Live. Love. London

So I commute everyday on the Tube, and my hour journey to work means I have a lovely amount of time to read! So I here are some of the better books I’ve read on the tube (probably mixed in with random tube stories that I often come across). 

Also open to suggestions of other books to read please!

Broken- Daniel Clay 

The story is of three families living in a suburban square - the normal Cunninghams, the quiet Buckleys and the trouble-making Oswalds.  Bob Oswald, the neighbourhood thug, one day publicly humiliates innocent Ricky Buckley, which causes him to slowly loose his mind and become ‘Broken’. The series of events which unfold from this incident are watched the curious Skunk Cunningham and her brother, which leads to Skunk ending up in a coma. From this she partly narrates the story.

I have never read a book like this, yet the way it is written is gripping. It is strange, oddly graphic at times, and at times you can’t quite believe what you’ve just read. Couldn’t put it down and was a great choice for a completely different read.

Saturday - Ian McEwan

Perowne, a successful neurosurgeon, father and husband, is a contented man. What troubles him is the state of the world - the impending war on Iraq and the gathering pessimism since 9/11. On this Saturday morning, whilst driving to his squash match and avoiding anti-war protests in London, a minor car accident brings him to a confrontation with a thug named Baxter. To Perowne’s professional eye, something is profoundly wrong with this young man. In turn, Baxter feels humiliated, and visits the Perowne home during a family reunion - a visit with savage consequences.

A fantastic book. Ian McEwan is again fantastically descriptive so that you feel like you are there throughout the book. I would recommend to anyone, I even did to 50-odd year old rastafarian man reading it over my shoulder on the tube…a very funny moment that made us both giggle! A truly amazing read…

The Last Noel - Heather Graham

On Christmas Eve, three burglars are on the run after killing a jewelry store owner in a botched robbery. In the middle of a treacherous snowstorm, two of them end up at the O’Boyle winter cabin, where the family has just sat down to dinner. The thieves don’t know that daughter Kat has escaped into the blizzard to find help—but whom she finds out in the storm is almost as shocking as the uninvited guests.

So I sometimes need a little bit of a mystery/thriller story where I can’t predict at all what’s going to happen in the end. I was gripped for most of this book…constantly thinking how I would act in that in that situation. For something different give this a go!