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Recommended Good Reads
Share your passion for reading and recommend your favourite books.
1 year ago Steve Clarke said:
Kay
Re: Suzanne Collins
We do have the majority of all new titles at Idea Stores.I have asked our library booksellers to buy all sequels and series and I also do monitor that these type of titles are purchased but I am afraid we missed these. I have ordered copies of both titles for our stores and libraries.
1 year ago Kay said:
I would really like it if The Idea Store Libraries could keep up with new releases that are coming out and stock them. For example, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins are really successful and there are a lot of copies of them if you check the Library Catalogue but the third and final book hasn't even come into the library system-it released on August 25 in the UK.
One thing that I am not keen on is incomplete series' in libraries-I could understand it if the next in the series wasn't out yet obviously, but it's when it is released and the library doesn't get it, when I have to resort to buying it from online sites so I can read them.
1 year ago Julie Taylor said:
If only I could talk - by Tony Lewis. This is a real canine adventure and for all you animal, especially dog, lovers out there. Tony really gets into the mind and imagination of Nelson. It's funny, witty, clever, uplifting and a little bit sad.
1 year ago Lee Ho San Grayson said:
thanks so much for the VERY interesting author presentation last nite @whitechapelIDEA store. It was Gr8. please keep up the good work. I will come to any/all events organized by Jeff S-H; so long as i'm in the UK and have time. Warm Regards.... Lhs
1 year ago Lisa said:
The More you Ignore Me - Jo Brand
Very touching and an easy read that brings to light the realism of how mental illness in a family member effects a family. Alice growing up with a hippy dad and hangs on to 'Morrissey' to get through her teenage years. Sounds heavey but hey this is Jo Brand - it shows how even the ups and downs of life has its laughs..it's enjoyable and funny. Read it!
1 year ago Anna said:
The Grass is Singing...by Doris Lessing
This haunting book is Lessings' first novel and it grabs the imagination on many levels; the moral dilemmas of South Africa under white rule contrasts with the subtle treatment of Mary's psyche as her life and mind gradually unravel. Powerful and atmospheric, South Africa's relentless heat and the vast veldt is evoked unforgettably.
1 year ago Jeff Smith-Hayzer said:
What’s it all about? Julian Baggini
What is the meaning of life? is an almost passé, comical notion in our post-modern world of relativism and glimpsed, partial truths. Baggini’s attempt to tackle it spans the history of philosophy and conjures an almost Epicurean proscription that includes the acceptance of the epistemological limits of the perspectives that each age was grappling with. That said, there are no easy answers, or even difficult ones for that matter, but the common sense approach to the interpretive conditions of meaning, make this more than just a bit of popularist fluff.
1 year ago Jeff Smith-Hayzer said:
Affluenza, Oliver James
The subject of this book is precisely what makes Brett Easton Ellis’ novel American Psycho, so amazing: The fact that a complete sociopathic narcissist can pass for normal. There has been much theory concerning what ails us in late capitalism. So much so that we are all rather acceptant of the fact that we all want to be rich, famous, immortals; nothing wrong there surely? Oliver James puts society on the couch again, to remind us that we are all a ragbag of dysfunctional, neurotic, (and psychotic) robots who will buy just about anything as long as it has a price tag.
1 year ago Sheila said:
At the moment I am reading a book from Tower Hamlets libraries called-Stories from RWANDA by Phillip Gourevitch. It is a brilliant account of the genocide and a sharp analysis of the historical factors which cynically played upon mythical narratives of Difference. What is chilling is how the perpetrator of the violence cries victimhood : how the victim is labelled the perpetrator.
1 year ago Neal said:
A People's History of Sports in the United States Dave Zirin
A brilliantly written and lively sports book that shows how sport as followed the development of American capitalism & Imperialism. But in doing so has thrown up sports stars who challenge that All American dream and have taken on the might of America, people like Muhammad Ali, The Mexico 1968 Olympic team, American Football players during the Iraq War & Aids in the eighties. People who got to the top of their profession but then decided that they could not sit back and ignore what they saw was wrong and decided to challenge the people in power. A fascinating read and at the same time completely uplifting.
