Jump to content

Athena's Reading List 2014


Athena

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 1.2k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Well, I'm glad you are chatty with us, Gaia.  I enjoy reading your posts and stats.  I think you are quite remarkable!  :friends3:

x

Thank you :friends3:!

Your book lists are amazing, Athena! We have quite a lot of books in common, so I look forward to reading your thoughts on them. I noticed that you've read 9 books already. At this rate, you'll be reading 360+ books this year!! I think you will easily beat your goal. :D Happy reading! And happy anniversary!!

x

Thank you!! It's great to hear we have many books in common. I won't keep up this pace since there are bigger books as well that I want to read, but yes maybe I'll beat my goal, it'd be great to do so :).

x

:I-Agree:  Happy 1 year anniversary Athena  :alc:

x

Thank you, Kidsmum :)!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gaia!! :o  I was just thinking 'I don't remember reading anything from Gaia recently, how strange' . . . then I realised I'd forgotten to follow your new thread!  :o  :giggle:

 

Your lists and stats are amazing (as always), I loved your list of favourite authors (I'm hoping to read Peter V Brett's Demon Cycle this year), and you are organised beyond belief. I love your dedication to your reading. :D

 

Happy first anniversary at BCF! :party:  And . . . belated happy new year, and happy reading in 2014. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gaia!! :o  I was just thinking 'I don't remember reading anything from Gaia recently, how strange' . . . then I realised I'd forgotten to follow your new thread!  :o  :giggle:

 

Your lists and stats are amazing (as always), I loved your list of favourite authors (I'm hoping to read Peter V Brett's Demon Cycle this year), and you are organised beyond belief. I love your dedication to your reading. :D

 

Happy first anniversary at BCF! :party:  And . . . belated happy new year, and happy reading in 2014. :D

x

I'm glad you have done so now. Thanks so much for your comments :)! I hope you like Peter V. Brett's books. Thank you Laura, I hope it'll be a great year for you too!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson - Wheel of Time 14: A Memory of Light

 

17339108.jpg

 

Genre: Fantasy

Format: Paperback

Pages: 1007

Synopsis: (no synopsis, last book in a series)

 

My thoughts: I've been looking forward to this book for so long that I pre-ordered it and started it pretty much just after I received it.

 

I love the Wheel of Time series and so I was really excited to see how it would end. On the other hand I would be sad to see it all finished, but I'm also looking forward to be able to start a new series.

 

This book was epic. It took me a little bit of time to get into it, since it had been a while since I read the previous book in the series. As the story went on though it all came back to me. I didn't want to stop reading the book! However, since it's quite big (just over 1000 pages), I couldn't finish it any time soon. It doesn't happen that often, that a book pulls me in that much.

 

It was a tense book, in the sense that I wanted to keep on reading and find out what would happen. It even made me feel a bit tense, I was so involved with the characters that I was worried what would happen, if that makes sense. I have this now and then, I don't always like the feeling but it means something's touched me in a way. I have it sometimes with films or TV series as well, or video games (when I still played quite a few of them).

 

There was a lot of battling going on, considering it's the last book this made sense, but every once in a while all the formations and battle information dazzled me a bit, particularly when I was tired in the beginning. After a while though I really wanted to find out what would happen and this didn't bother me any more, I just wanted more of it and was rooting for the Light side (the 'good' side if you will) and the characters.

 

The book managed to surprise me. I was expecting certain things to happen, but instead there were many plot twists I didn't see coming.

 

The book has many important characters, some are main characters but even the side characters play an important role. It's certainly not a book to read when you're very tired, and I don't recommend starting the series with the last book, you should definitely start at the beginning if you're interested even if the first book isn't perhaps as engrossing as the last one. I quite liked a lot of the characters.

 

One of my favourite aspects of the series is the 'magic' in it and the way it works. I love reading about it and the characters that use it. I love reading in particular about the battles where there's 'magic' involved. But also the sword play and other types of battle are very interesting to read about.

