What are we reading on our holidays?

I’ve brought The Accidental Tourist which I loved.
I’m now reading The Nix which I’ve nearly finished, also enjoyed.
I have In The Name of the Rose with me and a trashy Claire Douglas.

I read All We Can Know by Ian McEwan on an earlier holiday this year and I thought it was excellent, it is up itself but I think that’s on purpose and part of the plot. I thought it very clever (and I also love Possession).

I've made some poor decisions this holiday. I had a lot of weight restrictions and moved around to 4 places so brought only one and picked up one at each destination. I brought 'The Last thing to burn'
A brilliant book, but tense and stressful and not really 'holiday'. I'd highly recommend it another time though. It's my book club book so I'm looking forward to the chats.

I picked up Danielle Steels 'invisible'. It read like something I would write when I was in secondary school (and I'm not much of a writer). Paragraphs repeated constantly, repetitive use of phrases and words. I am actually shocked it was published like this. The storyline wasn't bad but the writing!!! I feel like it was done with a dictaphone and not proof read or edited. I don't know if all her books are that awful, surely they can't be if she has such success.

Thanks so much-I think I will give it a miss! I’ve enjoyed several books by him, but the blurb didn’t really grab me.
Good to hear that you’ve enjoyed Yesteryear, I wasn’t sure about that one either! Enjoy the rest of your holiday!

@Wallabyone I'm afraid I did not. It felt very London literary scene to me and, to be vulgar, rather up itself. For the theme of literary searches in the past I much prefer A.S. Byatt's "Possession" which I read years ago but which has been a book that has always stayed with me. I finished the McEwan because I hate a DNF and because DD was still reading "Yesteryear" which I was itching to get my hands on. Now that was good. I finished it at breakfast today, book in one hand and prunes and greek yogurt precariously balanced on a spoon in the other 😆

I go next week. I am taking The Severed Head, by Iris Murdoch, and Orlando, by Virginia Woolf. I will also listen to loads of audiobooks (luckily, my partner shares my love of audio and we like similar books). I plan to listen to Michael Maloney read Aldous Huxley's Chrome Yellow and Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies. Maloney is my all-time favourite reader.

Before the Autumn term, I hope to re-read Wilde's Dorian Gray and maybe an Elizabeth Bowen novel. If I have time, I also want to read Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim (on the recommendation of a MNer)

Had a mini break Cornwall long weekend and read Heart the Lover by Lily King, just downloaded 2 of her other books - Writers & Lovers which is about the same character as in Heart the Lover, and Euphoria.

I've got lots of things sitting on Kindle ready to go, and a book club meeting just before I go away for 8 nights in mid-September. Options currently sitting on my Kindle include (but are not limited to!):

Theo of Golden
Atmosphere
The Emporer of Gladness
Once the Deed is Done
My Friends
The Safekeep
Notes on an Execution

Am also eying up:
The Correspondent
Land
Yesteryear

Also bought London Falling for DH recently, but really want to read it myself. He's a VERY slow reader thoguh, so maybe I'll get to it at Xmas. Or I'll need to buy it on Kindle for myself...

Just finished Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.

Starting Anna of Five Towns by Arnold Bennett.

Ive read a book for my bookclub called The Book of Secrets which was OK… I wasn’t incredibly enamoured. I’ve just torn through James by Percival Everett which I loved. The best thing I’ve read this year. I’m now on a random book I’ve picked up in my accomodation called The Dry by Jane Harper which I hope I can turn around quickly and then finish off with the sequel to My Brilliant Friend ( which I can’t remember the name of)

On Audible Im listening to the Count of Monte Cristo which Im desperate to get finished with. 54 hours!!!! Its caused me to be behind with my reading challenge 😂

I’m not away yet, but am enjoying Long Island by Colm Toibin.

To take away, I have The Artist by Lucy Steeds and Ripeness by Sarah Moss.

@PhilandbillDid you enjoy the new Ian McEwan?

