bobblybear

We're having pizza with chips and salad.

I have about 7 hours left to listen to on The Silk Roads. That's going to be a long 7 hours. I'm also about 75% through Children of Time. Very interesting and original concept.

The Silk Roads is very dense! So much detail, and I think without a lot of prior knowledge on the subject it's very difficult to listen to and absorb it all. I have one more non-fiction on Audible; after I read that one, I will stick with fiction! The narrator of The Silk Roads has put on a few accents, which are fairly amusing. Reading the reviews on Audible though, a lot of people seem to take offense at the accents. Some of them do sound comically stereotypical, especially the Indian ones.

I've started watching Making a Murderer on Netflix, and I'm also trying to get into The Haunting of Hill House, but not massively keen on horrors (i get scared too easily ).

I'm currently reading Children of Time by Adrian Tchiakovsky, which is very good so far. I'm also listening to The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan, which is a bit of a struggle to listen to. It's good to be back on here.

First of all, thank you Hayley for getting the forum back up and running!! I'm so far behind in reviews (about a year behind) that I have no way of catching up, but I will try to make some comments on the books that I finish from now on. Next year I will not let myself get so far behind! I have updated my lists at the top of this post, so you can see I have still been buying books and reading them, just not reviewing them!! I'm starting to slightly panic about ever getting through all the books I have been buying!!! I've read 56 books so far, which I think is a lot! I recall when I'd try to hit 50 in a year, but that's when I was studying on top of working full-time. However, I have purchased 97 books so far this year, hence my panic. Currently I'm reading Children of Time by Adrian Tchiakovsky. It's a sci-fi novel and brilliant and original so far. I'm also listening to The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan, but I am really struggling with it. I find it hard to stay focused and I'm wondering if it would have been better to read, rather than listen to. I think there is a lot of assumed knowledge, and he refers to so many names and places that I've not heard of before; and because he's mentioning these one after another, I can't stop and flip back to 'refresh my memory' (especially given that I do most of my listening while I'm driving). Anyway, I'm just listening to it to finish it now, though some parts are easier to follow (like when he was talking about the Plague); I've said before that I find fiction audiobooks much easier to listen to than non-fiction.

You can post on it now. I've organised all my lists. It was slightly shocking having to type out all the books I have bought this year. I haven't counted them, but there are a lot.

I read this recently, but under it's original title I Can't Believe You Just Said That! I thought it was a very good read, funny at times as well. I like how the 'hot-dog incident' followed him throughout the book, and he just couldn't let it go.

I bought this the other day - only £0.99 on Kindle. Glad you are enjoying it...it's fairly short from what I recall (< 100 pages?).

Audiobooks Purchased The Fellowship of the Ring - JRR Tolkien The Luminaries - Eleanor Catton The Power - Naomi Alderman 11.22.63 - Stephen King A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson The Silk Roads - Peter Frankopan Three Things About Elsie - Joanna Cannon The Help - Kathryn Stockett The Woman In White - Wilkie Collins Great North Road - Peter F Hamilton Killers of the Flower Moon - David Grann Roots - Alex Haley The Three-Body Problem - Cixin Liu Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman Crime and Punishment - Fydor Dostoevsky Moby Dick - Herman Melville Bleak House - Charles Dickens Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism - Ha-Joon Chang I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons - Kevin Hart Pale Blue Dot - Carl Sagan The Humans - Matt Haig Middlemarch - George Eliot Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier The Godfather - Mario Puzo Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds - HG Wells The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K Le Guin Norweigen Wood - Haruki Murakami Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood Jaws - Peter Benchley The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain Audiobooks Listened To The Fellowship of the Ring - JRR Tolkien The Power - Naomi Alderman 11.22.63 - Stephen King A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson The Silk Roads - Peter Frankopan Three Things About Elsie - Joanna Cannon The Help - Kathryn Stockett Great North Road - Peter F Hamilton The Luminaries - Eleanor Catton The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

