Some Lighter Reads with Young @ Heart Book Group

A bit of light reading is just what you need sometimes when there’s nothing but bad news on TV, and life seems a bit bleak coming into autumn. Have a look at what our Young @ Heart expert readers have been relaxing with this month.

Jojo Moyes: Someone Else’s Shoes. A gym bag mix up takes two women’s difficult lives in new and unexpected directions. The plot may be a bit contrived but the characters are well written and realistic even when they make terrible decisions. Overall it’s relatable and would make a great film about the power of friendship.

Ruth Shaw: Bookshop Dogs. "The Bookseller at the End of the World" opens another window into her life in NZ’s far South by introducing the dogs full of character who visit her bookshop. Working dogs, travelling dogs, local, funny and strange dogs. Each one has a quirky story to tell.

Joanna Nell: Mrs Winterbottom Takes a Gap Year.  Doctors Heather and Alan Winterbottom retire from general practice on the same day but their plans for the future are very different. Alan wants a cosy vegetable patch at home……but after trying to adapt to the Good Life, Heather can’t contain herself any longer and announces she is taking off on her own Greek Island Odyssey. Will this be the making of their marriage or a terrible mistake? It’s entertaining, thought provoking and has the perfect ending.

Alexander McCall Smith: any of the 24 novels in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series!  This week one of our book club members had a wonderful conversation about these books with her new doctor who has just emigrated from Botswana, where these mysteries are set on the outskirts of the Kalahari desert. Some have been made into TV episodes filmed on location, and they are fun and uplifting even while addressing modern themes, such as rural village life vs modernisation, AIDS orphans, and the colonisation of traditional beliefs, in a sensitive thoughtful way.

Richard Osman: The Last Devil to Die. (The Thursday Murder Club #4).  In a peaceful retirement village, four friends meet weekly to discuss unsolved crimes…..until actual murders start taking place and they spring into action for real. In Last Devil you will encounter art forgery and online fraud, drug dealing, a secret package and a rising body count. 

So put your feet up, turn the news off, and try some of these for a bit of fluff, fun or engrossing light reading!

 Posted by Elizabeth

3 May 2024

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