Lucybird

I'm almost done so will let you know. I know that a lot of people love it. I can maybe guess what could happen in the end which may not be nice...but maybe...real I love The Time Traveller's Wife, it's one of my favourite books. Partly for the romance, but it's not your stereotypical romance. This is on my (ever increasing) TBR pile, I will get around to it...at some point! Two new books today, a belated birthday present. The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult and Attachments by Rainbow Rowell. I always enjoy Picoult novels, and I've heard lots of goo things about Rowell so I'm looking forward to them.

Thanks everyone. The boyfriend is fairly positive. He's not sure if he wants to stay in IT so is going to look around and see what he fancies. Hopefully a bit of a blessing in disguise! We've had a busy weekend. A friend's birthday party last night which was lots of fun, but I'm not used to staying out that late anymore! Today we went to Jamie's Italian for a late Valentine's meal which was really good, if a little more expensive than what we would normally spend on a meal out. Athena, I like the sound of your book. And it's good you're enjoying writing it.

Lincon. A friend recommended it after we saw 12 Years a Slave. It was good, but a little slow in part, good to see the political side of that time too.

Thanks. Today has been a pretty rubbish day. I had to go get my blood test done, and realised I had misread my appointment book and should have been there on Tuesday. That meant I had to have a proper blood test done (usually it's a pin prick type- like you get for diabetes). Was on my way home and Archie (the boyfriend) text me to ask to meet up when he was done with work because he had some bad news. Turned out he was fired today. He is understandable upset. Says he is more annoyed because he didn't like the job but had stuck with it because once he had been there 12 months (he was a temp.) then he would be considered for a mortgage- his 12 months were up just last week. Of course it means that we're going to have to put our house buying plans on hold at least until he's gone through probation for another job. I feel like we've been waiting so long already and I'm obviously upset myself. I'm not sure I can wait another year. We may move in together renting- when he gets a new job- but that would make it hard to keep saving. At the moment I live with my parents (who I do pay rent to, but it's very low) and he is in a bedsit (also very cheap). we might be able to get somewhere the same price for just rent but then there will be bills on top of that. I'm trying to look on the bright side. He had a job sent to him to apply for last week which was permanent but which he was unsure about applying for because of the extra time until we could buy a house- but which would put him in a more stable position. At least now he has nothing to loose by going for it. He wasn't happy at his current place, or in that type of role, so hopefully he can find something he enjoys now.

I find the EE adverts with Kevin Bacon really annoying. Especially the 'no brainer' one- mainly because you would think that stopping charging someone after they cancel their phone contract is a 'no brainer' but orange still managed to try and do that to me for several months

The Wolf of Wall Street. Really enjoyed it, it was funnier than I expected. Very long though

How was it? I've read the first 4 but hanging back on the rest until my TBR pile shrinks a bit

Yes. God knows how I've had time for anything else! I'm hoping for a little library (possibly library/spare room) but we shall see

It's been a while since I've been on here. Have the week off this week though so I thought I would pop in. Lots has been going on since I was last here, I'm not even sure when that was. November I was in hospital, with chest pains. With my heart condition I was obviously worried about that but it wasn't my heart but my lungs which were the problem. I have brochiostatis which basically means I get a build up of phlegm in my lungs, and this was what was causing the pain. They also found a blood clot on one of my lungs so now I've had to add warfarin to the giant list of medications I take. I'm awaiting a brochoscapy to see what's happening with my lungs- but really not looking forward to it. Have also finally got an appointment through to see the cardiac surgeon- I've been waiting since November. Hopefully it will mean I can have the surgery sooner rather than later. I'm a little anxious but I do want it done soon as I feel waiting for it is holding me back. In better news the boyfriend and I are looking to buy a house, we have a decent deposit and are hoping to get a 15% mortgage, but we'll see what we find.

My wishlist on amazon is about 7 pages long- and about 6 of those pages are books. I'm awful for impulse buying though, so I tend to not buy from my wishlist but to buy what I like the look of in the shops

Two at a time. One on the kindle for when I'm away from home. One in hardcopy for when I am home.

Fiction- Adult Birdsong- Sebastian Faulks The Thursday Next series- Jasper Fforde The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts- Luis de Bereniéres Life After Life- Kate Atkinson Brooklyn Bites short story collections- Scott Stabile Shades of Grey- Jasper Fforde Middlesex- Jeffrey Eugenides The Elegance of the Hedgehog- Murial Bradbury Fiction- Children's/Teen Harry Potter- J.K. Rowling His Dark Materials- Phillip Pullman Remembrance- Theresa Breslin Eva- Peter Dickinson None-Fiction The Lucifer Effect- Phillip Zimbardo Living Dolls- Natasha Walker

I read it, and enjoyed it quite a bit. The Secret Keeper is her best though

I'm reading The Book Thief in paperback (about time!). It was on my wishlist for ages, then I eventually got it some time last year. I was reading Quiet but switched over so I could read The Book Thief before I see the film. Really enjoying it. On the kindle I'm reading Little Women. It's a little slow but I'm enjoying it well enough.

