Calling all BOOKWORMS!

[DazedEmma]

I have a few more weeks off sick (back problem) and am flying through books. I literally have no books left in my reading pile so I'm going to put in an order of books when I've compiled a big reading list!

Help me! What are a few of your favourite books? List a few in case I've read the one you recommend.

I will read EVERYTHING so am open to all your recommendations....

think breastfeeding is one of the reasons i still get to read a lot. Ds is 18 months old and as long as i hold the book out of his arm's reach,everything fine.
Not weaning him any time soon, no way!

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I'm not ususally one for historical fiction but just read The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillippa Gregory and am now hooked on her series about the Tudors.
Also highly recommend anything by Tracy Chevallier espec Virgin Blue and Burning Bright.
I use Read it Swap it and also Green Metropolis.

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Fortunes Rocks - Anita Shreve

Tess Gerritsen for bloody, gruesome murder but they will keep you hooked - The Mephisto Club really good.

Jodi Piccult are good for a light but engaging read. Some are better than others but they do leave you mulling it over. Salem Falls, Keeping The Faith and Plain Truth are my favourites of hers.

A Quiet Belief in Angels - R J Ellory is a great read.

Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts (I think that's teh author). Fictionalised autobiography of an Australian who escaped from jail in his own country and ended up working for the Bombay mafia. Not always well written - in fact, often over written - but very gripping.

Also, I LOVED "Nella's Last War" - couldn't stop thinking about it once I'd finished it.

I'll second Engelby and Human Traces by Sebastian F., This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson, all of Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy, the Time Traveller's Wife. Also 'Old Filth' by Jane Gardham - unexpectedly moving

Another vote for "This Thing Of Darkness" - it's brilliant.

These are a really good series:
www.amazon.com/Dissolution-C-J-Sansom/dp/0142004308/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214155180&s r=1-1

Sorry the American Amazon site makes them look stupid; they are actually really good but I can't be bothered to change the link!

Also Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series - 7 books so should keep you busy for a while!

Engleby I loved, Human Traces - I didn't get past the second page the first time I tried to read it. Read it and enjoyed it a few months later though - you have to be in the right sort of mood...

hmmm - the problem with Nella's Last War is I now have another 6 MO books to read.

Actually, on that note 'Can any mother help me?' is actually MN in a pre-computer era - I found myself thinking how life for mothers of young children doesn't ever really change at all, not even across fifty years... and real life too, if you're up for that sort of thing - they had even chosen their pen names v carefully, rather like the ones we use on here.

v interesting but doesn't really stand up as the scholarly blurb suggests - just entertaining in the same way that reading mn posts is...

no offence meant

didn't meant to start a deconstruction of mn from an academic pov!

Romy, "Nella" evoked similiar thoughts in me. Isn't it extraordinary how being a mother transcends period, class, personality....Here was this woman writing in utterly different circumstances from me and yet her concerns are my concerns. But what does "another 6 MO books to read" mean? What's MO? Will I enjoy the books if I enjoyed Nella? Sorry DazedEmma if this is a bit of a hijack.

Mass Observation - they are all taken from the MO which started I think in '39... the archive is at the University of Sussex. Oodles and oodles of very interesting social commentary, diaries and surveys/ questionnaires.

You'll love 'can any mother help me?' - it's a group of women who didn't know each other who set up a postal magazine after a woman wrote into a parenting magazine essentially asking how she could survive being isolated with small children - it started an MN by snailmail - each contributor would write 'articles' (or threads) and post them on to the next person on the list for reading and comment. absolutely identical subject matter as we all bang on about every day - childbirth, waiting for overdue babies, husbands, and I'm sure there is scope for a 21st century 'can any mother help me?' based on MN...

oops - that probably was a big hijack - sorry OP!

Pillars of the Earth was a good long read, also Jodi Picoult - Salem Falls is a good place to start.