Our entire group loved The Tower, The Zoo and The Tortoise with the exception of me (more about that later).  The group found Julia Stuart's writing to be clever and brilliant.  Tim, Terry, Mindy, Chrysanne and Lexi laughed out loud and found the novel to be just delightful.  For me, it felt a bit like the opening of the British Olympics...it was very British and I felt like I should be getting the cleverness, but I didn't!  I couldn't convince anyone who loved their experience with this book to write so I am enclosing a clip from the Washington Post (8/11/2010):

The plot [of The Tower, The Zoo and the Tortoise] centers on Beefeater Balthazar Jones, his Greek wife, Hebe, and their 181-year-old pet tortoise. Balthazar and Hebe's marriage is frayed by grief over their son, who died years earlier at the age of 11. Their apartment inside the Tower (where all Beefeaters must live) is damp and dismal, and often during evenings together they speak to each other "as if the place were filled with a million fluttering butterflies that neither dared disturb." During his workday, Balthazar has to please tourists who are "interested only in methods of torture, executions, and the whereabouts of the lavatories." Other wacky characters include Septimus Drew, the Tower chaplain who wins an erotic fiction award; the womanizing Ravenmaster who plots to ruin Balthazar; and Ruby Dore, a barmaid at the Tower's Rack & Ruin pub.

Things take a hilarious turn when Balthazar is suddenly appointed overseer of the Tower's newly acquired menagerie of exotic animals given to the queen by foreign dignitaries. Will Hebe leave Balthazar? Is their pet tortoise safe? Never fear. With her deft and charming style, Stuart brings this comic story to a satisfying and heartwarming end. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/10/AR2010081004926.html

 Next Month's selection is A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway.  Lexi will be hosting at Mindy's on October 10th.  Perhaps Lexi would also be up for facilitating?