What book are you reading now because it is doing my head in that I can't find something I want to read so am going to steal your ideas instead..!

Janeite - if you liked the Fatal Shore etc then have you read The Secret River by Kate Grenville? it's also about Australia and the penal colony (tho set in early Victorian time). I loved that Sian Rees book too. have you read / seen Our Country's Good - a play by Timberlake Wertenbaker based on The Fatal Shore and that Keneally book The Playmaker? I'd recommend these too.

So has no one else read A View from the Foothills? I've not read any political diaries before - so good good I'm even thinking about reading the Alan Clarke ones.

I hated The House At Riverton - sorry. Something else trying to be Ian McYawn, I thought. Ignore me though - I am horribly fussy.

Arthur And George = brilliant.

Under The Dome = not bad but not King at his best.

MayorNaze - please read This Thing Of Darkness - it is my mission in life to get as many people as possible to read it as it is fab.

Half way through Owen Meany now as I had some reading time on the train today - it is very, very odd.

to read next i have:

the american wife
sarah waters latest
suite francaise by irene nemirovsky - read another one of hers - v v g.

have just gone to library catalogue online and reserved:

anansi boy - neil gaiman
childrens book - a s byatt
floating brothel - sian rees

thanks guys

I would recommend,

Kate Atkinson's books are good there are three which all revlove around the same character,
Case Histories
One good turn
When will there be good news

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
Fault Lines by Nancy Huston
The house at Riverton and The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
No time to say goodbye,Too close to home, fear the worst, by Linwood Barclay

I've also read An American wife and would recommend it.

I am current;y reading The Last 10 Seconds by Simon Kernick, am really enjoying it, it is about an undercover cop who infiltrates a London "mafia" for want of a better world and alongside is a police woman and what is happening to her and it all intermingles.

It is a little confusing because I never read chapter heading and the chapter headings in this book tell you the time line.

I have just finished Have You Seen Her by Karen Rose, I loved it, could not put it down, was really gripping and I was in tears through some of it! It is quite graphic in places though, so be warned!

It is about 16 year old girls that go missing and the private and work lives of the chief investigator and his sons high school teacher.

I have Under the Dome by Stephen King to read next but think I might need to go to the gym for a few weeks to build up my arms, it's huge!!!

I'm reading Kate Adie's autobiography which is interesting but probably not gripping enough to be described as great.

Instead I offer you:-

Arthur and George - Julian Barnes.
This Thing of Darkness - Harry Thompson

The Children's Book by A.S.Byat. Dense but very enjoyable.

am re-reading Terry Pratchett's Carpe Jugulum. Have just finished Good Omens (co-written with Neil Gaiman), one of my favourite books ever.

wow janeite we really do have very similar taste - i loved the [parts of] fatal shore [that I have read]

I can also recommend one called 'The Fatal Shore' about the colonisation of Australia and another called 'The Caliban Shore' about a group who were shipwrecked off the coast of Africa.

Also 'This Thing Of Darkness' which is fiction but based on Darwin's voyage to Tierra Del Feugo with Captain Fitzroy - superb.

I read a book about grave robbers in London this week, if you fancy some 'different' non-fiction.

After 'Owen Meany' I've got 'Purple Hibiscus' and one about convict women being transported to be colony 'wives' called 'The Floating Brothel' by Sian Rees.

moloka'i

The best book I've read in a long time is Moloka'i by Alan Brennert (think I've spelt that all correctly !). About leprosy in Hawaii. Really really good. Took our book group by storm. Have tissues handy but prepare to be fascinated/shocked/moved etc.

op, the little stranger really picks up in the second half...i put it down just under halfway thru and picked it up 6 weeks later when i had no more fiction left on my bookpile, really glad i did

just reading karin fossum's broken and it has really caught me....it's about an author who has a future character queue jump and sit in her bedroom until she agrees to write about him next...no idea what will happen but i really want to know!

i recently read digging to america by anne tyler...about 2 families who adopt a korean girl each and forge links despite having nothing else in common...it's a great book

do you want fiction only?
I was surprised to enjoy Becoming Jane Austen so much, it is packaged in a slightly trashy way but i thought it was good.
Claire Tomalin's biographies always wonderful - the Pepys one is amazing, although I think she is completely wrong about sex in the 17th century - that was only a paragraph in the whole book though. Also Mrs Jordan's Profession was a lovely read. Brings home that most sexually active women in those days were pregnant nearly all the time.
Also i frequently recommend Victoria Glendinning's biography of Trollope. A wonderfully gripping read even though I've never made it through a whole book by AT (well, maybe one). Her biogrphy of Swift, I'm afraid I don't think was as good.

Have just finished 'the immigrant' by manju kepur which was very good but took a while to get into.

For the last couple of months i have been dipping in and out of 'all quiet on the western front'

Also recently finished 'twenties girl' by sophie kinsella, and i am currently reading mercy by jodi picoult.

And want to read the lovely bones next

Meant to say it was from me AliGrylls the last message, not DH.

Have you read The Drinker. It is fantastic - apparently it was written when he was in prison where he died and the script was found after. All I will say is that you can really tell the mood he was in when he wrote it. I would not want to ruin it.

I think that I'm the only person IN THE WORLD who didn't like girl with a ......

I loved Alone in Berlin but had to hand it back to library...on reserve to finish off...can also recommend The Kindly Ones (in that vein)

Am reading The Bookthief at the moment and I am really enjoying

Evanovich v good, and can read in one sitting!
I liked The Outcast, had forgotten baout that one

What are the Larsson one slike then? I keep looking ta them then thinking, no!

MayorNaze - Anansi Boys is even better.