Oh dear. Everyone's working their way through the Booker list.

Well, I'm reading Vincent Bugliosi's rant, Outrage, about the OJ Simpson trial.

Greenmantle. John Buchan.

Ripping tosh.

A Brief History of Time.

I have Dry by Jane Harper which I'm hoping is going to be gripping tosh.

I think the best 'deplorable' book I've ever read is Riders by Jilly Cooper.

I've never read any of Jilly Cooper's books except Class, years ago.

Rachel Johnson falls into much the same deplorable subset though, I think, and I've read all of her stuff.

What rubbish are you reading?

At the moment? JTT.

I did read Is it just me? by Miranda Hart, which was within reaching distance of the loo recently.

Not reading, but listening to some fantasy guff called Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks on recommendation of a normally reliable friend. Not as bad as I feared, not as good as he suggested.

I've never read any of Jilly Cooper's books except Class, years ago.

Jilly Cooper? Here hare here:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n10/ian-patterson/miss-dior-prodigally-applied

Have been toying with a re-read of Interview with a Vampire

Riders is THE ONE [...] Though Polo is worth a look.

Polo has always been my favourite of that series, probably because it has the nicest hero in a major storyline (in some of the later ones, I always feel that there's a nominal main couple but they take a back seat to the continued adventures of bloody Rupert).

I have read every Sven Hassell book. Probably twice.

My brother's house when he was between wives was great for rubbish reading. There were stacks of paperbacks everywhere - Douglas Reeman, Wilbur Smith, Bernard Cornwell, Sven Hassel: essentially men in historical combat situations. A weekend at his place would involve me reading chapters at random from the closest book to hand and the resultant alcohol - fuelled dreams were full of heroic yet flawed heroes, salt of the earth sergeants and the odd Stuka attack on a 19th century frigate.

Cross post Tada. I've read them so many times it's unbelievable. I cried when Porta died. There, I said it.

Those letters in the LRB are just great, Shadrack. I think I'll subscribe.

The problem with the post Riders stuff is that she rehabilitated Rupert. She needs a thorough bastard and she had one but let him go.

It's the old 'first make me care, then make me worry'. We don't have to confuse 'care' with 'like'. Hoping a villain gets his comeuppance generates just as much narrative oomph.

and the odd Stuka attack on a 19th century frigate.

I just finished a nice little book from the Dollar Store, Scent of Secrets by Jane Thynne, about an actress working in pre-War Berlin who is also (gasp!) a secret agent for the Brits. A pretty good story, the author's research is extensive. I wouldn't exactly classify it as rubbish, but I gave it away as soon as I'd finished it.

This is the thread for me! I am currently reading a not brilliant historical adventure set in olde Scotland. The author is trying to make Andrew Moray the big hero instead of Wallace or Bruce. He has just fallen in love with a feisty redheaded daughter of a friend and married her in one day.

It's not bad enough to give up on but I won't be reading anything else in this series.

All Douglas Reeman's books are identical - only the era, type of vessel and theatre of war vary:- Lieutenant is shafted and disgraced by cowardly commanding officer, Commodore/Admiral keeps faith with him and promotes him to command a ready-for-the-scrap heap smaller ship in which he covers himself in glory by seeing of a cruiser/battleship. He then gets the girl and a medal.

The Amber Spyglass.

I loved Robert Merle's Fortunes of France series when I read it some years ago, at least the first six books or so. Only the later ones felt a bit samey.

The 'rubbish' I indulge in are the cheapo Kindle romances that are perfectly for cheering up on a gloomy day. And if they (rarely) turn out a bit too silly, it's not much money wasted.

I'm reading L is for Lawless by Sue Grafton (trying to work my way through the alphabet before she publishes Z) and Charity Girl by Georgette Heyer.

I've had to put L aside until I'm in the mood for it, and Charity Girl is my current commute book. Faro's Daughter after I've finished.

Oh and excellent idea for a thread Rosy.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, though the grief parts don't seem too rubbish so far.

I'm re-reading all the Poirot books, in order of when they were set. Currently I'm on "Black Coffee" which Christie wrote as a play and someone later rewrote as a particularly crap novel which basically describes the stage blocking for no obvious reason ("she moved down to the other end of the sofa, he walked across the room and paused"). It's great.

King kung-fu series by Marshall MacaoGreat series of martial arts pulp.

Wrong thread, Helbel. At least to me, all the regency Heyers are much loved favourites and sort of classics (as in 'must have read those').

Fanny by Gaslight.

All the modern world has to do now is redefine 'by' and we've got a set.

I broadly agree with you, Frieda, but Charity Girl is ... less so. And Grafton fits on here.

(I am not currently reading any rubbish. This may change when I decide what book to start re-reading tonight.)

Rivals is the best Jilly Cooper.

I've recently finished the newest Marian Keyes. She was prescribed when I was too anxious to read anything more highbrow.

When I've been mentally under the weather in the past, I've turned to children's books: real crapola like the Malory Towers series, the Drina ballet books, and (as I recall them) the even sillier Wells ballet series. There were some pony books too, oh dear.

Now I'm older, perhaps I'll be ready for Marian Keyes when the paralysing anxiety state hits again. Makes note to stock up soon, just in case.

Or perhaps I'll just work my way through the Arthur Ransome books. I really enjoyed going back to The Big Six and Picts and Martyrs a couple of years ago.

I am reading "The Lake house" by Kate Morton. Pretty much all her books involve someone in the present investigating a mystery attached to a large country property, which ends up being a tragic family secret experienced by the upper middle class owners of said property at the turn of the century.

Grafton is very good at what she does. I've read A-K (and S) so far and I think J was one of her best.

I read S on a holiday and then went back and started from the beginning.

I last read this sort of thing in my teens. James Herbert, Sven Hassel, nine books of Thomas fucking Covenant...

I used to enjoy Carol Smith's far-fetched thrillers, sometimes set in very familiar locations, despite her often slapdash prose style. The last one was particularly daft, but I'm still a bit sad that there hasn't been a new one for quite a while.

I read one TC book. It's an odd situation to be in, finding yourself struggling to make it through a load of creepy misogynistic garbage to curry favour with a girl you fancy.

I've also been known to revert to Arthur Ransome, Rosy.

Arthur Ransome and the Moomins get regular re-reads here, too. (They are in no way rubbish though.)

If I'm feeling particularly down, I have a stack of Biggles' books to flick through, though I'm probably more likely to reach for my Battle Picture Weekly collections these days.

Biggles, that's a good idea.

No one ever just said anything in Biggles books.

They averred, opined, asserted, declared and sometimes even ejaculated.

I read all the (well, the first six, has he churned out more?) Thomas Covenant novels as a teen. Sometimes I vaguely intend to reread one, just to see. But i won't. Just like I won't reread these: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaea_trilogy

I definitely will reread the first one of Gene Wolfe's fantasy epic, "Shadow of the Torturer" which I recently got a slightly damp and crinkly copy from a stall of damp-damaged books for 10p. I remember being bewitched by those.

I agree that Grafton writes what she does very well, Helbel, but I still classify it as rubbish. Well-crafted junk food for the brain; completely acceptable in small doses but quickly distressing if you consume much too often.

You might say it is the difference between craft and art. I mostly prefer craft but the world would be a poorer place without art.

I read all of Sven Hassel's books when I was a teenager - all the swearing and obsession with having a shit made it feel so grown up. The Gor books were another teenage obsession.

Recently though I forgot my kindle pre flight and had to buy a book at the airport. After some deliberation I chose the latest Jilly Cooper based on enjoying Riders etc years ago - it was TERRIBLE! So bad I gave up after the first flight, and left it in the office in Germany with a note saying "free book, please take me".

Neither the Philip Pullman books nor Arthur Ransome can conceivably be called rubbish. They are great children's books. I'd highly recommend the Pullman's audiobooks. Read by the author with a cast doing the dialogue. Superb.

I know Arthur Ransome is fab, but on the other thread they all read multilingual stuff and draw up their own Booker short list based on actual reading of the whole long list, and I feel so-o-o-o inferior and envious of their stratospheric highbrow-ness.

Ah. Pretentious wankers you mean?

Tsk, that isn't what I said :-)

Ah, there's plenty of lower brow on the other thread too. That said, I might not always feel comfortable revealing everything I'm reading there.

But I reckon that even the highest of brows sneakily devours a bit of self-published zombie apocalypse stuff from time to time.

I'm not sure I'd suggest Marian Keyes to anyone feeling down or anxious. She describes difficult feelings so well that I find I need to feel quite robust myself not to be overwhelmed by some of her books.

I'm reading Ben Elton's book about someone travelling back in time to stop WW1 (forget its name and it's not to hand). So far, so pish, but I'm a sucker for time travel. I just finished a Fiona Walker which was a jolly good romp.

I know what you mean about Marian Keyes, Simone, but I have definitely sometimes felt very reassured about the normality of how I'm feeling by reading her writing.

Relentless Pursuit: Inside the Escape from Dannemora: New York’s Largest Manhunt.

Major Guess searches the rugged backwoods of the north country (NY) in his dogged manhunt for prison-tunneller-escapee David Sweat.

“I think we got it right,” he said, “and now we got it out there.”

"No Sweat."



<<spoiler>>







Sweat is shot and captured.

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/news05/major-guess-chronicles-dannemora-prison-break-from-inside-20170919

I also read the first six TC novels and was blissfully unaware of more.

Think I'll not go back.

