What MUST I read?

[Zebraa]

Come on ladies, what are we reading then?

John Irving - 'A Prayer for Owen Meany'

Books! All types, all sizes

I hear ya EachPeach! I do love John Irving Giddy, will track down that one and get cracking.

Keep them coming, I'm compiling a list before LO 2 arrives!

"the other hand" by Chris Cleave is my tip for this year, having worked for years in the book trade. I would love to see it do well!

We Need To Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
The Woman's Room - Marilyn French
The Crow Road - Iain Banks

I am in danger of getting boring about this book, but:

The Wasted Vigil - Nadeem Aslam

Fantastic. I finished it last week and it's one of the best books I've read this year. Afghanistan just after 9/11. (It is a bit gruesome though).

Cold Comfort Farm

I always say this, but

Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Unless - Carol Shields
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

grapes of wrath

Shikasta - Doris Lessing
American Pastoral - Philip Roth
Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
Still Life - AS Byatt
Any of Elizabeth Taylor's short stories.

and while we're at it, why not a little something by the sadly underappreciated master of American fiction

The Assistant - Bernard Malamud

Cold Comfort Farm is hilarious.

Call the midwife.

I don't like fiction, i'm irritated by the obvious, too much of a concrete thinker, i guess.

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harpur Lee

The collected works of Saki by Hector Hugh Munro

The collected works of Saki by Hector Hugh Munro

If you haven't read yet then "Riddle of the Sands" by Erskine Childers and "Cranford" by Elizabeth Gaskell are my all time top comfort reads...

@Jajas, funnily enough, I hadn't read The Kite Runner when I picked up The Wasted Vigil - am reading it now, but I'm only 100 pages in.

They address different time periods, and the style isn't really the same - Wasted Vigil is much more imagistic (not in a pages-of-turgid-description way but in a briefly-described-but-incredibly-striking sort of way) and less 'plotty'. Probably a very interesting one to go on to, but then I haven't finished Kite Runner yet.

(Khaled Hosseini, btw )

I second 'Saki' love his stuff - very funny.

I devoured all of Antonia Fraser's history books when I was breastfeeding, also all the history books on the Tudors, especially Elizabeth the first, I could lay my hands on, and then onto the Stuarts and the English Civil war and restoration, then I moved onto the french!

I also recommend taking up a language on audio, and a friend of mine swore that War and Peace on audio saved her sanity when she was b/feeding!

Ursula LeGuin is a lovely author, and you can't beat Jane Austen.

giddykipper - are you loving it? I thought it was fantastic!

I am reading Alison Weir's Lady Elizabeth. Not bad, but not amazing either. I am continuing, because I am obsessed with all things Tudor at the moment.

Alan Hollingsworth's The Line of Beauty.

....I was hugely surprised by how much I enjoyed this ultimately bleak book.

..and was most surprised by who, amongst the characters, I ended up feeling sympathy for.

Here's the link to the one I recommended - just checked it out, and although not widely read, everyone on amazon has given it top marks! Glad it wasn't just me then - I read it in proof before it came out and hoped it would do well

Persuasion
Jane Eyre
Love in a Cold Climate
Brother of the More Famous Jack - Barbara Trapido (in fact any of Ms Trapido's)
Cold Comfort Farm
Lark Rise to Candleford
Men and Angels - Catherine Fox (this was a beautiful surprise - subsequent books do not disappoint either).
Mary Wesley - especially The Camomile Lawn.
In This House of Brede - Rumer Godden. Also her 2 volumes of autobiography.
Monica Dickens
Mary Stewart for comfort reading (not the historical ones though).
Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner, very poised and beautifully written.
Maya Angelou's autobiography - several volumes, very readable.
The Bookshop - Penelope Fitzgerald, just beautiful.
A Mislaid Magic - Joyce Windsor
Diary of a Provincial Lady - E M Delafield

I'll stop now

I am reading Simon Kernick's The Business of Dying.

There's a true story that goes like this. A few years back a thirty-two-year-old man abducted a ten-year-old from the street near her house. He took her back to his dingy bedsit, tied her to a bed, and subjected her to a brutal hour-long sex ordeal. It might have been a lot worse but the walls were paper thin and one of the neighbours heard the screams. She phoned the police and they came and knocked the door down. The girl was rescued, although apparently she still bears the scars, and the perpetrator was arrested. Seven months later he goes on trial and his lawyer gets him off on a technicality. Apparently she takes the legal view thats it's better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent one's imprisoned. He returns to the area where he committed the crime and lives the life of a free man. The lawyer gets her money, courtesy of the taxpayer, as well as the congratulations of her partners on a worthy performance. They probably even take her out for a celebration drink. Meanwhile, every parent in a two-mile radius of this guy is living in fear. The police try to defuse the situation by saying they'll keep a good watch on him, but admit there's nothing else they can do. As always, they appeal for calm.

