Tips, links and suggestions: What are you reading this week?

Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them

Welcome to this week's blog. Here's a roundup of your comments and photos from last week.

The jury is indeed still out on the praised The Goldfinch, with Sara Richards sharing her thoughts as she goes. The Goldfinch chat also started a great sub-thread about an 80-page rule from her librarian:

Still reading The Goldfinch and after a stunning start the section I am currently reading feels contrived but I feel I have to read to the end because this was a prizewinning novel and I want to see why. I was talking to the librarian at our local library and she said she had an 80 page rule. If a book wasn't totally convincing by 80 pages or sometimes less, out it went.

Does anyone here have a similar 80 page rule? Is it worth struggling sometimes with a difficult text? For example, I have read Ulysses three times and that was tough going especially the first time, but in the end I still feel it was worth the effort.

The thing is, I am getting on and time is precious but I feel guilty if I start a book and don't manage to get to the end.

Hunter S Thompson had a page 69 rule which I use from time to time. If page 69 is interesting read it. If not don't. A surprising number of non-fiction books have a page of photos for 69. HST was the originator of what he called "Gonzo Journalism".

I try to distinguish between "difficult to read because this is a woeful book" and "difficult to read because I am a woeful reader". (I do realise that I may sometimes confuse one with the other.)

50 pages is my aim. I don't always make it that far. Demonstrably woeful books that have won prizes and critical acclaim annoy me. Or rather, the critics who've hyped them do.

It's rather good but a little depressing. I'm half way through and just about the right time for someone to spoil it. I like the themes and ideas that are raised and I am just waiting for someone, anyone to give poor Theo a break. That kid has been dealt a bad hand. Please let it get better!

Nearly 20 years since first published, 20 years since I was a child and 3 years since my partner first suggested them, I have finally given in and started reading His Dark Materials. Great fun.

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By Kate Berrisford

28 April 2014, 12:18

Having said only last Friday on TLS that I've now drawn a Very Firm Line under my 'to read' list, on Saturday I received a visit from an old friend who is shedding some of his library and brought a few along in case I was interested.

So I have acquired four volumes of Warrior of Rome by Harry Sidebottom, A Song of Stone and Whit by Iain Banks, Dark Matter by Michelle Paver, The Fractal Prince by Hannu Rajaneimi, a history of The Teutonic Knights by William Urban, The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, and In Search of England by Michael Wood.

It is a crime that the late Khushwant Singh was virtually unknown outside India. For the quality of the prose and precision of the narrative, TTP should be ranked among the most significant short novels in English in the 20th century, alongside Achebe's Things Fall Apart.

It is really beautiful - a true love of language - close to Hesse, Ondaatje and with something of the grandeur of Cormac McCarthy only more concise. It makes you reconsider your place in the cosmos the enigma at the heart of human life - nearly finished the Fictions will soon be on the essays and the parables.

I recently finished Jenni Fagan's The Panopticon, which gets top marks just for the swearing. I mean, really, this is top-tier stuff: profane, inventive, funny and gob-smackingly offensive. I'm not being facetious: dialect is hard to get right and can be hard to balance. Fagan has a great ear for dialogue and has captured Lothian/Edinburgh Scots perfectly (and, yes, that means a huge amount of profanity). Coming from the area, there was an extra pleasure for me in reading familiar words, some of which I hadn't heard since school, e.g. spraffing, shan, chore, ken, ay (pronounced like a capital A) used as an interrogative, the word "how?" used to mean "why?" and something giving you the boak).

A weekend way posed a slight challenge. A city break, so comfy shoes should have been higher on the list of what to include in the limited hand luggage, but severe twitchiness develops when I don't have a book by my side.

A copy of The Guardian always sees me through the tedium of the flight out, but a search of my shelves was necessary to provide something to slip into my shoulder bag for those quiet interludes on a park bench.

Aggie's mentioning Portnoy's Complaint reminded me that it was the first novel my wife and I ever read aloud to each other. Nowadays we lean towards short stories and poetry. I'm wondering how dull-normal or odd-ball we are. Anybody else here read aloud to anybody else?

Fateful Year by Mark Bostridge is splendid.

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By TomFrost

29 April 2014, 2:17

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By Alex Hardiment

30 April 2014, 22:02

The Spiders Truce: My mum recommended me this book, saying the story explores the life of a boy who thinks in an abstract way. I started reading it and immediately fell in love with both Ellis and the description the emotions. I take English A Level so nowadays these sorts of passages go over my head, but the depth of emotions absorbed me. It's an excellent coming of age novel, that can be pretty hilarious at times.

Who are we? And why are we who we are?

Accessible, funny and full of honesty. I'm about a decade late getting to it but I'm really glad I have.

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By misscom

2 May 2014, 15:48

@GuardianBooks good manners 1916 style - because correct behaviour never goes out of fashion pic.twitter.com/3sYfgq8LTb

@GuardianBooks The Trouble With Lichen by John Wyndham. My favourite author and one of UK's great undervalued national treasures.

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