Barbara’s Book Club (2), it’s a small club… and you’re in it!
Every month, Barbara Rafer and friends invite you on a literary journey through two captivating books—one classic masterpiece and one contemporary gem.
Barbara’s Book Club – Edition 2
December 2025
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
The Big Sleep- review by Barbara Rafer
Well, winter is here and what could be better than settling down in the warm with a coffee and a good book! This months classic read is ‘The Big Sleep’by Raymond Chandler. Set in 1939 in America this is a hard boiled detective story, the first featuring Phillip Marlow.
It has complex plotting and explores sex, pornography, violence and blackmail, set against the background of the Depression and immense wealth and power. In many senses this might be considered one of the first of the modern crime novels, gritty and unyielding and a far cry from Christie, Conan Doyle and Allingham.
The North Water by Ian McGuire
The North Water- review by Jo Guise
Remember that phrase ‘worse things happen at sea’? Well here’s a novel set on a whaling ship in the late nineteenth century that proves it. A book that challenges our thinking on what it is to be human and the reality of evil amongst the crew ( both in human form and in deeds) told through the perspective of the ships surgeon.
A murder mystery but not quite, historical fiction but more than that – a book that keeps us turning the pages as we hide amongst the crew in the freezing temperatures just putting our heads above the cargo hold to sniff the whale blubber and rum.
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