I really enjoyed Nothing is True Cote - definitely one of my highlights last year (though I'm not sure how much our tastes overlap).

Cote - My dp loved Nothing is True and you and he seem to have similar taste in lots of non-fiction stuff.

RiverTam - Nothing at all happens in A Passage to India. I can't for the life of me understand why I enjoyed it as a teen.

Book 27
Plague 99 - Jean Ure
A YA post-apocalyptic book, which was distinctly underwhelming. I might have liked it when I was 12 but even then I’d probably have understood that it was derivative, thin on plot and really not v good. It’s the first in a trilogy but it’s highly unlikely I’ll read the other two.

Loved the taxidermists daughter.

I lost you for ages! I have been adoring The Essex Serpent but it is taking me an age to get through. I am quite enjoying just taking it slow as it seems to suit the style. Finding it hard to settle to reading though as third trimester aches have landed with a vengeance and it is hard to get comfy enough to relax. Gigantic cushion is helping though so I might get my groove back on.

Just finished book three Submarine - a modern coming of age novel. I would imagine its primary target market is probably 15 to 19 year olds. There's a lot of sex (some of it quite disturbing when you're middle aged and thinking about your own teenagers!) and angst, not much I recognise from my own youth when we were all a bit more buttoned up. It was okay, some nice wry comments from the 15/16 year old narrator skewering the insecurities and pomposity of youth, but I think l I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't seen the film first and therefore knew the major plot points. The character of Graham is far more fleshed out in the film too and his role is more pivotal and comedic. All in all I'd say skip the book and watch the film.
Now onto book 4 Cold Comfort Farm.

Satsuki The White Goddess was interesting but I also found his style infuriating. There are footnotes but they are usually about additional stories and when he does talk about other writers' theories there don't seem to be any references. I'd quite like to be able to look into some aspects more deeply but will have to work out where to start on my own.

19. The Taxidermist's Daughter by Kate Mosse

Set in a small village near Chichester in 1912, Connie is 22 and living with her taxidermist father, a man with serious alcohol issues and an apparently disturbing past history. Connie herself has no memories of her young life following an accident at the age of 12. But occasional flashes of memory are returning, and after the body of a murdered woman is found near their home and her father and other men go missing it becomes ever more important for Connie to remember.

Really enjoyed this. Not as convoluted as other of Mosse's books but an interesting and gripping tale.

I've bought the Einstein biography too.

I missed Day of the Jackal might go back for that, thanks.

I'm old enough to remember the Edward Fox version as well. That was good too.

I can't remember if I've read it but thought the movie was pretty good (but that may have been Richard Gere & Bruce Willis

I LOVED The Day of The Jackal when I read it years ago. Worth a re-read. Thanks for the tip off Cote.

Thank you for the heads up, Satsuki. I got the Einstein biography, The Day Of The Jackal, and a non-fiction book about Putin's Russia called Nothing Os True And Everything Is Possible.

I was looking at their spring sale last night and managed to miss all those, I'll have to have another look!
I bought The Strange and Beautiful Sorrow of Ava Lavender as I remembered it being recommended here (sorry, I can't remember who by) and sounding really interesting.

Kindle spring sale is on. I'm thinking about Z:a Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald that I've had wishlisted for a while, and What a Carve Up by Jonathan Coe as I've never read it.

There was a John Le Carre, Agatha Christie, novels of The Graduate and Midnight Cowboy, also saw The Janissary Tree, a detective novel that was recommended on here, a Ranulph Fiennes desert book.

11 A Passage to India by EM Forster. First time I'd read it and I was decidedly underwhelmed. I think you said Remus that you loved it as a teenager but not as an adult. I found it oddly paced and a bit contradictory. Lots of things were happening and yet very little was happening. All the main characters were frantically introspective most of the time. Felt like there was so much detail of the surroundings that it shot past evocative and into muddled. Felt like giving Ms Quested a decent slap. Got irritated by too many of the characters and felt people suddenly vanished offstage very abruptly. Then there are the musings on the character of the Oriental , even allowing for the era it was written in.

