My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

Find reading inspiration on our Book of the Month forum.

MNHQ have commented on this thread

Book of the month

Join Patrick Gale to talk about our June Book of the Month, A PERFECTLY GOOD MAN, TONIGHT, Weds 27 June 9-10pm

146 replies

TillyBookClub · 30/05/2012 22:40

Patrick Gale is fast becoming a National Treasure. Our June choice, A PERFECTLY GOOD MAN, is his seventeenth book. That alone deserves some kind of gong from the Queen. But it is also his particular style of quiet, intelligent, clear and humorous writing that makes him a very British talent. You always feel as if you know his characters, that they were in your local Post Office just this morning, and you recognize their human frailty and tangled emotions.

Barnaby Johnson, the hero of this month's book, is a priest in a small West Cornwall parish. Each chapter is a snapshot of different people in the parish, at different times of their life, all of whom are connected to Barnaby. Slowly and deliciously, the story unfolds like backwards origami, with secrets and triumphs and betrayals opening out in sequence.

A novel that makes you reflect on many issues - faith, marriage, adoption, mental illness - but most of all, shows you humanity in all its complex, crazy mixed-up wonderfulness.

The book of the month page with more detail about A PERFECTLY GOOD MAN and our giveaway of 50 free copies of Patrick's book will go live tomorrow (Thursday 31 May) at 10am. We'll close the giveaway after 24 hours and pick 50 names randomly, and we'll email you to let you know if your name was chosen within 48 hours.

And if you're not lucky enough to bag one of those, you can get your Kindle edition or your paperback here

We are delighted that Patrick will be joining us to chat about A PERFECTLY GOOD MAN, his writing life and all his previous books, on Wednesday 27 June, 9-10pm. We'll be discussing the book throughout the month so don't forget to put your thoughts and questions up here before the chat.

Hope you can join us...

OP posts:
GeraldineMumsnet · 31/05/2012 10:04

This month's book club giveaway is now live. We'll keep the giveaway open for 24 hours (ie until 10am tomorrow) and then choose 50 names randomly. Good luck. It's a great read.

And if you're lucky and get a copy, please do come and share your thoughts on this thread and/or post a question for Patrick. If you're unlucky, we hope you'll still read it and join this month's book club discussion.

Hullygully · 31/05/2012 10:46

Oi, what's this random lark?

I set my alarm to get in early that is a lie

GeraldineMumsnet · 31/05/2012 11:53

@Hullygully

Oi, what's this random lark?

I set my alarm to get in early that is a lie


We're responding to popular demand on the book giveaways topic (and we've got to be consistent). We're going to be putting up some giveaway guidelines asap, so everyone knows how they work.
Hullygully · 31/05/2012 12:10

hassen fassen fass

NoraHelmer · 31/05/2012 12:49

:o Hullygully. I'm giving it a go. If I'm not lucky to get one of the free ones this time then I probably will have to bow out buy a copy and hide it as my book-buying budget is all spent :)

heliumballoon · 31/05/2012 16:40

Distributing books randomly is much fairer, good idea MNHQ. But the confirmation page after you sign up still talks about being one of the fifty first responders Confused

Blu · 31/05/2012 16:44

£3-99 on Amazon for the paperback is a good bargain, though - and cheaper than the Kindle version Confused. How does that work, then?

Anyway, I concur, Patrick G is a National Treasure. I would like him, Jane Gardam, Jane Atkinson and J Coe (when on form) to churn books out on a rota geared to the speed I read at, so that I am never without.

Now I have a real dilemma. Shall I wait and see if I am a lucky winner - or get the Kindle ediction to take on hol with me? I will be off the internet and all things digital after dawn on Saturday...so won't know within the 48 hour notification period....

TitsalinaBumSquash · 31/05/2012 16:49

Love love Patrick Gale, and this is the week DS1 is in hospital so fingers crossed I am randomly selected so I can have a good read! Smile

Although I warn you, I can chunter on about books for ever. Blush

GeraldineMumsnet · 31/05/2012 17:07

@heliumballoon

Distributing books randomly is much fairer, good idea MNHQ. But the confirmation page after you sign up still talks about being one of the fifty first responders Confused


Thanks for pointing that out, we've amended it.
Blu · 31/05/2012 17:11

Ahem, I meant Kate Atkinson, of course. How embarrassing. On a Book Club thread. (gives self a withering look)

TheFoosa · 31/05/2012 20:44

Patrick Gale is very ~swoonsome~

yousankmybattleship · 31/05/2012 21:11

Oh my GOD! I've just whooped in an entirely inappropriate fashion. Patrick Gale is without douby my favourite writer in the world ever and Rough Music is the most beautiful book ever written and anyone who says otherwise is deluded. Crikey!

lilibet · 01/06/2012 08:34

I read this book a couple of months ago and absolutely loved it.

If anyone says a word against it I shall really stamp my foot at them.

ShadeMumsnet · 01/06/2012 10:10

The free copies of A Perfectly Good Man have now gone. We'll let you know within the next 48 hours if you were one of the lucky winners.

Blu · 01/06/2012 11:16

Rough Music is a magnificent book.

Hullygully · 01/06/2012 12:15

I've read Rough Music, can't remember anything about it tho I've read another by him and can't even remember what it was called. I think I vaguely found him a Good Egg. I must check.

Blu · 01/06/2012 13:22

Hully - child of a prison governor becomes unknowingly involved in an escape plot. Family party planned for a beach hol in Cornwall where they went when young - coming out, sexual scandal, family history unravels, an art object bought from a chi chi art shop, which features a flip flop which flaps in the wind.

Hullygully · 01/06/2012 14:28

Thanks Blu

Blu · 01/06/2012 14:36

It made me want to go STAIGHT to the beach cottage on the Camel estuary where it is all set. Loads of delicious detail.

NoraHelmer · 01/06/2012 17:05

Ooh where on the Camel Estuary? I'm going on holiday there tomorrow :o

Blu · 01/06/2012 17:16

I don't know - get the book and read it while you're there and see if you can identify it!

NoraHelmer · 01/06/2012 18:05

I may just do that Blu :)

Just had an email from MN to say I'm getting a copy of A Perfectly Good Man. Just made my day :o

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

Slainte · 01/06/2012 20:42

Yeehaw just got email to say I'm getting a copy Grin

TillyBookClub · 08/06/2012 19:28

I'm just back from the West Country, where the cliffs and windlashed grass were fitting jolly nicely with my reading material.

Rough Music was the first one I read - but I still haven't got round to Notes from an Exhibition. Anyone got a Digested Read for that? I might give it a go this summer.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Barnaby and his parish...

OP posts:
GeraldineMumsnet · 11/06/2012 19:25

Just checking, has anyone had their free copy of the novel yet?
Thanks

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.