[Me]

Can people reply with suggestions of their favourite/best reads please? Fed up with books I could write before my tea went cold about love, murder and dungeons and dragons (which appears to be the only three themes of every book ever written). So, avoiding these topics any suggestions? TIA 

[Daisys Mum]

I love to find books that are a bit different, I enjoyed "The 100 year old man who climbed out the window"

[Porterlauren]

Ok it does have love and murder in it . . . . .

But the book Shantaram is pretty damn good!

[bloomer]

how about science fiction? those i can list plenty of good reads


if you like amusing factual books


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Free-Country-Penniless-Adventure-Britain/dp/1471721159


was agift for christmas that i laughed all the way through...

[Backinwellies]

Can people reply with suggestions of their favourite/best reads please? Fed up with books I could write before my tea went cold about love, murder and dungeons and dragons (which appears to be the only three themes of every book ever written). So, avoiding these topics any suggestions? TIA 

Plenty of other books out there... ask in your local library!

I'd recommend Ken Follet's  'The Pillars of the Earth'.... yes a little bit of love and murder  but amazing historical facts and fabulously written. .... and unless you are an architect you couldn't have written it before breakfast!

[nutterly_uts]

If you have a kindle, the Queen's Blade was a cracking series imo .. he is her assassin so there is a bit of murdering but its not done for blood's sake.. recommended this to several people who have all loved it.

[Me]

Thanks for your replies, I will look a few of them up! The love ones are typically written from the perspective of an American female in her late twenties - (ironically usually a writer) I feel I know the innermost thoughts of the average 20 something American female better than I know myself. The murder ones are usually Scottish for some reason and I get to the point where I don't care who dunnit, diet would have done the job within a few years without bothering the cutlery. 

Thanks again!

[Sbom]

Clare Balding's autobiography is a really good read, very funny to the point I kept giggling out loud.

Think it's called, My animals and other family.

Would highly recommend it.

[devonlady]

I have just finished "The Mystery of Mercy Close" by Marian Keyes. Didn't think it was my sort of book but couldn't put it down.

[Thyme]

ooh books.  some favourites:

The King Must Die, Mary Renault
A Fine and Private Place, Peter S. Beagle
Count Zero, William Gibson
Black Rubber Dress, Lauren Henderson
Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
Cyteen, CJ Cherryh
White Noise, Don DeLillo
The Bone People, Keri Hulme
Reservation Blues, Sherman Alexie
Smilla's Sense of Snow, Peter Hoeg

[Fleecewife]

Narrow Dog to Carcassonne was great fun - not the least bit of sex or murder in it 

Also anything by Terry Pratchett - his books can be read on a superficial level but he's clearly got a head full of the most esoteric facts, and a wonderful sense of humour, so there's a second much deeper layer to all his books.  I want to cry that he now has a degree of dementia.


modified to get the title right - it's Narrow  DOG not boat, although it is about a narrow boat trip

[Dan]

Some of my favourites with no dungeons and dragons or murder-based plots:


Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd
11/22/63 by Stephen King
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Stiff by Mary Roach
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
The Stand by Stephen King
Contact by Carl Sagan


I like Goodreads for finding books I might like based on what I've read previously.

[nonnatus]

Some great suggestions there, but if you want to get really gripped and like the idea of a series, try the Diana Gabaldon "Outlander" series.  Each book is HUGE in itself but they are soooo easy to read, not to mention fascinating that it's no effort.

It's the story of a woman called Claire, who we follow through her whole life.  She's a modern day doctor but accidentally time travels back to 1800's Highland Scotland. (That's the ONLY bit of weird fantasy, I promise).
We follow how she copes with building a life, knowing how things will happen (because she's aware of the history) and how she forages, builds homes / Smallholdings out of nothing and deals with medicine from 200 years ago.

I've read thousands of books and none really compare with this series 

Gosh!  I sound a bit Bonkers, don't I??? 

[devonlady]

Have just finished Lavinia Derwent's " A Breath of Border Air" an account of her childhood in the Scottish Borders. Just about to start "Isolation Shepherd"

[devonlad]

Its all such a personal taste thing.
For the record Witch light by Susan fletcher is a stunningly beautiful book and of course Birdsong by Sebastian faulks, anything by Bernard maclaverty and if not now, when by primo Levi. Can't guarantee no love but def no dungeons or dragons