 

Each chapter has a little illustration before it and all have the same illustration at the end of the chapter. The book contains two maps, one of the world and one detailed one of a specific place. I love the font and style and also the cover.

 

This book was epic. I can ramble on here about how much I loved it but I think you get the point. The Wheel of Time is one of my favourite fantasy series, and for good reason. I love the detailed description of things such as clothing and people, though I wouldn't want it in all the books I read. I can imagine that this is what puts some people off, personally I love it in this series, it makes things come more alive for me (so to speak).

 

I'm still a bit stunned as for the book, it was just so epic. Overall I really liked this book. I like all the books in the series though I like some more than others. In the middle there were a couple of books I didn't enjoy as much as the rest of them. This one I really enjoyed and is a great conclusion to the series.

 

Rating: ***** (10/10)

Edited by Athena
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Holly Smale - Geek Girl 1: Geek Girl

13621089.jpg

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Young-Adult
Format: Paperback
Pages: 378
Synopsis (back of the book):Harriet Manners knows a lot of things.

- Cats have 32 muscles in each ear
- Bluebirds can't see the colour blue
- The average person laughs 15 times per day
- Peanuts are an ingredient of dynamite

But she doesn't know why nobody at school seems to like her. So when she's offered the chance to reinvent herself, Harriet grabs it. Can she trransform from geek to chic?


My thoughts: I recently bought this book and wanted to read it pretty soon. I chose to start an 'easier' book while I was reading Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson - Wheel of Time 14: A Memory of Light.

This book has a similar font to Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time which I loved so this evoked memories of that. Other than the font though and a few similarities between the main characters, the stories are very different.

I quite liked this book. I loved Harriet's character, in particular her geeky facts and the way her mind works. The other characters were good too, though. This is a book for young-adults, and after reading the 'adult' Wheel of Time book, I can certainly see the difference. The book is written in an easier way, it reads easily. Sometimes I felt a bit more depth would have been nice (but then, I do prefer adult books over young-adult). The story was quite nice, though it reminded me of a story I once read when I was a teenager. It was also a young-adult book but I don't remember the title or the author. That book was about a girl who wanted to be a model (so unlike Harriet in this book) and then found out how the modelling world works. This is why some things in this book didn't come as a surprise for me, I was expecting some of them to happen (though perhaps not in the way that they did). There were other plot twists though that I didn't see coming at all.

Overall I quite enjoyed reading this book, particularly the more geeky parts of it. I'm a geek too, though in a different way. I could identify with Harriet. I'm glad I read the book. It's part one of a series though the story has a ending which is good in my opinion. I'd like to read the other two books in the series (when out in paperback etc.), because I liked this book a lot.

Rating: **** (8/10)
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, I love your review of Wheel of Time #14! :) I really must give this series a go at some point. The first book has been on my wishlist for what seems like forever.

 

I quite like the sound of Geek Girl, too (nothing wrong with being geeky! :D ). I really enjoyed the Curious Incident, especially how it was written from the point of view of someone who might be considered 'different' and gave a bit of insight into how he saw the world. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, I love your review of Wheel of Time #14! :) I really must give this series a go at some point. The first book has been on my wishlist for what seems like forever.

 

I quite like the sound of Geek Girl, too (nothing wrong with being geeky! :D ). I really enjoyed the Curious Incident, especially how it was written from the point of view of someone who might be considered 'different' and gave a bit of insight into how he saw the world. :)

x

Thanks :)! I hope you enjoy it if/when you get it. I loved Curious Incident too, I think this one isn't quite as different as that one but it's still pretty good :).

x

I had a count the other night and found I have over 80 samples to look though. Eep. :hide:

x

Oh whoops! I hope you can find some you like though :).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sara Nelson - So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading

 

106952.jpg

 

Genre: Biography

Format: Paperback

Pages: 242

Publishing year: 2004

Synopsis (GoodReads):Sometimes subtle, sometimes striking, the interplay between our lives and our books is the subject of this unique memoir by well-known publishing correspondent and self-described "readaholic" Sara Nelson. From Solzhenitsyn to Laura Zigman, Catherine M. to Captain Underpants, the result is a personal chronicle of insight, wit, and enough infectious enthusiasm to make a passionate reader out of anybody.