Books Purchased Pre - 2012 The Fire Gospel (Myths) - Michel Faber Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson CK - 12 Biology 1 - Honors CK - 12 Earth Science Honors for Middle School The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - Washington Irving Grimm's Fairy Stories - Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Wojtek the Bear: Polish War Hero - Aileen Orr Killing the Messenger - Christopher Wallace A Carpet Ride to Khiva: Seven Years on the Silk Road - Christopher Aslan Alexander Guiness World Records: 2012 The Epigenetics Revolution: How Modern Biology is Rewriting our Understanding of Genetics, Disease and Inheritance - Nessa Carey Introducing Neurolinguistic Programming - Neil Shah Do Polar Bears Get Lonely? - New Scientist Sapper Martin - Richard van Emden Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad The Last Man - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly 50 Facts That Should Change The World - Jessica Williams The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds - Charles Mackay The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas The Reluctant Traveler - Bill Lumley Diary of a Nobody - George Grossmith

Books Purchased In 2012 Supersense - Bruce Hood What's Wrong With Eating People - Peter Cave The Little Friend - Donna Tartt Written In Stone - Brian Switek QI: The Book of General Ignorance - The Noticeably Stouter Edition - John Lloyd and John Mitchinson Quantum - Manjit Kumar The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins Fire and Ice (Liam Campbell #1) - Dana Stabenow Compromised - Derek Keyte QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance - John Lloyd and John Mitchinson Mirage Men - Mark Pilkington The Book of Human Skin - Michelle Lovric The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change - Stephen Covey The Complete Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams The Elephant Whisperer - Graham Spence and Anthony Lawrence The Girl On The Wall - Jean Baggott How to Raise the Perfect Dog: Through puppyhood and beyond - Cesar Millan The Key To Rebecca - Ken Follett Are We Nearly There Yet?: A Family's 8000 Miles Around Britain in a Vauxhall Astra - Ben Hatch Farmer Buckley's Exploding Trousers : And other odd events on the way to scientific discovery - Stephanie Pain Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? - William Poundstone The Making of Modern Britain - Andrew Marr As The Crow Flies - Jeffrey Archer The Happiness Equation: The Surprising Economics of Our Most Valuable Asset - Nick Powdthavee Around the World in 80 Days Junior Edition - Jules Verne An Atlas of Impossible Longing - Anuradha Roy Daddy-Long-Legs - Jean Webster Inflight Science: A Guide to the World from your Airplane Window - Brian Clegg The World's Greatest Idea - John Farndon The Etymologicon: A Circular Scroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language - Mark Forsyth One Million Tiny Plays About Britain - Craig Taylor The Eleventh Commandment - Jeffrey Archer Only Time Will Tell - Jeffrey Archer Ash - James Herbert Sarah Thornhill - Kate Grenville VIII - H M Castor Winter of the World - Ken Follet Yesterday's Gone: Season Two - Sean Platt and David Wright Times Echo - Pamela Hartshorne Trojan Horse - Mark Russinovich How Not To Worry: The Remarkable Truth of How a Small Change Can Help You Stress Less and Enjoy Life More - Paul McGee The Dead Women of Juarez - Sam Hawken Les Miserables - Victor Hugo The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through The Lost Words of the English Language - Mark Forsyth The History of the World In Bite-Sized Chunks - Emma Marriott The Millenium Trilogy - Stieg Larsson A History of 20th Century Britain - Andrew Marr The Mess We're In: Why Politicians Can't Fix Financial Crises - Guy Fraser-Sampson Yesterday's Country Customs: A History of English Folk Traditions - Hentry Buckton

Books Purchased In 2013 The Happiness Trap: Stop Struggling, Start Living - Russ Harris The Reality Dysfunction - Peter F. Hamilton Incoming! Or Why We Should Stop Worrying and learn to Love the Meteorite - Ted Nield Sworn Secret - Amanda Jennings 1493: How the Ecological Collision of Europe and the Americas Gave Rise to the Modern World - Charles C. Mann White Fang - Jack London Deceived Wisdom: Why What You Thought Was Right Is Wrong - David Bradley Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe Great Apes - Will Self Boneshaker - Cherie Priest The Phoenix Conspiracy - Richard Sanders The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why it Matters - Richard Rumelt You Are Not So Smart: Why Your Memory is Mostly Fiction, Why You Have Too Many Friends On Facebook, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself - David McRaney The Distant Hours - Kate Morton On Books and the Housing of Them - W E Gladstone Born Liars: Why We Can't Live Without Deceit - Ian Leslie The Korean War - Max Hastings The Beach - Alex Garland Kiss River - Diane Chamberlain Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson Au Revoir, Europe: What If Britain Left The EU? - David Charter Bang! The Complete History of the Universe - Patrick Moore, Brian May, Chris Lintott The Undercover Economist - Tim Harford And Still I Rise - Doreen Lawrence The Great Tax Robbery: How Britain Became a Tax Haven for Fat Cats and Big Business - Richard Brooks QI The Book of the Dead - John Mitchinson, John Lloyd How Do We Fix This Mess? - Robert Peston The Complete Soldier Son Trilogy - Robin Hobb The Glass Guardian - Linda Gillard Great Expectations - Charles Dickens Stuffed and Starved: From Farm to Fork - Raj Patel All Hell Let Loose: The World at War: 1939 - 1945 - Max Hastings Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Them: Adventures with Extremists - Jon Ronson

