Mac

Me, too, please!

Hmmm...this sounds fairly interesting. I'll have a look for it in Waterstone's and see if it grabs me. Nice review, Readwine. I hope you like The Book Thief.

Erm...there are loads of authors I'd like to be stuck in a lift with, so choosing just one is very difficult. Murakami would be cool, obviously, or Harlan Coben because I bet he's got a great sense of humour and I think we'd get on. Has Cate Blanchet wrote anything? Or Keira Knightly? No? Damn...

Me, too!

Kelly, how do you get through so many books so quickly? I feel like a total splowpoke!

Check again, my friend. Check again!

But Roxi, I think that you will also love the added Christopher Fowler. Very much, in fact. Bump it up further, lady!

Just updated my list. Thought I'd let you know. Hope you're all well. TTFN.

Long Lost by Harlan Coben Myron Bolitar hasn't heard from Terese Collins since their torrid affair ended ten years ago, so her desperate phone call from Paris catches him completely off guard. In a shattering admission, Terese reveals the tragic story behind her disappearance - her struggles to get pregnant, the greatest moment of her life when her baby was born...and the fatal accident that robbed her of it all: her marriage, her happiness and her beloved only daughter. Now a suspect in the murder of her ex-husband in Paris, Terese has nowhere else to turn for help. Myron is compelled to go to her. But then a startling piece of evidenceturns the entire case upside down, laying bare Terese's long-buried family secrets and the very real possibility that her daughter may still be alive. Caught in a foreign landscape where nothing is as it seems, Myron must tear the city apart - and eventually the globe. He must fight for answers to unfathomable questions and, ultimately, uncover a sinister plot with shocking global implications. I have waxed rhapsodic about this guy so many times, I almost bore myself. But here I go again. From the very beginning, I was completely hooked into the novel, reeled in and bashed over the head with a stout rock. The skill Coben has is making the reader feel a kinship with his flawed hero. Not only is the prose snappy, witty and fluid, it is extremely thought-provoking. At least, it is for me, anyway. I'm pondering a lot at the moment over my preference with genre and style and am leaning more towards this theory. The heroes that I enjoy reading about are flawed. They get things wrong, they have unusual emotional foibles, they are eccentric. However, they always do the right thing, regardless of the impact it has upon themselves. In a nutshell, these are the guys I aspire to be like. I fully appreciate that the reason I am what I am (Christ, I'm beginning to sound like Ethel bloody Merman!) stems largely from episodes in my life, things that have made me someone who prefers to catch rather than jump - a fixer, if you like - and this makes me identify with the characters in these books. I'm often wondering how I would react in these situations. I hope I never have to find out. So. This novel is once again a true page-turner. Utterly gripping, thought-provoking, exciting and, indeed, quite moving in places. I cannot recommend Harlan Coben highly enough. If you want to give him a go, read Deal Breaker first. Fall in love with the characters and watch them grow. It's a wonderful thing. 9.5/10

Thanks, Roxi. I'm finding that my bank balance has suffered inordinately since joining this forum, and I hope that I am not responsible for negatively impacting on yours too much, appreciating your status as 'student'! I'll give it another go, Paula, I promise. I was talking about it to Maz last night in the boozer and she was most insistent that I'd enjoy it. However... ...this doesn't give me much hope. Thanks for the posts, guys.

I'll definitely have another go, then, Andy. I ought to anyway, because I don't want to disappoint my friend, Maz. I need to get over my thing about the lack of quotation marks during the speech...

It's still going up, not down, Kate...

This is how I understand it to be, also. And, it is all true, isn't it???

Blinking heck! I'm going to be spending a tonne of cash at the weekend. I remember you and I talking about how much we loved An Instance Of The Fingerpost! I must buy this book now!

I have, when it was first published. I really liked it. In fact, I have a signed-by-the-author copy! Ooooh!

It's quite alright...I already own the skirt, so it'll be just the pompoms I require to fulfil your vision...

A friend of mine was talking about this book only the other day. She really enjoys the 'Painful Lives' section in Waterstone's, bless her. *shudders* It's not a genre I find easy to get to grips with. I'll be interested in seeing what you think, Kat. Hope you're well.