At the core of this book is grief and sadness. There is Oskar whose father, Thomas, died in the 9/11 attacks. There is also his grandfather who lost the love of his life in the World War II Dresden bombings; he married her sister and never achieved happiness. A mother grieving in private and Ron, another person who lost someone in 9/11, is also grieving. All is well written, with some sensitive and poignant moments. However, some aspects of the book are just very, very annoying. The quest to find someone with the surname Black in the whole of New York at nine years old is unrealistic and then he digs up a coffin. His grandparents' relationship is weird and we didn't find out what was in the safety deposit box. I found this disappointing as Oskar had spent so much time on the search for the right lock for the key.

An intense study in grief in its many forms. It is also yet another example of the continual and continuing man's inhumanity to man. A young boy and a wife lose a father in the 9/11 atrocity and the ripples that are felt from this allow the author to paint the many ways of experiencing grief and allow him to explore the wider family and all the repercussions of grief from the past. I found this a very moving book but a 9 year old boy being allowed to wander the streets of New York, accosting strangers…. really? His quest could have been any quest, it’s just a distraction from his grief which he is too young to understand. The generations are handled very well and all the ways in which families accommodate quirks and behaviours, which to the outside seem inexplicable. A good read.

I listened to an abridged version of the book and found the narrator very annoying! I think this had some bearing on my opinion. There is an examination of death and loss, with echoes flowing and repeating through different generations. There is a grandfather who lost the woman he loved during World War II who then marries her sister but spends life in a permanent state of grief. Nine year old Oskar loses his father in the attack on the twin towers and to deal with his grief, he embarks on a hunt across New York. He seems to be trying to connect with his father and his search uncovers family histories. I can’t decide if the characters are believable and some of their actions are questionable.

Sir Peter Medawar, Nobel Prize winner apparently said

“No one who has something original or important to say will willingly run the risk of being misunderstood; people who write obscurely are either unskilled in writing or up to mischief."

Well I wouldn’t like to say which of these this writer is, but this novel is certainly obscure! The cover reviews suggested it was funny, moving, linguistically brilliant. I’m sorry, but I found it confusing, dull and clumsy. I waded through three quarters of Oskar’s unbelievable wanderings around New York - an autistic, vulnerable 9 year old, really!

There were annoying inconsistencies, childlike speech with adult intellectual musings; Oskar was sometimes completely overwhelmed which is in character for a 9 year old. He is emotionally detached, again ok, but then he is confident and questioning using complex skills so it all feels engineered. And don’t get me started on the grandparents!

As I hadn’t read last month’s book I really did try to get to the end but what finished me was the picture on page 205; apparently a deliberate ethical provocation. For me, it was simply exploiting the real tragedy of 9/11 as a plot device. No prizes for guessing I really didn’t like this book.

I didn't like the book, finding it very difficult to read and I hated the special effects such as more and more densely tipped prose.... Grandma and granddad's story was unnecessary. The fact that Oskar’s dad died in the 9/11 tragedy wasn't very relevant, his search could have related to the grief felt at the loss of his dad under any circumstances. Was the author trying to link that tragedy to sell more books?

I never related to the child or his search. A 9 year old wandering about a huge city on his own at night, going on expensive taxi rides without money, entering strangers' homes and then going through their belongings...this was not credible and was off putting. As was his mother's chilled reaction to him returning at 4.22am - a kiss to the head, saying "I trust you."

There is a very unusual writing style, which left me baffled in places, because I wasn't always sure who's perspective I was reading. The central premise - Oskar's search for the right 'Black' - kept me hooked. But the long rambling digressions just confused me. When the puzzle was solved, I was surprised that we, and Oskar, didn't get to find what was in the safe deposit box. I wouldn’t read another by this author.

I read this for another book group and I really didn't fancy it at all but it's actually very readable. So very bitchy about people in power! Sarah Vine turns out to have had a very difficult upbringing which is interesting and there are all sorts of gossipy titbits.... I was very surprised to discover that Kirsty Allsop had been in a relationship with Dominic Cummings, for instance! It's one of those books that puts a different slant on people and events. David Cameron doesn't come out if it well.

A story centring on Jamaican immigrants coming to Britain just after the war (including on the Windrush in 1948). But it is not just about them; it moves around to focus on the various characters that they meet. The back stories, the wartime experiences of each one is told bit by bit. The racism from the British features strongly; made me reflect on my own experiences of growing up in a town where many immigrants had arrived: Bradford.

