Now you choose 3 books

The time to submit suggestions for books is over, now you must vote for the 3 books you like best among all the suggestions in the list. You have until the 10th of this month to do this. Then we will see which book has got the most votes and that will be the one will read. You have to register in the blog to vote, this is because although we normally welcome contributions from everyone, it doesn’t seem fare to have other people deciding which book we should read, does it? so, log in the blog vote for the 3 books you prefer:

Tick the three books in the list you like the most.

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

‘Deception Point’ by Dan Brown

Deception point is a scientific and political thriller written by Dan Brown, one of the most famous writers nowadays. Dan Brown was born in the United States of America on 1964. Deception point was published in 2001 between his two best sellers Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code.

The plot turns around Rachel Sexton, the daughter of the leading Presidential candidate Senator Sedgewick Sexton. He has won this advantage at the elections by criticising the NASA failures and all the money that have been spent on those failures. But Rachel doesn’t get on well with his father and she is working for the president at the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office). One day she gets an unexpected call from the president to meet him. The president Zach Herney wants her to go to the Arctic because the new NASA satellites have made a breathtaking discovery that can change the whole history of the earth and can cause important changes in the battle to reach the White House. But something goes wrong with that discovery and she would have to battle for her own survival with other scientists, while they are trying to show the truth to the world, versus The Delta Force, a team trained to kill without asking why. Fighting adversity she will find real love.

The characters are really well-drawn with all kind of detail. The book is full of unimaginable twists; nothing seems what it really is. The plot is nail biting and it compels you to continue reading. Despite of being a scientific and political thriller the language is accessible for almost everyone. At first there are lots of abbreviations but you can quickly get accustomed to it but on the other hand the author explains to us at the beginning of the book that some of this abbreviations for organizations like NRO, The Delta Force are real and that all the technologies that he uses in that book really exist so we have the chance to discover a bitter more from that ‘hidden’ world that surrounds us.

In my opinion, if you have liked the other books by Dan Brown you would like this one too. The book has such suspense and the chapters are so short that I consider the book unputdownable. It’s a book that really absorbs you and is very difficult not to think about what’s going to happen next.

‘The summer that never was’ by Peter Robinson

The summer that never was is a detective story, written by Peter Robinson and which the main character is Inspector Alan Banks:

While Banks is having a well-deserved rest on a Greek island, a skeleton is dug up in the place where a new shopping centre is going to be built. Then, they find out that the bones belong to a boy between 12 and 15 that went missing 20 or 30 years ago.
Continue reading ‘‘The summer that never was’ by Peter Robinson’

We Tell Stories

This site by Penguin features six stories that have been conceived to be read digitally. For that reason we can do much more than just read the story. We can interact with it, we can change it. Don’t miss this site, it is really good!

‘The Brooklyn Follies’ by Paul Auster

follies.png

This novel was written by one of the best-known American writers: Paul Auster. He was born in New Jersey and he took up writing in 1982. The genres he touches are: absurdist fiction, crime and mystery fiction. He belongs to the literary movement known as postmodernism. Not only does he write novels, but he is also a poet. The novel I am going to talk about was published in 2005.

The story is about Nathan Glass, an old man, divorced and convalescing from a lung cancer returns to Brooklyn to spend there his final days. Now, that he doesn’t have anything interesting to do he wants to write a book about everything that happens around him and also things that he invents.

His nephew Tom, who is living near his new house, and Nathan start to meet more often; Tom tells him about his life and how he has finally stop working in a bookstore, with Harry, a man with a “dark” past that dies when he tries to do business like in his past.

Halfway through the story, everything turns into a kind of love story starting with the mysterious arrival of Lucy, Nathan’s niece’s daughter, then Honey, who ends up going out with Tom, then Nancy, who Tom and Nathan considered the beautiful perfect mother, and also Aurora (Toms sister); Rachel, Nathan’s daughter ends up being polite to his father; Rory, that finally tells Nathan that he’s having an affair with Nancy, who is divorced, and finally Joyce, Nancy’s mother who starts a relationship with Nathan. All these characters from the Park Slope neighbourhood make him come back to life.

In the beginning, it doesn’t seem to be an easy-to-read book and you may even find it quite boring and difficult to understand, but when you get into the story you get hooked. It’s curious that the whole story takes place in more or less a year, but when you read it, it seems as if it were only some months.

It’s a book where you can see the problems that people have, or different situations that can appear in real life, and it’s interesting how people face those specific situations.

I liked the way it ends, because it makes you to think about it. I would say that it is a clever end. But I am not going to give it away; I will let you find out on your own. From my point of view it’s an interesting book and I recommend you to read it.

‘Sushi for Beginners’ by Marian Keyes

sushi.png

SUSHI FOR BEGINNERS is a comic-romantic book that tells the bittersweet story of three modern women.

As you dive into the story you see how their lives give a twist from happiness to the edge of sadness and finally everyone gets what they deserve.

The main characters are Lisa, Ashling and Clodagh, three women whose lives are linked. Lisa is a successful magazine editor, she is intelligent, ambitious, and sharp and always gets what she wants, but her heart is frozen. Ashling is just the opposite, she has no luck with work and she carries a heavy past, but her sense of humour and her empathy transform the world into a better place to live in. Clodagh represents the kind of person who has never sacrifice for anything or anyone, her life has been extremely easy, so she gives no value to the things she has.

Sushi for beginners is a comic reflection on the European modern society in which women can be free, independent and the owners of their own fate.

