What's Everyone Reading in the New Year?

The Accidental just nobbled a Whitbread award, in the novel category

it's really well written isn't it. and gripping.

I've never read her, never heard of her, even. I'm about half-way through, and if I still like it half as much at the end, I will be buying more.

She just conveys each (very different) character's point of view so well! And makes it so easy to identify with them, while still seeing them as fallible etc etc. I really do like books with unreliable/fallible narrators.

No - she's one of the nextish ones on my list - so many books, so little time . I tried reading a Norwegian thriller recently - Writing on the Wall by Gunnar Staaleson but I gave up a quarter of the way through as it was so ploddingly dull, and my friend who read it said it didn't improve at all!

Hey, thanks for pointers, mummytosteven.
Have you read any Pernille Rygg? I found The Golden Section alongside the Indridason on the Scandi-thriller shelf. Haven't started it yet. She's Norwegian.

i really liked the accidental nqc - it's the only one of the set i had already, & i have happy memories of reading in the garden this summer whilst heavily pregnant. have you read any more ali smith? hotel world is good too imo.

this year's booker winner was "The Sea" by John Banville.

hox, The Accidental from the Booker prize thing is good, I think. Interesting, certainly.

Which book won, anyway?

balkan trilogy is fabulous. as is sequel the Levant trilogy. never been able to face up to reading any more of hers as feel would be a disappointment after these two. has anyone read any other olivia manning?

Jan, Bollocks to Alton Towers is written by an ex-boyf of mine (I have to get that in whenever possible...) Are you enjoying it?

balkan trilogy v v good

DD (7) is mad on Roald Dahl and insisted we buy Boy from a secondhand bookshop last summer. Strangely she has not read it yet, preferring The Giraffe, Pelly and Me etc.

Dh bought me 4 books for Christmas so I'm working my way through them.

I finished Gloria Hunniford's book about Caron Keating last night (not a book I would have chosen for myself, I have to say). I found it very moving at the beginning and the end but found myself getting quite annoyed with Caron Keating, which is a terrible thing to say. She was rather a difficult woman, reading between the lines.

He also got me the Alan Bennett book, and Boy and Going Solo by Roald Dahl (I've only read his fiction). Don't know which one to start next.

D'oh, it's John Coldstream not 'Drinkwater', lol!

Oh, so many books, so little time.....

"The Balkan Trilogy" was made into "Fortunes of War" a TV series in the late eighties, with Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh. I loved it, but have not read the books yet.

If you like books that feature food, I really enjoyed "Tender at the Bone" and "Garlic and Sapphires" by Ruth Reichl. I have yet to read her book that comes between these two "Comfort me with Apples".

I recently read "The Shipping News" and loved it. That led me to "Neap Tide" by Australian author Dorothy Hewitt.

I'm currently reading some Australian crime fiction - Garry Disher and Gabrielle Lord.

reading my way through lots of christmas present books. this week read:
"The Time Travellers wife" - liked it,

"Haven't stopped dancing yet" (story of growing up as sri lankan in 60's/70's London) - quite enjoyable but fluffy

"Seeking Rapture" by Kathryn something - obsessive account of motherhood, too obsessive for me.

moving on to a new Margaret Atwood which is always good.

"The Balkan Trilogy" by Olivia Manning. Got it from the library. All about English colony in Bucharest at time of WW2. Doing wonders for my Romanian.
Also just read "The Partner" by John Grisham, which is classic tosh, and have "Anna of the 5 towns" by Arnold Bennett lined up next.
DS1 (7) is reading me "The Deviant Strain", a Doctor Who novelisation from the last series.

I got a book by an American author called Karin Slaughter (the authors called that, not the book) and the title is Indelible. Its the third of her book that i have read. I would recommend her books. I have also just finished Fleshmarket Close, by Ian Rankin its an Inspector Rebus book. I love the Rebus books and have thenm all. I also have the enitre 6 Harry Potter books by my bed which i read with an obsessive regularity!!

Just finished The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, which I enjoyed.
Have just started Beatrice by Noelle Harrison which is surprising me as I thought it may be a bit girly/chick lit and is v good so far
Then am on to The Constant Gardener by John Le Carre (present from my Mom who has seen the film twice)

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I'm getting into "The Accidental" from the Booker Prize thing. Curious to see how others will like it ...

oooh bakedpotato - another Scandinavian thriller fan here!! I've read Tainted Blood and Silence of the Grave - not bad but not stunningly good. Sun and Shadow by Ake Edwardson is pretty good, very Mankellesque. I also really like Karin Fossum - like Ruth Rendell I find..

Oh, that's a good one, G76!

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. Off to read it now, acutally!