I am desperate and need you all to help me please!

[ColonelBrandonsBiggestGroupie]

I have got one and a half history books left and then I am, once again, bookless. I have been to three different libraries in the last ten days and have failed to find even a single book that I fancied or hadn't read before.

I have some Nectar points to spend, so I could have a bit of an Amazon splurge - but what shall I get?

1. Favourite writers are Jane Austen and Stephen King
2. I like v well written fantasy (ie Tolkein) or v well written historical who-dunnit stuff (eg Doyle or Sansom) or quirky history books
3. I am a snob and get very twitchy about shoddy writing but can't stand overly self conscious crap (step forward Ian McEwan)
4. I am very, very fussy
5. I read very, very quickly so the bigger the book, the better

Please help!

Its OK ColonelB - I know we often have to agree to differ - but I thought it was worth a try - I couldn't put the moth one down, loved it.

Have read Possession - twas years ago though. Polar exploration sounds v me! Thanks Gailforce.

Read Toast and Wolf Hall. Tried and loathed The Poisonwood Bible so haven't bothered with her next one.

Thanks for the other recs, all. Keep em coming!

Exploration and history recs would be much appreciated too.

What about Letter of Mary by Laurie R King- young American heiress meets retired Sherlock Holmes, solve mysteries. Really good series.

Have you read any connie willis - i really enjoyed 'the doomsday book' and 'to say nothing of the dog'.
They combine history and time-travel sci-fi- easy reading but very enjoyable!

Do you like your history straight (no chaser) or fictionalised? Philippa Gregory is the obv candidate for latter. I often recommend the Bernie Gunther series for crime fiction based in modern history (noir fiction set in Nazi era Germany. Violent but compelling).

Was given a book called Bluestockings about the first women to attend British universities. It was interesting, but think I dipped into it more than read ti straight through. Timing thing? had DS2 shortly before I received it...

Michael Moorcock has written some really good fantasy.
Sarah Waters for good historical fiction.
Richard Ford. Good non pretentious modern American writer. A bit like Raymond Carver but with less booze.
Have you tried Victorian detective fiction; Mary Braddon or Wilkie Collins? Lots of long books there.

Peter Ackroyd? Any good? Loved Dane Leo and the Limehouse Golem. Hawksmoor is on my To Read Shelf.

The Book of Fires - Jane Borodale
Pat Barker?

Browsing my Good Reads pages! Hope you get some good suggestions tonight. Off to read a bit more of the Morville Hours!

Read quite a few Wilkie Collins. A few Peter Akroyd, although he annoys me. I have to say that I just totally failed to 'get' Hawksmoor and his Frankenstein one was shockingly bad.

Have read Fingersmith and disliked it intensely and read and was annoyed by The Little Stranger. Don't want to read any more of hers.

Yes to some Pat Barker.

Straight history please - can cope with Philippa Gregory in v small does but only about once every five years or so, as they are all pretty much the same.

Googling the others! The Bluestocking one sounds good.

Colonel - a shot in the dark here, giving you some recommendations of novels I couldn't put down recently and I'm pretty intolerant and impatient

Tim Gautreaux - The Next Step in the Dance, The Clearing, The Missing
Peter Carey - True History of the Kelly Gang (amongst others of his)
TC Boyle - The Tortilla Curtain
anything by Richard Ford - Independence Day trilogy, A Piece of My Heart...

Some interesting looking shots in the dark there, thank you. :)

Have read some Peter Carey but not the Kelly Gang.

Please try 'Death Comes for the Archbishop' or 'My Antonia' by Willa Cather. The former starts badly, but I loved it so much I had to visit the setting (New Mexico).
Also Cormac McCarthy 'No Country for Old Men' or the Pretty Horses trilogy.
Molly Keane?
Colette's short stories?
Graham Greene - 'Stamboul Train' or 'Our Man in Havana'?
A good historical fiction writer was Norah Lofts.

Have you read any Alison Weir? Am currently listerning to her book about Eleanor of Aquitaine and she has recently written "The Six Wives of Henry VIII which must have had a good review as it is on my "to order from the library" list!!
If you are interested in more recent history Juliet Gardiner The Thirties: An Intimate History is also on the list.

Completely different tack but I have just read and found very interesting The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

Ooh yes - have read some Graham Greene but not those two.

HATED No Country For Old Men - sorry. Also quite disappointed with The Road.

Looking up the others now - thank you.

Have you read a Suitable Boy? Good and long :) Think you can get it in three separate volumes but just one is more satisfying I found.

Well written fantasy:
Guy Gavriel Kay: the Fionavar Tapestry

Lois McMaster Bujold: The Curse of Chalion, and Paladin of Souls.

Excellent (In my opinion)

I haven't read A Suitable Boy. I fear it would fail my 'worthy and pseudo intellectual showing off' radar - am I wrong?

Donki - Will have a look at those; thanks.

History books anyone? Tales of death-defying escapes in far climes in the early 19th century, anyone? :)

Susan Howatch - the Starbridge Sequence. Five or six books about the development of the Church of England in the twentieth century. Entertaining, and moderately well written. And very long.

another vote for 'A Suitable Boy'.
You are going to come back and let us know which ones you've chosen, aren't you?

Re travel, a must-read (for me) is 'A Time of Gifts' by Patrick Legh Fermor, an account of how he walked from Hamburg to Istambul immediatly before WWII.

Have you tried Halldor Laxness (Icelandic) or Jose Saramago (Portuguese.) You might find Saramago pretentious but I think he's honestly intellectual rather than a McEwan.

I don't really read much history so probably can't help you much.

A Suitable Boy - brilliant. Intimate and epic, written in what seems to be an effortless easy style but which probably took loads of work, romantic and realistic.

I'm getting the message re: A Suitable Boy now, so feel as if I'd better try that first! Some more good ideas here too.

There's going to be A Suitable Girl published in 2013.

Alone in Berlin - hans fallada based on true story about a couple who leave anti -nazis postcards around berlin

Slammerkin - bawdy georgian novel by Emma O'Donoghue

The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot

Knife Man - great book about the pioneeing anatomist John Hunter by Wendy Moore also Wedlock by WEndy MOore about a famous divorce in Georgian times

Huge brick of a tome that I haven't tackled yet as its too heavy for my poor weak wrists but comes in at 896 pages plus about british vascillations during the american civil war - World on fire by Amanda Foreman

Cool - thank you. Have read 'Wedlock' so 'Knife Man' sounds v much my sort of thing.