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

So which book did you love that you just randomly picked up?

95 replies

Coatdegroan · 06/07/2022 20:21

I have just read "In the Springtime of the Year" by Susan Hill. I'm not a very accomplished or complicated reader... its not everyone's cup of tea but I was spelll bound by it. Picked it up in a second hand bookshop for 50p. Very understated and quite sad, but beautiful reading.

Anyone else had a surprise lovely read?

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
YingMei · 07/08/2022 18:12

A few years ago I picked up a book that had been left in a holiday apartment in Crete. It was called 'Crimson China' by Betsy Tobin focusing on a Chinese cockle picker in Morcambe Bay. Really enjoyed it.

heronsinflight · 04/08/2022 21:54

A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes. Picked up at random in a second-hand shop and it's a truly great novel.

TheBermudaTriangle · 28/07/2022 08:31

Covidagainandagain · 08/07/2022 14:09

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym - I think think I even realised how much I enjoyed it initially, but its become one of those books I read at least once a year

Also Diary of a provincial lady by E M Delafield

This is spooky because I came on to post Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym - such a fantastic, amusing book - and how it led me to devouring everything else she wrote, including Excellent Women. I would also recommend Quartet in Autumn - so bittersweet, and amazing observation of 'ordinary', ageing lives.

I'm also currently reading Diary of a Provincial Lady - I love it!

mathanxiety · 28/07/2022 01:58

The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown.

It was on DD4's school summer reading list a few years ago and it was gathering dust in her room until I picked it up and asked if she wanted to donate it along with the rest of the pile half way under her bed. She said Nah, you might like that one. And I did.

TheBikiniExpert · 27/07/2022 08:44

Trainfromredhill · 13/07/2022 05:36

When God was a rabbit. I bought it years ago as a rebellious act from my strict Christian upbringing- I thought it had a blasphemous title. It’s a wonderful book.

I have this on my bookshelf unread - no idea where it came from!

TheBikiniExpert · 27/07/2022 08:42

Note to self: stop opening book threads on mumsnet. Bad for the bank balance!

Reluctantadult · 27/07/2022 07:27

GreenFridge · 13/07/2022 01:06

Connie Willis’ The Doomsday Book, which I found abandoned on a windowsill in my college, and picked up out of curiosity. I don’t read sci-fi/fantasy, it got key things about Oxford/the college system completely wrong, and the idea that, once time travel had been developed, it would only be an academic technique for historians, is a bit mad, but I was gripped by it — history undergraduate is accidentally sent to the Black Death when a modern pandemic hits.

This thread made me think of this book and look it up! I didn't think anyone else would have heard of it.

TheBikiniExpert · 26/07/2022 19:47

Another random holiday cottage read that i couldn't put down: The Good Earth by Pearl Buck

DameHelena · 26/07/2022 17:50

imagakster · 12/07/2022 18:31

I loved that in fact anything Korean related highly recommend the orphan masers son as well
but a TV series how exciting when ?

Show quote history

The TV series is available already, on Apple TV+. I haven't finished it yet but so far it's terrific. Great opening credits too!

littlepeas · 25/07/2022 00:18

Tr1skel1on · 13/07/2022 01:25

Storyteller by Dave Grohl, I still no nothing about his music, apart from Nirvana. An acquaintance and I swapped books after Christmas, she got a copy of the green roasting tin, which I already have, I got this. I was spellbound from start to finish, what an absolute unexpected treat

Reading this at the moment - he is so incredibly talented and charismatic.

Spanielsarepainless · 24/07/2022 08:29

The Huntress by Kate Quinn.

CharlotteSt · 24/07/2022 08:26

DeePlume · 06/07/2022 21:13

Valley of the dolls.

At my Saturday job, about 20 years ago. One of my friends was reading it and had left it in the staff room so I had a look while I was on my lunch break.

I've loved it ever since!

I came on to say this! I have read it so many times. Poor Jennifer 😢

TenoringBehind · 24/07/2022 08:22

Lily by Rose Tremain.

katiejames2015 · 23/07/2022 20:42

i read this book as a teenager, really enjoyed and this has reminded me to read it again!

TossieFleacake · 16/07/2022 17:39

The Engagements by Courtney Sullivan.

This was passed to me by a friend and I could not put it down. A lovely story which lives on in my head.

Springduckling · 16/07/2022 17:34

Oh William by Elizabeth Strout. Picked it up as a shortish book to read on holiday. Never read anything by her before but its very good.

I thought she was one of those slightly twee writers but she's not.
I will definitely read more of hers.

Rayn22 · 15/07/2022 15:46

Anita Diamant the red tent
Never read a book like it but could not stop reading it.

larkstar · 15/07/2022 00:58

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - a thin memoir about a man who had a stroke and was "locked in" - perfectly conscious but paralysed apart from one eye which he learned to use to communicate and unbelievably dictate the memoir! I picked it all at my sister's holiday cottage - guests used to swap and leave books. I read the book either in one day or certainly only two.

goldensilk · 15/07/2022 00:15

Oh they are divorced now.

goldensilk · 15/07/2022 00:13

Carter beats the Devil

I bought it because the front cover illustration drew me in. It's written by David Glen who I subsequently learnt is married to Alice Seebold. I did not enjoy Lovely Bones one bit

SwimmingOnEggshells · 14/07/2022 19:58

Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene. Really loved it, great satire. The kindle store wouldn't work for me when I was abroad so I had to try to find something already on my kindle that my husband had read.

BestIsWest · 14/07/2022 19:38

Oh, I loved Valley of the Dolls too, takes me back to reading on a sun-lounger in the garden when I was supposed to be revising for A Levels.

Upwiththisiwillnotput · 14/07/2022 19:29

No! I don't want to join a book club by Virginia Ironside. Funny, touching and I want to be Marie when I grow up (in about 8 years!)

ABookWyrm · 14/07/2022 18:54

@TheWheeledAvenger I found The Little White Horse on a stall at a summer fete when I was a child. The book was in such a bad condition that the stall owner gave it to me for free because it wasn't meant to be there. Unfortunately when reading it I discovered there was a page or two missing at the end and I never found another copy of it. In my mind it has a sort of never ending magical quality, so much so that even now when I could probably easily find it online I kind of don't want to, because then it would be over.

hugoagogo · 13/07/2022 22:18

I think I must have bought that same magazine with A Slipping down Life! I rember enjoying it at the time but can't remember much now.

The book I particularly remember buying randomly is Sleeping in Flame by Jonathan Carroll. I bought it in a discount bookshop when I was 17. It's still one of my favourites, so strange and normal at the same time.Smile