Hi Everyone
my apologies if your favourite didn't make it into the final seven, but so many excellent books were suggested this time I had to be quite brutal in whittling them down.
Please make your 1st and 2nd choices in the comments box below. As soon as everyone has voted, I'll collate the votes and announce the most popular book on the Purple Coo main site. That book then becomes the Purple Coo Autumn Read 2012 .
Bring
up the Bodies by Hilary Mantell
Her much
talked about sequel to Wolf Hall
Narrow Boat to Carcassonne by Terry Darlington
A
book for armchair travellers with a sense of adventure, combined with a sense
of humour, a love whippets and narrow boats. The first of a trilogy about
Terry, his wife Monica, their whippet Jim and their retirement antics
trip across the channel and down through France aboard their narrowboat, The
Phyllis May.
Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell
Hailed as a lyrical masterpiece when first in print, it’s the
true story of Gavin Maxwell’s relationship with an otter cub he brought back
from Iraq, and his life with her in a magical place he called Camusfearna, in
reality Sandaig on the West Coast of Scotland. (info courtesy of Fairy Nuff,
who was lucky enough to be a visitor there just recently)
The Heart Broke in by James Meek
The latest by James Meek. The main characters are a TV producer
and his remarkable sister, but don’t let that fool you. This book is as wide
ranging as of all Meek’s work. It starts off humorously enough when the married
TV producer realises the mobile phone he uses to call his teenage girlfriend,
has become lost in the long grass at the family home, and is likely to be found
by his children.
The
Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
It’s
all about a former curator of the Hermitage Museum who’s lived through the
siege only to succumb to Alzheimer’s in old age. Apparently it’s a study of
Alzheimer’s and the comfort of Art.
The
Postmistress by Sarah Blake
A
Sunday Times Bestseller. An unforgettable, heart-wrenching, captivating,
profoundly moving story of love, loss and life in wartime.
The
Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri
The
first of the Detective Montalbano series. He’s a Sicilian detective . Good
characters and plots but this recommendation comes with the warning that once
you’ve read the first one, there are 19 more to go. (I’m rather impressed with Luca
Zingaretti, the guy who plays Montalbano in the TV series. Who cares if it’s
subtitled, like Robert de Nero in the old Bananarama song, he’s ‘talking
Italian.”)
The picture is a print by the wonderful Angie Lewin
