ashleighjane
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Posts posted by ashleighjane
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Am still reading The Specimen and got a new kindle for my brthday so started The Woodcutter on that yesterday.
What sort of Kindle did you get?
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I tried to start on Elminster: The Making of a Mage by Ed Greenwood, but quickly gave up and read B is for Burglar instead. Having read everything for this month (minus Elminster), I've started on The City of Bones. I think this may be the first book series ever that I will come anything close to 'fan-girling' over.
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I think that she shouldn't speak about Harry Potter until she writes other books related to magic and stuff. If she keeps on saying sh!t about Harry Potter, she'll end up losing all her fans.
To be honest, I don't actively search for or pay attention to what authors say, for fear of discovering that they're awful people and then not enjoying their books so much (that and pure laziness
).I just read their books and ignore the authors mostly.
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I finished B is for Burglar by Sue Grafton last night. Today I've started on City of Bones by Cassandra Clare.
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Good luck! Did you enjoy City of Bones? I plan to read it myself ... eventually.
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Just started Steve Toltz's A Fraction of the Whole .. early days but I'm liking it
I have to pick a new audio d/l soon as have a credit .. am debating whether to choose Les Misérables .. I do prefer to choose large tomes and they don't come much larger, will depend on narrator .. and courage Have you ever tried librivox.org? Les Mis is on there for free. (legally ) https://catalog.librivox.org/search.php?title=les+mis&author=&status=all&action=Search
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Brian's answered your questions, but I would just add that the Kindle Keyboard is no longer available. The only Kindle device that uses the e-ink technology is the standard Kindle Wi-Fi, 6" E Ink Display. I also have an old Kindle Keyboard and having seen the Paperwhite in the shop, I would never switch, as backlit screens are a problem for me too, and I found the text to be nowhere near as clear as on my own. I can read my Kindle for hours without any problems at all, but something like my iPad is a maximum usage time of an hour for me before I get a headache.
I'm not surprised that the Kindle Keyboard is no longer available - it cost more than the Kindle Fire! I do have one though. (Bought on ebay because I wasn't prepared to pay £150
)My dad does have the standard Kindle though, which is pretty much the same as the Kindle Keyboard, minus the keyboard. It also can be charged using a computer.
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I've finished reading The Secret of Crickley Hall.
Received the latst Flavia de Luce and Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer in the mail today.
I've tried to read 'Life As We Knew It' several times, but never managed to finish it. I enjoyed what I did read of it though
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The Secret of Crickley Hall by James Herbert
Would you stay in a haunted house for more than one night?
Would you live in a place where ghostly things keep happening? Where a cellar door you know you locked the night before is always open the following morning? Where hushed whimpering is heard? Where white shadows steal through the darkness? Where the presence of evil is all around you?
Would you? Should you?
The Caleighs did, but they had their reasons. They should have known better though. As the terror mounts, they begin to regret their decision. As the horror rises, they realize their very lives are at risk ... and so is their sanity. For the secret of Crickley Hall is beyond all nightmares ...
I actually watched the BBC mini-series before I read this book, and since I enjoyed that, I expected great things from the book, and was fortunately not disappointed. I found it better than the other book I read by James Herbert (The Others).
I liked the writing style and thought that Herbert integrated the present with the past well.
In parts The Secret of Crickley Hall can be disturbing, as it does describe the abuse of children, and does at one point include child mutilation. (Thankfully the mutilation isn't described in too much detail!)
The only things I dislike about the book is that it sometimes spends too long 'talking' about mechanics (one of the main characters is an engineer), which I don't understand. Also people's accents are emphasized to much. e.g ' "Fraid I couldn't stop it, mister, doggie ran right past me." I came out as roit pas' me" '.
Despite being slighted irritated by these things in the writing style, I still gave The Secret of Crickley Hall 5/5
I think I'll be reading something out of the 'Famou Five' series next, which I won't bother writing a 'review' for
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Caffeine free diet coke.
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My first day in retirement and I am down with a rotten cold. My chest feels like it is full of razor blades when I cough.
Guess Retirement wasn't meant for me.
I've heard people say they get ill when they stop working because it's a shock to the system to take a break
I just found this interesting article http://www.webmd.boots.com/travel/features/do-weekends-and-holidays-make-you-sick which claims "Your immune system is stimulated by the pressure, so when you have deadlines your body knows you can’t get ill. When you take a break your immune system just thinks - no more pressure. I can get sick now."
I hope that you feel better soon!
