It seemed fitting somehow to be discussing Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen amongst the victorian splendour of the Tiled Hall Cafe. It's a good spot for people watching as it's between the Art Gallery and the Library. Northanger Abbey has a lot of people watching in it as well as being a pastiche of gothic novels - though alas none of us had read the novels mentioned in the book - most notably The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian by Ann Radcliffe so we can't tell you first hand how good a pastiche it is, but we can tell you it is wonderful novel full of people watching - each page packed with delicious detail of tea taking,dancing, gossiping, flirtation, misunderstandings, fashion, and of course romance.
Everyone there had read it (apart from me who had pitifully only managed to read two pages and one of those had a picture) and all agreed how much they had enjoyed it and what a delightful read it was. I'm now up to page 30 and am also really enjoying it. It's very funny and a pleasure to read.
We also talked of how our tastes in books have changed - for instance I hated Mansfield Park (also by Austen) when made to read it when I was a teenager but loved it and realised how funny it was when I re-read it a couple of years ago. And also where and how we read - kindle type devices are extremely convenient when going on holiday but we all agreed that nothing feels as good in the hands as a made of paper pages book.
We'll next be meeting on Sunday January 19th 2014 at 2.30pm at the Tiled Hall Cafe (their scones are amongst the best in Leeds) and we'll be discussing Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick - as always we don't mind if you haven't finished it, only seen the film adaptation or just read the Wikipedia entry about it as long as you don't mind maybe finding out the ending before you've finished reading it. Come along, have some tea and cake and talk books :-)
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