Thread: World Book Night - Which books would you choose?
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Old 12-09-2010, 02:09 PM   #12
Helen Smith
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Posts: 149
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: London
Device: kindle
Quote:
Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy View Post

I recommended Beryl Bainbridge's Injury Time to a friend who is a huge Spark fan; he loved it, fully agreeing it's in the Spark style (tradition). I listened to the audio (read by Timothy West); he read the print book.
He's read Old Filth, and I've read The Queen of the Tambourine, which have turned us into fans of Gardam as well!
I have read quite a few Beryl Bainbridge but not Injury Time. And I haven't read (actually I hadn't even heard of) Jan Gardam's Old Filth or The Queen of the Tambourine, so I'll look for those. I just had a look for a review of Old Filth online and turned up one in the Guardian that mentions that in the book one of her characters is credited with inventing acronym for Failed in London Try Hong Kong. I'm really familiar with the acronym as I know a lot of people who have moved from London to Hong Kong. I'll definitely have to put the book on my tbr list.

To be honest, I should think that as well as shifting a million copies of these books into the hands of grateful recipients in March, I'm sure that there's a hope that it will spark more debate about books - what should be on the list, etc.

There was a meme that has been going around on blogs and on Facebook recently using a list of the nation's favourite 100 books compiled by the BBC in 2003 (not sure why it's suddenly so popular now) and asking how many of those people had read. No doubt this list will have a similar effect - as well as following up and actually getting copies of the books to people.
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