Has anyone got any good books they've read recently?

I'm afraid i'm not much into history, but I do like books :) Have you read anything by Irving Stone? The Agony and the Ecstasy is good--it's about Michelangelo, and probably quite made up but it sounds true. There's also a good one on Van Gogh--Lust for Life-- and Lincoln (Love is Eternal).

I've recently got into Terry Pratchett, who's a sci fi/fantasy mix. not something I'd normally read, but I loved Going Postal. I've also read Monstrous Regiment and Unseen Academicals which weren't quite as good but they're entertaining. They won't take you long to read, they're just kind of fun books. but he's got a great satirical edge.

I used to really like the Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz...Agatha Christie is always a winner if you like mysteries (also Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone)....Michael Crichton's Sphere is possibly the most mind-twisting book I've ever read (Timeline is also pretty good).

Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah is fantastic! He wrote A Long Way Gone, a memoir of his life as a boy soldier, which is amazing. Radiance of Tomorrow is his second book and it's fiction, but you could definitely see it happening. Also one of those books that makes you think, but in a really good way.

Hope you find something good!

The best historical fiction I've read recently are the two books (at least one more is coming out) based on Henry VIII, Thomas More, Anne Boleyn, etc., by Hilary Mantel, "Wolf Hall" and "Bring up the Bodies." It's highly revisionist: More comes off as the bad guy, more or less, but nothing is really black-and-white. It's a totally different take on the whole era from what we're used to seeing in things like "A Man for All Seasons" or Catholic hagiography where More is depicted as literally a saint.

If you want something a bit quirky -- historical fact that reads like a good historical novel -- try "A Tale of Two Melons" by the historian Sarah Schneewind. It's about a bizarre incident that took place in China around 1390 involving a farmer, an emperor, a mysterious pair of melons, an unjust execution, and popular protest. You'll also learn a heck of a lot about life in Ming Dynasty China along the way.

Rat by andrzej zaniewski

It tells the graphicly realistic tale of the life of a rat. Who along with his fellow growing rat siblings eat a dying man alive. Then he inbreeds with his own mother and then eats the deformed ones out of their litter. Then a few hundred pages later at the end of the book he dies all alone in a hole. It may sound gruesome (and it is) but it's still an extremely interesting book that's hard to stop reading.

On the other hand if you prefer comedy then I would definitely suggest The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams I can't read that book without laughing out loud.

Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose might be what you're after.

it is a mystery story set in a monastery during the 14th century against a background of the heresies of the time, which makes it a rather palatable introduction to the period.

Try the graphic novel "MAUS". Its about Holocaust. You might want to read "Lord of the Flies" too