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.

AggieH sang the praises of Michelle de Kretser's The Lost Dog, which she "shelves near Adichie these days":

It seems de Kretsers talent for summing up a character or setting in a remark was born fully-formed. There's Nelly with her disgraceful laugh. The ambiguous Posner who brings out a smile as if he were exercising a crocodile. Australia, where the native fauna was designed by 'either a child or a genius. Toms aunt with her glass cabinet of figurines:

Once a week Audrey murmured to small porcelain people of love while holding them face down in soapy water.

Also born fully-formed: de Kretsers core themes. Displacement. Geographical & social migration. Belonging, or not. Hope. Chance.

Have had Mitchell's second novel since it was published in paperback, and / but it's taken me 13 years and 4 attempts to get into it. Enjoying it finally and determined to persevere this time. Adored Ghostwritten.

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By RobDyson

1 July 2014, 19:53

I don't know whether McBride is a genius or a fake and will have to wait until she writes her second novel to find out. McBride writes like a cheap version of James Joyce. I know that the critics all loved this use of language but it is not original. (...) So this is either a work of genius or something that should have stayed in the slush pile as it did for eight years. I don't know what I think even now. Has anyone else read this? I do love what I have read of Joyce but this seems like pastiche. And the story is not particularly original. Oh dear. Even having written this I can't make up my mind. And as I don't think I will be rereading this my response will have to remain ambivalent.

This is a wonderful book, gripping, with lots of twists and unexpected turns that had me page turning until the very end. However, it is a considerable read, with no less than 650 pages but the ending makes it worth it.

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By missnewsy

1 July 2014, 20:19

Somehow when feeling down I turn to Carver's famous story "A Small Good Thing" (hence the cinnamon roll) and I've just added All of Us, his collected poetry. He was one writer who managed to rise above alcoholism to produce his finest work in his short career.

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By jmschrei

3 July 2014, 1:26

If has taken my partner over a year to get me to pick up this book, he rates it as a favourite but if I'm honest I'm a little intimidated by the legendary gore and violence... Wish me luck.

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By ID9484278

5 July 2014, 20:22

Tom Jones, I read on the beach in Spain on holiday, and it always reminds me of sun and sand. It helps that my copy is smeared with suncream. I memorised big chunks of John Donne's poetry on my tea breaks whilst working in a fish factory, and can still smell the smoked salmon when I think of him. I read Marlowe's complete plays in between serving pints in a pub one summer. The essays of Addison and Steele are inextricably linked to interrailing around Eastern Europe.

@GuardianBooks Khaled Hosseini's And the mountains echoed... Can't read it fast enough to find out what happens next :-)

@GuardianBooks Mr Mercedes by Stephen King - I'm really enjoying it. Love it when King does straight thriller!

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