tell me a book you where you said "wow, that was blankety, blank amazing!

[christie1]

I am in a dry spell, been filling it with some solid mysterys interspersed with Dr. Zhivago, but I am craving a reall good read where I fall in love with the book. Help me please! I read anything from chick lit to classics but find everything I pick up, bores me.

Pobby and Dingan - Ben Rice

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The Highest Tide, Jim Lynch. Quirky, wonderful.

I also persevered with the Labyrinth and it ended up being quite good.

Labyrinth I really wanted to like, as I'm into that kind of thing (although not the Da Vinci rubbish), but it just never grabbed me. Too much of a predictable romantic pot boiler, I'm afraid, although she certainly gets marks for trying.

I do know what you mean I'm normally a read a book a night kind of girl but it took me from July until last week to read it I kept reading other stuff in between because it took ages to get into.

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Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts

iain bainks - the wasp factory

Angela Carter - pretty much all of them but particularly - 'the bloody chamber' (short stories)

Precisely. I think Kate Mosse presents a bookclub type programme on Radio 4, and she had a massive website going on this, so great things were expected. From memory, I think papers like the Guardian gave it good reviews, probably on this basis (ooh, were they friends?!). But honestly, there are plenty of historical fiction writers out there who could have done so much better but get ignored because of their genre, notably Philippa Gregory, but certainly others too.

oh and junkie by william. s. burroughs

sorry, I am late getting back to this but just made up my reading list and can't wait to hit the library or bookstore (I had an assignment due for school). What a fabulous list I don't know where to start but the Voageurs intrigues me (with the canadian connection/being canadian and all) but this will keep me going well over the holidays. missgolightly-what is my recommendation,hmmm, been a while since I read one that knocked my socks off (or hasn't been mentioned already on this list), ok, I am going very far back in time and dating myself but I studied a margaret Laurence course in university in canada and have never forgotten the book "A Jest of God (written in 1968). It was made into a movie starring Joanne woodward called Rachel, Rachel which I saw and is actually very good. About a small town woman, coping with her restrictive life as a schoolteacher, her domineering mother and a fundamentalist religious spirit to her town. It rang so true to me I always loved this book (infact though she wrote about 10 or so books then committed suicide unfortunately but all the books are wonderful reading).

I loved the Kite Runner really good. I am currently reading To Kill a Mocking Bird - brilliant. The next book for our book club is Fortunes Rock Anna Shreve, not inspired by the back cover so far but I'll give it a go.

when I read through this thread it is amazing how subjective reading is - some of the choices on here I loved, but others I didn't get at all and I can't work out why people recommend them.

That is why I love being in a book group and finding out why people like the books I loathe and why people loathe the books I love. I guess we are all made up of different stuff and different things work for different people.

The book I read most recently that I thought was absloutely out of this world was equal opportunites by mathilde madden. It is more of a romance than erotica and it is a really emotional read. Not what you'd expect at all and if you want to rea a book that makes you thinka bout society and people's perceptions of others then i would go for this one.

Which ones did you like/dislike DT's? These threads are great for highlighting something you may have missed, by someone who may have similar reading tastes...

McDreamy, I've read Fortune's Rocks, it was a while ago but I did enjoy it, so do perservere.

best of last few years for me:
wind up bird chronicle - murakami
life of pi - Martell

Book I really couldn't get into that everyone seems to love:
Perfume - Suskind

Writing on the Water,
Can't remember who its by!!!!????
An real shocking, emotionally draining book,

and
Mr Maybe, by Jane Green-is good thought provoking stuff,

recently, Sarah Waters, The Nightwatch

Oh yes, the divine Ms Waters' latest. Also Helen Simpon's latest collection (well, anything by HS, actually). And Jane Gardam's Old Filth.

chocolatemummy, are you sure that's what the book's called? I can't find it on Amazon.

hiya hope you dont mind me joining in I read loads and usually have a book on the go the ones with the wow factor for me have been;

the Kiterunner
Memories of a Geisha - not seen the film yet loved the book
anything Martina cole - gripping and fast moving
Minette Walters - the sculptress
Patricia Cornwell

there are loads more but cant think of them at the moment

Hi, I've not posted in this bit of MN before but I love reading. Here are some of my recent faves:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Probably a bit overhyped but nonetheless fantastic. Six people's stories, of different generations, each written in a distinct genre, all telling different srories but all sharing the same experience of being human. Wonderful book.

Five People you meet in heaven by someone - sorry! I forget It's about an eighty-something yr old man who dies and meets five people whose paths have crossed his to a greater or lesser extent during his lifetime, and each helps him to understand what his life was all about. It's a lovely book, full of hope and deeply spiritual without being religious.

Fortysomething by David Williams (I think!) is absolutely hilarious, about a man rapidly approaching his 50th birthday, written in a diary format. It's all about his marriage, his bewilderment at his 3 sons' growing up, whether his long-running radio soap in which he plays a main character will be axed by the BBC, some amazingly astute and beautifully expressed musings on the nature of love but mostly just sheer comedy.

I'm reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova atm. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be funny bit it's making me laugh anyway!

AS you can tell I could talk about books all day long...

Haven't read any of the books on this thread so far!
Best of the past year for me:

Siri Hustvedt, What I Loved
Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr Ripley (far better than the film)
pure escapism: Linda Fairstein, Final Jeopardy

master and margarita - ummm russian author
any angela carter
JS&MN as below
confederacy of dunces is the funniest book i have ever read and even now i can recite lines to myself and chuckle