Bed-bound and bored

[LadyHester]

Have just had a fairly major operation (successfully) and will be confined to barracks for some time. I’d organised lots of Improving Literature to keep me entertained but am now in pain, fed up, and just don’t fancy anything I’d planned.
I need recommendations for well written trash - please come to my aid!

I really like mhari McFarlane if I'm after some easy reading. Well written trash is probably a good way of describing them. She writes about friendships really well, and they are quite funny too.

Potentially a bit of a marmite one this (dependent on baseline interest level in the royal family!) but if you're looking for anything non-fiction and light, then I was completely and surprisingly absorbed by The Palace Papers by Tina Brown. Well written and easy to read.

If you want well-written but highly entertaining crime, Jane Casey’s DS Maeve Kerrigan series is brilliant and there’s 10 books to go at. Clever, witty and some great smouldering sexual tension with the obnoxious yet hilarious DI Josh Derwent (swoon). I’ve had to admit defeat and take a few days off this week with excruciating joint pain and have just started Book 10 (Kindle propped up on a Heath Robinson-style pillow arrangement); it’s so good I’ll have finished it by tomorrow so thanks for all the recommendations!

Hope you’re on the mend soon OP :)

Yep, Jilly would be my specialist subject on Mastermind

Never read much Jackie Collins but I remember really liking Judith Krantz when I was younger, so last year I bought and re-read I'll Take Manhattan, and it was an absolute riot. Same with Shirley Conran's Lace.

I used to love Lace! None of her subsequent novels were as gripping, alas - I suspect because she put so much of her own experience into Lace.
I wonder about Barbara Taylor Bradford? My grandmother, a native of Leeds, was very disapproving of her inaccurate topography so I have always avoided her out of (arguably misplaced) loyalty.

I kep meaning to reread Lace. Loved it as a teenager, my Mum was horrified at it but (luckily for me) didn't believe in banning books. She'd gone to a girl's boarding school that had a list of banned books, the girls slowly worked their way through the list and passed them round the dormitories in secret. So she knew it was pointless 😁

Ah, Lace. The goldfish scene...😆

Though most definitely not trash!

Elly Griffiths ..., ellygriffiths.co.uk/my-books/the-ruth-galloway-novels/

Georgette Heyer-lots of them and fantastically well researched.
Stephen Fry puts the case better than I can in The Guardian. If you google 'Enduring appeal' + 'Stephen Fry' + 'Georgette Heyer' -'The Guardian', you should find it. It was published in 2021.

Other than that, not trash but both 'The Diary of a Nobody' and The Mapp and Lucia novels by EF Benson always cheer me up!

Or Dorothy Whipple-most now published by Persephone. Start with, 'They Were Sisters'-you won't be able to put it down!

Wouldn't call Georgette Heyer trash <quite offended> but definitely recommended for a light-hearted and fun read. Except Penhallow. Avoid Penhallow.

Came on to suggest Forever Amber: a great romp - and very long!

No, you're right she is very far from trash but I suppose I mentioned her because they are easy to read.

I also agree with your suggestion of Forever Amber

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, beautifully written. You could maybe try the Matthew Venn series by Anne Cleeves .

So many fabulous suggestions! Now I have always meant to read Forever Amber…

What about Barbara Bradford Taylor. A woman of Substance and To Hold The dream?

Then you can watch the favourite 80s mini series (they were fabulous of the time!)

I came on to say the Sweet Valley High books might still be on Kindle Unlimited, but possibly not what you’re after!

Natalie Haynes has some fab books inspired by Greek mythology. And a podcast (I normally can’t stand podcasts).

Hmm that's interesting about Penhallow. I thought I read on here a recommendation to read it and I thought first GH might be a good one; not regency but detective.

I got about 60 pages in and thought "come the fuck on" with something happening. And too many characters and I don't care for any of them!

So I was right to give up?

@tobee - yes! Everyone in that book is horrible. Heyer's detective novels are pleasant enough but it's the romances that are stand-out. Almost all regency, with a few historical novels set in different eras too.

I love anything by Lisa jewell. Always a really good plot.

Not romance but One Red Paperclip is a good read ❤️

I knew NH many years ago and just can’t take her seriously I fear.

Stepping back a little and putting my feminist hat on - it’s interesting how many books have come up on this thread which are well-written and plotted, with strong characterisation, powerful sense of place, compelling and nuanced relationships - but which are dismissed as literature through the double whammy of romance genre and female authorship.

If you like crime novels:
JD Robb (alter ego of Nora Roberts)
Alex Gray (Glasgow based)
SR Garrae (NY setting)
Ben Aaronovitch, as upthread
Ann Cleeves (Shetland, Vera, etc)
Charlaine Harris (Lily Bard, etc. Also does southern US vampires, True Blood)
Dorothy Sayers
Elizabeth Peters - Amelia Peabody
Georgette Heyer's mysteries
Helen Cox
Kelley Armstrong's Rockton series
Kerry Greenwood's Miss Fisher series
LJ Ross (Northumberland setting)
Ngaio Marsh
Patricia Wentworth
Peter Robinson
Robert Galbraith (not "easy" reading)
Ruth Dudley Edwards (satirical ripping into the Establishment)
Simon McCleave

Other things for easy reading
the Don Camillo stories
Jodi Taylor
Lois McMaster Bujold

I did look at someone's review on Goodreads when I was umming and ahhing about whether to give. He posited that Heyer wrote her detective books as boringly as possible to piss of her publisher as a protest at her contract. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The front covers of her detective books published by Arrow are fabulous. Like gorgeous advertisements from yesteryear!

Sorry to digress.

• to give up

The Cazalet Chronicles Not trash but interesting, easy read family saga starting in the 30s. A series of 5, the first 3 are the best, by Elizabeth Jane Howard. 1st is The Light Years.

Anything by Maeve Binchy, I enjoyed The Scarlet Feather.

Grown Ups by Marian Keyes

Well written, easy read funnies..
The Reader by Alan Benett, more a novella. The Queen finds a mobile library in the palace grounds

And Away.. Bob Mortimer's autobiography

Absorbing dystopian trilogy, Wool is the first book. Hugh Howey.