My Holiday Reading

Choosing holiday reading is a tricky business, isn’t it? What do you take? You can only pack so many books and have enough changes of t-shirt, too.

E-readers are liberating in that respect. But what to choose? Books you’ve always meant to read and not got round to? You know: classics, biographies, book prize contenders that challenge intellectually. Really? On your holidays?

A guide book perhaps. Or how about chick lit? Cosy crime? Thrillers? Humour? Weighty tomes, or books you can hold in one hand. So many decisions…

Just Right

I feel smug that I got my holiday reading just about right this year.

My first title was The Possible World by Liese O’Halloran Schwarz, a mesmerising read that I couldn’t put down and have recommended widely since.

It was so outstanding, what could I possibly follow it with?

I plumped for something completely different, a sci-fi thriller, The Anomaly by Michael Rutger. It wasn’t my usual type of reading, but a good adventure and thoroughly entertaining.

For another change of mood I followed it with Tangerine by Christine Mangan. I’d read a rave recommendation of this, but I almost didn’t finish it. Too melodramatic and mannered for my taste. And I didn’t find the ending at all satisfying.

So, a safe bet next. The President Is Missing by Bill Clinton – yes, that one – and James Patterson was a fast-paced page-turner, with intriguing insider insight.

The fiction team’s Tracey has long recommended Sharon Bolton, so that was next. The first in her DC Lacey Flint series, Now You See Me. Good. Pacey. Informative, too. And I’ve since read the next in the series.

Home Again

Now I’m home again, I’ve gone back to an old favourite, Anne Tyler, and a title I’d never got around to, Digging To America from 2006. Bliss. She’s got a new one out, too. Clock Dance. I’ve already placed my order.

Now I just need another holiday…

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