The Bloodguard were cool thoughbut.

As one of the other thread's most regular posters of lowbrow lit I'd just like to point out that multilingual does not equal pretentious.

Ooh, please recommend some multilingual rubbish for the likes of me: a painfully slow reader of French, and a glacial reader of German, Spanish and Italian.

I concur with 10G. There's plenty of rubbish written in French.

that's about as far as my multilinguisticy stretches

Mine too, in practice, but anyway I'd love to know if there's a French equivalent of Sophie Hannah, say. Also, any translations of Armenian or Vietnamese psychological thrillers.

I've not read any Sophie Hannah so can't help you there. French schlock: Guillaume Musso, Maxime Chattam, Michel Bussi, all available in translation. Be warned though, just because something is lowbrow doesn't necessarily mean it'll be easy to read for a language learner, it may well use lots of slang / other non-standard language / police jargon or whatever.

Armenian / Vietnamese thrillers in English: in a word, no. For two main reasons: their literary and publishing fields are pretty underdeveloped and what thrillers they do read will be translated from English, and even if they do produce their own home grown material no English-language publisher is going to stump up for the costs of translating it.

My short-break holiday reading last week was the rather unedifying biography of Jack Kerouac by Barry "Miles" Miles. Very well researched, reasonably well written but what a downer.

I'm reading Pirate Latitudes, by Michael Crichton, at the moment. It's a bit of a pedestrian start.

I've given up, perhaps just temporarily, on that eagerly awaited Kate Tempest book which I mentioned on the other thread, and now I am enjoying the rather rubbishy The Sisters by Claire Douglas.

I think it's better than her Last Seen Alive.

I am reading one in the series of Louise Penny's books set in an idyllic village in Quebec. Well, it would be idyllic if it weren't for all the murders that keep happening. It's a sort of Midsomer Murders cosy crime quirky characters sort of affair. And I'm currently using it to distract me from the worthy Lincoln in the Bardo as I fear that might be just a bit too worthy.

What made you grit your teeth specifically, fender? (Depending on the answer I will recommend you read, or very definitely don't read, some of her other books.)

Ah. Yes, he is morose, isn't he? If it was some of the deus ex machina stuff bothering you I was going to warn you against the Soldier Son trilogy which is still making me cross about that, some ten years after I last read it.

I'm currently reading Bearded Tit, which is making me giggle, quite a lot. Well, not the section I'm on at the moment, where he goes to meet his girlfriend, the day after losing his virginity, only to find that she's gone on honeymoon!

Oh, by he I meant Fitz, fender. Robin Hobb herself isn't particularly morose, or at least Kat who manages her Facebook page isn't!

Has anyone read the newer of the two Tim Shipman books about the tories and Brexit? I had to skim wearily through some of the first one, and was rather shocked at the end to see what an adoring devotee of Theresa May the author had quickly become. Perhaps that's his way, and he discovers new heroes by the end of the second book. Can anyone confirm?

By the way: don't bother with Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough. As psychological thrillers go, it's a phoney.

In what way, Rosy?

I was just reading Sharp Ends by Joe Abercrombie. Marvellously cynical but great fun fantasy stories. Definitely trash though.

Oops, sorry, Saskia.

I feel that adding a touch of magic to a psychological thriller is a big cheat. See also Sophie Hannah's The Orphan Choir.

Rosy I've been going back through Malory Towers and St Clare's again as well.

Oh dear!

The next stage is pony books and ballet books. I can supply a list of recommendations on request :-)

No, I don't want to read those.

It has reminded of the awful "Red Pony".

Red Pony? Is that one of those books put out by the East German State publisher about the heroism of the proletariat embodied in the form of the pony?

Steinbeck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Pony

Thanks, Leftie.

I must remember that one, for Pointless.

The sort of pony books I was raised on were far less bleak than that. Standard storyline: Girl wins pony in competition/inherits pony from strange relative. Girl learns to ride the pony and enters a gymkhana only the posh locals laugh at her and her plebian pony. Girl wins gymkhana and after a course of regional competitions enters the Horse of the Year Show. Although she doesn't win at the HoTYS and become world famous (and too big for her riding boots) she and her pony performs respectably enough and becomes a local star. The end.

Never read such books but there can't be many variations on a theme.

Yeah you're right. I remember the American ones tended to substitute a point-to-point race or a cattle drive for the gymkhana. Then there is the (Australian) My friend Flicker stories which are about wild horses (brumbies) and the taming (or not) of them.

Most of them were appallingly written but I went through them like a dose of salts when I was about 8.

The Pullein-Thompson sisters wrote hundreds (probably) of pony books.

A rather unusual one, especially in its day and age, was Show Jumping Secret whose hero was a disabled boy.

I think that would still be quite unusual. Yes I am sure I would have read some of their books albeit not that one.

H was quite a posh disabled boy, I need hardly say.

There is a whole genre of the things, generally thoroughly formulaic.

Similarly, there are huge numbers of ballet-themed books.

I struggle to think what the male equivalents might be, though I'm sure there are some.

I read a few of the boarding school books too. An awful lot of diamond smuggling in the British countryside circa 1920-1955.

Maybe we've hit on an idea. A disabled child from a city could also ride ponies.

Yes and there are a few inner city riding schools that could be used as part of the research.

toffle - I am not sure boys were expected to read in this period of the 20th Century. They were supposed to do manly things like make model aircraft and play football/cricket. The closest I can think of are war comics - generic, sometimes jingoistic and jolly good fun. And the Eagle of course.

War comics are high art! Well, some of them. To me.

This frontispiece from King Solomon's Mines (a suitable book for boys, it was thought) made me laugh when I was a nipper, and it still does.

"Great powers!" he cried. "It is my brother George!"

http://www.visualhaggard.org/illustrations/980

Biggles was the boys' equivalent, and similar. Jennings maybe. Detective books - Hardy Boys.

National Velvet is a wonderful book that takes all the formulaic pony nonsense and makes it something more.

Toffle - some of them are excellent, no doubts about it.

Rosy - heh. That is the least dramatic illustration of people finding a beaten up unconscious or dead person possible. And yet it is a lovely painting.

Biggles yes. And there were plenty of tales from the British Empire to stir up a boy's wanderlust.

I loved the Biggles books too. Girls were supposed to prefer Worrals of the WAAF but we mostly didn't.

No one ever just said anything in the Biggles books. We've mentioned this before on threads passim, how the characters all opine, aver, assert, declare. confirm, observe, remark, and sometimes even ejaculate ffs.

Someone of an older age was on R4 the other day talking about books, and said he couldn't remember what the first book he read was. He thought it was Five Go to Smugglers Top but it might have been Billy Bunter.

I was scoffing at the idea that a Billy Bunter would be anyone's first book. They were pretty densely written and certainly not starter books, and full of ejaculations!

Mr mother was a devoted reader-aloud. So I started reading along with whatever she read to me. As my reading became more fluent, I started to I read ahead of wherever we'd officially got to, secretly, when no one was watching. For whatever reason, I knew at the time that this was a grave offence which would attract severe punishment. Looking back, I can't believe it was really true.

Girls were supposed to prefer Worrals of the WAAF but we mostly didn't.

I don't think she gets to kill people in quite the same way.

Still, she's definitely much more attractive than Biggles and his chums.

Simone - maybe it was the first book he chose and read for himself? I doubt I could remember my first book because I'd have been a toddler but the first book I remember choosing for myself was a ladybird book about... yes, a pony. A Discontented Pony.

I doubt anyone under 8 or 9 would read Billy Bunter so I think it's very unlikely. I think he was just naming books because he thought it was a silly question. I wish I could remember who it was.

he was just naming books because he thought it was a silly question

Straight-out lying, either because he couldn't remember, or because he could and was embarassed.

Do not trust such a person.

Lot of boys' books from the 60s and earlier. Arthur Catherall specialised in stories about sailors, merchant and royal navies. or more correctly, ships. John Pudny wrote Monday Adventure, Tuesday Adventure etc, about some boys one of whose uncle worked in the top secret Fort X. There were more but my memory needs jogging. These were towards the less testosterone-fuelled end of the boys' stories spectrum.

There were more but my memory needs jogging.

Wednesday Adventure, Thursday Adventure...?

Arthur Ransome was read equally by boys and girls, I reckon.

but is not rubbish.

----

Some rubbish books I enjoy on a regular basis:

• The rubbish science fiction of E. E. Doc. Smith (which is all inexorably dreadful).

• The rubbish hippy fantasy of Michael Moorcock.

• The preposterous fantasy of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Boy books also include the happily inimitable juvenile homoerotica of Willard Price.

And the first book I read this year was the execrable First of the Tudors, about Jasper Tudor, which was utter shite. I'm recovering with the Patrick Melrose novels, which I'm loving.

Reading the first page of the thread and skipping a zillion:

I really enjoyed going back to The Big Six and Picts and Martyrs a couple of years ago.

I'm surprised by that, Rosy, I wouldn't have imagined that Ransome would read at all well as an adult. I do vaguely recall those two being some of his better ones.

Actually, pondering on the Brexit thread the other day made me realise just how of the view of, say, the Indian sub-continent for people of my parents' generation was informed by the likes of The Moonstone.

I guess you could include Fu Manchu too. Brexiteers in the making!

They're ten a penny in the twenties and thirties. Sapper, Dornford Yates,..

I have some Fu Manchus. They're a lot more fun than Brexit, mainly because of the sheer ludicrousness of their plots.