I’m having a great summer with Simon Serrailler (Susan Hill) thanks to recomjebsstions on here. Got 9 days in N Norfolk to explore all the haunts of Dr Ruth Galloway later this month too. Happy bunny.

I have The Things We Leave Unfinished by Rebecca Yarros; The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid and House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J Maas.

I go next week and have lined up The Names and You are Here. I’ll take a third but not sure whether to do go for Theo of Golden, Broken Country, My Friends or After I Do.

The silence of the girls - pat barker
captain Corellis mandolin - Louis de bernieres
and a poirot for the flight home :)

listening to the power of vulnerability by Brene Brown too

I've been on holiday this week and read-
The List of Suspicions Things - Jennie Godfrey
The Names - Florence Knapp
What we can Know - Ian McEwan

I'm half way through Yesteryear.

I'm visiting family in Scotland so have a selection of Scottish books to read:
Clear by Carys Davies (not sure if this really counts since the author is Welsh!)
The Fair Botanists by Sara Sheridan
The Giddy Limit by Alex Leonard
How to Kill a Witch by Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi
44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith
Longhand by Andy Hamilton

Audiobooks only for me on hols, I haven't the concentration in the heat to actually read print....

Lined up on the Borrow Box/Audible list are -

Trust Me. TM Logan
The Keeper. Tana French
Don't let him in. Lisa Jewell
The Skripal Files. Mark Urban
Nesting. Roisin O'Donnell
Until I Kill You. Delia Balmer

That should keep me going. I have a paperback version of Cider with Rosie which I'll bring to re read in case I have some concentration left for the printed word!

I'm not setting off for another couple of weeks, but what I'm saving up for it (complex of boat and train journeys, so a lot of reading time) is Diana of the Crossways by George Meredith. The edition I picked up second hand is a rare example of a male author being published by Virago - the book is said to be a kind of proto-feminist novel.

I've downloaded Elizabeth and Marilyn - Julie Owen Moylan
My Husband's Wife - Alice Feeney
Beattie Cavendish and the Highland Hideaway -Mary Jane Riley.
I've been saving The Hallmarked Man by J.K Rowling .It was such a bargain on Kindle..99p for 900 pages.

I’ve just finished The Mysterious Case of the Alperton angels which I enjoyed, once I got past the style (written as a series of texts/WhatsApps/transcripts of interviews). Not one I’d rave about but an easy read on the plane.

I’m halfway through Nightingale but I’ve also got Guilty by Definition on the go on my kindle. Nightingale is for when we’re at home by the pool and I can concentrate. My kindle comes out and about as it’s easy to carry. Loving Nightingale but also enjoying Guilty.

Ive got a selection of random other books on kindle but in paperback I have
The storied life of A.J.Fikry - Gabrielle Zein
10 Marchfield Square - Nicola Whyte
The Family Tree -Sairish Hussain

with me! Wouldn’t want to run out!!

I am currently on holiday and have read James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small. I loved it! Have never read it before.

I also read most of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and couldn't finish it. It had some good and very interesting parts, especially the historical parts. But there were too many tropes and the characters were too clichéd. It didn't do the good parts justice. Apparently the book was started by an author who sadly died and her niece took over finishing the book, so I wonder if that had something to do with it.

I am moving onto The Tenant of Wildfell Hall next which will be a re-read for me. I loved it the first time round so hopefully will this time too

Have just finished Dan Brown’s The Secret of Secrets , a really good read but only 696 pages 😉

I've got Yesteryear ordered from the library but it hasn't turned up yet.
Nonesuch by Francis Spufford is my holiday book.

All In by Claire Powell was a great holiday read. An unhappy couple go on an all inclusive with her in laws. very well written, very relatable to anyone who maybe isn’t a huge fan of holidays (or their partner!)

Helen Garner’s diaries, the new Amit Chauduri, Martina Evans’s sonnet sequence Drunken Driving, and Claire-Louise Bennett’s Big Kiss Bye Bye.