Gransnet forums

Books/book club

What are you reading.

(190 Posts)
Humbertbear Tue 31-Dec-13 12:31:43

I am reading Divergent by Veronica Roth. It's Part 1 of a trilogy and the film is out in April, can't wait! It's set in Chicago in a distopian future when 16 year olds have to select which tribe they belong to. The tribes live separately and have different roles in society. I don't want to give too much away but suffice it to say that it is lunchtime and I am still in bed reading it! I keep promising myself just one more chapter .....
It was a Kindle Daily Deal this week and both my daughter and I were hooked from page 1 of the sample.
.

rosesarered Sat 05-Apr-14 20:59:02

Does Merrily move to Norfolk? The ones I have read are set in the border country between England and Wales [Monmouthshire?]

numberplease Sat 05-Apr-14 22:15:37

Many years ago, well over 30 years anyway, I borrowed quite a lot of books from the library featuring a detective called Lt. Luis Mendoza, of the LAPD, but can`t remember the author, and would love to read them again, can anybody help me out please?

Bez Sat 05-Apr-14 22:31:58

Number Dell Shannon - if you google Lt Luis Mendoza you can find the list of books and the order they were written.

annodomini Mon 07-Apr-14 11:54:43

Roses, apologies. I've got the wrong series in the wrong county. The last Merrily book I read was in Herefordshire. blush The North Norfolk setting is in books by Elly Griffiths. Worth reading too.

janerowena Mon 07-Apr-14 14:31:00

I just finished the Book Thief, and loved it. I know it was intended for school age children, but what a lovely book, and original way of telling the story.

numberplease Mon 07-Apr-14 17:12:52

Bez, thank you, I knew it was someone with the same name as a 60s pop singer, but couldn`t remember who.

rosesarered Mon 07-Apr-14 21:04:04

thanks anno I will look out for the Norfolk series now.

GrandmaH Mon 21-Apr-14 18:53:13

In between reading Life After Life twice I read the One Plus One- Jojo Moyes- not a patch on Me Before You but a good read.
I think I need something a bit meatier now though so onto next in Shardlake series by C J Samson.

J52 Mon 21-Apr-14 19:30:50

Reading Barbara Erskine Daughters of fire. Probably read by others as it was published some time ago. Quite like her books, but need a gap in between them. X

rosesarered Mon 21-Apr-14 19:57:33

Just started a book called London Falling [forget the author though and can't remember which room I left my Kindle in to check.Old age.] It seems to be a mix of modern crime with some supernatural in it as well, not something I would normally expect to be mixed, but only a chapter in so far, and the writing style is quite good.

numberplease Mon 21-Apr-14 22:51:58

I`ve just finished With All My Love, by Patricia Scanlan. Although she`s written lots of books, she`s new to me, and I really enjoyed the book, it does what it says on the cover, in that it`s a very heartwarming story. I`ve now gone back to my usual genre, thrillers, and I`m reading Gone for Good, by Harlan Coben. I like his Myron Bolitar books, but I much prefer the stand alone books, like this one.

HollyDaze Tue 22-Apr-14 07:49:37

The Killer of Pilgrims by Susannah Gregory. The story is set in Cambridge during the winter of 1358 with the usual rivalry between town and gown. A wealthy benefactor is found dead in the grounds of Michaelhouse College - Brother Michael, the Senior Proctor, and Matthew Bartholomew, a physician and lecturer at Michaelhouse, set out to find the killer. Then a yellow-haired thief strikes at the citizen and a feud begins between the colleges and hostels with pranks that start to get out of hand. Add to the mix a game of camp-ball between the townsfolk and colleges and things begin to get worse for our two intrepid investigators.

