BLC: Big Jubilee Read 2

The BBC (the public service TV and radio broadcaster in England) have announced the the titles for the Big Jubilee Read, a reading for pleasure campaign celebrating great reads from celebrated authors from across the Commonwealth, celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

They started with a readers' choice longlist, then the list was whittled down by a panel of librarians, booksellers and literature specialists.

The full list can be found at BBC Arts and more information at Literary Celebration. On that page if you click on "More about these novels" you get a little synopsis of each book.

There are 70 books on the list -- 10 books from each decade of the Queen's Reign. The books come from a wide range of Commonwealth countries such as Australia, Canada, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago and the United Kingdom.

I thought it might be fun to read a book from each decade! So this second Jubilee swap is for books from 1962 to 1971. I'll go on and create other swaps as we go through the year.

The books for that second decade are:

A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess (1962, England)

The Interrogation – JMG Le Clezio (1963, France/Mauritius)

The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark (1963, Scotland)

Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe (1964, Nigeria)

Death of a Naturalist – Seamus Heaney (1966, Northern Ireland)

Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys (1966, Dominica/Wales)

A Grain of Wheat – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1967, Kenya)

Picnic at Hanging Rock – Joan Lindsay (1967, Australia)

The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born – Ayi Kwei Armah (1968, Ghana)

When Rain Clouds Gather – Bessie Head (1968, Botswana/South Africa)

For this swap, choose and read one of the books from that second decade of the queen's reign.

Email your partners and tell them about the book you read. It's up to you what you say, but you might want to think about questions like why did you choose this book? Was it a world you know about or one that was new to you? Were you aware of the book being 60 years or more old or did it seem contemporary? Was there anything that surprised you? What did you think about the characters? Would you like to read something else by this author?

This is a group swap because many of us prefer to swap within the safety of a group. I am planning to post it as a public swap as well.

I'm giving us a month between assigning partners and swap end, but you can obviously start reading your novel as soon as you want!

Don't forget to rate your partners!!