if i tell you books I have recently read or have enjoyed, can you recommend some others please :)

[popsycal]

Love John Irving
Recently read The Infinite Plan by Isabel Allende and The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster

Enjoyed both of them
Open to all ideas
What have you enjoyed recenlty?

I heart John Irving too.

Have you read Donna Tartt?

have you read 'bel canto' by ann patchet - great

anything at all by joyce carol oates
carol shields the box garden
breathing lessons by anne tyler

widow for one year by john irving

i liked the secret hisstory and another by her - read them years and years ago though

I just read pap these days, trashy crime fiction.

Cloud Atlas

will have a look at those thanks

any more?

Website here may help
Engelby by Sebastian Faulks???

Love John Irving to, love the world according to garp and the cider house rules, one of my all time fave books.

More Isabel Allende - especially "Paula". It's auto-biographical rather than fiction but is absolutely beautiful and heart breaking and tender. One of my favourite books ever.

since dd came along 9 weeks ago, i find i can concentrate most on short stories (its not that big a deal to start the story again, unlike a novel)
haruki murukami: blind woman sleeping willow, weird but oddly easy to digest.
sara maitland: on becoming a fairy godmother, feminist lit/ vaguely intellectual pornography
angela carter also has a complete collected out.
two autobiogs i would recommend are johnny cash (much more interesting than walk the f**cking line) and bruce campbell: confessions of a B movie actor
I love skimming old favourites when I'm in the bath and dp is playing with dd: catch 22, catcher in the rye, rebecca and anything by margaret atwood.

Paul Auster's partner wrote a fantastic book, what i loved. Her latest has patchy reviews though. I've recently read The Book Thief, and A Thousand Splendid Suns - both good holiday reads, not too hard!

Ok - so I found some books
I am currently reading three.....The Kite Runner, Zorro by Isabel Allende and picking at chapters of The Red Queen by Matt Ridley (which I read 15 years ago for my degree )
enjoying them all but have written down some from this thread for next time

I loved isabel allende's House of Spirits, read it years and years ago, big long surreal saga. Like Water for Chocolate is also very good in S American surreal saga styly.Would second Bel Canto, and anythingby Amy Tan. Knowledge of Angels is fab, have lent it so dont know author.

prefered the infinite plan, eva luna and the stories of eva luna. THey are a little bit folklorish, but lovely.

recommend "The Little House" by phillippa gregory - esp good for those of us with troublesome mils.

oo and just finished Notes on an Exhibition, also good, also cant find it at this point for author.

Anything by Armistead Maupin, everything he writes is wonderful. Andre Debuss' 'House of Sand and Fog' is a brilliant read. For non-fiction, I've just read George & Sam which is the incredibly touching account of life for a Mother with two boys who are autistic. I actually couldn't put that one down. I do love the summer hols.

Siri Hustvedt is Paul Auster's wife. I love her stuff- recommend What I loved. Her new on is The Sorrows of an American.

Oh- sorry Florensac- just saw your post!

Second Donna tarrt- The Secret History. Jonathan Franzen The Corrections.
William Boyd- Restless.
Patrick McGrath- Port Mungo has that kind of atmosphere too, of swampy S America and heavy emotions of Isabelle Allende.
Or Gabrial Garcia Marquez- A Hundred Years of Solitude- magic realism type stuff.Although I think i spent the entire book looking back to the family tree if I remember which was a bit tedious...

If you like that kind of magic realism type stuff, a slightly lighter read is Alice Hoffman. I think they're really well written and a great read- The River King, The Probable Future, Here on Earth, Seventh heave- i'd recommend all of those.