Group Read by Gerbrand Bakker - Starting on April 15

HI! Sorry for the short notice, but we are starting a Group Read of The Detour byGerbrand Bakker . A few of us were most eager to get to his next book after reading The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker last year. The book has been out in the UK for some time and it is also available on Amazon com, e - reader Kindle, or or at Indigo/Chapters by e - reader Kobo -and likely other places. The Book Depository also has had it for a couple of months

Please feel free to join in with us! I think so far we have Carsten, Dee and Nancy and me - aka ctpress, Soupdragon, and Lit_Chick and me, vancouverdeb. I am not sure how to connect us up with the wiki, but I'll ask drneutron to do that for us!

The Group Read runs from April 15 to the 30 , though the book is not that long , so I suspect many of us will get through it faster.

The book sounds great - you can read a bit about it on the main page!

Once again, please feel welcome to join in on the April 15, but we can start parking ourselves here anytime now!

If you post a SPOILER please do so with big letters so others can avoid reading it! If we need to do so, we can create a spolier thread - let me know what you think.

Here is what my copy looks like

Welcome everyone! I am very eager to get to my copy, which has been waiting for over a month -and I could hardly stop myself from reading it!

There is now a wiki link to the Group Read on the wiki group read page. Best I could do! :)

Deb, thanks for setting us up! Great introduction you've created. I was going to offer to link us up to our group wiki page, but you've done that, too. So efficient!

eta: I'm not ready to start The Detour just yet, but am looking so forward to it! The Twin was fabulous, one of my "bests" of 2011.

I loved The Twin too, Nancy. We won't start til the 15th, but it's nice to have a pre -discussion time , if any one wants to do that. I'm finished off a book too. Crazy Mamie aka Mamie has expressed an interest in joining us, so that would be wonderful too! :)

Here is a book description from Amazon com :

The Detour set in the UK, from the author of the Impac Prize-winning bestseller The Twin.

A Dutch woman, a university English lecturer researching the work of Emily Dickinson, rents a farm in remote, rural Wales. When she arrives, there are ten geese living on the farm, but one by one they disappear. Perhaps it's the work of a local fox. The reason for her move abroad gradually becomes clear: her husband is trying to track her down. Having confessed to an affair with one of her students in Amsterdam, she has quietly fled to Wales from a situation that had become unbearable. Her husband contacts the police and teams up with a detective to go and look for her. They board the ferry to Hull on Christmas Eve. But in the meantime, the woman increasingly seems to be losing her grip on the situation. Gerbrand Bakker has made the territories of isolation, inner turmoil and the solace offered by the natural world his own. The Detour is a gripping and subtle new novel.

I can't wait! :) Oh!

Great line from the Amazon review: Gerbrand Bakker has are the territories of isolation, inner turmoil and the solace offered by the natural world his own. Yes!

Have fun with the Group Read. Although I don't remember the details of this book (which I read last year), I remember I enjoyed it at the time. I may chime in as you get along.

Oh Monika we would love to have you chime in ! Any time! We owe you this group read as I remember that you suggested it!! Thanks for popping by! :)

By the way, on the main page I linked up two review of The Detour. If you click on them they take you to the entire review. One says this is the better novel than The Twin - we shall see!

If I'm still awake at midnight tonight I'm going to crack open my copy of The Detour . Feel free to jump in any time. I have never run a group read, so we can just think we are all in it together. Let's hope it's a great book! I think it will be! :)

Deb, you are doing a great job with the group read! Appreciated! I also think The Detour is going to be excellent. I will finish A Good Man tomorrow and then join you : ).

Crazy Mamie, aka Mamie, is planning to join us! She has ordered a physical copy like Dee and I have - that is how determined she is. I've read about 10 pages - but that's all. I had to make a bit of a start this evening. I'm getting very curious already! :)

Deliciously creepy so far... :) I can see a few similarities to The Twin. I'll try to read slowly.... I might even read another book at the same time so I don't get ahead of everybody... I think we are in for a treat.

