Here’s what the BookRabbit team have on their bedside tables this week. You can breathe a sigh of relief – there’s not one celebrity memoir in sight.

Tim After a break from reading anything but Twitter, I have just completed Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd.  Boyd is one of my fall-back authors who has gotten me out of a literary rut in the past and this latest instalment didn’t disappoint. A pacey little number that had me gripped from start to finish. Told through the eyes of several key characters it never lost focus and offered enough variety to keep me coming back for more. Considering my increasing reliance on Twitter for news of the business world, the fate of Chilean miners and the whereabouts of my family members I may be pre-disposing myself to this type of book for the future. I have literally just picked up The Lacuna in the last day or so and it hasn’t grabbed me in the first few pages so it might be a return to 140 characters or less for a while.

Simon I’m tackling Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard at the moment – not really feeling the love for it yet, but I’ll persevere. I’m also reading The Iron Woman to my 7-year-old boy. He’s loving it. It’s dark, scary in parts, and Ted Hughes has a wonderful way of writing that really triggers children’s imaginations. It’s really great to have my son’s undivided attention as I read the story to him, and I’m finding that I am reading it in quite a dramatic way to really make the story come alive for him. Great stuff!

Peter House of Suns by Alistair Reynolds. A bit more ‘hard sci-fi’ than New Model Army (by Adam Roberts) which I’ve just finished – both are good books, but I’d definitely recommend New Model Army, whether you’ve read much sci-fi before or not. I’ve also been reading Surface Detail, the latest novel by Iain M. Banks. Another sci-fi novel – the central theme shares similarities with The Matrix, but is far grander in scope, setting and scale. Again, a very enjoyable read. I’ve also picked up Conjectures and Refutations by Karl Popper – a slight departure from the rest of my books, this is by one of the central figures of modern philosophy of science. Only briefly dipped into the start of this, but fascinating reading.

Piers I’ve nearly finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – I saw the film and thought it was great, so started reading the book with the intention of reading the trilogy before seeing the other films. The atmosphere of the film is perfectly captured by the book (or should that be the other way around?!) I’m also reading The Vile Village from The Unfortunate Events Series by Lemony Snicket. As the title suggests, it is about a small village over populated by crows and run by an irate council of Elders who have insanely strict rules. Just another six more of these bothersome books to go!

Sarah With Halloween just around the corner, I fancied giving myself a bit of a fright. So I drew the blinds and settled down one late night with a copy of Michelle Paver’s Dark Matter. Bejeezes! That’ll learn me. I guess I thought as it’s a YA novel it would be pretty tame – big mistake. This is a dark and disturbing ghost story, full of menace and utterly compelling. It has that subtle, unsettling quality similar to Henry James’ Turn of the Screw. The setting is quite literally, chilling, as the story follows a group of hopeful young Englishmen who set off on an Arctic expedition, only to find something sinister lurking in the snow. The writing is superb and the plot and tension builds to a terrifying climax. I loved it – but read it in daylight if you spook easily. I’ve also finally finished Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto, which took me a while as I kept losing focus and putting it down then having to get back into the writing style each time. That said, it was an excellent read when I persevered – about a group of women convalescing in a Finnish spa/hospital. Very eerie and atmospheric, fantastic in-depth characters, but quite philosophical – you have to reach your own conclusions.

What are you reading at the moment?

Do any of our choices grab you?

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