Mumsnet Talk

I really want a good meaty book with fantastic characters.

Any ideas?

What about 'Three Caravans'. I can't remember the author but I'll try to find it for you. Great characters and plenty to talk about.

Whoops I meant Two caravans.
here

The Book Thief is brilliant.

Doctor Zhivago

Thank you, we've already done 2 caravans and book theif (loved them).

Will think about Doctor Z.

Any more?

Reluctant Fundamentalist? Brick Lane? Secret Life of Bees?

Shantaram

We have just read it for our book club and we all loved it .

It is over 900 pages so a bit of a big one but well worth it

Ones that we've done & enjoyed - Old Filth, Mr Pip, Death & Life of Charlie St Cloud (ok), The Little Stranger (Sarah Waters)

Will try & think of some others for you

The Exception by Christian Jungersen. A stonking good read and lots to talk about too!

Here

We've been meeting as a group for four years and thisis the one that we have enjoyed the most.

We have also loved Wilkie Collins, Woman in White and John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meaney.

Three very different books, but all really good.

Can I ask how you choose books? We are looking for a different method than the one we have used for the past two years. At the moment we all nominate a fiction and non fiction, they go in a hat and we draw one out a month. As there are six of us this lasts us nicely for a year, but I think we're looking for a chnage.

I've just finished Restless by William Boyd - was a good read.

About the to start Perfume!

lilibet, interesting you all liked that one, we all hated it! In our group, one person each month suggests a book so everyone gets to choose at some point. Would that work for you? At Christmas we usually do a secret santa swap where everyone brings one of their favourite books (not one read by the group) & we pick out of a bag.

Could try The Haidmaid's Tale (unfortunately any current news reports about Taliban and women make me think of that)? Or Enduring Love (a bit of a cliched choice I think but we did it at our book club and it's brilliant)? Or (looks like it could be trash but honestly isn't) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Or if you're all feeling chipper and want to put a stop to that try The Road by Cormac McCarthy. My absolute favourite of the last few months though is The Other Hand by Chris Cleave - extremely well written female characters in that.

The Book Thief

The Finest Type of English Womanhood (characters more complex than meaty IYKWIM but an excellent book club book)

The Robber Bride (as an alternative to pollyperkins's Atwood suggestion)

School's Out (dreadful title but translated from the more exotic sounding 'L'heure de la Sortie') v dark, great characters with interesting eccentricities.

Tilly - I thnk I will steal your Secret Santa idea for our December meeting!

We all choose two a year at the moment, we were thinking of having a spell of reading 'genres', everyone pickign soemthig from a different genre. We spent a couple of years reading through (selected choices) from the 100 Greatest Reads list.

What did you not like about Melvyn? , it was our first unanimous discussion!

Oh sorry you've done Book Thief.

The Partisan's Daughter (de Bernieres)

I've just read An American Wife and it was brilliant ,our book club has also just read The Piano Teacher which everyone liked...quite unusual for us all to like a book!We also read the Glass Castle which I really enjoyed but it is really a memoir not fiction .

Floaty - I loved American Wife until about 2/3 rds of the way through. Couldn't picture him a George W Bush tho'

I just read it on holiday,left it until last but then couldn't put it down,I agree though thta the last section is deffo the weakest although by then I think I forgave that because I so enjoyed the rest .

Another Margaret Attwood suggestion is The Blind Assassin, not read it for book group but really enjoyed it

lilibet, the story just didn't grab us, didn't particularly like any of the characters, though the writing is good we all found it a bit hard-going. Makes us sound a bit simplistic doesn't it?

The Road - plenty to discuss but quite short

Try "My sister, my love" by Joyce Carol Oates - it is a brilliant book, as are most of hers (for example 'We were the Mulvaneys' or 'Black Girl/White Girl'). Her fiction is reminiscient of Atwood, very well structured and detailed, lots to discuss and think about, highly recommended all round.

The Ninth life of Louis Drax? by Liz Jenson

I thoroughly enjoyed that.

A Prayer for Owen Meany or A Confederacy of Dunces.

Both corkers with some great characters.