France

I'll confess to being one of those who don't get on with Ishiguro, even The Remains of the Day which I read when it first came out which I remember as being fine but nothing like as impressive as everyone else seemed to think.

Anne Cleeves is definitely back to form after her last Vera book in The Dark Wives. A young care worker is murdered outside the place he works at and a troubled 14 year old girl has gone missing. There's a new member of the team, exuberant, slightly blousy Rosie, a nicely twisty plot and as ever a tremendous sense of place. The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave. A rich businessman falls to his death off a cliff he knows well. It's assumed it's an accident but his son isn't so sure and enlists his estranged half sister into doing some investigating. It's not a particularly memorable book but I was surprised at how fast paced and addictive it was, I read it in 24 hours. I was shocked at how little non-fiction I read last year so have decided to really up the amount this one. The King is Dead. Long live the King! by Martin Williams is about Edward VII , his reign, both in what he did and the social life around it, and the aftermath of his death. It's fascinating, Edward spent a very long time being refused a proper role and waiting to take the throne (remind you of anyone) and turned out to be excellent at his job. It's not overdetailed, the writing is clear and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This sounds really interesting, I don't know a lot about Buckingham either so would like read more. I knew the author's brother when I was living in Hong Kong so another added bit of interest!

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. 15 years ago the Van Laars 8 year old son vanished during a huge week long party thrown by his parents. Now their 13 year old daughter has disappeared in almost identical circumstances. This book was apparently the book club choice in America last year and I can see why. It has its faults, some of the characters are very two dimensional and all the rich personages are mean, venal, self serving, duplicitous, totally amoral, weak, drunk.... it can get a bit samey, but all the same this is a fast, pacey, well written book which kept me utterly absorbed. A great start to 2025 and recommended.

Time sounds good to me. Lot's of scope there.

I suspect that the book is better! I'm currently listening to one of the Midsomer murders book on Audible and there an interesting prologue from John Nettles in which he says that though TV adaptations are often very good they are rarely as good since TV can't often allow the time for nuance or character development in the way a book can.

1. The God of the Woods - Liz Moore ***** 2. The Dark Wives - Anne Cleeves ****1/2 3. The Night We Lost Him - Laura Dave****1/2 4.The King is Dead. long live the King! Martin Williams **** 5. Cold as Hell - Lilja Sigurdardottir ***1/2 6. The Island of Longing - Anne Griffin ****1/2 7. Of Mice and Murder - Sally Smith ***1/2 8. A Dry Spell - Clare Chambers **** 9. A Voyage Around the Queen - Craig Brown ****1/2 10. The two deaths of Ruth Lyle - Nick Louth ** 11. Onyx Storm - Rebecca Yarros ****1/2 12. High Vaultage - Chris Sugden *** 13. The Wicked Boy - Kate Summerscale **** (plus a little bit). 14. Here One Moment - Liane Moriaty ***** 15. Ruskin Park - Rory Cellan Jones ***1/2 16. The Fellowship of puzzelmakers - Samuel Burr *** 17. The >Lantern Men - Elly Griffiths **** 18. The Locked Room - Elly Griffiths *** 19. The Last Remains - Elly Griffiths ****1/2 20. The Wedding People - Alison Espach ***** 21. Long Island - Colm Toibin ****1/2 22. You're A Brick Angela - Mary Cadogan & Patricia Craig *** 23. Hope I Get Old Before I Die - David Hepworth**** 24. The Venetian Candidate - Phillip Gwynne Jones**** 25. Whiteout - R S Burnett ** 26. The Artist n- Lucy Steeds **** 27. Hunted - Abir Mukherjee DNF 28. Death at the Sign of the Rook - Kate Atkinson ****1/2 29. The Bookbinder of Jericho - Pip Williams ***1/2 30. The Road to Roswell - Connie Willis ****1/2 31. The Frozen People -Elly Griffiths **** 32. The Cannonball Tree Mystery - Ovidia Yu **** 33. Conclave - Robert Harris ****1/2 34. The Chalk Pit -Elly Griffith **** 35. You Are Here - David Nicholls ****1/2 36< The King's Evil - Andrew Taylor ****1/2 37. Murder Below Deck - Orlando Murrin ***1/2 38. Welcome to Glorious Tuga - Francesca Segal ***** 39. Mrs Spy -M J Robwotham *** 40. Three Days in June -Anne Tyler ***** 41. How to Age Disgracefully -Clare Pooley ***1/2 42. None of this is True - Lisa Jewell **** 43< Shadows in the Moonlight - Santa Montefiore **** 44. Business as Usual - Jane Oliver ***** 45. Three Days in June _ Anne Tyler ***** 46.The Spy Coast -b Tess Gerritson **** 47. Death at the White Hart _ Chris Chibnall ***1/2 48. Spêncers List -b Lissa Evans **** 49. >The Unwilding -Marina Kemp **** 50. The Summer Guests -Tess Gerritson **** 51. <The <secret Room - Jane Casey ****1/2 52 Bad Influence -CJ Wray ***1/2 53. Kiss Myself Goodbye - Ferdinand Mount ****

I loved Wolf Hall, I was so absorbed that I didn't notice some of the things that annoy other readers but if you aren't enjoying it then give it up. Life's too short and there are too many other fabulous books out there to read a book you aren't getting on with.

There's been a lot about it online, it pretty well lives up to the hype imp, though it's not perfect.

I ran out of steam by about book 5 and gave up. The first two or three were great.

I read both, I like the feel of real books and think I concentrate on them better than an ebook but I love the convenience of an ebook.

