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.

haven't read six suspects yet but it came highly rec'd (by vikas swarup, the slumdog man)

they're old now but have you read rannulph fiennes book about his polar travels and ffiona campbells book of her walk around the world....both obsessive and not very likeable characters but interesting books

ooh yes - I might like more polar travel stuff - but prefer my explorers dead and cold generally.

One of my recent Bookbag review books was The Magnetic North by Sara Wheeler. It's as much about the people there and a history of polar travel (including some dead and cold explorers) as a story of Wheeler's own travels (some of them with a son in tow, including one expedition with a baby). I loved it.

Do you know/like J L Carr, Janeite? "What Hetty Did" made me think of it (since the heroine's main inspiration is her English teacher ), but if you haven't read any of his books, "A Day in Summer" is particularly good.

You will have to let us know if you try any of the books from this thread & if so, what you think of them . . .

I mentioned this on the thread about This Thing of Darkness - Mutiny on the Bounty by JOhn Boyne (Boy in the striped pyjamas). Brilliant book mixing fact with fiction. I was gripped from the first page.

If you like explorer type stuff - Nathaniel Philbrick's In the heart of the sea is a true story about a whaling expedition in C19th America which was apparently the inspiration for Moby Dick, and kept me up half the night reading it.

And I see you said that you liked CJ Sansom upthread. Try 'Martyr' by Rory Clements, or The Red Velvet Turnshoe by Cassandra Clark (the first book in the series - Hangman Blind - is out of print but the library might have it.)

Have read the Mutiny on the Bounty one and In The Heart of the Sea and loved both of them - so they are bang on for the type of thing I'm after...

Like the sound of a couple more, so will get a reserve list together for half-term and have a long lurk in the library!

Thanks again, all.