What book are you reading now?

[kentgal]

Why you chose it and would you recommend it?

Just placemaking until after Masterchef

Just finished a novel, The Bookshop (Penelope Fitzgerald). Sad ending, but every sentence is exquisite. 1959 Suffolk & Lolita. I will read more books by PF.

Currently reading Journey Through a Small Planet by Emanuel Litvinoff. Memoir of 1910s+ Jewish East End of London childhood. I am not sure what I think of it. I tend to love community histories (like Her People). Not a smooth narrative, I suppose.

Being Mortal by Atul G. is next.

A respectable Trade by Philippa Gregory

I read that some years ago - it was excellent. If I remember rightly there was a TV series - Warren Clark was in it IIRC.

I'm thinking reading a Kate Atkinson next

She's brilliant! Get one of the Jackson Brodie ones - I fell in love with him!

Grapes of Wrath is a heartbreaking story. Steinbeck is a very powerful writer.

Do you like Margaret Attwood - try the Maddaddam Trilogy (1st book is Oryx and Crake) - excellent dystopian stuff. The Blind Assassin is wonderful too.

Also "War Crimes for the Home" - (Liz Jensen) but it's a strangely touching story - an old woman remembering her past life during th war, and the things she did, many of them "immoral" for love and because she could have been killed at any time. I don't want to say anything that might be a spoiler - but it's worth reading.

The Invisible Library by somebody Cogman?
I chose it by using whichbooks I do like it, but it's a bit too like Jasper Fforde so far ( who I love) really.

We Were On a Break, by Lindsey Kelk.
I started it two weeks ago and am slowly going through it. The romance isn't really funny like Bridget Jones. The couple in question are slightly annoying because if he had just communicated one thing (one VERY IMPORTANT thing) to her, then it would all have been fine.
Though I like that it is in multiple POV.

I couldn't get into The Secret History'

Before that I read All the Light We Cannot See which I absolutely loved. I've recently got a copy of this but haven't read it yet - glad to hear it's worth reading.

Haven't read the Tattooist of Auschwitz", but would recommend Charlotte Delbo (Auschwitz and After) and anything by Primo Levi on his Auschwitz years. Into the Whirlwind by Evgenia Ginsberg, about her arrest and incarceration in a the Gulag system is as good and as moving as anything Solzhenitsyn has written.

Classics - I liked Jane Eyre, but to me the best "old" writers were Trollope (The Barchester Chronicles are fabulous - especially Framley Parsonage and The Small House at Allington The Pallisers books are superb, too - I particularly enjoyed The Eustace Diamonds) and Mrs Gaskell (Wives and Daughters, Mary Barton and the wonderful. wonderful Cranford Chronicles).

Humour: EF Bensen and Mrs Oliphant are very entertaining.

Just finished re-reading for the umpteenth time Anybody Can Do Anything by Betty MacDonald which was preceded by Onions in the Stew by her. Both really enjoyable, funny and tinged with sadness as Betty died far too young as she began to enjoy her success as an author.
Waiting to be read is Just a Child by Sammy Woodhouse which will be harrowing. I looked up her book after the recent news stories about her abuser being offered access to their son.
I think I'll order Agatha Christie's autobiography now.

I've had Into the Water by Paula Hawkins sat on my bedside table unread for two weeks now. I'm in one of my can't be bothered to read phases and need to get out of it.

The Philipa Gregory book sounds very good. I want to read that.

Can anyone recommend some books that will ignite my love for reading again? I don't like chick lit. I like books with a bit of backbone, something interesting and engaging.

Forgot I had Fried Green Tomatoes by Fannie Flagg so I've got that waiting for me too. I ordered it after catching the end of the film repeated on tv the other night and had a google about the book and Fannie Flagg.

I am reading The Sacred and Profrane Love Machine by Iris Murdoch. My friend, another Murdoch fan, gave it to me.
I love her prose, I find her really inspiring.

drookit Fannie Flagg has written some great books, really recommend her for a feel good read.

"bits of Jane Eyre are dull "

I don't remember that, but even so you shouldn't give up because a 'bit' is dull.
I didn't think it was dull at all.
Wuthering Heights on the other hand...

The Hermitage by L J Ross. I’ve read the whole series she has done, they are all based in Newcastle about a detective.

This is actually the first one I have not enjoyed that much, but I have found the previous books excellent. I will try the next one though, to see if she gets back on track with them.

I shouldn’t read these threads, I find too many books I want to read.
Currently reading
A thousand splendid suns
Just read
Elizabeth is missing
Tattooist of austwitz
The storyteller.
All recommended on here, all good.
The storyteller was my favourite.

Grumpy Old Men, The Official Handbook. My mum gave it to me as a Christmas present when I was 16, I moved out when I was 19 and left it at home, then I retrieved it a few years ago and reread it, then I lent it to someone who lost it. Recently bought myself a new copy and I'm reading it because I've got it again. It's so funny, I was reading it in my lunch break and trying to not laugh too loudly.

Jane Eyre is worth sticking with because then you can really appreciate the much more superior Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte, which is amazing. And agree with pp about Wode Sargasso Sea, that’s an excellent book.

I’ve just finished Normal People by Sally Rooney and loved it.

"Shop Girl", which is Mary Portas' autobiography

I've just finished Bill Bryson's book about Shakespeare. Very interesting to see the difference between what we think we know about him and the actual evidence - eg the picture we immediately think of as WS may not even be him.

A thousand splendid suns

This is superb - Same author - so is The Kite Runner (though not so wonderful). And the Mountains Echoed is veery disappointing)

I just remembered another I read recently and enjoyed very much - Longbourn. It's the "below stairs" story from Pride and Prejudice story. We learn about the lives and loves of the servants who kept these huge houses going - and every now and then, a bit of P&P breaks through and we see the servants' perspective of arrogant Mr Darcy and villainous Wickham - I loved iit.

Also agree with Wide Sargasso Sea being a very good book - Mr Rochester was a bit of a bastard, as I recall.

The Heart's Invisible Furies. Not what I was expecting

Oh - and The Shock of the Fall.

For detective stories - any of the Mark Billingham books.

My last two books have been excellent Kate Morton's "The Clockmaker's Daughter" and the much lauded "Lethal White". I have two abandoned books I feel I should persevere with, "The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle" I read it was Agatha Christie esque, if only the other is "A Gentleman in Moscow", I'm finding it dull, but my son gave it to me so I'll try to finish it before he comes to stay over the Christmas period, but it's a penance.

Becoming by Michelle Obama - absolutely loving it. Even better listening to her read it on Audible.