I need a Bookclub book suggestion please - something brilliant.

[dietstartstomorrow]

I really want a good meaty book with fantastic characters.

Any ideas?

did you have a long one or short one last time?

The Road was the best book I have read for years - loved it!

I have read the road as well as Shantaram and I agree about it being one of the best books I have read . Not a cheery read and it will stick in your head for a while but I thought it was really well written and it will give you plenty to discuss .

We had a medium book last time - so won't matter if the next one is long or short.

Our book group reads the Booker Prize winner each autumn and often wonder why it won!

My group takes a break in August, so we save the very long books for the summer.

Small Island by Andrea Levy was one of our favourites.

Anything by Carol Shields. Her writing is captivating and the characeters have lots of depth.

How about The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O' Farrell. Great book and lots to discuss.

We have December free and have a round up and re-judge our faves to see whether the books we loved then are still as popular after a few months. We've been going for 5 years now and some of our best months were
Three Cups of Tea
Kite Runner/Thousand Splendid Suns
Time Travellers Wife
To Kill a Mockingbird
Shantaram
The Bookseller of Kabul
Star of the Sea
Small Island
Brideshead Revisited
Bridges of Madison County

I would love to do Owen Meaney but I love it too much and would be afrais they'd all hate it.

Nabokov's Pale Fire - brilliant, easy to read, intriguing, poetic, and it challenges conventional novelistic structures so there is plenty to talk about. Also it is not very widely read so your group probably won't be coming to it with preconceptions.

Cloudstreet by Tim Winton is wonderful. Totally engrossing and beautifully developed characters. Stays with you ages after you finish the book. In fact I still think about those characters years later.

Some of our best books - or best discussions, anyway - have been

The Great Gatsby
The Grass Is Singing
The Color Purple

We loved "Year of Wonders" by Geraldine Brooks. I second "Confederacy of Dunces" which is one of my fave books, but would never suggest it for book club as it is too personal.

I'm needing a book too and wondering about The Road too after reading your good reviews. But, some people dont like 'depressing books' - would you say it is? Also we are not too high brow - how would it fit?

The Road is very well written and very gripping, but it is bleak. There are some very disturbing scenes, which I can still remember more than a year after reading the book.

It is well worth reading, but if your group prefers happy, jolly books it may not suit your mood.

Thanks Mad. Think I might read it myself and think of another one for the book group. Too many heavy ones lately!

Please let me crash no threads today...Try 'tales from a thousand and one nights' if you want something off the beaten track.

Poor, poor Shahrazad.

Fantastic(al) characters certainly...