What are you reading? Book recommendations please! 📚️

Mary_Scope

I've been looking for the second book in the series since finishing the first one a couple ago after your recommendation @MissMarple. No luck in the charity shops yet but I'm hoping it won't be too much longer and i'll find it.

That is really good to know that it's a very good end to the series. I find that sometimes when an ending is unsatisfying it can taint the whole series😅

That sounds like a brilliant book @Andi66, I find the Tudor period so fascinating.

LilMissOops

I just finished The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman. A lovely witty book but if you’re anything like me it might make your brain overheat!!

Louloubell1980

Ive read several of Emma louise james books including the blue corridor and Jos hidden secrets. Its lovely she gives her book profit to charity

Louloubell1980

If anyone needs any children's books about epilepsy my eldest daughter wrote her book epilepsy book for kids which raises money for epilepsy charities and theres a lovely book out about a seizure alert dog called willow too

SmellyBin

I've just finished The Mother-in-law by Sally Hepworth, a book I enjoyed reading without it being too much or very heavy. Especially compared to Darling Girls. Very much looking forward to Mad Mabel, her new book for this Summer.

Mostly I appreciated this book for it being about sort of ordinary people without too much twists and turns. I've recently read book 12 about Erica Falck (English title unknown) by Camilla Lackberg and Burn This - both the plots were overcomplicated and a bit weird. But I know others might very much enjoy those books for those reasons, so don't hold back on my account :)

It seems Bella Osborne also has a new book coming up soon…

66Mustang

I'm "reading" My Neighbor Totoro

It's a manga book, I've never read a "proper" one before… I found it bizarre having to start from what would normally be the back of the book!!

Mary_Scope

Thank you for sharing this @Louloubell1980, it looks really good! Is Willow your dog?

I haven't heard of that author before @SmellyBin, what genre would you describe it as?

I've never read manga before @66Mustang, I never knew you had to start from the back of the book, that would be very odd to me at first well! How are you finding manga so far?

MissMarple

I second the Hepworth recommendation @SmellyBin @Mary_Scope I would describe her books as family dramas with thriller elements. I enjoyed most of her books, despite having issues with plot holes or the depiction of certain conditions/situations here and there. The main characters are always women and motherhood features heavily as a theme. I can't wait to read Mad Mabel.

Mary_Scope

I am going to order a couple of your recommendations on World of Books @MissMarple @SmellyBin.

So far I have You'd Look Better As a Ghost by Joanna Wallace, Julie Tudor is Not A Psychopath by Jennifer Holdich and just added The Mother in Law to the basket because that sounds right up my street😊

Make Me Famous by Maud Ventura is going to be next read and I'm really looking forward to reading it because My Husband is one of my favourite books of all time. Has anybody read that?

MissMarple

Yay @Mary_Scope I hope you'll enjoy the books. My Husband sounds familiar. I think it might be somewhere on my TBR list.

MissMarple

I can't remember if it was here that someone recommended Fruit Fly by Josh Silver. I listened to the audiobook version and the narrators (Camilla Rockley and Jack Ayres) were phenomenal. They really brought the book to life. It was hilarious, dark at times and hard to pause.

Littlefatfriend

I just finished The Black Swan Second Edition by Nassim Taleb, Mary_scope. It's a fascinating read about predicting unlikely events. EG until we first visited Australia we were certain that all swans are white. That Black swans were impossible. Until we saw them there (hence the title).

From 9/11 to global climate change via all manner of incredibly unlikely things, all of which were far more predictable than we believed before they happened, it's a fascinating insight to the often insanely expensive systems and processes people, businesses and governments use to predict unlikely things.

My favourite book must be The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressel. I was already a committed fan when I discovered his grave and surrounding shrine in a graveyard in Liverpool, 400 yards from one of the flats I lived in at whilst university.

That too is a fantastic exploration of people and their motivations.

🤓

66Mustang

@Mary_Scope I'm still getting the hang of it, I think! It's weird to start with, quite different to reading words. I felt like I was blasting my way through it at first as turned each page once I thought I'd "read", but you have to really slow down and take everything in. Almost like in mindfulness where you're encouraged to try to notice stuff you wouldn't normally notice?

@Littlefatfriend does chaos theory come into that prediction book at all? I always thought that as an interesting topic

SmellyBin

Right now I am reading Clare Pooley's Authenticity Project, not sure where it will take me… but so far I am enjoying it and was laughing out loud a few times. Mrs Wu is quite a character. Hopefully, it is as good as her How to Age Disgracefully - that one was the best :)

And someone here mentioned Yesteryear and following that lead I somehow ended up with Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash. I read a part of the sample and this book is now very high on my wish list.

yellowpineapple84

I really like a historical fiction series by S J Parris set in Elizabeth Tudor times. It is a spy thriller series also :)