What we like to read

     At the end of April I asked everyone who would to list their current reading, the book they'd most enjoyed so far this year and a book they were particularly keen to read. The aim was to try to identify our common reading ground - to see if we could establish something of a taste profile for the Cornflower Books readership - and we got a tremendous response.

    Of course, we all have genres, writers, periods and subject-matter of particular and individual interest and they may vary widely from the next person's, but there are considerable overlaps, too, areas where our 'reading circles' merge and are linked, much like petals coming together in the centre of a flower ( ... a cornflower, say!).

    On to hard fact, and I've had a look at all the comments again and given them a very unscientific and rough analysis, and here's what I discovered:

Concentrating on the most frequently mentioned books or writers, there was a very strong showing for Persephone Books with Dorothy Whipple getting two 'best so far'; E.F. Benson kept on cropping up, as did Dorothy L. Sayers, John Le Carré, Kate Atkinson, Maggie O'Farrell, Tracy Chevalier, Alan Bradley, Susan Hill, Joyce Dennys' (Henrietta vol. 1 and the much-anticipated vol. 2), The Guernsey ... (three 'bests') and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand.

Crossing to Safety, a recent Cornflower Book Group book, also got three 'best so far', while The Children's Book got four. The Booker-winning Wolf Hall dominated with nine appearances in total, tying for 'most looked forward to' (if you see what I mean) with David Mitchell's Thousand Autumns... and various Alexander McCall Smith books.

    As 'the centre of the flower', so to speak, this is pretty much what I'd have expected, but what's also great is just how many separate, diverging petals there are, and of what intense and beautiful hues, so that the readership which happens to find a meeting point of sorts on this site is not only well-read but striking. For my part, of what's listed here, I have yet to read Sayers, Le Carré, Atkinson and O'Farrell, but I hope to put that right before long. Meanwhile, I'm reading some Rose Tremain, the fascinating Music and Silence. What are you reading just now - anything of the above, or have you branched out?