General Chat

Problem is some authors write really good books that you thoroughly enjoy and then they pop in the odd dud.

P xx

Problem is some authors write really good books that you thoroughly enjoy and then they pop in the odd dud.

P xx

Maybe we should have a greaders thread 'Authors we have not enjoyed'???

Perse, I don't like them all either, but at least it tells us which authors not to read again. :D :D :D

I really like the Greaders threads but I don't like all the books we have selected including one that I recommended. LOL

Persie

Ann, I am delighted that you read The last juror and enjoyed it. I managed to read this by borrowing it from my sister whilst in the UK very recently. Having read manny of Grishams books, often for relief from important work related reading, I found this story a change from his usual style.
The Court Room scenes were excellently portrayed, and then the description of Miss Callie and Willie Taylor represented, for me, the changing attitudes about mixed race relationships in the USA.

I will try to stay on here even if I cannot read the chosen books because I find it one of the more interesting threads and enjoy talking to people who

have the love of reading that I have.
Bridget

08.35hrs Spain
:-)

Glad you enjoyed the Last Juror, Ann.
It's always a bit of a worry when you recommend a book as tastes differ so much!

Review The Last Juror by John Grisham
I have read at least one book by John Grisham before and enjoyed it, but he is not an author who leaps to mind when I want to buy a book.
I actually found this one quite gripping, set in the seventies, a small town newspaper, a family who are rich enough to buy their way out of trouble. a murder committed by a member of this family and the consequential trial. Then we have desegregation, the small town being in the South near Memphis and the friendship between the editor of the newspaper, 23 year old Willie Traynor and Miss Callie a Christian black lady who loves to cook.
JG writes with authority regarding the court room scenes and with sensitivity with sad scenes. I definitely would not rule out reading more of his books.

I have just finished a very good book that was a £1.99 one I picked up in The Works shop.

The Railwayman's daughter by Dee Yates.
A novel about a young girl, the daughter of a rail ganger in 1875 on the York Doncaster railway. Her home is crowded so she goes to work for the station master who doesn't treat her well. She runs away to York, has a baby, lives with Quakers, tragedy allows her to return to her home village.

There is a lot of social history within the story, a lot about the railways and the life of railways workers, and also the lives of agricultural workers. And something also about the use of herbs as medicines and the treatment of scarlet fever for example.

It was a very interesting and quite gripping story and I was shocked when I studied the cover afterwards to find it is actually published by Mills and Boon. No way is it as trite as most of their books that I have seen.

Well worth a read. :-)

I will nudge up the writyers thread Bridget. But you don't submit your stories to the thread, if you remember, we send them out via e mail, you should have had a list. If not check with Rose on the thread.

Ann and Tess, thank you for your kind comments. I am now much more inclined to stay on here, I was ...........scared about taking this step, wanted to in my head but terrified in my hheart because I love writing and reading.
I am hopimg now that I only have one more hurdle to ob=vercome and then I will be back to whatever is considered nervous.

Where is the thread which one can submit ones own stories...I would like to start writing again

I am away from around the 10th to the 18th as will be in UK for an important event in the family.

Bye for now

Bridget

13.06 hrs Spain :-)

Lol Bridget, for a moment there I thought that Anninglos was another bit of Latin!!


I think that I need a break.

As Ann say, your book sounds really interesting. I will look out for ir.

Tess

No Problem Bridget, a beautifully written review and the book sounds very interesting. Shall watch out for it.

Just looked and if anyone is interested it is available on Amazon.

It is Bridget Here, sorry I haven't replied previously and hope that I will not be doing the hiding away with paint brushes, gardening equipment etc again.
Well I did not manage to get the book that I said I would, Bad bad start! Sorry!
So instead I took one off my bookshelves, a very small but interesting book called The Shepherd by Fredrick Forsyth.

This is a very small book which has wonderful sketches inside and I bought it years ago in a secondhand shop, because it is a first addition and signed by the author.

A pilot sets off on Christmas day to go to Lakenheath from Germany and hopes to arrive in time to celebrate with his family. Within a short space of time things are going awry and he realises that the equipment is behaving very oddly. The compass is drifting lazily passing all direction, his ear phones are not working and he is unable to contact Lakenheath for assistance.
He describes the emotions he feels and the courses available to him in a very clear manner whilst at the same time he is aware that he has to be positive. He recalls times when he has been in danger
and suddenly understands that he is not on his own, there is at least one plane below him. .( I will not give the plot away) surfice to say that when he sees a plane below him he realises that this is a plane from another time.)
It is a taught story, beautifully written. The explanation of how he manages to arrive at a base safely in dreadful conditions,is tightly written especially when he realises that he has been brought there with the guidance of a plane and people who had all died some years earlier.

This is set in Lakenheath and Norfolk, so if anyone lives near these places, which I know well I am sure that they would enjoy this book even more, even if it is not the type of story they would normally read.

Sorry this is only a short piece but comp has gone down twice while I have been writing , we are having dreadful weather the sky is black and the rain is pouring down...

Bye for now

Anninglos, Mea Culpa for not adding before.

Bridget in Spain!

17.25hrs Spain










:-)

Nudges again for Bridget.

David Mitchell is on our National Radio right now talking with our Saturday morning interviewer.... very interesting ... lot about stammering and how he thought the King's Speech was excellent.

Take care all

Persie :-)

Nudged for Bridget

Thank you Pammy, I have it on my book shel;f and will read it next. :-)

Q by Luther Blissett
I have to agree with Helen and Perse – only read some and didn't enjoy what I did read

Jump by Jilly Cooper
It was perfect weather for a Jilly Cooper book, warm enough to sit in the garden , relax and enjoy a good 'bonk-buster'! As always, enjoyable entertainment with well crafted characters I can empathise with. Again I agree that it was slightly more serious than some of her others.

I also managed to read John Grisham's The Last Juror.
If anyone gets the chance to read it I can recommend this book. It portrayed Mississippi in the 1970s- with all its good and bad points. I felt Grisham captured the way Willie grew up during the time covered by the book really well. He seems to have described the main characters with more depth than he usually does, perhaps not the suspense and exciting finish one expects of a Grisham book, but with a gentle charm instead, especially Miss Callie.

Another excuse coming up (and a double one at that).

I had suggested Q by Luther Blissett (but would not have done so if I had read it first)
I am still struggling to read it. The style does get a little easier to cope with as time goes on, as does the change of date - leaping backwards and forwards all the time, and the fact that we don't know the real names of the main protagonisrs.

I am still finding it heavy going, probably because I hae very little knowledge of the back ground of the story.

I knew that Matrin Luther had nailed his thesis to a door. and that this was a start to the reformation.
I also knew of Emporer Charles V, well to be honest, i knew that there had been an Emporr Charles V, but didn't know anything about him!

I will continue to read this book till I finish it, will also try to find out a little more about Charles V (who I think was related to Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry V111)
I think that this book shows that power in religion and politics was, (and is now) a dirty game. "Unholy Alliences" were set up in order to defeat a common enemy. No though given to how it would effect the people without power. Little has changed in the last five hundred years exceptthe tecnology used by all concerned.

Tess
I