Walthamstow Book Club - 'The lost Books of the Odyssey'

As a child, i loved to read. My parents tell me stories of how I started reading at a very young age, at just under 3 years old I read my first 'book' called The Village with Three Corners (does anyone else remember these little books? The adventures of Roger Red Hat and the others, Billy Blue Hat was it?). I remember arriving at Infants school and having to read the books meant for older children, as all the ones on offer seemed like baby books to me. I remember the summer reading challenges at Braintree library, where you would go in and have to answer questions about the book to earn your reading badge. As an older child I discovered the sci-fi section and proceeded to read everything on offer, devouring contemporary works and the classics, working through the Hitchhikers guide series and the classic Asimov and Jules Verne tales.

As I moved into adulthood however, these simple pleasures drifted away from me as I found myself too concerned with studying for university exams or my social life to be able to devote the same amount of time to reading as I once did. A couple of years ago I thought that I would try and reignite this long-forgotten interest and I decided to join a local book club, which i have been going to ever since. We are a group of walthamstow book enthusiasts, from all kinds of backgrounds, brought together by our shared interest in reading. Over the couple of years that I have been going, I have seen many people come and go, along with a core of more regular members, and I have somehow ended up taking more of a leading role in organising our meetings. Each time we meet we will discuss the last book, then people will suggest their ideas for the next book to read, and we try to reach a democratic decision. One of the best things about the group is that we all have rather different tastes, which means I end up reading books that I would never have chosen myself, and often discover a few gems along the way! Which brings me neatly to the subject of this months book.

This month we are reading 'The lost Books of the Odyssey' by Zachary Mason. It appears to be a modern take on the classic Homer tale, retold from different characters perspectives and bringing new light to the old stories. I've never fully read the original 'Odyssey', but I hopefully know enough of the stories to get by. I'm looking forward to starting the book, I downloaded it last week only to turn on my Kindle and discover that the screen was quite badly broken! It looks as though someone has stood on it and fragmented the LCD screen, but the kindle has just been sat nicely on my bedside table in it's protective case. Thankfully AmazonUK have been great and have sent a new Kindle out in the post so I should be back up and running soon!

This months book