Purple Coo Book Group Spring 2019

Now's the time to choose the next title for our Purple Coo Book Group Spring Read. If you fancy joining in, and remember all are welcome, please note your 1st and 2nd choices in the comments box below. If for any reason you are unable to write in the comments box please let me know your choices via Face Book or Purple Coo.  The book with most votes becomes our Spring Read for 2019.

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

A US bestselling story of two very different women who build an unexpected friendship: a 91 year old woman with a hidden past as an orphan-train rider and a teenage girl whose own troubled adolescence leads her to seek answers to questions no one ever thought to ask.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

Described as a bit like Eleanor Oliphant only about a boy and set in Milton Keynes. It’s really a novel about difference and being an outsider who views the world in a surprising and revealing way. (Mark Haddon insists he didn't intend it to be about high-functioning autism, what do you think?)

The End of the Affair by Grahame Green

Obsession and jealously within an adulterous triangular relationship. Set in WW2 this is fourth and probably the best of Green’s so-called “Catholic Novels,” and a hundred times better than the two films.

The Unseen by Katherine Webb

Occult happenings, romantic passion and murder disrupt the peace of a Berkshire village in 1911.

Wish You Were Here by Graham Swift

 A testing and powerful story about a family and their farm: history, loss and disaster, love and relationships in a rural setting ... oh yes, and a dash of politics too.

The picture is Hares by Angela Harding

Purple Coo Book Group Autumn Read 2018

To vote for your favourite books please list your 1st and 2nd choices in the comments box below, or let me know via the Purple Coo site or on Face Book, Behind the Bike Sheds. After a count up I'll post the most popular title on the Purple Coo main site.

Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley

First published in 1921 and Aldous Huxley’s debut novel, Chrome Yellow is a witty satire on upper-class English country life and is seen to be a parody of Garsington Manor, the home of Lady Ottoline Morrell.

Educated by Tara Westover

The memoir of a woman who, at 17 and completely uneducated, manages to escape from her fundamentalist Mormon family living a survivalist life in the Idaho mountains and become a successful academic.

Engerby by Sebastian Faulks

“My name is Mike Engerby and I’m in my second year at an ancient university,” is how Faulks introduces the character who turns out to be this gifted novelist's most difficult to fathom, odd and not particularly likeable, unreliable narrator.

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce

Set in 1988, The Music Shop follows record shop owner Frank who has the rare gift of finding the perfect piece of music to remedy any emotional or psychological woes his customers may be suffering from. However his cosy world is under threat, not only from record companies plugging CDs rather than his beloved vinyl, but also the developers who would like to knock his shop down. And yes, there is a love story as well.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

A surprisingly joyous book based around a young woman’s tragically profound loneliness. A disturbing and unusual novel seen through the eyes of an extremely unreliable narrator, that somehow manages to be both eye wateringly hilarious and heartrendingly moving, often both on the same page.

The picture is by Grandma Moses. I couldn't find out it's name but it does make me think autumn is on the way.

Purple Coo Book Group Summer 2018

To vote for your favourite books please list your 1st and 2nd choices in the comments box below, or let me know via the Purple Coo site or on Behind the Bike Sheds, Face Book. After a count up I'll post the most popular title on the Purple Coo main site. 

Bring Me Back by B. A. Paris

A young couple on a driving holiday through France stop to get petrol. He goes to pay, she disappears. Sounds like an all too familiar trope, but this really is a well written, gripping thriller with a killer twist.

Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss

A subtle and complicated book written from two points of view. A retired successful New York lawyer and a well-known novelist with writers block, are irresistibly dawn to visit Israel to rethink their existence. Only once they are there, they find their lives being altered in a way they could never have imagined.

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan
A charming, clever, and quietly moving debut novel of endless possibilities and joyful discoveries that explores the promises we make and break, losing and finding ourselves, the objects that hold magic and meaning for our lives, and the surprising connections that bind us.

The Kites by Romain Gary

A novel of love and human dilemmas in France set in the period of the Occupation. A bittersweet masterpiece about enduring love, courage and resistance.

Scenes from a Vanished Life by Rose Tremain

An evocation of an era, Rose Tremain’s account of her unhappy upper-class childhood from post-war London to a Swiss finishing school.

The picture is Black Cat with Lily by Elizabeth Blackadder

Purple Coo Book Group Spring Read 2018

To vote for your favourite books please type your 1st and 2nd choices either in the comments box below, or let me  know via the Purple Coo site or on Behind the Bike Sheds, Facebook. After a count up I'll post the most popular title on the Purple Coo main site.

Old Filth by Jane Gardam

The story of Old Filth. (Failed in London Try Hong Kong!) An unwanted child of the Raj is packed off home to be fostered and educated in Britain before World War 2 and later becomes a renowned international lawyer and high court judge … sounds dry and boring? No, Sir Edward Feathers, aka Eddie, Teddy, The Judge, Fevvers, Filth and Master of the Inner Temple, is a complex man with something to hide. A wonderful telling of a complex and characterful old man’s life story.

The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell

This really is Shaun Bythell’s wry and hilarious diary of the coming and goings in and around his book shop in the rural seaside town of Wigtown, Scotland. A charming emporium, warmed by roaring fires, with nigh on 100,000 books arranged along twisting corridors of shelves, this sounds like it must be a veritable paradise to both work in and peruse books, but you’ll have to read it to find out the truth. This is a truly gorgeous and sometimes laugh out loud book for anyone who loves the whole panoply of book owning and browsing.

The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan

Gwenni Morgan is not like any other 12 year old girl in a small Welsh town. Inquisitive, bookish and full of spirit, she can fly in her sleep and loves playing detective. So when a neighbour mysteriously vanishes, and no one seems to be asking the right questions, Gwenni decides to conduct her own investigation.

An unforgettable novel full of dark secrets, acclaimed as one of the most successful debuts of 2009. Heart breaking yet hugely enjoyable.

Village Christmas by Laurie Lee

A short, nostalgic collection of Laurie Lee’s jottings and writings, mostly set around the village of Slad, his home in Gloucestershire and many of them previously unpublished. Broadcast on Radio 4 over Christmas you may have heard some already, but they are far, far better in the book. (I know, I had it for Christmas too, Fennie.)

The picture is The Journey of the Three Kings by Tissot