It is clear from the inaccuracy of Rohmer's writing that he had no direct experience of all the foreigners whom he is so evidently terrified by; I am inclined to put much of his xenophobia down to mental illness.

Someone mentioned Joe Abercrombie upthread, and he's great trash. I had a binge on all the First Law series, including the ones mentioned.

< but is not rubbish >

but it's my thread and I'll mention good writers too if I want to, and so can everyone else.

Oh good - somewhere for me! Recently read The Dry - pretty good, but I do have a weakness for crime novels.

Me too, pips, though I'm getting tired of the ones which have several different narrative voices, and/or which jump around in time.

But on the other hand I recently enjoyed Alex Marwood's The Wicked Girls which has all of this, with dashes of implausibility here and there: couldn't put it down, in fact.

There is a special police unit for crimes against hares? Committed by them?

This strikes me as a somewhat limited basis for multiple novels, once the initial surrealism has worn off.

Hate crimes in Pboz. Imagine.

Heh, I was mighty confused by the Hare Crimes too. Now Hair Crimes, that I could understand.

Oh that reminds me. Are there any fans of Jasper Fforde here? I loved The Big Over Easy featuring the nursery crime investigators working in glamorous Reading and its enviroments. Silliness of a very high order.

I love Fforde ‘s imagination, but find his execution weak. He’s really not good at characterisation.

I'm currently reading this about a young Victorian woman from Chichester:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/798/39017238240_fa96
625952_b.jpg

It's sort of Anthony meets Joanna Trollope with a generous helping of existential angst.

Ordered that up - thanks rosy. Currently reading All the light we cannot see.

Does that count as rubbish? Oh dear....

Looks at book pile.

Good Lord! https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/796/26019427077_7e38
661b88_o.jpg

I don't think it does actually otraynor! I have a couple of non rubbish books to read at the moment.

I'm beginning to wonder why I ordered Dangerous Muse: A Life of Caroline Blackwood.

It's a long read about a lot of more or less unpleasant famous people and at half-way through I'm not sure I want to spend any more time with it. I can't see the story ending well.

Bin it Rosy. There is plenty more trash in the sea. I have Peter James - Need you dead.

Peter James wrote an unintentionally hilarious sex scene in one book where the hero nuzzles his girlfriend's neck while she's giving him a blow job.

Ha! Just read a crime novel called 'i am travelling alone'. Pretty good.

A few years ago I read a crime novel (one of a short series, I think) set in London, and featuring a disgraced, dodgy cop. There were a number of odd underground locations (Holborn & Belsize Park?). I can't remember author or title. Can anyone remind me?

The Duffy novels of Dan Kavanagh (Julian Barnes)? Can't remember how the Underground featured, but I read them a long time ago.

No, not Duffy--but thanks for the tip.

I've remembered. It was Deep Shelter by Oliver Harris.

A bit disappointed in Patricia Cornwell’s Chaos so far. Nearly half way through and none of the things summarised on the blurb at the back have happened. There’s usually more pace to a Scarpetta book, but this one is more full than usual of maundering about her dysfunctional family and the discomfort of crime scenes.

I liked that one, but wasn't it a bit mystical with Pascoe's daughter? Mind you, Dalziel and Pascoe can do no wrong for me.

I'm enjoying Dalziel and Pascoe audio books and Colin Buchanan's reading of some of them are superb. His Wieldy impression is awesome! Sorry to discover the actor that played DS Wield in the TV series passed last year.

Sorry to discover the actor that played DS Wield in the TV series passed last year.

I had no idea. Very sad news. David Royle's performance was superb. Googling, I see he had MS, which would explain why I hadn't seen him in other roles more recently.

I've now had to buy all the DI Shaw books by Jim Kelly.

I think I've read one of those and really enjoyed it. Is he the one in Cambridgeshire? Got a wife in a coma or something?

I don't think it is rubbish yet. Reading "The Gift".

Heh. Slightly off topic but I just interviewed an MA student who's writing a thesis on motherhood in Flowers in the Attic and was astonished I'd heard of it.

I can't decide if that's a fascinating topic or a terrifying one. I suppose it could be both.

I just finished a thoroughly readable bit of rubbish called Eat What You Kill, by Ted Scofield (purchased at the Dollar Store) about an ambitious, driven, amoral young stock analyst who goes to drastic lengths to make multi-millions in the cut-throat world of Wall Street. Very enjoyable.

The Girl with all the Gifts by M.R.Carey. Picked it up in my local library knowing nothing about it nor that there was a film made of it a few years back with Glenn Close and Gemma Arterton amongst others. The blurb on the front cover said, "The most original thriller you will read this year". Which intrigued me probably more than I should have allowed it to. It didn't say on the cover, "This book contains zombies and is a tad post-apocalyptic. Well, actually a lot post-apocalyptic". I would almost certainly have hurriedly replaced it if it had but I'm glad it didn't come to that. I'm enjoying it far more than I ought.

You need to read Dalziel and Pascoe for the long term, and take a bit of mysticism with it at times as the series develops. Mostly as the writer approached the final curtain himself. RIP Reg Hill.

A non-D&P of his, Fell of Dark, put me off his books for 20-odd years.

I'm reading Dibdin's Ratking with some enjoyment. I reckon the What Are You Reading thread would try to claim this, but it has its longeurs and puppet manipulation, which makes me think it belongs here. I'm enjoying my first encounter with Comissioner Zen.

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.

Cheerful bloke, Gerard, wasn't he?

Cause and effect of a dubious religious vocation.

He was rather popular among the climbing fraternity (at least, the more literate members) years ago. I never got it myself.

He was one of my A-Level set texts (the most "modern" one out of the ten) and I loved those gloomy late sonnets back then, while finding much of the earlier stuff a bit twee and wincy. Learning more about him and his life made me appreciate him less rather than more, which may be a bit of a shame.

Eat What You Kill

This expression is still in regular use in at least one American investment bank in London.

The girl with all the gifts is pretty good. Just read Missing, Presumed, which I rather enjoyed (police procedural).

I need a good police procedural for the rubbish reading heap. I've had enough now of multi-narrator tales whose purpose is to have a twistable plot.

Thank you, Fender.

Can you remember off-hand which title is the first in the series?

I'm still a devotee of Real Books.

Fenders have a word with Wigtown bookshop in Scotland, or Bookmongers Brixton, or Any amount of books Charing cross road. They may well be prepared to pay money to take away a collection that includes Folio editions and old Penguins. Just don't mention gardening books -best to drop them down the charity shop (who will then recycle).

Try Missing Presumed Rosie - by Susie Steiner. I'm going in for the second one after I've finished A Thousand Acres.

Many thanks. Fender and Pips.

I'm going to be bingeing on your recommended rubbish for a while, I think.

Half way through, 'Johan Cruyff my turn'.He sounds like a socialist which is pleasant to think about.

#182, Think i might have posted that in the wrong thread, sorry.

Try posting it in the Corbyn thread, see what the response is (o;

This, however, is a broad minded thread and your contribution is welcome, Clammy.

I am now reading Herding Hemingway's Cats by Kit Arney. Possibly not rubbish, but an engrossing account of genes, what they are, what they do, and what the "junk" bits of DNA are.

I need a good police procedural

Do try the Harry Bingham books featuring Fiona Griffiths. Really excellent and Not Rubbish.

Sharpe's Honour. Weirdly prudish about sex given the lovingly detailed eye gougings, emasculations etc.

A whole bunch of Katie Fforde books are 99p on Amazon Kindle today if that's your kind of rubbish.

I've not read any for years but I used to like them a lot and I am reading more romance again at the minute so I've stocked up a bit.

Started on a crime series, by Jane Casey. They are about a tall female detective called maeve kerrigan. Pretty good.

‘The Tuscan Child’ by Rhys Bowen

A plane goes down in rural Italy in 1944. Bomber pilot survives and lives some sort of secret life. Fast-forward to the 70s. Still reeling from her father’s death, his daughter decides to visit Tuscany and, after a crash language course, can suddenly speak fluent Italian.

It’s a bit shit but nice enough.

I'm reading Fallout: A Year of Political Mayhem by Tim Shipman, and quite enjoying it although it's much too long and there are plenty of typos etc.

The Religion, Tim Willocks.

Middlebrow romance set in the 16thC siege of Hospitaller Malta. Well researched, historically interesting, cool if psychopathic leading character, mind-bogglingly large & detailed body count.

Found in our village 2nd hand bookshop. Good enough that I've already bought the Kindle sequel, set in Paris during the St Bart's Day Massacres.

I don't know that I'd call it rubbish... but it doesn't really qualify for the What Are You Reading thread either. Veronica Roth's new series. I had put the second one (The Fates Divide) on hold ages ago in the library. It finally came in, but by that time I had completely forgotten who everyone was, so had to put the first one (Carve the Mark) on hold also. Now that I have both, I'm speeding through them. They're really different from the Divergent series. There is no clear good or evil in them. They're uncomfortably human.

Was it on here that people recommended Colleen McCullough’s Roman series of books? If so, i’d Like to thank them. Really great, fascinating stuff. Forgot I was reading the author of the thorn birds. There are seven of them, and the only one I have trouble accepting is the last, Antony and cleopatra, but, overall, reading about the battles and general history of the time has been time well spent

Fiction. It starts in 70s bc or so, and the seventh is in the 30s bc. Because most of it is unknown to me, it’s really interesting. The julius book is hagiography, really, but I thought people of the time saw him like that, so went with it. For Octavian and Livia, I know them best as by Graves, so more difficult to believe, though Graves is also fiction, of course. Antony and cleopatra seems more like romantic fiction. But, as said, I thought the history was good in general, though, disclaimer:IANAH. Will read Graves again, then Suetonius

I read the first two back when they came out. To be honest I only read the second one because I was interested to see how she was going to handle Marius. She'd made him such a sympathetic character I wanted to know how all the later unpleasantness would be explained.

