Jump to content

Lauren's Reading Log - 2013


bookworm87

Recommended Posts

BOOKS READ IN 2013 (20TH MAY-DEC)

Here goes – the start of my Reading Log 2013!

I’ve never recorded how many books I read before, so it’ll be really interesting to see how many I actually get through.

I plan to use the following rating system (which I shamelessly stole from bobblybear’s list because I liked it :giggle2: ):

1/6: I didn't like it
2/6: It was okay
3/6: I liked it
4/6: I really liked it
5/6: It was amazing
6/6: On my 'best of all time' list

Currently Reading:

 

Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England - Amanda Vickery

No Angel - Penny Vincenzi
 

May 2013:

The White Queen - Philippa Gregory (finished 30/05/2013)

June 2013:

Moranthology - Caitlin Moran (finished 03/06/2013)
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce (finished 09/06/2013)
On Beauty - Zadie Smith (finished 27/06/13)

 

July 2013

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn (finished 07/07/13)

Bridget Jones Diary/Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

The Chimp Paradox - Dr. Steve Peters

 

August 2013:

 

Ausperity: Live the Life You Want for Less - Lucy Tobin (finished 02/08/2013)

Lancaster and York: The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir (finished 08/08/2013)

Holy Fools - Joanne Harris (finished 15/08/2013)
 

September 2013:
October 2013:
November 2013:
December 2013:

Edited by bookworm87
Link to comment
Share on other sites

BOOKS TBR
 

I think there are probably quite a few more to add to this list as I recently moved in with my boyfriend and my big bookcase is still at my parents’ house, so I haven’t had time to rifle though the shelves and see what’s there!

 

FICTION

 

On Beauty – Zadie Smith

Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell

Gillespie & I – Jane Harris

Bared to You – Sylvia Day

An Experiment in Love – Hilary Mantel

The Sister – Lynne Alexander

Restless – William Boyd

The Stranger’s Child – Alan Hollinghurst

The Marriage Plot – Jeffrey Eugenides

Starter for Ten – David Nicholls

The Children’s Book – A.S Byatt

The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing

The Alexandria Quartet – Lawrence Durrell

Tides of War – Stella Tillyard

Pure – Andrew Miller

Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet – David Mitchell

Death Comes to Pemberley – P.D. James

To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee

Wideacre - Philippa Gregory

The Favoured Child - Philippa Gregory

Meridon - Philippa Gregory

The Red Queen - Philippa Gregory

Lady of the Rivers - Philippa Gregory

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce

NW - Zadie Smith

Possession - A.S Byatt

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

The Kingmaker's Daughter - Philippa Gregory

Ignorance - Michele Roberts

Mrs Robinson's Disgrace - Kate Summerscale

May We Be Forgiven - A.N Homes

Flight Behaviour - Barbara Kingsolver

The Girl Who Fell From The Sky - Simon Mawer

Watch Over Me - Daniela Sacerdoti

Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf

The Boleyn Inheritance - Philippa Gregory

Where'd You Go Bernadette - Maria Semple

The Case of the Missing Boyfriend - Nick Alexander

White Teeth - Zadie Smith

The Winter King - Bernard Cornwall

The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley

Umbrella - Will Self

Bridget Jones’s Diary/Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason – Helen Fielding

A Spell of Winter – Helen Dunmore

Fred and Edie – Jill Dawson

Life After Life – Kate Atkinson

She Rises – Kate Worsley

The Last Runaway – Tracy Chevalier

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

London - Edward Rutherfurd

The Waves - Virginia Woolf

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

One Step Too Far - Tina Seskis

Queen's Gambit - Elizabeth Fremantle

The Forbidden Queen - Anne O'Brien

The Other Boleyn Girl - Philippa Gregory

The Greatest Knight - Elizabeth Chadwick

The Scarlet Lion - Elizabeth Chadwick

Lady of the English - Elizabeth Chadwick

The Silent Duchess - Dacia Maraini


NON-FICTION

 

Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted – Andrew Wilson

The Horologicon: A Day’s Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language – Mark Forsyth

The Time Travellers Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century – Ian Mortimer

