What did I read on holiday?

Anyone who knows me will know that my idea of a perfect holiday is one with a lot of reading.  Here are the books I chose for Barbados.

A lovely complicated story with lots of humorous elements (sneaking the dog into prohibited places in a backpack and off the cuff kidnapping).

Another appearance by Jackson Brodie that I'm certain we'll see dramatised like its forerunners including Case Histories.

I really enjoyed it and would recommend to anyone going on holiday or staying at home.

Two unrelated Korean babies are adopted by two unrelated and completely different American families.  On the same day they go to the airport to receive the children and they meet.  Without anything in common but the adoption they end up meeting annually for an 'Arrival Day' party.
Its a glimpse into the strange emotional world that the intensity and careful planning for children that childlessness can lead to.  A world that it is very difficult for people who have children without particular prior thought or planning, to completely understand.
Its a good catalyst to tell a story about a group of people with a variety of emotional and cultural baggage who are corralled together to celebrate a strangely surreal and tenuous bond.
Its the third of Anne Tyler's novels I have read and I enjoyed it enough to try another.

I finished this because I had started it but, like other more recent Grisham novels, it lacks the skill of his early books.  It feels like a contractual obligation work.
I wouldn't bother with it unless the only alternative is watching some sporting event on TV or reading mommy porn.

I chose this because it is another book written by my erstwhile neighbour Eva Hanagan who used to live at No 4.  The Heritage Hillside Reading Group read her novel Alice as our first choice and I enjoyed it so much I bought another.  Out of print sadly but there seem to be quite a lot of eBay opportunities to get hold of a copy.
I like her books - not much happens but you meet lovely eccentric characters doing slightly odd things.
... thought Flora, slamming a bowl of watercress in front of him.  A tiny creature like a minuscule lobster waved its legs in frantic protest before it and its supporting leaf disappeared below Fergus's moustache.  
 Her stories are uncomplicated and short but you feel as though you have got to know and understand the characters.  They make very good holiday reads.  

Not everyone's cup of tea but I really like Agatha Christie and it always surprises me that more people don't.
This one has been dramatised several times both for the small screen and radio but the book, as is usually the case, is a more satisfying journey.
An anachronistic comfortable London hotel is frequented by relics from a bygone era that seems so authentically stuck in time that it can't possibly be right.  Of course all is not what it seems and Miss Marple gets to the bottom of the matter.

This is hilarious.  I'm not keen on any activity that could lead to drowning but now that I've been on a short trip on the canal to Camden I think I would like to try a weekend trip a bit further afield on a narrow boat and I will take this with me to read it again.
Three of the least resourceful and smart friends go on a trip for which they are unsuited and ill prepared.

I didn't finish this one, and still haven't.
This is the sort of book you read once to get the bones in your head and then go back and read again at leisure to enjoy it properly.  I'm still at stage one.
Getting to grips with it is complicated by all the characters (and there are quite a lot) all seeming to have the same name.
I'll get back to you when I've read it properly.