And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

I read this in December 2016. It was the Lawshall Book Club January choice.

From the author of the Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns

A story of a brother and sister form Afghanistan, inseparable, yet separated.  The girl sold to a rich family.  The plot revolves round their life stories, the story of teh house Pari was sold to, the life of a greek boy who leaves home and becomes a plastic surgeon in California, who volunteers to work on victims of the troubles in Afghanistan and stays in that house...

Beautifully written , heart rending, superb...
10/10

At The Edge of the Orchard by Tracey Chevalier

I read this December 2016
I was given it for the charity bokshelf at work, so bought it to read.

et in the 1800's in America, it follows the misdaventures of the Goodenough family, peasant farmers, whose son heads off to Califonia. 
A lot of research about trees and tree collecting. I leant a lot!

Another good book , I do like this author
9/10

The Taxidermist's Daughter by Kate Mosse

I read this in November 2016
I brought this in the summer in Waterstones and have only just got round to reading it!
A story of floods and ghosts and murders
Definitely the sort of book I like
A really good spooky read
10/10

Lifeguard by James Petterson & Andrew Gross

I read this November 2016 as I was on holiday and it was left on the bookshelf at the condo by one of our guests.
All I can say it was an ideal holiday read, short chapters, not too taxing...
About a man working as a lifegurad in Florida, who becomes involved in an Art robbery...and the FBI agent investigating it...

Soul of Descretion by Susan Hill

I read this book October 2016 I saw it in a charity shop and as it was a Susan Hill I couldn't resist buying it .
Another of the Simon Serrailler detective novels (the latest I think) Usual mixture of beautiful prose and strong plot line.
Simon goes undercover, a nasty child abuse case.  In the meantime the family is falling apart, his father rapes a woman, she is not believed. Simons girlfriend starts a business venture with one of the peple Simon is investigating...
A true Susan Hill book
10/10

Mary Poppins by P.L.Travers

I read this October 2016
I saw this in a charty shop, had never read it and had only a few weeks before been talking to my Brother in law about the story as he had been to see the stage musical 3 times...
What can I say - a lovely, sweely written book, showing what life was like and what a fantasy life could be like in Englad at the turn of teh last century for children.
Delightful!
9/10

Slaughterhouse 5

I read this October 2016, it was the November 2016 book for the Regency book Club. 
Another good choice!
 This is a strange book, written non linear - it (and the hero Billy Pilgrim) travels back and forth in time.  Billy had been a prisoner of war in Dresden at the time of the bombings... The book goies back and forth and comes back to the dreadful blitzing of Dresden several times.
Billy sees his own life lived over and over, is abducted by aliems, lands back in Dresden, nothing is as it seems and he knows what's going to happen in the future and that the past cannot be changed as it exists at all times and recurrs in all eternitity
My type of book!

9/10

The Taxidermist's Daughter by Kate Mosse

I read this October 2016

I had this on my guilty shelf since the summer...
Strange goings on in the marshes.  A taxidermist who turns to drink, a huge conspiracy, a raped girl sent to an asylum who exacts revenge. What's not to like?

Death in Devon by Ian Sansom

I read this October 2016, a Kindle recommendation.
Another in the County series. 
The People's Professor visits a boys school, and uncovers occult goings on!
an enjoyable read

Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers

I read this in October 2016
another charity shop find!
A lighthearted read when I was off work sick.
Simliar to the film, bt has much more in it...

Recommended convalescence read

The Soul of Discretion by Susan Hill

I read this in Otcober 2016.  A charity shop find!
another in the Simon Serrailler crime series. 
Another really good book form Susan Hill, beautifully written and building up slowly but surely to an intense cliffhanger ending.
Simon is undercover trying to smash a pedophile ring.  Meanwhile, his father rapes a fellow freemasons wife, and pisses off to France...
His brother in law has died and his sister is having to cope with 3 children , the closure of the Hospice she works for and loss of income
His girlfriend's husband has died and things are chaging between them...
My goodness, evrything is in this novel!
Throughly enjoyed it!
10./10

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan

I read this August 2016 as it is the October book for Book Club.  I have a bit of a love / hate relationship with Ian McEwen books, some are dire some are good.
This book is set in London/Cambridge in the days of the Cold War and the miners strike and the 3 day week.  early 1970's bleak Britian...
Serena a clergyman's daughter, maths graduate, avud reader is groomed by an older man to work for MI5. 
Unusually I didn't hate Serena.....she did seem somewhat plausible....
Serena is send to recruit an author, she seems to fall in love with every officious, self ecentred male figure she comes across.
It was a book in 4 parts for me, the first quarter I didn't mind, second and third I found a bit tedious at times, trying to move the plot along in my mind, but the writing and asides seemed to hold everything up for me, the fourth quarter was Ok again (was I just glad to have got through it? )   It turms out that the author is writing this book from Serena's standpoint as he sees it.  I quite liked that idea...

H

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I read this August 2016.
I found a cipy in a charity shop.  I had wanted to read it for a while, I have seen the film.