Thomas Hardy: The Time Torn Man – Claire Tomalin

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution – Simon Schama

London: The Biography – Peter Ackroyd

John Adams – David McCullough

What Matters in Jane Austen? - John Mullan

Lancaster and York: The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir

Moranthology - Caitlin Moran

Operation Mincemeat – Ben Macintyre

Double Cross – Ben Macintyre

Agent Zigzag– Ben Macintyre

The Journals of Sylvia Plath - Sylvia Plath

Country Girl - Edna O'Brien

Wild Swans - Jung Chang

River of Destiny - Barbara Erskine

 

 

POETRY

 

The Complete English Poems – John Donne

Sylvia Plath Poems chosen by Carol Ann Duffy - Sylvia Plath



 

 

 

Edited by bookworm87
Link to comment
Share on other sites

CLASSICS TBR


I’ve done a separate section for this because I own a lot. Almost all of these are from either the Penguin English Library or Penguin Clothbound Classics series. If anyone is looking to buy a Classic, then I would really recommend these books. They’re beautifully designed and as soon as I saw them it was love at first sight. Anyway, as you can see, I’ve collected quite a few. Some of these I have read before,  but plan to re-read.

 

The Hound of the Baskervilles – Arthur Conan Doyle

The Five Orange Pips and Other Cases – Arthur Conan Doyle

Hard Times – Charles Dickens

Evelina – Frances Burney

Ivanhoe – Walter Scott

The Pickwick Papers – Charles Dickens

Bleak House – Charles Dickens

Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James

Under the Greenwood Tree – Thomas Hardy

Wives and Daughters – Elizabeth Gaskell

Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen

The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

Washington Square – Henry James

David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

Little Dorrit – Charles Dickens

Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell

Middlemarch – George Eliot

A Room with a View – E.M Forster

Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens

The Wings of the Dove – Henry James

Sons and Lovers – DH Lawrence

Mansfield Park – Jane Austen

Villette – Charlotte Bronte

The Mystery of Edwin Drood- Charles Dickens

Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton

New Grub Street – George Gissing

Dombey and Son – Charles Dickens

The Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy

Barnaby Rudge – Charles Dickens

Daisy Miller and the Turn of the Screw – Henry James

Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens

Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy

Dubliners – James Joyce

Shirley – Charlotte Bronte

Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

Emma – Jane Austen

The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne

A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell

The Time Machine – HG Wells

The War of the Worlds – HG Wells

Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Other Tales – Edgar Allen Poe

Two on a Tower – Thomas Hardy

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins

North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell

Frankenstein – Mary Shelley

Where Angels Fear to Tread – EM Forster

Dracula – Bram Stoker

Howards End – EM Forster

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Bronte

Daniel Deronda – George Eliot

The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton

Far From the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

Lady Audley’s Secret – Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Pride & Predjudice – Jane Austen

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

Lady Chatterley’s Lover – DH Lawrence

Sense & Sensibility – Jane Austen

Persuasion – Jane Austen

Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

Parade’s End – Ford Madox Ford

Madame Bovary - Gustav Flaubert

Edited by bookworm87
Link to comment
Share on other sites

WISHLIST


I didn’t think I would have many titles on this…..Ha!

 

Moon Tiger – Penelope Lively

Brooklyn – Colm Toibin

Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides

Country Girl: A Memoir – Edna O’Brien

John Saturnall’s Feast – Lawrence Norfolk

Ignorance – Michele Roberts

The Heat of the Day – Elizabeth Bowen

The Death of the Heart – Elizabeth Bowen

Brick Lane – Monica Ali

The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen

NW – Zadie Smith

Beautiful Ruins – Jess Walter

Where’d You Go Bernadette? – Maria Semple

The Transit of Venus – Shirley Hazzard

Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace: The Private Diary of an Ordinary Lady – Kate Summerscale

Life After Life – Kate Atkinson

Perilous Question: The Drama of the Great Reform Bill – Antonia Fraser

Blood & Beaty – Sarah Dunant

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln – Doris Kearns Goodwin

The Innocents – Francesca Segal

How Should A Person Be? – Sheila Heti

Sweeth Tooth – Ian McEwan

The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens’ London – Judith Flanders

