Jump to content

Hayley

Admin
  • Posts

    3,344
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Hayley

  1. Physik (Septimus Heap 3) by Angie Sage 4/5 - I really enjoyed it The blurb of this books tells you that the main character is going to travel back in time and, to be honest, I thought that might be a departure from the previous two books which I might not enjoy. As it turns out though, it really wasn't a departure at all and the time travel element fits perfectly with the story. You don't really feel at any point like you've left the world you're used to. Otherwise I really enjoyed this for the same reasons I enjoyed the previous two books in the series - they're well-written, easy to read and fun bit of escapism. I'm very glad I have the full set because I'm looking forward to the next one! I actually finished Physik while I was away for a few days, otherwise I probably would have started the next book in the series straight away. The only other book I had with me (I didn't think it was likely that I'd finish Physik, but I got hooked!) was Botanical Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland by Lisa Schneidau, so I'm part-way through that right now and it's also very good so far! I also visited an antiques shop and a charity shop on that trip, where I found these: Which I’m very pleased with!
  2. I didn't actually cry at the ending of Tess, but I've never been so angry with an author about the ending of a book!
  3. I think this had the most tension of all the books in the series. I literally didn’t want to put it down. Although it really was very convoluted, I enjoyed all the twists!
  4. ‘You need to pick up the shiny octopus before I get attached to him 😄’
  5. Thank you! I think I’ll need it
  6. Thank you. This has been a very sad thread recently but I do have a couple of nice book-related things to post soon, including a review and some new books. I have been promised that my shelves are arriving soon too, so I'll share some updates on the book-moving excitement/ chaos as that happens!
  7. Thank you. I know that's very brief, and the same goes for my last post, but I do really mean that thank you, to all of you.
  8. Oh! I see. Well yes, we do have unpredictable summer weather here! If we get particularly heavy rain forecast I might just bring the ripest-looking tomatoes in, just in case.
  9. It is! I was very excited about it . And that would have been a good idea but we put salt on them and ate them just after that photo was taken… the next one can be a sandwich! So they will crack if they get too cold? Thank you, I wouldn’t have thought about the stalks. I suppose it’s weighing the risk of them being damaged by the weather or eaten by slugs etc when they’re in the ground isn’t it. I’ll try just leaving them for a while longer and see how they go! I did notice a couple of small slugs on the leaves today though. You must just have a magic touch It’s been nice and sunny here today, hopefully the nice weather will get to you too soon! This sounds really stupid in hindsight but I have no idea, I didn’t think to check! It was a bit of a random purchase when I was getting paint from B&Q. I also regret not remembering exactly what the pepper was because I have no idea when they’re meant to be ready!
  10. I loved Dracula, I started it expecting a difficult read but was very pleasantly surprised! Les Miserables is on my shelf, so I’ll be interested to see what you think of that. Why are you not looking forward to Henry James?
  11. Well it’s definitely not the neatest of tomato plants, but I got the first three ripe tomatoes off it today and they taste lovely! I know some people pick them a bit early and let them ripen in a bowl (with bananas?). What does everyone here do?
  12. (From Twitter) Gollancz has these books for 99p on kindle for the rest of august:
  13. The second weekend is fine for me too. Hopefully I’ve have actually sorted all my books out by then
  14. Thank you so much. Honestly, I still feel a bit in shock about the whole experience. The COVID restrictions made it seem particularly brutal .
  15. It has been far too long since I posted in this thread and unfortunately I'm going to re-start it with some sad news. Some of you may have noticed that I posted about my boyfriends cat being unwell (and I call her his because he had her since he was about 13, a couple of years before we met) on the read-a-thon thread at the weekend. Well, I took her to the vet on Monday, because she wasn't eating properly, and they found a tumour. Sadly, they couldn't do anything for her. She was very loved and I am very sad. So, that's why I've been quiet for a couple of days. I do have a new book to review; The Essex Serpent, which I finished during the August read-a-thon: The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry 4.5/5 It was very good This is a very well written book. The kind the where you forget that it's a nice sunny day, because you've been exploring the chilly Essex marshes, so you feel slightly surprised when you close the book. When I was reading it I felt like not much was happening, but it didn't matter because I was enjoying reading it anyway. In hindsight, there's actually quite a lot that happens, often fairly dramatic things, but I think they become part of the background of the book, rather than the focus, because