Welcome to this week's blog. Here's a roundup of your comments and photos from last week.

AggieH sang the praises of Michelle de Kretser's The Lost Dog, which she "shelves near Adichie these days":

It seems de Kretser’s talent for summing up a character or setting in a remark was born fully-formed. There's Nelly with her ‘disgraceful’ laugh. The ambiguous Posner who brings out a smile as if he were exercising a crocodile. Australia, where the native fauna was designed by 'either a child or a genius’. Tom’s aunt with her glass cabinet of figurines:

Once a week Audrey murmured to small porcelain people of love while holding them face down in soapy water.

Also born fully-formed: de Kretser’s core themes. Displacement. Geographical & social migration. Belonging, or not. Hope. Chance.

RobDyson is attempting Number 9 dream for the fifth time in 13 years:

Sara Richards shared her interestingly conflicted thoughts on Eimear McBride's debut and Baileys Prize-winning novel A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing:

I don't know whether McBride is a genius or a fake and will have to wait until she writes her second novel to find out. McBride writes like a cheap version of James Joyce. I know that the critics all loved this use of language but it is not original. (...) So this is either a work of genius or something that should have stayed in the slush pile as it did for eight years. I don't know what I think even now. Has anyone else read this? I do love what I have read of Joyce but this seems like pastiche. And the story is not particularly original. Oh dear. Even having written this I can't make up my mind. And as I don't think I will be rereading this my response will have to remain ambivalent.

missnewsy recommended her latest read, Joël Dicker's Euro thriller about a blocked writer and suspected killer:

jmschrei turned to Raymond Carver – and cinnamon rolls:

And good luck to ID9484278:

We enjoyed a lovely sub-thread about summer reading memories, with gems such as

Tom Jones, I read on the beach in Spain on holiday, and it always reminds me of sun and sand. It helps that my copy is smeared with suncream. I memorised big chunks of John Donne's poetry on my tea breaks whilst working in a fish factory, and can still smell the smoked salmon when I think of him. I read Marlowe's complete plays in between serving pints in a pub one summer. The essays of Addison and Steele are inextricably linked to interrailing around Eastern Europe.

from SnowyJohn. And finally, over on Twitter...

If you would like to share a photo of the book you are reading, or film your own book review, please do. Click the blue button on this page to share your video or image. I'll include some of your posts in next week's blog.

And, as always, if you have any suggestions for topics you'd like to see us covering beyond TLS, do let us know.