Janet

I think anything that encourages reading is a good thing. I probably wouldn't have read 'The Time Traveler's Wife' when I did if I wasn't abroad where English book choices were limited. Until I discovered this forum, I only ever read 'chick lit' - Jane Green, Marian Keyes, Sophie Kinsella, Sheila O'Flanagan - but since coming here, I haven't read any of those and have branched out to stuff that I wouldn't have looked at twice. I may be low-brow in some of my reading choices - I tried a Murukami (which I really wanted to like, maybe I'd have been better off with a different one) but felt at the end of it that I might have understood it better if I'd eaten a few magic mushrooms - but I certainly wouldn't pick a book just because it had a R&J sticker on it - but nor would I reject it.

I tried reading Emma by Jane Austen because it's my r/l July Bookworms book. I found it to be dull, dull, dull. Fortunately, I got a text from one of our members saying that most of them felt the same way, so I think we're giving up on it! (Yay!). Our meeting had to be cancelled anyway so we were only going to vote and not discuss it. I'm currently reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and that's much better so far!

By the magic of Google search...

I can't say I've ever heard it, but it sounds good!

Sorry, but I just couldn't enjoy reading having to sit in an upright position! I like to lounge when I read!

Last week, I bought The Amazing Mr Blunden by Antonia Barber, because it was one of my favourites as a child. I did a short review in the Young People's Zone on here and ended it with "8/10 - for pure nostagia"! In fact, when I saw your thread I wondered for a second whether it was that comment that prompted your thread! I recently re-read all the Famous Five books, and I have my copies of 'The Woodland Series' by Beverley Nicholls and some Winnie-The-Pooh which belonged to me as a child - the only original childhood books I still have. I've started buying a few books I had as a child recent for that very reason. Nostalgia rocks!

I couldn't imagine ever reading an entire book on a computer screen. To me, it's the whole experience of buying a book and reading it at my leisure wherever I want to. Reading on a computer just wouldn't be the same.

I read that list in the paper at work on Saturday and have been searching online to post it here, but R&J's website wasn't updated, so thanks for finding it. I already have The Memory Keeper's Daughter (well, my Mum does so it's the same thing!). I will have to check out the others. One was written by Ricky Gervais' girlfriend* apparently! ETA: *Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon - I looked at this in Borders a few weeks ago.

Two teenage children, Lucy and Jamie, living with their mother and baby brother. Their father has died, and the family are very poor after paying off all the debts. They have to leave their home and move into a grotty flat in Camden. One night, a solicitor called Mr Blunden calls, and tells the mother of a caretaker's job with a cottage provided. She doesn't have to do anything apart from live there. It's far-fetched, I guess, but then again, if it's a ghost story, then one must suspend all belief, since ghosts don't exist. Or do they...? Phew!

Finished The Amazing Mr Blunden (originally published as 'The Ghosts' and now out of print) today. Pure nostalgia! 8/10

Originally published as 'The Ghosts' The ‘Blurb’ It was such an old house it sometimes seemed to Lucy that all the past was gathered up inside it as if in a great box; as though it had a life of its own that continued to exist just beyond the reach of her eyes and ears. And did the amazing Mr Blunden, who knew so much about them, mean to hurt or help them? Could she really help those troubled ghosts from another age? I first read this book in about 1976 and I absolutely adored it. Sadly, when I was about 13 I gave away a lot of books to the daughter of a friend of my mum, and this was amongst them. I’ve been trying to get hold of it for years, but as it’s out of print, the copies I managed to find were all really (and I mean really!) expensive. Luckily, I managed to get hold of a copy on Amazon Marketplace last week for a much more reasonable amount! The book was originally published under the title ‘The Ghosts’, but was made into a film in 1972 and rebranded as ‘The Amazing Mr Blunden’. I have the DVD of this film - the screenplay of it is very faithful to the book - in fact, I’ve watched the film so many times that I could hear the characters speaking! The paperback is just 138 pages long and was published by Puffin but is now out of print. 8/10 (for pure nostalgia value!)

Our library closes all day on a Wednesday. It annoys me that our council spent £millions on the Bath Spa (and where I live, we pay more council tax towards it than the residents who live in Bath do) and yet they can't 'afford' to pay to keep the library open all week. What really annoys me is that the library in the next town also closes on a Wednesday - you'd have thought they'd pick different days to close. I hope your library doesn't do likewise if Wednesday is your day off.

