ARTS & CULTURE Time to chill out with a T
AKING a summer break and looking for a right good read? We’ve got some suggestions – based on bestsellers lists, personal recommendations and what Kirklees’ library borrowers enjoy.
It would seem that it’s difficult to beat thrillers and crime novels for page-turning, even stomach-churning entertainment.
In the past year, the number one most-borrowed book (for adults) in Kirklees libraries was Ian Rankin’s new Rebus novel, Even Dogs in the Wild.
Following the adventures of an Edinburgh detective (20th in the series), it’s a gritty read and has a leading character who is intensely flawed yet fascinating.
The Kirklees top 10 is packed with more of the same – NYPD Red from James Patterson, another cop thriller, but this time with a New York backdrop – comes in at number 2, and the same author is also featured with Alert (yet more New York detective fiction) and 15th Affair (murder mystery with a female detective).
Want to read about a Canadian detective instead? Try Abattoir Blues by Peter Robinson, the Kirklees number 4 book. Or a murder mystery in the Outer Hebrides? Look no further than Coffin Road by Peter May, the Kirklees number 9.
Also in the top 10 are The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins; Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben; and Jeffrey Archer’s Cometh the Hour.
Mr Archer’s book is the only title that can’t be fitted into the thriller/ murder category and is, instead, the sixth book in a family dynasty series.
The Kirklees children’s most-read titles are dominated by Harry Potter books and Roald Dahl classics, with two recent Jeff Kinney titles in his Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.
Both Waterstones and WH Smith’s best-sellers lists are also heavy with adult thrillers (and books with the word ‘girl’ in the title).
We’ve picked out half a dozen top performers, including a couple of novels for young people/children.
A well-researched historical mystery story for teen readers set in occupied Amsterdam during WWII. A Dutch girl is making a living delivering black market goods when she is asked to help find a missing Jewish girl. Based on the work of a real-life resistance group, it’s a tale of courage that captures the atmosphere of wartime occupation. running. When they return, the unthinkable has happened and baby Cora has gone. Suspicion starts to fall on those around them as the nightmare unfolds. Perhaps the strength of this novel is that there have been real-life high profile cases just like this in recent years.
The true story of the US rowing team’s victory in Hitler’s 1936 Olympics told through poor-boy-madegood Joe Rantz, who faced enormous difficulties to become a sporting hero. Set in the Great Depression, this is a tale of success against all the odds, painstakingly
A fantasy novel for young readers set in a world where a Goblin King rules an underground realm and offers his hand in marriage to a musical prodigy Liesl in return for releasing her sister. There’s mystery, magic and plenty of hidden secrets for Liesl to discover as she learns to live in the Goblin realm. Department cop Harry Bosch, who is suing his former employers for forcing him out of a job while simultaneously helping to build a defence case in a murder trial. It’s a murder mystery with complications.
Huddersfield poet and children’s author Gez Walsh says every family going on holiday should pack a copy of The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett, the first of four books that introduced the world to feisty Tiffany Aching, the nine-year-old “with the cunning and temperament of an 80-year-old woman”.
He writes: “She has to save her brother – not because she loves