the focus is on emotion. Emotion is dealt with brilliantly well in this book. It really lays out the huge range of quirks and complexities that humans experience in their emotional responses to other people and themselves. As part of that it also looks at the characters of the novel as people with complex backgrounds and circumstances which impact their emotions. There are a couple, for example, who have experienced grief and respond to it in different ways; there is a character who is obviously neurodivergent, and one who has an illness which changes her mentally. The main character we follow, Cora, has a very traumatic background, but I liked that it didn't become a main feature of her personality. Although it influenced the way she experiences the world, those new experiences were clearly the important part. I was worried, when I bought it, that this book would essentially be a romance but it absolutely is not. The only reason I'm not giving it 5 stars is because I couldn't honestly say I loved it quite as much as other books I've given 5 stars to here.
  16. So... maybe forget the shelves and create a book labyrinth?? I have a feeling people might stop visiting me then though. Oh good! Thank you . I think I'm going to phone the vet again tomorrow and see if they think I should bring her in, because I am still worried about her, but fingers crossed she'll be back to her normal self soon. I read another couple of chapters of Physik yesterday and just a few pages of Silence so far today. Probably switching back to Physik tonight, because my tired brain found it quite hard to focus on the more abstract concepts in Silence, I ended up reading the same thing about 3 times!
  17. I've never actually been to the festival events (I looked but it was expensive to actually go to the author talks) but I have been to Hay-on-Wye during the festival and there was a lovely atmosphere. I would recommend Digeddi for camping nearby. The people who run it are lovely and you can pitch your tent right by the river. When we went during the festival there were some huge colourful tents on the big field, but it's such a big space you don't feel like it's busy. In Hay-on-Wye itself there was pretty bunting everywhere, lovely local food stalls and books to buy literally everywhere you looked. It was great
  18. It does feel wrong but I'm still waiting for some shelves and another bookcase. There are enough books on the floor already! Thank you! I did really enjoy The Essex Serpent, the author writes about emotion very well. I also liked the first two Septimus Heap books a lot. I thought Physick sounded quite different from the first two, from the blurb, but I've easily gotten back into that world. I hope you'll like it when you read it! Wow, you're doing brilliantly, as always! I hope you enjoy finishing Tom Gates is Absolutely Fantastic (at Some Things) and Act Your Age, Eve Brown, it sounds like you will! . I had such a chaotic day after I posted yesterday. Had some distressing family news and a very stressed mom on the phone, then, in the middle of the night, had a phone call to say the cat (who's staying with my boyfriend's dad while there's still big changes going on in the new house, since we didn't want her to be frightened) had fallen off the sofa and wasn't moving. She's really quite old so I expected the worst. I don't think I've ever gone from pyjamas to dressed and out the house so fast. She should be fine though, the vet thinks she either had a seizure, which could be a one-off or, more likely, just fell and shocked herself. She was moving again after about ten minutes. Got in just after 1am and my boyfriend said 'wait, weren't you meant to be tutoring today?' and I said 'no, I tutor on Friday...' in the moments before the horrible realisation that it was Friday (or at least had been, an hour before). I'm usually such an organised person, I have never just forgotten to do something like that before and now I feel mortified. But, getting to the point of that story, there was no way I could sleep after all that, so I lay in bed and read Physik until I felt like I could at least try to sleep. Now my brain feels useless but I'm still hoping to relax with Physik later. Really glad I picked an easy-going book!
  19. First goal completed . I don't have all my books with me in my new house yet but I do have the Septimus Heap books, so I'm going to start Physik and also continue to dip into Silence in the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge.
  20. Thank you for the reminder I'm definitely aiming to finish The Essex Serpent (about 60 pages to go, I think) this read-a-thon and start a new book!
  21. I think there should be a rule about putting Christmas decorations up before it's Halloween. I did have an email from The Works a few days ago to say their Christmas Craft items were now in stock, but I understand that more because people need time to make the things!
  22. Hayley

    Books in HMV

    Oh wow so they have good offers on the books? I feel like I missed out here! Mine just had loads of posters and t-shirts!
  23. I've never read anything by her either but I noticed she has a new book (I'm not sure if it's actually out yet) called Honeycomb that sounds really good. It made me look at what she actually writes and she has a real variety of genres!
×
×
  • Create New...