In my opinion, racists and xenophobes focus on 'difference'. The Jamaican kids that I knew (and my best friend then was a Jamaican immigrant called Stuart) dressed like us, ate the same food as us, spoke the same language as us, and played football with the rest of us. But the Indians and Pakistanis dressed differently, ate different foods, didn't speak much English so we couldn't communicate with them, and didn't join in our games. So the Asians were the 'different' ones, therefore they took the brunt of the racism in Bradford.

Set in 1980s and 2020s. In the 1980s, Dawn follows the expected path of boyfriend, engagement, marriage and baby before finding love with Hazel, at the age of 23, when her child is three. In the 2020s Maggie, her child, has no idea of the circumstances of her mother's disappearance until she finds a court report whilst sorting papers with her now dying father.

As the title suggests, the story is narrated by a cat named ‘Nana’ which means no.7 in Japanese. According to his beloved owner Satoru, it’s due to the crooked shape of his tail. He was a stray kitten and feels lucky to be taken in by a kind and cat loving human. Then one day, Satoru decides to visit an old friend in his silver van taking Nana with him and they go all the way to the northern most island of Hokkaido. Nana doesn’t know why but takes this welcome event in his stride and with lots of enthusiasm. It will take him from Autumn through to snowy winter, with the last stop being a visit to the grave of Satoru’s parents.

As the story develops, Nana realises that Satoru’s visit to his old friend has a purpose, which is to try to find a new owner for Nana. Nevertheless, having found out Satoru’s intention, Nana has used clever tricks to avoid that threat. Finally, Satoru concedes and they carry on their journey till the end. It is a very good read, with lots of humour as well as sad stories in between.

Boxing Day tsunami 2004 and hurricane Sandy 2012 as seen by the narrator Marissa. A survivor of the tsunami she finds herself in New York for Hurricane Sandy. She relives her idyllic childhood, spent with her close friend Arielle, on an island off Phuket and the tsunami which took Arielle's life. She left Thailand and didn’t return until 2012.

His stories are about a lawyer handling legal cases, and as the writer is actually an anti-mafia judge in the city of Bari, in Italy, I felt he should know what he's talking about. Very readable and fairly short, this is the first in a series. There's one case which is central to the story, but he does stray off a bit to tell us about the protagonist's background and relationships. I'll read the second in this series.

Set at her villa in Tuscany, this is the story of The Baronessa Coco and her young, American archivist, Geoffrey. The baronessa has led an interesting life and a slow reveal shows it bordered on the criminal. It’s full of quirky characters, love and unlikely adventures, leading to one unbelievable, final adventure.

This is by the author of ‘Shuggie Bane’ and I think it's in the running for the Booker Prize.

It's about a young man brought up on the Isle of Harris by his dad, a very strict evangelical man. He escapes to the mainland but is called back by his dad using emotional blackmail. The boy is gay. Noone on the island would accept this, even though it's the 90s. The work on the croft is very old fashioned and basic and the boy struggles. There are family secrets. All the main figures are sympathetically and realistically drawn. I think it's a wonderful book.

The key figure in the book is a widowed father of four children. He is an artist whose works people love or hate. He meets his children to give them the news that he is marrying a much younger woman. He heads to his Italian villa and a tragedy occurs. The siblings head out to the villa and during the course of a week, their relationships with each other are ripped apart. The father’s death is a catalyst for change and each goes off to do the things they should always have done. The characters are diverse and quirky, not particularly likeable and yet I did get invested! The villa is almost a character too; its decay and faded grandeur echo the life of the artist.

Precipice is a compelling blend of political history and personal drama, but what was astonishing was the foolish, love struck teenager Asquith becomes when under the spell of his love for Venetia Stanley. His constant, needy letters — written even in the middle of wartime crises — make it unbelievable that a Prime Minister could allow such emotion to cloud his judgement so completely. Venetia herself feels like a woman ahead of her time: intelligent, socially powerful, and quietly independent. The facts of the novel are enhanced by the fictional Paul Deemer, who sees what others miss, and his investigation quietly exposes just how compromised Asquith had become. The whole novel is a genuine page turner because it’s built on real letters — their intimacy and frequency highlight the political stakes, deepen the personal drama and make the blend of fact and fiction feel seamless. Another brilliant Harris book.

A beautiful book that touches on friendship, music, trust, competition and the problems experienced by those deemed to be prodigies; there are no real egotists! A love of classical music reunites childhood friends at a piano recital competition in Japan and they befriend a young boy who plays in an unconventional manner. They each have a back story that impacts on how they perform and they seem genuinely unbothered about which of them wins. There is a lot of music terminology that went over my head but it didn’t detract from the narrative. There is something hauntingly beautiful about this book and I thoroughly enjoyed it.