I'm reading Arthur Ransome's Coot Club in preparation for our forthcoming Norwich/East Anglia trip.

I don't think it's rubbish but the other thread is in one of its terrifyingly egg-headed phases.

CC was my first Arthur Ransome book. Absolutely ace.

I don't really feel the need to buy the Man Booker longlist.

Scary, that.

Dark Star Rising by Gary Lachman.

Fascinating if you're into magic

I re-read Coot Club earlier this year. I wouldn't describe it as either ace or rubbish. Somewhere in the middle I guess.

It depends on your age/stage when you first read it. Of course, some books don't repay rereading 50+ years later. CC does for me.

Robicheaux, James Lee Burke

I, too, am not sure which thread this belongs on.

James Lee Burke's Louisiana detective in possibly his most dark story yet as he navigates a path through the New Orleans/Louisiana underworld, led by a civil war sword and its inheriter.

The language is sparse yet poetic and especially if you know the region, highly evocative of past and present. Easy to read with the accent in your head.

While Arthur Ransome books should not be mentioned in a thread about rubbish books, Coot Club is I feel one of his less inspirational works; I personally prefer the surreal and almost-Wodehouseian The Picts and the Martyrs.

I re-read The Picts and the Martyrs a couple of years ago and missed any surreality. Too literal minded, I suppose.

I'm enjoying Coot Club anyway.

I like James Lee Burke's book, ishy. You're right, very evocative.

I have been reading a couple of Belinda Bauer crime novels (ok), and gin Phillips (surely no-one is actually called Gin?), Fierce. All adequate.

Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson. Intro by Philip Pullman who says it's the best thriller he's ever read. S'okay I s'pose.

Will read Chandler's The Big Sleep next. Haven't read it before although I like Chandler.

Going to pick up my reserved copy of Pullman's Belle Sauvage from the library next week for yet more light fun.

Big Sleep is marvellous. Modern authors would dream to be able to write so well.

Absolutely. Chandler wasn’t capable of writing rubbish.

Yes, I've always returned to Chandler but just never actually read The Big Sleep itself. Maybe because I've seen the adaptations so many times.

I know none of the books I listed is "rubbish" but I've never really been clear what "rubbish" means in the context of this thread. I've taken it simply to mean not high-brow literature. Whatever that means. Then again I listed my recent read of a 1950 edition of Picture Post or whatever it was on the posh books thread so I'm not being consistent. Sorry.

It’s a lovely read, Bro.

I'm looking forward to it, Alan. I've also got the collection of Chandler short stories, Killer in the Rain, sitting next to my bed in case The Big Sleep leaves me hungry for more pulp noir private dick shenanigans, which it undoubtedly will.

I've not read anything by McDonald. I'll take the recommendation and look him up soon though.

I will too. Thanks.

I have a three volume anthology of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels ready for any situations where Chandler is too highbrow.

I find John D. MacDonald satisfies my Chandler-ish cravings.

Can't get on with Mickey Spillane (rubbish is too kind, frankly). Dashiel Hammett on the other hand…

Dark Star Rising by Gary Lachman. He develops a fascinating theory about Donald Trump. Apparently the Trumps used to attend a church whose previous pastor wrote a self-development book about success. Books about how to be successful were all the rage in the 40s 50s and 60s and the ideas they explored were similar to the so-called chaos magic which evolved in the 19th and 20th centuries (Alistair Crowley et cetera). Anyway, the author is trying to make out that Donald Trump is some sort black magician. But as usual and only halfway through and I might not make it to the end. It's not what you call light reading

Wasn't/isn't Lachman Blondie's bass player? I keep meaning to read him.

I'm trying to catch up on some yoof fiction for a thing. Reading Lauren Wolk's Wolf Hollow .

Odd premise for a thread, btw. Just read what you want, and response how you want, innit?

Yes traven, that's him. He certainly knows his stuff but you'd have to describe him as an average writer.

I was listening to interview with Jordan Peterson the other day where he talked about how he wrote 12 rules for life. He said he literally ponders over each comma and can reword a sentence several times until it's just right. I knew there was something slightly peculiar about his writing style. He has an extraordinary command of the English language no doubt. But there was something slightly ... lifeless.. about it that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Now I know

Odd premise for a thread, btw. Just read what you want, and response how you want, innit?

Maybe the usual book threads around here are a bit snooty and the poster did actually want something light to read!

He said he literally ponders over each comma and can reword a sentence several times until it's just right.

That's fairly standard though. I remember Steven Pinker saying if you weren't on your sixth draft, something was wrong. Flaubert was happy if he got a sentence a day. It's a form of madness but I guess that's writing (unless you're Kerouac).

I can't help thinking that the great writers (e.g. Kurt Vonnegut and Elmore Leonard for me) can just write naturally, tapping into something that I guess you'd have to call innate talent. I'm not saying they don't proof read but you know what I mean. It's a fascinating subject actually. Well I think so. I had a go at writing an article recently but found I was completely incapable of writing in an unpretentious way. In the end I abandoned it

I think it varies massively, but I would say lots of reworking and agonising over commas is entirely normal writing process.

As for the thread premise, I think people naturally have more to say about the more worthy/intellectual/literary types of books and so they come to post about them. Couple that with people feeling a bit shy about trash and the thread ends up all Proust and Plato. It's good to have a space that welcomes the other stuff. Although then everyone spends their time agonising about which thread it belongs on.

I only post about one in five books I read on the other thread because the rest of the time it's stuff that no-one else will have heard of so there doesn't seem much point.

Well I only post about 1 in ten that I read.

You next.

Yeah not the point but never mind.

I for one, having some idea of the sort of books 10Gs has to plough through, am very grateful not to have to read about them all.

The new Cormoran Strike book. Enjoying it, but he needs to look after his stump better or he's going to get sepsis.

Could be lethal!

I'm reading The Wife by Alafair (?) Burke. Despite the sticker ("now a major motion picture") on the cover, the plot in no way resembles that of the Glenn Close film which has been getting a lot of publicity recently.

No bunnies?

Number 6 of the Robert Bryndza 'Erika Foster's crime novels (cheap on Kindle). I love a crime drama.

You probably know all this but the film The Wife is based on a Meg Wolitzer novel (haven't read it but I heartily recommend her book The Interestings). I don't know anything about Alafair Burke except that she's James Lee Burke's daughter.

Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson.

Philip Pullman says it's the greatest thriller he's ever read, which makes me think he ought to read more thrillers. I thought it was extremely poor stuff indeed.

Yes, I agree about the Davidson. I read it all, so that's something at least, but it was a very long way from being the best thriller I've ever read. Pullman's intro talks of the classical format of the novel with a quest, a journey, and a confrontation. Okay, that's fair enough but still not enough to warrant so much praise. I did quite fancy Medical Officer Komarova though.

Thanks for clearing up the mystery, crackfox.

I wonder if the book I have, called The Wife, is also set to become a Major Motion Picture as promised, but possibly under a different name.

https://deadline.com/2018/02/the-wife-alafair-burke-amazon-studios-metoo-movie-1202301140/

Just not quite the sort of thing they'd go for on the other thread? :-)

The Good German is good. I have Leaving Berlin on my 'to read' pile.

I'm reading Gillian Flynn's The Dark Places.

It's getting a bit predictably twisty towards the end, but I reckon it's better than Gone Girl, the content of which I barely remember now.

I thought it was a lot better than Gone Girl.

Oh good. Not just my failing memory then :-)

I've completely forgotten both of them already!

There seems to be a clear correlation between plot twistiness and forgettability.

I have a lifetime longing to nail down the essence of short stories. I love them. There are so many of them from M.R. James to Asimov via Kipling but right now I am reading for the fourth time the stories of H.H Munro. Classic.

Sorry. I see now that it was wrong for the thread.

Soz, but IMO anything by Asimov has to go in this thread. Tin-eared in all his fiction.

I'm not sure I approve of burning books, however trashy.

I saw that nearly an hour ago and... I'm an idiot

I'm struggling to get through CJ Sansom's Tombland, having enjoyed the others in the Shardlake series. There's just too much sitting around on Mousehold Heath and mysterious strangers taking against our hero.

Oh no! I was looking forward to that. I am actually finding it difficult to settle to read at the moment.

Reading the pirates by George Macdonald Fraser, after watching black sails and reading treasure island. When I first read it about 40 years ago, I found it hilariously funny. Now, it’s funny in parts, historically good in parts, as expected from Fraser, but very dated pc wise

#272, Still enjoying the new Shardlake Helen, a bit slow though, not his best still good though.

Yes, I've finished it - it's not bad, but compared with Lamentations or Dark Fire it's rather turgid.

I've also just finished Maurice Buckmaster's They Fought Alone, a very gung-ho history of the setting up and WW2 operation of SOE, and enjoyed it very much.

Dark Fire was definitely my favourite. Currently reading some Icelandic crime drama, will follow up with the latest Robert Galbraith. Then Tombland I think.

Ah, Rivers of London 7 has just landed in my inbox. Tonight will be a late one.

