Ah, yes. Heard that. Knows his music.

Jem, I doubt you'd regret The Kite Runner. It is such a fabulous story. A classic.

I'd be very interested to know whether you like Anne Enright. I tried The Gathering but blimey I couldn't get into it. I felt I had to stop and congratulate her after every sentence for writing so well. It is very showy stylistically.

Have you read Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost? That's a good one.

Yes I loved What Was Lost.

You've got me worried about the Anne Enright! Am reading "I'll Take You There" by Joyce Carol Oates at the moment about a sorority girl who can't really afford it and is not even the type in the early 60's. I'm enjoying it very much as I know it's going to go very pear-shaped for this girl and dark deeds will follow.

Ooh, don't know how I missed this great thread. Am v much looking to new ones by Maggie O Farrell and Sarah Waters and reading the Heller one. Loved her last too.

I also adored The Corrections and What was Lost and liked Engeley v much. Like Sheila, I have The Suspicions of Mr Whicher on my shelf to read next and am excited about the latest Paul Auster.

Rupert, must confess that Infinite Jest almost made me lose the will to live! Read it before I had children and had more time (also used to force myself to finish things) but I really found it a grinding chore of a book. Interested to hear what you make of it.Was the Richard Yates one Revolutionary Road? If so, enjoyed that one very much indeed.

Wish we had more threads like this, so thanks Anna!

Caroline, I just blogged about MrWhicher today, but only really commented on one aspect as I was comparing it with another crime novel called 'The Constant Gardener' by George Pelecanos. I'll be reading whatever the crime reading group chooses because they've all been good so far and the members know a lot more than me.

I think I'll also be reading more books about blogging.

Oh, there's an interview with Maggie O'Farrell in the Myslexia that came yesterday and which I thought I'd cancelled Thank goodness it's less dimity now they've gone black and white. The potted biogs are still cringe-making, and that must put contributors off. The style in which the interview is written is irritating - I could do without the sun glinting on her auburn curls, or the bees buzzing round the lawn, and surely she can't have done that much giggling, but I kept reading because some of it seemed very sensble. It was surreal at times, though :

''I got a job as editorial assistant on a computer magazne by totally lying '-she's giggling now.'I'd never actually touched a computer at that point' '

'When she returned to London, she found 'admin dogsbody' work at The Poetry Society. She parlayed that into an editorial assistant job at the Arts and Books section of the Indy on Sunday, gradually working her way up to deputy literary editor'

'she managed to to beg an old Mac off an ex-boyfriend's mother'

Just a taster.

Sheila

Yes, I know what you mean about the style. I love Mslexia but was irritated by a couple of things: crap headline in the Welsh writers piece [was

Dragoness' Den

...which looked really odd on the page} and by some of the terrible advice given, shockingly by Danuta kean! Told a woman who'd had some nice rejections to write to the agents and ask them to set out what worked and what didn;t...
I mean, really! As if!

'The Constant Gardener' by George Pelecanos

Ok, call me pedantic but I think you mean The Night Gardener.
The Constant Gardener was Le Carrie's novel

Sorry, of course you are not being at all pedantic, but quite right, Naomi. Must have been thinking of Ralph Fiennes because of seeing 'The Reader' recently and thinking how much I dislike his persona. In the film, I mean. I haven't read the book. I didn't like 'The English Patient' either. Was it him, too, in 'Under the Sheltering Sky', with Kristin Scott Thomas? They set off into the desert and he had to
leave her behind in a cave when she got sick.I read the book
of that one, by Paul Bowles, and thought it was terrible. Maybe I'm mixing them up.

What a shame about the editorial staff for Myslexia. The articles, short stories and poems are good. I liked Kate Summerscale's 'First Draft' piece and I really empathise with the 'Heart and Craft' article by Beth Webb about the pleasure of writing even if you're not published.

'But it doesn't matter if no-one else is interested. It's my addiction, it's my writing.'

Then it's spoiled by the end blurb, when we find the writer has just published her twelfth novel. What is it with them?

Sheila