Five on Friday.......

......the last five books I've read.

I'm a bit of a bookworm, I love my library - frequently read books more than once and haven't quite got used to the Kindle yet.....prefer real pages!  So along with a bit more time to myself (now the Kindling are all out during the day), an English-speaking bookgroup and my love of all things literary, I'm getting through quite a few books now.

Here are the last five I've read, with varying degrees of success/enjoyment

1) Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

A book group choice (mine actually I think).  I have really enjoyed this, it combines a family saga from Turkey to the US with a coming of age type novel with some medical curiosities thrown in.  This is my type of book, I love that history of a family through several generations type novel - seeing how people live and change as the world changes.  Throw in a family secret or two just to add a little twist and it's certainly gripping stuff! Definitely worth a read.

2) Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel

When I say 'have read' I mean .....still struggling through - manfully!  I am enjoying this although it is a bit heavy going at times - one of those books you really need to concentrate on or you'll completely lose who's speaking / what's going on.  I started reading it due to the publicity around it and because I was watching the delicious Johnathon Rhys Myers in the excellent TV series The Tudors so it all fit in together.  Wolf Hall is the story of Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII and it is interesting, but I need 'time off' now again with something a little easier going!  I will finish it though - it's not often I'm defeated by a book!

3) Fall of Giants - Ken Follett

Loved, loved, loved it.  I was captivated by Ken Follett's other series (Pillars of the Earth/World without End) and couldn't wait to read this opener to his new Century Series.  It's set in the first quarter of the 20th Century, detailing the Russian Revolution, World War I, Prohibition and the way in which certain families lives are intertwined between these events and between Russia, America and England.   It's one of those unputdownable reads - which as it comes in at a whopping 864 pages is some going - but as it ends, you're left feeling desperate for more...... good job there's a sequal!

4) The Hare with the Amber Eyes - Edmund de Waal

This is a non-fiction book about the author's attempts to try to trace his family from fin de siècle Paris through to the modern day.  The Hare in the title is a 'Netsuke' an ivory carving which is intrinsic to the family history.  Again, this one is a little slow going - and it still on the go, but it's fascinating stuff - I love the intimate glances you get of a family's life over the years and how you can see the actions of the previous generations influencing and affecting the subsequent ones.  

5) Jack in the Box - Hanna Allen

I read this on the Kindle - it was a free download from Amazon.de - now I'm not as I said above completely sold on the kindle yet - for one thing the page size is too small and so I'm forever turning the page....interrupts the flow of the book for me.  Anyway, I digress, Jack in the Box is a typical police whodunit.  It's set in London so for me has some familiar backdrops which made it a bit more interesting.  I enjoy this genre of book and it makes good escapist, easy reading thrown in amonsgt some of the more heavy going books I choose.  What can I say - yes, a good story, fairly formulaic as these types of books often are - but with a nifty little twist at the end.  Not bad for a freebie!