Of books and book clubs

Last year I kept note of what books I'd read (thanks to someone in real life introducing me to the fifty book challenge), and it was so much fun I decided to do the same this year too (I've also tried to do the same with the films I've seen, but with a singular lack of success). In the same spirit I'm going to keep track of book club books (because I keep forgetting which books were for which month) and also (a very short version of) what I thought of them.

Incidentally, the book group works on the system of everyone nominates a book or two books (depending on numbers) and the popular vote decides the titles for next month, which accounts for the wide variety of books to be found below.  I like this; a large part of the reason I decided to go was to read books I wouldn't normally have found.  To which end, of course, some of the unchosen recommendations are interesting too.

( The books follow under the cut )