June: Humour

This month, members of the Book Club selected their own books with the theme of Humour.

JULES:
Jules started 3 books before settling on Alexander McCall Smith's 'Morality for Beautiful Girls'. Her comment was that it was nice to read, but not so funny.
She compared it to a previous book she had read, Dawn French's autobiography. This she found very funny because she could 'hear' the author telling her story.

JO: Rosy is my Relative by Gerald Durrell
This is the story of a man, living in London, who inherits an elephant in a will. He decides to walk the elephant to the coast to find a circus and has all sorts of incidents along the way. They involved lords of the manor, fox hunting and a 21st party. Jo said she had never laughed so much in her life.

PAT: Belly Dancing for Beginners by Liz Byrski
Pat didn't really find this book funny, but it was  a good easy read though. It is about a belly dancing teacher and 2 women who come to her classes. They all have issues in their life, but gain skills and confidence as they train. The book is really more about empowering women.

JUDY: Charade by John Mortimer
This was the author's first book and is not up to the standard of subsequent novels. It is the story of a young man who joins a film unit during the war. He finds the habits and morals of the crew hard to accept, and when a soldier is killed on the set he alone thinks it is worth investigating. The story line is not funny, the only humour coming from the descriptions of some of the various characters.

ANNE: The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
While she hasn't finished reading the book yet, she has found it very funny so far.
The main character lives in a Nursing Home and is approaching his 100th birthday. He doesn't want a party, even though the mayor and the press will be there, so he climbs out his window and walks away. He has all sorts of adventures and with the flashbacks to the period of World War 1 it is  a little like Forest Gump. He is always somewhere at particular times, eg he turns up in the Spanish War, having had dinner with Franco.

CLAURENE: Harnessing Peacocks by Mary Wesley
Claurene had read this book many years ago, and thought it very funny, although not 'laugh out loud funny'.
It is set in the English upper middle class, and concerns a young, unmarried girl who overhears her family discussing her pregnancy. They want her to have an abortion and so she runs away.
Twelve years later she is living in London with her son and using her skills, involving cooking and sex. She cooks for 3 upper class elderly ladies and has sex with 3 upper class men, making lots of money from both. When various connections between the 2 groups become obvious, the situation quickly unravels and becomes a complete French farce.

ROSEMARY: The Boy Who Fell to Earth by Kathy Lette
This is her latest novel about Merlin, a loveable but difficult autistic son and his single mum, Lucy. Kathy Lette drew from her experiences of her own autistic child but it is not based on his life. The book is full of one liners, many very funny, as she struggles to raise him. The funny parts are the things that Merlin does, and the inappropriate things he says. As he matures, he learns what is expected of his behaviour but his trusting nature leads him into worrying situations.
Rosemary enjoyed reading it, it was an easy read and every sentence was funny.
It was an eyeopener to the struggles and ups and downs of having an autistic child.

JOAN: Love Among the Chickens by P G Wodehouse 
The story revolves around Jeremy Garnet, an author, and his old friend Ukridge, a known conman. Jeremy eventually agrees to take part in his latest 'get-rich-scheme', and they head off to begin a chicken egg farm in Dorset. They meet other passengers on the train during the journey, and they all become involved in this half-baked scheme. Their trials and tribulations are all interwoven with lovely comic prose.
Joan said it was good to read and discover this author who she had never read before.

PAMELA:
Pamela shared with us different examples of humour.
Firstly she read several ludicrous passages from Jules Verne's Mistress Branican including one about a husband who disappears in northern Western Australia. It eventuates that he had been kept prisoner for 25 years by cannibals in the Kimberleys.
She then shared some cartoons including the difference between Vitruvian Man and a real man.
A different take on humour.

WENDY: You Might As Well Laugh Mate, Australian Humour in Hard Times by Keith Willey
This collection gave an insight into what makes up the Australian sense of humour, and how we laugh when the chips are down. It is part of our ethos and it seems that aboriginal humour is very similar.

CONNIE: They're a Wired Mob by John O'Grady (Nina Cullota)   
Connie had first heard the story as an ABC Radio Serial soon after arriving in Australia and loved it. While travelling around she could recognise similar characters, their accents and their sayings, that had appeared in the book.
She has now had the chance to read it and still loved it, enjoying every page. Her comment was that the humour was not so much what was happening, but the things they said. But we've lost a lot of that now as we have become politically correct.
She thought it interesting that the author was not derided for pretending to be someone that he was not.  

KRIS: Fat, Forty and Fired by Nigel Marsh  
The author is an inspirational speaker, and this is his story of trying to find a work/life balance. He has worked in advertising and is very stressed. The humour comes when you laugh at his neurosis and amusing situations during his year off. He takes over looking after their son and he challenges himself to complete an open water swim (even though he can't swim, yet).

TAM: Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction by Sue Townsend   
Tam found this a good laugh and thought she would read other books in the series. 
Adrian Mole is an absolute dork who gets himself more and more into debt with his crazy schemes and ideas.
It is written in diary form and the author is very clever the way she observes and describes everything going on around him.



WELCOME to new member Maureen who shared 2 books she had recently read.
Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsaver. This a delightful book, not funny though.
The migration of the monarch butterflies is disrupted because of environmental changes and instead of going to Mexico they end up in Tennessee. Here they are seen by a young woman who has run away from her dysfunctional life. What she sees changes her life. The parrallel is drawn between the challenge of the butterfly to emerge from the cocoon and for her to change the course of her life.

 Madness a Memoir by Kate Richards. The author is a doctor and this is her personal story of her mental illness. There is no humour, and it is quite disturbing with episodes of self harm, deep depression and  electroconvulsive therapy.
It is enlightning in that with courage, support from family and friends and good medical assistance, Kate has reached a safer, more manageable, peaceful place of balance and wellness.