The Death of Grass by John Christopher

A while ago I reviewed The Death of Grass by John Christopher (click here for the review. On Monday we discussed it at our Book Group, and it was a big hit. Unusually, everyone really enjoyed it, and although this meant no arguments, we did have a lively discussion.

What would you do if you were the families in the novel, or if you were the government who knew that everyone could die if you didn’t do something?

Most of us felt that if we had a potential safe place to go to like the Custances did, we’d have gone earlier and avoided the race against time and killing along the way – we wouldn’t have waited to find out what the government were planning. One of our group already knows someone with a flu-haven.

What we’d do if we were the government was a different kettle of fish though, we tended to go for the easy option of hiding essential staff and stores in bunkers, letting everyone left outside get on with killing each other and starving before emerging, having crossed our fingers that potato blight hadn’t wiped out the humble spud that would have replaced grasses as our main crop.

It was a brilliant book group choice. Next month though we’re being quite radical and exploring celebrity autobiographies with Frankie Boyle’s My S**t Life So Far, I sense that there will be less harmony with this one!