General Chat

Two books as usual please review date will be about 31 May.

My suggestions, both available from Amazon

One Day by David Nicholls

'A romantic comedy that the gents needn't be ashamed to read. Chronicling a friendship spanning two decades, Nicholls perfects the will-they-won't-they trick, starting with his leads at university in the 1980s and poking gentle fun at the decades following. A genuine tear-jerker as well as laugh-out-loud funny.'

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
(Been dying for this to come out in paperback so that I could suggest it)

'Lock Cromwell in a deep dungeon in the morning,' says Thomas More, 'and when you come back that night he'll be sitting on a plush cushion eating larks' tongues, and all the gaolers will owe him money.' England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey's clerk, and later his successor. Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and events. Ruthless in pursuit of his own interests, he is as ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages.

Greaders suggestion April – May 2010-04-06
Freedom’s Land by Anna Jacobs
Norah’s husband was killed in the Great War and she is struggling to provide a home for her daughter. Andrew’s wife is dead and he wants to make a new life for his two sons.
The Australian government is giving es-servicemen a farm. But to join the group settlement scheme, Andrew must find a wife. Will a marriage of convenience give Andrew and Norah the chance they seek? Can two strangers be happy together?
In Australia they have to clear the forest to make their own farms. But they are both strong and willing to give it everything they’ve got. Then nature intervenes and not only their farms but their lives are in danger. Will they survive? Can they still make their dreams come true

Greaders suggestion April – May 2010
The Second Husband by Louise Candlish
When David Calder moves in next door to Kate Easton and her two children, no one has any idea of the devastation about to be unleashed. With Kate struggling to accept her daughter Roxy’s growing independence, and with tensions between Kate and her first husband Alistair still very much alive, there is enough family drama to go around already.
Before they know it, glamorous, charismatic Davis is the only one who seems able to keep the peace. Soon Kate has fallen in love and agreed to be his wife. At last she can come to terms with the betrayals of her first marriage. At last she dares hope she has the happy ending she deserves.

First suggestion is

The Widow Ginger by Pip Granger

it is 1954, Rosie and her beloved Auntie Maggie are opening up their cafe in Old Compton Street for Uncle Bert's breakfast special when the Widow Ginger comes to call.

The Widow Ginger, an ex-GI with ice-cold eyes, has unfinished business with Uncle Bert - business that inludes being cheated on his share of a 'liberated' lorry-load of guns and explosives during the war - and he intends to get payment in full.

And this isn't all: the lovely Luigi appears to be suffering from a severe case of unrequited lust; Bert and the local Mafioso Maltese Joe have had aan acrimonious falling out; and, most worrying of all, Rosie's best friend Jenny has begun to keel over in the school playground.
Told in the words of little Rosie, this story is from a child's point of view.

Second suggestion,

When the Eagle Hunts by Simon Scarrow

It is the winter of AD 44 and after a series of bloody battles, Camulodunum (modern-day Colchester) has fallen to the invading Roman army.

As General Plautius, leader of the Second Legion, plans his next campaign, his wife and children are shipwrecked in a storm. They fall into the hands of a dark set of Druids who now demand the return of those of their brotherhood taken prisoner by the Romans.

Two volunteers from General Plautius's Legion must venture deep into hostile territory in an attempt to rescue the prisoners before they are sacrified to the Druids dark gods.
Will Cato and Macro discover where the Druids are hiding their hostages? Can they find some way to rescue them before time runs out?

(Footnote Macro is VERY friendly with Boudica!)

My first suggestion is;-
The Guernsey Literary and Potatoe Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Ann Barrows.

It's 1946 and author Juliet Ashton can't think what to write next. Out of the blue, she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey - by chance, he's acquired a book that once belonged to her-and, spurred on by their mutual love of reading, they begin a correspondence. When Dawsey reveals that he is a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potatoe Peel Pie Society, Juliet's curiosity is piqued and it's not long before she begins to hear from other members. As letters fly back and forth with stories of life in Guernsey under the German Occupation , Juliet soon realises is every bit as extraordinary as its name.

My second suggestion is:-

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

In 1960's Nigeria, a community blighted by civil war , three lives intersect. Ugwu, a boy from a poor village, works as a houseboy for a university lecturer. Olanna, a young woman , has abandoned he life of privilege in Lagos to live with her charimatic new lover, the professor. The third is Richard a shy Englishman in thrall to Olanna's enigmatic twin sister. When the shocking horror of the war engulfs them, their loyalties are severely tested as they are pulled apart and thrown together in ways none of them imagined......

Steig Larsson - The GIrl with the Dragon Tattoo.

This author wrote three books - he died in 2004 and more recently all three of his books have been numbers 1, 2 and 3 on the best seller fiction lists. We have had to wait several weeks for it to be our turn at the library - we were somewhere up in the 350th on the want list but the NZ libraries did have 41 books.

The Dragon Tattoo is his first book:
Plot summary:
Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomqvist is hired by Henrik Vanger to investigate the disappearance of Vanger’s great-niece Harriet. Henrik suspects that someone in his family, the powerful Vanger clan, murdered Harriet over forty years ago.
Starting his investigation, Mikael realizes that Harriet’s disappearance is not a single event, but rather linked to series of gruesome murders in the past. He now crosses paths with Lisbeth Salander, a young computer hacker, an asocial punk and most importantly, a young woman driven by her vindictiveness.
Together they form an unlikely couple as they dive deeper into the violent past of the secretive Vanger family.