‪Get an Audible subscription with 50 percent off for four months... https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/138988-audible-deals via @Pocketlint‬

The House by Simon Lelic.Is it just going to be a ghost story? What a disappointment.

You know what Rosie? I read that about 6 weeks ago and have absolutely no recollection whatsoever!

Cross-posted from the Books thread, as they're too high minded to be able to answer it...

I'm currently reading The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry, the pen name of Christopher Brookmyre writing with his wife, Marisa Haetzman. I was expecting a standard Brookmyre romp, if set in the past, but so far it's a bit turgid. Anyone know if it gets better? I'm thinking of dumping it in favour of the new Tana French.

I was looking for The Way of All Flesh in my local library the other day, but no luck. Did you finish it, airy?

No, I gave up on it. I’d still be interested to hear from someone who didn’t.

I finished it, but more from a sense of duty than enjoyment. Apparently it is planned as the first of a series of medical murder mysteries.

Thin Air - book 5 in the Shetland series. I love a police procedural.

The Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, the fourth in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books sequence. Not sure that it qualifies as rubbish, strictly speaking, but in many respects it has the necessary qualities.

Jut finished A Summer Fling by Milly Johnson. I liked the sexy vampire.

Milly Johnson is the one who writes several "running a cafe" fantasy romance ones- I have read a couple and enjoyed them. Obviously you know where they are going from the start but the journey is fun. Introducing a vampire sounds an interesting crossover.

I've read A Spring Affair and The Teashop on the Corner. She seems to write a lot better than other authors occupying the same genre.

I'm currently reading Rosemary and Thyme - And No Birds Sing. I would recommend this one if you like the TV characters as it does go into the story of how they got together and set up the business. There are only three books, I wouldn't particularly recommend The Tree of Death, it felt very dashed off but ANBS is better so far. The other one is The Memory of Water, which I own but have not read yet.

I have read all twenty odd Cadfael books. The 1995 radio dramatisation of Dead Man's Ransom is available on BBC Sounds at the moment and was very good. Philip Madoc plays the lead. The lovely Michael Kitchen is the narrator.

Summer Fling fairly obviously takes over from Spring Affair, with a new set of main characters and the main characters from Spring in the background. The sexy vampire isn't really a vampire, though.

The Pamela Cox St Clare's books. What's really irritating is that I could have done a better job writing them myself. I wish I'd bloody thought of it first.

And the kids have got modern names and some of the terminology really stands out. The basic snobbery is still there and so are the crimes. There's even a case of blackmail where one 6th former just gets expelled rather than the Head telling the police.

Murder mysteries set in Norman times by Howard of Warwick on my kindle. there's about 15 of them, and you can buy about 14 of them in a batch cheap. amusing

Drowned hopes by Donald Westlake. Dortmunder and his family is recovering money buried fifty feet under water for his old psychopath cellmate. The usual fun ensues.

I hope nobody minds me plugging my own rubbish for you to read here...my latest novel is FREE to download (kindle or epub) at the moment (just approved last night): https://www.scribl.com/books/EBJBD/birgoms-diary - grab it quick before it gets expensive - like maybe 49 cents like the other one I've got on there, that's been there a while (and got 5 stars at 29 cents).

Whatever happened to Jeffamerican?

Death of an Old Master by David Dickinson (not the David Dickinson). It's terrible. One of the characters is a history tutor at Emmanuel College, Oxford.

Cold Earth - a Shetland crime novel.

"All In The Best Possible Taste".

Picked up a copy of Luke Jennings' Killing Eve, the basis of the TV series, from a chariddy shop. Not expecting too much, my impression is that the adaptation exceeds the source in this case, but could be nicely surprised.

Couple of those British Library golden age crime reprints with Christmas backdrops.

Christmas is all about family, conviviality, the Nativity, happy smiling faces and traditional carols as well as slumped corpses and chaps in Oxford bags saying, 'Surely you can't be serious, Inspecktah?'

Just read Winter Under the Stars by Jo Thomas, a quick, formulaic read slightly redeemed by an unusual setting and set-up. In order to retrieve a package containing something her continued employment depends on, a woman nursing a secret sorrow has to team up with a half-Sami reindeer herder on a dangerous journey across northern Sweden. After several hair-raising experiences they start to open up to each other and the ending is not hard to predict, but I enjoyed the descriptions of the landscape they cross, and sometimes battle with and the food reindeer boy cooks over a wood fire, using ingredients he foraged or hunted for. A transcribed interview with the author in the back of the book reveals that all her books are inspired by "food and a setting," which makes perfect sense if this is typical; the food and setting are definitely what bumps this one up a point in my mind.

That sounds truly terrible.

I’m reading Love, Nina - essentially, My Family and Other Animals, with the hilarious Corfiots replaced by hilarious Camdenites.

Love, Nina is great fun. Have you seen the TV series?

Not yet. Any good?

The tv series was brilliant. Highly recommended.

I'm not convinced that either the book or the series is entirely faithful to the truth, and it's shame they had to make the Alan Bennett character Scottish for tv, but never mind.

I've just abandoned Fleischman is in trouble - I found I couldn't care less, and started my book club read - Less.

All the same, it's nice that you've bothered to post on this thread. The other one has become dauntingly high-brow again.

Yeah - I know - me and me (often) low brow reading feel a bit out of place over there.

Aww, come on, the current topic of discussion over there appears to be a children's fantasy novel.

Time soon to post our lists of the year's reading. A fantastic opportunity to show off, which I naturally will not be shirking.

darkhorse - 15 Dec 2019 08:07:06 ( #311 of 311)

Time soon to post our lists of the year's reading.

Gracious, your reading activity clearly has much better admin support than mine!

Enjoying re-reading Garrison Keillor's A Christmas Blizzard, which is a typical mid-western Keillor romp with a Christmas Carol/Wonderful Life/Groundhog Day element.

I have kept a record of (most of) what I've read this year.

I haven't, but I've found some good new writers to my crap tastes. William Shaw for murders, Mick Hermon for thrillers (both unusually violent at times, which I tend to deprecate) are the ones I remember best.

Portrait of a Murderer is the British Library classic crime thing I'm on just now. From 1933, very noir and modern-seeming, well-written but hampered by the fact that there is no one likeable in it at all. You don't even feel any sympathy for the murderer.

RBJ, last year (I don't know about years previously) some posters put up their lists. I had to put mine together from memory/bookshelf/purchase and library borrowing history from internet.

But I thought it would be simple thing to do to record what I read in a notebook, as I used to do when I was about 11 years old. It would also be interesting to look back on in future years. After all, I'll only need the one notebook for the rest of my life, even at 2 pages per year, 100 pages is more than enough!

Only two pages a year? Do you write exceedingly small?

I've read around 80 I think this year, but the list is at work ....

Removes tongue from cheek quick before anyone misunderstands...

There's about 25 lines in a page - how many books do you think I read, coshi!

Hence the tongue in cheek 8~)

Although actually, if I used a whole line for each title, I would use more than two pages some years, although admittedly probably nearer to two sides most years. I'm quite a slow reader, so I suspect some folks might use two pages even at several titles to the line...not many folk though, I'm sure.

C.J. Box, Back of beyond. Grizzled cop with a drink problem investigates a killing in backwoods Montana. Cliché-tastic.

✔️ Many thanks.

Just very much enjoyed Children of Time by Peter Tchaikovsky. Proper old-fashioned post-dystopian SF, with excellent sciencey stuff.

Now reading The Mathematical Bridge - a mystery set in wartime Cambridge, by Jim Kelly (who I think Dreams went to school with?).

Neither of those are rubbish, but nor are they literary fiction.

The Mathematical Bridge IRL is a metaphor for something. Not too sure what, but since it was apparently put together without nails etc, then for some reason dismantled, the impossibility of reassembling it by the finest minds of Queens' College without recourse to ironworks suggests a certain lack of something or other on their part.

Wiki says that's a myth, for what that's worth, Tom.

A popular fable is that the bridge was designed and built by Sir Isaac Newton without the use of nuts or bolts. Various stories relate how at some point in the past either students or fellows of the University attempted to take the bridge apart and put it back together, but were unable to work out how to hold the structure together, and were obliged to resort to adding nuts and bolts. In reality, bolts or the equivalent are an inherent part of the design. When it was first built, iron spikes were driven into the joints from the outer side, where they could not be seen from the inside of the parapets, explaining why bolts were thought to be an addition to the original. Newton could not have been directly involved since he died in 1727, twenty-two years before the bridge was constructed.[6] However, more than two centuries earlier a strikingly similar design of a self-supporting bridge, with no nuts or bolts, was drawn by Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, probably in the late 1490s. The bridge was intended to be easily and quickly constructed and dismantled during military engagements.

I'm reading a bit of kindle dross lately, as I haven't got anything great to read at the moment. Rubbernecker at the moment. Quite interesting for such an easy read. I'd like something amazing to read, but not.sure what that will be.

Sharpe's Prey. Bought a job lot of about fifteen Sharpes a few years back, reading one now and then for a break from the serious work stuff, though their misogyny gets right up my nose.

I haven't been reading anything like enough for a couple of years now.

December has been a decent warm-up for 2020 though, what with breezing through some Melroses (Saint Aubyn), some Carlo Ratti, Charles Montgomery and - best of all - Scale by Geoffrey West. I'm circling the bowl of Piketty at the moment, but have conveniently left that tome in another country.

