Bright Young Things discussion

What book have you just finished? - would you recommend it to others?

I just finished "My Cousin Rachel" by Daphne du Maurier. I really enjoyed it. I would definitely recommend it for any du Maurier fans. It wasn't quite as good as "Rebecca", but I think those who enjoyed "Rebecca" would enjoy it.

I just finished The Woman in White and loved it. It was very suspenseful and Count Fosco is one of the most fascinating, colourful characters I have ever met in a piece of literature. Would definitely recommend it.

The last one I finished was Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?. It read in an afternoon and was funny and cute and I love Mindy Kaling. :)

Earlier in the month I finished In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin and The Invention of Hugo Cabret. The Larson was a bit difficult to read just because it wasn't really going anywhere, I felt. I'm used to his books having a sort of goal they're working towards (like in Devil in the White City it's to get the murderer), but this one was just the story. It was good, but I struggled with it sometimes. Hugo Cabret was fabulous and beautiful and I loved it so much. :)

I just finished The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (the upcoming BYT fiction choice for Feb!) and all I can say is WOW!

In the end I simply could not put this one down. Its the type of book that makes you want to re-assess all of the star markings you've ever given another book, the type of book that makes you worry that anything you read after it will simply pale into insignificance.

I'm going to hold out on the details as I don't want to give too muh away for those are planning to pick this up next month but I can't wait to disuss it with everyone.

If you haven't decided yet whether you want to read next months choice or not I'd strongly recommend you to pick up a copy. It looks long and the type is set small but you won't feel it - the speed at which I devoured this gem took me totally by surprise!

I have just finished 'The Girl who played with Fire'by Steig Larsson. Number two in the Millenium trilogy,it is every bit as good as the first one and I am now debating whether to go straight on for the third or succumb to Allys persuasion and read 'The Invisible Bridge'!!

Julie wrote: "I have just finished 'The Girl who played with Fire'by Steig Larsson. Number two in the Millenium trilogy,it is every bit as good as the first one and I am now debating whether to go straight on fo..."

I have the first in the trilogy -

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which has been on my shelf for at least a year, if not longer. I keep getting put off from reading it as it sounds so 'gritty' from the blurb.

I did go to the cinema over Christmas to see the Daniel Craig film and was really enthralled. It was a great story within a story but still - the gritty - was it really needed? - I'm still put off from reading it! oh dear.

Hi Ally,

I purposely didnt see the film as I wanted to read the whole trilogy first. The thought of Daniel Craig, who we all know best as Bond, would have just messed with my head whilst reading the books!!Perhaps you should skip the Dragon Tattoo and go on to the second. It is worth it!!

I just finished the 3rd Isabel Dalhousie novel by Alexander McCall Smith - The Right Attitude to Rain. I avoided him for a long time because I'm generally skeptical about writers who crank out books one after another. These are not great lit-tra-ture but they are well written and fun. I would recommend them to someone looking for a light, fun read.

I just finished Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, it was good, nothing amazing, though.

I just finished Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children This was quite a ride. I thought it started better than it finished, but it was thoroughly entertaining and original throughout, creepy, scary and magical. Highly recommended for older "Harry Potter" fans (which means almost everyone).

I finished The Tree-Sitter: A Novel, which I enjoyed. Most of the reviews are negative, but I think I liked it so much because I could identify with the characters as people I knew in college.

I just finished Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes... overhyped, but enjoyable

I've finished a few more now...

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Auschwitz Violin. Maria Ngels Anglada by Maria Àngels Anglada

Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

Me too...

The Sea Lady: A Tissue of Moonshine by H.G. Wells

The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting

I just finished They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell which was breathtakingly beautiful.

Heather wrote: "I just finished They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell which was breathtakingly beautiful."

I really enjoy his writing. I'm reading his Ancestors: A Family History and I just got What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell.

I wanted to read something completely different (...don't you just need to do that sometimes?) so I picked up Michelle Paver's Dark Matter. I just finished it and I thought it was great!

Naked Lunch by Burroughs. Recommended because it is good -- but it made me queasy at first.

I've recently finished Death Watch and Emily of Deep Valley: A Deep Valley Book. Death Watch was a really good story, just overly long and descriptive; it took me forever to read. Emily was wonderful; quick and light but not without depth. I loved it. :)

I recently finished Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock. I found it interesting and well written.

The Secret Garden - just read this for the first time and didn't want it to end.

Last night I finished April in Paris. It's told from the point of view of a Nazi translator in occupied Paris who spends his evenings consorting with the enemy. It started off slow, then picked up, then slowed down again. I can't say I'd recommend it.

Great Granny Webster Nancy Mitford move over, another hieress tells her family story through fiction. This is quite funny, especially the scenes with Aunt Lavania (a role with Oscar written on all over it). The depiction of the living conditions at the Irish Manor house rival Gray Gardens. The writing here is acerbic and witty and quite dark. NOt for everyone, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Over the weekend I finished listening to Life of Pi, a wonderful book that I highly recommend if you haven't read it yet.

I just finished The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - it was cute and an Ok read but not really up my street. It's good to try new things every now and again.

You didn't like Flavia? I adore her!

she wasn't really believable as an 11 year old but she was a great character. I didn't like the one-dimensional sibling relationship - everyone with brothers and sisters knows that despite the rivalry theres often a mixuture of intense love and also times of great frustration. Its rarely all about hate. The mystery was easy to work out but it was still entertaining. I think mainly, as with all mysteries I've read, the genre is just not my cup of tea.

