Recommendations for my holiday reading please

[LizzieBrooks]

I’m off on a very long awaited, and much needed, relaxing holiday next month and need to find a great book to drift away in.

Needs to be a decent length - something that I can really get into, and thought-provoking without being toooo challenging a read (hols after all!). I just want a really great story!

Examples of the kind of thing I’m looking for include, The Poisonwood Bible, The Shadow of the Wind, All the light we cannot see.

Recommendations please, lovely readers!

Thanks.

Oh my Lord. I have no idea why that is so big! 🫣
No large print required.

The Goldfinch

The Paris Library

The Secret History Donna Tartt
A Town Like Alice Nevil Shute
The Dry Jane Harper
The Great Alone Kristin Hannah

MASSIVE TEXT LOL

Yes to the Goldfinch - I devoured that one holiday, also I am Pilgrim

just finished A Terrible Kindness which was wonderful

Thanks for making it past the poster-sized text to share your recommendations. I’ve considered The Goldfinch a few times but wasn’t a huge fan of The Secret History. Are they quite similar?

A town called Alice - what a great throwback! I saw the film many years ago but I’ve never read it. I’ll check it out along with the others.

thanks

I read The Secret History a thousand years ago and I don't remember thinking the Goldfinch was that similar. Others might differ?

I really enjoyed Dominicana by Angie Cruz last year but I don't think it's the kind of sweeping epic you're looking for.

Maybe a pair of Rose Tremains - I've read Merivel which was wonderful but there's a prequel to it as well.

Restoration is the Rose Tremain prequel.

I have to say, I didn't like The Secret History or The Goldfinch. I wouldn't say they were alike, necessarily, but The Goldfinch I thought was so overrated and it just made me angry!

there's a new Barbara Kingsolver book out - Demon Copperhead - can't wait to read it

Following

I am pilgrim

Ooh, thanks. I’ll check it out!

I’ve read so many mixed reviews of the Goldfinch. I might give it a swerve this time as I need to travel light - no room for backups!

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb is a full read, well written with larger than life characters and a just-on-the -right-side-of-soap-opera type plot.

Where are you going on holiday OP? I try to include a novel set in the city or at least country that I'm visiting. I read 'Shadow of the Wind' by Carlos Ruiz Zafon after I'd been to Barcelona and wished I'd known about it and read it while I was there. Since then I've actively looked for decent books set local to where I'm going. (Shadow of the Wind would be a good holiday book BTW, even if you're not going to Barcelona!)

I loved The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver.

Shantaram is brilliant!!! An autobiography but substantial and completely gripping. The only book that's ever made me cry.

Lessons in Chemistry
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

The Silence of the girls by Pat Barker, Greek v Trojan war told from female perspective very well written, can sense being there the fear, smells, very evocative...

Hearts Invisible Furies
Gentleman in Moscow

The House of Glass is non fiction but amazing story of an extended Jewish family during WW2.