I enjoyed this book, plot line is a married couple, new yourk yuppie types, loose their jobs, go to live in the South where Nick grew up and wher his family are.  Wife is Amazing Amy ( a set of cheildren's books her parents wrote) , talented, spoilt, obssesive.
One day Nick comes home to find his wife missing.  Signs of  a struugle, looks like murder or kidnap.
Story reloved round the search and also the story form Amy's piont of view...
Very good, complicated plot.
The only thing I would say is the chapters written in the Nick's voice sometimes , only sometimes, don't sound enough like a man's writing them.
But I really enjoyed both the book and the film
9/10

The Children Act by Ian McKewan

I read this in August 2016.
Dire!
'Story' is about a judge who has to make a decision about giving life saving treatment to a Jehovah's Witness minor. Starts with the judges husband asking permission to have an affair and gets worse.

The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz

I read this July 2016.  I had wanted to rad it before but hadn't got round to buying it.  I saw it in a charty shop and couldn't resist.
This is a new Sherlock Holmes novel and written very much in the ACD style.  It is longer than ACD and all the better for it.  The plot is multifaceted.  The Characters we already know.  The plot goes form Boston to Wimbledon to Baker Street and also sees Sherlock in jail!
I really liked this one, more than the ACD one's I've read.
10/10

Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

I read this July 2016 as it was the August book for the Regency Book Club.

This is a nn- fiction book about Matt's journey through depression.
Very quick to read, not at all 'text bookish' and very informative. 
I enjoyed this very much

Landed by Tim Pears

I read this July 2016, I found it in a charity shop.

The story of Owen Wood a man who lost his arm in a car accident that killed his young daughter.  I story of love, loneliness, loss and Phantom limb Pain.  Beautifully written, not sentimental, a life / lives ruined and tossed to the four winds... The journey with his children at the end is so evokative.

I really liked this and would recommend it.
Helen

City of Lies By R.J. Ellory

I read this book in July 2016
I had really enjoyed reading ' A quiet belief in Angels' so was interested to read another by this author.  Although not a good, in my opinion, as AQBIA, this book had it's merits.  Fast paced and full of intriege  .  John Harper is in hs 30's when he finds out that the fater he belived to be long dad, has been shot in a robbery and is indeed still alive, if mayeb not for long.  He leaves his journalist post in the Florida Keys to return to his childhood home of New York to find nothing is how he thought it was, and that his father is a gang boss.  Would make and excellent film

Air & Angels by Susan Hill

I read this July 2016.  I found a copy in a charity shop.  It was published in 1991, it was a wonder I hadn't come across it before.  I like Susan Hill books in general and this one did not disappoint.  Beautifully written it criss crosses lives in Britain and India as well as the lives of the young and the old and the middle aged, I'm guessing late 19th early 20th century.  Thomas is a respected , middle aged, Academic set to become Master at  his Cambridge College.  The arrival in his life of love for the first time, is unfortunately for him in the form of a 15 year old girl, Kitty, sent home to be educated from India.
A beautifully, soleful book, showing the intertwining of so many lives and the consequences of actions, taken or not taken.

Another enjoyable (though sad and mournful ) read

The Moth Catcher by Ann Cleeves

I read this in April 2016.  I had been passed it for the charity bookshelf at work by a friend.  I decided to give it a go as I wanted a light easy book to read.  This is part of the Vera series (on TV as well, I don't watch it)
It starts with a double murder, has another on the way.  Lots of characters, lots of provate life of Vera the detective stuff.
What can I say, Surprised myself by enjoying it!
Light and easy to read/follow.

The Leader of the Pack by Larry Honner

I read this April 2016 because I bought it for the Mackintosh designed binding and it was a Blackies book.
It's a children's book written around 1910- 1930 ish.  It's abot a wolf cub whose mother is killed by wolf hunters and siblings taken away.  The cub befriends other forest animals and is taken under the wing of a lone wolf who turns out to be the leader of all the wolves.  It is brutal, unsentimental, tells it like it is sort of book.  I don't know if these books would ever pass muster as children's books these days, but I remember reading these no punches pulled non PC books when I was a child and enjoying them.

A good bedtime read

So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

I read this April 2016, I had previously read the Psychopath Test and really enjoyed it.  I have seen some Ted Talks that Jon Ronson has given and enjoyed them.  I  heard about this on a TV programme and wanted to read it.

Jon went to interview the subjects of public shamings.  People who had made a bad taste joke or had misquoted something, or lied.  Jon was a victim of a spambot himself (someone who uses your identity on twitter to post false posts.
This is a really interesting book - non fiction, and has lots of research and cases in.

Worrying that we can all be the subject of internet trolls,
Be careful what you post folks...

