I am currently ‘oop north’ in Manchester and have been joined at my aunties by the lovely Granny Savidge Reads (though she does prefer to be known as simply Gran) and last night she was asking me my advice on possible choices for one, of the three that she is a member of, book groups and their choices of reads next year.
They already have a list of possible options and the idea is that each member of the group chooses twelve of the titles from the list giving them points in order of preference (twelve being the maximum and working down) and the ones that get the most votes are the twelve they head for in 2011.
Naturally I thought that all of you would make a wonderful panel who could recommend a title of twelve from the list, rather than just me. So here without further ado, and in order of authors first name, is the list of the possible reads, I have crossed some out as Gran had already read them and didn’t fancy them again or just didn’t fancy end of – though I am sure she could be persuaded by you all…
- The Children’s Book – A.S. Byatt
- The Yacoubian Building – Alaa al Aswanny
- La’s Orchestra Saves The World – Alexander McCall Smith
- The Long Song – Andrea Levy
- The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga
- The Card – Arnold Bennett
- Dreams From My Father – Barack Obama
- Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
- Last Train From Liguria – Christine Dwyer Hickey
- Short Stories – D.H. Lawrence
- Death Sentence – David Lodge
- Counting My Chickens – Deborah Devonshire
- These Foolish Things – Deborah Moggach
- The Good Soldier – Ford Maddox Ford
- Girl in a Blue Dress – Gaynor Arnold
- Adam Bede – George Elliott
- Three Cups of Tea – Greg Mortenson
- Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
- Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel
- Family Romance – John Lancaster
- Paradise Postponed – John Mortimer
- The Plague of Doves – Louise Erdrich
- An Education – Lynn Barber
- The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
- The Memory Box – Margaret Forster
- The Glassblower of Murano – Marina Fiorato
- Florence Nightingale – Mark Bostridge
- The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
- The Hamilton Case – Michelle De Krester
- Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
- The Wasted Vigil – Nadine Aslam
- Great Fortunes – Olivia Manning
- Border Crossing – Pat Barker
- Peripheral Vision – Patricia Ferguson
- The Law of Dreams – Peter Belling
- Trespass – Rose Tremain
- Sacred Hearts – Sarah Dunant
- The Little Stranger – Sarah Waters
- Engleby – Sebastian Faulks
- Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
- The Beacon – Susan Hill
- Restless – William Boyd
- A Whispered Name – William Brodrick
- The Believers – Zoe Heller
That’s quite a list isn’t it? I am sure you can understand why I thought opening this up to all of you would be much more helpful as I haven’t heard of half of the authors. Which is also an apology if therefore I have spelt some titles and authors wrongly, I am going by the spreadsheet Gran brought with her. I did recommend ‘The Little Stranger’ oddly as though I didn’t initially love it, it grew on me over time, I would have loved to have read it and been able to discuss the ending and what it all seemed to mean.
So which twelve would you pick and why? I know Gran will be popping by and checking, as will I as I have some of these on Mount TBR which I have been itching to get around too. Let us know, if you could suggest twelve in orderof preference and why that would be amazing…
