What are you reading.

Have just read Sleep With Me by Joanna Briscoe. I would be interested in what others thought of this

Hi I have just finished Sleep with me by Joanna Briscoe and would like to ask what others thought of this book

Sorry clicked twice

Just reading through a couple of previous posts, Greyduster I absolutely loved Margaret Attwood's The Blind Assassin, I have read three of her books, Alias Grace and Cat's Eye being the other two, both excellent but the one you are stuck on will always be my favourite. However, I'm also a great believer in, if it doesn't grab you maybe it never will. There are a couple of books I wished I'd never wasted my time on, particularly when they are very long.

Hildagard I read that book a while back, I did find it a page turner, but quite strange if I remember rightly.

I'm reading Victoria a Life by A N Wilson, which my son bought me for my birthday a couple of weeks ago, he knows I like reading about the 19th century. I'm enjoying it and there are lots of great photographs of her perpetually miserable face like that, but worse!

Louise Penny's series of Canadian novels with Chief Inspector Gamache as the hero. This is a series of 10 so far, set in Quebec, mostly in a small village south of Montreal near the American border. Each contains a murder, but the interplay between the characters and the developing story of their lives is what makes the compulsive reading! I started the first book on December 1st and started book 9 this morning! There are lots of "read out loud and share" moments (as DH will verify!) Do try them, but start with the first "STILL LIFE" and then work through them. They are the sort that really need to be read chronologically. Highly recommended

I`ve just finished Etta and Otto and Russell and James, the GN January giveaway. I enjoyed it, but also found it slightly confusing towards the end. Am just about to start on The Seven Streets of Liverpool, by Maureen Lee, set in Liverpool during WW2.

I am reading Resist by Sarah Crossan. This is the second book of two the first titled Breathe. I'm not sure if it's aimed at young adults or not. It's about a post world disaster when people live in a Pod with piped oxygen and for some reason anything green is killed to make the population reliant on the administration.
Both books are about the resistance communities both as bad and ruthless as the official administration.
A small group of good people are trying to put things right. The first book was better than the second but an interesting read. Both books are books from the library.

I am halfway through 'The Goldfinch' by Donna Tartt. I am really enjoying it, it is a good story which moves along at the right pace and engages the emotions. Without giving a spoiler I would just advise everyone to think hard before they travel from Las Vegas to New York by Greyhound bus in one trip, (especially if you are travelling with an illegal dog).

eGJ - so agree about Louise Penny and Inspector Armand Gamache.
Are there really 10 in the series - I must have read them all but not chronologically - I found the new one 'how the light gets in' as I said upthread one of her best.
am also now reading the latest Elly Griffiths book - 'the outcast dead' which is also very good.
I just wish Phil Rickman would write another merrily watkins novel

The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff, about a polygamous Mormon sect, really interesting, I am only one third in so far but keep wanting to read more

If you have a kindle the 99p books on Amazon to-day are a great read if you like Scandanavian fiction . Sadly I have read all of the m already www.amazon.co.uk/gp/browse.html/ref=pe_151291_60175001_pe_button/?node=5400977031.

Has anyone read The Minaturist by Jessie Burton? It's won a number of book awards but that doesn't mean I would enjoy it. Help needed please.

Really enjoyed The Seven Streets of Liverpool, it`s a sort of feel good story. I`ve just started a book I bought from a charity shop a while ago, Coming Home, by Rosamunde Pilcher. I`ve never read anything of hers before, my only problem with this one is that, despite being a paperback, it`s very large and heavy, like holding a house brick, makes my hand ache when reading, so can`t read it for long periods at a time.

I have just finished Us by David Nicholls, who wrote Starter for Ten and One Day. It's about an older couple and their teenage son and trying to shore up their relationship by going on a tour of Europe. I really enjoyed it but can't help wondering if it was written in order to be turned into a film.

I have just finished a Louise Penny novel – the one set in a monastery and haunted by neumes and Gregorian chants. I am worried to death about Beauvoir who is going the wrong way with the wrong man at the end. I think Chief Inspector Gamache and the lovely Reine-Marie are inspiring characters and the word-pictures of Québec are riveting. I want to stay at the Château Frontenac.

The Louise Penny novels sound great!

I'm reading "The Girl With the Crooked Nose" by Ted Botha. It is the (non-fiction) story of the self-taught founder of forensic art in the US, Frank Bender, and the many cases that were solved by his sensitive and caring portrayals in sculpture of missing people, from their skulls and other clues found with their skeletons.

It sounds awfully depressing but it isn't (well, I am fascinated). I've always been interested in anatomy, and this story is as much about the technical development of that area of forensics as anything else. It is because of people like Frank Bender that e.g. the bust of Richard III could be made when that skeleton was found.

Apart from anything else, Frank Bender is a fabulously interesting character.

I was sad to discover via Google (I often do that look up further info) that he died in 2011 from the lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. He was still working on his final bust 2 weeks before he died.

Just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed "Hello from The Gillespies" - I was lucky enough to receive a free copy. I finished it this morning and loved it. It also made a change to read a 'real' book rather than from my kindle, and therefore nice to pass on to my friend.

Sounds interesting GK I've made a note of that.

susied I started reading that but didn't get very far. I got the feeling that he had written his "one book" (that is said we all have in us) already - One Day.

anya I hope you enjoy it, I found it most interesting - and him as a person. I also read up more about the Vidocq Society.

One of my Secret Santa list choices was "Us" - which I was pleased to receive. I've only just started it. "Starter for 10" made me laugh out loud and I really enjoyed "One Day" (though I anticipated the denouement which was reminiscent of an episode of "Cold Feet") so hope "Us" isn't a disappointment.

This was the best year for me for presents. This time when the Secret Santa allocations were made, we were also able to specify some of the gifts that we would really like. I'm so excited to have received Kate Bush's "The Sensual World" CD and David Kynaston's very readable and nostalgic sociological study "Family Britain - 1951-57".

I`m still ploughing through my enormous tome, Coming Home, I`m enjoying it immensely, but the weight of it is a burden on my poor hands and arms!

I`m still ploughing through my enormous tome, Coming Home, I`m enjoying it immensely, but the weight of it is a burden on my poor hands and arms!

I`ve now finished Coming Home, and, apart from the weight of it, can highly recommend it as a stomping good read.
My next book is going to be Lynda Bellingham`s There`s Something I`ve Been Dying to Tell You, which was a Christmas present from my daughter.

I've just finished 'the Unknown Bridesmaid' by Margaret Forster. I have read almost everything she has written and this book didn't let me down.
Its a mother and daughter thing and the mothers in her novels are often less than perfect. Like we we were I suppose.
I bought the paper version as I read her books more than once. On Kindle I'm reading 'The Cathedral by Hugh Walpole. It was a Kindle free-bee I read about on this post. Old fashioned but very enjoyable.

"The Santa Klaus Murder" by Mavis Doriel Hay published in 1935, so nostalgic.