Tuesday 6 July 2010

The Book Club

Remember last week I was discussing my love of books? Well, I finished the Louis Drax book last night and it was fantastic, such a page turner. I'd definately recommend it to anyone.

I got to thinking about some of the books I'd enjoyed lately and remembered this post by my blog friend Kim at the beginning of the year. I loved that she did a list of her favourite books. Since then, I've read 2 off the list (one I'd already read) and really enjoyed them and have just ordered another one from Amazon.

Anyhoo, I thought it may be a good idea to do as Kim did and list some of my favourite books. I always find recommendations are so much better than reviews! So here's some that I can remember:

Behind The Scenes At The Museum by Kate Atkinson - full of wit and humour and a brilliant main character. I love Kate Atkinson stuff anyway but this has to be my favourite and I must read it again soon!

The Ship Of Brides by Jojo Moyes - I loved this book so much that I bought it for both my mum and mother-in-law for Christmas. A story about a ship crossing from Australia to England post war, containing women that had married English service men who had been stationed in Australia. I've read everything else Jojo Moyes has done since and her novels are fantastic, but this will always be my favourite.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - There are so many emotions you go through with this book but that is the appeal of it, you get so involved that it's a bit of a rollercoaster. It's the story of a Jewish girl in Nazi Germany and all the things a child had to go through at that time. A brilliant story but also a big eye opener about what the Jews went through.

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters - I think this was the book that made me love WW2 fiction. The story of what it was like to go through the bombing raids in London in WW2. Beautifully written with great characters.

We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver - A shocking and controversial book about a school shooting. If you have kids it will scare the cr*p out of you but is probably also a must read. A jaw dropping ending too.

Notes From An Exhibition by Patrick Gale - I so related to the character in this. An artistic woman that is struggling with all the emotions in life. I loved how Gale unravels the tale bit by bit to keep you guessing.

Random Acts Of Heroic Love by Danny Schienmann - Not some chick lit book like it may sound. It follows the stories of 2 men, one has just lost his girlfriend in a bus crash and is struggling to come to terms with it; the other is a soldier in WW2 (you see, that war obsession again!) who is thinking of his love back home and what he'd do to see her again. The story is amazing, then you read the author's notes at the end and you realise just how extraordinary it is.

Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes - I read this for my English GCSE and it's been one of my all time favourites ever since. It tells the story of a scientific experiment performed on a retarded man to make him intelligent. What I love is it's told by the man himself and is written how you'd expect him to write so can be quite challenging at first (think about trying to read a young kids work with all that phonetic spelling!), but as the experiment takes place the writing becomes better and finally quite academic. Brilliantly written!

And for a bit of fun:

The Dirt by Neil Strauss - The official biography of Motley Crue, brilliant if you're a fan but such a good read to non-fans who ever wondered whether all those rock star stories were true. Shocking and not for the easily offended but I've reread it a few times, just to check I wasn't seeing things first time round!

Mort by Terry Prachett - Reread this recently and still loved it! The character of Death has to be one of the best and funniest characters ever written!

Right, that's it for now (until I suddenly remember more!). Let me know if you've read anything you think I'll enjoy, always on the look out for a new read! Oh and thanks Kim for the blog inspiration on this one!

3 comments:

. said...

Ooooooo - shiny new Garlics! My brain objected for a moment there. It was a bit confused as to where it was ;)

Flowers for Algernon is a great book. I read if for GCSE too and it made me cry :(

I might have to check out some of those - the random selection from the library are not proving very successful *SIGH*

Unknown said...

I'm reading 'The Book Thief' at the moment... quite enjoying it :)
It's PDF format if you'd like me to send it to you?

I have a huge list of to be read... and seeing everyone's recommendations is making it even longer... LOL

Love the look of the blog :)

Erika x

kim said...

Glad I could inspire you :) And now I get to see all the new recommendations! I love seeing other people's reading lists so I can get new ideas.