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Athena's Reading List 2015


Athena

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Ken Follett - The Pillars of the Earth 1: The Pillars of the Earth

 

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The book consists of six parts, with each an illustration of how far the church is built. I liked these illustrations. The story takes place over a large time-span, and the parts show the years that part takes place in. Each part consists of chapters, which consist of shorter pieces denoted with (i), (ii), ... I wish there was a table of contents at the beginning, listing where each part begins and the years it spans.

 

Totally different cover than mine!  Mine didn't have illustrations either :(  And I agree, a Table of Contents would have made me happy indeed!

 

Liked your Sanderson reviews- I can live vicariously through you :giggle2:

 

Welcome back!  :flowers2:

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Horrible Histories is awesome. :D Hope you had a lovely birthday! Where abouts in the UK were you? :)

 

I think so too :D. But I've only ever read the Dutch ones. These are original English ones and I don't think these ones I bought were translated, because they're about specific time periods in Britain. But I read the Dutch ones of the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Middle Ages etc.

 

Thanks! My birthday isn't until the 25th of October, so not the upcoming Sunday but the Sunday after that (so in a week and a half). I look forward to it :).

 

I was in the south of London, where my boyfriend's family used to live. We visited the centre of London too, and we explored the area in the neighbourhood of where we stayed, in Mitcham and bits of Croydon.

 

Welcome back Gaia.  :D

 

Thanks Sarah :D.

 

Totally different cover than mine!  Mine didn't have illustrations either :(  And I agree, a Table of Contents would have made me happy indeed!

 

Liked your Sanderson reviews- I can live vicariously through you :giggle2:

 

Welcome back!  :flowers2:

Which cover did you have? Awww that's a shame :(. My copy of World Without End has some illustrations too, on the first and last page, of the town and the priory. Yes, I thought the missing Table of Contents was a 'missed' opportunity. WWE doesn't have one, either.

 

Thanks :giggle2:!

 

Thanks :friends0:.

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Gaia, I've read Pillars of the Earth, twice. :)  I loved it too!  Love your review, makes me want to re-re-read it.  :D  I haven't read the sequel, and look forward to your review of it. 

 

Fantastic comparative lists above, very interesting.  Also love the pics....great bookmarks, too. 

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I think so too :D. But I've only ever read the Dutch ones. These are original English ones and I don't think these ones I bought were translated, because they're about specific time periods in Britain. But I read the Dutch ones of the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Middle Ages etc.

 

Thanks! My birthday isn't until the 25th of October, so not the upcoming Sunday but the Sunday after that (so in a week and a half). I look forward to it :).

 

You should check out the TV series on Youtube - me and my sister both LOVE it. :D

 

Do you have any plans for your birthday? :)

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Gaia, I've read Pillars of the Earth, twice. :)  I loved it too!  Love your review, makes me want to re-re-read it.  :D  I haven't read the sequel, and look forward to your review of it. 

 

Fantastic comparative lists above, very interesting.  Also love the pics....great bookmarks, too.

I'm glad to hear you liked it so much :)! So far I like the sequel though I don't know if I'll like it as much as Pillars when it's all finished. But it's good so far :).

 

Thank you :)!! 

 

I need to re-read The Pillars of the Earth. It's been a few years since I have read it.

 

It takes a while to read, but it's a very good book, I'm glad you liked it :).

 

You should check out the TV series on Youtube - me and my sister both LOVE it. :D

 

Do you have any plans for your birthday? :)

I shall look it up. I think I saw the World Without End series for sale in a shop once, but I wanted to read the books first. I'm glad to hear you like the TV series :).

