I’ve just put down HG Wells’ ‘Mr Polly’ , and wiped the tear from me eye. I liked it more than I thought I was going to, though it took a bit of warming up. And now, here I am, all out of books, and recommendations, and about to fall back on OH’s stash of Breton murder mysteries. Again. :
What are you reading in these early curfew nights? Would you recommend it to others? Why?
ps non-fiction welcome, too.
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If you like Wells you might like A Man Of Parts by David Lodge.
What I’m reading at the moment: Ian Banks: Stonemouth, just finished Kate Atkinson’s Big Sky, I love everything by her. Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez (non fiction) v interesting, likewise Lewis Wolpert’s Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Isaac Asimov’s Robot stories. Various books for work.
I usually have a number of books on the go at once but that’s it in English.
I write rather than read and am currently 2 years in to my latest project bringing back to life my ancestors. I have a number heirlooms that have inspired me, one of which is a copy of The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy signed by my grandmother. I also have letters written by my great grandmother in 1905 in which she discusses the book with my grandmother.
The book is small in size with wafer thin pages.
I have just today finished reading it and thoroughly enjoyed it. How language had changed!
Reading the same words in the same book that my
grandmother held and read was a delight.
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Well funny you should ask. I’ve just finished The Assault on Truth, Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism by Peter Osborne. A must read mixture of exposé and call to action.
To cheer myself up I’m going to reread Antic Hay by Aldous Huxley.
The man shape downloads me books as I get through a few novels a week 
I had a few weeks of reading loads of end of world / survival novels but realised it was not helping with my mental health when life is already not great! So currently happily reading some chick lit, a Marian Keyes!
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A gentleman in moscow: Amor Towles. And re-reading my Pat Barker books which still absorb me even tho’ have already read them…
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Isaac Asimov’s Robot series, Saul Dunn’s Steeleye Series, EE Doc Smith’s Lensman Series, EE Doc Smith/ Stephan Goldin Family d’Alembert Series.
The two EE Doc Smith series are my favourites though much forgotten books nowadays.
P G Wodehouse does it for me. Jeeves and Wooster. Also I’m well into Adult Bedtime Stories. If you have trouble getting off to sleep try ‘Nordland Night Train’.
Wow, what a lot of fantastic suggestions!
Thanks - I’m going to do some googling for the ones I don’t know and sound like I should know.
@toryroo Chicklit, ugh 
I get bored straight after the cover 
. How nice to have someone to cater to your reading needs though. Someone may have asked before - or perhaps not, since they’re probably too polite - why man shape? I have a man at home and he is slightly bear-shaped, but only when viewed in profile.
@vero I do find Wells is an interesting character but not especially his womanising. It sounds like there’s a lot of sex, which is great, but in a novel, which is possibly not so great. You don’t sound bowled over, and the others sound more intriguing. Ah, someone else who juggles books…
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Hi @Sonny, are you new or a longtime lurker like me?
I have absolutely no problem getting off to sleep (podcasts). ‘Adult Bedtime Stories’?? Are you sure they send you to sleep? Seriously, what are they?
I may give Wodehouse a whirl. Another sort of writing that everyone thinks they know without actually having read.
Ooh I’ve just googled it and found the Youtube videos - and what a silly baby voice the woman reading has! That really makes my teeth grate and no way would I sleep. Give me a deep voice any time - male or female.
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@John_Scully Antic Hay! I read that far too young and have absolutely no recollection of it 
I saw Oborne’s book. I wonder if it tells you anything you wouldn’t know if you’d been doomscrolling for the last 4 years.
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Ha! so not Adult bedtime stories, then. 
Michel Bussi - in french if your skills are up to it. Mine aren’t so translated for me. Detective ( sort of ) stories with a twist. Black Waterlilies was very good. Just finished ’ Once upon a River ’ by Diane Setterfield - atmospheric , strange but good. ’ When all is said ’ by Anne Griffin. Amazing, moving , makes you laugh and cry at the same time. It’s her debut novel - how she’ll top it I don’t know. ’ A man called Ove ’ by Fredrik Backman - definitely a ’ marmite ’ book. I loved it ( others in our book club just hated it ) - again a sad and funny at the same time book .
Hi Amanda,
I’ve been a bit backward in coming forward but now I’ve dived in!
Yep ‘Adult Bedtime Stories’. Huge selection on Youtube or just Google it. Agatha Christie, Frederick Forsyth, ( not that they are actually favourites of mine) , different voices. I tend to swerve the ‘calming’, hypnotic stuff in favour of a good story. But the best voice for sending me to sleep is Eric Braa reading the Nordland Night Train. Have a go! Good Luck.
I think it crystallises just how rotten and dangerous Johnson and his cronies are. Over the years he’s lied so much it’s become commonplace and just seen as “Boris being Boris” but it’s a lot more serious than that. He’s corrupted everything he’s touched and he’s a real danger, no less that Trump was (and may be again). The book’s a neat précis of all the stuff we already know but have become inured to. It’s a call to arms really.
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@Sonny Good for you! Will do.
I’m a great consumer of history podcasts for going to sleep. Up to now, I’ve alternated between ‘In Our Time’ which is really excellent and, in French, Franck Ferrand, which is easy listening and sensational. But I’ve now listened to several IOT’s twice and FF wakes me up with his bloody musical interludes. Well, it is a music channel, I suppose…
@John_Scully I couldn’t agree with you more. There’s a pattern. Unfortunately, the people who need to read it are the people who won’t.
Osborne says in the book that he has sent a copy to the speakers in the HoC and Lords drawing to their attention to the fact that Johnson, Gove, Hancock et al. are lying to the House with impunity and even when caught out are not correcting the record. Behaviour that would have been a resignation matter only a few years ago is now commonplace.
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Sorry but yet another potentially interesting thread has been lost to the same old,same old
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Isn’t it the world we live in?
Meanwhile, back in the world of fiction, what’s your poison?