Depends. I live in France so new paper books in English are very expensive and there isn't much choice in the libraries either so I stock up whenever I can at secondhand book sales, on my rare visits back to the UK or Kobo/Kindle deals. For instance I've bought five titles for my Kobo since Christmas as there have been a lot of good deals.

Your favourite book cover of 2024. I read a lot on my Kobo through necessity so don't get to see many covers in colour. This cover drew me in instantly when I was scouring Amazon for books to fill a gft certificate. Your favourite book shop/retailer of 2024. Has to be Rakutan for books for my Kobo though in real life Gagliani in Paris. Your audiobook recommendation of 2024. Still Life by Sarah Winman, wonderful story and beautifully read by the author (who is an actress) Your most read author of 2024. Mick Herron - all 8 of his Slough House series plus a couple of stand-alones. Your book that wasn't worth bothering with in 2024 (my 'Duffer of the Year'). One Day by Abigail Dean Your biggest literary let-down of 2024 (my 'Biggest Disappointment of the Year). The Mars House by Natasha Pulley - I was so looking forward to this and goodness it's dreadful Your discovery of the year (book, author, genre, publisher etc) Mick Herron Your children's book recommendation of 2024. My 2 year old grandson adores this. Your fiction book of the year 2024. Impossible to say! In no particular order some of the books I most enjyed were: Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros The Bookselller of Inverness - S J Maclean Tom Lake - Ann Patchett The Offing - Benjamin Myers

I'd love to have read Jane Austen for A level! We read no Victorian or modern novels at all, just 18th century authors because our English teacher said we'd never read them otherwise (with reason). Joseph Andrews by Fielding, I don't know anyone who likes that one, three Gothic novels, Vathek and I can't remember the other two, all pretty tedious, The Beggars Opera... Alexander Pope's poetry was good fun though.

Time to revive this! The Guardian published its list of books to look out for in 2025 and the standout for me was Onyx Dream by Rebecca Yarros, number 3 in the Fourth Wing series. Out in January! I'm also looking forward to new books by Anne Tyler and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

The Offing by Benjamin Myers Tom Lake by Ann Patchett Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

I'm currently on 86, not counting all the audio books I listen to while cooking or doing knitting that involves looking at the stitches all the time.

I loathed Alice in Wonderland which I read when I was 8.

I went to Pompeii last moth so started reading Pompeii by Robert Harris. What a masterclass in making a fascinating background deadly dull Cardboard characters with each chapter headed by a little passage from a modern book on vulcanology outlining the development of the eruption, which even though the reader knows what happened took away the tension. That was followed by another book about Pompeii recommended by a friend, A Day of Fire, a series of interlinked short stories by six authors, which hit the mark as an immersion of how strange and then terrifying it was.

I use Thunderbird and have never had any problems before but yes, I tried C Cleaner browser and it worked perfectly. So thanks!

And three very different good ones. Killing Time by Jodie Taylor is the fifth in her Time Police series and just as good as the previous ones. Great fun and very funny. . All The Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker is unusual to say the least. It's about the enduring relationship between two children, both outcasts in their own ways, from 1970's small town America to nearly the present day. Patch (he has only one eye) saves a schoolmate from abduction by a serial killer and is abducted himself. After he is rescued he becomes obsessed with finding the other missing girls and maybe even saving one or two. The plot dives all over the place, it lags occasionally but the last 20% is genuinely unputdownable. The Offing by Benjamin Myers . Richard aged 16 leaves his Durham mining village just after the war to wander around for a few months, doing odd jobs to pay his way and sleeping in fields, comes across an elderly eccentric woman, totally unlike anyone he has ever met, and stays on to d this and that for her. I'd never come across Benjamin Myers before so this took me by surprise, his writing is exquisite, it's short, a very gentle book ( so not a huge amount happens) and completely mesmerising. Without doubt one of my books of the year .

A quick catch up (yet again). The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefeteri. I'll have to put my cards on the table here and say that in general I really don't like books which aim to wring your emotions, especially when you can see it coming before you even start the first page, so I wouldn't have read a novel about refugees if it hadn't been a book club choice. The subject was very moving but the way in which it was written got between me and what was happening to the characters, especially the occasional way in which the last word in a chapter would be the heading for the next. It was a literary trick that added absolutely nothing to the story. So did it make me newly aware of the plight of refugees - to a limited extent, I was already pretty aware. Did I enjoy it? No. Would I recommend it? Probably not. French Exit by Patrick Dewitt was another book club choice and another I didn't particularly enjoy though it was an interesting read. Frances a widow who has run through her money and her "toddler brained" son Malcolm (he's childish rather than impaired) decamp to Paris so she can spend everything she has left. Patrick Dewitt is an excellent writer and the novel is described as blackly funny, I didn't find anything funny about it but it's certainly black in places, the problem is that I found Frances and Malcolm so unappealing that I couldn't raise any interest in them. Not a waste of time though. Day One by Abigail Dean started very well indeed with a school shooting and a witness who may or may not have been telling the truth. Then it went downhill, fast. The plot is driven by conspiracy theorists who claim among other things that it never happened that one if the victims never existed etc etc and you have to be a really good writer t make endless conspiracy theories interesting after the first one or two. Abigail Dean isn't. I won't bother with any more of her books.

I can't seem t edit my posts. When I click on the three little dots nothing happens. Also if I receive a notification and click on the link nothing happens there either. Is anyone else having problems or could it be because I've got a new laptop (though it seems to work on all other sites).

Jane Casey's Maud Kerrigan series is excellent

Mmm, I've got this one sitting in the bookcase and have never felt a great urge to pick it up.