Here is the list of suggested books.
Please make your 1st and 2nd choices in the comment box. I’ll collate the votes and put the most popular book choice on the Book Forum. My apologies if I had to miss out any you suggested. We had 27 choices this time and I had to whittle them down.
A Hatful of Sky by Terry Pratchet - Wacky magic and witchcraft. Fast moving and really good fun. You’ll either love it or hate it!
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving - A novel about an odd friendship. It opens with an account of how the narrator accidentally kills Owen Meany’s mum with a stray ball. (Jane, I added this one even though it is one of the few books I got so irritated with I couldn’t bear to finish it.)
Arlington Park by Rachel Cusk - I couldn’t find any details on this book, only real estate adverts, so I guess it must be a real place.
Brick Road by Monica Ali - The life of a Bangladeshi village girl who ends up in a London tower block after an arranged marriage. (Not as dispiriting as it sounds)
Dancing on Thorns by Rebecca Horsfall - Moving epic romance with sultry sex scenes. The man is the obsessive dancer. A long road from ‘Ballet Shoes’
Fortune’s Rock by Anita Shreve - A moving story about unwise love and choices that transform a life. ( A meditation on the erotic life of a woman and class prejudice)
Lollipop Shoes by Joanne Harris (Yes, she wrote ‘Chocolat‘) - A complicated good and a bad witch story. They are trying to fit into a society that has no place for magic.
Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - A murdered 14 year old tells her own story
Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brien - 19th C seagoing adventure, just think of ‘you know who’ in those tight trousers. The only problem is, if you get hooked on Jack Aubrey, there’s another 20 or so books in the series.
Restoration by Rose Tremain - 17C romp. The hero is trapped between his longings for wealth and power and the realisation that the pursuit of these trappings can lead to a shallow, empty life.
Rose by Martin Cruz Smith - An American adventurer adrift in Victorian England, confronting his own Heart of Darkness
Thames by Peter Ackroyd - If we want to get right away from ‘family’ stories why not this exploration of the Thames, from the source to the sea - chock full of anecdote, spirit of place, narrative and characters from Caesar to William Morris
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde - Time bending cloak and dagger romp. A silly book for smart people. A post modern, farce.
Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen - Star crossed lovers in the circus world of 1932.
(The painting is Summer No.2 by Auguste Hebron)
