Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

43 replies

Marina · 26/09/2006 09:34

Am absolutely devouring this, having not been totally impressed with Fingersmith.
Anyone else read/ing and enjoyed? Harrowing in parts but such believable and rounded characters

OP posts:
Original poster
Marina · 28/09/2006 14:56

I have just finished it and loved it multitasker, how's that
I think it would be an excellent choice for a Book Club EmmyLou - provided you can be confident that none of its members is a closet homophobe. Some people are not comfortable around gay fiction even in this day and age.
Thanks for the list bink. Not sure which to tackle next...

OP posts:
multitasker · 28/09/2006 14:46

Now I've just started this one so please - no negative posts until I'm finished, give me a couple of weeks

EmmyLou · 28/09/2006 14:34

Don't mean to hi-jack thread (are the book club threads 'members only', or can any old poster join in??) but was going to suggest this as one to read for my local reading group. Haven't read it myself yet but liked the idea of the backwards narrative.

Of course, I could just lurk in the background, pilfer all the most intelligent and perceptive comments then pass them off as my own...

Bink · 28/09/2006 13:35

Booker shortlist - of course, it's just out - thanks for reminding me!

I haven't read any of them - haven't even heard of many of them yet. Shameful.

(Here they are, by the way:

Desai, Kiran The Inheritance of Loss - Hamish Hamilton
Grenville, Kate The Secret River - Canongate
Hyland, M.J. Carry Me Down - Canongate
Matar, Hisham In the Country of Men - Viking
St Aubyn, Edward Mother?s Milk - Picador
Waters, Sarah The Night Watch - Virago)

Canongate is doing well, isn't it.

arabella1 · 28/09/2006 13:27

I've just finished it and didn't like it as much as the fingersmith. I thought the male characters were really weak. Anyone else read any of the other books on the booker shortlist?

batters · 26/09/2006 10:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

welshmum · 26/09/2006 10:55

It's inspired me to try to knit one myself this winter, as the family's sick blanket iykwim so thanks for that

Original poster
Marina · 26/09/2006 10:54
OP posts:
Original poster
Marina · 26/09/2006 10:52

I am eyeing it dubiously for precisely that reason (lurking under a Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian) batters, so it is good to hear it's a good read

OP posts:
welshmum · 26/09/2006 10:52

I've read Affinity and really enjoyed it - as much for all the historical detail as the story.
fancy Night Watch now.
I've just finished On Beauty and need something genuinely good to follow that - as it was a tip top read.
Hello Marina - by the way - hope the blanket went well.

batters · 26/09/2006 10:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
Marina · 26/09/2006 10:34

Ah, bink, mine is actually a library copy sorry
Thread for City lunch with dino started in Meet-Ups btw

OP posts:
multitasker · 26/09/2006 10:07

Anyone read Affinity?

Bink · 26/09/2006 10:02

and when you have finished it, Marina, and it is just languishing on your shelf, I don't suppose you might be so kind ...?

multitasker · 26/09/2006 09:59

Am now intrigued... Will go and ring the library.

Original poster
Marina · 26/09/2006 09:58

There are indeed lesbians, and what I think were known as "pansies" at the time multitasker
It is a beautifully researched, evocative "good read", which makes me boggle that it has managed to sneak on to the Man Booker Shortlist.
I will be finishing it I think bink - I am getting a sense that some catastrophic event during the war links all the main characters and have to know what that is (and what Duncan is in prison for).

OP posts:
multitasker · 26/09/2006 09:52

Have been meaning to get this as I loved Fingersmith. Not so taken with Tipping the Velvet, still have Affinity to read. Give the book a rating when you have it finished. Any chance this one is about lesbians too???

Bink · 26/09/2006 09:42

oh, yes it is good. I read an extract in Granta, I think, and was hooked.

Weirdly though I think I was reading the actual whole book chez PILs and never finished it - which means maybe I wasn't completely hooked.

Swipe left for the next trending thread