Help With My Reading List.......

[GymLadTim]

So, I've decided to put down the celebrity gossip mags and do some serious reading.

I need some recommendations of books to help me put together a sweet little reading list that I can work my way through over the next year. I'm very open minded about what I read - classics, thrillers, romance - you name it.

Can you recommend some books for me please - especially your favourite books or books that have inspired you or changed your life.

Thanks so much

XXXXXX

[pixie374]

I really liked the Pillars of the Earth series by Ken Follett. I absolutely didn't think they would be for me, from reading the blurb... but he is really entertaining.
Also Bill Bryson... very funny. My others would probably be too girly for you :-)

[GymLadTim]

Thanks Pixie p.s. I love girly stuff.

[pixie374]

Also... Me before You and Before I go to sleep...

[pixie374]

I have a lot of rubbishy escapism... depends how lowbrow you want to go lol.

[Mozz71]

I'd always recommend Catch 22. In fact, I've never read a bad Joseph Heller novel. If you want more chuckles (Heller's comes is very dark), Douglas Adams, Robert Ranking and the great Terry Pratchett always hit the spot.

[pixie374]

K-Pax and series. I never understood Terry Pratchett. Depends entirely on what you like x

[douglas9401]

Anything by Tom Sharpe.

[hereIam]

I love thrillers, so anything by Harlen Coben, Greg Hurwitz or Lynwood Barclay. Reading Douglas Kennedy's latest at the moment - The Great Wide Open. Another by him that I'd recommend (although I'd recommend them all) is The Pursuit of Happiness. IMO the man's a genius

[pixie374]

For lightweight girly stuff... Marian Keyes, Catherine Alliott, Sophie kinsella...

[GymLadTim]

Thanks everyone

[Mozz71]

//I never understood Terry Pratchett. Depends entirely on what you like//

Absolutely. My sense of humour is completely ski-whiff anyway. I was bought up on Spike Milligan from a young age!

[Buenchico]

Try 'Three Men in a Boat', by Jerome K Jerome, it's possibly the funniest book in the English language.

[pixie374]

Mozz, I never can work out why fantasy and science fiction are usually classed together. They are opposites to me.

[hereIam]

Martina Cole writes a cracking crime thriller too, although not everybody's cup of tea, she is mine.

[Mozz71]

I used to have Three Men In A Boat as a talking book. It's quite wonderful.

[GymLadTim]

Three men in a boat sounds interesting I will check that out.

[hereIam]

Another good 'un is A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseni - a beautiful book.

[Mozz71]

//Mozz, I never can work out why fantasy and science fiction are usually classed together. They are opposites to me.//

I guess they share a fanbase. Its unusual for someone to love one but not the other. I guess they share that sense of extreme escapism.

[pixie374]

I have just downloaded it, Chris... I hope you are right! Lol

[Arksided]

'Fat' - Rob grant... who's probably best known as co creator and script writer of Red Dwarf... The book isn't Sci-fi but really is Lol moments.