What's the best book you've read recently

[37KAT]

Hi,

My turn to chose our book
Group book this week.

What's been your favourite book or recommend recently?
Not too concerned about genre.

Many thanks

Another vote for American Wife. I really enjoyed it. It's one of the few books I've read more than once.

All the birds, singing by Evie Wyld. Beautifully done.

I also really enjoyed Rotherweird, whch is weird and wonderful, great fantasy, proper imagination!

The heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
Also enjoyed Educated by Tara Westover

I have given up on must read thrillers with very similar title like Me before You and You Before Me. I find them very formulaic and tedious.

I'm not in a Bookclub anymore (would love to find one in my new area)

For a bookclub read I would also recommend Convenience Store Woman by Sayake Murato (quite short but lots to talk about)
Also - Seven Types of Ambiguity by Eliot Perlman (unfortunately not available on Kindle) - written in seven parts, each with a different narrator about a young boy who is kidnapped by his mother's ex boyfriend. Each part is narrated by a different character - the mum, the dad, the kidnapper etc, no one ends up covering themsleves in glory and divided opinion in our bookclub!

@bookwitch Seven Types of Ambiguity sounds interesting. Coincidentally I've just finished The Hearts Invisible Furies. I enjoyed it and found it interesting & disturbing in equal measures and also very sad.

Good luck finding a book club. Have you considered starting your own? This is what I did. I invited a few friends who invited a friend too. A couple have dropped off but we have 5/6 committed readers. I think it's probably small in numbers but we all get to have a say and meet approximately every 5 weeks.

Just finished
I can’t begin to tell you by Elizabeth buchan
Based in Denmark during wwll
A bit slow to start but once I got into it I thoroughly enjoyed it.

All the Light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr

The silent companions, Laura Purcell - amazing read

Forgot to add that it is our current book club read :)

House of Beauty by Melba Escobar and I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. Both amazing books. I Am Pilgrim is in my top 5 thrillers ever read and House of Beauty is in my top ten.

Pickledturnip The Silent Companion is a very good book. I enjoyed that read too. The Corset is another Laura Purcell page turner. I would recommend that one too.

We did Lucy Barton and didn't much like it, tbh. Hope you all get on better with it!

The best book club books are either a bit divisive or with fairly meaty themes, IMO. The best discussions we've had so far has definitely been Tara Westover's Educated and Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie was also good as we coincidentally read it at the same time as the Shamima Begum stuff was in the news, which provided an 'in' for wider discussion.

The cut out girl and the choice

His bloody project by Graeme Macrae Burnet - last years fave. This year Late In The Day by Tessa Hadley, I'm looking forward to reading others of hers.

I was recently pleasantly surprised by ‘Flight from the Enchanter’ by Irfus Murdoch

These are both a bit old bow, but one I've only just started and it's brought to mind the other. Both wonderful, life affirming tales by Karen Joy Fowler - "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves" and "The Jane Austen Book Club".

I tend to enjoy non-fiction best. Most recently enjoyed Do No Harm by Henry Marsh.

Picked up copy of M-Obama's autobiog. Seems very dull!

East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
I'd only ever read Of Mice and Men a long long time ago, probably at school.
I adored East of Eden. I'm now on The Grapes of Wrath.

Jux - i’ve just started “We are all completely beside ourselves”, glad it’s good.

I recently finished “Alys Always”. Completely compelling characters and some very recognisable clashes of social class. Couldn’t put it down.

The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein.
About a woman who has already had a traumatic and chaotic life as a child and adult who becomes a cleaner specializing in forensic clean ups.
It's very well written.

I’m in a book club (wine club....) with three friends, and the last choice (not mine) was The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Everyone hated it, including the ‘chooser’ except me! I bloody loved it and really, really hope someone makes a film of it.
We looked at My Name is Lucy Barton, but, it sounds too similar to Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, which we all thought was dire. On the other hand, Elizabeth Strout also wrote Olive Kitteridge so it can’t be that bad. As pp said, Time and Time Again, Ben Elton, was a huge success and I will read Life After Life, Kate Atkinson myself, as it has a similar premise.
My most successful book club choice ever, a book and subject beloved to me, was Into Thin Air, John Krakauer. I was a bit concerned as the others, though my friends, are very different to me. I thought the genre was a bit of a stretch, but they universally loved it and also read some other books on the same subject that I’d mentioned!
My book choice next.....will check out some on this thread for inspiration.

Jux, oh I’ve read We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, and though I suppose I ‘enjoyed’ the book, I also found it desperately sad. Without giving spoilers for others, it’s a subject I find interesting and have read many of the non-fictional accounts of this subject. None of them end well and hence the sadness. 😢

Judas, I loved Into Thin Air. Fascinating. Have you read Touching the Void? I seem to remember reading them around the same time

Ahh, just seen you've said it's a subject close to your heart so I will assume you have. Any recommendations for others around same them?

dirty
Yes, any of the books by the surviving climbers are good just as a balance to the Krakauer viewpoint. But the best, by far, was the Anatoli Boukreev book The Climb. Done via a translator, but gives you a very different perspective on Boukreev himself. I was fascinated by him and thought he was amazing but that Krakauer (maybe protecting himself in some way I guess, somewhat unconsciously maybe) didn’t give Boukreev the credit he deserved. Other than that, Left For Dead... Beck Weathers is worth a read. Beck Weathers story on that trip is just unbelievable, really genuinely amazing. I guess you know the 2015 film Everest was about the 1996 season? It’s worth a watch, but tbh, nothing can capture the horror and adrenaline better than the book by Krakauer. Into The Wild by John Krakauer is also worth a read if you liked his writing style.

Judas completely agree. Desperately sad, but incredibly life affirming none the less. It's a field I nearly entered myself, and until I took a change in direction often imagined myself doing similar to that family.

Second little fires everywhere, everything I never told you by the same author is brilliant too