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Indigo Jo · **Joined:** Sun Jun 01, 2008 7:06 pm **Posts:** 4427

From the Inside Flap

Young Charlotte Mortimer is content with her lot. She loves her job teaching the poor and destitute at the local school and is happy with her strong, steadfast fiancé, Luke.
Then one day a terrible mining explosion rocks the town, and suddenly everything Charlotte thinks she knows is thrown into doubt. The arrival of wealthy businessman Justin Weatherby complicates things further. Charlotte must marry him to save the school she loves, even if it means sacrificing everything else that is dear to her.

There are secrets and lies to challenge her at every turn. Can she keep to her side of the deal, as she enters into a seemingly loveless marriage as a bargain bride? Can one brilliant pupil at the school surprise them all? And will she ever love the austere man who has married her and saved her beloved school from certain destruction?

Iris Gower, Wales's favourite storyteller, brings us an inspiring new novel set around her home town of Swansea

http://snipurl.com/7rqis

margo · **Posted:** Wed Jan 07, 2009 8:26 am

Birchwood by John Banville

From the back cover:

"I am therefore I think.

So begins Man Booker prize-winner John Banville's 1973 novel Birchwood, a novel that centers around Gabriel Godkin and his return to his dilapidated family estate. After years away, Gabriel returns to a house filled with memories and despair. Delving deep into family secrets--a cold father, a tortured mother, an insane grandmother--Gabriel also recalls his first encounters with love and loss. At once a novel of a family, of isolation, and of a blighted Ireland, Birchwood is a remarkable and complex story about the end of innocence for one boy and his country, told in the brilliantly styled prose of one of our most essential writers."

It is delicious!

Durga · **Joined:** Mon Jun 09, 2008 11:09 am **Posts:** 1631

Martin Malachi "Windswept House. A Vatican Novel"

Velvet Morning · **Posted:** Thu Jan 08, 2009 9:28 am

margo wrote:

Birchwood by John Banville

From the back cover:

"I am therefore I think.

So begins Man Booker prize-winner John Banville's 1973 novel Birchwood, a novel that centers around Gabriel Godkin and his return to his dilapidated family estate. After years away, Gabriel returns to a house filled with memories and despair. Delving deep into family secrets--a cold father, a tortured mother, an insane grandmother--Gabriel also recalls his first encounters with love and loss. At once a novel of a family, of isolation, and of a blighted Ireland, Birchwood is a remarkable and complex story about the end of innocence for one boy and his country, told in the brilliantly styled prose of one of our most essential writers."

It is delicious!

It sounds delicious! I'm putting it at the top of my reading list. :book:

I'm reading

Velvet Morning · **Posted:** Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:25 pm

margo · **Posted:** Mon Jan 12, 2009 3:44 pm

I'm also starting Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd...am half way through Birchwood.

margo · **Posted:** Tue Feb 17, 2009 11:46 pm

Still have Far From the Madding Crowd on hold, am reading Thomas Mann's Death in Venice.

margo · **Posted:** Thu Mar 26, 2009 8:03 pm

A Loving Gentleman by Meta Carpenter Wilde with Orin Borsten

It's a memoir of William Faulkner by Carpenter, whose romance with the author began in Hollywood when he went there to write screenplays for Howard Hawks.

It's a sweet story so far, I'm only on page 74/334, Carpenter wanted to tell the story herself as she found out some were waiting for her to die to write a "tell all" scandal sheet story.

margo · **Posted:** Sun Jul 05, 2009 2:45 am

I blush to admit I have 8 books in the stack that I am actually reading....

The latest in the stack is "This Side of Paradise" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The previous 7 in the stack are as follows.....sorry for lack of quotation marks.....or italicized.....

Caesar's Tribune by John Timbers
Book of One's Own by Mallon
Waiting for Godot by Beckett
A Frolic of His Own by Gaddis
The Classic Hundred Poems edited by Harmon
Midnight's Children by Rushdie
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Shaffer/Barrows

I haven't had much concentration the last few months, what with changing the house around, moving Miriam upstairs, and company coming. I do love the new Fitzgerald I'm reading though, evidently it is his first, and although I've only read the first 22 or 23 pages, I laughed through most of them. His characterizations are hilarious, and dead on target!

margo · **Posted:** Mon Jul 13, 2009 12:15 am

I'm reading, and finishing, it seems The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer.

CIA, spies, ex-spies, secret identities, new family to be protected, old nemesis dies......the whole ball of wax.

