What are you reading at the moment

Crimson I enjoyed Birdsong but didn't enjoy the TV adaptation at all. I admit I only watched part of the second episode but found it bitty and the main character wishy washy and it was so tedious I turned it off. I've really gone off watching adaptions of books I've enjoyed - they never seem to match up to my imagination.

I just finished the Night Circus and also enjoyed it a great deal.

I have started a thread under chat called 1940's baby diet where I have mentioned that I am reading a book called Millions Like Us which is about women's lives from 1939-1949. It is a fascinating book, a mixture of history, biography and story telling and it is easy to read and very moving. Just thought that I would mention it here too.

I have sort of finished 'Ashes to Dust' by Yrsa Sigurdardottir. Fortunately it was a library book. I am sure that book publishers dictate the length of all novels to 400 pages whether they need it or not. Well this book did not need over 400 pages, it just went on and on, I did quite a bit of speed reading, and during a 100 pages the plot never moved on. So the author is now off my list of authors I will read again.
The other night there was a loud crash in my bedroom, which startled the old man and the dog!!! it was a pile of books next to my bed, all yet unread!!! So perhaps I should start on one of them, instead of keep ordering books from the library. There are also many books in one of my bookcases still to be read as well. I feel so guilty and this year I will not buy one single book, whether brand new or from a charity shop.

Having finished Next to Love, and thoroughly enjoyed it, I`m starting on something completely different, whether I`ll like it is another matter. It`s Agent 6, by Tom Rob Smith, a political type thriller, starting in Moscow in 1950, and going through the 60s in New York, finishing in the 80s in Afghanistan.

Susan Hill's new one - 'A Kind Man'. I really do like her books. Requested it from the library as well as The Beacon, which has also arrived for me. (I love my library!)

Just read Monsieur Montespan by Jean Teule [acute accent on last 'e']. Bit of an odd book about the supposed life of the husband of Louis XIV's mistress - well, one of the many. It's very readable - both melancholy and funny in places and quite evocative of 17th France - although the translation is a bit clunky in places.

Yes - at last, getting into my stride with 'The Lacuna'

I am reading Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. It is delightful, a tale of a slightly stuffy widower in a very English village who has a burgeoning friendship with Mrs Ali a Pakistani who runs the village shop. It is funny sensitive and beautifully observed, lovely.

I found Major Pettigrew's Last Stand a beautifully and sensitively written book but with quite unbelievable characters. I come from an army family and MP is the same age as me yet he seemed to have served in the army as it was in my father's time, 1940s - 1960s, not in the army that fought in the Falklands and 'peace kept' in Northern Ireland, which is when he would have served.

I also found the idea that Mrs Ali sold loose tea, mixed to taste in the village shop unconvincing. I live in an Oxfordshire village and while a number of our few village shops do have Asian owners, for loose tea you would probably need to go to Oxford, if not London.

I also found his son and the golf club ladies very one dimensional and at times their behaviour read like a Posy Simmonds cartoon strip.

One of those love it/hate it books

"Before I go to Sleep" by S.J. Watson is gripping and thought provoking. I really enjoyed it.

Has anyone read "Egalia's Daughters" by Gerd Brantenberg? Very clever - about a completely role reversed society. Just found my copy in the mammoth declutter, so had to stop, of course, then had to tell you all..

Just finished Kate Mosse, the winter ghosts. Riveting!

I've just finished The Last Kingdom, the first of Bernard Cornwell's King Alfred series. I read the King Arthur ones last summer and this is of the same standard, gory and gripping, full of authentic detail.

I`m still trying to get into Agent 6, on page 138 now, and it`s still not gripping me, it`s moving very slowly. Also can`t get used to spoken words being in italics, rather than inverted commas.

Whilst waiting for my new tyres today, I went in a few charity shops, and bought an old book about Hannah Hauxwell. I started looking at it and realised that, if I went away without buying it , it would bother me. I remember when she was first on television, when that extraordinary documentary about her was first shown. An amazing lady, the sort of person that makes one feel very humble. Especially when the weather is like it is now, and I'm sitting here with my central heating and running water, and don't have to venture forth to feed 'the beasts'.

National Library Day today - allowed to order 4 items in Libraries West free of charge so I ordered:-
Tread Softly -Wendy Perriam
The Grandmothers - Doris Lessing
A Kind Man )
Woman in Black ) Susan Hill
The first 2 authors I've enjoyed in the past.don't hear much of them currently.Susan Hill only recently discovered.Want to read Woman in Black before the film comes out.
P.S.I also volunteered to go on story-tellers list in Children's library!

Oh, I'd forgotten Wendy Perriam! Doris Lessing was almost compulsory reading at one time - but don't recognise that one.

Susan Hill was on the "A" Level list, wasn't she? "King of the Castle"? Or am I terminally confused?

Anyway - thank you, Maniac! x Off to Amazon.

I've just finished 'Next to Love' and have throughly enjoyed reading this book. If you've got a copy, put it at the top of your list - you'll be wanting more.

Maniac, I really enjoyed 'A Kind Man'. Just a short book but well written, as are all of Susan Hill's books. Going on to read The Beacon, now!

mrshat Let me know what you think when you've finished 'The Lacuna' Being a fan obf Barbara Kingsolver I bought this book for my daughter last Christmas.She recently returned it to me as she 'couldn't get into it'.
She's not a hoarder!
I haven't started it yet.

Reading and enjoying a book on my kindle called 'Her last scream' by J A Kerley. It was only 99p and its about a serial killer who targets vulnerable women who are part of a secret network of crisis centres who permanently relocate women in serious danger from domestic abuse.

Libradi, I read Her Last Scream a few weeks back, it IS good, isn`t it? A bit scary though.
Greenmossgiel, The Woman in Black is the only short story by Susan Hill that I`ve read, I must admit to much preferring the Serrailler (sp?) stories.
Agent 6 is still proceeding, a bit more happening now, but I don`t think I`ll be in a hurry to read any more books by Tom Rob Smith, they all look to be in a similar vein. Next on my pile is Call the Midwife, really looking forward to that one!

Yes it's really good numberplease I'm always a bit wary of buying the cheap books, silly really because it's just a way of enticing us to read more by the same author.

* numberplease* Could you, and the other readers of The Sense of an Ending, please help me. I am totally confused. On page 148 we are told that Mary (Veronica) is the young man's sister, then on page 149 Tony thinks of Adrian's son cramming his face into a shelf of quilted toilet tissue in order to avoid him! So who is he??? Mind you, I almost don't care. I found the whole book boring and did not care about any of the characters, but Iwould like the puzzle solved or it will niggle at me. I think I will try Inheritance by Nicolas Shakespeare next. That also seems to have a will and a legacy with unexpected repercussions, but sounds much more exciting and interesting.

Seventimes five just nipped over to Amazon and bought "Millions like us" sounds good! Thank you!