 

My thoughts: I bought this book a while ago, it seemed like a nice book to read (about books) and the cover appealed to me. It was the last biography that involved books that I've got to read so it was on top of the pile of 'books about books'. I felt like reading something different from the fiction books I'd been reading lately.

 

I didn't know anything about Sara Nelson before I started reading this book. Sara's original aim is to read one book a week but quickly she deviates from this. She doesn't mention all the books she read (though there is a list at the end), sometimes she just talks about some of the aspects of reading. I particularly enjoyed reading about these aspects.

 

I did enjoy reading the parts about the books too, but other than one I hadn't read any of them, though a few I'd heard of or knew the story of. What I liked less was that for a few books, she spoiled the story a bit. While they're by no means new books at all, and the spoilers didn't affect me, I do think it would've been better if she'd written about it differently, ie. the thing that happens near the end saddened me, rather than what happens, for example. Despite that I didn't recognise a lot of the books, the author wrote about them in an interesting, engaging way so I did enjoy reading about the books she read.

 

I enjoyed reading about the author's life. She has a husband and son, and also talks about her family. Her husband is part Japanese, she's a jew living in America. Her husband isn't very much into reading. It was great to read about her life in that year.

 

Overall the book is well written and I enjoyed reading it.

 

Rating: **** (8/10)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I bought some books :blush2:. I did try and was selective about them, I put some back too (I hope that counts for something!)

 

From the local charity shop:

 

Saskia Noort - Afgunst

Charles den Tex - Onmacht

Karin Slaughter - Onbegrepen (Martin Misunderstood)

Harry Mulisch - Twee Vrouwen

Herbjørg Wassmo - Tora Trilogie 1: Het huis met de Blinde Serre (Huset med den Blinde Glassveranda)

Joanna Trollope - The Other Family

Doris Wild Helmering and Dianne Hales - Slank Denken, Slank Leven: 101 Steuntjes in de Rug (Think Thin, Be Thin)

Tiny Fisscher - Omnibus Dagboek Van Een Model - Ontdekt!, Beroemd

 

I can't believe all the above books cost me €3,70! To be honest, the first five were in a basket with one for 30 cents, five for a euro. So I picked five and not three or seven. The first five are all short books (most of them out of print, given to people when it's National Book Week, when they buy a book in that week), I was thinking of reading some for the read-a-thon.

 

Then in a bookshop:

 

Terry Pratchett - A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

 

I love everything Terry Pratchett and somehow this book passed me by, it wasn't even on my wishlist (which I should really sort out some time when I have the energy).

 

I've read 12 books this year so far, I've been reading a lot and while most of the books weren't that big I did read one 1000+ page book so I'm a bit proud of myself so far, that's a lot of books.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Congrats on reading 12 books already this year! And it's still only January. :giggle2:

 

You always say you'd like to write your own book: a 'book about books' like Sarah Nelson's sounds like the perfect sort of thing for you to write! (when you have the energy). It would be just like the sort of things you write on here, only you'd get to call it a book! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You always say you'd like to write your own book: a 'book about books' like Sarah Nelson's sounds like the perfect sort of thing for you to write! (when you have the energy). It would be just like the sort of things you write on here, only you'd get to call it a book! :)

x

That's totally true! I'm just not sure if anyone would read it :blush2:. It's certainly a thought, though! I was planning on writing a book about my autism but writing a book about books sounds good too.. Perhaps releasing them as free ebooks? I'm just not sure though who'd read my writing :blush2:.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

x

That's totally true! I'm just not sure if anyone would read it :blush2:. It's certainly a thought, though! I was planning on writing a book about my autism but writing a book about books sounds good too.. Perhaps releasing them as free ebooks? I'm just not sure though who'd read my writing :blush2:.

