What are you reading.

I have just started 'Paying Guests' by Sarah Waters set in 1920s London. She is a brilliant author and I have loved all her books.

I'm reading 'The Skeleton Cupboard' by Tanya Byron who's a clinical psychologist, and it's recalling cases from her first placements. It's a very powerful and poignant description of the relationships between client and her within a healthcare system sometimes struggling to meet the demand.
I was also dipping in and out of 'Still Alice' but my DD's borrowed it!

Has anyone read Isa & May by Margaret Forster? My friend lent it to me, and I've just finished it.
It's about a young woman and her relationships with her 2 very different grandmothers. Also she's doing a PhD about famous grandmothers eg Elizabeth Fry, Queen Victoria.
I don't know what to make of it, novels aren't my cup of tea at the moment, but it's interesting from the point of view of being a grandmother.
Margaret Forster is married to Hunter Davies

I started Lamentation whitewave, but left it awhile as I didn't get straight in. I must revisit it.

I have just finished That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx. It was a bit hard to get into, but once in I didn't want it to end. A book you want to live in.

I wonder if someone on here recommended it. Can't remember.

Just lately I`ve departed from my usual thriller menu, and have been reading books set in and around WW2, and thoroughly enjoying them. Can`t remember all the authors, but 2 that stick in my mind are Annie Murray and Ruth Hamilton. I`m now back with the thrillers, reading No Safe House, by Linwood Barclay, enjoying it so far.

Thoroughly enjoying at the moment Us by David Nicholls author of One Day which I also loved and saw the movie too.

Prior to this, read The Help-excellent too.

Have any of you read books by Hilary Boyd? Thought I would try one next.

Lamentation - latest Shardlake. I think I am a bit Shardlaked out really as I loved the first, and second and third etc but now find this OK but nothing to get too excited about.

Yes, just finished it. Probably not as absorbing as I expected, but did enjoy it very much.

Enjoyed that very much just started the follow up, "The Rosie Effect" so far just as good and amusing.

Enjoyed that very much just started the follow up, "The Rosie Effect" so far just as good and amusing.

Louise Penny novels............sorry it's taken so long absent and mollie65. absent PLEASE read HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN for some reassurance re Beauvoir and then THE LONG WAY HOME .....you'll really enjoy how things develop. How the Light gets in ties up the threads from the previous 9 books! Chateau Frontenac is a wonderful building and Quebec is just as she describes. The Long Way Home takes us a little further in the story and I've just been told that number 11 is nearly complete. So glad to find other Louise Penny readers.

I enjoyed Lynda Bellingham`s book, although tinged with sadness when I had to keep reminding myself that she`s no longer around. A good read though. I`m just about to start Deserve to Die, by Lisa Jackson.

I'm reading The Girl Next Door by Ruth Rendell, a Christmas present which I'm enjoying and have two more non fiction books by the side of my bed for dipping into and taking my time over, Victoria a life by A.N. Wlson and Selfish Whining Monkeys by Rod Liddle.

Margaret X I have also read The Unknown Bridesmaid by Margaret Foster along with many of her other books, I was sad to read recently that she is dying. Her latest book is a factual account of all the houses she has ever lived in, I don't know whether it will be her last, hope not, such a good writer.

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

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.

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`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!

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".

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.

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

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.

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.

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.