Books Purchased In 2014 The Luminaries - Eleanor Catton One Summer: America 1927 - Bill Bryson The Female Eunuch - Germaine Greer Twelve Years a Slave - Solomon Northup I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou The Good Father - Diane Chamberlain The Silver Linings Playbook - Matthew Quick Summer's Child - Diane Chamberlain The Default Line: The Inside Story of People, Banks and Entire Nations on Edge - Faisal Islam Wilderness Survival Guide: The Practical Skills you need for the great outdoors - Joe O'Leary The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough False Impression - Jeffrey Archer Exodus (Extinction Point, Book 2) - Paul Antony Jones Dyatlov Pass - Alan K Baker Lucky Planet: Why Earth is Exceptional - And What that Means for Life in the Universe - David Waltham Stealing Phoenix - Joss Stirling The Knot - Mark Watson Rejoice! Rejoice! Britain in the 1980s - Alwyn Turner Lifers - Jane Harvey-Berrick Mary Poppins: The Complete Collection - P.L. Travers The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot The Reapers Are the Angels - Alden Bell The Dinner - Herman Koch Gideon's Spies: The Inside Story of Israeli's Secret Service - Gordon Thomas The Dreaming Void - Peter F Hamilton The Complete Wizard of Oz Collection - L Frank Baum Not A Drop to Drink - Mindy McGinnis Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays - Christopher Hitchens Pattern Recognition - William Gibson Falling Angels - Tracy Chevalier Every Living Thing - James Herriot The Secret Keeper - Kate Morton Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914 - Max Hastings The 33 Strategies of War - Robert Greene Requiem for a Dream - Hubert Selby Jnr Introducing Quantum Theory: A Graphic Guide - JP McEvoy, Oscar Zarate Robopocalypse - Daniel H Wilson A Prisoner of Birth - Jeffrey Archer We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver Judas Unchained - Peter F Hamilton The Men Who Stare At Goats - Jon Ronson

Books Purchased In 2015 Forgotten Victory: The First World War: Myths and Realities - Gary Sheffield Extreme Sleeps: Adventures of a Wild Camper - Phoebe Smith Secret Lives - Diane Chamberlain Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut I Used To Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School - Caroline Taggart We - Yevgeny Zamyatin The Universe versus Alex Woods - Gavin Extence The Miracle Inspector: A Dystopian Novel - Helen Smith The Chronicles of St Mary's Boxset Vol 1 - Jodi Taylor Canoeing the Congo: The First Source-to-Sea Descent of the Congo River - Phil Harwood The Lies We Told - Diane Chamberlain All I Ever Wanted - Kristan Higgins Papillon - Henri Charriere Warship - Joshua Dalzelle The Proof of Love - Catherine Hall The Atlantis Plague - AG Riddle Stone Mattress: Nine Tales - Margaret Atwood Lost At Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries - Jon Ronson The Missionary Position: Mother Theresa in Theory and Practice - Christopher Hitchens The Shadow Wife - Diane Chamberlain The Journal of a Disappointed Man - Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion The Bay at Midnight - Diane Chamberlain Shogun - James Clavell The Confession - John Grisham The Things We Have In Common - Tasha Kavanagh Enigma - Robert Harris Keeper of the Light - Diane Chamberlain The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell Black Swan Green - David Mitchell Number9dream - David Mitchell The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain The Invention of Wings - Sue Monk Kidd The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury The Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela The Good Father - Noah Hawley Alone In Berlin - Hans Fallada The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters Wayfaring Stranger - James Lee Burke Death of a River Guide - Richard Flanagan The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi Watership Down - Richard Adams Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That - Ben Goldacre Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery - Henry Marsh Handle With Care - Jodi Picoult The Wild Places - Robert McFarlane The Grand Design - Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow Annihilation - Jeff VanderMeer

