Something to suck me in...

[Tinkerisdead]

Help! In the past year ive been trying to work my way through the BBC's top 100 books and I'm now on Owen Meany which I am dragging through, I know people rate it but I cant get going and thats rare for me with a book.

Interspersed with the Top 100 I have dipped into books like The Time Travellers Wife, Need to Talk about Kevin, Curious Incident etc, which Ive really enjoyed.

Anyway, I am stuck on Owen Meany and at a time of morning sickness etc I'd love to read something to lose myself in and O.M just isnt doing it for me.

Please recommend something to me that Im going to love and forget the nausea for a bit!

The thirteenth tale by Diane Setterfield...it's great!!!!

The Little Friend, by Donna Tart - the opening chapters are hugely compelling and the rest just flows from there.

'Cranford' by Elizaabeth Gaskell. A really brilliant read and some people, but not me, think it's a bit like mumsnet.

Do you prefer to read slightly more serious books, or could you read something lighter (dare I say 'trashier') like a thriller or romance?

I really like Harlan Coban or Lee Child for thrillers. Sparkle Hayter is fab for a fast-moving, cheer-you-up read.

More mainstream books that I have recently read and enjoyed are Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka, Savage Garden by Mark Mills and Crow Lake by Mary Lawson.

On a more chick-lit front, Jennifer Crusie is one of my favourites, especially Welcome to Temptation and Virtue by Serena Mackesy is hilarious.

Good question Bran, im not sure what I like if i actually think about it, think I like something with a twist but not crime books.

Read The Shell Seekers recently too and I enjoyed that but it was lengthy. I just haven't had a really good book for ages.

My friend and I used to swap all the time but ive moved away and she is working too much to read so I haven't got that "oh you have to read this and tell me what you think" person anymore.

I just read Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier for the first time and really enjoyed it.

I have discovered Sophie Hannah - her books are described as pyschological thrillers (not too much blood/gore although they are detective stories) and I find them really absorbing. Just got her third one from the library - The Point of Rescue - but you could try Little Face and Hurting Distance as well. Janet Evanovich writes a comic series about a bounty hunter called Stephanie Plum - immensely readable and great fun.

Penny Vincenzi writes massive (in size) but lightweight (in terms of intellectual demands) sagas - what I call 'beach reading' - ideal to lose yourself in.

Have you tried Jodi Picoult? Loathed by many MNetters but she can be absorbing - don't read too many at once though because they're all strangely similar! And they do have twists!

yeah ive tried Jodi Picolt but i did find them quite similiar, put me off a bit.

I usually buy books but i think I may visit my local library now to try some of these out. good way to get out in a new area and place i'd like to frequent when I have my baby. Not been a member of library since my school days though. how shameful!

The library is great - I browse the book shops for new releases and then reserve anything that catches my eye at the library. It costs 40p per reservation but loads cheaper than a new book and I can read the new hardback releases in really nice condition without having to pay £16.99!

sophie hannah

How about 'The Insult' or 'The Book of Revelation' by Rupert Thomson? He's got quite a dreamy style that creates these strange, unreal worlds where all kinds of weird shit happens.

The Insult is about a man who is blinded in a random incident but then starts to regain his eyesight...or does he? There is a huge switch towards the end of the book, not so much a plot twist but something that makes you realise you weren't reading the story you thought you were.

The Book of Revelation is about a male dancer who is kidnapped by three women; it details what happens during his captivity and his subsequent journey to make sense of it all. Very good.

Stephanie Plum books are well worth a go, they're very funny and easy to get on with - also not the kind of thing that you need to have to concentrate too hard to read (I'm not sure how old your child/ren are).

I also love Rupert Thomson - they're really unusual and well-written.

I've been reading a lot of Kate Atkinson recently - if you haven't read any, she's excellent. Also just read a great book by Kitty Aldridge called Cryers Hill - it is a crime book but not the standard kind, more of a novel.

I'd also highly recommend The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by G W Dahlquist - really weird and absorbing.

Kate Atkinson is a good choice, I'd say. I cried both times I read Behind The Scenes At The Museum

If you want something really really weird, read House Of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski. It's a freaky and frightening haunted house story told in a singular manner - lots of tricksy typesetting, multiple narratives, footnotes galore. It's absolutely brilliant, engrossing, funny and actually very scary.

I adored House of Leaves! Brilliant and mad.

Very very late on this book i know but im loving the devil wears prada!

lucicle - cool, another HoL fan I tried to get my book group to read it but you can't buy it second hand for less than £12 so understandably they were reluctant

P.S. When you read it, did you find yourself looking suspiciously at the walls and ceilings in your house?

Haha, yes, it totally freaked me out. What a creepy book. I loved all the stuff with the layout, too - really inventive.

In a similar vein, you might like The Raw Shark Texts

Review here

Wow, that looks ace, cheers!

The Earth's Children series by Jean Auel is my all time favourite. Starting with The Clan of the Cave Bear.

Also - The Womens Room by Marilyn French is another one that is hard to put down.

I have a collection of Penny Vincenzi books just for beach reading.

Alice Sebold - the Lovely Bones

I love Earth's Children, too, 3littlefrogs.

Hope you like it, cyteen. I'm pretty sure you will.

wow, thanks you for the recommendations. i have written them all down as a draft on my mobile phone to wander down to the library this week. ive read the lovely bones, def think im gonna try House of Leaves as it seems to have sparked a discussion!

Did you try any of them, DoctorsWife? How did you get on?