A book you really enjoyed over the last two years.

The Book of Lost Names
I'm about a third of the way through that lsummer 🙂

What didn’t your group like about Lessons in Chemistry, sparklefizz?

Oh dear. My book group didn't like Lessons in Chemistry or The Salt Path. We found The Salt Path very irritating with what seemed stupid decisions the couple took.

Good thing we all have different tastes.

Lessons in Chemistry is a great read

1summer

I have just downloaded 4 books on my Kindle for my holiday. They were recommended by a friend who runs a book club and said these were really liked.
The Salt Path
Lessons in Chemistry
The Book of Lost Names
The Vanishing of Margaret Small

I read the last 3, all were excellent especially Lessons in Chemistry would really recommend.

Haven’t read The Salt Path yet.

Nana3 my mum was a Greek Cypriot so the book resonated with me. The superstitions and customs are spot on, they’re the same whether you are Greek or Turkish.

The Island of Missing Trees.
Elif Shafak.
The island is Cyprus. A wonderful love story and so much more, don't want to give anything else away.

Liamjaik

I recently read Alice Walker's "The Color Purple" and adored it! The people and their hardships captivated me, and the story stayed with me long after I completed the book. The writing was lovely and vivid, and I would recommend it to anyone searching for a book that is emotionally compelling.

Now a wonderful film, and you are so right about the book.

I loved "Exile" by Jane Harper, and "The Paper Palace" by Miranda Cowley Heller.

Hungry by Grace Dent
The Silence of the Girls Pat Barker.

Dempie55. Thank you for recommending ‘A Terrible Kindness’. I have just finished reading it; such a beautiful book.

Whitewavemark2

“All the Light We Cannot See”

Anthony Doerr

Beautifully written, a book that will capture and enthral

One of my favourite books. Also another vote for Where the Crawdads Sing

Reading Hagseed by Margaret Attwood, which I am really enjoying

I recently read Alice Walker's "The Color Purple" and adored it! The people and their hardships captivated me, and the story stayed with me long after I completed the book. The writing was lovely and vivid, and I would recommend it to anyone searching for a book that is emotionally compelling.

“Hungry” by Grace Dent the well known food critic.

Amazingly she was brought up on tinned food, chips and what her family called “sketty”.

Alongside outlining the story of how she managed to become a food critic and TV personality it tells of her Dad’s decline into dementia.

If I am allowed one more it would have to be

The Little Girl in the Radiator by Martin Slevin

True story of his Irish Mum’s journey into dementia but it is funny, moving and so like my Mum’s journey that I could have written parts of it myself!

I recently went into our local (12 miles away) library for the first time in many years while I was waiting for a bus. I picked up Nadiya Hussain's novel The Secret Lives of the Amir Sisters and really enjoyed it.

A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe
It starts off with a young embalmer called in to assist after the Aberfan tragedy, but that's only covered very briefly, the rest of the book is about him growing up and his time at boarding school and as a Cambridge chorister.

Kathleen Jamie’s “Sightlines”. Not a novel but a collection of very thought provoking essays about life and the natural world.
Recently, Pat Barker’s latest novel “Women of Troy”, a follow up to “Silence of the Girls”. I can’t recommend these two books too highly. They eclipse ever other novel that has been written about the Trojan Wars and I don’t say that lightly as a fan of Nathalie Haynes and Madeline Miller. What gripping, powerful, heart breaking narrative of the futile tragedy of Troy from the female perspective. She has another novel coming out this year to finish the trilogy. Can’t wait.

A book that I bought, just by chance, on Kindle - Betty by Tiffany McDaniel. Very much in the vein of Where the Crawdads Sing, but in my opinion, even darker.
I think the book I enjoyed the most recently was Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, based very loosely on David Copperfield.
In complete contrast to the books above, I am also a fan of Mick Herron books after seeing Slow Horses on Sky.

Lessons in Chemistry… give it to your daughters and granddaughters!

'Hester' by Mrs Oliphant. A book written in the 1880s. Concerning a woman who took over and saved a country bank in the 1850s and the story of Hester, the daughter of the family member that nearly destroyed the bank.

It is a story of a woman succeeding in a mans profession, in mid Victorian England and how impossible it is for the girl to woman, heroine to do anything even faintly similar. Her only way forward is marriage and who she chooses.

The Madness by Fergal Keane - harrowing, not for the faint hearted …

Whitewavemark2

“All the Light We Cannot See”

Anthony Doerr

Beautifully written, a book that will capture and enthral

This one!

Whitewavemark2

These threads drive me mad, I have a huge list that I keep adding to - I’m not going to live long enough to get to the end of it.

Yes, loved that too. I will keep adding to my list of favourites.

La Bella Figura by Kamin Mohammadi. Good Read has this to say about the book "One woman's story of finding beauty, and herself--and a practical guide to living a better life, the Italian way!"

It took me back to an earlier stage in my life, different industry but similar treadmill, and changes I made. Sadly didn't end up living in Italy :-)

Also re-read Where the Crawdads Sing after going to see the film.

“All the Light We Cannot See”

Anthony Doerr

Beautifully written, a book that will capture and enthral