what book had you so gripped...

[AliGrylls]

What book had you so gripped you stopped coming on mumsnet, ignored your DH and generally was so addictive that anyone who didn't know you would have thought you were a bit neglectful of your children.

I am nearly finished the Millenium series and I have noticed all of the above. It will be a sad day when I finish it and I am now trying to string it out.

King's The Stand and Dark Tower series.

The Woman In White.

Jane Austen always makes me ignore my children, my dp and indeed anything else!

I tried to read Dragon Tattoo and just couldn't get into it at all. Too much telling me stuff and not enough showing.

frank furedi, Wasted - why education isn't working

We Need To Talk About Kevin. I know MN is divided in opinion on this book but both me and my best friend couldn't put it down and read it twice each.

Am currently reading Memoirs of a Geisha and it's very good.

Also read a book recommended on here, with an orange cover, and main character named Bee...can't for the life of me remember what it was called but it was a fab book.

Half of a Yellow Sun

Also couldn't put down the first 2 of the millenium trilogy - found the third one a bit tedious - just kept repeating stuff from the first 2

I have just finished my first Stephen King 'The Shining'

compulsively spooky read

Any of John Connolly books

Intensity - Dean Koontz.

This had me totally gripped and it is quite long but it is so involved and just grabs you at the start and drags you uncomfortably right to the end. Horrible story but really scary and gripping.

The Stand is amazing but was too long to not be able to put down but still totally amazing and involved story.

Angels and Demons - the book was great but the film just didn't do it justice. I liked it much better than Da Vinci and I sooooooo didn't want to like these books!

I always wanted to like classics and more intellectual novels but I can't stop reading stuff like The Stand either....

The Road.

An American Wife. Its huge but I whizzed through it.

Murder Mysteries by Agatha Christie or Dorothy L Sayers, because I always want to know 'whodunnit'.

Getting through Her Fearful Symmetry fairly quickly at present.

Snobs by Julian Barnes- not sure why but found myself sneaking upstairs to read bits of it during the day.

Anything by Kate Atkinson

What Was Lost- can't remeber author- but my God it was gripping,I couldn't put it down.

Was disappointed by The Road, I wanted more from it.

I'm stringing out the third one too, although have found I'm not as gripped as the first 2

Belligerent it took me ages to get into girl with a drogon tattoo but I stuck with it and loved it, 2nd book is better IMO.

Although on the look out for a gripping love story now

Cinammon Wharf is a firm favourite of mine, and I don't know where my copy is

The Straw Men by Michael Marshall. It was the first of an excellent trilogy and had me riveted.

All the Shardlake books by CJ Sansom. They are Tudor crime stories about lawyer/detective Shardlake..by god you really think you are in them. I couldn't put them down. Actually I think there is a new one recently out

Ooh yes I enjoyed Snobs too! I read that on holiday a couple of years back.

Oops! Just realised its Julian Fellowes, not Julian Barnes!

Recently read 'Betrayal' by Helen Dunmore-it's a sequel to 'The Siege'

DCs and DH were completely ignored that weekend.

PlumBumMum re gripping love story, have you read One Day by David Nicholls? I thought it was brilliant, great characters, cleverly done, very funny as well as very gripping and it made me sob like a baby

The Passage

I'm Not Scared by Niccolo Ammaniti, great page-turner.

Neverwhere.
By Neil Gaiman.

CatIsSleepy thank you I will look out for it, sounds exactly what I was looking for

Can second One Day, didn't see the ending coming at all and was completely floored by it. Definitely one that stays with you.

notasize I didn't see it coming either-don't want to give too much away to PBM though...but I was so glad I was reading that bit at home and not on the train as I was in pieces

Oh I'm intrigued, off to google

Well if your local library has a copy of Cinammon Wharf, brilliant historical love story with some twists

Oooh, I LOVED I'm not scared. I was bloody scared, I can tell you. Also the Italian film of the same name is quite good too.

I loved loved loved the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson but you need to be a bit of a geek plus also love a bit of history to enjoy them - on the other hand, if you love that sort of thing then you've got 900 pages of joy ahead and then you can also have Cryptonomicon for afters!

Also recently enjoyed Q by Luther Blissert (the authors' name is actually a psedonym for a group of italian anti-establismentarians) - all about the reformation and power within the Catholic church throughout Europe - fascinating, really well written and multi-faceted.

And I have just finished Toast by Nigel Slater. I've always loved his recipe books but I think I actually want to be his mum now. His childhood was so sad and he writes so poignantly, that I was really blown away.
I even snuck it into the loo at work to keep reading!

Also 'We Need To Talk About Kevin'.... disturbing, engrossing, fabulously written novel. Not much these days keeps me awake until 4am. That one did.

Michel Faber - The Crimson Petal and The White.
One of those books that you think about all the time, even when not reading and weeks after finished, expect to bump into characters on the street. Beautiful!