Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8044 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-06-19
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 139 minutes

Synopsis
A comedy drama which revolves around a group of friends who meet at a book group with the intention of making new friends as well as reading a few books. Unfortunately it doesn't quite work out that way... Episodes include: 'On The Road', 'The Alchemist', 'Magical Realism', 'Bedtime Stories', 'Dark Alley', and 'A Little More Living'.

Customer Reviews

something different, and a lot of fun
This quirky series is a lot of fun. Intense, humourless, lonely Clare starts a book group which turns out to be an odd assortment of characters - three footballers' wives, a disabled ex-mountaineer, eccentric perpetual student Barney, a Glasgow 'wee bauchle' who is there only because of the football connection - an ill-assorted mix, but their interaction is most amusing and entertaining, particularly, for example, when 'The Little Engine Who Could' is chosen as book of the week. The series is fresh and original, with black humour, very witty writing and a sense of the absurd intermixed. It's well worth a look.

Original and inventive.
I loved the Book Group when it was on telly. It has just the right mix - hilariously funny sometimes, and makes you cringe others.

I think this first series tended to be marked by something really embarrassing at the end of the episode, which would then be immediately followed by something side-splitting.

That contrast is what makes it. It's the same with Bret Easton Ellis' book, "American Psycho". It always followed something horribly sick and violent with something so absurd that it would force you to laugh out loud.

The Book Group was probably more drama than comedy, but its quirky nature and character makes it as entertaining to watch as any straight out comedy.

Dark and funny
This one went under the radar for a lot of people, but I strongly recommend it. It's more like an extremely intelligent and well-written soap opera - it's all about the characters, and the book group is an ingenious device to throw this disparate lot together. And there are some nice twists. The alpha male character (Kenny) is disabled. Two are displaced European footballers' wives who have followed their husbands to Glasgow. Less concerned with literature and more with sex and frustrations of unfulfilled lives. Michelle Gomez (who was the best thing by far in "Green Wing") is brilliant as Janice. Dark and funny.