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Canterbury Christmas lights and Market

17th December 2024
Venue: Cafe Nero St Georges St. Canterbury
President Maxine invites you to join her for a coffee at Café Nero at 4.30 pm on Tuesday, 17th December before visiting the Canterbury Christmas Market and viewing the Christmas lights.
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President's New Year Drinks

1st January 2025
Venue: Hatch Farm, Stelling Minnis
President's New Year Drinks at Hatch Farm, Stelling Minnis, starting at 12 noon on Wednesday, 1st January.
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Our Bookclub: Our Man in Havana, by Graham Greene

This month’s bookclub – open to Members & spouses (& one or two guests) – transported our avid readers to Cuba and the world of espionage…

This month’s book: “Our Man in Havana” by Graham Greene

The setting: Havana, Cuba, during the Batista regime

What’s it about: Published in 1959 (just months before the Castro revolution), the book takes a light-hearted look at the world of spies. Along the way it touches on more serious issues such as relationships, justice and equality. It was classed as “entertainment” by Greene and pokes fun at the British Secret Service. Everything centres around a character called Womold, a failing vacuum cleaner salesman, who is recruited as an agent and begins inventing contacts and sub-agents; meanwhile, his drawing of the works of an “atomic” vacuum cleaner is accepted as that of a secret weapon.
(The book gave rise to the wonderful and well-known film starring the late Sir Alec Guinness.)

Thoughts from our bookclubbers: 

  • “like a Brian Rix comedy with people who didn’t exist floating in and out”
  • “amazing”
  • “a style like ‘Three Men In A Boat”
  • “quite different from Le Carre and the Smiley books”
  • “preferred the film”
  • “poses the question of whether one should favour loyalty to friends over that of the country”

Our bookclubbers’ score: 8-9/10

Our bookclubbers’ other reads:

  • “One Perfect Lie”- Lisa Scottoline
  • “The Last Drop of Blood” – Graham Masterton
  • “I Know a Secret” – Tess Gerritsen
  • “Girl, Woman, Other” – Bernardine Evaristo
  • “Lucky Jim” – Kingsley Amis
  • “Hamnet”- Maggie O’Farrell
  • “The Midnight Library” – Matt Haig
  • “Warlight” – Michael Ondaatje
  • “Bonkers – My Life in Laughs” – Jennifer Saunders
  • “Olive Kitteridge” – Elizabeth Strout
  • “Our Mutual Friend” – Charles Dickens

Please note: all comments and opinions are from our bookclub members and are not the views of the Rotary Club of Canterbury, nor are any of the books mentioned endorsed by the Club. Imagery is used under the terms of fair use for review. © Grahan Greene 1958. This edition reissued by Vintage in 2019. Vintage Classics is part of Penguin Random House.

 

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