It is a fresh book perfect to read on the beach, and is a good start to cope with an English reading.

‘High Society’ by Sarah Mason

society.png

Clemmie Colshnnon has just arrived from a round-the-world trip and is working as a waitress in a small café in Cornwall (England) after having lost her dream job and her boyfriend at the same time.

In the middle of this chaotic situation takes place a nail-biting “detective” story that involves her whole family.

The credibility of the exceptionally well-drawn characters makes the improbable story absolutely believable. Clemmie and her family become as familiar to us as our neighbours, making us feel as if we were playing part in the amazing events, laughing our heads off with a read plenty of hilarious situations. The book is written in a truly easy-to-read style that grips every kind of reader.

High Society hides behind a dull title a very recommendable book for lovers of the simplicity of a page whizzing story.

The next is one of my favourite dialogues:

‘Barney, what on earth happened? Why did you hit that man?’

‘I thought he was being electrocuted. He was holding on to the electricity line which went into the café and shaking all over.’
‘So you hit him with a chair?’
‘A plastic chair. Yes’
‘He was cleaning dog poo off his shoe.’
‘Was he? Well, he was doing it pretty vigorously.’

‘The Man in the Brown Suit’ by Agatha Christie

agatha.png

The Man in the Brown Suit is a detective story written by Agatha Christie.

Anne Beddingfield, whose father, a famous Professor, has recently died, decides to change her life looking for adventures when she arrives in London.

She finds a mystery when at Hyde Park Corner Tube station a man looks over her shoulder, staggers back in terror at something or someone he sees, and falls onto the live track, dying instantly. A strange doctor appears, has a short look and runs away leaving a piece of paper with her single clue. Then, another assassination is committed and she discovers they are related. The clues lead her to a boat trip to South Africa an she is brave enough to spend most of her money on finding the murderer. In the ship she meets a lot of people, friends, suspicious characters, even someone to fall in love with! Besides, she also discovers that she is looking for a real gangster who controls some of the world crime!

This has been the first book by Agatha Christie I’ve read. In my opinion, this isn’t a typical detective story because the surroundings aren’t very usual. It starts in London, but then, the story continues in a ship and in several places in South Africa: Cape Town, The falls, Johannesburg… I’ve never read an Agatha Christie’s book before but I had always thought of grey and foggy streets or rich houses and not exotic landscapes. The Man in the Brown Suit was also the first book I’ve read in original version so it was quite difficult for me because I had to stop to look up many words that I couldn’t understand even in context.

In conclusion, you should read this book if you like living adventures and following clues, and a bit of love!

‘A long way down’ by Nick Hornby

longway.png

A long way down tells us the story of 4 people that have the same purpose… to commit suicide by jumping from the top of the Toppers House.

These four people are Martin Sharp, Maureen, Jess and JJ. Martin is a TV presenter whose wife left him because he had an adventure with a fifteen-year-old girl. Maureen is a housewife who has been looking after his mentally handicapped son for years and now wants to end his own life. Jess is a young girl with emotional problems who has lost his boyfriend because of her behaviour. J. J. is an American rock player who has recently split with both his band and his girlfriend loosing all hope.

They have each gone to jump to their death, but find that not being alone, they are not able to complete the act of suicide. So they start talking about their frustrating lives, finding another point of view and… a kind of friendship. Although each of them must still deal with the underlying causes of their suicidal tendencies, the four will start a small adventure searching how to sort out their lives together.

This book is written from the perspective of each of the four characters, which is a very original way to write. Curiously, this is a comedy, because the characters and situations are in fact funny. Nevertheless, under the jokes Hornby tells us a story of people who after missing their goals in life start looking for new ones and also some things about love.

In short, this is an excellent book to read in any boring moment but it also appears to be addictive when you start knowing the characters and their lives.

‘The Constant Gardener’ by John Le Carré

The novel opens near lake Turkana, in northern Kenia. Tessa Quayle, a determined beautiful young woman with a deep social commitment is horribly murdered. Doctor Arnold Bluhm, her travelling companion with whom she was dedicated to lend humanitarian aid in the most devastated zones of Kenia, has disappeared from the crime scene.
Tessa’s husband, Justin, is devoted to gardening and a British diplomat destined in Nairobi. He is a good, discreet man who lives and works in agreement with the rules and who was madly in love with his wife. The memory of Tessa pushed him to investigate her death and to find out what had really happened.

In the course of his investigations he verifies that Tessa was on the verge of revealing a scandal dealing with the work of a multinational drug company in Kenia and he is determined to end what she began and to unmask the guilty people.

It will not take him a long time to realize the existence of a conspiracy that has taken the lives of innocents. Even his own life will be in danger from that moment. But his main discovery will be the extraordinary woman he barely had time to love.

This novel shows a story full of intrigue, suspense, conspiracies, corruption, and political power but especially of a great love, written in an elegant prose. It is a very elaborated story, with many details, and very well documented. It also has a great social load. The twists and the surprises during the novel are constant and shocking. In addition, the characters are masterfully well drawn with psychological depth, which makes the reader feel the same way as the characters and get to understand their decisions.

Even though, the novel is pure fiction it carries us to the reality. It has credibility and also a real impact, transmitting many emotions and leaving a certain feeling of frustration. It is also a tribute to the work of the people who report the global extortion of governments and big companies.

In my opinion, it is a wonderful novel that absorbs you completely, I couldn’t put it down. I truly recommend it and without any doubt I will read it again.

« Previous Entries