1 year ago Jeff Smith-Hayzer said:
Solar, Ian McEwan
It is not always good men that move the age, and that is definitely the case with McEwan’s latest protagonist, the irascible Nobel Laureate Michael Beard. Was there ever a more odious hero? With recognisable, McEwanesque style, McEwan manipulates the science, the humour (this is McEwan's most overtly satirically comic novel), the events and the usual contingency of absurd human agency, epitomized by Michael Beard, to approach the subject of climate change without lapsing into the usual liberal sentimentalities or eco-phillia. I was hooked after the first sentence. After that I was lost in McEwan world. This book is packed with big ideas and laced with the most brilliant observations of human behaviour and our recurrent propensity for delusion, comfort and misrecognition. Every sentence is a delight. Don’t miss out.
1 year ago Jeff Smith-Hayzer said:
Antic Hay, Auldous Huxley
This is a book of the most delectable vocabulary and description. The hedonism of the twenties sets the scene for some amazing aesthetic dialogue as well as the best three page explanation of the workings of advertising I have ever read or ever heard. However there is trouble in the air, alas, as the emptiness of twenties pleasure seeking runs out of steam, heralding the hard times ahead. There is more to Huxley than Brave New World and The Doors of Perception.
1 year ago Jeff Smith-Hayzer said:
Sublime Object of Ideology, Slavoj Zizek
The Sublime Object of Ideology is unique in that Zizek makes a theme of the Kantian notion of the sublime, in order to compare ideology to an experience of something that is absolutely vast and forceful beyond all perception and objective intelligibility. Zizek uses his reinterpretation of Hegelian Dialectics and Lacanian Psychoanalysis to dissect our current situation of Global Liberal Capitalism, or what has been called by liberal conservatives, the Post-Ideological era. In this way he demonstrates that Post-Ideology is in fact ideology at it's purest.
1 year ago Jeff Smith-Hayzer said:
A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood
There is such a sense of the singularity of the human, cultural animal about this narrative. "The unknowability of other minds." Isherwood’s single man goes about his day with pain is his heart from the loss of his one love, but with an indomitable spirit that keeps on recognizing the beauty and wonder of the world. A homosexual Englishman in fifties California, this novel broke some boundaries for its gay content and its critique of West Coast America from an English viewpoint.
1 year ago Jeff Smith-Hayzer said:
The End of the Affair, Graham Greene
The consuming power of jealousy and the conflicts between love of self, love of another and love of God are under the spotlight in Greene's masterful portrayal of an illicit wartime romance. Transportitive prose that oozes with the malady of obsession laced with deep insight and wisdom in regard to everyone's emotional life.
1 year ago Richard Wood said:
Beauty by Rapheal Selbourne
On one level this novel is about an Bangladeshi woman, the drudge of her family, who runs away from opression and finds purpose and meaning for her life among the diversity of modern Wolverhampton. On another level it examines race, class and acceptance. I really didn't think I'd enjoy this book but I found it fascinating and refreshingly free of stereotypes. The character who emerges with most credit (apart from the heroine) is the former prisoner who finds hope in Beauty. The characters in the book are well drawn and authentic, even the minor characters although Peter, the allegedly middle class southerner, seems only to be there for contrast purposes and is a bit two dimensional. He rather ‘peters out’. His neurotic girlfriend is a little more effective.
The author has an all too rare sympathetic view of working class men and women, whilst acknowledging their faults (crime, illegitimacy), and is rather critical of Bangladeshi families, whilst acknowledging their virtues (strong family ties, solidarity). The ‘middle class’ are drawn as ineffective – Peter’s hobbies are watching computer pornography and smoking drugs.
Highly recommended, and I can see why it won a literary prize.
