Current reading matter

[huntertitus]

Yes but doesn't know for how long. Publishers advances have dropped dramatically so things may have to change, which is partly why he needs new readers to buy plenty of books!

[blondie95]

whilst on holiday i got through 3 books!!!
Jodi Picoult, My sisters keeper: very good book, really makes you think about you stance on matters and how actually when caught up in something whats ethcical 'right' may not always be the obvious thing. Whats interesting is that is has been made into a film, so look forward to that.

Bernad Schlink? The Reader: absolutly fnatastic, so easy to read but so engrossing, really raises some very interesting questions about later generations relationship with WWII and the Holocaust in particular. Desperate to now see film and from reading the part Kate Winslet plays in the film can totally understand why she got the Oscar. It also really keeps twsiting

Tove Jansson, The Summer Book: very very easy to read, you actually think you are there with the girl and her grandmother! Lots of little stories

[mvgrogan]

Tove Jansson, The Summer Book: very very easy to read, you actually think you are there with the girl and her grandmother! Lots of little stories

I tried to read this & just couldn't get into it... it's set on the archipelago very close to where I live and so I thought it might be a good insight but, as I said, it didn't grip me. Might try the Winter Book sometime. Also trying to read "Fair Play" by Tove Jansson which is supposed to be loosely based on her own life, again on the archipelago. It's easier than the summer book but not gripping me.

I am enjoying Amy Tan's "The Kitchen God's Wife", at the moment, though. I read the "Bonesetter's Daughter" when I was travelling a few years back and decided to try The Joy Luck Club - not as good. Enjoyed "Saving Fish from Drowning" so Amy Tan is a definite favourite.

Also dipping into the Baby Whisperer and the Baby Whisperer for Toddlers!! But that's a whole other thing!

[blondie95]

Tove Jansson, The Summer Book: very very easy to read, you actually think you are there with the girl and her grandmother! Lots of little stories

I tried to read this & just couldn't get into it... it's set on the archipelago very close to where I live and so I thought it might be a good insight but, as I said, it didn't grip me. Might try the Winter Book sometime. Also trying to read "Fair Play" by Tove Jansson which is supposed to be loosely based on her own life, again on the archipelago. It's easier than the summer book but not gripping me.

I really struggled with it, it was very much like some of the things i read on my modernism module of my english degree! Just didnt caputre me, i think i may be a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to books! an obvius beginning, middle, end and an capturing story

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

Huntertitus wrote ------ "Quite rude for the time" --- The War years -- or when the book was written ?
If the latter --- i suspect it was long after "Lady Chattersley's Lover -- published in Penquin in about the 60s --
I had to send a brown paper covered copy to my Father, -- in South Africa, where it was BANNED and could have been BURNED by the Gereformed Kirche --- The Dutch Reformed Church !

[huntertitus]

The diary as I said was written during WW11 and that was the time I meant

The diaries were published in the 80's after much persuasion from her family

[kerrensimmonds]

At the moment, I'm reading 'Remember Me' by Melvyn Bragg. Said to be a Novel, but I am sure it is quasi (if not totally) autobiographical. A very moving (and exceedingly well written) opus. I can recommend it.

[Katharine]

While on holiday I read the most inspiring book. It is called Three Cups of Tea, subtitled One man's mission to promote peace one school at a time. It is by Greg Mortenson and Daniel Oliver Relin. Greg was a mountaineer and having got lost returning from an unsuccessful attempt on K2, recovered in a Baltistan village in the far north of Pakistan. As a result of this, he decided to help them, firstly by building them a school, particularly for girls. The book takes him from a naive adventurer, with no idea how to raise money, to an accomplished leader of a charity dedicated to helping in Central Asia.

I was so impressed with this book that I read it three times - firstly straight through to learn the story. Then I read it again, reading each chapter twice to ensure I had the details, many of which I had missed the first time through.

Of course this was a subject that I was interested in, we served in Pakistan more than 30 years ago so I could imagine him in Rawalpindi and Islamabad and other places, though we never got as far north as his work. I have been involved in raising money for UNICEF's Global Education for Girls Fund, this will give me far more details to use if I am speaking about that again.

If you get the chance, do read it!

[J.R.]

"Prisoner of the Reich."

Recollections of various P.O.W's, (both Officers, N.C.O's and enlisted men), from capture, internment, liberation and return home.

There are some very surprising relvelations regarding the Russians which didn't come to light until the 1970's.

[midget]

I've just started reading "Tea Time for the Traditionly Built" (Alexander McCall Smith) Perfect summer "me time" reading.

[kerrensimmonds]

Won't take you long Maggie, but you will enjoy it!
I still can't recommend highly enough Melvyn Bragg's 'novel' (though it is clearly autobiographical) entitled 'Remember Me'. Beautifully written and breathtakingly honest.

[blondie95]

just finished God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. which won the booker prize and according to reviews on Amazon a fantastic, consuming read. It was very good once I got into it, the way it flits between past/present, story and information took some gettin used to but it was a good read-made you realise how precious things can be. The detail and description was very good.
Im now polishing of my biography of Vita Sackville-West, and then IM thinking I made move onto the pile of books I found from Uni days that I never quite finished/or strated because I knew i wasnt going to have to write and essay on them

[J.R.]

'The Fist Of God.'

Frederick Forsyth.

I can hardly put it down.

[Fjgrogan]

My latest obsession is the books of Phil Rickman, sort of crime but with a twist, in that the principal character is a woman priest who has also become Diocesan Deliverance Officer (ie exorcist) in Herefordshire; she has a teenage daughter who is semi-pagan, and a not-quite-live-in boyfriend. So far I have read four of them, three in the last two weeks, and I shall be off to the local library soon to get more. In between, I am re-reading 'The Shack' which would probably merit a thread on its own, because of all the hype surrounding it!

[Fjgrogan]

I suspect I may be allowing myself to be overly influenced by the content of various different threads of this forum. Yesterday I went to the library and came back with (either on loan or bought for 10p each) the following:
another Phil Rickman, along with Principles of Paganism and A Beginner's Guide to Witchcraft'
Know the Truth - a Memoir by George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury
Titus Groan - the first book of the Gormenghast Trilogy (languishing in reserve stock for some reason!)
Good Housekeeping's Great Recipes for your Bread Machine
Thomas Cook's Travellers in Finland

So what am I actually reading now? None of the above - Half To Remember by DR West!!