Streetlife

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099555026/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_s=lpo-to...

I've just read a lovely book called That Summer at Hill Farm by Miranda France. She's also a local resident so you'd be supporting someone local.

Well if you haven't read it, I always suggest The Time Traveller's Wife.  Unfortunately I have just given away my last copy or you could have had it!  Otherwise, I enjoyed Bel Canto by Ann Patchett or The Secret History by Donna Tartt.  Enjoy!

I have just finished The Thread by Victoria Hislop. A wonderful read - family saga spanning 90 years set in Thessanloniki and I learnt so much about the recent history of Greece from early 1900s.

The Island is fabulous, about Spinalonga off Crete. Especially good if you're in or have been to Greece! A historical, interesting read about a family's ups and downs.
Of course the rest of the UK seems to be reading 50 Shades of Grey, but I've heard it's not that 'titivating' for everyone!

The Slap is a compelling, if not always a comfortable read - I couldn't put it down.  Otherwise the Night Watch by Sarah Waters is great, fantastic read about women during the second world war   (the only book my book club has ever agreed on in all its five years, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (murder, mystery and magic in the deep south).   "The Mitford Sisters" is a lively portrait of the six Mitford sisters. It's a biography but lively, fast-paced and covers the major historical and political events of the twentieth century in an engaging way.  I also really enjoyed Paul O'Grady's autobiographies...I found them a perfect holiday read.  I could go on.....or you could go to the Oxford Bookshop in Balham and see what takes your fancy....nothing like a browse in a bookshop.

fiction? non-fiction? heavyweight, lightweight?  for non-fiction, try Theodore Zeldin's An Intimate History of Humanity, tracking how emotions are reflected in culture from modern France back to pretty much the dawn of time.  fiction, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie is a novel that looks and reads light weight, but is secretly as heavyweight as they come, a reworking of the 18th century epistolery novel.  Dracula is the only gothic novel that ever had me a little scared, so good to get back to the original.

Thank you for all your suggestions, which one to read first. They all sound very good.  Thank you .