By Member Dr Nina Mistilis
Our Book Club was resurrected in 2020 during the lockdown and has always operated online via zoom due to the nature of the circumstances during COVID. But it’s finally come home with its first in-person meet held on Tuesday 28 February at the Members’ Bar.
Eight Members attended, including one by zoom. Members enjoyed our convivial first Club gathering. It was rather surreal to be in the shadow of the horse painting in the Bar and in a club founded on horse racing whilst discussing a book entitled HORSE!
Members unanimously agreed to alternate between zoom and in-person Club meetings.
The discussed book HORSE is by Geraldine Brooks who is a former Sydney journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner. The author weaves a complex tale of real and imagined vividly drawn characters and events. They are set around a legendary nineteenth-century real Kentucky racehorse, Lexington, who won most of his races and in retirement, successfully sired hundreds of thoroughbreds (the latter being his greater achievement, some members thought!). In multiple timelines during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the author uses the lens of horseracing to explore America’s legacy of enslavement and racism. It remains the unfinished story of race and injustice.
Most Book Club members enjoyed reading the book and graded it well. Scores out of 10 ranged from 6 to 9, averaging 7.5. Three-word summaries included ‘Races, Racism, Reckoning’; ‘Historical Enlightening and Injustice, and ‘Who is Winning’?
The next Book Club will be held via zoom at 5:30 pm on Tuesday 28 March to discuss The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett which revolves around the title’s “uncommon reader” (Queen Elizabeth II) who becomes obsessed with books after a chance encounter with a mobile library. The story follows the consequences of this obsession for the Queen, her household and advisers, and her constitutional position. The title is a play on the phrase “common reader”.
All Members are welcome to join, so please contact the team at events@tattersallsclub.org to RSVP.
