traditional season of fasting and self-denial she gently changes the lives of the villagers who visit her with a combination of sympathy, subversion and a little magic. This scandalises Francis Reynaud, the village priest, and his supporters. As tensions run high, the community is increasingly divided. As Easter approaches, the ritual of the Church is pitted against the indulgence of chocolate and Father Reynaud and Vianne Rocher face an inevitable showdown.
In the Studio – Joanne Harris – Writing Chocolat – BBC Sounds -Interview of author on the BBC.
A romance film ‘Chocolat’ directed by Lasse Hallström and adapted by Robert Nelson Jacobs based on Joanne HARRIS’s novel stars Juliette BINOCHE, Johnny DEPP and Judi DENCH. Critics gave the drama positive reviews and a number of accolades, praising its acting performances, its screenplay. It received five nominations at the 73rd Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Juliette BINOCHE won the European Film Award for Best Actress for her performance, while Judi DENCH was awarded a Screen Actors Guild Award in 2001. Below 3 extracts of the film.
2023
In 2023 our votes went to 2 books by Claire KEEGAN ‘Foster‘ & ‘Small things like these’
After Jackie KAY’s book in 2022, we chose another female writer, CLAIRE KEEGAN, born in Ireland. As her books were very short, we’d selected 2 : « Small things like these « (« Ce Genre de Petites Choses ») and « Foster » (les Trois Lumières »). The meeting took place on JUNE 1st from 3 p.m at ‘FEUILLETTE’, in Bourges, just the perfect place !
14 readers among whom, James, an American surprise-guest, took part in the debate. Except for two, everyone had read both books in English , after, for some, having read them in French. They all had enjoyed the books very much and a few had seen ‘A Quiet Girl‘, the film (in Gaelic subtitled in French) adapted from ‘Foster‘.
CLAIRE KEEGAN was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022. She is a novelist and short story writer, whose work has won numerous awards and been translated into 30 languages. Keegan was brought up on a farm in Ireland. At the age of 17, she travelled to New Orleans, where she studied English and Political Science at Loyola University. She returned to Ireland in 1992, and her highly acclaimed first volume of short stories – Antarctica – was published in 1999. It won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Walk the Blue Fields won the Edge Hill Prize, awarded to the finest collection of stories published in the British Isles. Foster won the Davy Byrnes Award and was last year chosen by The Times as one of the top 50 works of fiction to be published in the 21st century. Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the 2022 Rathbones Folio Prize. It won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022.
A film « The Quiet Girl » with Catherine Clinch as the foster daughter, Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennett as her foster parents has been adapted from the novella « Foster » by Claire Keegan.
The Quiet Girl premiered at the Berlinale on 11 February 2022. It won a Crystal Bear from the Generation Kplus International Jury for Best Film and received a special mention from the children’s jury. The jury stated that « It is a film with a delicate story full of details about childhood, grief, parenthood and rebuilding a family. The very strong narrative is combined with a stunning cinematography. The sound and the images create a unique atmosphere. » It was also shown at the 2022 Dublin International Film Festival on 23 February, and at the Glasgow festival in March 2022. It went on general release in Ireland on 12 May 2022. It was also selected for the ‘World Cinema’ section of 27th Busan International Film festival to be screened in October 2022. It broke box office records for the opening weekend of an Irish-language film and became the highest-grossing Irish-language film of all time.
2022
In 2022, the book chosen for the Book-Club was « Red Dust Road » (« Poussière rouge« ) by JACKIE KAY.
It took place on Wednesday June 8th, from 4 p.m, at the LIBRAIRIE-CAFÉ ‘SIMONE(S)’ , 31 rue Coursarlon in Bourges.
Jacqueline Margaret KAY, CBE, FRSE, FRSL (born 9 November 1961), is a Scottish poet, playwright, and novelist, known for her works « Other Lovers » (1993), « Trumpet » (1998) and « Red Dust Road » (2011). Kay has won a number of awards, including the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1998 and the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book of the Year Award in 2011. From 2016 to 2021 Jackie Kay was the Makar, the poet laureate of Scotland. She was appointed as chancellor of the University of Salford in 2015.
Using her wit, Jackie, an adopted woman, takes us through a long autobiographical journey in place and time as she seeks to unravel the secrets of her past that would maybe help her better understand herself.
The book prefaced by Nicola Sturgeon, the Prime Minister of Scotland, deals with many interesting topical issues such as identity, adoption, religion, memory loss, racism, love … It was very much appreciated by the readers of the book-club who enjoyed debating about it.
You can read an extract, clicking on the following link :https://francegrandebretagne18.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/red_dust_road_an_extract.pdf and listen to an interview of the author in the video below.
The 11 participants
2021
In 2021, the BOOK-CLUB took place on JUNE 4th at one of the participants’ place. « The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time« , (« Le Bizarre Incident du Chien pendant la Nuit« ) by MARK HADDON was the choice of the year.
MARK HADDON, born 28 October 1962, is an English novelist, best known for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003). He won the Whitbread Award, the Dolly Gray Children’s Literature Award, the Guardian Prize, and a Commonwealth Writers Prize for his work.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger’s, a form of autism. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour’s dog murdered, he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.
To read an extract of the novel : https://francegrandebretagne18.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/the-curious-incident-of-the-dog-in-the-night-time-extract.pdf
To know more about the success of the book or the play based on the novel :
The 13 participants
2020
In 2020, the book that was chosen was « The Uncommon Reader » (« La Reine des Lectrices ») by ALAN BENNETT.
The Book-Club, planned on April 22nd and unfortunately cancelled due to the crisis of the Covid, was reprogrammed on September 30th, at Claudine’s.
After appearing first in the London Review of Books, Vol. 29, No. 5 (8 March 2007), it was published later the same year in book form by Faber & Faber and Profile Books. An audiobook version read by the author was also released on CD in 2007. A deliciously funny novella that celebrates the pleasure of reading. When the Queen, in pursuit of her wandering corgis, stumbles upon a mobile library she feels duty bound to borrow a book. Aided by Norman, a young man from the palace kitchen who frequents the library, the Queen is transformed as she discovers the liberating pleasures of the written word.
Read an extract – 1 – : The Uncommon Reader Alan BENNETT extract
Read an extract – 2 – : The uncommon Reader (2) Alan Bennett
2019
In 2019, the meeting took place on WEDNESDAY APRIL 10, at the tea-room ‘PHILOMENE‘, Place des Quatre Piliers.
The 9 participants talked about the book ‘THE LITERARY AND GUERNSEY POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY’ by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, published in 2008. The story, set in 1946, is an epistolary novel composed of letters written from one character to another.
2018
In 2018, on April 19, for the first FGB Book-Club, the readers met at ‘L’Instant’, a café in rue Coursarlon.
The short stories were variously appreciated but the exchanges proved most interesting.