What to Read Today Now that the Sun is Out in London!

It's a beautiful day here in London today. Set to be the warmest day of the year so far at 15 Celsius, what better way to make use of the sunshine than by having your lunch break outside. And what better way to spend this glorious day than in the company of a lovely book. Not sure what to choose? Maybe these suggestions will help:

In the mood for a brilliant thriller/mystery? 

'Gone Girl' by Gillian Flynn: Who are you? What have you done to each other? These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. So what did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?

For our review of this book, click HERE.

Long to visit an ever-vibrant intriguing city?

'Jasmine and Fire: A Bittersweet Year in Beirut', by Salma Abdelnour: A poignant and humorous journey of trying to resettle in Beirut and fumbling through the new realities of life in one of the world's most complex, legendary, ever-vibrant, ever-troubled cities. What's more, in a year of roiling changes around the Middle East and the rise of the Arab Spring, Salma found herself in the midst of the turmoil, experiencing it up close.

Looking for laugh out loud moments?

'How to be a Woman', by Caitlin Moran: It's a good time to be a woman: we have the vote and the Pill and we haven't been burnt as witches since 1727. However, a few nagging questions do remain: Why are we supposed to get Brazilians? Should we use Botox? Part memoir, part rant, Caitlin answers the questions that every modern woman is asking.

A touch of the classics and my favourite book ever?

'The Brothers Karamazov' by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: When brutal landowner Fyodor Karamazov is murdered, the lives of his sons is changed irrevocably. Mitya, the sensualist, whose bitter rivalry with his father immediately places him under suspicion for parricide. Ivan, the intellectual, whose mental tortures drive him to a breakdown, and the spiritual Alyosha, who tries to heal the family's rifts and the shadowy figure of their half-brother Smerdyakov. As the ensuing investigation and trial reveal the true identity of the murderer, Dostoyevsky's dark masterpiece evokes a world where the lines between innocence and corruption, good and evil, blur and everyone's faith in humanity is tested.

Review: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Read this book! Drop whatever it is you are doing and go out and get 'Gone Girl' by Gillian Flynn. If you've already got a reading list for 2013 create space on it for this book. If you have to, bump off one of the books for it (It won't matter which one because I can guarantee you that the one that bites the dust will never measure up to this one). My point: get it on that list.

So why am I so excited about Gillian Flynn's novel? Because it is a story that will genuinely consume you. It traps you like a fly caught in a spider's web, you struggle to leave, to break free and yet the more the struggle the more futile the escape as the author has cast webs such that Spiderman could only dream of. And you will want to leave (somewhere halfway into the book and just before the end of part one to be exact), but you shouldn't and most of you won't be able to and actually I plead with you to hang on, for lurking just there after the page that has part two written on it is a bombshell revelation about to explode; the aftermath of which carries chaos of incredible proportions. And the ending? I dare you to see it coming. I wasn't even close.

This is the story of Amy and Nick who have both lost their jobs in New York and move to Mississippi to Nick's family home. Nick's dad, a proper woman-hater, suffers from Alzheimer's and has been placed in a home ironically run by women who he has to depend on for his daily needs. Nick's mum is suffering from cancer and is the main reason Nick moves back so as to help his sister Go take care of her. Amy is the rich daughter of once-upon-a-time famous authors of the children's book series Amazing Amy. She is beautiful, popular, with the perfect marriage to a husband who adores her. Or so it seems until on the day of her fifth wedding anniversary she suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick, an accusation he denies. However, Amy's recovered diary tells its own story. 

'Gone Girl' is a thriller. A haunting thriller. Not in the sense of ghosts and spirits haunting but as in 'it will haunt you for days and days and days' to come. I personally don't think I'll be forgetting this one any time soon. 'War of the Roses', if you've read it, is a walk in the park compared to Nick and Amy's marriage. This is not only an addictive read but a toxic one. It will test your views on many of today's modern social issues and how we have come to view ourselves and others in this fast paced dominant world of reality television and  the fame that tags along with it. How even our basic everyday reactions to modern day issues are dictated by what movies we see, what books we read and of course the internet. Where everything needs to be as if airbrushed to appear perfect although it is far from that and the extremes one is willing to take to maintain that perfection. And yet despite the knowledge that we've become a society slave to the 'same script syndrome' we still hang on to the  belief that we always know those closest and dearest to us. Or do we?

What are you still doing reading this? Go. Now. Get it!