Books Purchased In 2016 The Other Son - Nick Alexander Wilbur Smith Trilogy: Hungry as the Sea, Elephant Song and Wild Justice - Wilbur Smith Her Mother's Shadow - Diane Chamberlain Home - Matt Dunn A Short History of England - Simon Jenkins Sister - Rosamund Lupton The Three-Body Problem - Cixin Liu, Ken Liu The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen Night Film - Marisha Pessl The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - Natasha Pulley Facing Up: A Remarkable Journey to the summit of Mount Everest - Bear Grylls Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science - Atul Gawande The Pursuaders: The Hidden Industry That Wants to Change Your Mind - James Garvey How To Be Alone - Jonathan Franzen This Thing of Darkness - Harry Thompson The Rotten Heart of Europe: Dirty War for Europe's Money - Bernard Connolly Harry Potter: The Complete Collection - JK Rowling The Revenant - Michael Punke What You See Is What You Get - Alan Sugar A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth New York - Edward Rutherfurd Outlander - Diane Gabaldon The Road - Cormac McCarthy The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy : The Trilogy of Five - Douglas Adams Anathem - Neal Stephenson Parkland - Vincent Bugliosi My Year of Meats - Ruth Ozeki Kamikaze Kangaroos! - Tony James Slater The Godforsaken Daughter - Christine McKenna Us - David Nicholls The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man - Luke Harding The Last Runaway - Tracy Chevalier The Little Book of Big History: The Story of Life, The Universe and Everything - Ian Crofton, Jeremy Black The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot - Robert McFarlane Introducing Psychology - Nigel Benson The Girl You Left Behind - JoJo Moyes The Painted Bridge - Wendy Wallace When God Was A Rabbit - Sarah Winman Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Secrethood - Rebecca Wells