Later, I will start a spoiler thread... I think we will need that.......

Thanks for organising this, Deb.

I'm up to page twenty. I love the description of the Welsh cottage, very convincing. I am less convinced by the protag - she seems a little too "male". It's an issue I often have with male writers writing about women, they seem to give themselves away with a strong emphasis on physicality and in this case, er, "groins" (mentioned several times already!)

On a completely different note, did anyone get the reference to the "controversial" portrait of Emily Dickinson?

Overall, I am intrigued and wish I had time to read more now, instead of having to prepare an email that I need to send out at work tomorrow morning :(

Yes, thanks for organising, Deb.

I'm starting tomorrow (well, just read the first chapter, but it's very small chapters....). I read it on the Kobo app and are beginning to suspect I will miss the two-coloumn read I'm used to from Kindle and iBook. Ah, well, I guess it's a minor problem.

Reminded me of a story from today. I invited two old ladies to lunch after church. They are in their late 80's. They were overjoyed browsing through my library and lend a stack of books. Then I got a book from one of them because the print was so small, and she couldn't read it anymore. I showed her my iPad and the iBook app and made the letters larger and larger, and she was totally ecstatic and said: "I will wish an iPad for my 90s birthday".

Never too late for new technology :) ....Sorry...that was a Detour.

#16 I'm off to Kobo to buy The Detour! Just finished my second of two books that I needed to complete before getting serious here! Carsten, that is a GREAT story about the elderly ladies and your iPad (detour, or not, ha!).

Just so you know - I've started a spoiler thread were those of us who have read ahead a bit can discuss things - here it is

http://www.librarything.com/topic/135925#

I"ll create a link to on the wiki group page later in the day, for the spoiler thread.

I'm on page 44, and thank goodness I'm busy today, otherwise I'd be tempted to rip through the book right away.

After this ,I'll move onto the spoiler thread. Dee, being as unknowledgeable as I am about Emily Dickinson , I had to go look on Wikipedia to read a bit about Emily Dickinson. Even after reading on Wiki - I don't think I got the reference to the controversial Emily. I know that she wore white quite a bit , was a recluse, a hypochondriac and possibly slept with woman as well as men ? Is that what you mean? I think we should take that onto the spoiler thread for discussion - and in my case - enlightenment! :)

Groin - yes, ! I found in The Twin Gerbrand Bakker made some startling references to the body and body functions. Along with the description of the isolated cottage ,the geese and the cows - yes the cows like in The Twin, I think Bakker has a propensity to describe some startling things but I found that they eventually referred to something important to the story.

I know what you mean about men not being able to write about women as convincingly as we might wish.. but we'll see. I'll say no more till over on the spoiler thread.

Carsten , you are so kind to invite a couple of older ladies for lunch and show them ipad . That just a fine Detour. Two columns? My kindle only has one -and thank goodness -but then I guess the Ipad is bigger. I have a very simple mind. Feeble minded, some might say...;)

Oh Nancy - off to purchase The Detour for your Kobo - I hope you don't have to DRIVE too far or take any detours on your way....

Ok, so the first line that caught my attention is at the end of Ch 1, "She had been there about three weeks. Long enough t wake up because a sound was missing." Bakker excels at the relationship between man(woman)/nature: nature is comforting and secure but also ominous.

I'm not sure what to make about the reference to Dickinson; more on the spoiler thread!

@19 - yes, that caught my attention too. I'll go to the spoiler thread again later. Just in with the groceries etc.. :)

Read the first 16 chapters. Great start that hold you in suspence on what brought her to this lonely place - what has happened to her in the past?

I have posted some thoughts on the spoiler thread.

yes I have posted a lot on the spoiler thread too. Great comments from everyone - great analysis.!

Dee and Mamie, I hope you can soon join us. We are going slowly.