Hi
I’ve just finished reading I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes.
I’m so sorry it’s finished.
What’s the one book you would recommend ?
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That looks like a good read Anne, glad you enjoyed it. I’m getting too lazy to read lately, besides my eyes get very tired so I mostly listen to audio books now, I’m going back on the old thrillers like Paul Temple and Lord Peter Wimsey at the moment, wouldn’t know what to suggest, Terry Hayes seems like a hard act to follow, maybe you’ll just have to wait for his next work.
I’m not one much for ANY fiction. I enjoy biographies & autobiographies.
“The moons a balloon” by DAvid Niven comes to mind.
“The long walk to freedom” by Nelson Mandela, is a must read.
AS for fiction Mark Haddons “The curious case of the dog in the Nightime” takes some beating.
I rushed out to buy the “Diary of Adrian MOle” after hearing it on the radio. BUt it seems rather twee now.
I can’t take to JK Rowling, although I am grateful for her generous financial support to PARKINSONS DISEASE research.
I am fond of old editions of my local A to Z.
I love to read on the computer so I can adjust the print so I can see it well. I am a very fast reader when I can see the print easy.
I am reading “Lone Wolf” on the laptop…a story about a man who studied wild wolves, lived with a wolf pack for 2 years…then had a car accident with his daughter. He has a massive brain injury that he will likely never recover from. Daughter had broken scapula. Son returned from his home in Cambodia, where he teaches English. He left home after a arguement with his father about the son being gay. Now 29, the son and father made an agreement and wrote it out and signed it, 14 years ago that said if the father became too ill or injured to make decision on his treatment the son would. Now that decision has to be made and the daughter, at 17 and not of age to to legally have a opinion that counts wants the father kept alive by life support but the son wants to unplug him because he believes that would be the father’s wish. I haven’t finished the book yet, so I can’t say how it will end. It is a ebook I got free from Amazon…I get about a dozen books offered free per day and take advantage of them, also occassionaly buy a 0.99 special.
Robert Junior - I have to agree that “The curious case of the dog in the Nightime” is a fascinating, unique read. My only grumble was that the ‘A’ level maths question seemed far too easy - barely ‘O’ level standard in my day!
However, my all time favourite book would be “To kill a Mockingbird”.
I couldn’t recommend a single book as I read so many I couldn’t choose a favourite.
I tend to look out for new ones by my favourite authors and when I’ve exhausted them, go for somebody different. Most are persistently good but a very few put out some duff reads.
Here, in no particular order, are the authors I steer towards the most (and am trying to finish all that they’ve written):
Jilly Cooper (silly and funny romps)
Stephen Leather (thriller)
Simon Kernick (thriller)
James Rollins (thriller/fantasy)
James Herbert (horror)
Peter James (thriller)
Martina Cole (gangster thrillers, started to get fed up)
Carole Matthews (chick lit)
Jeffrey Archer (yes, the politician)
Shaun Hutson (horror)
Alan Titchmarsh (surprisingly good)
Jill Mansell (chick lit)
Sophie Kinsella (1 failure)
Mike Gayle (funny)
Deric Longden (hysterically funny, writes about cats)
Bill Bryson (also very funny, writes about travel/countries)
Without going completely through my book of library loans, there are many others.
(Probably not the answer you were looking for, but I reiterate, I could never choose one favourite!!)
Well call me a kid but I’m reading the Harry Potter books again on my kindle. Great books that are superbly written and to top it all the films based on the books were damn good too - bar for 2 where Emma Watson’s acting put me right off.
Read lot of books but the big guns for me are nearly all classics, bar for Lord of the Rings and a few others.
Best book ever!!!
…I wouldn’t know where to begin there are so many starting in my childhood with 'Black Beauty’and Alison Uttley’s ‘The Country Child’ chronicling her early years in Derbyshire which echo my own.
I am a Thomas Hardy/Jane Austen / George Elliot/Charlotte Bronte fan so there are a whole host of books there and I wouldn’t know which to choose.
Of more up to date offerings I remember being impressed by ‘The Flowers of the Field’ a vivid portrait of WW1 by Sarah Harrison (and so much better than Faulks ‘Bird Song’ IMO).
All of the autobiographical books about growing up in Liverpool written by Helen Forrester …to name but a few books .
Anything by Alexander McCall Smith for me! There’s 3 new ones out, hoping Santa brings me one!
My partner and I are both voracious readers, and we are never without a book on the go and have rooms full, both read and unread. He often reads several at a time as long as they are very different types.
I couldn’t pick a “best book”. Like jazzi I veer from good mysteries and thrillers such as Peter Robinson, P D James, Henning Mankell, Elizabeth George to biographies, history and general literature by writers such as Penelope Lively, Joanna Trollope, Robert Goddard, Joanna Harris and many others.
I’m currently reading “Inheritance”, the history of the Sackville-West family and their ancestral home at Knole which I’ve visited. I knew about Vita but not the history of the family back to the 1400s.
Up until 2008 I was never without a book on my desk or in my pocket .Then came early retirement and for some unknown reason I stopped reading books and started using the computer. Always got good books on birthdays and Christmas’s from family and still do. I am always easy to buy for any good book. From The Conquistadors by Michael Wood many books of The Titanic which always intrigued me to Dan Brown The DaVinci Code and Terry Prachetts Hogfather. I also had various favs John Connolly The Killing Kind, The DaVinci Code I could not put down until I had read it all. Got complete collections on my shelves like Morse, The Dark Tower, Jeffery Archers, I have biography’s falling off the shelves. Who knows one day I may pick one up again and actually sit and read again. That will more than likely be by candle light when there is no power for the computer…
I enjoy biographies and true crime, never be a shortage of material there, but I have recently begun to read Morse and the Inspector Banks series. Sound a bit of a weirdo… I’m not, honestly… 
Coincidence…the theatre which had it’s roof collapse today was showing “The curious case of the dog in the night time”
As a child I loved “Black Beauty”. Read it over and over, in fact to this day I can still recall how it started:
“The first place I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it, rushes and water lillies grew at the deep end …”
Mups I still have a copy somewhere and will read it to my grandchildren when thy are older …
Ah, they’ll love it Meg. Even the sad bits teach us to have compassion.
I have loved “The Lord of The Rings” since I was about 11yrs old and have worn out countless paperback copies. About 10yrs ago I gave an illustrated talk on the life and works of J R R Tollien (a fascinating man) at University and they presented me with the most wonderfully bound and illustrated copy of the LOTR as a thank you. I read it at least once a year, and it would be my ‘Desert Island’ book. It is eveything: Romance, Fantasy, War, Thriller, Social Comment, Theology, History.
Apart from LOTR I love the classics Hardy, Austen, Lawrence and Dickins.
I also enjoy Michael Connelly, Jeffrey Deaver, Colin Dexter etc., and I love biographies - just finished ‘Tall, Dark and Gruesome’ by Christopher Lee.
I read loads, mainly Historical and Science fiction, lots of books on wildlife and local history. The first book i can remember that left an impact was Call of the Wild by Jack London.
Historical fiction authors i like include James Clavell, Bernard Cornwell, Simon Scarrow. Sci - Fi, EE Doc Smith, Arthur C Clark, . Others, Stephen Donaldson, LOTR type fantasy, Dale Brown, John Prebble, Eric van Lustbader, All have provided hours of escapist pleasure, and i read books time after time again.
I remember reading about Elizabeth Fry and Edith Cavell at age 11 (?) I do remember loving them.
We both read, but have completely different tastes, although we both like Stephen King.
The Moon’s a Balloon, I remember enjoying too.
How difficult to try and say which book was the most enjoyable … there have been so many.