The book opens with the narrator, Christopher, finding his neighbour’s dog dead on the lawn.

This would be a most traumatic experience for anyone, but Christopher tells us he feels sad. He does not appear to be very disturbed by the fact that someone has obviously killed the dog with a garden fork, and that it leaks blood from the holes; the reader, therefore, becomes aware quite early on that Christopher is a bit different to other people.

The Forncett Reading Group was keen to read the new Victoria Hislop novel, following her very successful debut offering – The Island. This new book is based in Spain at the time of the Spanish Civil War. Most reading group members knew little about this conflict, except that it was won by General Franco’s fascist faction. We looked for enlightenment but were disappointed. Aficionados have told us that the conflict was a complicated one that shouldn’t have been tackled in a 578 page novel – I believe they are right. Hislop obviously delved deeply into the history of the war, but at times it was difficult to know who was on which side and why.

The Forncett Reading Group was formed in December 2007 following a plea for members in the Forncett Flyer. As a resident of Forncett, I had long wanted to join a reading group, but found that all those in the Wymondham/Long Stratton vicinity were either full or met at times inconvenient to myself. The Flyer notice brought forward sufficient book addicts and we met first to discuss our ‘way forward’.

We all agreed to meet monthly in the evenings at each others homes. We soon discovered that we all had a fondness for the odd glass of wine, so our monthly meetings have developed into a discussion of the book just read, a glass or two, and a longer chat about the world in general.

Beautifully written by Rose Tremain who lives in Norfolk and teaches writing at the University of East Anglia, this was my introduction to her comprehensive list of Novels and Short Stories. It certainly won’t be my last.

The story centres around Lev, an Eastern European man who  travels alone to Britain to find work and money to help his beloved daughter and mother to survive back home.

Part travelogue; part love story / piano tuner’s instruction manual, and thriller; sadly this book never quite makes up its mind what it is.

Piano tuner Edgar Drake is commissioned to travel to Burma to tune a grand piano owned by Dr Carroll, medic, peace-maker and intermediary between the various tribes and the English Government. Shy, quiet Edgar takes leave of his wife of eighteen years, and boards a boat.

The Forncett Reading group provides us each month with a different and interesting choice of book for discussion when we meet the following month. A recent choice  was Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama,  chosen to coincide with his inauguration as president of the United States.

The book chosen for our group to read during March 2009 is The Time Traveler's Wife (yes that is how it's spelt!). 

This was the book chosen by one of our group for the month over the Christmas period; at 800+ pages it made the Yellow Pages seem a mere pamphlet.

None of us was daunted though,as the book comprised (mainly) letters between the six Mitford sisters, (Diana, Jessica, Deborah, Pamela, Unity and Nancy) with a bit of narrative every so often to help us on our way. 

Only on opening the book that night did I find pages and pages of family tree; notes and explanations; and list of nicknames used throughout the family. Each of the sisters had a name (obviously) and also a separate nickname for each of the others. So that’s 36 names to get used to, before embarking on page one.