Books Purchased In 2017 The Loney - Andrew Michael Hurley Let The Light Shine - Nick Alexander The Age of Wonder - Richard Holmes Wild Swans - Jung Chang The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg Horses, Heifers and Hairy Pigs - Julian Norton The Litigators - John Grisham Sniper One - Dan Mills Say Goodbye for Now - Catherine Ryan Hyde Scrappy Little Nobody - Anna Kendrick Myopia - Jeff Gardiner A Shepherd's Watch - David Kennard Methods of Persuasion - Nick Kolenda Spin - Robert Charles Wilson Cut - Hibo Wardere We Were The Mulvaneys - Joyce Carol Oates The Better Angels of Our Nature - Steven Pinker Emotional Intelligence - Daniel Goleman Total Recall - Arnold Schwarzenegger Superforecasting: The Art of Science and Prediction - Philip Tetlock, Dan Gardener The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair - Joel Dicker Here I Am - Jonathan Safran Foer The Establishment: And How They Get Away With It - Owen Jones Breakfast Is A Dangerous Meal - Terence Kealey A History of the World - Andrew Marr House of Cards - Michael Dobbs (never watched the series but it's on my Netflix list) Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky Who Rules The World: Reframings - Noam Chomsky The Aquariums of Pyongyang - Kang Chol-Hwan, Pierre Rigoulot In The Darkness, That's Where I'll Know You: The Complete Black Room Story - Luke Smitherd Sane New World: Taming the Mind - Ruby Wax All Creatures Great and Small: The Classic Memoirs of a Yorkshire Country Vet (James Herriot 1) - James Herriot How to Run A Government: So that Citizens Benefit and Taxpayers Don't Go Crazy - Michael Barber East of Eden - John Steinbeck On the Road - Jack Kerouac The Bone Clocks - David Mitchell The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis Stephen King Goes to the Movies: Featuring Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption - Stephen King The Passage - Justin Cronin The Second Coming - John Niven Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE - Phil Knight Allie and Bea: A Novel - Catherine Ryan Hyde The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver Flowers For Algernon - Daniel Keyes The Twelve: The Passage Trilogy Book 2 - Justin Cronin A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes - Adam Rutherford All Things Bright and Beautiful: The Classic Memoirs of a Yorkshire Country Vet - James Herriot Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen Spaceman: An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe - Mike Massimino Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know - Ranulph Fiennes The Fear of 13: Countdown to Execution: My Fight for Survival on Death Row - Nick Yarris How to Own the World: A Plain English Guide to Thinking Globally and Investing Wisely - Andrew Craig The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma - Bessel van der Kolk Dog On It - Spencer Quinn The Power of Time Perception: Control the Speed of Time to Slow Down Aging, Live a Long Life, and Make Every Second Count - Jean Paul Zogby The Neutronium Alchemist (Nights Dawn Book 2) - Peter F. Hamilton The Naked God (Nights Dawn Book 3) - Peter F. Hamilton The Evolutionary Void (The Void Trilogy Book 3) - Peter F. Hamilton The Temporal Void (The Void Trilogy Book 2) - Peter F. Hamilton Naïve Super - Erlend Loe Big Brother - Lionel Shriver Black Water Lilies - Michel Bussi, Shaun Whiteside Wreckage - Emily Bleeker Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action - Simon Sinek Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions - John Kotter, Holger Rathgeber The Finance Book: Understand the numbers even if you're not a finance professional - Stuart Warner, Si Hussain Northern Lights: His Dark Materials 1 - Philip Pullman The Subtle Knife: His Dark Materials 2 - Philip Pullman The Amber Spyglass: His Dark Materials 3 - Philip Pullman Who Moved My Cheese: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life - Spencer Johnson Einstein: His Life and Universe - Walter Isaacson Under A Pole Star - Stef Penney The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison Foxes Unearthed - Lucy Jones The Case Against Sugar - Gary Taubes Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics - Richard H Thaler TED Talks: The official TED guide to public speaking - Chris Anderson Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton The Man in the High Castle - Philip K Dick Seveneves - Neal Stephenson The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy The Sundial - Shirley Jackson Contact - Carl Sagan The Last Anniversary - Liane Moriarity The Year of the Runaways - Sunjeev Sahota American Assassin - Vince Flynn A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled - Ruby Wax The Threat Level Remains Severe - Rowena Macdonald All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain's Political Class - Tim Shipman Lone Rider: The First British Woman to Motorcycle Around the World - Elspeth Beard The Sky Below: A True Story of Summits, Space, and Speed - Scott Parazynski, Susy Flory Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future - Ashlee Vance The Universe in Your Hand: A Journey Through Space, Time and Beyond - Christophe Galfard The Element in the Room: Science-y Stuff Staring You in the Face (Festival of the Spoken Nerd) - Helen Arney, Steve Mould Bushcraft 101: A Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival - Dave Canterbury Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness - Richard H Thaler, Cass R Sunstein The Outsider - Albert Camus 10% Human: How Your Body's Microbes Hold the Key to Health and Happiness - Alanna Collen The Lord God Made Them All: The Classic Memoirs of a Yorkshire Country Vet (James Herriot 4) - James Herriot Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman - James Gleick On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century - Timothy Snyder A Closed and Common Orbit: Wayfarers 2 - Becky Chambers The Mother Tongue - Bill Bryson Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Robert B. Cialdini PhD Our Man in Havana - Graham Greene Charlotte's Web - EB White I Contain Multitudes - Ed Yong Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout The Secret Life of Cows - Rosamund Young Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell

