Thanks for this recommendation - I am one of your time-poor people who can’t bear to read something rubbish or too hard as one of the handful of books I have time for each summer holiday. This was just right and I really enjoyed it. But boy do they do a lot of addictions in California...
Saw that the book’s author was on Woman’s Hour and thought her life sounded interesting, will definitely read now you’ve recommended. Thank you.
Currently on a beach in Greece and just raced through Daughters of Night, a Georgian detective story and not my usual thing at all but I really enjoyed it.
Seep sponges are great and work for us, would recommend. The bin liners however tear easily and lead to lots of swearing in our house. I double bag, which makes it even more expensive to be eco!
Ugh. I don’t know who you people are any more. All these books sound like such hard work. I can’t do Worthy Lit Fic any more it’s so fucking DULL 😩
I’ve loved Esther’s recs of Fleishman Is In Trouble and Restoration (although Restoration got put aside some months ago, barely a quarter of the way through… but I SWEAR I’ll finish it as it was actually good).
Other than that tbh I’m just reading news and current affairs stuff on the internet and some Harry Potter fanfiction (filthy stuff on AO3 where Hermione is seduced by men who are not Ron because eww, Ron). I simply can’t get more excited about any of the books listed above by previous posters. My mum gave me Hamnet and I’ve thrown it aside after 10 pages.
I’ve just read Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt, and I can’t exactly recommend it because some people will find the subject extremely challenging and a bit grim and won’t be able to get past it, but it made me laugh a lot, and not want to be asked what I was laughing at because there are practically zero lines you can read out loud. It is a satire based around one man’s exploitative and awful “solution” to sexual harassment in the workplace, which I am not going to describe here (they talk about it on the latest Backlisted podcast if anyone wants to size it up) but it really skewers the culture, attitudes and hyper-masculinity of the corporate world. I have to admire her courage in just committing to this idea for 300 pages. It has made me keen to catch up on her other stuff. Her difficulties with getting and staying published, despite her having huge success with her first novel, make for an interesting story as well. I am now reading Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido, it seems to have the reputation of a modern classic and is much raved about, not quite sure what I think of it yet, it’s the sort of thing I should like but I’ve got that mildly irritated feeling some books provoke that I can’t quite explain but I’m giving it a chance. Also, these are for children but my daughter is reading Hilary McKay’s books, has ripped through The Exiles series and is now on The Casson Family and I’m really jealous of her being in that state of reading bliss that’s so hard to recapture as an adult, knowing you’ve got more of the same ahead. So I might read those myself next as I enjoyed reading her The Skylarks War at bedtime.
I just finished and absolutely LOVED - I’ll show myself out by Jessie Klein. She is a 40 something mum and comedian who was raised in nyc and now lives in California. She has written for Amy shumer, SNL, etc and is so articulate and funny about this bizarre world we find ourselves in. I wizzed through it in days and nights as I was laughing out loud so much. Really recommend!! I also loved Pachinko by Min Jin Lee which is a epic read about 4 generations of Korean /Japanese families. It’s very well written and has been out for a good few years so maybe everyone already knows how fantastic it is already. My husband just informed me it also a show on Apple TV so I can not wait to also watch the screen version
I HATED that Times review of Jessie Burton's book. In general, they do seem to be particularly savage at the moment - I wonder if it's deliberate? A Normal Family sounds excellent - thank you!
I’m currently in purgatory, sorry darkest remotest Wales with my husband, seven year old whirlwind son and mother. I’ve had approximately 8 minutes of time when I haven’t been preparing picnics, packing up beach bags or washing towels to sit down with a book.
I have brought Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You and the lack of speech punctuation is annoying AF. Is this a thing now?! Is it me?!
Must go. Got a little boy with a beach ball on elastic kicking it into my face.
Honestly, I bloody love a good book recommendation. Will be downloading this one stat, thank you. A few I’ve recently enjoyed: would heartily recommend Love Marriage by Monica Ali (some of the best writing about sex I’ve read in some time - not the whole focus of the book, by any means, but, whoa, she could teach other writers a thing or two); The Year of the End by Anne Theroux - very interesting account of the end of a long marriage; Non Fiction by Julie Myerson (f*ck me she’s brave); My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley - excoriating exploration of a mother-daughter relationship).
I'm a real romance girl so I absolutely loved The Sight of You by Holly Miller - totally made me cry which is very hard to do. I also liked The Man Who Didn't Call by Rosie Walsh which had bits I didn't see coming - so much so that I went back and re-read parts once I'd finished just to appreciate them a bit more!
I’ve just finished Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny and I didn’t want it to end. It’s the perfect book I think. She writes characters just so well that you fall into her world. That or Standard Deviation would make a brilliant holiday read or gift. Also The Whalebone Theatre which is a classic English saga of the best kind. I cried and I’ve usually a heart of stone
Thanks for this recommendation - I am one of your time-poor people who can’t bear to read something rubbish or too hard as one of the handful of books I have time for each summer holiday. This was just right and I really enjoyed it. But boy do they do a lot of addictions in California...