A Possible Life – Sebastian Faulks

The Scapegoat – Daphne du Maurier

Fall of Giants – Ken Follett

Merivel: A Man of His Time – Rose Tremain

Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis

The Diviners – Libba Bray

Tigers in Red Weather – Liza Klaussman

The Daylight Gate – Jeanette Winterson

Beautiful Lies – Clare Clark

Complete Short Stories – Elizabeth Taylor

An Education – Lynn Barber

The Kindly Ones – Jonathan Littell

An Instance of the Fingerpost – Iain Pears

Peaches for Monsieur le Cure – Joanne Harris

The Glass Room – Simon Mawer

The Girl Who Fell From The Sky – Simon Mawer

The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner

Property – Valerie Martin

Regeneration – Pat Barker

Agent Zigzag – Ben Macintyre

The Uninvited Guests – Sadie Jones

The Chemistry of Tears – Peter Carey

The Amateur Marriage – Anne Tyler

The Pinecone - Jenny Uglow

Elizabeth Gaskell; A Habit of Stories - Jenny Uglow

A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration - Jenny Uglow

George Eliot - Jenny Uglow

The Red Queen - Philippa Gregory

The Lady of the Rivers - Philippa Gregory

The Kingmaker's Daughter - Philippa Gregory

Falling Angels - Tracy Chevalier

Queen’s Gambit – Elizabeth Fremantle

One Step Too Far – Tina Seskis

The Woman Upstairs – Claire Messud

Reconstructing Amelia – Kimberly McCreight

Kiss Me First – Lottie Moggach

Too Much Happiness – Alice Munro

Asylum –Patrick McGrath

Secrecy –Rupert Thomson

Talking to the Dead – Helen Dunmore

The Siege –Helen Dunmore

Lucky Bunny –Jill Dawson

Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Housekeeping– Marilynne Robinson

Gilead –Marilynne Robinson

The Idea of Perfection – Kate Grenville

Eveless Eden– Marianne Wiggins

The Lacuna –Barbara Kingsolver

Painter of Silence – Georgina Harding

The Promise –Ann Weisgarber

The Long Song – Andrea Levy

The Secret Scripture – Sebastien Barry

Stoner: A Novel – John L Williams

Fever – Mary Beth Keane

Instruments of Darkness – Imogen Robertson

The Lady and the Unicorn – Tracy Chevalier

The Virgin Blue – Tracy Chevalier

The Help –Kathryn Stockett

Passion –Jude Morgan

Flappers:Women of a Dangerous Generation – Judith Mackrell

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher – Kate Summerscale

Servants: A Downstairs View of 20th Century Britain – Lucy Lethbridge

A World on Fire: An Epic History of Two Nations Divided - Amanda Foreman

The Bone Season - Samantha Shannon

Restoration London: Everyday Life in the 1660s - Liza Picard

Dark Fire - C.J Sansom

Russka - Edward Rutherfurd

Paris - Edward Rutherfurd

The Little Friend - Donna Tartt

The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller

 


 

Edited by bookworm87
Link to comment
Share on other sites

WISHLIST

 

I didn’t think I would have many titles on this…..Ha!

I hope we're okay to post now - if you haven't finished compiling your thread, please say and I'll delete it and post again later.  :)

 

Welcome to the forum!  I have to admit a giggle to the bit above - if you think it's bad now, just wait until you've been here a while and added other people's recommendations!  :giggle2:  I haven't got my wish list written down anywhere but I have about 8 different classifications of wish lists on Amazon and I dread to think how many books in total are on there!

 

That's quite a Classics list you have there.   

 

Happy reading.  :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hope we're okay to post now - if you haven't finished compiling your thread, please say and I'll delete it and post again later.  :)

 

Welcome to the forum!  I have to admit a giggle to the bit above - if you think it's bad now, just wait until you've been here a while and added other people's recommendations!  :giggle2:  I haven't got my wish list written down anywhere but I have about 8 different classifications of wish lists on Amazon and I dread to think how many books in total are on there!

 

That's quite a Classics list you have there.   

 

Happy reading.  :)

Hi Janet,

 

Yes this post is now open for comments :)

 

I know - there's a few years worth of classics there for me to get through. I'll be pretty pleased with myself if I can eventually work my way through them!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I share (unread) most of the classics on your TBR with mine, although I have read almost all the Jane Austens already (Sense And Sensibility still to go). A couple each off your other TBR and your wishlist I have read, I think The Time Traveller's Guide To Medieval England was one of the first books I read when I first got here!

There is a thread on it somewhere a few folks have enjoyed it.

A lot of your titles are new to me though. 

