What are you reading this weekend?

[SiouxsieSiouxStiletto]

I'm reading Blood & Beauty by Sarah Dunant as recommended by another MNer.

What are you reading and is it any good?

I haven't read any of her others yet @EmptyBedBlues. The Last of Summer I noted down as it popped up as a suggestion for me to read amongst others. Then, when I was choosing books to buy myself for my birthday, it made the cut!

And now I've noted your suggestions @EmptyBedBlues !

I've got three books on the go. First, a biography of Ted Hughes (not bad); second, a collection of shorts stories by P G Wodehouse (OK, but not a superlative masterpiece like Right Ho Jeeves); and Moll Flanders, by Daniel Defoe (better than I expected).

I'm obsessed with the late 19th-century aesthetes atm, so when this lot are finished I'm going to order a book on that era, something that covers not just Wilde but Walter Pater, Ruskin, Swinburne, Aubrey Beardsley...the whole gang.

The Hike by Lucy Clarke l am enjoying it 😊

I started Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater yesterday. Quite an addictive and creepy read.

I'm reading South Riding by Winifred Holtby which I'm loving. Been wanting to read it for ages and really enjoy it. Glad it's 500 pages so I luxuriate in it.

I bought a copy of that recently after hearing a podcast about it. Looking forward to it reaching the top of my pile.

That's one of my absolute favourites of all time! I literally couldn't put it down. Loved it so much. It's so strange that the same book can elicit such different responses.

I've just finished State of Terror by Louise Penny and Hilary Clinton.

No idea what to read next.

I didn't know LR had died. How sad. I've read some of it other books but not the Seven Sisters series yet.

Just finished 'The Way the Crow Flies ' by Ann-Marie MacDonald. Read it a few years ago and remembered almost nothing of it.

I did too. Just couldn't get past the first few pages, I'm half way throughThe Perfect Wife by J P Delaney. Its not what I expected but its really quite good and has held my interest. Not heard of this author before but seems he writes under several names.

I just came on here to update - what a difference a day and a hundred and fifty pages make.

After slogging through about three fifths of the book something clicked and I just couldn’t put it down. Very, very cleverly done, and I now think that what I found to be the tedium of the first portion was actually what made the latter so successful. I’d been lulled into accepting one rather obvious version of events. If the narrative had been faster paced I don’t think the dawning realisation of what was going on would have been nearly so captivating.

Have spent about half an hour perfecting two different theories of what happened!

Her book Fall On Your Knees left me feeling quite depressed.

It is SO odd isnt it, I think she is a genius and Fingersmith a complete structural and stylistic work of art but i too found the little stranger hard going.

Just ignore him by Alan Davies, its heartbreaking and enjoy is the wrong word, but I'm glad I've read it

Did you see the adaptation with Anna Maxwell Martin and David Morrissey? I loved that.

I just read in the Daily Mail that Lucinda Riley's stepdaughter and her three dogs had been hit by a car and killed a few days ago, @Riverlee Absolutely tragic.

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy and enjoying it more than I anticipated!

She died last year, but I think someone has just been charged. Henry Whittaker, the co-author acknowledges her, and also his gran who also recently passed away in the acknowledgements at the end.

On yes, May 2022 not May 2023. Was rather misleading the way it was reported in the Daily Mail about the driver being charged.

I'm haunted by that book. Haunted I tell you.

Oh no! I’m not very far in yet, now I fear what I’m in for!

Eeek, I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have said anything. Lots of people love the book though. It's just Hardy, and his penchant for the less light hearted side of life.