Desperate plea: need a cracking book to read...

its 'the weight of water' by anita shreve really good, head and shoulders above her other more lightweight stuff (but which are still good iyswim)

another vote for The Gargoyle

I'm readiing Liz Jenson's latest The Rapture

loved the twilight saga too

geek love was brilliant!!! a bit cruel and gruesome at times but really good, i didnt want o put it down!

'Juliet, naked' by Nick Hornby is good, another vote for it here. And I liked his 'How to be good' - I think he does women's voices quite well, IYSWIM.

I wasn't keen on 'the virgin suicides', but 'Middlesex' by Jeffrey Eugenides totally captivates me.

I also LOVED 'The Corrections' by Jonathan Franzen, but no one else I recommended it to liked it... see what you think.

I've just started 'A Gate at the Stairs' by Lorrie Moore - good so far.

Past Imperfect by Julian Fellowes - felt disappointed by it at the start then utterly hooked. (Dying billionaire contracts old friend/enemy to track down his illegitimate child in order to leave child his fortune - fascinating insight into class system, vanity of youth, parental love, friendship.)

The Help by Kathryn Stockett - incredible book that moved me to fury, joy and despair. (Set in Deep South in the 1960s, looking at the relationship between black house maids and the white families they work for.)

The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller - why would an intelligent, elegant woman maintain a relationship with the husband who ran off with her daughter's best friend - ah, now I understand . . .

Others I've love recently:
A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Toltz
The Giant's House - Elizabeth McCracken
The Road - Cormac McCarthy

Off to start An American Wife

'Arthur And George' is superb.

The Relucant Fundamentalist is v good. Also The something of water by somebody (ALicia??) Shreive (sorry). Arthur and George by Julian Barnes. Anything by Sarah Waters partic Affinity.

What about "One Day" - admittedly not started it yet, but it looks good and I can't wait. Lots of good reviews on here (recent thread about two good books the OP had read recently)

Am half way through 'Juliet, naked' by Nick Hornby and am loving it! Would highly recommend.

janeite i have indeed!! well spotted! rather like douglas coupland!

Don't ask! I'm better now - need to change it. But thank you for asking.

I seem to be recommending an awful lot of very long books I read pre-children. Well, some post-children, but I really shouldn't have been shoving them in front of cbeebies for that length of time.

So, shorter/racier ones:
An Equal Music by Vikram Seth
The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Montserrat
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (nonfiction) - OMG it's great.

[janeite why fed up?]

Have just read (and could not put down) "A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian" It was sad, funny, touching and dramatic all in one book.

Ooh - what about Girlfriend In A Coma? I bet you've read that Vicar!

A Place of Greater Safety is.... well. I was slightly influenced by having been knocked sideways by Gerard Depardieu in Danton a few months beforehand, so was ripe for more French Revolution shenanigans. So, it's set in Revolutionary France; it's slightly hallucinogenic and all over the shop; it's funny; it's passionately romantic; it's very, very long; it's gripping.

have just raced through 'remarkable creatures' by tracy chevalier - really loved it (about the two women fossil hunters in 1800s lyme regis - much better than it might sound!)
recently loved
'we are the mulvaneys' by joyce carol oates
'widow for a year' by john irving
everything that anne tyler has written

also douglas kennedy can be a good read
as can anita shreve

Yes exactly Vicar except da Vinci is better written, and given how bad that is that gives a notion of how bad Labyrinth is.

Kate Mosse = crap.

Yes to The Gargoyle.

Have you read 'A Clockwork Orange' before? If you can get past the sheer horror of it, it is v v good indeed.

How about The Virgin Suicides by J Eugenedes, or Half Of A Yellow Sun by somebody whose name I have forgotten.

Or Dracula.

god i read labyrinth - it killed time on the train. its a bit....well its a bit davinci code isnt it!? i didnt enjoy it very much. i did like the time travellers wife though. that seems to divide opinion somewhat. my DH recommended that one and said id love it - he was right.

i got to The Gargoyle first though..fab!..did i tell you that? (DH read that one after me and he liked it too)

The Quincunx, Charles Palliser - Victorian conspiracy thriller kind of thing. Starts off slow but soon gets its hooks into you.

I second the Life of Pi and the Donna Tartt. Do not, under any circumstances, read The Labyrinth by Kate Mosse - I am going to finish it be sheer obstinance, it is terrible but it won't defeat me. However, when I was very pregnant a friend bought me a subscription to Vanity Fair and it was the best present ever, try a wordy magazine maybe?

the absolute best book ive read all year by a mile and was nominated for the Galaxy prize thingy was the absolutely fantastic couldnt put it down

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson.

absolutely brilliant. loved it. read it again as soon as id finished it and ive never ever done that with a book before! from what youve said you enjoy i think youd like it.