Read it, can say I read it. Feel like I missed something considering the reputation it has. Going to read Ready Player One next to reward myself for forcing myself to finish Passage!

Sadik, Maud is a fun book! One thing that Melanie does well is showing how Maud's friends and family influenced her characters. For example, while Maud's grandma is clearly not Marilla, one very important thing that Grandma does is something straight out of Marilla's playbook. It's fun to see those connections (at least for me!).

I'm sorry the UK price is shocking. I know that the book has generated quite a bit of interest from librarians here; maybe it will there, too? And, I might have access to a copy or two that I can pass along.

I like Ann Cleeves a lot too Murine. Vera has the edge over Jimmy Perez for me.

35. A Pocket Full Of Rye - Agatha Christie Miss Marple gets herself mixed up with some wrong'uns again.

I think I must be an evil person. I still haven't got beyond 40 pages of My Antonia because I almost fall asleep whenever I try reading it.

Glad you enjoyed Everyone Brave is Forgiven, mogloveseggs! It's definitely a highlight so far this year for me. I read The Other Hand a few years ago by the same author but much preferred this.

I finished book 25 today, White Nights by Ann Cleeves, the second murder mystery in her Shetland series. A distressed English stranger breaks down at an art exhibition in a remote village, claiming amnesia, and lacking any identification whatsoever, leaving abruptly. The next morning his body is found in a fishing hut nearby and Jimmy Perez begins to unravel what has happened. I like the Ann Cleeves books I've read so far, they are very absorbing and have good plot twists (though unlikely seeming in this one!) keeping you guessing who the culprit is. This one is set in midsummer when the sun does not set and does a brilliant job of evoking the resulting strange atmosphere.

There is a new Blade Runner film coming out this year

1. Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz - This was an Audible daily deal and is a Bourne style thriller about an off the grid assassin with expertise in virtually everything to do with weapons, security, computers, martial arts and all the usual spy stuff. He also has a weird obsession with vodka which is rather tedious. The story was diverting but pretty predictable. I understand there is to be a film with Bradley Cooper, surely can't be as good as the Bourne films?!

I'm now reading an Agatha Christie, 4.50 from Paddington. I really thought I'd read it before but I don't remember ANY of the story or the characters. I'm really enjoying it so far.

(Not googling My Antonia, not googling My Antonia, not googling My Antonia... TBR pile still mountainous...)

Sharing the My Antonia love - it's a great book.

I am a bit vague on the numbering, but guess that I am on:

#13. The Loney John Micheal Hurley - a loner recalls his religious childhood with a brother with special needs, particularly in relation to a pilgrimage his family took to a windswept Northern shrine. Some parts of this were fabulous and really conveyed a chilling atmosphere. Other parts were more of a skim read.

14. Lumen - Ben Pastor. A young intelligence officer in the Wehrmacht ivestigates the death of a nun shortly after the occupation of Poland in the Second World War. Some of this was straightforward detective fiction, while other parts looked to the officer's growing struggles with his conscience in respect of the behaviour of the occupying forces. There was good potential in this book, but it was marred for me by a narrative style I found quite disjointed.

spinningheart I have wishlisted Rush-Oh too.

❤️ My Antonia hope you end up loving it too joyless. When I read it I feel like I had a childhood in Nebraska.

Phew found you! Thank you southeast for the thread.
Before I forget, dd said thank you for all your non fiction suggestions it's going to cost me a fortune

1. All I ever wanted by Lucy Dillon. I love her books and quite often re read them. This one is about separation and the effects on the two children, one of whom stops speaking. I think she writes well rounded characters.
2. Everyone brave is forgiven by Chris Cleave. Murine! What a book! I wanted to gobble it all up in one sitting but also wanted to read it so slowly so that it wouldn't end!

RhuBarbarella yes I have seen Blade Runner. It is interesting to see the differences between the film and the book. There's actually very limited description in the book of the landscapes that they live in - something that is explored so much more in the film.

My Antonia is a lovely book. I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading it last year. I first studied it at university.