 

Yes, I plan to have a nice birthday dinner on Saturday evening (gourmet), then on Sunday everyone's visiting (since that's my actual birthday). I'll prepare a nice lunch for Sunday afternoon and we'll bake a birthday cake (we bought the flour for it in the UK :D as you have nicer cake mixes :giggle2:). On Sunday evening I believe a couple of people are staying for dinner. I'm having my birthday dinner on Saturday as it's hard for me to have dinner with many people, so I prefer to have it on Saturday instead, when it's just the four of us (my parents, Michael and me). I will spend some time with the visitors (my family), but I can't spend all of the time with them. So during Sunday I'll spend some time with the visitors but I'll also spend some time in the bakery (with Michael). Normally I greet the visitors as they arrive, spend some time with them, then go back to the bakery for a bit until either new visitors arrive, old ones leave or until it's time for lunch, dinner or cake. My family is totally used to it, they spend time in the main house with my parents and everyone else, they understand. I'm not sure how things'll go once I move out of these premises, then things will become a bit trickier.

 

Welcome back, Gaia. :) Glad to see you got lots of reading done and bought some lovely new books. :)

Thanks, Kylie :)!

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I went to the charity shop and bought 4 books:

 

Stephen King - Four Past Midnight 1-2: TweeDuister (Four Past Midnight 1-2: Four Past Midnight: The Langoliers, Secret Window, Secret Garden)

Stephen King - Bill Hodges Trilogy 1: Mr. Mercedes (Dutch)

Stephen King - Dromenvanger (Dreamcatcher)

Jennifer Weiner - Lichte Aardschokken (Little Earthquakes)

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I'm glad to see you enjoyed The Pillars of the Earth.  I've been thinking about reading it, but have been a bit hesitate.  From what I know about it people either really love it or really hate it.  Maybe I will be brave this winter and give it a try.

I liked it a lot, but I can imagine it's not everyone's "cup of tea". If the synopsis of the book appeals to you, I'd say it's worth to try the book, especially if you own it already or have the ability to borrow it from someone or from the library. Be warned it does feature some cringy and disturbing sex-scenes, which I skimmed over, but if you think that would really offend you, it might not be the best book to read. Most of the book though isn't about that, and I think the large majority of the book very much makes up for the cringy scenes I didn't like. I really enjoyed the rest of the book, and if you like reading about this time period and setting I think you would enjoy it.

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Ken Follett - The Pillars of the Earth 2: World Without End

 

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Genre: Historical Fiction

Age-range: Adult

Format: Paperback

Pages: 1237

Date read: 12-10-2015 <-> 21-10-2015

ISBN: 9780330456920

Synopsis (back of the book): A war that lasts a hundred years. A plague that ravages a continent. A rivalry that could destroy everything.

 

On the day after Halloween, in the year 1327, four children slip away from the cathedral city of Kingsbridge. In the forest they see two men killed. As adults, their lives become braided together by desire, determination, avarice and retribution. They will see prosperity and famine, plague and war. Yet they will always live under the shadow of the unexplained killing on that fateful childhood day.

 

My thoughts:

 

After reading The Pillars of the Earth 1: The Pillars of the Earth and really enjoying it, I really felt in the mood to continue on with the sequel. The book consists of multiple parts (seven) and spans many years. Each part consists of numbered chapters. There is mention of events and hcaracters from the previous book. The book contains two maps, on the back of the front cover and on the other side of the back cover.

 

I quite enjoyed reading this book, though not as much as the previous book. It's a big, epic story that was very enjoyable to read (for the most part). Like in the previous book, I skimmed the sex scenes. There seemed to be less disturbing ones this time around, but all the same I skimmed what was there. So if you're very much bothered by this sort of thing, you might want to keep it in mind if you're considering reading these books. I'm normally easily bothered by such things but gladly by skimming it I was able to read the book and enjoy the rest of the story.

 

There were some elements I thought were better in the previous book, but there were other elements I liked better in the sequel. In particular I thought (this isn't much of a spoiler as it's mentioned on the back of my book, but I'm putting it in spoiler tags just in case some people don't want to know):

 

 

The plague parts are really interesting. I found this to be one of the most interesting story elements. I've not read any other book that features something like it. I really enjoyed this aspect of the story.

