read any good books lately?

[Candy]

Hi everyone!
I was wondering what you are currently reading or have read recently and enjoyed? Having just read several by Joanne Harris (Chocolat and Blackberry Wine) and two history books by Giles Milton (Nathaniel's Nutmeg and Big Chief Elizabeth) I'm stuck for what to read next. Any suggestions much appreciated!

Marina, forgot High Cost of Living! Looked around but can't find my copy it is probably with the ex who stole The Woman's Room, Rubyfruit Jungle and Happy as a Dead Cat (amongst others)! I haven't read French Revolution or Fly Away Home.

Looking through my vast collection of books I realise that I've kept almost every book I've ever acquired (since the early eighties in my early teens). How fashions in book jackets have changed! However, there are a dozen or so books I'd find it difficult to give up for love or money. At the top of my personal list are very old editions of Charlotte Mew's The Rambling Sailor & The Farmers Bride, Adrienne Rich's Dream of A Common Language and Consuelo by George Sand (I am always on the look out for out of print George Sand...) What books do people covet irrationally?

P.S. Does anyone else have 'a thing' about the smell of books and the quality of the paper used?

I know, as I've admitted elsewhere, I am weird!

Winnie and marina
I'm a great fan of marge piercy
had a strange bonding moment with 83 year FIL when we discovered a mutual passion for her books
have you read the one set in Cape cod about the misician
its her best

Cos, we have an embarrasingly large collection of books in the "Into thin air" style. I think I've covered most of them in the last few years. I love some of the older books too - Joe Browns "The hard years", Geoffrey Winthrop Young etc, I think it's a bit of a fanatics or a specialist subject. It's a great shame Mal Duff didn't publish his stories before he died.

I love theses type of books, real people with true stories to tell, the adventurers/explorers etc are a particular favourite, I find I can lose myself in these tales much moreso than in novels.

P.s. I am not a very good climber, I just read a lot about it!

Midge
i've just finished the story of Shackelton in the Antartic- like you I'm no outward bound type but it's so escapist..
just started the harry Potter books too- now thats escapist

Cos, you have no idea how pleased I am that Shackleton has been getting some attention lately, we grew up with his saga as my father has a very old book about him, I think he was incredible and deserves much more coverage in the history books than some of his fellow explorers, the guy was an enigma. Fawn fawn....!

You may have read it already but Joe Simpsons follow up to "Touching the void" called "This game of ghosts" is interesting. It recounts his life pre and post accident and puts some perspective on it. It also makes you wonder how he is still alive.

I'm book mad and usually have at least two on the go at any time - my biggest fear is dying halfway through a good book. If anyone is a fan of Catcher In The Rye then you must read Back Roads by Tawni O'Dell. The main character so reminded me of Holden Caulfield.It's also one of those books that you think you've got it all sussed and then you keep having to change your mind.

Is anyone else addicted to Amazon 1-click?
Its so easy to buy a book you just have to click on one icon and the book is yours, no filling in forms or credit card details everytime.
the postman thinks I'm nuts- at least one amazon order a week since i quit my job to stay at home

Hi, Cos - Summer People? Wasn't so keen the first time I read it but recently revisited it and really enjoyed it. Aren't Laurie and Tyrone hideous?
Winnie - no, you're not alone at all. I feel the same about some of my old faves. I have a yellowing and rancid paperback set of I Claudius/Claudius the God complete with a delightful mosaic portrait of Derek Jacobi on the cover, which I could never chuck away. It has been everywhere with me. I find a lot of my life-long book pervery has transferred itself onto buying books for our son. Children get quality paper! And colour pictures! Bliss. What are your favourites?
Bells, stand by for a lot of "amusing" reading aloud of excerpts at bed-time. At this rate I won't need to touch the pesky book myself. Hope he likes his present as much as mine did.

I've just finished Disgrace by J Coetzee (spelling?) not an easy read but what a terrific writer. I need something funny now though - anyone got recommendations?

I'm reading Stuart Little to the kids - the real book not the film follow up - a real treat

The last good book I read was "A fine practice" by Rohinton Mistry - I think he won a Booker prize, it is a wonderful tale set in India following the lives of two tailors, I really recommend it. I think I read that quite some time ago - now I have fallen into the habit of reading trashy mags... look forward to Now! each week and rush to the shops for a new copy of Heat. Although hard to admit, once I came clean about loving Heat magazine, I was astonished to find it has a massive but secret following, even those quick to poke fun (ie my brother) enjoy a read. If only I could balance it with the odd decent book I wouldnt feel to guilty but I cannot seem to find the dreive to read anything more taxing. My mother, in despair, bought me a biography of Mao, before motherhood I would have relished this as a read, now I look at the cover, shudder, and return to Woman's Own. Is there any biological reason for this??

Roglyn, I read Disgrace in proof form before it was published. I hated it with a passion... and thus did not finish it. I could not believe all the publicity at the time (although in my personal opinion the booktrade often over hypes).

Marina, Summer People has reminded me of another book that has gone AWOL!!! (Land lady from student days borrowed that!) Glad I am not alone in having a book fetish (in a manner of speaking!)

Winnie I lent Disgrace to my mum and she loathed it as well! In fact she couldn't finish it. I can see why but I thought it was very interesting (though deeply unpleasant)

As a bit of light relief I enjoyed Bridget Jones diary (didn't think much of the movie though.)