The Lifeboat- Charlotte Rogan This book was read as part of the wishlist challenge Synopsis (from amazon) I was to stand trial for my life. I was twenty-two years old. I had been married for ten weeks and a widow for six. It is 1914 and Europe is on the brink of war. When a magnificent ocean liner suffers a mysterious explosion en route to New York City, Henry Winter manages to secure a place in a lifeboat for his new wife Grace. But the survivors quickly realize the boat is over capacity and could sink at any moment. For any to live, some must die. Over the course of three perilous weeks, the passengers on the lifeboat plot, scheme, gossip and console one another while sitting inches apart. Their deepest beliefs are tested to the limit as they begin to discover what they will do in order to survive. Review There was a lot of talk going on around The Lifeboat. It was one of the Waterstone's 11 last year, and there were a hell of a lot of reviews around. It was on my wishlist for a long time, but once I actually got it it took me three months to actually get around to reading it. Partly because of my requested reviews backlog. I had actually been excited about reading it. I had expected to like the part of the story focused in the lifeboat itself to be the most interesting (it was split between a tale of what happened on the lifeboat, and Grace's impending trial), but actually I found that rather slow moving, and you didn't get the moral debate I had expected. In fact the idea of people being sent from the lifeboat, or jumping was barely discussed at all. It was more a story of what extreme situations can bring out in people. There was also a vague mystery aspect which was interesting, except we never really got any answers. It was almost as if Rogan had started another storyline but forgotten or been unable to finish it. The sea scenes were rather well done, and you could imagine very easily what it might be like to be on a little lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. 4/5

A friend gave me the first err 2 because he's got a box set, and I have a thing about wanting to finish series. It's fairly enjoyable but I don't find it the best series at all. You're welcome

I'm reading Emma on the kindle at the moment, it will be my first Rory read of the year (took a while this year), I am not taking to the character of Emma at all but I am enjoying the book generally speaking. Yesterday started Fyre by Angie Sage. It's the 7th and last book in The Septimus Heap series. I found The Elegance of the Hedgehog difficult to start with but really loved it by the end, do persevere.

Thanks Andrea

brick

Night Waking- Sarah Moss Synopsis (from amazon) Historian Anna Bennett has a book to write. She also has an insomniac toddler, a precocious, death-obsessed seven-year-old, and a frequently absent ecologist husband who has brought them all to Colsay, a desolate island in the Hebrides, so he can count the puffins. Ferociously sleep-deprived, torn between mothering and her desire for the pleasures of work and solitude, Anna becomes haunted by the discovery of a baby’s skeleton in the garden of their house. Her narrative is punctuated by letters home, written 200 years before, by May, a young, middle-class midwife desperately trying to introduce modern medicine to the suspicious, insular islanders. The lives of these two characters intersect unexpectedly in this deeply moving but also at times blackly funny story about maternal ambivalence, the way we try to control children, and about women’s vexed and passionate relationship with work. Moss’s second novel displays an exciting expansion of her range – showing her to be both an excellent comic writer and a novelist of great emotional depth. Review I found this book rather emotionally tough at times. I really liked Anna but because we could see in her head I often found the things she thought, and sometimes even the things she did made me feel uneasy, especially when it came to her children. In fact it was quite well done because you could understand Anna’s thoughts and approach to things, even though you might not agree, and they were easy things to judge her for. A lot of the book was about Anna as a mother. At times I did actually find her to be a good mother, but at others she completely lost the plot. Maybe that made it authentic, I really don’t know, I maybe hope not. I suppose all parents get frustrated with their kids sometimes, but Anna didn’t always deal with it well. There was something about the kids. I think Raph maybe wasn’t meant to be ‘normal’, certainly he seemed ‘too clever’, but I did really like him. Moth was presented at the ‘normal’ kid but I work with two year olds, and he seems rather infantile. The letters I found rather frustrating. They seemed to break the story, but the way they eventually linked in to the rest of the story made them worth reading. It’s far from the easiest read, but I did end up abandoning my paperback in favour of finishing Night Waking, and I think that says a lot about how it captured me. 4/5

lol nah. Had to crane my head to see the screen properly, and the edges were difficult to see. Was one of those giant IMAX screens

Chuck *first one I thought of not really appropriate...

Started reading Emma- Jane Austen on Tuesday. Getting along ok but not taking to the character Emma at all! Also reading The Lifeboat- Charlotte Rogan which I have almost finished.

We saw the new Star Trek last week. Saw it in 3D but was a bit too close to the screen. I enjoyed it well enough but it wasn't fantastic. This was released today over here. Am very excited to see it. I love Luhrmann films (lets just skip over Australia...) and I can see him making Gatsby look really great, it's perfect for the cinematic scenes he's so good at.

Cluck