Although I like reading I rarely seem to make time for it and I’ll admit I don’t have much knowledge of current good books and authors. It’s almost time for my yearly week relaxing in the sun and it’s a holiday I always use to get through a couple of good books. Looking on amazon at popular books isn’t helping as it seems to be full of crap like “50shades”, books aimed at teenagers like “The Hunger games” or celebrity biographies. I just want something that’s well written and entertaining -not too heavy,depressing or political (its a holiday!)

I know it’s a really open ended question but I’m looking for a range of ideas I can look into further and see if I think they’ll be my kind of book.

So have you just read something great your yearning to tell the world about?

Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks.

If This Is A Man, Primo Levi

Read anything 🙂 I’ve really swapped all my stuff around

Charity shop a small book swap club.

Just read all the Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell – Good
Wolf of the Plains – Conn Iggleden – Good
The Book of God – still trying – hard going.
Thunder Run – Military Non Fiction
Killing Floor – Lee Childs – Good
History of Britain – Roy Strong
Year in Tibet – Very Good.

If you want entertaining, not too challenging stuff the following are great holiday reads:

Mitch Rapp series by Vince Flynn
Jack Reacher series by Lee Child
Myron Bolitar series by Harlen Coben
Alex Cross series by James Patterson
Harry Hole series by Jo Nesbo
Camel Club series by David Baldacci
King and Maxwell series by David Baldacci

For something British:
Tom Thorne series by Mark Billingham

All are action/spy/military/cop type thrillers. That little lot have kept me going for a while.

I’d suggest picking one of the series, google for a list of them in order and start at the beginning.

Look for Kathy Reichs Tempé Brennan books, Kate Griffin’s Matthew Swift books, Joe Abercrombe…
The collected works of those three should keep you quiet for a few hours. 😀

Kathy Reichs Tempé Brennan books,

Mini-review? Going to need a new series to get into when I finish the Mitch Rapp ones, this could be it.

Here’s a few I’ve loved recently.

The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon – brilliantly written and plotted thriller.

The True History of the Kelly Gang – Peter Carey – really excellent fictionalised first person account of notorious Aussie outlaws.

The Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman – Northern Lights, Subtle Knife, Amber Spyglass etc – not just for kids, inventive and intelligent page-turning fantasy/thriller.

Anything by PG Wodehouse!

Into Thin Air – true recount of the 1996 ascents of Mt Everest. I couldn’t put it down.

Stuey, Tempé is a forensic anthropologist working in North Carolina and Montréal, with a convoluted personal life, and a habit of finding herself with some very murky crime scenes to work on, and getting into all sorts of bother. Kathy Reichs is herself a forensic anthropologist working out of Charlotte, NC, and Montréal! She goes into real scientific detail on the crime scenes, calling on lots of professional expertise where her own falls short.
I’ve read all of her books so far, that’s fourteen, and I’m near the end of her latest, Bones Are Forever, which I bought Saturday.
Here’s Kathy’s bio from Wiki:

Kathleen Joan Toelle “Kathy” Reichs ( /?ra?ks/;[2] born 1950) is an American crime writer, forensic anthropologist and academic.[1] She is a professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, but is currently on indefinite leave.[3] She divides her work time between the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Quebec and her professorship at UNC Charlotte. She is one of the eighty-eight forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology[4] and is on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Her schedule also involves a number of speaking engagements around the world. Reichs has been a producer for the TV series Bones.[1] She has two daughters, Kerry and Courtney; and one son, Brendan.
Reichs earned her Bachelors of Arts degree with a major in anthropology from American University in 1971. In 1972, she completed her Master of Arts in physical anthropology from Northwestern University, and in 1975 she completed her Ph.D. in physical anthropology from Northwestern University. Since then, Reichs has taught at Northern Illinois University, University of Pittsburgh, Concordia University, McGill University and is currently Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In the past, Kathy Reichs has consulted for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina.[6]
Reichs has appeared in Tanzania to testify at the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.[7] She has assisted Dr. Clyde Snow and the Foundation for Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology in an exhumation in the area of Lake Atitlan in the highlands of southwest Guatemala. She was a member of the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team assigned to assist at the World Trade Center disaster.

The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon – seconded an awesome book.

Currently reading Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr which I’m enjoying.

EDIT: I’ve heard that 50 Shades of Grey is popular at the moment. 😉

If you’re even vaguely into Rugby Matt Hampson’s book is a really good read.
It Not About the Bike by Rob Penn is also pretty good if you a bike/kit geek.
Skag Boys (the prequel to Trainspotting) is not a bad read either if you don’t want anything to high brow.

Anything by PG Wodehouse!

Agreed!

Plum Island, The Lions Game & The Lion, all by Nelson Demille in the John Corey series. No big plots, nothing hard to understand just simple New York cop black humour stuff that makes you wonder.
Can’t wait for ‘The Panther’, due out in Oct, next in series.

i’ve just got around to reading Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. A good read and i’ll def go for some more of the same author. Don’t forget Dickens aswell – timeless.

Bravo two zero, gets better with every read…..

Ahaaaaaa…!

Thanks Countzero. Think I’ll give them a bash.

Don’t Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs: (She Thinks I’m a Piano Player in a Whorehouse) [Paperback] by Paul Carter, fab !

Ocean Boulevard – Adventures On The High Seas: An Epic and Exhilarating Journey All the Way… from a Boy to a Man
David Baboulene (Author)
Fantastic !

Thanks everyone, some of those sound spot on.

the most unusual and most interesting stuff I have read is John Irving – Prayer for Owen Meany, World According to Garp, Hotel New Hampshire – weirdly brilliant

Luis de Bernieres trilogy set in Latin America – The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts, Senor Vivo and the Coco Lord- brilliant, drug barons, mad generals, surrealism, second Spanish Inquisition

Joseph heller – Catch 22

Katrl Marlantes – Matterhorn – gobsmacking story of Vietnam war

Joseph heller – Catch 22

Just don’t read any of his other books. Utter tosh.

‘Something Happened’. Yep – you wrote a shit book Joseph.

+1 for The Dark Materials Trilogy
+1 for Catch 22

and Game of Thrones series by George RR Martin, great characters with no clear hero/good guy but evryone has their motivations.

Stieg Larsson

Christopher Brookmyre – all his heros are comically unlikable and his observations of life are very funny. Angelique de Xavier anyone?

Oh, and if you change your mind and want something heavy and depressing, try ‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy. I read it while lying in bed with pneumonia, and have never been so freaked out by a book…

+1 for The Road – stayed with me a long time, that one 😉

Currently reading American Gods/Neil Gaiman, based on a recommendation from another thread, which has drawn me in completely…