Each month, two of our top book experts will diagnose and prescribe some tasty literary treats to help one of our readers out of their bibliographic slump. 
Whether you have found yourself reading the same authors or types of books over and over again or you just want to try something new, then the book doctors can help. See example below:
"Dear Book Doctors,
"I must admit this feels a bit strange but here goes!
"I am a 44-year-old reader, interested in lots of things from modern history and anything vaguely vintage to more up-to-date contemporary design. I think my reading reflects that as I have enjoyed more classic novels as I've got older. I am a primary care nurse, working in general practice and public health. My reading never involves this outside the workplace though. I wouldn't read science fiction either. I live in a quiet village outside Cambridge but prefer the city and I don't much care for family sagas that unfold over generations or tales of rural life.
"Recently I have enjoyed ‘Cloud Atlas’, and had a phase of reading "ghost" tales after reading Sarah Waters' ‘Little Stranger’ last winter. In fact I enjoyed most of her other novels as well. Also enjoyed novels by Tracy Chevalier and loved Linda Grant's ‘The clothes on their backs’. I've just finished ‘One Day’, and was surprised that I had liked it quite so much.
"Recently, I had the strange desire to read ‘The Water Babies’ and I've no idea why, but when I got it out of the library I was disappointed because I think I was expecting a lovely old book with the colour plates that I remember from childhood, so I must be nostalgic as well !
"I have enjoyed Roald Dahl, fiction and non-fiction, Daphne du Maurier, F Scott Fitzgerald and Agatha Christie as a young adult. I have found Marion Keyes an amusing light-hearted read but sometimes you need something a bit weightier. Definitely in a rut and need a few good titles to read to get through the winter and away from the television.
"What can you diagnose please, Book Doctors?
"Best wishes, Amanda"
The Book Doctors say...
"Dear Amanda, you certainly have a varied taste in books, so I hope we have managed to find you a good selection for you to keep you busy over the winter months!
"The book doctors love a good ghost story and this is the perfect time of year to be curled up by the fire scaring yourself silly! And we have two great books to help.
"Susan Hill's fantastic ‘The small hand’ is a tale of antiquarian bookseller Adam Snow who takes a wrong turning and stumbles across the derelict old White House. Compelled by curiosity, he approaches the door, and, standing before the entrance feels the unmistakable sensation of a small hand creeping into his own, 'as if a child had taken hold of it' and the ghostly little hand doesn’t let go! Kate Moss's ‘the winter ghosts’ is set in the winter of 1928; Freddie Watson finds himself travelling through the French Pyrenees. During a snowstorm, his car spins off the mountain road. He stumbles through woods, emerging in a tiny village. There he meets Fabrissa, a beautiful woman also mourning a lost generation. Over the course of one night, Fabrissa and Freddie share their stories. By the time dawn breaks, he will have stumbled across a tragic mystery that goes back through the centuries!
" ‘One day’ by David Nicholls has been a huge hit, even before the recent film release, but here in the Book Doctors' surgery we are rather fond of ‘The whole day through’ by Patrick Gale, which again tells the story of two people, though this novel takes its structure from a high summer day in Laura’s life in her mother’s house. From a rude awakening to a late-night nightcap in the garden after her mother has gone to bed, this progression through her day is interleaved with a parallel journey through Ben’s. Only as the day progresses do we begin to wonder if all is what it seems.
"‘The stolen child’ by Keith Donohue is a real grown-up fairy tale, which sprang to mind when we saw you had been reading ‘The Water Babies’. The double story of Henry Day begins in 1949, when he is kidnapped at age seven by a band of wild changelings who live in an ancient, secret community in the forest. The changelings rename their captive Aniday and he becomes, like them, unaging and stuck in time. Narrated in turns by ‘Henry’ and Aniday and moving from a realistic setting in small-town America deep into the forest of humankind’s most basic desires and fears, this remarkable novel is a haunting fable about identity and the illusory innocence of childhood.
"And our last suggestion for you, as you seem to enjoy classic books and authors, is Justine Picardie's novel ‘Daphne.’ A haunting novel that illuminates the true story of Daphne du Maurier’s fascination with the Brontës: a tale of madness, theft, romance, and literary archaeology.
"Drawing on Justine Picardie’s own extensive research into Daphne du Maurier’s obsession with the Brontës and the scandal that has haunted the Brontë estate, ‘Daphne’ is a marvellous story of literary fascination and possession; of stolen manuscripts and forged signatures; of love lost and love found; of the way into imaginary worlds, and the way out again. Written in three entwined parts, the novel follows Daphne du Maurier herself, the beautiful, tomboyish, passionate author of the enormously popular Gothic novel ‘Rebecca’ , at fifty and on the verge of madness; John Alexander Symington, eminent editor and curator of the Brontës’ manuscripts, who by 1957 had been dismissed from the Brontë Parsonage Museum in disgrace, and who became Daphne’s correspondent; and a nameless modern researcher on the trail of Daphne, Rebecca, Alexander Symington and the Brontës.
"Haunting and gorgeously written, ‘Daphne’ is a breathtaking novel that finally tells, in the most imaginative of ways, what Brontë biographer Juliet Barker has called ‘the last great untold Brontë story—and perhaps the most intriguing’.
"Happy Reading!
The Book Doctors"
If you would like to be one of our next 'patients' then please contact us via email with a brief description of your age, interests, job, where you live and more importantly what types of books you have been reading, who your favourite authors are and what your favourite reading material is. We regret we cannot reply to every response we receive.
Please send your letter to james.nicol@cambridgeshire.gov.uk