Of your 'To read' list, I particularly loved The Kite Runner, The Secret Life of Bees and The Curious Incident... - I've also just read Mark Haddon's latest book and laughed out loud at it!

I tend to cry at films more than books, but one which did make me cry at the end was The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas which was so moving.

I can't believe I wrote principal! I don't want to add to his millions. He thought he was so far above the law that he could not be found out. It's easy to type the wrong thing - everyone does it. I was a bit confused because Geoffrey and Jeffrey are two different people. My husband reads Geoffrey Archer and I wondered what he had done wrong, but your comment makes sense now. I used to read JA, but I don't anymore. I'm not sure it's so much on principle, because I guess he did the crime then did his time, but I found they started to get less gripping than his early novels - especially "As the Crow Flies" which was a real let down.

Finished The Vanishing Acts of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell today, which was FAB! Another 8

My staple diet in my teens, but I haven't read one of hers for about 25 years! I saw a book today which I thought was Stephen King, but when I got closer it said Foreword by Stephen King in humungous letters in pink (I think) right across the middle of the cover, and the author's name (who I can't even remember) in smaller letters at the top! What principle? I avoid Sci-Fi - it just doesn't appeal, and anything like Mills and Boon novels. When my children were young I read only chick-lit, but now I avoid that too!

How much did I love this book?! I know I'm really late (better late than never, eh...) but I spent so long concentrating on AS stuff, and it's so nice to read for pleasure again! It was great. I did guess that the baby was Esme's, and I also wondered whether Esme was going to hurt, or even kill Kitty at the end - when she asked to be left alone with her - but it didn't spoil it at all and I was glad that the ending happened the way it did, even though Esme didn't live 'happily ever after' with Lily like I imagined she would. Definitely a 8½/10 for me!

Aww that's great!

In my experience, I rarely go back to something I've stopped reading. I've given up on a Robert Ryan, a book about Shakespeare and a Bill Bryson in the last 18 months or so, and the only one I'm likely to go back to is the Bill Bryson book.

I'm currently just over half way through The Vanishing Acts of Esme Lennox and I only started it yesterday evening (this is really fast for me!). The only other book of hers that I've read is After You'd Gone which I read quite a few years ago - I can't really remember much about it but I know I really enjoyed it.

Although it's 500 pages, it doesn't feel like a big read, because of the way the chapters are about a different character - you just keep reading a bit more to find out what happens next when, hey presto - you've finished!

Just finished A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon. Great fun - a definite 8

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon The 'Blurb' At fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz. Then Katie, his unpredictable daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her family is not pleased - as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has "strangler's hands". Katie can't decide if she loves Ray, or loves the way he cares for her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by the way the wedding planning gets in the way of her affair with one of her husband's former work colleagues. And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials. Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip and quietly begins to lose his mind. I loved this book! It made me laugh out loud, which isn't something that happens often with me and books! The story is broken down into small chapters, each about one of the four family members. George's chapters are probably the funniest, even though it seems so wrong to be laughing at someone having a breakdown. I'm a bit squeamish, so one of the chapters had me having to stop and compose myself before I read on, but it was so well written - in fact, it was compulsive reading and the fact that the chapters are so short (some being just ⅔ of a page long!) means that I kept thinking 'oh, I'll just read to the end of the next chapter' and before I knew it, I'd read another 50 pages! I noticed a few things, which made me wonder whether this book was started some time ago but then shelved. One which sticks in my mind was Jamie's irritation towards a work colleague who "took the foil off a Penguin, folded it in half, then rewrapped the bottom of the bar in the now double-thickness foil" - because Penguin biscuits don't come in foil and haven't for many years! Not that this matters in the slightest - I just wondered whether this was maybe a resurrected project after the success of his last book! I loved The Curious Incident... - this is totally different to that but I found it equally enjoyable, if not more so! The paperback is 503 pages long and is published by Vintage. The ISBN number is 978-0099506928. 8½/10 (Read June 2007)

In a word - no! In fact, I couldn't easily think of a less un-manly series of books! I think that the first one was great, because it was different, but she's taken a formula and run with it, and the books are now very samey. I have read them all, but as they've come out. I think anyone reading them in close sucession would have a fried brain by the time they got to the end of them! That said, they are good fluff for reading on holiday and I will probably get Shopaholic and Baby when it comes out in paperback!