TOP 100 BOOK SITES
| |||
|
| |||
| |||
|
| |||
| Paperback Trade Fiction Top 5 at a Glance1. PUSH, by Sapphire2. BED OF ROSES, by Nora Roberts3. SAY YOU’RE ONE OF THEM, by Uwem Akpan4. THE SHACK, by William P. Young5. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson feeds.nytimes.com |
Books of The Times: The Delicate Arithmetic of Love and Independence Alice Munro’s latest collection features a high proportion of extreme situations and deeply troubled individuals. feeds.nytimes.com |
Javier MarÃas on Your Face Tomorrow The Spanish author Javier MarÃas talks to Richard Lea about the looping trajectory of his three-volume epic, Your Face Tomorrow, his father's wish to see himself portrayed in fiction and why he prefers his own novel in translationRichard LeaAndy Gallagher feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Mile-high reading As recent experience has taught me, long-haul flights are not the ideal location for demanding reading. But what kind of books are?Panic stations were momentarily manned by literary types in Canada earlier this week after it was reported that passengers might not be allowed to take books on planes bound for the US. Fortunately, this was later described by Transport Canada as a misunderstanding, but it reminded me of just how necessary a book is for enduring a long haul flight, and made me wonder if you wise readers have any tips for time-passing in-air reading.I'm actually just back from a trip to Africa, which (in order to get the cheapest flights possible) involved two changes each way, so good reading was essential to while away the time. I find I can't really concentrate on anything too thought-consuming and I'm incapable of reading a guide book until I've actually arrived. On the way out, I had to put aside Green Mars, part of Kim Stanley Robinson's excellent Mars trilogy, because my brain was too fried for the depth and breadth of his thinking. Luckily, anticipating that at some point on the trip I'd need some light relief, I dived into Colleen McCullough's The Thorn Birds. Maybe it wasn't as epic-ly brilliant as I'd thought as a teenager, but it served very well to get me to Lusaka.I'd meant to save Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible for the way back, but the ravings of my sister, who'd swiped it at the start of the holiday, meant I'd already been tempted into finishing it by flight time. So instead I was down to a choice of Sebastian Faulks's Bond sequel Devil May Care (brought by my husband) or Gene Wolfe's The Fifth Head of Cerberus. If there's one kind of book I can't bear, it's the spy thriller, so Bond was out, but Wolfe – well, he asks a bit much of his readers for brain dead plane reading. I gave him a go (and have subsequently finished and loved it), but it was all a bit much for 30,000 feet in the air and I think I missed a lot of his cleverness.Trashy horror novels by the likes of Dean Koontz and Peter Straub, and serial killer thrillers that I wouldn't countenance reading at home, have helped me through many a flight after a last minute airport purchase. But I'd love to know if you've got any better ideas – I've no holiday lined up at the moment, but the best time to start planning is when you're just back ...FictionAlison Floodguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Crime: Still Life. Very. Mystery novels by Ian Rankin, Belinda Bauer, Ian Sansom and James Thompson. feeds.nytimes.com |