People Like You

Quick Reads are fast-paced, bite-sized books by bestselling writers and celebrities, designed for adults who have lost - or never had - the reading habit, or avid readers wanting a short, fast read. The books are all just 128 pages long and retail at £1.99 from bookshops and many supermarkets.

We 'tweeted' members of the Cambridgeshire Budgerigar Society to a pile of the best Quick Reads and asked them to chirp merrily about their favourites. Here are some of their comments.

Twenty Tales from the War Zone by John Simpson

"An excellent read, sad, shocking and funny great insight to what a war must be like."

"This book is a delight. Its twenty short bite-sized standalone chapters are light as souffles but all contain good meat. John Simpson take us through dangerous places such as Kabul, Belfast, Baghdad or Colombia with a cheerful disregard of personal danger and describes memorable encounters and incidents in only a few words.

We read of the missile in Baghdad that turned left at the traffic lights to hit the Ministry of Defence, the Taliban having a show of hands on whether to kill him, his disguise in Afghanistan as a portly lady in a burka which hopefully hid his boots, or the KGB general's disclosure that the KGB had studied the James Bond novels intensively to learn about MI5's methods.

Each short chapter leaves one wanting to read the next. If you know a young man who needs encouragement to take up reading, this might be the ideal book." Review by A T Grant.

"A great insight to her life, it shows those who struggle there is "light at the end of the tunnel", and shows why she is such a strong, determined woman who knows what she wants and aims to get it."

Reading My Arse by Ricky Tomlinson

"I thought I would not like it, but I loved it. It was funny and compelling a great read."

Burning Ambition by Allen Carr

"It was o.k., but I did'nt enjoy it. Although obviously his objective was admirable, as he was diagnosed with cancer, anyway it seemed almost futile."

Lily - A Ghost Story by Adele Geras

"This is indeed a dark tale. The imaginings of Marie, an impressionable 17 year old, get all mixed up with and through her everyday life. She applies for a short-time job caring for a motherless girl and once the newness of the beautiful residence and charming surroundings wear off she has more time to consider the behaviour of the child's father and his proposed second wife.

However even though she has won around the affection of her charge she is haunted by interference from a presence who she is certain is Lily, the child's recently dead mother.

The tale stops there with the sacking of Marie when those around are unwilling to believe the facts as Marie sees them.One is left with the uneasy suspicion that perhaps one also doubts the narrator." Review by A T Grant

"I loved it, brilliant, a great read and I did believe every word was true."

The Sun Book of Short Stories by The Sun

"A good selection. I wished some had been longer, but I did enjoy reading them."

If you've tried any of the current range of Quick Reads, you can add your reviews to this page by emailing them to us at: cambridgeshire@bbc.co.uk