Saw that the book’s author was on Woman’s Hour and thought her life sounded interesting, will definitely read now you’ve recommended. Thank you.
Currently on a beach in Greece and just raced through Daughters of Night, a Georgian detective story and not my usual thing at all but I really enjoyed it.
Seep sponges are great and work for us, would recommend. The bin liners however tear easily and lead to lots of swearing in our house. I double bag, which makes it even more expensive to be eco!
Ugh. I don’t know who you people are any more. All these books sound like such hard work. I can’t do Worthy Lit Fic any more it’s so fucking DULL 😩
I’ve loved Esther’s recs of Fleishman Is In Trouble and Restoration (although Restoration got put aside some months ago, barely a quarter of the way through… but I SWEAR I’ll finish it as it was actually good).
Other than that tbh I’m just reading news and current affairs stuff on the internet and some Harry Potter fanfiction (filthy stuff on AO3 where Hermione is seduced by men who are not Ron because eww, Ron). I simply can’t get more excited about any of the books listed above by previous posters. My mum gave me Hamnet and I’ve thrown it aside after 10 pages.
I know, it’s not you, it’s me.
I’ve just read Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt, and I can’t exactly recommend it because some people will find the subject extremely challenging and a bit grim and won’t be able to get past it, but it made me laugh a lot, and not want to be asked what I was laughing at because there are practically zero lines you can read out loud. It is a satire based around one man’s exploitative and awful “solution” to sexual harassment in the workplace, which I am not going to describe here (they talk about it on the latest Backlisted podcast if anyone wants to size it up) but it really skewers the culture, attitudes and hyper-masculinity of the corporate world. I have to admire her courage in just committing to this idea for 300 pages. It has made me keen to catch up on her other stuff. Her difficulties with getting and staying published, despite her having huge success with her first novel, make for an interesting story as well. I am now reading Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido, it seems to have the reputation of a modern classic and is much raved about, not quite sure what I think of it yet, it’s the sort of thing I should like but I’ve got that mildly irritated feeling some books provoke that I can’t quite explain but I’m giving it a chance. Also, these are for children but my daughter is reading Hilary McKay’s books, has ripped through The Exiles series and is now on The Casson Family and I’m really jealous of her being in that state of reading bliss that’s so hard to recapture as an adult, knowing you’ve got more of the same ahead. So I might read those myself next as I enjoyed reading her The Skylarks War at bedtime.
I just finished and absolutely LOVED - I’ll show myself out by Jessie Klein. She is a 40 something mum and comedian who was raised in nyc and now lives in California. She has written for Amy shumer, SNL, etc and is so articulate and funny about this bizarre world we find ourselves in. I wizzed through it in days and nights as I was laughing out loud so much. Really recommend!! I also loved Pachinko by Min Jin Lee which is a epic read about 4 generations of Korean /Japanese families. It’s very well written and has been out for a good few years so maybe everyone already knows how fantastic it is already. My husband just informed me it also a show on Apple TV so I can not wait to also watch the screen version
I HATED that Times review of Jessie Burton's book. In general, they do seem to be particularly savage at the moment - I wonder if it's deliberate? A Normal Family sounds excellent - thank you!
I’m currently in purgatory, sorry darkest remotest Wales with my husband, seven year old whirlwind son and mother. I’ve had approximately 8 minutes of time when I haven’t been preparing picnics, packing up beach bags or washing towels to sit down with a book.
I have brought Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You and the lack of speech punctuation is annoying AF. Is this a thing now?! Is it me?!
Must go. Got a little boy with a beach ball on elastic kicking it into my face.
Honestly, I bloody love a good book recommendation. Will be downloading this one stat, thank you. A few I’ve recently enjoyed: would heartily recommend Love Marriage by Monica Ali (some of the best writing about sex I’ve read in some time - not the whole focus of the book, by any means, but, whoa, she could teach other writers a thing or two); The Year of the End by Anne Theroux - very interesting account of the end of a long marriage; Non Fiction by Julie Myerson (f*ck me she’s brave); My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley - excoriating exploration of a mother-daughter relationship).
I'm a real romance girl so I absolutely loved The Sight of You by Holly Miller - totally made me cry which is very hard to do. I also liked The Man Who Didn't Call by Rosie Walsh which had bits I didn't see coming - so much so that I went back and re-read parts once I'd finished just to appreciate them a bit more!
At the Table and Paper Palace, loved them both!
I’ve just finished Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny and I didn’t want it to end. It’s the perfect book I think. She writes characters just so well that you fall into her world. That or Standard Deviation would make a brilliant holiday read or gift. Also The Whalebone Theatre which is a classic English saga of the best kind. I cried and I’ve usually a heart of stone