 So good luck and look forward to reading your reviews.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks chesilbeach, vodkafan and Athena - I'm sure you guys will have a few suggestions to make that wishlist even longer!

Ahhh, we do our poor best..... :P

 

Welcome, and btw, great lists!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Love those lists - there are some fabulous books on them.  You include at least three of my favourite writers in your non-fiction list: Claire Tomalin, Simon Schama and Peter Ackroyd.  I can also thoroughly recommend the biographies by Jenny Uglow - her most recent, The Pinecone is one of my 6 star books (but then, Schama, Tomalin and Ackroyd have all scored 6 stars as well - we both use the same rating system). I equally love your fiction TBR list: I can particularly recommend the Lee (but then you knew that!), the Miller and the Boyd, whilst the Classics list is just that - classic!

 

Happy reading, and look forward to  your reviews!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello Lauren! Welcome to the best book forum around :D

 

i have a few of the books on your TBR pile in mine too. Happy reading.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ahhh, we do our poor best..... :P

 

Welcome, and btw, great lists!

Thank you pontalba :D

 

 

 

Love those lists - there are some fabulous books on them.  You include at least three of my favourite writers in your non-fiction list: Claire Tomalin, Simon Schama and Peter Ackroyd.  I can also thoroughly recommend the biographies by Jenny Uglow - her most recent, The Pinecone is one of my 6 star books (but then, Schama, Tomalin and Ackroyd have all scored 6 stars as well - we both use the same rating system). I equally love your fiction TBR list: I can particularly recommend the Lee (but then you knew that!), the Miller and the Boyd, whilst the Classics list is just that - classic!

 

Happy reading, and look forward to  your reviews!

Hi willoyd,

 

I have heard of Jenny Uglow, I think she has done a book on Charles II that I was interested in too, so I'll take a look and add her to my wishlist

 

I am saving my Schama and Ackroyd for when I feel I can give them my full concentration as they are both big books! I love Claire Tomalin too, I've read her biographies of Samuel Pepys, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens and each one was amazing :readingtwo:

 

Hello Lauren! Welcome to the best book forum around :D

 

i have a few of the books on your TBR pile in mine too. Happy reading.

Hi Devi,

 

Thanks for the welcome! :smile:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have heard of Jenny Uglow, I think she has done a book on Charles II that I was interested in too, so I'll take a look and add her to my wishlist

Yes - it's a study of the first decade of the Restoration. (I was given a hardback copy for my last birthday, but have yet to read it).

Aside from The Pinecone, I can thoroughly recommend her biogs of Hogarth and Thomas Bewick, the engraver, and her collective biog of members of the Lunar Club who were amongst the great instigators of the Industrial Revolution - The Lunar MenShe's written a couple of others I want to read at some stage on Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot.  (Later edit - but I see you've already added these to your wishlist - that was fast!).

 

If you like Claire Tomalin (I think she's brilliant!) you may also like some of Lisa Jardine's books.  She's done two excellent biographies on Robert Hooke and Sir Christopher Wren (and I love her other books too, including her essays from Radio Four's A Point of View.

 

Sorry - I'm in danger of already loading up your wishlist, but you've touched on one of my favourite areas of reading!

Edited by willoyd
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Lauren,

 

I have a lot of the classics on your list languishing somewhere on my TBR also - desperately trying to get through more of them! :) lots of books you have are unfamiliar though, so I will be watching with interest hoping you've uncovered some gems.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice to see another new member getting straight down to business with a brand new reading log! :)

 

I’ve never recorded how many books I read before, so it’ll be really interesting to see how many I actually get through.

 

It'll be really interesting :) I hope you have a great reading year :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Review: The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

 

 

Synopsis (from back cover)

 

1464. Cousin is at war with cousin, as the houses of York and Lancaster tear themselves apart…


…And Elizabeth Woodville, a young Lancastrian widow, armed only with her beauty and her steely determination, seduces and marries the charismatic warrior kind, Edward IV of York.


Crowned Queen of England, surrounded by conflict, betrayal and murder, Elizabeth rises to the demands of her position, fighting tenaciously for her family’s survival. Most of all she must defend her two sons, who become the central figures in a mystery that has confounded historians for centuries: the missing Princes in the Tower.


