If you like John Grisham books I recommend The Professor by Robert Bailey. I just read it on my Kindle and loved it.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...-the-professor

Margaret Atwood "STONE MATRESS" ( a collection of short stories).
Love her soooooo much since the first time I read her "THE BLIND ASSASSIN".

Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden - a real biography of a North-Korean who made it to the free world.

found in the book bin at the recycling center

memoirs of field marshal montgomery

nice to see an honest memoir, checked over by three of his most trusted friends for accuracy.

i'm wondering how i'll get on with the more military strategy bits

The road to little dribbling by Bill Bryson. Grumpy old man, hilarious.

Reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.
Started reading after I recently finished the HP series (i know!). Lacks the pace and charm of the beautiful world of JKR.
Perhaps LOTR after this.

Bill Bryson is fabulous - did you read his At Home (history of a house) and the Short History of... The only one of his I've never really got on with is A Walk In the Woods. I think it was the characters he was with.


You really think it lacks charm and pace? I think it's an incredible read - the world building is just fantastic. I love this book. They've apparently optioned it for a film, but I don't see how they could manage it.




I'm re-reading The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R King. It's her reimagining of Sherlock Holmes when he's retired from Baker Street to study his bees in Sussex. I was sceptical at first but the reviews (from a lot of famous authors, Lee Child being one) made me give it a chance and it's wonderful. The whole series is. Heartily recommended.

T. Morrison - God Help the Child -
H. McDonald - H is for Hawk

I believe I have read almost all his books. My favorite is The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. Another one is waiting to be read on my shelf, America 1927.

I just finished the first book in the "Safehold" series by science-fiction author David Weber. Weber specializes military sci-fi books and is famous for the "Honor Harrington" series. (In a nutshell, what if Horatio Hornblower/Nelson were a woman and commanded a starship instead of a frigate in a space version of the Napoleonic wars?) Judging from the first book, this looks like it's going to be a very good series, but the set-up is a bit complicated, so bear with me.

In the distant future, humanity has expanded into the stars and has colonized planets in distant solar systems across the galaxy. Unfortunately, they run into an advanced alien life form which they call the "Ghaba." Please note that I say "they call" because nobody knows what the Ghaba call themselves because nobody who encounters the Ghaba race survives. This is an alien race that systematically exterminates any advanced civilization that they consider to be a threat. They do not attempt to communicate or negotiate with their enemies, and the advanced technology they use is thousands of years old.

Humanity puts up a good fight against the Ghaba, and if they had more time might actually be able to develop the technology needed to defeat them. But they don't have the time, and the Ghaba are both too numerous and technologically superior for mankind to win. So the question for homo sapiens no longer becomes "How can we defeat these guys?" and instead becomes "How can we hide at least a PORTION of our people so that the human race survives?" At first, they try sneaking off some colonists to a distant planet, but the Ghaba discover them from the "footprint" left by the colonists' technology. So they try again, only this time they are determined not to use higher technology for at least several hundred years, before slowly and cautiously building up the technology needed to face the Ghaba when that threat re-emerges.

However, the people in charge of this colony---called "Safehold"---think that humanity made a huge mistake in colonizing distant worlds in the first place and the REAL solution is to never develop advanced technology at all. To do that, they brainwash the founding colonists into believing that the leaders of the colony are "archangels" sent from heaven, and they establish a religion and a church to make sure that Safeholdians never invent anything like a radio which might alert the Ghaba to their existence. They also want all the records from Earth's history destroyed.

There is a dissident group of colonists who think that this is very wrong, and don't go along with this plan. Things get ugly, and by ugly I mean the "nuclear option" is used. But the dissidents are nuked and a surviving number of archangels keep the church going. But the dissidents have a back-up plan. In this distant future, there is something called a PICA which seems to be a humanoid robot, but isn't exactly the same thing. It's intended to be used in the same way as the "Almost People" were in Doctor Who---you can download your personality, soul, and memories into a PICA and then the PICA can go someplace you normally can't. Afterwards, the PICA's memories can be uploaded back into the original human host. Normally, the PICA's memories automatically get wiped out after a certain time period has elapsed, but the dissidents have one and have "hacked" it so that this gets disabled. One of these PICA's awakens in an underground cave with the memories of a woman, Nimue Alban who died centuries previously in a space battle against the Ghaba to protect the new colonists.

Nimue's PICA learns that the church that colony leader Eric Langhorne set up to perpetuate his neo-Luddite philosophy has grown all-powerful and has its tentacles in nearly every corner of the planet. The one place where the Church's hold seems weakest is an island nation called Charis. Nimue sees in Charis the promise of both innovation and freedom, and travels there to see if she can give Charis the tools it will need to eventually fight the Church. To do this, she alters her PICA so that it is now male and adopts the identity of "Merlin Athrawes". (Both of these names reflect Nimue's Welsh heritage.) To make a long story short, this series becomes a mirror of the wars of the Protestant Reformation on Earth as well as the Industrial Revolution. There's also a nice wallop of military history, as the reader learns about the development of both galleons and artillery. David Weber has said he's a big fan of C.S Forester's "Hornblower" saga. Well, this first book gives him the chance to write sea battles LIKE Forester. They're exciting, but like Forester it's a little tricky to follow if you don't know nautical terminology. (Fortunately, the internet is a big help.)

For anyone interested in checking this series out, here are the links. (I don't believe this series has been translated yet into Italian. My apologies.)

P.S. The German translation only has the first part of Off Armageddon Reef. The rest of that book is continued in Der Krieg der Ketzer.

Off Armaggedon Reef

Operation Arche

Cap Sur L'Armaggedon

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro, a good one so far.

Funny, we are on the same page FuriousRose..that is on my list too. Currently I'm reading Yasushi Inoue's The Hunting Gun, after a series of Yasunari Kawabata and Taichi Yamada. Highly recommend "I haven't dream of flying for a while" by the last one.
Can't wait to go back home and dig into the book stores, I always come back with some treasures.

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

Great to hear someone who's into the same thing/author. I enjoy all Ishiguro's works so far.
I will check your recommendations. My reading is progress is very very slow nowadays due to work/study and little one

Try reading him/her aloud.
The intonation of your voice might keep her entertained so you can do two things at a time. Or it doesn't really work that way?

He pays attention whenever I do this, but his span of attention does not last long unfortunately , and I don't enjoy my reading when it is interrupted. So I usually give up and play with him instead

Just wanted to let you know I've got it from Press&Books Enge a couple of weeks ago but started reading it only yesterday. I agree, it's a good one.

The Iron Council by China Miéville. I thoroughly enjoyed his other New Crobuzon books, but this is a little slow to get going IMO. I'll stick with it though; I'm fascinated by the concept of being "re-made".

I'm glad you enjoy it as well, GM

A bit late, but why not, and been hearing only good things about it: All The Lights We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. So far it's been fascinating!