Holiday Reads?

[yoshiblue]

Looking for good suggestions for holiday reads as I go away in a few weeks.

A 'good book', easy to read and nothing too depressing! Not bothered by thrillers or romance. Any suggestions please?

I've just come here looking for the same and I see you've had no replies. So here I am.

I'm going away at the end of summer and I'm already planning my holiday reads (and I've paid for extra luggage to make sure I can take allll of the books!).

So far, I've got Ann Patchett The Dutch House I've loved everything I've read of hers, so hopeful for this one.

I've also got a Maggie O'Farrell Instructions for a Heatwave based on the fact that I loved Hamnet and it was the first MOF I'd read, so fingers crossed.

I'm considering taking Bernadine Evaristo's Manifesto but I may read that before I go.

I think I'll buy lessons in chemistry too.

But that's as far as I've got. I may take some poetry, as it's my new obsession. Loving Liz Berry and her novel in verse, The Home Child looks great. But, although small, it's a hardback and I have a no hardback rule, having got a black eye the last time I read a HB and it fell on my face when I fell asleep reading it!

Does any of this help? I think I'd describe my reading preferences as highbrow-ish/literary-ish but not so highbrow it's inaccessible.

I also love a hyped-up book, the kind that's marmite, to see where I fall on the love-it/hate-it scale. Hated Eleanor Oliphant loved Hamnet!

The Keeper of Stories by Sally Page
Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
Mike Gayle and Beatriz Williams have both written several books that you might enjoy.

Thanks @JuneOsborne I agree with hating Eleanor Oliphant too! I thought Lessons in Chemistry was 'fine' nothing to get excited about; it's been over hyped!

I've got The Dutch House on kindle unread so maybe that's an option? Ive just got V for Victory in Kindle Deals today so that's a good 'easy to read book awaiting too!

Luke you read a book that is set where you're going @yoshiblue?

@SiouxsieSiouxStiletto i always try to find a novel set in wherever i'm going to, sometimes unsuccessfully!

i enjoyed the Dutch House. One of my favourite ever books was 'Shadow of the Wind' by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, set in Barcelona. It's quite long but easy to read.

@SiouxsieSiouxStiletto that is a good idea, we're going to France

Where in France @yoshiblue ?

Have you read 'Charlotte Gray' by Sebastian Faulks? or 'Chocolat' by Joanne Harris?

@OMGitsnotgood South near Montepellier! No I’ve read neither of those.

I am reading a collection of essays by Aldous Huxley atm. One of them is about which books to take on holiday. He warns that you should never take a big beastie. You know, one of those heavyweight books you’ve always meant to read, like Middlemarch or Bleak House or Women in Love. Instead, he recommends a book you can dip into at random, like Pepys’ diary, or Boswell’s Life of Johnson. Last year, I took a couple of biographies, one on Virginia Woolf, the other on Oscar Wilde. They were good for dipping into, and I never had any intention of reading them from cover to cover.

As for books set in France, how about Orwell’s ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’? It’s short and easy to read - also very entertaining. Or Daudet’s ‘Letters from my Windmill’? It’s set in the south of France and is a series of short stories about his friends and neighbours.

I’m loving Taylor Jenkins Reid at the moment, nothing set in France but glamorous and easy to enjoy. Short chapters work well on holiday!
Kate Mosse has a number of books set in France, not the area you’re going to but I loved the whole carcassonne series.

I can see the sense in avoiding long cumbersome books on holiday, but a 3 week trip was the only way I managed to read Lord of the Rings. I also got through The Pillars of the Earth in a week when bored to tears in Portugal. It can work out!

The Sanctuary by Andrew Hunter Murray (he of QI elf fame). Utterly engaging and brilliant. On holiday now and read it in a day!

The Count of Monte Cristo by Duma starts in Marseille.
Perfume by Patrick Süskind is partly set in Montpellier.
There are lotsof books set in the south of France, I'm sure you'll find something.