Kidsmum

I'm only about a quarter of the way into it but so far so good. It's very strange, different stories which i presume will all tie up together at the end but sometimes you feel like your dropped into the middle of a story rather than at the beginning which surprisingly works quite well. Anyway i'm enjoying it so far & looking forward to seeing how they manage to make it into a movie

Just think of the sense of achievement you'll get when you finish it even if you don't enjoy it

I have a copy of The King Of Torts it's not usually my sort of thing but a friend passed it on to me tbh i didn't think i'd get round to reading it but reading your review i shall have to dig it out

Willoyd - I read your reading notes on Alone in Berlin but as we've had different opinions of other books ( The Book of Human Skin, The Help & Catch 22) i felt i was fairly safe in choosing it As for Bleak House i seem to have bought quite a few of Dickens books lately but can't seem to make up my mind which one to read first. Ideally i prefer to read a book before i watch the TV adaptation but i've already seen so many of Dickens works on the box that it would narrow my choices too much so i shall have to make an exception in this case. The Thackeray was a great find, i'd not heard of it either but i do love Vanity Fair,Becky Sharp is such a great character isn't she. The Ladies Paradise i bought because my sister raved about the TV adaptation that was on recently & i haven't read any Zola before. But yes your right buying doesn't always mean reading soon & at the rate i buy them i sometimes think i'll be relegated to a nursing home before i get to the bottom of my book mountain

Thanks guys good to hear you both enjoyed it, i shall make sure i read it sooner rather than later

I've seen Gone Girl in all the bookshops & was tempted to buy it myself glad i didn't bother now. I'll be interested to see what you make of Peter May's The Blackhouse i bought it after Amazon recommended it to me but didn't really rate it.

The thought of a 7 year old boy being separated from his parents makes my blood run cold it's the same with wartime evacuation or sending children to boarding school i just can't imagine being able to bear it

Okay now it's definitely going to have to go on the wishlist It wouldn't matter if i didn't like it as i know my hubby would

I read the whole Earth's Children trilogy quite recently & although i enjoyed them the books did lose their appeal as the series went on, the last one was really awful In my opinion the first & third are the best of the lot but you might think differently when you read them Athena

I went out to lunch today with my hubby & found some new charity shops. I came home with... Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death Gyles Brandreth Whispers Underground Ben Aaronvitch Alone In Berlin Hans Fallada The Voyage of the Narwhal Andrea Barrett

Ooh!!! The Third Miss Symons sounds like just my sort of thing, i'm going to add it to my wishlist. I've read quite a few good books published by Virago & have started looking out for them in the charity shops. Thanks for the review Janet

Hi Bluejay & welcome to the forum How exciting to be a character in someones book.

Didn't know you were ill Frankie but glad to hear your on the mend now & it hasn't stopped you reading I've made a start on Cloud atlas & i think i'm going to like it but need to read a sizeable chunk so i can get into the story properly

Adding the Kingdom of Bones to my wishlist

I finished Agnes Grey Anne Bronte which i enjoyed but not as much as The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall . I've made a start on Cloud atlas David Mitchell hoping to get through this quite quickly as i want to go see the movie.

Hi Jennifer & welcome

Congrats on being selected Kell

I finished A Time To Dance Melvyn Bragg this morning & i'm going to read Agnes Grey Anne Bronte next as it's a short book just to finish the month.

Hi Richard, Welcome to the forum

Hi Chryssie, Welcome to the forum

Hi Peahen, Welcome to the forum i look forward to reading your reviews Not sure if it's your sort of thing but if your interested in Russian history i just finished a book called The Siege by Helen Dunmore , it's a fictional story set in Leningrad during the second world war when the city was under siege. It's one family's story of survival rather than a history of the event but i really enjoyed it.

London Under sounds a fascinating read i can see why you picked it up, shame it didn't live up to your expectations though. Hope it hasn't delivered a fatal blow to your mojo

Thanks Lucybird i didn't know there was a sequel but i shall be adding it to my wishlist I finished The Siege this afternoon, such a good read i'm looking forward to reading more of her books. Made a start on my next read A Time To Dance Melvyn Bragg, i remember watching this on the TV years ago with Donald Pickup & Dervla Kirwan but can't recall how it ended.

I know what you mean, it's great when people who've been abused can deal with what's been done to them and realise it's not their own fault in any way, and they go out and make better lives for themselves. I know it can't be easy and some people aren't able to cope. Is Briscoe well known in the UK? I'd never heard of her or the book when I bought my copy at the secondhand bookstore. I'm happy I'm not the only one who struggled with Mr Whicher! I think I've also been spoiled by John Boyne and his book Crippen. Now that's a perfect true crime fictionalization! The bar's been set very high with that book, so it's all the more obvious Mr Whicher couldn't compete. I had Summerscale's Mrs Robinson's Disgrace on my wishlist but after finishing Whicher I thought I'd cross it off the list. But then I read the amazon synopsis on MRD and figured it's not the same kind of book but something completely different, and I wasn't sure if I should judge Summerscale's talent based on this one book alone. I'm happy you told me you enjoyed The Queen of Whale Cay a lot more, I think I'm keeping MRD on the wishlist Thanks! I don't think she's particularly well known although i have seen her book, Ugly, on quite a few supermarket shelves so i think it was popular over here. The interview i heard was on Woman's Hour which is a programme which deals with issues that affect women or may be of interest mainly to women , hence the name, but i wouldn't say she's a well known author if you see what i mean. Crippen sounds like a book i'd like , i shall keep my eye out for it or i might even buy it for my hubby as he likes that sort of thing then i can read it after him

Less than 100 pages to go in The Siege by Helen Dunmore, this is the second of her books that i've read & really enjoyed. In fact i liked them so much that i couldn't resist buying 4 more of her books today Counting the Stars A Spell of Winter House of Orphans Mourning Ruby