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Your Book Activity - December 2014


Athena

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Did you enjoy it?

 

I'm about 50% through Picture Perfect by Jodi Picoult. It's good, up to her usual standards.

 

That's great to hear! It was going to one of my next reads by her, I hope you enjoy it all the way :)!

 

Started reading 'Christmas at the Cupcake Cafe' by Jenny Colgan...nice easy read...just what I need.

 

This is good to hear, I was planning on reading it before Christmas, if I have enough time after I finish some other reads. I hope you like the whole book :).

 

Just bought book 2 and 3 of Ken Follett's Century Trilogy, Winter of the World and Edge of Eternity (I already own Fall of Giants).  I also picked up a Kindle Single story by Helen Childress called Old Girls in Low Cotton and a 51 page interview with American Historian Ken Burns. Somehow, a 5,000 word science fiction piece from Wool author Hugh Howey called Glitch and another Single by him, called The Walk Up Nameless Ridge ended up downloaded as well  :giggle2:   My Christmas presents early :grinhat:

I hope you enjoy your new books :grinhat:!

 

I started to read Catherine Ryan Hyde - Becoming Chloe. I've only read a few pages so far but it's interesting. It's way too early to tell where the story is going though, I'm only on page 12 or such. I don't know how much reading I'll do today, but if I don't finish it before the read-a-thon (which starts tomorrow), I'll just continue it on Monday or during the read-a-thon.

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No book reading yesterday.  However in going through an old and crummy box of "junk" I found 80-odd carbon copies of letters my Grandmother wrote to my Father when he went away to school.  Insightful.  Haven't read but a quarter of them, so far, but interesting.  Her handwriting was.....lets say not terribly decipherable, but she bought a typewriter and made the copies.  Phew! :)

 

Which brings to mind my Grandfather on my Mother's side...he was the only one that could read one of his sister's handwriting.  As the sibs were very far flung in the world, there was lots of correspondence.  This particular sister had to type her letters as her handwriting was so awful.  When her typewriter broke down (and they were in Cyprus, so repairs were sketchy) everyone sent her letters to my Grandfather to be deciphered.  Then he'd send them back to the respective sib.  :D  I wish I had those letters! /sigh/

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No book reading yesterday.  However in going through an old and crummy box of "junk" I found 80-odd carbon copies of letters my Grandmother wrote to my Father when he went away to school.  Insightful.  Haven't read but a quarter of them, so far, but interesting.  Her handwriting was.....lets say not terribly decipherable, but she bought a typewriter and made the copies.  Phew! :)

 

Which brings to mind my Grandfather on my Mother's side...he was the only one that could read one of his sister's handwriting.  As the sibs were very far flung in the world, there was lots of correspondence.  This particular sister had to type her letters as her handwriting was so awful.  When her typewriter broke down (and they were in Cyprus, so repairs were sketchy) everyone sent her letters to my Grandfather to be deciphered.  Then he'd send them back to the respective sib.  :D  I wish I had those letters! /sigh/

Awww, those letters sound really nice! Some handwriting can be really hard to read, it's pretty amazing your grandfather was so good at it :).

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No book reading yesterday.  However in going through an old and crummy box of "junk" I found 80-odd carbon copies of letters my Grandmother wrote to my Father when he went away to school.  Insightful.  Haven't read but a quarter of them, so far, but interesting.  Her handwriting was.....lets say not terribly decipherable, but she bought a typewriter and made the copies.  Phew! :)

 

Which brings to mind my Grandfather on my Mother's side...he was the only one that could read one of his sister's handwriting.  As the sibs were very far flung in the world, there was lots of correspondence.  This particular sister had to type her letters as her handwriting was so awful.  When her typewriter broke down (and they were in Cyprus, so repairs were sketchy) everyone sent her letters to my Grandfather to be deciphered.  Then he'd send them back to the respective sib.  :D  I wish I had those letters! /sigh/

That sounds AM-AZING!  I'd love to have found something like that!  I didn't read yesterday either :o

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243pgs into The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman - an extremely moving story. Even though I'm yet to complete the book I already know I want to see the film when it is complete...I really want to see how it translates from book to film.

 

I'm finding Stuart MacBride's Broken Skin a bit of a chore at the moment. The third installment of DS Logan McRae isn't as smooth as the previous books; tends to get bogged down a little more often than is comfortable for reading.

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243pgs into The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman - an extremely moving story. Even though I'm yet to complete the book I already know I want to see the film when it is complete...I really want to see how it translates from book to film.

This book is on my TBR, I'm glad you're enjoying it so far :).

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That sounds AM-AZING!  I'd love to have found something like that!  I didn't read yesterday either :o

 

It is fascinating.  Below that layer of letters, I found letters dating back to the American Civil War, Now, if only I can decipher the handwriting! :) 

 

I've started When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro.  I'd bought it years ago, a hardback...started, gave it to a friend as I didn't like it.  :roll:  Now I'm reading a paperback copy I found cheap, and after a few pages, I think I like it. hah

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Did you enjoy it?

 

I'm about 50% through Picture Perfect by Jodi Picoult. It's good, up to her usual standards.

Yes, I did enjoy The Revival by Stephen King but it is a very dark book. I finished it while in bed at night and had a hard time going to sleep after reading the last part of the book. :)

 

Tonight I finished A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway. I give it a 5/5 rating. this was my first reading of A Farewell To Arms and the book was different than I thought it would be. Geez, Hemingway was a great author.. My favorite of his though is still The Old Man and The Sea.

