Need recs please - sorry!

[janeite]

What shall I look for in the library tomorrow please? I am currently reduced to re-reads of The Famous Five.

Yes to Cold Comfort Farm.

Well, I think you would like her - am going to be embarrassed now if you try & think she is awful . . .

Its a diary style book - was written as columns for Time & Tide magazine in the 30s, very funny IMO. Basically the trials of life as a mother in rural Devon in the interwar period, but I first read them as an 18 yr old (in the Virago Modern Classics series) & loved them then. Sure they would be in your library - there are four 'diaries' covering the period up to & including the 2nd world war.

Have just read Engleby by Sebastian Faulkes. That was good and wryly funny.

And against my initial judgment am now liking Cloud Atlas, although you have to make a conscious decision to stick with it in the first chapter.

Thanks both. Yes - I keep picking Engelby up and putting it down again.

Another one - if you like Neil Gaiman presume you are ok with fantasy/sci-fi ? Do you like Ursula le Guin's adult books - if so have you read Changing Planes ?

I liked Engleby because although it's written in the first person, he is an extremely unreliable narrator!

Fantasy yes; sci-fi no. Not read any Ursula LG.

If you like the history of food, have you read any Magaret Visser?

here

I love the Provincial Lady - very very funny, and hard to believe it's 80 years old.

Provincial Lady diaries very good - I bet she would definately be a MNer

That looks right up my street! Thanks.

Don't forget to ask one of the of the library assistants for ideas too, we love it

I will - our librarian is lovely but quite batty though and her recs are v offbeat!

If you haven't read any Ursula Le Guin you might like her adult novels (inc the Dispossessed / Left Hand of Darkness / Lathe of Heaven / Birthday of the World).
Beware though that she has written a lot of teenage novels which are very good in their way, but much less to them.

Those of you who like the Provincial Lady & haven't seen it I've just found on Amazon that they have reprinted EMD's book about her stay in Russia (retitled as "I visit the Soviets - the Provincial Lady in Russia), which is slightly bizarre but good.

Thanks - will try her. I read a lot of teenage novels (English teacher!) so might try those too.

Janeite im currently rereading The pillars of the earth by Ken Follett its really good

Read it - liked it! The follow up is better. Thanks anyway.

Any more please?

Dp has just fetched me a pile of Agatha Christies from the library to keep me going but I doubt they willlast long and may well annoy me!

Have you read Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson? I loved this book. Sci-fi but historical too.

If you like this then there is also a three-parter as well - the Baroque Trilogy. His most recent one is a bit shit - Anathem - wasn't a massive fan TBH.

Oh also EM Benson - Mapp and Lucia, there's loads to chose from - in the vein of Cold Comfort Farm and Provincial Lady (am sure it was someone on here that recommended them to me!)

Don't know either of those so will google - thanks.

What did you get out from the library? I thought the only Elizabeth Noble book I read was very disappointing (The Reading Group) and I haven't tried again.

In the crime fiction line, have you tried Denise Mina? Laura Wilson? Do you like historical crime, police procedurals, PI stories, noir, cosies?

I review books for a website called www.thebookbag.co.uk - I'm not plugging my own reviews but it's good for getting reading ideas.

I can't relate to being short of things to read though - in my early 20s I used to read two books a day and exhaust the appealing stock of libraries, but now I probably have enough to be going on with for the next 40 years and I still keep buying and borrowing more.

Oh I have read The Reading Group - thought it was rubbish.

No to police type things. The only detective ones I read are oldies or historical ones. I don't know what PI or cosies are.

Have Amazon no recommendations for you?

No They just keep wanting to rec Harry Potter and Stephen King to me and have read all of them!

Amazon tends to be skewed by the fact that I don't very often buy things for me but use it mainly for presents.

Another slightly random one - but I'm suggesting this because DH, my mother & I all thought it was good, which is a very unusual overlap. Have you read 'Imperial Life in the Emerald City' by Rajiv Chandrasekaran?

(generally DH reads books like 'Handy Farm Devices & how to make them' )