Books Purchased This Year Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine - Derren Brown The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right - Atul Gawande The Great Cholesterol Con - Malcolm Kendrick How To Be Champion - Sarah Millican The English and Their History - Robert Tombs The Gene: An Intimate History - Siddhartha Mukherjee Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams - Matthew Walker No Is Not Enough: Defeating the New Shock Politics - Naomi Klein The Quiet American - Graham Greene The Plague - Albert Camus The Gallows Pole - Benjamin Myers Fierce Kingdom - Gin Phillips Unwind - Neal Shusterman The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco The Good Immigrant - Nikesh Shukla Ikigai: The Japanese secret to a long and happy life - Héctor García, Francesc Miralles The Third Policeman (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) - Flann O'Brien Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World - Michael Harris The Greatest Story Ever Told...So Far - Lawrence Krauss The Pearl - John Steinbeck Cannery Row - John Steinbeck Tortilla Flats - John Steinbeck The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K Dick The Five Giants - Nicholas Timmins Woman on the Edge of Time - Marge Piercy The Science of Everyday Life - Marty Jopson The Light Between Oceans - M L Stedman The History of Love - Nicole Krauss The Yorkshire Shepherdess - Amanda Owen A Brief History Of Time: From Big Bang To Black Holes - Stephen Hawking The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion - Jonathan Haidt I Am I Am I Am - Maggie O'Farrell Rubbernecker - Belinda Bauer Noughts and Crosses - Malorie Blackman Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery - Scott Kelly Edge of Eternity - Ken Follett From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds - Daniel C. Dennett The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan Thirteen Reasons Why - Jay Asher As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner Pimp: The Story of my Life - Iceberg Slim This Is How It Always Is - Laurie Frankel The Fact of A Body - Alexandra Marzano-Lesnevich Valley of the Dolls - Jacqueline Susann David Bowie: A Life - Dylan Jones A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess Mortality - Christopher Hitchens An Appetite for Wonder - Richard Dawkins Other Minds - Peter Godfrey-Smith The Yellow Birds - Kevin Powers The Running Hare: The Secret Life of Farmland - John Lewis-Stempel Out of Africa - Karen Blixen Hearts in Atlantis - Stephen King Lisey's Story - Stephen King Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life - Helen Czerski The Chimp Paradox - Steve Peters And Then You're Dead: A Scientific Exploration of the World's Most Interesting Ways to Die - Paul Doherty House Rules - Jodi Picoult Sing You Home - Jodi Picoult Leaving Time - Jodi Picoult My Lovely Wife: A Memoir of Madness and Hope - Mark Lukach Seven Brief Lessons on Physics - Carlo Rovelli Consider Phlebas: A Culture Novel - Iain M. Banks Death Row: The Final Minutes: My life as an execution witness in America's most infamous prison - Michelle Lyons The Walker's Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs - Tristan Gooley Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald Abducted (Lizzy Gardner Series, Book 1) - T.R. Ragan At the Edge of the Orchard - Tracy Chevalier Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World - Laura Spinney The Chrysalids - John Wyndham His Bloody Project - Graeme Burnet The Right Stuff - Tom Wolfe I Capture The Castle - Dodie Smith Behave - Robert Sapolsky Life 3.0 - Max Tegmark The Constant Gardener - John LeCarre Picking Up The Pieces - Paul Britton All The Little Lights - Jamie McGuire Let Me Lie - Claire MacKintosh Humans - Christopher Seddon Finding My Virginity - Richard Branson What Comes Next and How To Like It - Abigail Thomas The Salt Path - Raynor Winn Crazy Rich Asians - Kevin Kwan The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway 2001: A Space Oddessy - Arthur C Clarke Fragrant Harbour - John Lanchester My James - Ralph Bulger Pandemic - AG Riddle The Thorn Birds - Collen McCullough Adventures of a Young Naturalist - David Attenborough The City of Mirrors - Justin Cronin Holding - Graham Norton Janesville - Amy Goldstein The Happiness Advantage - Shawn Achor Touching the Void - Joe Simpson Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low Wage Britain - James Bloodworth Admissions - Henry Marsh The Great Zoo of China - Matthew Reilly A Year in the Life of the Yorkshire Shepherdess - Amanda Owen The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster The 100-Year Life - Lynda Gratton, Andrew Scott Wicked Beyond Belief - Michael Bilton The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris Freedom - Jonathan Franzen Science(ish) - Rick Edwards, Michael Brooks The Stranger in the Woods - Michael Finkel The Time of my Life - Patrick Swayze, Lisa Niemi Elmet - Fiona Mozley