Anything by Rita Mae Brown. They're normally classed as gay fiction, but always have me howling with laughter. I'm reading the english Passengers at the moment, which is excellent for my pregnancy fluff brain. It's written in short chunks, which is very useful as I can't seem to read for more than 10 minutes without falling asleep. I dread not being able to read, going blind it my biggest terror. I carry reading material wherever I go. I took War and Peace with me when I spent 5 weeks in Vietnam, thinking it would last. Ha! One week into the trip I was franticaly searching out ANYTHING written in English. My desert island book would probably be the Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley, which is the Arthur ledgend told from the women's perspective. I haven't read it for years, so i hope it still stands up.

Emmagee, winnie et al, have found the cure for lack of time to read, and that's to try the audio tapes. They are excellant in the car and especially in the kitchen while you are ironing or cooking etc

The library does a lot of them (so they're free!!), and it was the only way I could get thru' harry Potter (12 tapes can you believe!)

Lil, I am so glad that someone else does this too! I get no end of stick from my family about listening to story tapes but I think that they are great. Currently listening to Hercule Poirot (it's that detective story thing again!) and A Walk in the Woods (Bill Bryson) had me laughing so much that it was hard to carry on driving up from Edinburgh.

I have an unread copy of Disgrace! The rest of my book group read it last month and the overall opinion was that it was well worth reading. But now I've read some of the comments here, I'm in two minds about it.

Winnie et al, I didn't like Disgrace either. I had to finish it, as i always like to finish books if possible, but I really didn't enjoy it at all. Couldn't understand all the fuss. Same with Last Orders by Graham Swift. How miserable is that book. But try Waterworld by him - I think it's called that. It was really good - even tho' I can;t remember the title! Any Pat Barker fans? I thought the Regeneration Trilogy was fantastic -not an easy subject matter, but really great stuff. And I've always liked stationery too , the smell of books and new notebooks with fresh pages. Weird eh?! And I thought Blind Assassin was the best thing Margaret Attwood has done in ages. What about E.Annie Proux - Shipping News is fantastic.

I love reading & think I'm quite well-read but had hardly heard of any of the books anybody was talking about until now! I loved Disgrace (as did my husband's book club - seems to be a popular choice as it was already mentioned by someone else) and thought it was fascinating to find out how drastically people's lives in SA have changed in just a few years. Admittedly, the main character is not that an attractive person, but that never stopped Lolita....Shipping News is sitting unread on our bookshelf. I read Postcards, by the same author and found it pretty dull - nothing of any interest seemed to happen. The best book I've read recently is "Quarantine" by Jim Crace, about Christ's 40 days in the desert (though he's a minor character in it). Also, my favourite book is probably Bonfire of the Vanities. It looks huge, but it had me hooked from the first few pages. Now I've just started a book about St Kilda in the Hebrides. Keep posting to this board please!

Just thought of another one. Adhaf Soueif "The Map of Love" About a woman who travels to Egypt in 1900 and marries an Egyptian nationalist. her diaires are read 100 years later and the 2 stories are intertwined. Fab. I'm with you Rosie -who is Ed McBain. Have you read Underworld - Don DeLillo. It's huge but very good.

Harrysmum - I'll put in a yes for story tapes too - brilliant if for example driving to work is the only time you have to yourself and not bad for doing the ironing if there is no one else around to interupt. I try and choose books I might not have the time and patience to read to myself these days. I used to hire them from "Travellers Tales " in Kent until recently. They have a wide if expensive library of tapes they send to you. Two I really enjoyed were Vita Sackville West's "All Passion Spent" - about an 88 year old woman; made me think there could still be things to look forward to in life - and Jill Paton Walsh's "Knowledge of Angels" which I resorted to driving round in my lunch hour to listen to I was so hooked on it.

Noone has mentioned the Tales of the City books by Armistead Maupin.I really like these books, and they are very light and easy to read..important when you are knackered after a day chasing a 15 month old!! Other favourite books are Jane Eyre,The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood( I loathed the film) And Writing Home by Alan Bennett which is great to dip in and out of.

Eric, I always felt I had to finish a book once I'd started it.I think it was a throwback to my school English classes but now I've finally grown out of that habit and if I'm not enjoying a book I give up -life's too short and there are too many other books to try. A friend lent me Shipping News and it took a while to get into it but I did enjoy it -what weird names she used! As for Par Barker I loved the Regenaration Trilogy also and have read other books about the war since eg Birdsong and a brilliant one by Susan Hill whose title escapes me. Have you read her (P Barker's) last book? Again I can't remember the name but it's about a house in which strange things start happening related to the war again. At the moment I'm just finishing East Of The Mountains by David Guterson a book that creeps into your system slowly until your hooked. Does anyone out there like John Irving or Alice Hoffman?

I did read that Pat Barker one about the house - she's written Border Crossing since then which is good. I do like her other stuff, but Regeneration was best in my opinion. I loved The Cider House Rules and A prayer for Owen Meany and I've read a couple of others by him I liked too. I liked Birdsong as well, but couldn;t get into the String Quartet one he's just written - but I stuck with it till the bitter end!

roglyn, have you read the other e b white books - charlotte's web and trumpet of the swan? my second daughter read charlotte's web at about 8; she is 16 now and i suspect it is and will always be her Best Book!
as a direct result her first hamster was called wilbur, her second louis (the swan) and her third-and-last stuart. he died 2 years ago and she's finished with that stuff now.

Roglyn, have you read "behind the scenes at the museum" by Kate Atkinson