Books and Reading

If you love books and reading then this is the place to be! Libraries offer a huge and varied selection of books - old favourites and brand new. Why not try some of our good reads or suggest some yourself. You can tell other readers what you think of the books you have been reading and find out what they thought of them. There are also a variety of websites that will be of interest to you and help you to develop your reading tastes even further.

Must Read Books

If you want to read something a little different why not try these?

Catherine O’FlynnWhat was lost This is a wonderful and quite extraordinary book. It is both a mystery – what did happen to the little girl who disappeared from the Green Oaks shopping centre 20 years ago? – and a deeply moving account of loss. It also throws into focus our modern consumer society – the soulless shopping malls and desperate retailing methods. I will never see the Metro Centre in the same light again!
It also links amazingly with another extraordinary book first published in 1924 and now republished by Persephone Books. This is The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. This is the story of a woman imprisoned by society in the role of wife and mother and how she changes roles with her husband. A superb family story; a brilliant feminist novel; a depiction of the beginning of the consumer society and the department store (forerunner of the shopping mall), I cannot understand how it fell into oblivion for so long.

In total contrast I can recommend two fascinating thrillers
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith – a great Russian police procedural set in 1950s Stalinist Russia as Leo Demidov, a State security agent, attempts to track down a serial killer whom the State decrees cannot exist in their “perfect society”. Very atmospheric, rather bleak and with two amazing twists at the end – now longlisted for the Manbooker prize.
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson – a brilliant Scandanavian thriller - a journalist investigates a series of gruesome murders from 40 years ago. This is a huge and powerful novel and the first of a trilogy.
A very different kind of novel Geoff Ryman’sThe King’s Last Song combines the story of modern Cambodia with the legends of King Jayavarman VII and the building of Angkor Wat. The story of Luc, Map and William embraces both the atrocities of war and the beauty of the country and it’s people.
And what about Andrew Crumey? I have only recently begun to read his novels and have been stunned and amazed by them. Mobius Dick is the most brilliant, multi-layered tale of mobile phones and quantum theory; of amnesia and false memories. It can’t be described but only experienced.

If you want to recommend titles you have enjoyed please let us know. Note that all of the books listed can be borrowed from your local library or reserved online via Library Online. You can find details of reading groups in your area on your local library web page.

Please contact us if you have any comments or ideas relating to these web pages.