I have to recommend an AWESOME book I just finished that had me on the edge of my seat. It's called "Thr3e," by Ted Dekker. (And no, it's not spelled wrong.) I teach 7th and 8th grade Reading and English, and although this is an adult book, my students were eating it up, couldn't put it down. Some said it was the best book they'd ever read! So I finally sat down and read it, and WOW, am I glad! It's a fast-paced psychological thriller; it boggled my mind! Highly recommended by my students and I for teens and adults!

SusanG- I just saw your reference to Robert Parker and the Spenser series- one of my favorites, great fun, fashion, in-depth foodie fanfare- not to mention, as Hawk says "snappy repartee". I am reading "Bad Business" now.

Have you tried his new series, Sunny Randall? Fresh like the first Spenser's, and also reminds me of Elmore Leonard's Karen Sisco. I was less impressed with the Jesse Stone Series.

The last novel I read was Choldren of G-d Go Bowling. Quirky, funny but last third fell flat.

Thanks to recommendations from here I just finished and loved The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant and am currently reading The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, which I'm also finding to be fantastic.

Some other titles set in Europe that I'd highly recommendDisturbance of the Inner Ear by Joyce Hackett (set in Milan), Renato's Luck by Jeff Shapiro (set in Tuscany), An Equal Music by Vikram Seth (set in England and Venice and Viena), The Sixteen Pleasures by Robert Hellenga (set in florence) and
Serenissima by Erica Jong (well, you know where that's set).

Happy reading all and thanks for sharing.

Oh joy! just picked up my copy of Elizabeth George at the library..also Robert Parker's newest book, Cold Service. Reading 60,000,000 Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong..very very provacative and interesting reading. All about the French culture, politics, etc.

My library has just emailed me to let me know that Thr3e is in, saraallison!
Finished The Unlikely Spy and a whole bunch of Provencal coffee table books about decorating and gardening :D

"Educating Alice - Adventures of a Curious Woman" by Alice Steinbach. It's been out for a while but it just came out in paperback on Tuesday. Quite good, but I'm only in Chapter 2.

I don't think anyone has mentioned this one "A Thread of Grace" by Mary Doria Russell. It is set in Italy at the end of WWII. It is based on true events of the Catholics in the area hiding many Jewish refugees in the mountainous terrain north of Genoa. Her two other books are my favorite books of all time but they are very different. Any one else here a fan of hers?

Scarlett, good or bad, I would love to hear what you think of Thr3e when you finish it!

I haven't thoroughly reread the thread recently but I recently read Case Histories by Kate Atkinson who wrote Behind the Scenes At the Museum. Both of these books are amazing IMO.
Just returned home from Santa Barbara-San Luis Obispo-SFO-Honolulu and enjoyed and then left behind a couple David Silva mysteries which were great light/inflight reading. Right now I'm reading Sarah Canary which is written in an unusual style and is intriguing but a little strange.

I'm reading Ian McEwan's Atonement. Someone here at Fodor's posted about his newest "Saturday" but I couldn't get that- so started on his older novels first.

THANKS! I don't know how I ever missed this author. Big coincidence- I turned on PBS yesterday and there he was on BBC's interview. Now I know how GOOD-LOOKING he is as well.

Can this guy write!!

Nonna...yes I watch Wire in the Blood every Monday on the BBC. I use my DVR as so there are so many commercials. I just love English TV myteries. It's exciting to see a character from a novel come to live on the screen.

I just started "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult. This is my first book by Picoult, but apparently all her novels deal with some kind of ethical issue and really dissect it from all points of view. "My Sister's Keeper" deals with a young girl whose parents artificially conceived her as a biological match to her older sister, who suffers from a rare form of leukemia. The younger sister wants to seek medical emancipation from her parents because all her life she has been subjected to medical treatments to benefit her sister. It is really really good!

Finishing, "The Paris Metro: A ticket to French History."
I've never been much of a history buff, but this book makes it easy to want to read more about the hitorical times, people mentioned that the Metro stops were named after.

Just finished Home to Italy by Peter Pezzelli, and the two Frances Mayes books on Italy the week before. All were FANTASTIC!
I also read A House in Sicily by Daphne Phelps a couple of weeks ago and very much enjoyed it.

No one has mentioned (I don't think) the four great books in the Cazalet series by Elizabeth Jane Howard. If you love anything about England, and particularly England just before and during WWII, you will love these books. I read them all the way through and I was very sad when they ended.

You can also read Howard's memoir - Slipstream. Another good memoir about England and an eccentric family is by Michael Holyrood called Basil Street Blues.

Just picked up Thr3e myself. I've read the first 18 pages and am hooked. Have heard that Dekker's Circle Trilogy is also incredible. Just finished Eight....wow, two number books in a row, hadn't realized that until now!

Then There Were None ~ "Then There Were None was born from unspoken words, unshed tears and wounded spirits. It is not a tale of blame or victimization. It is an effort to give voice to kupuna who became strangers in their own land, a land that once nourished their dreams and now cradles their bones. Without these stories, Hawai'i's history is incomplete."

-from the foreward by
Elizabeth Kapu'uwailani Lindsey Buyers, Ph.D.

www.besspress.com

Ellis Peters wrote a number of mysteries in addition to the Bro. Cadfael series, of which my favorite is "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Heart." Under her real name, Edith Pargeter, she wrote wonderful historical novels, again set in or near Wales. If you can find the trilogy with "The Green Branch," "The Heaven Tree," and "The Scarlet Seed" you're in for some extraordinarily good writing that will leave you limp at the end of the final book.

Just read the latest Eliz. Peters, and I think it's one of the best in the series. I have all her books, beginning with the Barbara Mertz works on Egyptology, the Barbara Michaels gothics, and then all the Eliz. Peters in addition to the Amelia Peabody series. She's a terrific writer, besides having an in-depth knowledge of Egyptology. And also a cat person, which makes her quite perfect.