What are you reading at the moment

I came across it when I was still in primary school!!
At my grandmother's house ...my youngest uncle still lived at home ...it was a paper back version, hidden in a melbray fruits box wrapper I was expecting a sweetie cashe!

During the Lady Chatterley trial, my granny and her friend wondered what all the fuss was about, so they both read it and then ceremoniously tore it up and burnt it. So that was their opinion.

Ariadne, I could imagine her voice as she said it! It would have been like my Grandma's, with a nudge in the ribs to follow! I bet he must've been looked on as mucky, considering Lady Chatterley etc!

green

My grandmother was brought up in Eastwood, near to the Lawrences. She left school at 12 to go and work in the lace factories in Nottingham, and her father was a miner, so "Sons and Lovers" has many resonances for me.

When I started on my Eng. Lit. career, I asked Nan what D.H. Lawrence was like - excited to have a link to an author. "Eeeh,"she said "he were a mucky old b*****"!

So there you are.

I'll look out for 'Millions Like Us', Ariadne.
Just now I'm reading 'Sons and Lovers' (DH Lawrence). Although it's set in the early part of the 20th century, it's so easy to recognise the areas where the mining began and which I knew of as a child and now that have all gone - in the last 20 years! The story of the love the mother felt for her sons and daughter and the abuse that she had to endure from her drunken husband could have been written today. I wish I hadn't taken so long to get round to reading it!

Just finished "Millions Like Us" which seventimesfive recommended - thank you so much! I'd read "Housewife:49" by Nella Last, which containers her diaries kept during the last war for the Mass Observation project. This book ("Millions Like Us") tells the stories of many of the women who took part in the diary keeping, with a running historical commentary, and it is eminently readable.

How many times do we hear "I just got on with it." from women doing just that? These women's lives were so hard; my mother did tell me but only now, really do I appreciate how she felt when she was sent to a munitions factory, from the tailors where she worked.

Am presently in the middle of The Nosferatu Scroll, by James Becker, a modern story which delves into the past and vampire legends and beliefs, set in Venice. Very good so far.

I have just finished 'The Sisters Brothers' by Patrick DeWitt.Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2011. It is 1851 set in America during the gold rush. Two brothers, the notorious Sisters are following the trail of a prospector. They have to kill him. On route they cross paths with a remarkable cast of characters. It is very funny, and a great read. I truly enjoyed it.

I really enjoyed "Gillespie and I" and loved the authenticity of Glasgow and the Glasgow boys.
I am so garteful to whoever it was who recommended Peter May's The Blackhouse - I loved it! It was also only a 99p download so great value, but I was hooked and couldn't wait to download the second book in the trilogy - and that was £7, but hey the average is under £4 each! if anything it is even better!!

I abandoned Sarah Waters' Little Stranger yesterday (far far far too long. Could be edited down to a passable short story) Started Sebastian Faulks' Engleby instead and have nearly finished it (very good indeed)

I'm in the throes of Even the Dogs by Jon Mcgregor. It's not normally the sort of book I'd read but I got it from the TV Book Club and glad I did. It's a story of a group of drug addicts and what happens to each of them told from their viewpoint. They are watching the autopsy of one their own and remembering their own lives. What sticks in my mind is when one of them attends a rehab group but says only what he thinks the leader wants him to say - and gets away with it so doesn't improve at all. I could go on about it because I've only read non fiction on the subject and never a novel totally involved with the subject of both drug and alcohol abuse. It is taut, short and not overdone which makes it powerful - and many sentences just don't finish as if the thoughts go from one thing to another. Has anyone else read it?

It is in complete contrast to a thick book called Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna which I thought a really sad book about unrequited love in a town in India during the Raj. Nothing seems to work out as it should. I suppose this is more realistic but oh dear, I found myself thinking that surely something will go right at some point.

Has anyone read Gillespie and I? Just finished it and enjoyed but am left intrigued/ confused

I read 'The Reader' last year and was spellbound by it. A really compelling book.

I have discovered Giselle Green, and am really enjoying her books. I only bought the first one, from Amazon, because it was a bargain, but found it interesting and thoughtful. Not great literature, but a good story. They all seem to be good, and all quite cheap! We LIKE that.

Following the film "The Reader" being televised I bought the book - I wonder whether Gransnet would consider the book for the bookclub or would it be too controversial? My husband and I have had so many discussions following reading this book - it evokes so many emotions and questions of this time.

Ariadne: It is 'Howard's End on the Landing" by Susan Hill and I agree it is an amazing book. She kind of has an audit of all the books she has all over her house - read and unread. It has led me to all sorts of other authors I knew nothing about. She sets out to buy no new books for a year and just read the books she already owns. It is something I should do myself!!

grannycool I've just read the JoJo Moynes and I agree, it's more than you'd guess from the cover. I really enjoyed it. And, eGJ, I've immediately ordered the new Elizabeth George, so thank you! I have all her books; she is such an emotionally intelligent crime writer, isn't she? I hated the TV series - not at all how I wanted to see them.

Blood Games was OK, but not, I thought, quite up to Faye Kellerman`s usual standard. Am now reading The Bone Yard, another from the Body Farm series by Jefferson Bass, it promises to be good.

'The Secret Life of Bees' is one of my favourite books Hattie. Hope you enjoyed it.
I've just finished reading Jojo Moynes 'Me before you'. It was a great story, with good characters who made me laugh and cry.
Don't be put off by the cover, it's not chick-lit, and so much more than a romance. I think the pinkish, girly cover doesn't do it justice.
My opinion anyway!
grannycool

I thought "Howard's End" was E.M. Forster? Probably misunderstood...

I'm with you on that "flowerfriend"; I've put a lot of classics on my kindle for free and relax in the comfort of old friends!

Edith Wharton - the House of Mirth - a classic. I read anything. After a phase of consuming lots of crime fiction or chic. lit. I like to get back to the classics.

I'm reading the new Susan George Inspector Lynley - Believinmg the Lie; got it from the library yesterday afternoon and fell asleep reading it! Got up early to continue with it. Back in the old style (after that odd pre-quel The Body of Death) and is keeping me away from Gransnetting, housework and research so it MUST be good! Elizabeth George always gets the atmosphere and landscape of an area right - this time the Lake District. [and Lynley doesn't look like he does on television!]

The Susan Hill book Hattie64 mentions is Howards End is on the Landing. A real gem.
I have just read When by Julie Myerson(Book Club choice) Be warned-DON'T! Its the most miserable, depressing scary book I've ever read. One of our members said it has traumatised her for life! Unfortunately its well written and very vivid.

I`m now reading Blood Games, by Faye Kellerman, wife of Jonathan Kellerman, another favourite author of mine. A teenage boy commits suicide, his mother asks the police to look into it, then another teenager at the same school, a girl, also shoots herself.