I don’t know if many of you read much fiction but in an effort to stop me from reading the same type of fiction from the same handful of writers, a few months ago I decided to join a book group. So far, I have discovered some new authors and had a few good reads...with some real duffers too! I now have a list of books to read throughout 2008, so if anyone were interested in reading some or all of the books along with me and then posting a comment at the end of each month, your views would be welcome

I have had no influence in choosing the titles but there is a Scottish connection in July and December!

Jan - Memoirs of a Geisha – A Golden
Feb - Daughter of Fortune – I Allende
Mar - Homeland – C Francis
Apr – Catcher in the Rye – D Salinger
May – Catch 22 – Joseph Helloer
Jun – Short History of Tractors – M Lewycka
Jul – Bowl of Cherries – S Mackay
Aug – Constant Gardner – J LeCarre
Sept – Permissible Limits – G Hurley
Oct – Black Swan Green – D Mitchell
Nov – Kite Runner – K Hosseini
Dec – Blade and Blue – I Rankin.

I've only ever read Catch 22 out of all those titles, but I do have a copy of Catcher that I keep meaning to read! I do plan to read all the Ian Rankin books at some point... including Black and Blue (maybe you better rename it before you try looking for it! )

Anyway, enjoy your books!

Oops...Black and Blue..sorry

Hi Bruce, I don't usually read a book more than once and like you, I read Catch 22 a few years ago and I thought it was brilliant. It will be interesting to see if I feel the same second time around!

Maybe you'll get around to reading Catcher in the Rye this year...and perhaps give us your opinion? I'll look forward to hearing from you

I first read Catcher in the Rye for Higher English when I was at school in the 60s. I thought it was just brilliant at a time when I also enjoyed authors as diverse as George Orwell, Charles Lamb, Lytton Strachey, Addison et al and Charles Reade. I read Catcher again quite recently and I struggled to finish it. IMO it doesn't wear well and although one could identify with Caulfield in one's teens he seems a bit antipathetic now. I still admire Joseph Heller and I'm not very keen on Ian Rankin.
My favorite book of 2007 was Pompeii by Robert Harris, no doubt helped by the fact that I read it whilst holidaying near Naples and visiting Pompeii and Vesuvius.

Three months into this list and I have yet to read a book I have enjoyed or would recommend but then romantic fiction is not my favourite genre. So this month, I am hoping for a better read with Catcher in the Rye. I hadn't realised that it was written so long ago, first published in serial form in 1945/46.

Interesting that there is no synopsis on the dust cover...should I worry that it is the choice read for assassins and serial killers?!

Catcher in the Rye.

...And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff. I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going. I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be

My book group (all women between thirty and sixty) were polarised by this book, halve had no empathy with the protagonist Holden Caulfield and they didn't seem to appreciate the idea of an adolescent seventeen-year-old rebelling against the dubious values of the adult world. While it may not have been the most comfortable to read at times, I think this is one of the best novels I have ever read. Although first published in 1951, it read like a contemporary novel. Great stuff.

Having ditched my book for September, Permissible Limits, as it was so awful, I have moved on to The Steep Approach to Garbadale. It has been some time since I read The Wasp Factory and The Crow Road but so far, this promises to be another great read from Iain Banks