can anyone reccomend a good chick lit book please?

[lizandlulu]

or something like chick lit. i am going on holiday soon and want a good book for the beach. i will be child free so want to make the most of my free time
i loved the shopaholic and baby books, ps i love you, that sort of thing.
any reccomendations please?

oxymoron

This Charming Man by Marian keyes is supposed to be excellent.

Nothing by Cecilia Ahern obviously because there is good shite and there is pure shite.

Oh, or slightly more 'proper' books are the Philippa Gregory historical novels. I've just read all the Tudor ones (The Other Boleyn Girl, The Boleyn Inheritance, The Queen's Fool and The Virgin's Lover). They're written in a modern way but are very evocative of the period, iykwim. I'm not into history but really enjoyed them.

what's the first one olihan? is the order printd in the inside cover?

They go in the order I've typed them, EB. The two Boleyn ones are Henry VIII's reign, The Queen's Fool is the end of his reign, Edward then Mary's reigns and the beginning of Elizabeth I's and the Virgin Lover is the start of her reign and her affair with Robert Dudley.

hi again...honestly, you say you love anything about babies, struggling, managing...thats exactly what the allison pearson book is about....fab!

my other faves, although not chick lit, is the barrytown trilogy by roddy doyle. gritty, funny, easy to read.... its 3 books in one...the commitments (you know the film about the band set in dublin?) the snapper, and my fave, the van.

have ordered loads from the book people...they're great.

Any thing by Fiona Walker

For non chick lit, I highly recommend Red Leaves and Tully by Paulina Simmons. Not very uplifting though... Nothing wrong with chick lit - wish I could write some!

Thanks Oli. I've made a quick note of that . Other,inheritance,queen.virgin.
got it.

goodbye jimmy choo
brown owl's guide to life
busy woman seeks wife
(can't remember authors)

have just finished the nanny by melissa nathan which was v good. (can send it to you for postage if you CAT me). i also second 'i don't know how she does it'.

oohh thank you umlellala, can i cat you tonight as i am at work at the moment

course!

I really enjoyed A Crowded Marriage by Catherine Alliott. Rachel's Holiday is my favourite Marian Keyes, and try some Emily Barr - female heroine but the novels all have a mystery edge to them.

How about some real bonkbusters in the Jilly Cooper style? I'm reading Gold Diggers by Tasmina Perry and also have read a lot of Penny Vincenzi.

i have read a few jackie collins, the santangelo books, they were excellent, but have tried one of her others and didnt read past the first few chapters.

Ahem, "good" and "chick-lit" don't go together...

There has been argument discussion about this on other threads Seashell71. It ultimately boils down to how you define 'good' and 'chick-lit'. Anyway it's very subjective and if you don't like something there is a tendency to dismiss it as not good, when in fact you just don't like it.

Even if you are a prof of English lit or on the Booker shortlist panel (and I'm pretty sure you aren't) I don't think that you really have the authority to dismiss a whole genre. So I will take your comment with a pinch of salt and continue to read good chick-lit.

Well said, bran!

Can't stand all this holier-than-thou crap about chick-lit. I teach English to A level and am perfectly secure in my ability to understand the most demanding of texts. But I certainly wouldn't be so patronising as to dismiss a whole genre which has given me many hours of enjoyable escapism and sometimes provided a much needed break from working with Proper Literature

Mmmmhh, slayerette, why limit yourself to either classic lit or junk-lit? There's so much in between the two! There are millions of funny, well written, entertaining books that are not "demanding", yet go a bit deeper than those featuring a svelte figure on the pastel-cover, holding a mobile phone with one hand and lots of shopping in the other... I read a few and found myself cringeing a bit, thinking that there is such a thing as a "sub" genre made for women.

I read two fantastic easy-read books last year and they were :

The Island by Victoria Hislop and

Getting rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon

Both were great!!

a good chick lit book? An oxymoron, surely?

Who said anything about junk-lit, seashell? And who said I limit myself? At the moment, I'm reading Oliver Twist, A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve, a thriller by Harlan Coben, The Wastelanders by Ian Strachan (to see whether I think Yr 7 would enjoy it), The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver, Cold Comfort Farm, The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville, Resistance by Owen Sheers and Gold Diggers by Tasmina Perry. I read whatever catches my fancy on a particular day, but would never want to write off an entire type of writing

None of the above has a pastel cover by the way...

So the women wants some chick lit for her holiday's..........what's the big deal people!!!!!!!!!!!

no big deal - just the title made me smile! I read all sorts of trash different books