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

Let’s start with something “grubby”. Sara Richards reports on John Preston’s A Very English Scandal: Sex, Lies and a Murder:

Not great literature but a tale of nastiness and unbelievable lies... I felt grubby just reading it but couldn’t help being intrigued and, let’s face it, being a bit of a voyeur. This is the tale of Jeremy Thorpe, a politician lying through his teeth and engaging in all manner of chicanery to hang on to power. What makes matters worse is said politician’s friendship with that well-known figure of fun, Jimmy Saville and that equally well-known politician Cyril Smith.

Chekhov’s stories have impressed chikadididi:

How does Chekhov understand humanity so well? How does he make me, a reader from over a century in the future, feel like I’m standing in the room with living, breathing people? I want to wave this book in people’s faces and yell, “This guy gets it!”

I’d class Lawrence Durrell among the greats too. Even if VelmaNebraska has (understandably) found the last two books of his notoriously tricksy Avignon Quintet rather a trial:

The fourth novel, Sebastian, or Ruling Passions, definitely has its moments, especially when sparking at the intersection of plot trails concerned variously with death and communication. I found it more captivating (perhaps because more outward looking) than the fifth, Quinx, or the Ripper’s Tale, which fizzles out under the weight of its own solipsistic and anachronistic psychosexual babbling. By the end, poor Constance - who had seemed such an empowered and interesting character - is reduced to the silence of her wholly sexualised body. I am well aware that Durrell intended his literary “quincunx” as a formal exercise in experimentation but I don’t think that explains why it left me cold and ultimately rather bored.

Tom Mooney’s reading of Zone by Mathias Enard also shows that books can be hard work. As well as rewarding:

Where the hell to start? This is a huge, complex, detailed and very challenging novel which has left me tired and drained. A neo-fascist sits on a train from Milan to Rome with a suitcase full of papers and photographs exposing war crimes from the past 50 years, which he plans to sell to the Vatican. During his journey he presents a history of the brutal cycle of wars in Europe and the middle east over the past few centuries, taking us through the brutalities, the senselessness and the endless repitition of various warring states and leaders. Blended in is his own story, his own shame at the atrocities he commited against Muslims in Bosnia as a member of a Croatian militia. Zone has been described as a modern day Iliad and the story is heavily packed with references to that work. I can’t say I enjoyed reading it, but I don’t think this is a book about enjoyment.

There are other challenges too. PatLux enjoyed William Boyd’s The Blue Afternoon, but has a warning:

I imagine that William Boyd had great fun when he was writing The Blue Afternoon. In the early chapters he encourages us to make assumptions about characters and events and then provides a piece of information which destroys these assumptions. Then he does it again. I love it.

This is the “smelliest” book I have ever read and in the second part of the book I find myself gasping occasionally at his descriptions of putrefaction. I would also suggest that this is not a book to take to read during a hospital stay.

Finally, paulburns recommends David Marr’s Patrick White: A Life:

Just bloody brilliant, as everybody says. Not only a majestic biography of Patrick White, but also a cultural history of Australia in the 20th century (and yes, it was as bad as Marr depicts it until about the mid-1960s), and a social history of the rural ruling elite. It doesn’t matter if you’ve not read any of White’s work, though if you haven’t this biography will draw to him. Possibly the best book of the year for me so far.

Those who have read paulburns’ many eloquent posts here on Tips,Links And Suggestions will know that that’s high praise.

Interesting links about books and reading

• Writers and their dogs. Lovely.
• A “tremendously wilful project”. Patricia Lockwood on Rachel Cusk’s Outline, Transit and Kudos.
• The New York Times has reprinted its original review of To Kill A Mockingbird. (TL;DR - it’s good.)
• Wellington, Waterloo and the Brontës.
• Got a deadline? Why not read this piece on procrastination instead?

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

If you’re on Instagram and a book lover, chances are you’re already sharing beautiful pictures of books you are reading: “shelfies”, or all kinds of still lives with books as protagonists. Now you can share your reads with us on the mobile photography platform – simply tag your pictures there with #GuardianBooks, and we’ll include a selection here. Happy reading!