Comments on: Reading Recommendations

By: Marie

Marie — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 09:58:32 +0000

Have just finished The Commoner, by John Burnham Swartz and am now reading Shanghai Girls by Lisa See. I highly recommend both!

By: Wendy

Wendy — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:34:13 +0000

More great suggestions.

I’ve read The Time Traveller’s Wife and enjoyed it very much. One of my friends is still in a huff with me as when she started reading it I told her it had a happy ending…

Yvonne – I haven’t read either the Stieg Larssons yet but he is definitely on my list for the summer.

By: DKS

DKS — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 23:27:33 +0000

This might be difficult to find, outside online retailers, but I recommend Daniachew Worku’s ‘The Thirteenth Sun’. Worku takes the bones of Faulkner’s ‘As I Lay Dying’ and turns them into a meditation on Ethiopian society in the 1960s, with one character standing in for Haile Selassie, and the others representing various bodies of people: newly-educated youth, for example, or peasants. It’s a pessimistic book, but a searching and intelligent one. It might help to think of him as an Ethiopian magic realist, although his magic realism is closer to Jose Donoso’s hallucinatory ‘Obscene Bird of Night’ than to anything by Marquez.

I’d second the Malouf recommendation too, and I’ll add his ‘Remembering Babylon’ to Lucy’s mention of ‘An Imaginary Life.’ ‘The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon’ is handy if you want to be able to read a book in small doses. W.G. Sebald’s ‘Rings of Saturn’ is a good place to start if you haven’t read him already. Bruno Schulz’s ‘Street of Crocodiles.’ Colette’s Cheri and Claudine books. It depends on the kind of writing you like. (I’m trying to think of novels that are fairly short and pleasurable.)

By: Liz

Liz — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 08:18:18 +0000

Hi, the two best books that I have read recently have to be ‘Secret Garden’ and the ‘House at Riverton’. They are beautifully written and so enjoyable that I was really sorry when I had finished them!!!

Enjoy a relaxing ‘school holidays’.

By: Little Miss Moi

Little Miss Moi — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:06:25 +0000

The Time Traveller’s Wife is AMAZING! So I second domestickate’s suggestion. Actually I am going to pull it off the shelf now. It’s been made into a movie with Eric Bana, to be released later this year and I just can’t wait to see how it’s been interpreted.

Also, Behind the Scenes at the Museum is Kate Atkinson’s first, and it’s incredible.

And I just read the Twilight series (actually, I posted about it… Read the whole thing in less than a week. Terrible, fluffy fiction, I’m a sucker for it).

And if you want light fiction, anything by Marian Keyes.

And intelligent fiction, though not quite literature, I don’t think: The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons.

By: Yvonne Dodds

Yvonne Dodds — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:43:51 +0000

Have you read the Stieg Larssons? They were favourites for Summer reading this year in Australia – Bill Granger, Maggie Beer both suggested them. I couldn’t wait for the 3rd one to be available here, so ordered it from UK but also bought it from France . However, in my excitement, I ordered the audio book which confused me completely. Now I have to work out how to play it!
The Muriel Barbery is quite charming and the film of same
has just come out in France this week. Can’t wait!
Do you like Michele Roberts? Lucy introduced us . I have just bought one of her early ones, “During Mother’s Absence” from Abebooks.
Hope your weather will be suitable for relaxing in the sun.

By: domestikate84

domestikate84 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:10:09 +0000

If you haven’t already read it, Audrey Niffenger’s “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is fabulously engaging.

I also just read Dawn French’s kind-of-autobiography “Dear Fatty” which made me laugh out loud. A lot.

Lucky you, having such long holidays! I’m always so jealous of teachers at this time of year!

By: Wendy

Wendy — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:07:19 +0000

PS Roo – Great idea!!!

By: Wendy

Wendy — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:06:46 +0000

Goodness! So many books, so much time! Wonderful. Many thanks to you all. There are quite a few on the list that I’ve read already but many I haven’t too. Got so excited by the suggestions I went to the book shop today. I started Christina’s suggestion “To The Wedding” this afternoon and have cried already. Next will be Yvonne’s Douglas Kennedy suggestion followed by Gordon and Lucy’s recommendation, “A Fine Balance”.

By: Roo

Roo — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:31:09 +0000

Wendy – I propose we divide and conquer, I’ll buy half of all these, you buy the other and we can book swap! What brilliant suggestions from everyone.