Thanks to everyone that posted some book choices for my holiday reads.  i bought the one's I could get in the 3 extremely limited bookshops here today, the rest I shall buy from Amazon when I get back, but i do intend to read them all at some point over the summer.

So thank you people for taking the time to post a comment x

I am looking to buy some fabulous holiday reads in most genres really. I don't like books with too much referencing and i am not keen on horrors. Love thrillers, detective novels, mysteries, would like to get into some good historical works though, and i don't mind a bit of chic lit but too much becomes boring. I also really love GOOD childrens books now. If anyone can recommend anything I would be really grateful.

Am reading Mr Toppit at the moment and have bought I coriander to take, so will report back on them in a few weeks time x

Oh dear, this was another book that I wanted to like, but didn't enjoy that much.

A young doctor who is just making a name for himself gets approached to join the secret Lazarus Club by none other than Isambard Kingdom Brunel who is at the time completing work on the Great Eastern. the club is a sounding board for all the great minds of mid Victorian Britain. Members include the like of Babbage, Bazelgette and George Stephenson. at he same time horribly mutilated female corpses are being dragged out of the Thames. There are walk on performances from many luminaries of the age including Charles Darwin and Florence Nightingale, although I do fear that the celebrity walk-ons are rather at the expense of developing his own characters.

To say any more more would spoil the story, but the problem I found with the book was that it changed direction to many times never sure whether it was going for a detective procedural, a thriller, horror or steampunk conclusion and somehow missing out on all of them. Pollard who is a university lecturer also has the tendency to lecture to his readers about various aspects of Mid Victorian Britain so that in some places the book reads like a school history text book when he refers to Mudlarks or George Cayley's flying machines for example. He also credits the villain with rather too much future knowledge of the American Civil War.

Still it is only first novel and the epilogue points to a sequel set in the American Civil War so I might be tempted to follow on the adventures of Pollards hero

written by Tracy Chevallier. A story about some flemish weavers, who follow the design of a painter into a tapestry. Good description of how they were made and how the weavers lived.

It did prompt me to look up unicorns on the internet - a lot of facinating stuff.

This author seems to make a practice of being inspired by a painting and creating a story round it.

By Vikas Swarup. This is the book on which the film Slumdog Millionaire was based. I have not seen the film.

An interesting book, written in a completely different manner. As the Quiz show goes through the questions, there is a story linked to each question. It is almost like a series of short stories, as each is complete and unrelated to the next Chapter/question.

It is impressive in that it is a first book written by this Author (who is also a diplomat).
At the end of the book is a lot of detail about the auther, a reading/discussion guide and a list of web sites giving information about looking further into the issues involved.
Also a list of the questions answer correctly by the real winner of the Indian Quiz Show.

Written by Khaled Hosseini.

It is strange, often I read a book, and then the next book I read is a very similar theme.
My last book was Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, which was about the forming of a friendship and the the betrayal of the friendhip. This was set in China in the 1820s.

The Kite Runner is set in Afganistan in the 1970s, this time it is a friendship between a high ranking father and son, and a father and son of low caste. The two boys are inseperable, the rich boy wants to get his fathers approval and thinks that if he wins the Kite Tournement his father will love him. The story follows the friendship of the two boys and the eventual betrayal.

Because of the War, they richer family leave and go to America. Time passes, the father dies and the son decides to go back to Afgahnistan to try and find his friend.

A very interesting story, giving food for thought.

By Lisa See (A American Chineese).

This was a lovely story, very sad in parts, a fiction based on fact it tells of the friendhip made when two girls were about six, how it shaped their lives in China, they were born in the 1820s.

Once I had got into the first couple of pages, I couldn't put it down! The Author has written four other books, I shall have to try and find some more.

Written by Daphne du Maurier. This was written in the 1960s, it tells the story of a man, his unhappy marriage and his bisexuality. It also includes use of a L.S.D. type of drug, which transports him back in time to the Cornwall of the 1500s.

I thought it was an interesting story, because it is about things I have not experienced, and having read about what happened in the book, I don't want! It did seem to be a litttle slow to "get going", but once we got to the Cornwall bit, it was hard to put down.

This is the book on which the 1970's film was based.

The film follows the plot of the book quite closely but the policeman is much more sympathetically portrayed in the book than in the film.

The Christianity/Pagan struggle is interesting and both ideals seem to be satisfied in the book ending.

This was quite light reading but It entertained me for a day or two on holiday. If you liked the original film it is worth looking out.

Written by Alexi Sayle. This was the choice of my Reading Group.

It is a book of short stories, I liked the first one "The Dog Catcher", it was a story about stray dogs in a mountain village in Spain. It was interesting and entertaining. I felt pleasantly surprised by Alexi Sayle.

It did seem to go "downhill" after the first story. I didn't understand the second story about a Tour de France cyclist.

The other stories degenerated in to bad language and explict sex/masterbation. I did not finish the book.

I think it is probably a "Blokes type book", possible holiday read.