I like the fact that Ms Gregory uses true historical figures as the characters of her plots and tries to keep them in the roles they occupied during their time at the Colleges in Cambridge. The plots for her books also often centre on actual events that occurred during that time.

liminetta Tue 22-Apr-14 08:55:58

Last read "Fall of Giants" by Ken Follet. Approx 800 pages.about the first world war with much political history.Now I,me reading "Winter of the World"; same author. In this he has moved the first books character,s children on to the second world war.Extremely well written.Am enjoying it.

peaches41 Mon 28-Apr-14 16:56:54

Just finished The Cathedral by Hugh Walpole. I know it's an old book, but I did enjoy it. Some of these freebies on kindle are really good!

sparkygran Wed 30-Apr-14 18:23:04

I absolutely love Peter Robinson

annodomini Wed 30-Apr-14 18:36:34

Just finished 'Campari for Breakfast' by new writer, Sara Crowe. Both funny and touching by turns, it's narrated by a young, naive girl in the 1980s whose spelling and vocabulary are a bit dodgy, and whose mother has recently killed herself leaving Sue to live with an aunt in a big old country house. At first it looks like chick lit, but it's more than that. The accounts of the writing group formed by the residents of the house are hilarious.

numberplease Wed 30-Apr-14 21:17:38

I`m presently reading Valley of the Shadows, by Carola Dunn. It`s the third, and latest, in a series of gentle murder stories set in a tiny, pretty village on the North Cornwall coast, featuring a little old lady who keeps getting mixed up in murder most foul, a sort of cross between Miss Marple and Murder She Wrote, but very enjoyable. The first two books were Manna from Hades, and A Colourful Death.

Grannyknot Wed 06-Aug-14 17:39:41

I am currently completely immersed in "Under the Wide and Starry Sky" by Nancy Horan. It is the fictionalised account of the love story of Robert Louis Stevenson and his "tempestuous American wife, Fanny". She was ten years younger than him. I haven't even got as far as the part where they meet yet, she has only just managed to escape her philandering husband with the excuse of taking her three children to Europe so that she (and they) could study art.

When we went to Monterey in California some years ago we went to the house they lived in there. I've long been fascinated by him - abandoning the family tradition of becoming a lighthouse engineer, to pursue his art and indulge his wanderlust.

And I'm so thrilled to be reading a nice hefty hardcover again, with proper pages, instead of peering at a screen! And it means I can re-read his beautiful Requiem on the back cover as often as I like, simply by closing the book:

Under the wide and starry sky
Dig my grave and let me die
Glad did I live and gladly die
And laid me down with a will.

And this be the verse that you 'grave for me
Here he lies where he longed to be
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

smile

jinglbellsfrocks Wed 06-Aug-14 18:58:13

So beautiful. Thank you Grannyknot. smile

Thistledoo Wed 06-Aug-14 19:40:18

Just finished reading The Innocent Man by John Grisham. Its the only work of non fiction that this author has written. Well worth reading. It will leave you thinking very hard about the American Judiciary system.
Would be interested to hear from anyone who has read this book,

Grannyknot Wed 06-Aug-14 20:01:15

thistle I've just finished reading a book about the US criminal justice system, called Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. It is a deeply moving - and unsettling read to say the least.

www.randomhouse.com/book/224792/just-mercy-by-bryan-stevenson

I noticed that John Grisham commented on it in the review above. It's not even out yet, I seem to have got on to a publisher's advance list somehow and from time to time I am sent books for my Kindle (for free).

Bobbysgirl19 Mon 13-Oct-14 12:37:54

Reading The Island by Victoria Hislop, and can't put it down! A must read and having been to Crete I feel a special connection to a lot of the places mentioned in the book.

Anya Mon 13-Oct-14 13:31:08

I loved that book too Bobby

jinglbellsfrocks Mon 13-Oct-14 14:42:11

I have just finished The Deaths by Mark Lawson (GN book club book a few months back - I got it in kindle). Really enjoyed it. Best read for a long time.

Tizliz Mon 13-Oct-14 15:20:27

I am reading Diana Gabaldon series The Outlander. Though I find there is too much sex and introspection. Sometimes it feels a bit like the old TV show Soap where if anything could happen it would! On the other hand it is set in dangerous times and there is lots of excitement.