Recommendations

One of my favourite things about bookish blogs - their raison d'etre, I guess - is that you can pick up recommendations for books across different periods, countries, styles and prices. If I flick through the Sunday newspaper's book selection, it'll be a couple worthy biographies, a novel by a very well known writer, and some popular science. All of them will be published in the last month, and all of them will cost a fortune. Blogs tell us about books from the last three centuries, and can be either rare or available for pennies, about my hometown or about Sweden or Japan or South Africa - an astonishing variety of possible books.

So what I'm asking today, and I definitely want it to be interactive, is for you to tell us about a book you've read based on a blog recommendation. I often find that my reading life is one big network of books leading into other books - and the odd mention in the comments on someone's blog will lead me into another direction.

It would be lovely if it was a book I'd recommended, but I'd also love to hear about books reviewed on other blogs - if you have a link, so much the better. Or, better still, post this idea on your blog, and put a link in the comments.

I'm going to kick off with a few examples from my past couple of years, all books I've really enjoyed. (The links are to the blogger's review of the book in question)

Elaine's blog introduced me to the first Jane Austen sequel, Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil Brinton.

Lynne's blog was where I first heard of Jerome K. Jerome's The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow.

Margaret at BooksPlease first gave me the heads-up on Crow Lake by Mary Lawson.

Karen made me pick up my copy of All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West

and more or less every blog under the sun pointed me in the direction of Rachel Ferguson's The Brontes Went To Woolworths

That was fun. Comment here if you like, but otherwise do go and try this on your blog - it's nice to look back and see how much of our reading experience is influenced by our blogging, and good to bring them together.