" I became what I am today at the age of twelve, one frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near a frozen creek.  That was long time ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it.  Because it claws its way out.  Looking back now, I realise I have been peeking into that  deserted alley for the last twenty-six years."

Thus begins this exquisite and beautiful first novel.  We are led straight into the scene set out so cleverly on the cover of the book.  Drawn into the alley with Amir, and along with him across two continents, and as many decades, as his tale unfolds.  We witness the moment in which his friendship with Hassan is rent apart in the back streets of Kabul.  We feel his struggle to contain a guilt that is only exorcised when he returns to meet his nemesis, and discover the seeds of his redemption. 

This is an amazing book with a historic sweep, matched by real sensitivity, truth, and humanity. We had our doubts when Craig chose this, but now it's one of those books that has gone straight onto the shelf marked:  Brilliant! Do not Swap, Keep for ever, and Read again.'

The Alternatives

Each month we guys – yes, despite Caton’s regular efforts to persuade us otherwise, this is still a male bastion, something that Kate may well be changing in the near future -  take it in turns to choose a book. Having read it, we then submit questions to focus the discussion at our monthly meeting.  Part of the fun is working out who goes with which question.  That’s boy’s for you!  

 Rather than introduce ourselves through boring old CVs, Jamie suggested we give you a taste of our last set of questions about Sophie’s World.  This was Jerome’s choice.  I still think he was just trying to wind us up.  It worked.

“True to form, Nick had omitted the names beside each question.  Caton enjoyed identifying the author of each, although it was becoming increasingly predictable. The first, he decided, was definitely Nick’s own teaser.

   ‘Consider the relationship between fifty year old Alberto and fourteen year old Sophie? Is there a sub text here which owes more to ’ Lolita’ than to Socrates?’ 

  Only an established teacher would open with ‘Consider’.  It was typical of Nick to assume that the rest of them would be happy to respond to an examination task.

  The second question that read: ‘How does Gaarder compare with Umberto Ecco?’  would be Craig Lloyd’s.  Craig was one of the three – Nick, Jamie and himself - who played for the Didsbury Beaver’s football team, and by far the most widely read.  As an English teacher Nick tended to read with one eye on his role.  Lots of fiction and mainly recent and modern classics.  Craig, on the other hand, had an amazingly eclectic taste and of the five of them could be relied on to propose some of the most interesting and unusual reads.  Caton found the remaining two: ‘Why has Jostein Gaarder used the device of a book within a book…within a book?’  and   ‘Which Philosophy best represents you…and why?’ less easy to decipher.  Eventually he decided that the first was Jamie aspiring to match Nick’s inquisitorial style, while the second was typical of Jerome’s mischievous probing of the psyche of this random group of men brought together through the most tenuous of connections.

  The remaining question was his own, ‘How does the author keep what could have been a really boring book moving along?’  As always, he felt dissatisfied with his offering.  Somehow it lacked inventiveness, and depth, but at least it would get them talking about the book itself.

  Caton normally enjoyed his sessions with the Alternatives. Not least, because paradoxically they all had so much, and so little, in common.  They were united by their status as unattached male city dwellers on the cusp of middle age.  On the other hand – and this was the real plus – none of them worked in the same occupation.  Above all, he was the only policeman.  Apart from the books, their conversation spanned beer, sport, food, television and films, even art sometimes, and… women, except in Jerome’s case although, perversely, he seemed more knowledgeable about women than the rest of them put together.  All of this, and a little intellectual stimulation, more often than not made for a decent night out. These days it was about as good as it got. “

[Extract from The Cleansing  - Caton’s last case.]

So That’s us.  Hope you find our choices interesting, one way or another.  If you are ever in Manchester pop in.  http://tomcaton.com