What book are you reading now because it is doing my head in that I can't find something I want to read so am going to steal your ideas instead..!

[foxinsocks]

I finished Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd (which I enjoyed but it wasn't a can't put down book - I stopped it and came back to it but did finish it and ultimately enjoyed it).

I am half way through Little Stranger but cannot make myself finish it. I've got to the stage where I half hope the whole of Hundreds Hall goes up in flames with Dr Faraday in the middle of it.

I've also started 2 other books - A Week in December (Sebastian Faulks) and Fifty Grand (McGKinty) and they are grabbing me but not in the way I was hoping they would. I imagine I'll finish both but I'm really hoping for a great book next iykwim.

So what are you reading and would you recommend it?

so many people have recommended Janet Evanovich to me but I have tried to read her books and just can't get into them at all. I don't know why as I like lots of books that people read who like Evanovich (you know when you see the lists on amazon!) but I just can't get her.

The Larsson trilogy was good but I found it took me a bit of time to warm to the first book - first half of the book almost written like a newspaper journalist would write but once I got past the first half, I was hooked. I thought the 2nd one was gripping, the 3rd less so (more journalist style writing) but I still enjoyed them.

do you want fiction only?
I was surprised to enjoy Becoming Jane Austen so much, it is packaged in a slightly trashy way but i thought it was good.
Claire Tomalin's biographies always wonderful - the Pepys one is amazing, although I think she is completely wrong about sex in the 17th century - that was only a paragraph in the whole book though. Also Mrs Jordan's Profession was a lovely read. Brings home that most sexually active women in those days were pregnant nearly all the time.
Also i frequently recommend Victoria Glendinning's biography of Trollope. A wonderfully gripping read even though I've never made it through a whole book by AT (well, maybe one). Her biogrphy of Swift, I'm afraid I don't think was as good.

op, the little stranger really picks up in the second half...i put it down just under halfway thru and picked it up 6 weeks later when i had no more fiction left on my bookpile, really glad i did

just reading karin fossum's broken and it has really caught me....it's about an author who has a future character queue jump and sit in her bedroom until she agrees to write about him next...no idea what will happen but i really want to know!

i recently read digging to america by anne tyler...about 2 families who adopt a korean girl each and forge links despite having nothing else in common...it's a great book

The best book I've read in a long time is Moloka'i by Alan Brennert (think I've spelt that all correctly !). About leprosy in Hawaii. Really really good. Took our book group by storm. Have tissues handy but prepare to be fascinated/shocked/moved etc.

moloka'i

I read a book about grave robbers in London this week, if you fancy some 'different' non-fiction.

After 'Owen Meany' I've got 'Purple Hibiscus' and one about convict women being transported to be colony 'wives' called 'The Floating Brothel' by Sian Rees.

I can also recommend one called 'The Fatal Shore' about the colonisation of Australia and another called 'The Caliban Shore' about a group who were shipwrecked off the coast of Africa.

Also 'This Thing Of Darkness' which is fiction but based on Darwin's voyage to Tierra Del Feugo with Captain Fitzroy - superb.

wow janeite we really do have very similar taste - i loved the [parts of] fatal shore [that I have read]

am re-reading Terry Pratchett's Carpe Jugulum. Have just finished Good Omens (co-written with Neil Gaiman), one of my favourite books ever.

The Children's Book by A.S.Byat. Dense but very enjoyable.

I'm reading Kate Adie's autobiography which is interesting but probably not gripping enough to be described as great.

Instead I offer you:-

Arthur and George - Julian Barnes.
This Thing of Darkness - Harry Thompson

I am current;y reading The Last 10 Seconds by Simon Kernick, am really enjoying it, it is about an undercover cop who infiltrates a London "mafia" for want of a better world and alongside is a police woman and what is happening to her and it all intermingles.

It is a little confusing because I never read chapter heading and the chapter headings in this book tell you the time line.

I have just finished Have You Seen Her by Karen Rose, I loved it, could not put it down, was really gripping and I was in tears through some of it! It is quite graphic in places though, so be warned!

It is about 16 year old girls that go missing and the private and work lives of the chief investigator and his sons high school teacher.

I have Under the Dome by Stephen King to read next but think I might need to go to the gym for a few weeks to build up my arms, it's huge!!!

I would recommend,

Kate Atkinson's books are good there are three which all revlove around the same character,
Case Histories
One good turn
When will there be good news

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
Fault Lines by Nancy Huston
The house at Riverton and The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
No time to say goodbye,Too close to home, fear the worst, by Linwood Barclay

I've also read An American wife and would recommend it.

to read next i have:

the american wife
sarah waters latest
suite francaise by irene nemirovsky - read another one of hers - v v g.

have just gone to library catalogue online and reserved:

anansi boy - neil gaiman
childrens book - a s byatt
floating brothel - sian rees

thanks guys

Arthur And George = brilliant.

Under The Dome = not bad but not King at his best.

MayorNaze - please read This Thing Of Darkness - it is my mission in life to get as many people as possible to read it as it is fab.

Half way through Owen Meany now as I had some reading time on the train today - it is very, very odd.

I hated The House At Riverton - sorry. Something else trying to be Ian McYawn, I thought. Ignore me though - I am horribly fussy.

Janeite - if you liked the Fatal Shore etc then have you read The Secret River by Kate Grenville? it's also about Australia and the penal colony (tho set in early Victorian time). I loved that Sian Rees book too. have you read / seen Our Country's Good - a play by Timberlake Wertenbaker based on The Fatal Shore and that Keneally book The Playmaker? I'd recommend these too.

So has no one else read A View from the Foothills? I've not read any political diaries before - so good good I'm even thinking about reading the Alan Clarke ones.

Thanks Pluto - they all sound my sort of thing.

Am re reading from years ago "A Suspension of Mercy"by Patricia Highsmith (Ripley Books) and `tis quite good.

I'm with KerryGrumbles and am reading the 12th (!) book in the Rand Al Thor/Wheel of Time series. A bit of easy reading, which is great as I've just gone back to work and can't cope with anything too heavy.

Next I will probably try Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere or Poppy Z Brites Lost Souls, both books I got for Christmas and have not yet got round to reading. Or I may buy/borrow the new Paulina Simmons book, as I loved Tully and her new one sounds right up the easy reading street that I'm on at the moment.

Poppy Z Brite - really good. I loved Lost Souls.

currently reading Small Island by Andrea Levy

Recently read Small Island, would defo recommend.

Also A thousand splendid suns - easy reading though harrowing, happy, desperately sad, tense etc etc.- will try to pick up the kite runner, by same author, soon. Think they are both a few years old, you may have read them when they came out.

Listened to A good read (radio 4) on way home from work today and they really sold me all three books:

The Moon's a Balloon by David Niven (autobiog I believe);

Under Storm's Wing by Helen Thomas - (about her husband who died in WW1, interesting openish marriage, he was a poet);

Prick up Your Ears by John Lahr - recommended by Kenneth Cranham who know/worked with Joe Orton, explores Joe and relationship with his lover who ended up killing him!

For those who feel out of step because they didn't share everyone else's love of a particular book, that just makes things more interesting, I think.

I belong to various email book discussion groups though am not very active in any at the moment but my favourite discusses several crime novels every month, and I generally found even the books I didn't like worth reading because they would generate such great discussion. Very few books were liked or disliked by anyone, though the verdict was often out of step with other opinion - we came down quite hard on a book which later won all the first novel awards in the US, much to my disgust as it had much better competition.

fox, hope you find something good soon if not already.