Hayley

I’m so sorry to hear about your dog. They are the best friends and really do leave a dog-shaped hole. Maybe you could pass the book on early but explain that you weren’t in the right mindset to finish it, so would like it back again when they’re done? That picture of Desi is beautiful! So obviously a very happy and loved dog. Also so, so sorry to hear this! Munchkin looks so sweet (and what an excellent name!)

Actually I can understand why Beowulf would be in fantasy, since it does tell the story of a hero slaying monsters and dragons. That’s quite funny

Oh I didn’t see that one! (Didn’t know it existed, actually!). I realised I actually did have £10 on my points card so gave in to temptation and bought 5 books .

I don’t think this is actually just for those with plus cards but all hardback books are 50% off in store at Waterstones. I think tomorrow is the last day. A lot of them do seem to be on sale online as well though!

I might have to get this and Chill Tidings for next year!

Mine is definitely to read more! I think this might have been my worst reading year ever! In the new year I’m hoping I can sort out a more settled routine for myself and purposely set aside more time to relax and read. My other resolution is to keep my reading blog up to date this time!

I’ve never heard anybody call it sci-fi. I can’t work out why it would be either!

Hi Lana, welcome to the forum! I hope you’ll find we’re very friendly here, so just ask if you need help finding your way around or if you’re not sure where something goes . What kind of books do you like? Do you have a favourite?

I had Amazon vouchers too and my sister gave me The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox, which I’m very excited to read!

Happy Christmas and New Year to you too!

Merry Christmas!!

Yay! Well done! This sounded so crazy a title I had to look it up - didn’t expect it to be travel writing! (It sounds very good though, was it?)

I agree the embedded links are a lot nicer for signatures etc. It definitely will be put right but it’s one of the things they told me they’d be able to fix once we moved server (because they need full access to the sites code to work out why so many things went wrong at once). I have a lot of chasing up to do in the new year!

Ah! No, sorry, that’s a different (although related) issue! You will need to copy and paste your link rather than using the link button.

They will work, they’re just not embedded, so they don’t look as nice (you’ll see it displays the whole url). Just ‘continue’ when you get the pop up about embedded links.

I think we could do 5 chapters a week. Although I wouldn’t actually mind spreading it out over a long period either.

Ah, I missed this too somehow - great idea! I love that one. I actually have a duvet cover with the last stanza on . I would like to offer Tennyson with hopeful thoughts for the new year: Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die… Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Oh yeah, I love that too . They should do muppet versions of all the Christmas films! He does say hohoho... I don't think I know that one!

I'd looked at that one too, it will be interesting to see which you think is better out of Sunless Solstice and Spirits of the Season!

So many of you had really interesting first jobs! And such varied jobs afterwards! My first job was working weekends at a tanning salon - I took bookings and payments as well as cleaning sunbeds, emptying bins and sorting the towels out. It wasn't the most fun thing I've ever done but I did meet a lot of nice people. The woman who did makeup there did mine for my school prom

There are a few books in this series I have my eye on, including this one, so it's good to know you enjoyed it!

Wow, well done! Will you be setting a 2022 goal as well then? Me too - definitely want that to be a yearly event now! All fingers crossed.

Oooooh… that’s an interesting one. I wonder what the ‘weapons’ are!? I didn’t see that there was one! Will have to look it up later

Aww, never Our hosts were having an issue with dns connections (they hadn't worked out exactly what was going wrong at the time I spoke to them) but it affected a lot of websites. As Athena said above, I will always keep our Twitter page updated if the forum is ever offline for any reason, or you can email me at hayleyflynnbcf@gmail.com . I should point out that I don't have anything to do with the Facebook page, or have a Facebook account, so I won't be able to update there directly.

I hope you enjoyed your reading too Marie! Yes I definitely think so . How much did you manage to get through? I actually didn’t get anywhere near as much reading done as I wanted. I didn’t pick up Silence at all! But it was for a good reason… which I’ll post about later