Evening you lovely people… im looking for recommendations for good books to get lost in. Im riddled with adhd, I find myself refreshing the gasroom, bbc sport etc, multiple times an hour.
I’ve never been a huge physical reader but have a list of my 3 favourite reads (hopefully this will make recommendations easier)…
I need something to keep engrossed and give my frazzled mind a break.. my favourite 3 below…
Anything by Margaret Atwood. The Blind Assassin has a story within a story within a story.
Hilary Mantel, author of the Thomas Cromwell Trilogy. Her historical novel, A Place of Greater Safety, focussing on the lives of some of the major players in the French Revolution is perhaps lesser known but wonderful.
John Connolly writes American crime fiction with a supernatural element, as well as short stories. His books mainly feature Charlie Parker, a former detective turned PI whose wife and child were murdered by the Travelling Man. Begin with Every Dead Thing. He is Irish but knows Maine and the US well and the land and how it has both shaped and been shaped by humankind feature strongly. The towns and many of the bars and restaurants, shops and guesthouses are real places. If I win the lottery I could spend a happy six months eating and drinking and sightseeing my way across Parker’s New England.
J D Kirk’s Scottish crime series are, in parts, hilarious. The wonderful DCI Logan series has spawned a spinoff series featuring Bob Hoon, Scotland’s answer to Jack Reacher. That is if the answer is a disgraced 50 something Superintendent with a Special Forces past and an over fondness for square sausage, whisky, violence and astonishingly foul language.
M W Craven’s Washington Poe series. Lake District crime noir with some lovely characters and great plots.
My recommendation is Rich Men, Dead Men by Michael Dylan, the first in a series of six books. Available in paperback, and on Kindle.
DI Simon Wise and his team are trying to catch a serial killer who is targeting London’s wealthiest residents. But he has an identical twin brother, Tom, who heads up a ruthless criminal gang. The characters are well written, and the action is fast paced, however not everyone is who they seem to be, leaving the reader to work out who the good guys really are.
Another vote for Emily St John Mandel. Station 11 is an astonishing book - clever, original and gripping. Up there with Donna Tartt’s Secret History as my favourite book.
I’ve struggled for many years now to concentrate long enough to finish all but the slimmest volumes but I do remember enjoying James Cumming’s excellent reader-friendly autobiographical style story when it came out a decade or two ago.
In my late teens/early twenties I used to read a great deal but I’m struggling to remember authors and titles apart from Tess of the d’urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (186 years old yesterday). The latter was described by none other than Susie Dent as the best love story ever. Incurable romantic, me.
Mention of Far From The Madding Crowd on Countdown yesterday prompted me to order a copy for old times sake from the highly recommended online World of Books for £3.90 plus 99p postage (yes, really!) despite the no doubt accurate prediction from mrs micra that I’ll probably only read a few dozen pages.