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

One of the treats of Tips, Links and Suggestions is when it sparks a critical debate between readers who respect each other enough to respectfully disagree - as it did this week over Nathan Filer's Costa first novel award-winner, The Shock of the Fall. MsCarey kicked it off:

I'm reading and not enjoying The Shock of the Fall. There are good things here but the main conceit (as I understand it) that the 19 year old narrator has sat down and written the book I'm reading doesn't convince me at all. It's far too fluent and deliberately crafted. I want to engage with the narrator and instead I feel manipulated by the text.

AggieH begged to differ: "The book is even more interesting to me now that such a respected poster didn't like it."

I was expecting a fairly lightweight book. It was darker and more caustic than I expected. I wonder if "expect" is the key word for me there? When I approach a book with high expectations, especially if it’s been hyped in the press, minor flaws seem major. When I approach a book blindly or with neutral expectations, I focus on the happy surprises within.

Like your good self, I dislike being manipulated by the text. I didn’t feel that with The Shock of The Fall. Filer convinced me from page one. I think I’m generally an unsentimental reader, but there were definitely motions of liquid in my eye at times. (Especially when grannies or aunts were involved.)

julian6 is reading Paul Auster's Leviathan, which triggered a lot of praise for the American author:

Nearly through Auster's Leviathan – a reread – more powerful than ever. A very tall story but told with unerring conviction and an almost relentless narrative drive – he does seem to have a genuine uninhibited talent which makes the mediocre seem even more mediocre than it usually does.

pipkinface was delighted to find a vintage copy of The Grass Is Singing:

R042 has been reading Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry:

It's a dense book – a meandering, oppressive book that really suits a blindingly hot summer day to get a sense of the sheer thirst and desperation that pervades it. The prose wanders at times aimlessly, and – as absurd as this may sound – in so doing communicates how broken the Consul is. He is a pathetic drunk deluding himself that he is not, and the book lays plain his faulty logic by which he does delude himself. A common subject when talking about books is how you can "relate to" the characters - Under the Volcano absolutely defies this. Your way of "relating to" the Consul is seeing how he lies to himself, how he is trapped in a self-destructive addiction.

Anyone interested in following R042 into the volcano might find some handy reading notes from our Reading Group's encounter with it last Autumn.

Dylanwolf shared his bought/read books ratio:

I have been re-cataloguing my library on LibraryThing and can report that I have read around 52% of the 1,500 odd books that I own. I wanted to get a hold on this statistic to help me regulate my book-buying habit, which so easily outstrips the rate at which I could possible read. How do others control the habit? And if you maintain a library what is a reasonable percentage of books read to books owned?

He then delighted us with a little game that many others were keen to play: can you tell us the next five books on your "To Be Read" list – and let others nominate their favourite out of them?

We understand that the World Cup, other summer-related activities – and work! – have made it difficult for some to read (and comment) as much as usual, but it was great to see you back in form on last week's lively thread.

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.