I just finished

The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

It's a great read and I'd highly recommend it. My only concern was the depiction of women as having value for their appearance and their ability to please men. This may have been a product of the time but I still don't like it! - My favourite bits were the recounted conversations between Maugham and Larry where they discussed the 'meaning of life' questions from various spiritual perspectives.

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

Didn't like it much.

Ivan wrote: "The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

Didn't like it much."

That's disappointing - it sounds so good from it's synopsis - what was it that went wrong do you think?

It's all here http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

STAY CLOSE by Harlan Coben
exciting book with everything good even the ending which is always hard to do in books, movies



God's jury : the Inquisition and the making of the modern world

Cullen. Murphy


entertaining and informative with how the modern world has taken up some cues from the Inquistion days of old

Last weekend I finished The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia. I found it very interesting and would recommend it, though you need to read the entire Narnia series first and also have some experience with The Lord of the Rings as well as there are spoilers for both.

Last night I finished The Sinking of the Lancastria: The Twentieth Century's Deadliest Naval Disaster and Churchill's Plot to Make It Disappear which was not as good as I would have liked. I think the author told the stories of too many of the people involved instead of just a select few, it made it hard to keep track of everyone.

I've just finished...

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

It's a really short read but typically English and a grim tale of how corrosive the British class system was in the 1950s.

Over the weekend I finished Heresy by S.J. Parris. A fun murder mystery, if you're into those.

Last night I finished Never Fall Down. Whew, was that intense! I don't know much about the Khmer Rouge, but that was just horrifying.

I enjoyed The Night Circus. Fantastical, set in the 1890's onward and richly imaginative.

Warning: I`ve found this is one of those either you love it or you hate it books.

Amer wrote: "I enjoyed The Night Circus. Fantastical, set in the 1890's onward and richly imaginative.

Warning: I`ve found this is one of those either you love it or you hate it books."

I've found that too. I loved it so much, though! :)

I just finished The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing.

I can see why she won the nobel prize for literature but this is strage old book - some of it is worth 5 stars but some of it is definitely worth only 1 star. - It definately spoke to me so I'd recommend it to anyone who wants a 'thought provoking' read full of ideas, politics, colonialism, race and gender questions etc etc...but it's long and does get a bet repetitious.

Over the weekend I finished Trapped! the Story of Floyd Collins. I found it to be really interesting. I'll probably nominate it for a non-fiction read at some point in the near future.

I especially liked the references to other books I've read, like the fact that right before Floyd was trapped in the cave, the country's attention was rivited to the race to Nome, which I read about in The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic. It also mentioned the trial of Leopold and Loeb, which I read about in For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago. I love it when I start learning!

I just finished a fun little novel called Parnassus on Wheels set in 1915. It's an adventure story for adults. A man pulls up to a farm house in a gypsy caravan selling books. He ends up selling the caravan and all to the lady of the house - a spinster looking for a lark; something to remind her what really living feels like. It's light, but fun, and also funny. There is never a dull moment.

I recently finished What I Saw and How I Lied which is a young adult novel about life in the US after WWII. It wasn't the deepest or most interesting story I've ever read, but I liked that it was set after WWII, because I don't see much in that time period. It seems like we jump from the end of the war into the nostalgia and/or Red Scare of the 1950s.

Just finished the biography of George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth. Since this is her Silver Jubilee, I thought I would read a little bit more about her father. It is an excellent book about a shy and gentle man who was never supposed to be King nor wanted to be but was forced onto the throne when his brother Edward VIII abdicated. A popular King who did his best for Britain and the Empire.

by Sarah Bradford

Jill wrote: "Just finished the biography of George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth. Since this is her Silver Jubilee, I thought I would read a little bit more about her father. It is an excellent book about a shy..."

It sounds like a good book, Jill. Perhaps it would make a good nomination for a non-fiction group read. The nominations are currently open for August.

Jill, I was so intrigued that I had to go check it out from the library. I started it last night. I have to say, that I am so glad I've already read King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led The World To War because I would have no idea who all these people are.

I just finished...

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

It was fantastic, so far I haven't come across a Waugh book that I haven't liked.

I've never read any Evelyn Waugh. I'd better put that right hadn't I? I've just finished Ragnerok
by A S Byatt. I was a bit disappointed. I'm not really taken by her writing style; clever, competent but not for me

So far A Handful of Dust is my least favorite Waugh. I've really enjoyed it all, though.

I finally finished Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation 1918-1940. Overall I enjoyed it. I think it was a little heavy on Elizabeth Ponsonby for her being, really, no one. I understand you have to work with the sources you have, and the whole movement was so up in the air and it was just whoever was there at the time in a lot of ways, but still too heavy on her. I wanted more on some of the people I've heard of (Beverly Nichols, Henry Green, Cecil Beaton, the Tennants, even the Mitfords, really) rather than so much on her. Other than that I enjoyed it. :)

I'm just over halfway through A Separate Peace and I'm really enjoying it so far. It's so beautifully written.

Jennifer W wrote: "Jill, I was so intrigued that I had to go check it out from the library. I started it last night. I have to say, that I am so glad I've already read King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led ..."

Those family trees, so intertwined, are sometimes difficult to follow. BTW, I loved King, Kaiser, Tsar.