Review

 

I have always enjoyed Philippa Gregory’s historical novels, and I was expecting The White Queen to live up to what I’ve read before. Like many people, I saw that the book is becoming a BBC drama, so I was keen to read it before the TV programme aired.

 

Gregory moves away from the Tudor period this time and choses the War of the Roses as the setting – a period that I have to admit I’m not that familiar with (although being from Leicester, Richard III is someone I’ve heard a lot about recently :smile: ).


Overall, I really enjoyed this novel and I will definitely be reading the others in the series. It also inspired me to read more about this period in history, as it genuinely is fascinating and anyone who enjoys Game of Thrones will notice marked similarities – York and Lancaster/Stark and Lannister, need I say more?! I warmed to Elizabeth Woodville as a character and I think that’s because Gregory is not afraid to show us her flaws. She is ambitious, sometimes to the detriment of those she loves and she condemns others for qualities she herself shares, but I couldn’t help but like her fighting spirit and her bravery in some truly terrifying situations.


The character that really made an impression on me however, was Elizabeth’s mother Jacquetta. She is a really likeable and intriguing character and I’m looking forward to reading the Lady of the Rivers (the third book in the series), where she takes centre stage.


If you’re looking for spot on historical accuracy, then you might not be too pleased with some of Gregory’s plotlines. She weaves a strong magical element through the book and while I liked it, I can see how it might put others off. She also has a very interesting take on the Princes in the Tower’s fate that would be very exciting if it were true!


There were some things I disliked about the book. I find the way characters speak in Gregory’s books quite contrived sometimes; they often repeat certain phrases and refer to other characters by their full title - e.g. George, Duke of Clarence – which I don’t think is particularly realistic. I also found the jumps in time which occur throughout meant that it was hard to get a clear picture of Elizabeth and Edward IV’s marriage. We’re told they are very much in love, but it isn’t really demonstrated and I felt quite distant as a reader from them together.

 

I give this book a strong 4 out of 6: I enjoyed it, it inspired me to find out more about the period and the characterisation was excellent

Edited by bookworm87
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice to see another new member getting straight down to business with a brand new reading log! :)

 

 

It'll be really interesting :) I hope you have a great reading year :)

Thank you Frankie! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Review: Moranthology by Caitlin Moran

 

Synoposis (from amazon.co.uk)

 

Possibly the only drawback about the bestselling How To Be A Woman was that its author, Caitlin Moran, was limited to pretty much one subject: being a woman.


In MORANTHOLOGY Caitlin 'gets quite chatty' about many subjects, including cultural, social and political issues which are usually left to hot-shot wonks and not a woman who sometimes keeps a falafel in her handbag.


Review

 

Caitlin Moran writes columns for The Times newspaper as well as the book How To Be a Woman, which I really enjoyed when I read it last year.

 

She’s a very skilled writer who writes both movingly and humorously on every subject under the sun, so this collection of her articles was ideal for a quick, enjoyable read in between more serious novels.


Whilst I liked the collection overall, I thought it could have been longer and a bit better structured. For example, all the interviews she does could have been put together rather than scattered randomly throughout.


Some of the pieces in here are brilliant, especially her reviews of the BBC TV programme Sherlock, where she talks so passionately about it that it makes you want to run out and buy the box set!


I give this collection another 4/6!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Review: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

 

Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk)


When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else's life.


 

Review


As I read this for the July Reading Circle, I’m not going to do a full review. However, I will say that after I finished this book I felt very disappointed and I struggled to explain why. As I was reading, I knew I was meant to be finding the story moving/life affirming etc., but the reality is that I didn’t. For whatever reason, I couldn’t connect with the characters and I found the whole thing quite predictable and even boring at points. I have a feeling I’ll be in the minority on this one, as it has rave reviews elsewhere, but hey – sometimes a book just leaves you cold and this was one of those books for me.


 

That’s not to say there weren’t any positives at all, but I give this book 2/6 – it’s not one that I’ll be reading again in a hurry.

Edited by bookworm87
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh no, that doesn't bode well. :hide:  The synopsis sounds interesting, so I hope I enjoy it more than you have. :o

 

I hope you do too! I don't think it helped that I was reading it with a raging cold, so I was in a bad mood to start with :doh:

 

I'm quite glad I didn't love it, because sometimes it adds a bit of extra interest to talk about a book you don't like rather than one you do, so I'm really looking forward to the reading circle and finding out what others thought of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...