Purple Coo Book Group Spring 2020

To vote for your preferred books for our Purple Coo Book Group Autumn Read 2019 please list your 1st and 2nd choices in the comments box below.

If for an reason you are unable to write your comment in there, please let me know your two favourites via the Facebook Book Group comments box. 

As soon as everyone has voted I'll add up the votes and the book with the most votes becomes our Purple Coo Book Group Autumn Read 2019.

Mr Godley’s Phantom by Mal Peet

Set in 1945, ‘part ghost story, part crime thriller and part something else entirely.’

Martin Heath returns from the war a broken man, but his new employer, a strange and preoccupied recluse, has his own hidden demons to deal with. (Something close to a masterpiece – The Guardian)

Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson

A witty and humorous travelogue following Bill Bryson’s extensive 1990 trip around Europe, with many flashbacks to two summer tours he made as a young man in 1972/73

Surviving Me by Jo Johnson

The story of an out of work young man in a crisis, Surviving Me  tends to focus on the challenges facing men today by dealing with depression, dysfunctional families and degenerative disease in an honest, life affirming and often humorous way.

The Crock of Gold by James Stephens

First published in 1912, and widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest novels in the Irish comic tradition, The Crock of Gold is a medley of fantasy, satire and humour all wound up in a magical narrative.

The Last Enemy by Richard Hillary

Written in 1942, just seven months before the authors untimely death, this book is considered to be one of the classic texts of World War II

(Not the easiest reading but well worth the effort)

(The picture is A change in the Seasons by Cheryl Culver)

 

 

Purple Coo Book Group Autumn Read 2019

To vote for your preferred books for our Purple Coo Book Group Autumn Read 2019 please list your 1st and 2nd choices in the comments box below.

If for an reason you are unable to write your comment in there, please let me know your two favourites via the Facebook Book Group comments box. 

As soon as everyone has voted I'll add up the votes and the book with the most votes becomes our Purple Coo Book Group Autumn Read 2019.

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

A series of brilliant vignettes set in the cannery district of Monterey USA during the Great Depression. Disturbing but life affirming, a truly Great American Novel.

Bookworm by Lucy Mangan

An all absorbing memoir of what is was like to be a bookish child in Margaret Thatcher’s South London.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

A coming of age story. Over 6 turbulent months 17 year old Cassandra relates the adventures of her eccentric family and their struggle to live in genteel poverty in a ruined Suffolk castle during 1930s.

Love is Blind by William Boyd

Set at the end of the 19^th C young musician Brodie Moncur seizes the chance to flee his strict Edinburgh father to start a new life in Paris. A typical Boyd tale of dizzying passion, dangerous consequences and brutal revenge.

This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay

The real life secret diaries of a junior doctor, now turned successful comedy writer, this book is almost too painfully truthful and very nearly as painfully funny.

(The picture is A Hinds Daughter by James Guthrie)

Purple Coo Book Group Summer Read 2019

Remember, to choose your preferred books for our Purple Coo Book Group Summer Read 2019, all you have to do is make your 1st and 2nd choices in the comments box below. If you are unable to comment for any reason, let me know your two favourites via the Purple Coo Main Site or tell me through Face Book, Behind the Bike Sheds.  As soon as everyone has voted I'll publish our favourite and that becomes our Purple Coo summer choice. I think you'll agree we've got something  to suit everyone this time. 

All Among the Barley by Melissa Harrison

It’s 1933 and young Edie is all set to spend her life, like her family before her, on an impoverished Suffolk farm when an outsider from London arrives, determined to record what she see as fading rural traditions and beliefs. But this glamorous stranger is not all that she seems. This is a novel about how in the wrong hands, nostalgia can wield a dangerous and seductive power.

My Kind of Blue by Ken Clark

The memoir of a well-respected Tory maverick and jazz aficionado.

Sea Room by Adam Nicholson

Aged 21 the 5th Baron Carnock, hubby to Sarah Raven and grandson of Vita Sackville West, inherited the Shiant Islands, not far from the Isle of Harris and Lewis, to his mind one of the most beautiful places on earth. Sea room is an island history of birds, boat, hermits, fisher folk mixed in with the perils and pleasures of island living.

The Olive Tree by Lucinda Riley

The complex nature of relationships, families and family ties, lies and deceptions, love and intrigue. Set mostly in Cyprus, the story centres on a house called Pandora and those who have been touched and influenced by its magic.

The Templar’s Last Secret by Martin Walker

Bruno, gourmand and beloved chief of police in idyllic St Denis in the Dordogne sets out to unravel what lies behind a mysterious death and in so doing brings some ancient mysteries to light. An enjoyable Maigret type thriller and a celebration of French rural cuisine.

 The picture is  an illustration by Arthur Rackham for The Three Bears