I read the first seven or eight about 25 years ago, none since.

I hesitate to recommend books as my tastes may be quite different to others. But I'm about half way through the 1953 classic by  L P Hartley The Go-Between. It was one of the set texts at school for my English Literature O Level (exam you take at 16) and the only one I enjoyed. It's been 45 years since I read it.

It was made into a film in 1971, said to be the best film adaptation of a book ever made. The BBC also made an equally good version in 2015. 

I'd forgotten how utterly brilliant it is, I heartily recommend it, especially to you Shula as it's more likely to be your kind of thing. If you don't know the story let me know on what page you sussed what was going on.   

I just found a book I had given my mother in 1994, which was returned to me upon her death.  It occupied a forgotten space in one of my bookcases.  She loved reading about the history of the Revolutionary War and this book is one by Barbara Tuchman titled The First Salute.  I quote:

"White puffs of gun smoke over a turquoise sea followed by the boom of cannon rose from an unassuming fort on the diminutive Dutch island of St. Eustatius in the West Indies on November 16, 1776.  The guns of Fort Orange on St. Eustatius were returning the ritual salute on entering a foreign port of an American vessel, the Andrew Doria, as she came up the roadstead, flying at her mast the red-and-white-striped flag of the Continental Congress.  In its responding salute, the small voice of St. Eustatius was the first officially to greet the largest event of the century -- the entry into the society of nations of a new Atlantic state destined to change the direction of history.

I don't read sea stories because someone always gets keelhauled.  Two Years Before the Mast ruined my life. 

And there's always a disastrous ship sinking, if you write about ships one has to sink.

I haven't read this book, nor have I seen the film adaptation, so I read a synopsis of it.  I can just imagine Leo's "horror when he realizes what is really going on between Marian and Ted, given his affection for them both.  How the experience shapes his own life is rather sad.  The opening line (which is the most important part of any book I read) is brilliant:  "The past is a foreign country."  It certainly is.

"The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there" is one of the great opening lines. Apart from being a superb story the fact that I studied it at school means I understand the symbolism that I otherwise might have missed. 

The lovely Joanna Vanderham starred as Marian in the 2015 version. 

I've finished The Go-Between and I heartily recommend it, for me it is pretty much the perfect novel. The Zodiac and the casting of spells features strongly albeit from a childish perspective. Anyone who's ever been a small boy will be transported back to that age by the way Leo reacts to the world and his own feelings.

This is for Shula and Tom, although Tom is included more out of courtesy. I'm back from Hay-on-Wye with (amongst others) two American novels; one is by an author Shula has mentioned - The Professor's House by Willa Cather, any good? The other is by someone I've never heard of - Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, set in fictional small town Minnesota in and around the First World War, the synopsis sounds pretty good. Anyone read it or anything by him? 

Shula, I also found the two other novels by J Meade Falkner who wrote Moonfleet. The Lost Stradivarius and The Nebuly Coat, I only bought the latter though as it sounds the more interesting. 

If you're around Shula can I direct your attention to # 59 above.