Book Club

Luckily only six members could make Book Club this month and it was dry so we sat on my patio. The Book was the Craftsman by Sharon Bolton a modern take on the Pendle Witches story. Being a Southerner, I had not heard of the Pendle Witch trials until a few years ago when I went to an orienteering event hosted by Pendle Forest Orienteering Club and wondered why their logo was a witch on a broomstick. It's a well known story up here , hundreds of women were accused of being witches in Lancashire in the 1600s. Elizabeth 1 and James 1 thought witches were plotting against them which gave the local officials carte blanche to prosecute.  If you are interested read the Wiki entry here.
The book had been recommended by the library, and for a change we all enjoyed it. The main character is a women police officer writing in the 1960s and her description of the attitudes of the male officers caused much discussion of our memories of sex discrimination .