Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri

A selection of short stories with connections to India (some set in India, some elsewhere). We've been reading this for book club. Enjoyable and generally very readable selection of stories. A couple of them I loved (especially the first and the last - the last is bizarrely uplifting, very emotional) but quite a few I didn't really get that much out of. It's a pulitzer prize winner so I'd be interested to hear about what else won that prize and try reading them. Overall, an enjoyable, sometimes thought provoking read, but not amazing.
7.5/10

Anybody out there? Marian Keyes

same series as rachels holiday etc the final sister.. little anna. REALLY sad but a very easy read. might try reading something a bit more high brow next!!

6/10

The Twenty-Seventh City

Jonathan Franzen seems to have a style. This book is very much in the style of The Corrections and almost as good a read. Definitely 8/10 stuff. Thank you for the loan, Sarah.

Shopaholic and baby

HAD to buy this.. read the rest of the series and they are all pure chick lit. Loved it though, read it in 4 days and got back in the flow of reading on the way to work.

Don't suggest any of you read it (esp as my copy has quite a line of people waiting to borrow it!)

8/10 for readability

The Watsons - Jane Austen and another

This was started by Jane Austen but then she stopped writting it after about 6 chapters. Apparently she told the story to her neice who passed the story on to her children and I think Jane's great great niece (or something) finished it off.

You can't really tell where jane's story ends and the next author begins but it defo isn't as strong a story as the others. Everthing gets fixed withint 2 pages of the end and there isn't even the over moralising there normally is.

glad I've read it though!

6/10

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Sheila and Paul gave me this for my birthday and once I got into it I enjoyed it very much. It tells the story of a girl living in China in the early nineteenth century. I'm not sure how much is authentic but I'm afraid that I think it gives a pretty accurate picture of life for girls then. The descriptions of foot binding made me feel pretty squeamish, but apart from that I enjoyed finding out about a life I knew little about. An easy style to read.
7/10