Fast paced, and excellently written and presented.

margo · **Posted:** Wed Jul 15, 2009 12:47 pm

The Cryptographer by Tobias Hill

In a near future setting...I like it so far, somehow it's a bit unsettling though. I'm not sure exactly why yet.

margo · **Posted:** Tue Jul 21, 2009 3:32 am

Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household

from Amazon...one of the customer reviews...the synopsis that Amazon gives is not much good.

Quote:

By Asmodeous (North Yorkshire United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Rogue Male (Hardcover)
The ultimate 'chase' novel. Gripping, absorbing and incredibly realistic. If you ever wanted to know what it would be like to be chased and hunted down like a wounded animal then this is the book you should read. In my opinion it is considerably better than John Buchan's thriller The 39 Steps.

The nameless hero 'Rogue Male' is stripped of all identity and forced to flee from the clutches of Hitler's henchmen.He must leave the civilised world behind if he is to survive. His only ally being his finely-tuned subconscious,primitive instincts.

This book is definitely one of the classics - one which I have re-read at least 6 times and one which I look forward to reading again in the future.

Geoffrey Household's story is so believable that often you are left wondering - did this really happen?

The story is extremely well plotted and, if you are reading this book for the first time,you just can't tell what is going to happen next or how the hero will escape from countless near death experiences...

Some people may find the story a little slow by modern high-octane hollywood standards. For example, the hero is a reserved 'English Gentlemen' and the death count is minimal (but hence much more realistic). Others on the other hand think the 'old fashioned' style is one of the book's strengths.

Basically, if you want something faster paced then try John Buchan or the modern SAS hero Andy McNab. But if you want the daddy of thrillers and one of the most absorbing and intensely rewarding reading experiences of your life then read this near-perfect thriller!

Now!

I saw a DVD advertised starring Peter O'Toole as the lead...he'd be perfect, I may have to buy it.

margo · **Posted:** Tue Jul 21, 2009 1:46 pm

Plowing ahead and starting Persuasion by Austen now.

Can it live up to the hype?

margo · **Posted:** Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:05 pm

The Deadwood Beetle by Mylene Dressler

http://www.amazon.com/Deadwood-Beetle-M ... 827&sr=8-1

Looks interesting, I've had it a while, bought second hand somewhere....

margo · **Posted:** Wed Aug 12, 2009 11:13 am

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston

http://www.amazon.com/Woman-Warrior-Max ... 931&sr=8-2

An intriguing memoir of a Chinese American girl.

Anne · **Joined:** Mon Aug 24, 2009 8:45 am **Posts:** 66

I spent yesterday morning in my local second hand bookstore. I rarely buy my books brand new these days. Who can afford it? Plus, I love reading a book that has already been thumbed through

My latest purchase is Yann Martel's 'Life of Pi'. I have heard alot of good things about it - so I am in this really nervous place that I always get myself in when I have bought a book reccomendation - I hope that I like it! I am sure it is going to be a stonker, I am yet to hear a bad word about it!

I have a couple of hours pencilled in this afternoon to get stuck into it

margo · **Posted:** Mon Aug 24, 2009 12:31 pm

Anne, Library Sales, second hand stores and Amazon marketplace are my favorite places to buy books, and I almost exclusively do just that.

I haven't read Life of Pi, and am interested in your reactions to it.

Indigo Jo · **Joined:** Sun Jun 01, 2008 7:06 pm **Posts:** 4427

Cureently reading 'The reading Room' by Ruth Hamilton. I'm hoping it's going to start grabbing me soon. So far it's one of those forgettable books if you know what I mean. It's rare that I pick up a book and forget what's happened in it after 10 mins or so, but I have with this one. Maybe that'll change as I progress through it. Don't get me wrong, it's enjoyable - just forgettable lol...

margo · **Posted:** Mon Aug 24, 2009 5:11 pm

I've been reading the Andre Dubus collection of short stories called Dancing After Hours, well, lets put it like this, I started some days ago, but haven't been reading the last several days. I do love his writing though. So sharp and to the point. Poignant stories about believable people.

I do know just what you mean though Issi, sometimes though it's not the book with me, only my mood, or what is going on around me that keeps me from concentrating.

Durga · **Joined:** Mon Jun 09, 2008 11:09 am **Posts:** 1631

I've just started Stieg LArsson's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". Funny but in original (Swedish) and most of translations title is "Men who Hate Women". I wonder if the English title says something about the plot that i shouldn't know to early (it's another crime novel)

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