What are we reading on our holidays?

[thehardestpartis]

I just picked up my holiday books and feel very excited! They include yesteryear and the new Rob Rinder book and some other nice light crime books. What’s everyone else picked up?

I’m not away yet, but am enjoying Long Island by Colm Toibin.

To take away, I have The Artist by Lucy Steeds and Ripeness by Sarah Moss.

@PhilandbillDid you enjoy the new Ian McEwan?

Ive read a book for my bookclub called The Book of Secrets which was OK… I wasn’t incredibly enamoured. I’ve just torn through James by Percival Everett which I loved. The best thing I’ve read this year. I’m now on a random book I’ve picked up in my accomodation called The Dry by Jane Harper which I hope I can turn around quickly and then finish off with the sequel to My Brilliant Friend ( which I can’t remember the name of)

On Audible Im listening to the Count of Monte Cristo which Im desperate to get finished with. 54 hours!!!! Its caused me to be behind with my reading challenge 😂

Just finished Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.

Starting Anna of Five Towns by Arnold Bennett.

Had a mini break Cornwall long weekend and read Heart the Lover by Lily King, just downloaded 2 of her other books - Writers & Lovers which is about the same character as in Heart the Lover, and Euphoria.

I've got lots of things sitting on Kindle ready to go, and a book club meeting just before I go away for 8 nights in mid-September. Options currently sitting on my Kindle include (but are not limited to!):

Theo of Golden
Atmosphere
The Emporer of Gladness
Once the Deed is Done
My Friends
The Safekeep
Notes on an Execution

Am also eying up:
The Correspondent
Land
Yesteryear

Also bought London Falling for DH recently, but really want to read it myself. He's a VERY slow reader thoguh, so maybe I'll get to it at Xmas. Or I'll need to buy it on Kindle for myself...

I go next week. I am taking The Severed Head, by Iris Murdoch, and Orlando, by Virginia Woolf. I will also listen to loads of audiobooks (luckily, my partner shares my love of audio and we like similar books). I plan to listen to Michael Maloney read Aldous Huxley's Chrome Yellow and Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies. Maloney is my all-time favourite reader.

Before the Autumn term, I hope to re-read Wilde's Dorian Gray and maybe an Elizabeth Bowen novel. If I have time, I also want to read Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim (on the recommendation of a MNer)

@Wallabyone I'm afraid I did not. It felt very London literary scene to me and, to be vulgar, rather up itself. For the theme of literary searches in the past I much prefer A.S. Byatt's "Possession" which I read years ago but which has been a book that has always stayed with me. I finished the McEwan because I hate a DNF and because DD was still reading "Yesteryear" which I was itching to get my hands on. Now that was good. I finished it at breakfast today, book in one hand and prunes and greek yogurt precariously balanced on a spoon in the other 😆

Thanks so much-I think I will give it a miss! I’ve enjoyed several books by him, but the blurb didn’t really grab me.
Good to hear that you’ve enjoyed Yesteryear, I wasn’t sure about that one either! Enjoy the rest of your holiday!

I've made some poor decisions this holiday. I had a lot of weight restrictions and moved around to 4 places so brought only one and picked up one at each destination. I brought 'The Last thing to burn'
A brilliant book, but tense and stressful and not really 'holiday'. I'd highly recommend it another time though. It's my book club book so I'm looking forward to the chats.

I picked up Danielle Steels 'invisible'. It read like something I would write when I was in secondary school (and I'm not much of a writer). Paragraphs repeated constantly, repetitive use of phrases and words. I am actually shocked it was published like this. The storyline wasn't bad but the writing!!! I feel like it was done with a dictaphone and not proof read or edited. I don't know if all her books are that awful, surely they can't be if she has such success.

I’ve brought The Accidental Tourist which I loved.
I’m now reading The Nix which I’ve nearly finished, also enjoyed.
I have In The Name of the Rose with me and a trashy Claire Douglas.

I read All We Can Know by Ian McEwan on an earlier holiday this year and I thought it was excellent, it is up itself but I think that’s on purpose and part of the plot. I thought it very clever (and I also love Possession).