Just finished a couple of fabulous books... next?

[wonderingwondering]

Wolf Hall, then The Year of the Flood (Margaret Atwood's latest). Which prompted me to re-read Oryx & Crake.

I just lost myself in them and found myself turning them over in my mind in between reading stints.

Now reading DH Lawrence's Sons & Lovers which I'm enjoying but it's not grabbed me in the same way.

Would love some suggestions for my long-haul flight later this week....

Following on from Mitford biog - 'In Tearing Haste' is a fab read. (Letters from Deborah Devonshire to Patrick Leigh Fermor)

Hello again. I did the book shop mooch today, and acquired:

Half of a Yellow Sun

Small Island

The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver, also ordered the Poisonwood Bible

And I also got The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as I felt that was a gap in my popular knowledge.

I've ordered (Carol Shields) Stone Diaries and a collection of Alice Munro's short stories.

Is (William Boyd) Any Human Heart any good? I liked (but didn;t love) Restless and I didn't finish Thunderstorms (?) - thought it was a ludicrous plot & not that well written!

Bunjies I've just seen (and ordered) the fiction collection - picks up a few recommendations on here, though my local bookshop has now lost the Carols Shields sale (I'll make it up to them).

And I've now picked up my copy of 19th Wife that I'd started but put down - been inspired to give it another go. I think I may have been tired when I tried it before.

If I carry on like this I'll be cracking open the Mr Whicher book - that I just did not like at all, and I really really tried with it.

Thanks for all the fab suggestions, I will come back to this thread with my comments and to remind myself of the books that I couldn't afford (or carry home!) today!

Any Human Heart is much much better than Restless, which I didn't get on with at all. Haven't read thunderstorms.

I quite liked Mr Whicher but got a bit bored towards the end; I'm afraid I'm a fiction gal through and through.

i'd second bel canto, the help, middlesex, esme lennox, they're all great books

what about the penelopoead (sp) by margaret atwood...or any of the rest of this series of great myths, retold with a twist, by modern authors

pat barkers regeneration trilogy...and if you've read that, another world, which looks at the death of one of the men who survived the war, as an old man surrounded by his current day family

this thing of darkness, harry thompson...i would never have picked this up but it was rec'd on here and i couldn't put it down...it's about the adventures of the crew of the beagle before during and after darwin

the enchantress of florence, salman rushdie....never managed one of his before but this is a good yarn that keeps you thinking long after you've finished

Haven't read Never Let me Go (Ishiguro) - but I have read When we were Orphans. It made me quite emotional.

Whicher was shit

Yes, I loved the Penelopiaed (sp again!!).

And yes, the Pat Barker trilogy is great, wasn't so keen on Double Vision.

I'm looking at my bookshelves as you are making recommendations, to see if I've anything by the same writers, and it's making me want to re-read them. I must try out new things...!

Thanks Alaska, all my friends loved it, and I just really, really didn't like it.

And I just see from another thread that Lacuna has won the Orange prize. Might be first up on my reading list.

Yes i pretended ot like whicher for a bit then was OUT AND PROUD

The Long View by Elizabeth Jane Howard
Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
The Balkan Trilogy and the Levant Trilogy (Fortunes of War) by Olivia Manning
Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido

I'm reading Steig Larsson at the moment, you know because everyone has, and finding it hard to get into. At the moment I just don't care about the characters.

If you have just started Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, do persevere, I tried it a couple of times before a bout of flu forced my habd, and I loved it,
My daughter has just devoured the trilogy and recommends them highly.
I have been reading 'lite' books that can just be skimmed lately, as the spring garden & allotment takes up most of my time at the beginning of the year though I can't bear not to have a book on hand,
Your recommendations come just at the right time as I feel as though I can actually sit in the garden to enjoy the fruits of my labours with a cuppa/G&T and a good book..
I have Wolf Hall in waiting and plan to re-read Cloud Atlas.

Can I recommend the local library for those of you who are shaort of funds?
You will get excellent dervice, probaly not have to wait long to get your books. Hopefully there will be enthusiastic readers amongst the staff who know and love their work and who will be happy to recommend new authors etc.
Libraries are an invaluable resource that will be undermined and closed if we don't use them.

(Gets off soapbox )

Yep, my DH has read all of them and says that you get to understand the characters and their motivations much more as the trilogy progresses, so I will stick with it.

YY to libraries!

OK, so is anyone going to spill on what exactly is the shopping centre book?!!! I need to know.

the dragon tattoo books were excellent

It is what was lost.

Tis great (and easy to read too).

I thought this extremely loud and incredibly close Jonathan Safran was amazing too.

Have just started Dragon tatoo and am not sure so far. Will stick to it as others on my bookswap loved it.

jamaisjedors - thank you. Have added it to my wish list.

Eldiepiddock - my dd loved How I Live Now - agree it is a very good story (I read it too - like to keep abreast of what she is reading though I draw the line at vampires!)

The Long Firm by Jake arnott is the best book I've read lately.

Wow, I've never talked to anyone else who's read What Was Lost - great book - and there was one moment that gave me one of the most viseral responses to a bok I've eve had

If you like weird shopping-centre-after-hours books... may I also recommend "Everything and more" - a dark comedy about the behind the scenes workings of a huge department store.

ooh i just wrote that down to get deepdark! Anyone remind me of this book - summer, scary boy who might have killed a child who is missing, turns out there's a twist? Involves caves, tweenage types, Summer, America (?) something like 'The Red Shoes' Leant it out never got it back.