It is incredible that you all are having so much trouble getting it! I was fortunate enough to pick it up at the Library Sale earlier this month, but haven't gotten to reading it although I'd like to.

Okay, here's a suggestion:

I know I can get hold of a copy of 'The Accidental Tourist' now and I know where from. I'm fairly quick at reading, so lets carry on with September's choice and I will catch up with Augusts in between.

How's that? New month, new book and a couple of catch up's. Durga is still waiting on her copy of 'The Beach House' too if I remember rightly. She'll get her copy of that this month, so there'll be a couple fo us catching up

Onwards and upwards!! September's book is?.........

September is Marc's turn to pick a book. Marc, please PM your choice and I'll stat up a new thread.

I like you all to know that I have PMed Liz so new discussion thread will be started when she looks in. In the mean time my choice is Haunted by James Herbert

For September: http://literaturesociety.freeforums.org ... -t645.html

I am now a quarter through the book At the beginning I wasn't surprised at his wife leaving him after learning of some of Macon's habits! That's wehat we would call OCD - obsessive, compulsive disorder. However, having now learned of their son's death and how he died I'm not so shocked. More saddened for them both............reading on......:reading:

I am now a quarter through the book At the beginning I wasn't surprised at his wife leaving him after learning of some of Macon's habits! That's what we would call OCD - obsessive, compulsive disorder. However, having now learned of their son's death and how he died I'm not so shocked. More saddened for them both............reading on...... :readbook:

Just HOW does a man who is so....so.....time/energy/money saving EVER waste time on travelling? How does he justify washing his clothes by placing them at the bottom of the shower, and letting the soap that runs off him wash his clothes at the same time as he stamps on them, and then jumping on a jet? or is that purely selfish because the Jet doesn't have to be paid for by HIM, but by his boss? Mmmh........His sister seems 'weird' too!

okay, I'm losing patience with him now. It's obvious he can't get along with his wife ( seperated ) - Sarah, nor can he live without her. she's moving on, he's struggling to cope with even getting up in a morning! On that subject too, what is it with his entire family? Are they all barking mad like him? His sister has never worked for a living, but merely looks after her brothers whom are more than capable of looking after themselves, oh yes, and the neighbours too! Somehow the neighbours can't seem to live without her either -or so she says.

The broken leg and training of his deceased son's vicious, misunderstood dog with an equally mad woman who works for what is is? 'Meow Bow' ( makes a change from 'Doggie Do' she apparently worked for before that! is beyond sillyness.

The story is trying to move the characters on but it's just not working. I feel like kicking them both up the arse, telling him to get a grip and her to stop taunting him. Like kids in a playground.

It's a book I am liking reading, but losing patience with at the same time. Almost finished let you know what I thought of the end tomorrow

Since Jakki is finishing, i will write down what my impressions are (before i will forget them )

[align=center] SPOILERS [/align]

At the very beginning of the book, I can’t help but hate Macon – he disgusts me especially with his two strange inventions:
1. eliminating bed making by stitching a sleeping bag from several sheets
2. making laundry while showering.
At this moment I completely understand why his wife Sarah left him and I even wonder why she stayed with him for so long!

But with time situation changes and I even started feeling pity for him. Looking at him in his family house, his siblings so similar to him and unable to lead normal life – that is really terrifying. It was easy for me to imagine that mother who was not leaving up to any standards or rules, unstable person with messy love life, could make her children over-strict and incapable of building a healthy relationship.

I love the way author shows Rose as someone who keeps 3 adult men “alive”. After her marriage with Julian (Macon’s publisher) I was sure she will just learn to live normally, that Julian with his love will be able to pull her out from stagnation and marasmus of her life. I was wrong – that was shocking for me that she prefers going back to her brothers and says they need her. At the end it’s hard to believe that she would go back to Julian because they would make her believe “his office needs her”. Maybe it’s my lack of imagination/understanding but I guess that she was rather incurable case… Same as both her brothers (Charles and Porter).

Macon on other hand is a bit different, or rather he wants to be different. He looks at his siblings and sees why people laugh at them. He is ashamed to show them to Julian and can’t believe that Julian, who is so “modern”, outgoing, loves travelin and sailing, truly loves his sister. He suspects that it is just one of Julian’s jokes but with time learns to accept it and really wants them to find a way to be together.