Thats the 1st paragraph lol.

I have already read the following, so take ur pick as they say lol:

JAN'08
P.S I Love You - Ceceila Ahern
The Mephisto Club - Tess Gerritsen
5th Horseman - James Patterson
6th Target - James Patterson
Malicious Intent - Kathryn Fox
Behind Closed Doors - Sarah Webb
Revenge - Eric Brown
Holly's Inbox - Holly Denham
Where Rainbows End - Ceceila Ahern

FEB'08
Housewife Down - Alison Penton Harper
The Memory Box - Margaret Forster
The Bone Garden - Tess Gerritsen
A Summer Collection - All Sorts
The Old Man & the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Diving-bell & the Butterfly - Jean-Dominque Bauby
Kirsty & the Mystery Train - Ann M. Martin
Claudia's Friend - Ann M. Martin
Jessi & the Troublemaker - Ann M. Martin

MAR'08
Severed - Simon Kernick
The Sunday Night Book Club - All Sorts
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Confessions of a Failed Grown-Up - Stephanie Calman
35 Kilos of Hope - Anna Gavalda
Adventures According to Humphrey - Betty G. Birney
Cherub: Dark Sun - Robert Muchamore
Magic Kitten: A Very Special Friend - Sue Bentley
Odd & The Frost Giants - Neil Gaiman
Doctor Who: Revenge of the Judoon - Terrance Dicks
Happy Families - Adele Parks
Girl On The Platform - Josephine Cox
East End Tales - Gilda O'Neill
The Baby Trail - Sinead Moriarty

APR'08
Blindsighted - Karin Slaughter
Perfect Match - Sinead Moriarty

MAY'08
Drop Dead Beautiful - Jackie Collins
From Here to Maternity - Sinead Moriarty
Kisscut - Karin Slaughter
Private Peaceful - Michael Morpurgo

JUN'08
The Crime Trade - Simon Kernick
Before I Die - Jenny Downham
7th Heaven - James Patterson
Owning Jacob - Simon Beckett
Song For Eloise - Leigh Sauerwein
Life Support - Tess Gerritsen

JUL'08
The Book Of The Dead - Patricia Cornwell
The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett
Sleepover Club goes for Goal - Fiona Cummings
Sleepover Girls foes Snowboarding - Sue Mongredien
Sleepover Girls sees Stars - Sue Mongredien
Sleepover Girls in the Ring - Fiona Cummings
Sleepover Girls go Karting - Narinder Dhami
The Sleepover Club on the Farm - Sue Mongredien
Sleepover Girls go Trasure Hunting - Sue Mongredien

AUG'08
A Dog Year - Jon Katz
The Appeal - John Grisham
Baby Baby - Viv French
Nightmare Park - Phililp Pearce
Witness - Anne Cassidy
Chocolate Moon - Mary Arrigan
Devil For Sale - E.E. Richardson
I See You Baby ... - Kevin Brooks & Catherine Forde
Johnny Delgado: Like Father, Like Son - Kevin Brooks
Prisoner In Alcatraz - Theresa Breslin
Snakebite - Robert Swindells
Crowgirl Returns - Kate Cann
A Faint Cold Fear - Karin Slaughter
Johnny Delgado - Kevin Brooks
Crow Girl - Kate Cann
Remember Me? - Sophie Kinsella
Holly's Inbox: Scandal In The City - Holly Denham
Housewife Up - Alison Penton Harper

SEPT'08
Housewife On Top - Alison Penton Harper
Bloodstream - Tess Gerritsen
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
Indelible - Karin Slaughter
Smile & Other Stories - Deborah Moggach
Never Say Die - Tess Gerritsen
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
In The Red - Alexis Hall

OCT'08
Coraline - Neil Gaiman
Under The Knife - Tess Gerritsen
The Bookshop - Penelope Fitzgerald
Beyond Ugly - Constance Briscoe
The Black Violin - Maxence Fermine
The Fishfinger Years - Fiona Gibson
Beautiful Lies - Lisa Unger
Changing Babies - Deborah Moggach

NOV'08
The Butterfly Lion - Michael Morpurgo
The Sleeping Sword - Michael Morpurgo
Toro! Toro! - Michael Morpurgo
I Believe In Unicorns - Michael Morpurgo
The Last Wolf - Michael Morpurgo
Dear Olly - Michael Morpurgo
Long Way Home - Michael Morpurgo
Fair-Weather Friend - Patricia Scanlan
Faithless - Karin Slaughter
Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom

Is there anyone out there, Marion Keyes, this is the first one of hers I have read,and it is making lol,not many books do that.