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I finished reading 'The People of Sparks', so I've made a start on 'The Secret of Crickley Hall' (by James Herbert)
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I'm glad to see people adding The City of Ember to their wish lists. It really is a great book
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Yay, Only two months and a week to go
It does annoy me, though, to look at the comments on the article and see that all people can do is complain that there's no 2013 series. We should be grateful that there's any Doctor Who at all.
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Have you ever read the Enders Game series, by Orson Scott Card?
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The Jane Eyre is a lovely cover! I want! lol
I first read JE when I was about 11 years old, and I've lost count of the number of times I've reread it. It is one of my all times favorite.
Agreed, I think that is true of many books. An example for me would be Catcher in the Rye. I didn't read it till a few years ago, and actually almost hated it. I compared it to chewing, not glass, but cut crystal.
IOW, excellent, but disliked. If I'd read it as a youngster I might have enjoyed it. /dunno/I always think that books like that can sometimes be enjoyed more when read for school, because you really have to think about and analyze what you're reading. I think this is a skill most people lose after leaving school, and it's hard to enjoy books like 'Jane Eyre' if you don't 'analyze' the social criticisms etc.
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'The City of Ember' by Jeanne DuPrau
Many hundreds of years ago, the city of Ember was created by the Builders to contain everything needed for human survival. It worked…but now the storerooms are almost out of food, crops are blighted, corruption is spreading through the city and worst of all—the lights are failing. Soon Ember could be engulfed by darkness….
But when two children, Lina and Doon, discover fragments of an ancient parchment, they begin to wonder if there could be a way out of Ember. Can they decipher the words from long ago and find a new future for everyone? Will the people of Ember listen to them?
"Lina gazed down at the people of Ember, gathered to sing their songs. They stood so close together that she could see only their faces, which were lifted up toward the sky, with the hard bright lights shining down on them. They were silent, waiting for the Songmaster to appear on the Gathering Hall steps. There was a strange hush, as if the city were holding it's breath. Of the whole Ember year, Lina thought, this hush before the Singing was one of the most exciting moments. She remembered other years, when she had stood with her parents, too short to see the Songmaster's signal, too short to see anything but people's backs and legs, and waited for the first note to thunder out. She felt her heart move at that moment, every year. The sound would rise in waves around her like water, almost as if it could lift her off."
I found this YA book a joy to read. I thought the descriptions were beautiful, and that the dialogue flowed very well. I even found it slightly scary, as it is easy to imagine everything in it being reality.
It was nice to read a book in which the child characters weren't portrayed as being foolish.
'The City of Ember' seems to be pretty unique to me, although if I was forced to come up with a book that it is similar to, I would say The Hunger Games - but then only because 'The City of Ember' has some elements of dystopia.
This book is very short and I finished it in less than a day. It is part of a series of books though, and I noticed that 'The People of Sparks' is a longer book.
I gave 'The City of Ember' 4/5
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I finished 'The City of Ember' last night, so I'm going to start on its sequel, The People of Sparks, today.
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I use the Kobo Glo. I wanted a Kindle (and ironically my Dad got a Kindle Fire even though he barely reads, but probably uses it for apps). It's quite useful and I love reading the free books. Some of them are quite good. Shame I can't get the good deals from Amazon though.
Have you tried gutenberg.org? It has a lot of public domain books,and I believe it's books are compatible with Kobo
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Welcome to the forum
It's nice to see someone else my age who enjoys reading! -
Speaking of Fawlty Towers, I read yesterday that Danielle Radcliffe's reward for landing the HP role was to be allowed to stay up and watch Fawlty Towers.
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I just started reading 'The City of Ember' by Jeanne DuPrau
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I do this a lot too, read more complicated books and after that read an 'easier' book. Thanks for your review! Not sure if it's my thing (though I've heard good things about Meg Cabot), it might be too similar to Twilight.
I've never read a book by Meg Cabot that I've disliked
It did have similarities to Twilight, but I guess it can't really be helped now that there's so many vampire books being published.
Such a gorgeous cover - I can't take my eyes off it!
Jane Eyre is a special book for me - as we did it at school with a wonderful teacher - perhaps I should read it again to see how I feel about it now!
I didn't read Jane Eyre at school. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I had.
It was Great Expectations for us. I still haven't managed to read the entirety of that book. I've enjoyed what I have read of it though.
Doctor Who
in Music / TV / Films
Posted
I've only seen Hartnell and Troughton. Hartnell was very boring. But Troughton seems better
(I've only seen a couple of his episodes, and most of them are missing 
)