WHAT I BOUGHT TODAY ...

WE are what we read. So what makes a good book? What do we look for in a good book? We hope to find an intelligent mind behind a lively prose style, a distinctive point of view and pleasurable entertainment. Originality, an enduring quality, a distinctive voice, gripping plots, memorable characters, language, inventiveness, stories that tap into the contemporary state of mind, perhaps?

Fiction
War by Candlelight (2005) / Daniel Alarcón
It’s All Right Now (2005) / Charles Chadwick
Shogun (1975) / James Clavell
The Saffron Kitchen (2006) / Yasmin Crowther
This Human Season (2005) / Louise Dean
Mr Muo’s Travelling Couch (2005) [trans. from the French, Le Complexe de Di (2003) by Ina Rilke] / Dai Sijie
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2001) [trans. from the French, Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse Chinoise (2000) by Ina Rilke] / Dai Sijie
The Whole World Over (2006) / Julia Glass
Everyman (2006) / Philip Roth
The Space Between Us (2006) / Thrity Umrigar
Terrorist (2006) / John Updike
The Other Side of You (2006) / Sally Vickers

Nonfiction
The Book of Lost Books: An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You’ll Never Read (2006) / Stuart Kelly
1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (2005) / James Shapiro
The Places in Between (2004) / Rory Stewart

Note: Titles highlighted in green are not highly recommended