Yoshikawa's "Musashi". Reading it for maybe the 5th time, but still a fascinating story about one of the most famous samurai in Japanese history.

well torn between two extremes

Competitive Strategy, Michael Porter

&

The Sword in the Stone, T.H.White.

Your post.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle. A brilliant book.

I just started to read Iain M. Banks "Use of weapons" I usually like his books, but this one does not have any effect on me..but maybe it gets better..

American Dreams Lost and Found by Studs Terkel

well, guess you won't be surprised, but I'm reading : Chiari and Syringomyelia, handbook for patients and family

a very very interesting reading.....

I'm desperate for a decent novel.
I read Johnathan Coe's 'The Rain Before it Falls' and loved it.
Then I read 'The terrible privacy of Maxwell Sim' by the same author..not bad.
So then I bought 'The House of Sleep' same author BUT it is dreadful and I'm really having to discipline myself to keep going.
I've looked through the books on this thread and have read most of them (I'm old you see and read a lot)
I hated Victoria Hislop's 'The Island'. Thought it was trite.
Normally like Penelope Lively but agree that her last book was dull.
I'm a bourgeois middle-class reactionary old bat, which I suspect most of you are not, but I'd still like some suggestions.

The Hare with Amber Eyes was good too.
I'm trying to keep this thread active to get some reading suggestions.

Okay, have just finished two books:
Warhorse, by Timothy Zahn, a nice little SF book where technophilic world-changers (humans) have to work out how to get along with biosorcerous tree-huggers (alien race). Liked it a lot, he manages to get a fair bit in few words.
1632 by Eric Flint, where a fictitious 20th Century West Virginian town gets mystically transported into southern Germany in the middle of the Thirty Years' War. Illegally-armed mining union reps vs 17th Century mercenary conscripts? No contest, really ... good enough that I've started reading the sequel (1633).

I have read most of his books, and can say... keep reading!

fduvall

A friend has suggested 'The Paris Wife'. Anyone read that?
It's about the life of Hemmingway I think.
I suppose I make the mistake of thinking that, because an author has written many books I've enjoyed, I'll enjoy all subsequent ones.
I had read and enjoyed nearly all of Anne Tyler's novels but threw 'Digging to America' across the room it was such rubbish.
Likewise Sebastian Faulks whose novel 'Birdsong' I loved, and Charlotte Grey' but then I hated 'A Week in December'.

The Vanished Man, by Jeffery Deaver

About a magician who goes around killing people.

It took a while to get into, the language is a little simple, but it does have some interesting characters.

The Puppetmasters by Robert Heinlein: utterly dreadful.

I recently finished The Last Englishman by Byron Rogers. A badly written biography of JL Carr, a profoundly unsympathetic man, which still, somehow, managed to be entertaining (playing 'spot the cliche' kept me busy for many a happy evening).

I don't know why I read this trash, to be honest. I'm sure half the members of the English Forum could come up with better.

Solar - Ian McEwan - reminds me a little of Monsieur Strauss Kahn.

Christopher Brookmyre's "Pandemonium" and "Where the Bodies are Buried" lined up for some intense black humour.

Nick Hornby - How to be good.

I'm loving it, it's sharp, clever, funny and thought provoking.

That's brilliant - read it a long time ago, but still remember well.

The inner game of golf. very interesting read for sports people especially who want to gain an edge on there opponents, even if you are not a golfer, theres also an edition, the inner game of tennis.

bit of a different answer from whats above

'sh*t my dad says' by justin halpern. Very funny but quite sad aswell!!

FYI, James Haberkorn will be at Orell Fuessli (Zurich Bahnhofstrasse) between 10am and 12pm tomorrow for a book signing.