1 year ago Richard Wood said:
Rude Britannia by Tim Fountain
This is a book I wish I’d written, and probably could have given a grant of time and money. The author looks at the state of sex in Britain today and is comprehensive is scope, even to the extremes. Be warned it’s strong stuff. However instead of writing the book in a prurient or salacious way the book is written as very matter of fact. Journalists, probably writing to their editor’s prejudices seem to ignore Kinsey and treat any kind of variant sexual expression as something that nobody could indulge. This book gets rid of that notion, and really does treat sex, in all its forms, as normal behaviour.
1 year ago Chris said:
'Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files' series
The Judge Dredd series is a British sci-fi classic. It is being reprinted in its entirity (barring one or two episodes for legal reasons) and is now in its 14th volume.
Dredd is a brilliant character - following the many strict laws to the letter he is often the villain as much as the hero. The plotlines are fantastic, and the range of styles and genres and themes are so wide because of the utterly massive, utterly convincing futuristic universe.
2 years ago Debbie Musselwhite said:
'A Whispered Name' by William Brodrick
This brilliant novel won the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger award but transcends the boundaries of your usual crime novel. Father Anselm, who lives a quiet, contemplative life at Larkwood Monastery, is asked to investigate the circumstances of an Irish soldier court-martialled for desertion in the First World War. As he finds out what really happened on that fateful day in 1917, we are afforded flashbacks to the horror of a war where soldiers were pure cannon fodder but officers still tried to cling to the rule book.
2 years ago Maddy said:
'The Book Thief' by Markus Zusak
Beautiful and haunting in equal parts this book has a transformative effect on the reader. Narrated by Death even the most heartbreaking moments still hold a glimmer of hope through a cast of characters so well written that they cannot be confined to the page, but will continue to inhabit your mind long after you finish reading.
2 years ago Jay said:
'Of Mice and Men' by John Steinbeck
Set in America during the depression, it centres around two characters moving from place to place. One who doesn't know his own strength and the other always having to bail him out. The descriptions of the surroundings are mesmerising as Steinbeck makes you feel as though you have been transported back in time.
2 years ago Barbara said:
'We Need to Talk About Kevin' by Lionel Shriver
Written in the first person in the form of letters to her absent husband this is an account of the difficult relationship between a mother and the son she never feels able to love. Brillliantly written it is a psychological tour-de-force and terribly relevant to the times in which we live.
2 years ago Chris said:
'No Logo' by Naomi Klein
This book makes you look at the uncomfortable truths about the way in which major corporations make and sell their products and the creeping intrusion of their advertising into our lives. Although it's a few years old it still feels relevant, thought-provoking and incredibly easy to read.
2 years ago Barbara said:
'The Nick of Time' by Francis King
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2003. Insight into the life of an illegal immigrant holed up in post millenium Dalston, London. The story unfolds around his relationships which are told with a clear eye, the dilemmas all the characters face presented in the calmest prose as the tale darkens to its conclusion.
2 years ago Joanne said:
'The Kite Runner' by Khaled Hosseini
An extraordinary novel of friendships and family, love and loyalty, loss and betrayal. Even the most brutal episodes are written with such tenderness that if you are not moved you should check for a heartbeat! Thought-provoking and beautifully written. A must-read.
2 years ago Jeff Smith-Hayzer said:
Our last Book Group pick at Idea Store Whitechapel, was Ignorance by Milan Kundera. This was a fascinating read, styisticly minimal and efficient, whose structure questioned the very assuptions that arose from the work. Based arond the themes of homecoming and memory, Kundera is able to write direct commentary on myth and philosophy whilst weaving his ideas into the lives of his two emigrees who eventually return to Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. The gap between the fantasy and reality of homecoming in constituted by the ways in which they have constructed their memories and their expectations. Identity, in Kundera's world is in constant flux, leaving us ignorant of any real knowledge of our true desires.
2 years ago Rebecca Rudall said:
Book review
Seven days in the art world..Sarah Thornton. A fascinating insight into the mad world of art. Each chapter takes a diffent aspect & covers things like art magazines, auctions, prizes & studio life. The opening chapter on the art auction is especially eye opening to the etiquette of the art world. A definate case of who you know.
