Proustian mediatation on love and desire? Atmospheric beach read? What did Laura’s book club make of André Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name?
First published in 2007 and recently made into an Oscar-nominated film, the story follows 17-year-old Elio’s obsession with charismatic Oliver, a summer guest at his parents’ cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. For Elio this is his first love, for Oliver an attraction he hadn’t expected. But will it be no more than a passing fling, or something deeper for both of them.
Were we carried away by Aciman’s evocation of one long passionate summer? Or did it leave us merely with a feeling we should start planning our July getaways?
We also talk to Kay Dunbar, founder of the Ways With Words literary festivals, lets us in on the secret to running a successful book club for over twenty years.
Book recommendations
- The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe
- Barracuda by Christos Tsioklas
- Olivia by Dorothy Strachey
- At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O’Neill.
- A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale
- Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff
- This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay
- Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
- Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea novels
Notes
Find out more about Kay Dunbar’s Ways With Words festivals at www.wayswithwords.co.uk.