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I've finished When We were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro, and loved it!  Review over on my book thread. 

 

Not sure what is next.  I'll decide in the morning, it's just past Midnight here. :)

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It is fascinating.  Below that layer of letters, I found letters dating back to the American Civil War, Now, if only I can decipher the handwriting! :)

 

Wow, that's quite a historical find!

 

Not much reading done for me lately—busy with work and stuff. :(

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Having made the decision to do a rewrite or at least reappraisal of the book that I published and wrote 8 years ago, I am having an extended break from the usual reading and finishing off the year with one mammoth book - Forbidden Archaeology by Michael Cremo and Richard E Thompson.

 

The first chapter of my own book is on human evolution, s subject that I studied for a year with a professor of archaeology and so only really scratched the surface. Of course since the book was first published a lot of other finds (at least three previously unidentified hominids) have since come to light, which I need to acquaint myself with. This past weekend has then been spent in doing this, looking at various sources of information both on and offline. The Cremo/Thompson book is about those anomalous finds that do not fit into the accepted paradigm and so have for the most part been ignored - a bit like the inscribed shell that has hit the news this past week, indicating that Homo Erectus was a bit of an artist.

 

It is all interesting stuff that will no doubt keep me busy for some time !

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Just over 200 pages into Possession by AS Byatt.  Took a bit of getting into - a lot of literary discussion that flowed straight over the top of my head, but starting to gather momentum. 

 

Some book buying:

The first six Morse books, 99p each in the Kindle sale

Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

The Flemish House by Georges Simenon

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

 

Have been having fun browsing the newspapers' books of the year reviews; they all seem to come out around now.  Quite a few books mostly non-fiction, added to my wish lists (and Christmas present list)!

 

Had a good discussion in our book group on this month's book, Sense and Sensibility. It wasn't my choice, but I was the only one who raved about it (but then it's one of my top three or four books). Others very luke warm, barely tepid in one or two cases. Mostly an issue with 'being too wordy'. Austen, too wordy??!! Left me almost speechless!

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Finished The Light Between Oceans, and highly recommend the read. A beautiful tale of the dilemma of morality that stems from a life changing loss.

 

Started a re-read of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five to refresh my memory in an effort to win an argument lol.

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There are a lot of interesting titles in the list..I never read Catch 22 because it scared me, it will be a great chance to read books I always avoid.

 

I love love love Catch-22! It's very funny, but darkly so. I really hope you enjoy it.

 

With Christmas coming soon, and inspired by Emelee's Agatha Christie thread, I started reading Hercule Poirot's Christmas today.

 

I also read Quentin Blake's The Life of Birds today. I'm not sure if 'read' is the right word, because there are about 4 pages of text and the rest is illustrations. It was lovely though. :)

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I finished Picture Perfect by Jodi Picoult. I enjoyed the first half, but the second half was a bit difficult. They almost read like two different books.

Awww that's a shame :(.

 

Some book buying:

The first six Morse books, 99p each in the Kindle sale

Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

The Flemish House by Georges Simenon

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

 

I hope you enjoy your new books :)!

 

Finished The Light Between Oceans, and highly recommend the read. A beautiful tale of the dilemma of morality that stems from a life changing loss.

 

Started a re-read of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five to refresh my memory in an effort to win an argument lol.

I'm glad you liked The Light Between the Oceans, I bought it because it was quite cheap at the time but I hadn't actually had a recommendation of the book yet when I bought it, from someone I know.

 

I have Slaughterhouse-Five on my TBR (Kindle), I don't know much about it though, again I bought it a few years ago because it was cheap and it was famous :blush2:.

  

With Christmas coming soon, and inspired by Emelee's Agatha Christie thread, I started reading Hercule Poirot's Christmas today.

I hope you enjoy it :)!

 

I'm currently not reading any book, but in the near future I plan to read books 2 and 3 in the The Tales of Dunk and Egg series in Dutch which I borrowed from the library (though I wasn't a big fan of the first book which I finished earlier today, review to be posted soon), as well as quite a few Christmas themed books (paperbooks) and - short stories (Kindle).

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I've read several of the short stories in The Polish Boxer by Eduardo Halfon.  When I started, I wasn't aware it was a book of short stories, but the narrator, interestingly enough, is named Eduardo Halfon.  So, a common narrator of all stories.  I'm loving it. :D

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I'm a few chapters into The Glass Magician by Charlie M. Holmberg. It's the sequel to The Paper Magician. I was a bit worried at the beginning of the first book that it was just going to be a Potter re-hash, but it really does seem to have found its own way. Again, it seems to be another quick, enjoyable read.

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I am continuing on with reading Kindle Singles and individual Short stories, instead of going back to John Grisham's A Time to Kill and Dostoyevsky's House of the Dead.  I feel these two books I can pick up and put down, as the parts I am at are seared into my brain.  :blink:  So, right now, reading the Jack Reacher "novella" High Heat, originally published in Never Go Back (Jack Reacher #18).

 

I'm a few chapters into The Glass Magician by Charlie M. Holmberg. It's the sequel to The Paper Magician. I was a bit worried at the beginning of the first book that it was just going to be a Potter re-hash, but it really does seem to have found its own way. Again, it seems to be another quick, enjoyable read.

I'm glad you enjoyed The Paper Magician enough to pick up the sequel!

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