A Home from Home by George Alagiah turned out not to be the easiest read. He chose to give us only snippets of his own life in this book, which is really all about immigration into Britain. More accurately, it is about the cultural impact of recent immigration where a benign policy of muliculturalism has unfortunately failed to produce the expected integration and instead encouraged the spread of separateness. He gives examples of whole neighbourhoods composed of a single culture, virtually everyone having arrived from the same valley. Here the traditions of often unsophisticated country folk are perpetuated and there is scarcely any motivation to change or share in the ways of the adoptive country.

As you can imagine, this provoked lively discussion and is a subject that will run and run. We were made to think about integration in our own church community.

In short, the warmth of our well respected newsreader was somewhat lost under his rather irritated approach to misguided politicians and immigrants who let the side down by not joining in the British way of life.

Other books read this month include:

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

Confessions by John Grisham

Medusa by Hammond Innes

Folly by Alan Titchmarsh

Next Meeting – Please note: Tuesday 12th July at 11.15am. Can’t come on a Friday? Try Tuesday instead.

The book to read this month is The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas.

The following meeting is back to a Friday, unless Tuesday is more popular – 10am on 19 August 2011.