Jim Kelly (who I think Dreams went to school with?)

Never heard of him.

Ah. Was it Philip Dryden, then? I felt sure it was a mystery writer writing in Eastern England settings. Apols, anyway.

Not heard of him either. I don't know of any mystery writer contemporaries.

It was Harry Bingham, Dreams - my mistake.

dreams99 - 29 Sep 2019 17:27:38 ( #23667 of 24441)

I was at school with Bingham - son of Lord Bingham, master of the rolls. Astonishingly smart. Not read any of his books.

Thought I was losing my marbles, so had to check. At my age, this is a serious concern.

ah yes. Are they mysteries? Not read any as I said.

Sort of. Police procedurals with the central copper being a philosphy grad from Cambridge with a severe mental health condition and various eccentricities to boot. Very good stories and writing; perhaps a little more colourful than is entirely credible.

TenGorillas - 27 Dec 2019 11:47:44 ( #328 of 335)

Sharpe's Prey. Bought a job lot of about fifteen Sharpes a few years back, reading one now and then for a break from the serious work stuff, though their misogyny gets right up my nose.

I'm a really slow reader whether I'm on popular stuff or heavy textbooks but it amazes me how I absolutely speed through the Sharpe books.

Yes me too. They are very samey after a while, aren't they? This one was annoyingly priggish about swearing, kept saying "the efficacious word" instead of "fuck".

Started Ice Station Zebra, one of the few McLeans I've never got round to.

It begins in the Holy Loch with the hero arriving from Renfrew Airport (RIP) on a 'copter. Bet those locations didn't make it into the film.

The Thirteen. About a serial killer who specialises in who frames people for the murders he commits, then gets on the jury at their trials. Readable.

Now, that really sounds genuinely rubbish.

Not the one by Balzac then?

But butt bu...Thirteen By: Steve Cavanagh Critic reviews

"Plotting that takes the breath away." (Ian Rankin)

"Steve is a fantastic thriller writer." (Mark Billingham)

I’m reading The Atrocity Archives, in an attempt to fill the Rivers of London shaped hole in my life. So far, so average (though I’m loving the bleeding-edge technology: "I stabbed wildly at my Palm Pilot...") Is it worth persevering with the series, at least until False Value comes out?

nah

Try Joe Ide. Start with IQ.

Airy -

It depends. I found them okay but only read the first few, my brother thinks they're the best books ever.

First book is short and not going to take long to read, if by book 2 it still doesn't grab you then don't bother going further.

I'll see how I feel. I was hoping someone would say it was one of those series which took a couple of books to get into its stride. Thanks, both.

then gets on the jury at their trials

I'm pretty sure that's not how it works.

But it's all totally realistic and believable (not!). To be honest, I'm not looking for gritty realism or great writing in my shitty 'palate cleansing' books! Just easy stuff to read on my commute ...

Hugely enjoying Ice Station Zebra, it must be said.

Curiously for The Daviot Bard of Action Adventure, no one yet has been thumped in the 'solar plexus'.

And the book runs to p392 without a single person getting it, specifically, in the solar plexus.

In my mind, Ice Station Zebra was painted with black and white stripes.

Are you saying it wasn't?

I refuse to believe that it wasn't.

I'm reading One of us is lying. About 5 teens in detention. One dies from anaphylactic shock - who is responsible????? Actually rather gripping.

Ice station zebra is awesome.

I think I read it, when I was 15. Just been reshelving a lot of books and came across the Macleans (which had been in my parents loft for decades) May reread HMS Ulysses.

On the other hand, it could be about a zebra who lives at a normally-decorated ice station.

Tangentially related to MacLean, I think this rubbish book would have graced any war-story keen youth's bookshelf back in the day.

https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/books/daniel-carney/the-wild-geese/GOR002603087

I was reminded of it by the passing of the mercenary inspiration of the principal character.

More famous for being made into a rubbish film, with a truly awesome cast.

And a rather shapeless tune from Joan Armatrading.

Blimey. Wasn’t aware of that.

Perhaps she was hoping to get a Bond song commission, and thought this was a good stepping stone.

I'm half way through False Value, the latest Rivers of London novel. So far, it’s excellent. Also, it has a glow in the dark cover, which is not to be underestimated.

I think I’m first in the queue for that as soon as my library acquires it.

Ah - cheers, airy. I always relish those.

In the spirit of "I should know the authors my customers like" I've just read a book by Danielle Steel. About the best thing I can say about Blue is that it didn't take long to read. The style was extremely clear and straightforward. The storyline was almost entirely linear, except for a few paragraphs near the beginning explaining a bit of back story to set up the situation, and there was an awful lot of telling, not showing. In a nutshell, a woman who has been working with refugees in dangerous parts of the world since her husband and son died meets an implausibly polite and talented homeless teenager, decides to try to make his life better and thus ends up a lot happier herself. The other main subplot is about bringing an abuser to justice and it just goes too smoothly to be interesting. There were no twists, everyone the heroine trusts turns out to be actually trustworthy, and when a love interest appears, they become attracted to each other and start a relationship without any real sense of how they feel - it's all "telling," and rather skimmed over, and if they ever have sex it's not even vaguely alluded to. Things that ought to be sad happen, including one thing that's quite close to home for me, in such an under-developed way that there's just no emotional connection at all.

This is not just rubbish, this is rubbish rubbish.

Yet she's so popular...

Presumably with former Harry Potter readers who love reading.

Yet she's so popular...

Working in a creative industry often leads me to think that, really, a lot of the time, a lot of people's expectations are not that high.

The question is do I get sucked into that pointless game of "there must be something that makes all these people like her - I'd better read one more in case it's better"? It didn't work for Lee Child, although after three I think I could write a very convincing pastiche of Lee Child.

The related question is could some of her legions of fans actually be people who got sucked into the same game? Always chasing the hit that never appears?

People read for different reasons. An undemanding book where nothing bad happens and everything is resolved prettily where you can daydream yourself as the protagonist may be all some people want from a book.

Not everyone reads to enjoy great writing, or to be challenged or to encounter new ideas. And that's ok.

Indeed for some people reading is just not as easy as it is for people like me who can comprehend a page/paragraph at a time (depending on complexity!) so the mental challenge of reading is more than enough.

In answer to your question in this case no, read something else that's popular so you broaden your grasp of popular books so better to help your customers.

Yes, I think I really ought to bite the bullet and read some James Patterson next - I'm a bit scared of the fact that he usually writes "with" somebody else and I have no idea which someone elses are the best, or the most representative.

Incidentally I do read lowbrow fiction for pleasure, often YA, although I also have a very soft spot for Dick Francis and have Felix Francis on my to-try list. I just didn't rate this particular book because it was so very... I don't know what to call it - un-fleshed-out maybe.

Relatedly, sort of, I have just started reading a Marian Keyes, which I have been thinking of as fundamentally positive books ... I think I had forgotten that one gets to the fundamentally positive ending via some fairly harrowing narrative.

I was aiming to read something undemanding because that seemed like what I was up to, but I think I'm going to read something quite demanding instead because I certainly won't stop now.

Hah. People thinking Marian Keyes is happy fluffy chick lit based on the covers and never having read one makes me laugh. She’s awesome. And was on the podcast Fortunately with Fi and Jane the other week if you want to have a listen.

Yeah, the last Marion Keyes I read had a suicide attempt.

She's definitely a cut above most of those pretty coloured books.

I listened to a good episode of Sentimental Garbage podcast about Sophie Kinsella's The Undomestic Goddess the other day. They pulled out all sorts of stuff I'd missed.

I was reading Simon Kendrick' s Bone Field last week.

I kept thinking I'd chuck it, but found myself drawn in. However, no resolution in it, and my, isn't he violent? He's a really masculine writer with no compunction about disposing of characters.

How long are his sentences?

The antidote to the anodyne Steel turned out to be Ruth Rendell's very last novel, Dark Corners. It had its flaws, including a young woman character with an unbelievably (not fashionably) old-ladyish name and a low-key, vaguely hopeful ending that wasn't what you'd expect of Rendell, but on the whole it was satisfyingly interesting because the characters were interesting. There are three stories really, and only one of them comes to a clear conclusion. A young writer slowly comes unravelled after indirectly causing a friend's death and being menaced by his creepy lodger, who knows what happens and "reverse blackmails" him into a rent-free arrangement he cannot afford. Meanwhile, a character he knows slightly and will only meet briefly during the course of the story lets herself into the dead woman's flat and starts using her clothes and to some extent her identity to play out a fantasy of being rich and desirable, with unexpected consequences. A subplot involving a likeable old man who rides around the city all day on buses barely intersects with the rest, but serves to remind us that it's not all doom and gloom. I felt for these characters, even the not so admirable ones, because they were well rounded and believable. Not rubbish at all, but I'm putting it on this thread because it sort of concludes the story arc of yesterday's posts.

Latest rubbish was Blood Orange, by someone or other. I finished it about 2 days ago and all I can remember is that it was about a drunken female barrister.

Relatedly, sort of, I have just started reading a Marian Keyes

Which one? I've read most of the early funny ones but haven't read one lately. My favourite is Rachel's Holiday and I also adored The Other Side of the Story.

I used to like Sophie Kinsella's books for frothy, lightweight reading but she got a bit samey so I stopped a while ago.

These days I am all about the audiobooks. A Paul Temple or Peter Wimsey. I love detective fiction.

Steve and her expensive hats.