Oh and it comes with a little family tree in the front.....

Persey

And this book “The Pursuit of Happiness” by Douglas Kennedy - when I read it at the time was one I did not want to put down.

The book starts off from the point of view of Kate, a recently divorced single mother with a young son. Her mother has just died and she is hoping for some time alone to mourn, but keeps receiving phone calls and letters from a woman named Sara Smythe. Eventually she goes round to her apartment to ask for the harassment to stop, finding her apartment covered in photos of her and her brother. The author makes Sara seem like a stalker, a strange old woman, but then it switches to Sara’s point of view. She has given Kate a book, in which she tells her life-story, and this is the major chunk of the book.

I loved the characters, and whilst I had read Douglas Kennedy before this book was a complete departure from his other works. I started to doubt that he was a he – but no the photo on the dust jacket proves otherwise. You would swear he was a woman – he writes from a feminine point of view and is very convincing. He gets the emotions and feelings down so well – I was blown away.

The book has just been republished – hence the fact that I am recommending it.

Persey

My two book choices

Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene

Henry Pulling, a retired bank manager, meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time in over fifty years at his mother's funeral. Soon after, she persuades Henry to abandon Southwood, his dahlias and the Major next door to travel her way, through Brighton, Paris, Istanbul, Paraguay...Accompanying his aunt, Henry joins a shiftless, twilight society: mixing with hippies, war criminals, CIA men; smoking pot, breaking all the currency regulations and eventually coming alive after a dull suburban lifetime.

Wild Swans by Jung Chang

This is a sensitive yet in places deeply shocking exploration of the lives of three generations of women in one Chinese family, beginning in 1909 and ending (in print at least) in 1991. The stories are of a grandmother who was concubine to a warlord, a mother torn between her duties towards her family and to the Party, and the author Jung Chang (or Er-hong, one of the 'wild swans' of the title), who charts her mental battle against (or submission to) the relentless indoctrination of the Mao regime, and depicts her family's hardships under Communism and beforehand.

x Jill

My suggestions are (both available on Amazon)

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

From the back blurb of the book: The Road is a profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which a father and his son, “each the other’s world entire.” are sustained by love.

The Accidental Sorcerer by K E Mills

Gerald Dunwoody, a Third Grade wizard and lowly safety inspector for Ottoslands Department of Thaumaturgy, inadvertently blows up a factory while trying to save it. Summarily fired, Gerald takes a job in almost bankrupt New Ottosland as royal court wizard for King Lional the 43rd. To prove his powers to the doubtful king and his put-upon sister, Prime Minister Princess Melissande, Gerald turns a cat into a lion and transforms the dowdy princess into a literally bewitching fashion plate, but preventing war between New Ottosland and Kallarap and making a highly illegal dragon for the king may be beyond his will and abilities.

Rainwater - by Sandra Brown
In 1934, Ella Barron runs her boarding house with an efficiency that ensures her life will be kept in balance. She cooks, cleans and cares for her challenged 10 year old son, whose misunderstood behaviour finds her on the receiving end of pity, derision and suspicion....Then, Mr. Rainwater is introduced as 'a man of impeccable character', but Ella senses that his arrival will bring about unsettling changes.

Being Elizabeth - by Barbara Taylor Bradford
Now aged 25, Elizabeth stands to inherit the family business. Over eight hundred years old, the company is a bastion of male chauvinism. Her greatest ally is her childhood friend, but when they begin an affair, it scandalises those around them, as he is already married...but worse is yet to come.

Persephone, Although I am not in the Greaders club, because my time is inconsistent, i always have a look at the suggestions of the readers.
The Stieg Larsson books have been in the best sellers list here also, for quite a few weeks. In fact in the Times today, three of his books are in the top four. I had thought of reading the one you mentioned, but did not think it was 'my kind of thing'. Now I have read your synopsis, I think I'll give it a go. Do you know what his other books are like
Many thanks and happy reading.
Julia in Derbyshire

just Helen and Alfie to reply I think.

First suggestion:

The Sugar Queen" by Sarah Addison Allen.

Twenty-seven-year-old Josey is sure of three things: winter in her North Carolina hometown is her favorite season; she's a sorry excuse for a Southern belle; and sweets are best eaten in the privacy of her hidden closet.

For while Josey has settled into an uneventful life in her mother's house, her one consolation is the stockpile of sugary treats and paperback romances she escapes to each night . . .

Until she finds her closet harboring none other than local waitress Della Lee Baker, a tough-talking, tender-hearted woman who is one part nemesis - and two parts fairy godmother . . .

Second suggestion:

"Garden Spells" by Sarah Addison Allen

Welcome to Bascom, North Carolina, where it seems that everyone has a story to tell about the Waverley women. The house that’s been in the family for generations, the walled garden that mysteriously blooms year round, the rumours of dangerous loves and tragic passions. Every Waverley woman is somehow touched by magic.

Claire has always clung to the Waverleys’ roots, tending the enchanted soil in the family garden from which she makes her sought-after delicacies – famed and feared for their curious effects. She has everything she thinks she needs – until one day she waked to find a stranger has moved in next door and a vine of ivy has crept into her garden . . .
Claire’s carefully tended life is about to run gloriously out of control.

n

Julia I will Pm you later.