Books Read This Year The Night Manager - John Le Carre Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck I Am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes (abandoned) Dark Chapter - Winnie Li A Stolen Life - Jaycee Dugard Small Great Things - Jodi Picoult Darktown - Thomas Mullen Strong Women - Karren Brady The Great Cholesterol Con - Malcolm Kendrick The State We're In - Adele Parks Ablutions - Patrick deWitt The Alienist - Caleb Carr A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Toltz The Good Immigrant - Nikesh Shukla Golden Lies - Barbara Freethy Cursed - Stephen Leather The Dog Stars - Peter Heller Dark Eden - Chris Beckett Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking - Susan Cain Nothing to Envy - Barbara Demick The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson The Knot - Mark Watson A Day at the Office - Matt Dunn The End of Your Life Book Club - Will Schwalbe Into The Darkest Corner - Elizabeth Haynes The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery The Spinster Wife - Christina McKenna Brooklyn - Colm Toibin Not Thomas - Sara Gethin As You Wish - Cary Elwes The Princess Bride - William Goldman The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes - Anna McPartlin I Can't Believe You Just Said That - Danny Wallace The Storyteller - Jodi Picoult The Other Me - Saskia Sarginson Eats, Shoots and Leaves - Lynne Truss Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan The Outsider - Stephen King Mary Poppins - P L Travers Into The Wild - Jon Krakauer How To Stop Time - Matt Haig Leviathan Wakes - James S A Corey I Am I Am I Am - Maggie O'Farrell Death Row - Michelle Lyons The Pearl - John Steinbeck Rubbernecker - Belinda Bauer Wreckage - Emily Bleeker Scrappy Little Nobody - Anna Kendrick Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides The Chrysalids - John Wyndham Dyaltov Pass - Alan Baker Total Recall - Arnold Schwarzenegger Falling Angels - Tracy Chevalier Do No Harm - Henry Marsh Kane and Abel - Jeffrey Archer Handle With Care - Jodi Picoult Children of Time - Andrei Tchaikovsky Picking Up The Pieces - Paul Britton The Luminaries - Eleanor Catton The Miracle Inspector - Helen Smith The Last Anniversary - Liane Moriarity I Contain Multitudes - Ed Yong Dog Gone It - Spencer Quinn

Welcome to my belated book list!! I don't know what has happened this year. I've just had no motivation to write reviews, even though I have been reading and buying books like crazy!! I just seem to have lost my mojo in terms of putting my thoughts down in writing. I'm not going to bother with conventional reviews for the rest of the year (no way I can catch up!), though I hope to at least be able to put some kind of thoughts down (no matter how brief) about the books I have read. I hope everyone is having a great reading year so far, and may it continue throughout the second half of the year.

Thanks Janet. The Lord of the Rings is going well, and I'm finding it very easy to listen to while I drive. I might give the reading/listening thing a try, as there are a couple of books that I already own on Kindle that I wouldn't mind listening to (11.22.63 by Stephen King and A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson).

Thanks, Gaia! I'm sure I will enjoy them!

Thanks Willoyd and Janet. Yes, that makes sense to use the credit to pay for the non-reduced books.....get your money's worth. Anyway, I have now signed up for the trial and have chosen The Fellowship of the Ring as my first book. I love the Lord of the Rings movies but have never been able to read the book, so I'm curious as to how I will get on with the audio version. The reviews for it are very favourable, and apparently the narrator does a very good job so fingers crossed!! Willoyd, I've thought about the 'reading and listening' and I think I am going to stick with one or the other, rather than trying to sync and combine the two. That would probably muddle me about and I've also found that my Kindle sync doesn't always work perfectly! Hopefully I can get it to work via Bluetooth; if that's the case I will be able to listen on the way home this evening.

Thanks Janet! I've noticed on many Kindle books that I buy, it says I can add Audible Narration for £2.99 (or whatever). I've also gone back to look at some Kindle books that I have already purchased and it gives me the option to add Audible narration as well, which is very handy. Do you know how this works with the £7.99/month? I take it that the £7.99/month means I can get credit for one Audible book, rather than a credit to add Audible narration to a Kindle purchase? ie. I'd have to pay for that separately? Whispersync sounds handy because I probably would prefer to read and listen to the same book rather than chop-and-change. Or maybe some books are easier to listen to than read. I think I'll wait till I've finished the few books I've got lined up to read, then give the free trial a go. What have I got to lose? Thanks for the reply, Janet.

My car had to get MOT'd so I found myself in WHSmith for the first time in a very long time! I'd forgotten how much fun it is to browse physical books. I ended up buying: The Outsider - Stephen King Homo Deus - Yuval Noah Harari How To Stop Time - Matt Haig I also popped into our local bookshop to buy a couple of books on the history and walks of our new area. I'm still reading Altered Carbon (might start watching the series after I finish) and then I will start The Outsider.