April Book Club, plus Poetry

April may have seen the demise of the European Super League due to its lack of empathy for the community (and a little thing called greed), but our Book Club continues because we value people and communities.

This month things were a little bit different as we were also able to present some poems thanks to this month’s Poetry Initiative.

Betty kicked things off raising her wide-brimmed cowboy hat, worn in honour of country and rock ’n’ roll legend Johnny Cash, whose poem she read to the group. Betty read from Forever Words – the Unknown Poems by Johnny Cash and chose the evocative ‘The Walking Wounded.’

Next came new DBC member, Celeste, who read her very own poem, the rather excellent ‘A Blackbird’. Celeste immediately followed up with her book choice The Observations, a richly comic story of mystery and intrigue by Jane Harris.

Sue continued the theme of mystery with medieval whodunnit, A Gift of Sanctuary, by Candice Robb.

Maria couldn’t make it last month, but carried over her original choice to this month and Moloka’i by Alan Brennert went down rather will with the group. It was an unusual story of a leper colony in Hawaii and drew parallels with the current Covid pandemic by looking at how people cope with disease in communities.

Diane chose the book that arguably, kicked-off the whole mindfulness movement. Mindfulness by Mark Williams and Danny Ponman contained some surprising observations such as the fact that using a different chair in the house can help you relax and give you a more focused outlook.

Sandria, a long-time member joined the group at the last moment via our Zoom link (available to all our DBC members) and proceeded to read a favourite poem called ‘My Brilliant Image’ by Hafez, taken from The Poetry Pharmacy – a compendium of poems for the heart, mind and soul put together by William Sieghart.

Finally, the first of our special guest authors joined us to present their own book and convince our members of its merits. Richard Eckley talked about Your 4 Keys To A Healthier Happier You his entertaining four-part guide to the secrets to health, wealth, relationships and a positive mindset. Controversially, in the light of recent concentration on similarities between the sexes, Richard observed certain biological differences between men and women. For example, females have a better peripheral vision than men. His book is an entertaining read which gives some valuable insights into modern life.