Holiday Reads (From Hereford Times)

Holiday Reads

11:50am Thursday 4th August 2011 in Book Group

WHETHER you’re heading off abroad or taking a staycation, one of the essential elements of the best summer holidays is a great book to read.

For this month’s Book Group we’ve chosen not one, but three, titles to see you through the summer.

Never Look Away by Linwood Barclay

Holiday reading needs to be unputdownable and a thriller is generally a sure-fire winner in that respect, especially when it comes from an author with a track record like Linwood Barclay’s - his first novel, No Time for Goodbye, flew to the top of the bestseller lists.

On a trip to the local park with his family, David Harwood’s wife Jan disappears without trace. There’s no sign, in fact, that she was ever there - records show just two tickets being bought and there’s no sign on CCTV that Jan was ever there. And David’s story begins to look less than plausible. The race is on for David to prove his innocence and keep his son Ethan with him, but it’s going to involve a dramatic confrontation with the past.

Mildred Pierce by James M Cain

Recently filmed for TV with Kate Winslet in the title role and nominated for one of 21 Emmys the show is up for, Mildred Pierce is melodrama at its best. Mildred is an ambitious woman, driven partly by herself and even more by her snobby, spoiled daughter Veda, for whom nothing is ever good enough, with her mother at the top of the list.

Abandoned by her first husband, Mildred, to Veda’s shame when she finds out, takes a job as a waitress before going on to open a successful restaurant, but when she marries the feckless playboy Monte Beragon, it sets in motion a tragic train of events. Published in 1941 and first brought to the screen with Joan Crawford playing Mildred, this is a timeless story of determination, ambition and ruthless social climbing.

The Tent, the Bucket and Me by Emma Kennedy

If the kids aren’t getting on and the hotel’s a building site, if it’s raining or the food isn’t quite up to scratch, pick this book up and it won’t be long before you’re thinking that maybe things aren’t quite that bad.

Emma Kennedy’s hilarious account of her family’s ‘disastrous attempts to go camping in the 70s’ will have you roaring with laughter and counting your blessings. The family’s first effort ends Emma’s grandmother’s camping career for ever, but not before she’s endured the indignity of jumping into a moving car (held together with spider hooks and hope) and later leaping out of a caravan in a Force 10 gale seconds before it rolls like tumbleweed across the clifftop and straight over. The extraordinary catalogue of disasters endured by Tony, Brenda and young Emma, who has an especially unfortunate tendency towards toilet accidents, piles up endlessly, but in her introduction, the author is quick to emphasise that, however unbelievable, not a single incident is anything but true. And if you’re camping, a couple of chapters will convince you you’re an expert.

HOW TO ORDER

Mildred Pierce, offer price, £7.59; Never Look Away, £7.59; The Tent, the Bucket and Me, £7.359, post and packing free. To order, call the Hereford Times Bookshop on 08430 6000399 or send your cheque or postal order made payable to Hereford Times Bookshop to: Hereford Times Bookshop, PO Box 60, Helston, TR13 0TP. Allow 7-10 working days for delivery. Titles supplied subject to availability. Order online at sparkledirect.com.