Books and Reading

I was wondering if anyone would like to take part in a blog version of A Good Read? For those of you not familiar with it, it's a Radio 4 show where the host and two guests pick a favourite book each and then all read and review them. Sort of a mini book club I suppose, but with the potential for a bit more diversity and interest in the choice of books. Let me know if you're interested – I haven't thought about the specifics just yet but I'm sure I can work something simple out. I'm up for playing host once a month - 3 books won't take me long to read - but I know I read a lot faster than most people. If you're interested but don't read that fast, or don't have that much time spare, don't be put off! You'd only need to take part once and it can be bimonthly if that's more convenient for people.

Anyway, whilst I'm thinking books, here are some thoughts on what I've read recently:

 

You Don't Have To Say You Love Me by Sarra Manning

I remember exactly why I bought this book. I was wombling around Blogland (as you do) and came across a hilarious post and comments section about awkward sex scenes in books. Someone recommended this and I thought why not and headed to Amazon.

It arrived and I stayed up till 3.30am (on a school night) finishing it. That's how good it was.  Now I should warn you that I sobbed like an absolute child at large sections of it. That's just my personal reaction but if you have body image issues or have been big or lost weight, it may push certain buttons for you. It really did with me and was kinda painful to read someone else's version of a lot of things that I have thought.  Don't let that put you off though. It made me laugh just as much as it made me cry.  Probably more so.  I love, love, love her writing style.  It's funny, true and utterly captivating. She's straight onto my auto-buy list.

Shatter The Bones by Stuart Macbride

People.  If you are a fan of crime fiction and haven't read any of his books yet, go out and buy one right now.  Start with Cold Granite and work your way through the series till you get to this one. You can thank me later.

 The series is set in Aberdeen so you'd imagine a bit of dour Scottishness to flavour the books.  Well it does - they're not exactly chirpy and happy-clappy - but the setting is wonderfully described and the books are worlds away from being miserable reads. If you don't chuckle your way through them, we can't be friends.  I honk laughing at some of the things that DI Steel comes out with.

The Debutante by Kathleen Tessaro

I got this out from the library as I like her books and didn't recognise this particular cover.  Turned out a few pages into it that I'd already read it (clearly a different edition), but that didn't bother me as I like rereading books.  And there are definitely things about this book to like - it's an interesting premise, she's a good author and I am a total sucker for anything set in and around a country house.  I must have forgotten (or perhaps blocked out) the thing that really annoyed me about it.  It's as if she'd read a lot of books about the Mitfords and regurgitated chunks of them into this.  I can't even describe the dialogue of the characters in the 20s & 30s sections of this book as being Mitford-esque, because she hasn't made any effort to look beyond them and change things even a little bit.  It's just wholesale lifting of terms and nicknames and little sayings that belonged to one particular family.  An iconic family, yes, and one with a heavy literary influence, but you can't honestly tell me that every vaguely upper class person in that era talked like that and shared that very specific set of vocabulary.  It really irritated me, and it's a shame, because I enjoyed the book apart from that.