Best reads - Club Together Book Club?

Very unusual for me to have consecutive reviews of books as I am usually a slow reader. I have just finished Nora Krug's Heimat. Heimat is a word that does not seem to have a direct English translation but roughly means homeland or that part of the country that you most closely associate with. Nora Krug is a second generation (after the Second World War) German who had a degree of angst as to what the immediate previous generations may have been responsible for in the war and she sets out to discover the good or bad. Essentially in the end, and no doubt much to her relief,  she establishes that none of her relations did anything that she felt she would be ashamed of. In no way is she excusing the rise of Nazi Germany but she was more concerned from a personal level. The book is also unusual in the way it is laid out and I attach a couple of photos to illustrate the point. 

David

For those that have not yet got a copy of Black Diamonds by Catherine Bailey, about the Fitzwilliam Family and Wentworth Woodhouse, I see that it's on offer for 99p today on Kindle. It's a very interesting story well written.

Having a bit more time to sit down and read this last week or so I've managed to finish a couple of books that have been sitting waiting patiently for me on Kindle. 

Really enjoyed the first in the "Bunny goes to America" series by Caimh McDonnell, Disaster Inc.

Thanks to Nellie for recommending the series to me. 

On a bit of a roll with my books, just finished another one. This book "In My Life" by Alan Johnson, the former MP and Minister was a bit more conventional - hardly any politics involved. For those born in the 10 -15 years after the second world war this book will really be meaningful. The book is all about his love for popular music since the start of Rock and Roll I suppose. It picks up his personal story originally outlined in his first book "This Boy". Given the choice of being Home Secretary or a pop musician I think he would chosen music. Having his Guitar stolen at a crucial point rather put paid the that notion and as they say the rest in history. 

David

On my list DK. He’s a very interesting and genuine man. I have read Roy Hattersley’s biography as well, another very interesting one, particularly as he is local to us. Earlier generation than AJ. 

I am rereading the Sharpe novels of Bernard Cornwall. Easy reading, very entertaining, and in there own way, superbly researched in terms of the Napoleanic Wars. A long time since I first read them, and I don’t enjoy all of his books, but the Sharpe’s are very good.

I've just finished possibly the strangest book I've ever read!

"Lincoln in the Bardo" won the Booker Prize in 2017 and was the answer to a question on Eggheads which got me intrigued. Not really sure how to describe it, but it's the story of Abraham Lincoln's second son who died from typhoid at the age of 11. The "Bardo" is a limbo state (I think!) between life and the afterlife and the book largely consists of a series of quotes from those the boy "meets" there. It's a mixture of fact and fiction and is a seriously weird book and I'm not quite sure what the Booker judges found in it! 

Doesn't sound like one for me then, M. I've just read another of Rachel Joyce's novels....Perfect.  Although it certainly wasn't that it was still quite interesting, but not as good a "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry". Thanks for that one M.

A follow-up to the above post. Rachel Joyce's The Music Shop is available today on Kindle for 99p

Have been reading various novels and particularly enjoyed the 3 most recent books by favourite authors. CJBox -the Wolf Pack. Daniel Silva – The New Girl and David Baldacci – One Good Deed.  I did also part read Harlan Coben’s Deal Breaker which I found I had read quite some time ago.  I obviously decided then that his books weren’t for me.  Looking forward to the next Baldacci book which I understand will be out before Xmas.

I've just finished Pete Brassett's The Girl from Killkenny, very much a take off of what one expects from an Irish detective story. have also finished Rachel Joyce's The Music Shop and can recommend it along with the play list, which one can listen to on Spotify. Have now started the first Ballard and Bosch thriller by Michael Connelly....Dark Sacred Night