 

You could write about either, or even both - maybe about how your autism affects your reading (for instance, how it can sometimes disrupt your concentration, or affect how quickly you read a book and how much you enjoy it, and you could always write about the way you keep track of your reading statistics in such detail and how it helps you).

 

I think you'd probably be pleasantly surprised how many people would read it (especially if it was free!). :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You could write about either, or even both - maybe about how your autism affects your reading (for instance, how it can sometimes disrupt your concentration, or affect how quickly you read a book and how much you enjoy it, and you could always write about the way you keep track of your reading statistics in such detail and how it helps you).

 

I think you'd probably be pleasantly surprised how many people would read it (especially if it was free!). :)

 

 

^^^^^Great idea!^^^^^ 

 

Charge  .99 cents U.S.  or whatever the comparable Euro rate is.  :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You could write about either, or even both - maybe about how your autism affects your reading (for instance, how it can sometimes disrupt your concentration, or affect how quickly you read a book and how much you enjoy it, and you could always write about the way you keep track of your reading statistics in such detail and how it helps you).

 

I think you'd probably be pleasantly surprised how many people would read it (especially if it was free!). :)

x

Thanks so much for your suggestions :)! I'm going to write them down for when I need inspiration.

x

Congrats ! And a ditto on the book suggestion. :D

x

Thanks :D!

x

Great review of So Many Books So Little Time it sounds really interesting!

x

Thanks :)

^^^^^Great idea!^^^^^ 

 

Charge  .99 cents U.S.  or whatever the comparable Euro rate is.  :D

x

Thank you :D!

x

I agree, i think it would be a fantastic idea!

x

Thanks :)!

 

 

Normally I go through periods where I read a lot and periods where I don't read so many books. I'm kind of dreading that my mojo might disappear any moment but we'll have to wait and see :hide:.

 

I have a program that is handy for writers, so I'll try and make a little layout of the book and see what I can come up with, brainstorming I guess you'd call it perhaps?

Edited by Athena
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sophie Kinsella - The Undomestic Goddess

 

122043.jpg

 

Genre: Chick-lit

Format: Paperback

Pages: 416

Synopsis (GoodReads):Workaholic attorney Samantha Sweeting has just done the unthinkable. She's made a mistake so huge, it'll wreck any chance of a partnership.

Going into utter meltdown, she walks out of her London office, gets on a train, and ends up, in the middle of nowhere. Asking for directions at a big, beautiful house, she's mistaken for an interviewee and finds herself being offered a job as housekeeper. Her employers have no idea they've hired a lawyer; and Samantha has no idea how to work the oven. She can't sew on a button, bake a potato, or get the #@%# ironing board to open. How she takes a deep breath and begins to cope - and finds love - is a story as delicious as the bread she learns to bake.

But will her old life ever catch up with her? And if it does - will she want it back?

 

My thoughts: I love Sophie Kinsella's writing so I thought I'd read another one of hers.

 

This book was a great read. Like the other Sophie Kinsella books I've read, it reminds me a bit of a funny (romantic) comedy. The book reads easily and the writing is good.

 

I particularly enjoyed seeing how Samantha eventually comes to grips with the housework, it was very comedic to see what happened while she wasn't much capable of it yet. I recognised some things from myself, there are things I wouldn't know how to do either.

 

Some of the plot was a bit predictable, other plot twists less so (those were pretty good plot twists!). I don't mind that though, it's easier on my brain and sometimes it's just nice to read something a little less 'complicated' or full of input. There are definitely underlying issues discussed though (ie. things related to identity, jobs, happiness, workaholism), I don't want to say it has no depth. In my opinion it does. It is a light read, it's not literary, but it's very much enjoyable.

 

I didn't enjoy this one as much as I did Twenties Girl (rating 10/10) or the Shopaholic series (all rated 10/10), but I enjoyed it more than Can You Keep a Secret? (8/10). Overall I quite enjoyed reading this book.

 

Rating: ***** (9/10)

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...