Book recommendations

[HypodeemicNerdle]

Ok so my birthday is coming up and I have no idea what I want so I have asked DH for money to spend on books (Yey!)

I want to get the most I can out of my money so I'm going to look for second hand books. There is a village close ish to me famous for being full of second hand bookshops so I am going to go there, and I'm very excited!

Very new release books will likely to be out of the equation so what would be on your list to look out for? I'm planning on taking a very long list with the aim of getting as many from it as possible.

Well, what sort of things do you like?

Yes, think you need to tell us a bit more about your tastes

Well I've not read much apart from chick lit recently and I'm hoping to move away from that a bit
I really liked the hunger games and don't mind some mild sci fi!
Any suggestions appreciated

Sorry not a recommendation for a particular book but more how to spend your money wisely! Supermarkets, department stores and online are significantly cheaper and so make (most) new release books a reality. Also charity shops are a great source of secondhand books, but do shop around as some charge way over the odds. Alternatively a car boot can come up trumps with some real gems.

I can't help you with chick-lit but can help you with sci-fi, if you can explain what you mean by "mild sci-fi".

Mild sci fi - I sort of mean based in reality rather than wildly out of this world.

Hadn't thought about car boot sales but there's a couple of decent sized ones near me so I'll check them out too thanks

If you want to move away from chick-lit but don't want to plunge into anything too literary yet, I'd try Geraldine Brooks - Year of Wonders is really good.
Or Sue Gee's The Mystery of Glass
Or Julia Gregson's East of the Sun
Or the Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard, but you have to start with The Light Years which is the first of the series.
All the above are typical "women's books" but better written than your average chick-lit offering IMO.

Do you count Hunger Games as "based in reality"?

Ooh thanks highland, I'll check those out.

Cote, well the characters are humans so yes I do

I just wanted to understand what you mean by "based in reality".

Have you read the classics? Dune, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Foundation series, and 1984 are brilliant.

If you would like to try something more techy, William Gibson's earlier novels like Neromancer and Idoru and all Neal Stephenson books are fantastic.

One of my recent favorites is Ready Player One.

I know what you mean by mild sci fi! That's what I like too. Recommend Enders Game and Divergent.

Hugh Howey's 'Wool' I think falls into your 'mild sci-fi' bracket, as does 'Oryx and Crake' by Margaret Atwood.

On making your book money work for you, I usually pay about 50p for paperbacks at car boots etc. I recommend comparing charity shop prices as some (e.g Cancer Research in our town) charge as much as £3 for paperbacks. As TooLaidBack has said, the supermarkets offer good bargains on some books.