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

Purple Coo Book Group Autumn Read 2017

To vote for your favourite books please make your 1st and 2nd choices in the comments box below then, following a count up, I'll post the most popular title on the Purple Coo  main site and in Behind the Bike Sheds on Facebook. If you are unable to vote below, please let me know your choice via the Purple Coo main site or via Facebook

A Life of My Own by Claire Tomalin

The autobiography of a talented writer better known for her works on the lives of other authors such as Austen, Hardy and Dickens.

Mount by Jilly Cooper

An effortless easy to read book about bonking and horses – need I say more?

Pekin to Paris by Dina Bennett

A true story of how Mr and Mrs Bennett buy a vintage 1940 GM La Salle and, despite having the day dreaming, carsick Dina as navigator, actually set off on a 7,800 mile race from China, across Mongolia, Russia, taking in the Baltic States, Poland and Germany along the way, with the intention of ending up in the Place de Vendome Paris 35 days later.

Swing Time by Zadie Smith

Two girls, both mixed race and from similar backgrounds, have an overwhelming love of dance and musical theatre. Friends since childhood, they grow up to follow very different destinies, one is a super-talented dancer, the other merely as dogsbody PA to an international rock star. (Man Booker short list 2017)

Skin Deep by Laura Wilkinson

When struggling art student and former exploited child model, Diana sets out to liberate the disfigured child, Cal from his world of enforced isolation among the low life of Manchester’s Hulme Estate, she maintains she’s acting in the child’s best interests. But Diana, ambitious for success in the avant-garde art world also recognises the vulnerable Cal as her muse.  But triumph and fame means Diana must follow an increasingly bizarre path, one that brings her into conflict with the needs of the now teenage Cal.

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

It’s 1893 and newly widowed Cora Seaborne and her troubled son move away from London for the promise of fresh air and refuge in Colchester. Once there Cora, a keen and rational amateur naturalist, becomes embroiled in the Essex Serpent myth, a legendary beast said to be back roaming the Aldwinter coast. Suspecting an undiscovered species, she sets out to find out the truth, only to find herself entangled in a local legend, and the life of Aldwinter’s charismatic vicar as well

The painting is Pines and Tracks by the very talented Cheryl Culver

Purple Coo Book Group Summer Read 2017

To vote for your favourite books please make your 1st and 2nd choices in the comments box below then, following a count up, I'll post the most popular title on the Purple Coo  main site and in Behind the Bike Sheds on Facebook. If you are unable to vote below, please let me know your choice via the Purple Coo main site or via Facebook

A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

One of the great novels of its time, this is James Joyce’s first book and it traces the religious and intellectual awaking of Stephen Dedalus, Joyce’s fictional alter ego. The ‘hero’ questions and rebels against Irish conventional life, in particular the repressive strictures of the Catholic Church, 

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

An amusing high comedy. It’s the 1950s and a clergyman’s daughter/mild mannered spinster – an excellent woman – manages to get totally embroiled in the lives of her new neighbours. This book opens up and lays bare a whole world of vanished manners and repressed desires.

Sarum by Edward Rutherford

A masterpiece epic novel over 1000 pages long, Sarum traces the turbulent course of British History via five families. In so doing it covers a rich tapestry of civilization through the ages, from the creation of Stonehenge to the present day.

The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide

At only 140 pages, this book is a jewel. A young workaholic couple rent a cottage on a large estate near Tokyo and a cat invites itself to stay. Life suddenly has more promise, more colour and the couple start to feel much more joy and meaning in their life together. Then something happens and all is changed.

The Ice Twins by S.K. Tremayne

A creepy thriller. It’s hard enough coping with the death in an accident of one identical twin daughter, but when the remaining twin, Kirstie, claims to her parents that they have mistaken her identity for that of her sister, Lydia, the couple’s world comes crashing down.


The picture is Regatta at Argenteuil by Claude Monet

Purple Coo Book Group Spring Read 2017

Don't forget, my Purple Friends, that to vote for your books you need to list your 1st and 2nd choices in the comments box below. If for any reason you can't let me know there, try leaving me a message on the Purple Coo site itself or via Facebook, I'll be Behind the Bike Sheds. After a count up I'll post the most popular title on the Purple Coo main site. It then becomes the Purple Coo Book Group Spring Read 2017 - so  let's get on with some more Happy reading.

Golden Hill by Francis Spufford

When a handsome young stranger arrives in 1746 New York wishing to cash an order for £1000, can he be trusted or is he a smooth talking swindler? Racy and pacy, with wonderful twists and turns, I’m half way through this book already and it reminds me of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones. I love it. This has to be the best read I’ve come across this year.

Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

It’s 1922 and the war’s been over for four years. When a genteel grieving widow and her spinster daughter take in a married couple of the ‘clerk class’ to make ends meet, snobbery abounds. The spinster daughter is trapped by her home circumstances and the flighty young wife is bored and although it’s an unlikely companionship they're soon very close friends, and as a result of their relationship, dire troubles emerge.

Travels With My Aunt by Graham Green

A humorous novel about a retired, conventional bank manager who meets his eccentric and amoral aunt at his mother’s funeral. Before long they are setting off on journeys together, with momentous and life changing results.

The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller

On the face of it, this is a novella relating a four day affair between a lonely farmer’s wife and a visiting National Geographic reporter. But somehow it transcends the mundane to be about what it is to love and be loved, in such an intense way life is never the same again.

The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson

20 years after Bill Bryson was let loose to travel around Britain (remember Notes from a Small Island?) he’s been at it again to see what’s changed. Bognor Regis to Cape Wrath gets the predictably enjoyable Bryson treatment as he seeks out the ridiculous, the disreputable and the downright appealing.

(The illustration is a Hogarth Cartoon, The Rakes Progress)