Which one? I've read most of the early funny ones but haven't read one lately. My favourite is Rachel's Holiday and I also adored The Other Side of the Story.

Yes that sounds a heavy going one. The earlier ones were lighter

It seems so unfair to call stuff by the likes of Keyes or Rendell 'rubbish' but hey. My comfort reading at the moment is Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver mysteries - I've had a horrible cough since early January, and a cooker with only two (semi) functional burners since mid-December, and I needed the mental equivalent of tomato soup and toast. I've consumed more of the latter in the last six weeks than in the previous ten years.

Miss Silver first appeared in novel from just before Miss marple, but there was a Marple short story as few months earlier, so its not clear did one influence the other. Maud, like Jane, knits, usually practical things like socks for a named recipient. She's a retired governess who has turned to crime. Solving crime - she's a private detective, admired by several policemen. Her world is a pleasantly cosy one, where most murder victims were rather nasty anyway, and the nice young people always end up suitably paired off. Social milieu slightly broader than Christie - still a lot of very posh people, but occasionally a member of the lower middle class gets a voice, and there isn't any gratuitous anti semitism or racism. I'm reading them like a chain smoker, one after the other - there are more than thirty of them, so by the time I'm finished the weather should have improved.

re: James Patterson, referneced above, I listened to few audiobooks of those (local library stuff) okay distractions, but I lost patience with a Womens Murder Club one where the murder weapon was a

Chew your food well

Those Miss Silver mysteries sound good. Glad you have a new cooker now elderberry

there isn't any gratuitous anti semitism or racism

Just the plot-relevant sort?

So far I haven't noticed any - and the one Jewish character was a goodie (though one of a number of exceptions to the rule about murder victims being rotters). Agatha now, she was very very gratuitous. To be fair, she dissed the Irish as well.

Touching on Ms Whatever's irritations with Danielle Steel – whom I've not read – I do distinguish between good rubbish and rubbish rubbish. To write good rubbish, you have to stick to the rules, which means no massive plot holes or implausibilities. This applies even when the central idea revolves around an implausibility, like talking animals or magical powers: you've accepted this as the condition for entering this world, but it doesn't mean anything goes.

I felt massively let down by the ending of Gone Girl, because it seemed so implausible. I'm sure there are people who'd stay with their partner after all that, but up to that point the narrator hadn't come across that way. An idle stroll across the internet shows me that many, many people are also disappointed, but not, apparently, because they found it implausible, but because they want to see evil punished and good rewarded. Once again I feel at odds with the world.

Gillian Flynn's Dark Places was a much more satisfying read than Gone Girl but sadly I can't remember very much about either.

they want to see evil punished and good rewarded.

Isn't this true of most readers? Isn't this why crime and detective fiction is so popular? The satisfaction of seeing the world how it should be but rarely is? I know crime fiction is also popular because some people like puzzles but they also like resolution that fits with their values. And most people want to see the good rewarded and the bad punished.

I deffo want evil punished and good rewarded, and really don't want detailed and extensive descriptions of/analysis of sociopaths because there's been enough of that in my real life. I wonder whether enjoyment of gritty psychological stuff and dystopian fiction is for people whose own lives have mostly been sunny. We escape in different directions, depending on our circumstances.

One thing I have noticed since working in a library is that fragile-looking little old ladies seem to have an insatiable thirst for gory thrillers.

Thrillers do what they say on the tin - thrill. From the safety of your sofa, beach or bed.

Sure, I understand that people like books with nice neat endings, and the villains punished. But I don't recall anyone objecting to the end of Silence of the Lambs, for instance, and surely there must be countless other examples of popular literature/films where the baddies get away with it, and nobody seems to complain, though they're not springing to mind at the moment.

Romances require a happy ending. Crime fiction the same. In literary non-genre fiction it’s different.

I've read stuff by Patricia Highsmith where the villain got away with it; Barbara Vine too.

How could I forget Highsmith? Ripley never gets done for anything major, does he? And aren't there Rankin novels where the killer is never caught?

I can think of an Agatha Christie where the killer gets away with it (or at least they did in the adaptation - I'm not sure about the original).

That reminds me. In the original 'Witness for the Prosecution' story, the killer gets away with it. For the Hollywood adaptation, this had to be changed. I can't remember the details of how they did it, but it was ghastly. Poor Dietrich.

#394 is that partly because when it was published there was no instant online response, so things got a chance to become bedded in as they were without anyone who had reservations realising that they were not alone. I remember ca 1989 in Waterstones in Dublin chatting briefly to a fellow customer about Ruth Rendell, and both of us feeling that we'd gone right off her after that book where you think for ages that the dog is slowly dying all alone. It was all right in the end of course because it was the husband, who had it coming, and the dog was fine, but it left both of us reluctant to read any more.

Back then wimps like us couldn't dent Rendells' (deserved) high reputation. Nowadays we could discuss it all extensively on line - must make life more stressful for authors.

Disclaimer: No live husbands were harmed in the composition of this post.

I think I was the one who first brought up Ruth Rendell and I feel I ought to mention that I didn't say she was rubbish - she made a nice contrast to the rubbish I'd read just before. She wasn't perfect, but she was always interesting, IMO. Is the one with the dog the one where the hero is tricked into going to a place where he can be framed for murder by being told that a dog is very ill, then dead? Or has she done misleading dog-distress more than once?

I'm not sure - it was a long time ago. That does sound probable. I didn't much care for the one where the woman killed the family because she couldn't read, either. I don't only read cosies - I'm looking forward to the next Sara Paretsky, but I'm not at ease with the psychological stuff.

I can think of an Agatha Christie where the killer gets away with it (or at least they did in the adaptation - I'm not sure about the original).

I've seen an interesting thesis claiming that the answer in another book is actually a lie.

So have I - I wonder if we're thinking of the same one.

That's the one, yes. I don't think Christie meant it to be there but it's definitely a theory consistent with the narrative.

Perhaps light reading is a better term than rubbish? Tho the Danielle Steel sounds rubbish

Light reading is a good term. Which subsets of light reading count as rubbish is extremely subjective, whereas "light" is more objective, I think.

If this was the Light Fiction thread, we'd just get people wittering about Wodehouse, Tom Holt, chick lit etc. Whereas as it's a Rubbish thread, we can tear into stuff of all kinds with gusto. Away and start your own thread!

Okay well if we're talking rubbish Jacqueline Susann? Jackie Collins? Harold Robbins? All trashy novels but great reads.

Valley of the Dolls is in 1001 Books to Read Before You Die.

I just started and discarded Eoin colfer, High Fire. It's supposed to be for adults, but is actually just like a novel for youngish teens with swears.

I love Valley of the Dolls. It's so deliciously trashy and yet a really great compelling read.

A bit like this place.

VotD was just so sad!

I have a feeling I read Danielle Steele's wiki a while back and she's had quite an impressive life. I think there's no shame at all in writing easy-to-read books that give a great deal of people a lot of pleasure.

No shame, no. Even Agatha Christie cheerfully admitted to writing a lot of pot-boilers. It just didn't do much for me, which is all I can really comment on.

easy-to-read books

They might be easy-to-read, but I'm guessing they're not easy to write.

For comfort reading I am revisiting two books from my teenage years.

500 Mile Walkies - Mark Wallington. I was only reminded of this because it is cited in the recent South West Coast path walking bestseller The Salt Path. So I got a copy from the internet. I read it back in the day, Wallington is an amiable companion. I guess this is from the period of jocular travel books, Bill Bryson started out around this time too.

Claw of the Conciliator - Gene Wolfe. Far future SF fantasy. Had a collapsing double copy of the 1st and 2nd books in the series in the attic. Reread the first about three years ago, comfort reading when ill. Time to swashbuckle back to Urth of the dying sun....

I remember reading a couple of Wallington books. He had a dog called Boogie iirc

The book I actually bought is a double edition of 500 Mile Walkies and the boat-based sequel Boogie Up the River.

Is anyone reading rubbish nowadays or are you all confining yourselves to hard-back editions of challenging and thoughtful Laotians, Moldovans and Costa Ricans in translation during lockdown?

I've read a few detective stories by Stuart Pawson recently. They're not rubbish in the sense of not enjoyable, but they're a bit formulaic and occasionally badly edited (for example, a character in the one I'm reading at the moment is sometimes Jeff and sometimes Geoff). He's got quite a funny turn of phrase, though, and I enjoy the believably friendly relationship between the main detective and some of his colleagues, who all have a regrettable tendency to pun away like a bunch of JTTers.

I finished The Pale Horse, both in book and TV form.

Did the TV form make sense?

If so, I call it a bad interpretation.

I read/watched the two all mixed up over a long period of time so both were a little confused, frankly. I didn't really get why they'd done what they did with the TV. But I'm not close enough to either to fairly critique.

Definitely not always reading posh stuff. Took a day out reading a Chris Brookmayer the other day. Competent.

He's good.

I like a far-fetched plot as well as the next person. After all, Lee Childs!

I've been reading a few of the cheapo novels I've got on kindle: the Interestings, a couple of Rizzoli and Isles, a sci to called The paths between worlds, The house we grew up in - Lisa Jewell, The end of the world survivors club, Pillars of the earth,.

Badly-written and ill-researched history of the Grand National by Anne Holland.

The Wych Elm by Tana French. Long-winded, frankly.

Oh, I really enjoyed that.

I very much doubt there is any Laotian literature in English translation.

