This Saturday I will go alone to a bookshop and buy three books. Tell me what to buy.

[Pruners]

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The next 3 I intend to buy in the "not too light not too heavy category" are:

Digging to America (Anne Tyler)
The Post-birthday world (Lionel Shriver)
The vanishing act of Esme Lennox (Maggie O'Farrell).

I love Helen Simpson, especially the story in Hey Yeah right get a life about the mother who had 2 children and then a 3rd and ground to a halt. Painfully close to reality.

Would back up recommendation of John Irving - Owen Meany or Widoe for One Year particularly.
Also recommend Anita Shreve, or as something fairly light try Dancing to the Piper by Kate Fenton?

quick note - i chose helen simpsons hey yeah right get a life for my book club because i'd loved the gritty wit about the lot of sahm and wohms but lots of the group were up in arms - found it deeply offensive!!

Really, luckylady I think, like you, she's really honest!
Fennel, I feel close to Dorrie too. Love Helen Simpson although have not read her most recent set of stories.

I don't mean Dorrie, it was another story, there were two women in a cafe with a variety of toddlers in tow, chatting. I can't remember their names now.

I am an admirer of William Boyd - don't think you can really go wrong. "Restless" was very enjoyable.

I just read the recent Booker/Costa winner(very limited choice at Tokyo Narita airport) "The Tenderness of Wolves" which I also thought was good - a bit claustrophobic but a lot less bleak than I was expecting.

Have always enjoyed Kate Atkinson: Behind the Scenes at the Museum was a real treat for me.

One Night At The Callcentre
new in UK, was a bestseller in India last year - a real Indian novel about modern India - guaranteed no long teeeeeeedious scenes dripping with mango flowers and deep aeons old, meaningfulness.

Talk Talk, TC Boyle.
v good, almost a detective story, a little different from his normal stuff.

both fit the description of not heavy, not too light. The Anne Tyler, Digging to America would probably be my third.

I really enjoyed The vanishing act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell. A very easy read but not trashy, much better than her last couple of books.

home by manju kapoor. another modern indian one.

Marina, I was thinking of Frances and Sally in "Cafe Society" in "Hey yeah right get a life".

Just read it again. Ouch. too close to home.

Ian McEwan's Saturday was probably the best book I read last year: you can bash through it in a sitting or three, it's wonderfully readable and incredibly rewarding, and he has a command of prose that, as an Englishman, I kinda resent in a Scot (just kidding).

If you'd like a really enjoyable well-written chuckle, Hanif Kureishi's "The Buddha of Suburbia" is hard to beat. And far, far better than the TV adaptation.

Iain Banks' The Crow Road is a great pot-boiler... funny, and relatively light work.

And ok, plenty of people are put off by Dickens, but if the Pickwick Papers doesn't make you laugh out loud, you are probably made of granite.

Hope it helps.

Oops and also Vikram Seth's "An Equal Music"... a longish journey but a very sweet love story.

I would always reccomend stephen fry books to anyone, he is a syperb author and 'The Stars Tennis Balls' is one of the best books I have ever read, my dp who doesn't really 'do reading' also really enjoyed this book, it truely takes you down paths you would never expect.

Monica Ali - Brick Lane
Kate Atkinson - Case Histories
Eric Schlosser - Fast Food Nation
All fab books although the only thing I have read recently is Pinocchio - 47,000 times! Agree with Mercy - Muriel Spark is awesome, kept me sane in my 5 years in USA. Read every british book in our tiny library about 10 times! Also John Steinbeck is great, East of Eden I couldn't put down...

Recently-ish:
Ian McEwan - Atonement
Maggie O'Farrell - Vanishing act of Esme Lennox

Older:
All Carson McCullers
ditto Muriel Spark

I got Ian McEwan's Chesil Beach today. Haven't started it yet but it looks good. Vey short - I think i'll get through it in a weekend.

Oh pruners if you haven't read Crow Road yet, you'll love that, it's a wonderful book
I must dig out my Helen Simpson again fennel - I do remember Frances and Sally now but the disdainful teenage babysitter (lentil up nose story) and Dorrie are the ones that etched themselves on my psyche

I think there must be something severely wrong with me as I cannot read Ian McEwan and believe me I've tried!! I second The Crow Road which is wonderful; Espedair Street by the same author is also good.
While b/f my DS I read The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst which was brilliant, especially as I was a bit too young to fully experience Thatcher's Britain in all its materialistic glory.
You can't go wrong with Kingsley Amis if you can get past the glaring misogyny! Lucky Jim always manages to make me laugh out loud and The Green Man is very creepy... I know you don't do magical realism, but a good ghost story is hard to beat. And I hated the Lovely Bones so I know where you're coming from.

Ship of Brides - Jojo Moyes
The Prize winner of Defiance Ohio _ terry something or other its not fiction but it is brilliant
Mrs fitton's country life

Nosher, I was bored senseless by Ian McEwan's "Saturday". Skipped large portions of the book. Who cares about a stupid all-singing all-dancing perfect at everything medical consultant and his affluent family in a posh London square?
(yes I know the book was supposed to be about more than that but it really didn't grip me).

I'm wondering about trying On Chesil Beach as a friend has been raving about it.

Have you tried any John Irving? Long, rambling books but wonderful stories and not too literary but very satisfying. Cider House Rules is great (different-but-similar to the film) and A Prayer for Owen Meany might be another to start with.

And bagsundereyes's suggestion of The Go-Between is spot on. It is a fab book about childhood-coming-of-age.

at you going ALONE to a bookshop

I also love Kate Atkinson and Jonathan Coe. Have you read any David Baddiel?

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Happy shopping ! Let us know what you end up with.

(I have been so jealous at the thought I am hoping someone will give me some book vouchers for my birthday next week !!)

Not read the whole thread, Pruni, so apologies for any duplication.

I would recommend:

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

An amazing book.