A good book you have read lately?

[AngryBird6122]

I like something that makes you think

don't like anything too cheesy if it's fiction

TIA

I've just read 'Strange Sally Diamond' for book club and it was fantastic.

A Gentleman in Moscow

The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith aka JK Rowling.

Superb as always!

Can I ask what's this about? .. I'm interested

I really enjoyed Good cop bad cop by Simon Kernick

Dead Heat by CJ Carver. both very well written thrillers.

Any of CJ Carver books really.

Seconding Strange Sally Diamond.

I’ve just finished The Last One at the Party. It’s about a deadly virus that wipes out everyone except one woman. Post apocalyptic Bridget Jones feel. I read the whole thing in a weekend, which is unlike me.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, and Three Days in June, both by Anne Tyler, and both very readable and so well written it seems effortless.

A Fortnight in September by RC Sheriff, a re-read prompted by another thread, and still a delightful novel about a suburban London family’s seaside holiday between the wars.

Mr Bunting at War by Robert Greenwood, a novel about a suburban London family (not too dissimilar to the one in RC Sheriff’s story) living through the early years of the Second World War - the Phoney War, Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the Blitz. Again, very readable.

One of Them by Musa Okwonga, fascinating, but in some ways rather sad memoir of a clever, hard-working, middle class black boy’s schooling at Eton and his later reflections on how it influenced his life and the lives of his contemporaries. His verdict is definitely mixed.

i loved Spiked by Caroline Campbell. Read it all in one weekend after seeing it recommended on here - it made me laugh and cry and want to go on a road trip across Europe. Mumsnet gets a mention too!

The Names by Florence Knapp.

Fiction I loved recently:
Demon Copperhead
The Bee Sting
Intimacies (by Katie Kitamura - a few books have this title)

I also liked Foster by Claire Keegan - but it is pretty much a short story in big print sold as a novel. You could read it by going into a bookshop in your lunch hour.

It's not brilliantly written but I did love Midnight Library and it made me think about the choices we make in life and the alternative paths life could have taken. (I love Sliding Doors-type fiction.)

Educated by Tara Westover, it so well written. Never slow or hard work.

Tara Westover grew up preparing for the end of the world. She was never put in school, never taken to the doctor. She did not even have a birth certificate until she was nine years old.

At sixteen, to escape her father's radicalism and a violent older brother, Tara left home. What followed was a struggle for self-invention, a journey that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes, and the will to change it.

I agree. That is a fantastic book.

Other good non-fiction:

I was interested by The Five by Hallie Rubenhold about the five women killed by Jack the Ripper. Again, the writing style can be a bit frustrating but the research is fantastic and she does really humanise the women and make them real, debunking the 'all prostitutes' myth. (Not that, had they all been prostitutes, they deserve less research, just that it simply wasn't true.)

Currently reading Super-infinite about the life of poet John Donne. It is beautifully written and very interesting.

Another vote for Janice Hallit but for me The Appeal is the best of hers.
OP, why not try something post apocalyptic? I love these as I always think what the hell would i do in these situations?
For example: A Boy, His Dog and the End of the World
End of the World Running Club
Dreamland
The Wall

Just a few, great reads though

I LOVE the Olive Kitteridge series.

Oh yes, and Station Eleven (and the sequels Glass Hotel (less good) and Sea of Tranquillity are also really worth reading.

The House by the Lake by Thomas Harding - the history of his Jewish and German family in the twentieth century.

That is one of the best plotted thrillers ever imo.

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan was excellent.

Poor by Katriona O’Sullivan, equal parts unimaginably sad but also a story of grit and determination.

I’ve just re-read All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque). I first read it 40 years ago and it still hits hard as it describes the hopelessness of war and loss of youth.

Oooo my favourite type of thread…

• The Briar Club by Kate Quinn
• The Sideways Life of Denny Voss (a kind of who done it but told through the eyes of an adult with learning disabilities).
• A town called Solace - Mary Lawson
• My Friend’s - Hisham Matar - an interesting look at immigration and how people’s lives are shaped by one event

I've just started How to be a Tudor by Ruth Goodman and it seems really interesting so far.

I wish you could see number of reactions on threads like this to see what's popular.

Another vote fir B A Paris

The last one at the party was good.

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese (long but very interesting),
By Your Side by Ruth Jones,
In Another Life by Imogen Clark.