10/10

Travels with my Aunt by Graham Green

I read this March 2016
It was the Regency Book Club's choice for June 2016
Previously we had read Brighton Rock.
This book is charming, very easy to read.  I thought it would be a bit like PG Woodhouse or Saki (which I would not have minded)  but it was and it wasn't ...the Aunt turned out to be such an interesting character, and pulled the staid Retired Bank Manger out of his 'bubble' of respectability.
Quick and easy to read...great bedtime book
10/10

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

I read this March 2016, it had been suggested a few times at the  Waterstones Book club.  It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2011
Set in the American Wild West, it follows  2 hired assassins Charlie and Eli Sisters.  They are ruthless, lawless and on a mission.  They are coming to the end of their career (well Eli wants to give up) and as brothers they have a sometimes love/hate relationship.
A story of wasted lives, brutality of  frontiersmen lives, the triumph and tragedies of the 1849 San Francisco gold rush. Of love and family
I really enjoyed it...
9/10

The Narrow Road to The Deep North by Richard Flanagan

I read this March 2016 it is the choice for May Regency Book Club.
Not for the faint earthed This is a grueling tale of the Burma Death Railway.  The author's father was a survivor.  It is beautifully written (winner of the Man Booker prize 2014) I think it's being made into a film.  It is a love story, a human story an inhuman story... The blurb sums it up:
In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Burma Death Railway, surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle's young wife two years earlier.  Struggling to save the men under his command from starvation, from cholera , from beatings, he receives a letter that will change his life forever.  This is a story about the many forms of love and death, of war and truth, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost.

Heartbreaking and gruesome, I really enjoyed this book
10/10

A Tap in the Window by Linwood Barclay

I read this March 2016 it is the Regency Book Club book for May 2016.
I have read Trust your Eyes by LB before and ths is much the same genre.  A page turning Thriller.
A cop turned Private Detective Cal Weaver whose son fell to his death while on drugs, is at a stop light when a tap on the window of the car reveals a young girl (who knew his son) in the pouring rain, needing a lift.  Kidnap, death, drugs bent cops, it's all there...
I really enjoyed this book, very easy to read and not a predictable ending.
 9/10

Island by Aldous Huxley

I read this in March 2016.  I picked it up at a bus station book shelf/swap shelf.  I thought it would be good to read after just rereading Brave New World.
A Journalist (Will Farnaby) working on the Far East is ship wrecked on the Island of Pala, where it's people live in peace and harmony.  There is a potential takeover of the Island's Oil reserves and various factions are vying for the rights. conveniently the natives all speak English and there is advanced medicine.

I found this a bit more 'of it's time' than BNW.  Too wordy and a bit laborious to read.

6/10

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

I read this in January 2016, and goodness only knows how many years ago in my youth!
This is the Regency Book Club's choice for March 2016.
This was surprisingly easy to read, and still relevant today, conditioning, class system, our attitude to outsiders, those questioning the norm....I could see echos of 1984 and Anthony Burgess' The Wanting Seed and Logan's Run.
A future in which sex is just for pleasure not for procreation, test tube, state conditioned babies, everyone knowing their place.

Bernard is a Maverick, he and Lenina visit a 'Reservation' savages living the old ways and find a woman form their own world who was pregnant by the Controller when she got lost on a Reservation trip with him and had the child.  They re-eenter 'society' as the mother Linda, knew it adn John the son was taught it .  Neither could cope.
I recommend reading/rereading it...

9/10

The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh

I read this January 2016
It was the Regency Book Club choice (us renegades from the Waterstones book club) for February 2016
 I must say I enjoyed this little book, macabre but funny.

Sub titled An Anglo- American Tragedy...that about sums it up.  Highlighting the differences between our 2 countries.

Set in the 1940's I'd guess, but a California full of Englishmen harping back to the old country and gentler times.

The hero Dennis Barlow ( a poet) works at A Happier Hunting Ground pet cemetery and after the suicide of a friend is propelled into the world of the American human cemetery Whispering Glades, with it strange rituals.  He dates a corpse beautician, who in turn is loved by the embalmer... A classic of that old school style of British writing that  micks the world of the posh and the apuper alike.  I haven't read any Evelyn Waugh for such a long time, I was really glad this little book was picked. I hope the others like it as much as I did.
10/10

Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd

I read this January 2016
I bought this ages ago at a summer fete because William Boyd had been asked to write a new James Bond.  Reading this I can see why... it's very Bond like plot wise although the hero is far from Bondlike. An American (Climatologist) in London for a job interview.  He happens to meet a man in a restaurant, who subsequent eaves a file there, He goes to the man's (a research in pharmacist  developing a new drug) but finds the man has been fatally attacked.  All that happens then on is a consequence of that visit.  He goes underground, living rough, gets mugged, goes to a church for help, meets a policewoman....you name it , it happens pretty much...
I enjoyed this book
9/10

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

I read this January 2016
It had been one I missed out on reading and was really pleased to pick up a copy on a charity shop recently.
I didn't know quite what to expect, I half suspected it would be a bit chick litish, but it wasn't at all.  It's a thriller set on  and around a daily train journey to London.  The plot unfolds, each female character takes up the narration and we see the whole complicated story taken up by that characters perspective.
A tale of mental, physical and drink abuse that had me wanting to read on and on (very unusual for me) The is a film of it coming ot this year, I do hope they do this lovely book justice.

10/10