The Bookworm’s Thread 2018

pollypenny

Neville Shute was a brilliant author. Read his 'A Town like Alice', heartbreaking, but with the positive twist which is not in the film.

Our book group read Shadow of the Wind simebyears ago. I was disappointed by it.

Enjoying David Jason's Only Fools and Other Stories now.

Charly27

I read this last year. Picked it up in a CS in N. Wales and read it whilst nursing my Dad. I was surprised to find what an engaging book it was. Glad you enjoyed it too.

sugarbaby125 wrote: »

I just finished reading The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and it was a completely enthralling read for me.:j:D:T

This book had me hooked from the 1st few lines of page 1 and kept me wanting to know more even after I had come to the last word of the last page. It is jam packed with unforgettable, believable characters, mystery, love stories and supsense.

This book was a very well deserved 10/10 for me

Charly27

Callie22 thanks for suggesting I continue with the Cazalet Chronicles. I read ‘Marking Time’ in March and now reading ‘Confusion’. So far in April I read Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey and next term’s class reader How to Train your Dragon by Cressida Cowell.[B
Not sure initially about the children’s book, found myself getting irritated by the constant capitalisation and alliterative character names but then got over myself! :rotfl:
The Iona Grey book I loved and would recommend that if you enjoy romantic fiction. Thought the descriptions of life in a London during WW2 taught me a lot about the constant threat and privations suffered by people in the previous two generations.

Wednesday2000

Wednesday2000 wrote: »

I'm reading The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Not exactly light-hearted reading but interesting.

I haven't even finished this book yet. I haven't read anything else since. I got through stages where I don't read very much at all.

I'm going to read the new Monevator blog post and then try and read some more of the book in the garden as it seems like milder weather.

Serendipitious

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.
Enter Mia Warren, an enigmatic artist and single mother, who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the alluring mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

I loved this and became thoroughly absorbed by it within the first few pages. Excellent. 10/10

pollypenny

Reading The Tidal Zone, by Sarah Moss. Every parents' nightmare - seriously ill child.

Callie22

pollypenny wrote: »

Reading The Tidal Zone, by Sarah Moss. Every parents' nightmare - seriously ill child.

I've read quite a few of Sarah Moss' books, and I've really enjoyed them all. I particularly liked Bodies of Light and Signs for Lost Children - it's hard to describe what they're about but they're a pair of books set at the end of the nineteenth century that broadly cover the life of a young girl who ends up training to be a doctor. That's an awful way of describing them though, as they cover everything from Pre-Raphaelitism to Japanese lighthouses, with asylums in betweem! I'd definitely recommend them. Cold Earth was good too, although it's an entirely different kind of book set in the modern day.

pollypenny

I enjoyed Bodies of Light. Not sure about The Tidal Zone, as I am finding the narrator to be so pretentious! Scorns most things, makes own hummus but could not manage without baby wipes!

The interwoven account of the building if Coventry Cathedral is interesting.

Serendipitious

Damian Baxter is hugely wealthy and dying. He lives alone in a big house in Surrey, England, looked after by a chauffeur, butler, cook and housemaid. He has but one concern—his fortune in excess of 500 million pounds, and who should inherit it on his death. Past Imperfect is the story of a quest. Damian Baxter wishes to know if he has a living heir.

Nice chunky read. I liked this story of a friend tasked with finding out whether any of Damian's former girlfriends actually had a child by him.

timehastoldme

The furies was a daft read incorporating giant wasps, earthquakes and maybe alien interference, but I liked it. Something daft was needed after On The Beach which is still haunting me. Might look for more Shute in the charity shops later. Then Greybeard: Brian Aldiss, which was another post radiation world, no one having babies and after societal decline and cholera wiping lots of people out, everyone seems to have dropped into a mediaeval sort of madness with fears of stoats, goblins and the Scottish for some reason. Was a bit disjointed and wasn't sure I could always see the point. Didn't hate it, but wouldn't read again I think.

Next, Murakami: Sputnik Sweetheart for a change of pace and scene.