But he himself doesn’t know what he want in his life. He thinks he wants Sarah back, asks her to come back and is feeling lonely without her. He seems not to notice Muriel’s devotion, not to treat their relation seriously. He is more lead by her through next stages than making any move himself. When Sarah comes back to him and Mason without any hesitation leaves Muriel and her son... That again disgusts me. When he moved with them I thought he finally found what he wants, that he loves the boy and his mother and takes responsibility for them. From this point until the very end I again hate Macon. His trip to Paris just shows that he is not making decisions himself. One thing is to struggle to make a good choice and another is to allow people to stir you around… If Muriel wouldn’t follow him, he would never come back to her. Even the fact his wife follows him to and is also putting pressure on him does not make him look better in my eyes. I believe Macon Leary at the end of the book is as much “an accidental tourist” as he was at the beginning. He just has luck to meet someone who knows what is important in life and who in a way attracts him with being so different than him – Muriel.

Even though I don’t sympathize with the main character, I love the book. To be honest I don’t really sympathize with any of the characters – even Muriel is for me too careless (maybe in confront with Leary?) and i can't understand why she really wants to be with Macon. What made her love him???
The one that I seem to understand most is Julian but his jokes somehow repulse me… I guess that is the first book i ever read and liked not liking any of the characters!

I'm sorry

I have finished the book but my fingers just won't allow me to type too much in anyone day ( they become too sore then I can't cope with everyday meanialities as I lose grip on everything due to them not bending and inflamation making it too painful )

Anyway, here I am.

At the beginning I was bamboozled by Macon and his disgraceful and disgusting antics! I mean, who else would fill a sink with cold water, add a drop of bleach and leave it all week using that water alone to cleanse his food dishes: and stamping on his dirty clothes whilst in the shower as a means of washing his clothes. Bleugh....the man is a total disgrace. However, I think most of his behaviour stems from never actually being shown how to perform the most menial of tasks in a brisk and very efficiant way. Possibly due to Rose molly coddling all he brother's but mainly due to his parents allowing her to instead of taking charge and showing their children what's right and what's very definitely wrong.

I also think Rose was responsible in a rather indirect way for him not knowing how to behave in a normal and independant way with women, be that in a relationship way or in a basic platonic way.
Macon is and has always been used to having everything done for him. He enjoyed life that way and felt no remorse, guilt or any need to change things, so when his wife Sarah left him he really should not have been surprised! I cannot believe his work colleagues did not pick up on his slovenly ways, afterall they certainly spilled over into his work. When asked to have a piece of work submitted in a few weeks time ( most people would have done it immediately and thought that too long ) he asked for longer!

I was also disappointed in Sarah. As his wife, Sarah could have and should have sat him down and tiold him what he was doing wrong and how they could work together to improve things for him. Had she have done this, maybe their marriage could have stood a chance.
The fact that Macon himself seemed open to the idea but not open to actually doing things should not have stopped her from trying to put right what was so obviously wrong.

The introduction of Muriel I also found as bemuzing as the other characters. The way her verbal diarrohea took over every possible conversation line, and her ridiculous attempts at training a dog with 'immediate effects' made me realize the author is either insane themselves or has absolutely no concept of animals what so ever.

By the time the book had ended Iwas exhausted with the lot of them.
The book fascinated me from the beginning to the end, but I have to say it was hard work wanting to strangle someone for their obvious but ignorant ways and feeling desperately sorry for Macon and indeeed for Sarah. Being thrown together in the wrong way at such a young age and making a complete hash of things bears nothing on the loss of their first and only child.
The book shows how depression and an inability to talk about their son broke their marriage in half. Both desperately needing to talk, to cry, and to be comforted leading each other through bit by bit hour by hour but neither knowing how was heart rendering indeed.
Feeling like I wanted to walk into the book and hug them both, talk to them both and encourrage gently the grieving proccess showed how much involved I became in the book.

I feel that Muriel in her own way was as needy and Macon in very similar ways and for that reason alone she thought Macon would be an ideal man for her, and this is why she thought they would be good together. I was furious when Macon said he was leaving to be with her! All he's doing is making the same mistakes again. They stand no chance in hell of ever being happy together, only ever striving to tear eaxch other appart with their own selfish ways.

I'm sure in the back of my mind that Sarah and Macon will and do become as one again in the distant future. When so much water falls under anyone bridge bonds that go that deep can and do never ebb away. Instead these bonds eat away at you, constantly pulling you back 'home'. I guess that's life.