Book recommendations please!

[Froel1982]

Hi, I'm finally making some time to read more again. So I am looking for some book recommendations. I like most things, and I am not fussy about genre. What couldn't you put down?

Would love ideas - to read a book a month

Here are some of my favourite books from 2024:

• Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan - short (<100 pages) and quiet book about a man in a small Irish town in the 80s reckoning with the laundries, but gorgeous and moving
• The Bee Sting, Paul Murray - a book about each member of an Irish family struggling while the family business is failing
• Mongrel, Hanako Footman - three connected narratives of three Japanese women
• The Mercies, Kiran Millwood Hargrave - set in a small town in northern Norway after most of the townsmen are killed in storm.
• What You Are Looking For Is In The Library, Michiko Aoyama - a short, sweet, charming book where a librarian is able to help people by giving them a seemingly random book that is just what they need
• In The Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado - beautifully written memoir of domestic abuse in a same sex relationship

I tend to browse the Kindle Daily Deal every day which often has some great books if you have a Kindle and a good way to browse a significantly smaller number of books than every book Amazon has!

Thank you toast for these
saw Small Things like These in the cinema recently and loved it !

I'm adding Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan to my tbr 2025 pile. A Waterstones staff member recently waxed lyrical about it.

I loved Still Life by Sarah Winman this year.

Still yet to read The Salt Path by Raynor Winn, but will read ASAP as book club want to go to the cinema to see the film in the spring.

The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne. I read it after a recommendation on here and it’s one of my favourite ever books

All the Broken Places also by John Boyne

A Thousand Splendid Suns or any other Khaled Housseni books. This one is the best imo

Daughters of Madurai by Rajasree Variyar

The Thursday Murder club series by Richard Osman

The Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith

All that remains and Written in bone. Fascinating non fiction by Forensic anthropologist Prof Sue Black

Hero of our Time
Heart of Darkness
Turn of the Screw

I really enjoyed Tom Lake and Hello Beautiful this year along with Yellow Face

These are my favourites from this year, I like cosy mysteries and stories about communities
Cosy mysteries
A Spoonful of Murder J M Hall
The Windsor Knot S J Bennett
The Three Dahlias Katy Watson
A Case of Mice and Murder Sally Smith

Communities
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store James McBride
South Riding Winifred Holtby
The Household Stacey Halls
The Dictionary of Lost Words Pip Williams

The Premonitions Bureau - Sam Knight (non fic)
Cuddy - Benjamin Myers
The Salt Path - Raynor Winn

I'm reading The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase and I'm really enjoying it.

Strange Sally Diamond
A Man Called Ove
The Hate U Give
Yellowface

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

East of Eden is a stunning book!

Homecoming by Kate Morton, I’ve just read it full of twists and turns. All her books are good.
Anything by Anne Tyler. There’s so much to read and enjoy out there.

Small Things like These is amazing. God of the Woods is also terrific.

I’m reading the hundred years of Lennie and Margot and I’m living it. Moving, uplifting and beautifully narrated on audible

the best books I’ve read in ages have all been suggested on Mumsnet!

American dirt
the magpies - mark wdwards
follow you home - mark edwards
none of this is true

have also read the killing 1 and 2 recently

Books I adored

Sophie Hannah - any of the Simon Waterhouse detective novels - especially lasting damage
Sophie Hannah- a game for all the family

Some great recommendations here. I would add ‘It’s a (wo)man’s world’ by Stella Beake. I found it particularly interesting in the current context re the Supreme Court stuff around definition of a woman and trans stuff. The book has a lot of history in it and it seems to me that women were never able to simply identify out of oppression! Either way, a nice, short, easy read.

Consider Yourself Kissed - a new release and a very enjoyable, thought provoking, at times amusing, at times sad, read.

Horse by Geraldine Brooks
Still Life by Sarah Winman as mentioned above
Detective series without gore - VI by Sarah Paretsky

Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce.

I'm currently reading The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman. I love a good mystery/who dunnit, and these are entertaining and an easy read.

Still Life by Sarah Winman
Albion by Anna Hope
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amos Towles

If you’re open to different genres, try The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. It’s beautifully written, atmospheric, with a mysterious plot that really pulls you in. I also liked Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel — the character development is very engaging