WRONG!

https://www.themodernnovelblog.com/2012/02/24/the-novels-of-laos/

I'm still reading the Miss Silver mysteries I started sometime midwinterish. Comforting predictability is just the thing atm.

#430 I enjoyed small screen Rizzoli and Isles (might do a re-watch, come to think, have the DVDs) but find Gerritsen a tough read - disappointingly. She's the favourite writer of a cousin I'm fond of, but I find the tendency to very graphic descriptions of medical procedures hard to take - I think cousin must have a more controllable imagination than I have.

I read one Gerritson and found her very annoying. I particularly disliked her constant and use of the word 'perp'.

I also enjoyed The Wych Elm.

Deja your link literally says there are no modern Laotian novels available in any major Western language. BLASTED.

The proper-reading thread regulars could probably confirm one way or the other.

That's weird! I haven't noticed her using 'perp' at all!

Maybe it was just that book, one particular character, I think.

Deja your link literally says there are no modern Laotian novels available in any major Western language. BLASTED.

You didn’t specify modern. KABOOM!

Also, they didn't specify novels.

So just what are our Laotian literary options, if we're not in a position to read them in the original Lao/Khmu/Hmong/etc?

(I'd guess French translations would be commoner than English.)

Dystopian novel now - A boy and a dog at the end of the world. Good start.

Some excitement amongst Scottish Football supporters (perhaps because there's no actual football happening) about Buckie Thistle FC featuring in one of the stories in Stephen King's new book, apparently.

Seen the title, If It Bleeds, which I took to be a reference to the tabloid journalist's guiding principle - if it bleeds, it leads.

More McLean - Fear is the Key.

Honestly can't remember if I've read this one before.

I enjoyed that one, as I remember. That and puppet on a chain I remember as my favourites. I read them all up to the way to dusty death

Aye, Puppet I really liked.

Whatever happened to Jasper Fforde?

Liked the Thursday Next series, loved the two nursery crime books.

Picked up his latest, Early Riser, and got bored with the wacky but detailed world-building early doors. Show more, Jasp.

Oh yes, The Big Over-Easy and The Fourth Bear. Lovely stuff.

Yes - what the dickens?

The Ben Aronavitch detective books have a similar quallity. The ones with the black PC training to be a supernatural detective under a very dignified older chap with huge style and lots of weird shit too.

There are graphic novels that have other stories, which (from the freebies I downloaded) were excellent. If you like that sort of thing, that is. I haven't made up my mind.

I think Aaronovitch is a far better writer than Fforde. Fforde excels at situation and world building, but is terrible at character.

Yes, you're spot on, airy. BA's characters are very well-drawn.

Fforde's nursery crime detective was a great character. The one with the Austin Maxi.

But generally you're right. While I enjoyed the Thursday Next books, the soapy stuff about her family bored, perhaps because it was unnecessary, perhaps because you didn't really care about them as people. Though the dodos came off the page a bit better.

I felt slightly guilty about my inability to get on with Thursday Next - they always seemed to self-consciously 'clever', but not really engaging. Relieved to know I'm not alone.

I hated Fforde. Read a few pages of one and gave up.

Fforde feels vert self-consciously written IYSWYM. I've read a couple but can't love them.

I just felt he was making up the rules of his world as he went along, which is lazy and irritating. Just not enough there to make me read on.

A friend of mine and her eldest daughter are shielding because they have sickle cell. She's a teacher and doing all her stuff online, and teaches her Body combat class from her sitting-room.

looks up from trash novel

"You'll be wanting the thread next along".

#463 That's interesting, I didn't know it was one of the conditions on the list. Is this because of the clotting thing?

Finished Fear is the Key.

Reliable thud and blunder, but an unexpectedly downbeat and literary ending.

#465 they have loads of vascular troubles, and the shape of the blood cells restrict oxygen transport.

Not started reading yet, but Bodies in the Library 3 has just arrived - a series that publishes little-known short stories, plays and other work by golden age crimesters.

The second volume had an Edmond Crispin Fen novella that was much better than his later novels.

Peter James, Dead if you don’t. The book equivalent of a family bag of Doritos and a litre of coke.

Make that Diet Coke and you have yourself a deal.

Marie Vareille, Je peux (très bien) me passer de toi. French chick lit is very similar to English chick lit.

Around 1980 I saw a dramatisation of Verity Bargate's No Mama No on telly. It made a big impression on me at the time but I've only now got round to reading the very short book. It's about post-natal psychosis from the viewpoint of an unreliable narrator, a young mother living in Soho (like other young mothers I've met, honest). I enjoyed reading it: it's got more humour than the tv adaptation, and we aren't required to be so completely on the side of the central character.

(I foolishly posted this on the the other thread and it was received in embarrassed silence.)

I don’t think it was embarrassed silence. I get no reaction to 75% of my posts on the other thread because I’m not reading the same on-trend Hilary Mantels as everyone else on there.

Anyone want a chat about Murakami? LOL.

And it wasn’t embarrassed silence from me, Rosy. It just sent me down a path of thinking about postnatal psychosis rather than books.

I expect it was a paranoid delusion of self-reference on my part :-)

Haha! Deja - no thanks! Just read the first 2 Ruth Galloway novels - love'em. Now starting Blindness, Jose saramago.

I heart Ruth Galloway so much.

Started the anniversary reissue of the first, 1959, Pan Book of Horror Stories.

Ruth Galloway is totes ace! Can't believe I've only just found her!

Joining in with the Ruth Galloway (and Kate) love!

Who's Kate?

Ruth's daughter.

Oh right! She's still pregnant as far as I'm concerned!

Kate becomes a most tremendous character. She is one of the best-written small children I've read in recent years.

Re-reading Where Eagles Dare.

Probably MacLean's pottiest plot.

'Broadsword calling Danny Boy...'

Reading the sharpe novels. Much more engaging than the tv series

I finished Sharpe’s Enemy about a week ago. He’s not great at writing women, is he?

They don’t last long, generally

I read Cornwall's Shakespeare book a while ago. It was like reading something out of the fifties. Every villain was homosexual, and every hero was straight. The latter group included the notably sexually ambiguous Shakespeare, with no hint of irony.

A dance to the music of time. Hmm.

I remember reading the Sharpe one about Seringapatam (not a particularly noble colonial escapade from any perspective) and I was annoyed that, even in the appendix, Cornwall rather dismissed Sir David Baird (someone I'de been researching at the time) in favour of his hero, Wellington.

Finished Where Eagles Dare.

For you aviation fans, regarding the pottiest plot twist of all; would an extra five people fit in a Mosquito besides the pilot and co-pilot?

Re the Pan Book of Horror Stories; CS Forester wrote a few harrowing behind-the-scenes-in-Nazi-Germany short stories. The Neurology of Fear, in this collection, tops them all.

JP Delaney, believe me. Massively schlocky Sub-Gone girl thriller which I am enjoying immensely.

Lockdown by Peter May. Written 15 years ago about a deadly flu ravaging London, it was never published, until...

Enjoyable, fairly straightforward thriller. Fun to compare to current times of course. Not massively convinced by the ending, and I have a science question about the DNA.

Oh I just bought that lime. Currently reading something I picked up at work - Come Again, by Robert Webb. Quite entertaining.

The Moonflower Murders, Anthony Horowitz's follow-up to The Magpie Murders.

Another mystery where a crime novel by a dead author holds clues to an earlier crime. Post-modernly or intertextually or something, said novel is included in the novel.

WHich makes it very long for a fun bit of murder.

I get the impression that hardly anyone reads rubbish nowadays; it's all racing to finish the Booker short list, or comparing translations of greatly worthy works.

Trust me, Rosy, readers of rubbish are out here.

We are.

Present.

Yep.

100% rubbish here. I like stories not writing.

Aye

Just read Hit Men, an account of eighties payola and now onto a biography of one of the main protagonists, Walter Yetnikoff, ex CBS bigwig, Howling at the Moon.

Without wanting to sound like a snob, I think sometimes there is less to say about rubbish. Often it just delivers what you wanted and expected. Abs that's no bad thing.

Also on the subject of rubbish, abs arguing against my point is the podcast Sentimental Garbage. It talks about a lot of fiction that is dismissed as Women's fluff (although I'd dispute that all of it is). It has definitely pointed out interesting, thought-provoking things about books you might otherwise dismiss.

I've just read Light a Penny Candle.

Obviously, now that's out of the way I'll be free to focus on A La Recherche de Temps Perdu.

du temps

---> erudite thread for people wot speak French

I quite like Women's Fluff, as you put it, limegreen.

Often upbeat, engagingly written, and brightens a dismal day.

The Booker shortlist, less so.

And I'm a chunkily-built bloke who'd make a decent wing-threequarter if I was 40 years younger.

I've just finished a free (!) Crime procedural - set in Scotland, featuring a solidly built dci Logan.

The Christmas Egg, Mary Kelly, one of those British Library crime classics.

Enjoying Ella Griffiths and Ruth Galloway

I've just finished a free (!) Crime procedural - set in Scotland, featuring a solidly built dci Logan.

The new Rebus is excellent. Not rubbish.

Not, absolutely not, rubbish, so it shouldn't be here, but as Ellie Griffiths has been mentioned again, The Stranger Diaries is a really really gripping book.

It's a standalone, not a Ruth Galloway, but is superior to that series. I know that's a very high bar to clear, but true.

I have just finished the Stranger diaries. Had to stop last night as I was getting too stressed! Absolutely gripping

I've got that on order. Thanks for the tip, mary.