 

 

Around 30% the story dragged a bit, like in the first book, it moved a bit slow and it took a while to read. The whole book took a while to read. The writing style is very similar to the writing style in the first book. There are other elements that are similar too. I quite liked some of the characters, though others I liked less so. In one case I thought they made some un-wise decisions. The situation of the synopsis, where four children witness an event, didn't play as big a role as I thought it would (as the synopsis made it sound). It does play a role, but there's so much more to the story. There are many pages and chapters where the event is not mentioned (there are more where it isn't, than where it is mentioned).

 

There was less construction talk in this book. There is some, focussed on different buildings, but the first book had the cathedral as its main focus, whereas here it was several things. I preferred that aspect of the previous book.

 

I do think I've read too much historical fiction at once. I don't normally read more than several books in a genre, one after the other. Usually I don't read more than a few after each other, at a time (ie. a trilogy). Generally if the series is longer than a trilogy, I read other books in between the books. After a couple of books I'm generally quite ready to read something of a different genre and / or by a different author. It has taken me most of the month to read these two books so as I got further in the book I started to feel quite ready to read something different. It's author and genre burnout I guess. I don't normally read a whole lot of historical fiction compared with some other genres, because it isn't my favourite genre. None of this though is the book's fault, and I think if I had spaced out the two books more I might have enjoyed World Without End more and would feel less burned out. When I started the book though, I was still very much in the mood for it, at first.

 

All in all I enjoyed World Without End less than Pillars of the Earth (the book), but part of that is probably my own burn-out of genre and author rather than the book itself. I'm glad I have the two books finished now, and I can move on to something else. It was all the same quite enjoyable to read the books, they are big epic stories and they are both suspenseful until the last pages.

 

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

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Nice review. I know what you mean about genre/author burn-out. Sometimes it's nice to take a break and shift to something completely different.

 

Reading your review makes me realise that I don't actually remember anything about the book's plot. :doh: I don't think I will re-read it though, as I recall being a bit disappointed by it (compared to the first book).

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Nice review. I know what you mean about genre/author burn-out. Sometimes it's nice to take a break and shift to something completely different.

 

Reading your review makes me realise that I don't actually remember anything about the book's plot. :doh: I don't think I will re-read it though, as I recall being a bit disappointed by it (compared to the first book).

 

Thanks :). Yes, I fully agree!

 

It's a shame you were disappointed by it :(.

 

Aw!  That's too bad!  I wish you had liked it better.  But there aren't too many people, I bet, that can say they read them back to back!  Good job with that!

Thanks, well, I still liked it a lot. I mean a 9 out of 10 is still pretty good :giggle2:. I just didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Pillars, but part of that is probably the genre / author burnout. I'd still say it's definitely a book worth reading. Thank you :)!

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Paul van Loon - De Griezelbus 1 (ill. Camila Fialkowski) (re-read)

 

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Genre: Horror

Age-range: Children

Format: Hardback

Pages: 169

Date read: 22-10-2015

ISBN: 9789066920781

Synopsis (me and bits of the back of the book): A famous author invites a teacher and his class for a special ride in the Griezelbus ('horror bus'). During the ride the author will read horror stories from his new book. For this he also uses some objects he's displayed in the back of the bus. But as the ride progresses, it turns out someone on the bus, or maybe more than one person, has a secret...

 

My thoughts:

 

This is one of my favourite Dutch children's horror books. Since it's October, and it's been some time since I read this book, I wanted to read it again. After reading the epic long series of the English The Pillars of the Earth (historical iction), I was in the mood for a Dutch children's book. I read most of the books in this series (I own most of them). I also played the video game, though I couldn't finish it because of a bug. I haven't yet seen the film, but I do own the DVD.

 

The book has chapters titled 'One', 'Two', .. (in Dutch). The book also has chapters that have the title of one of the 10 short stories that are in the book. The author in the book, P. Onnoval, tells these stories to the class in the bus. The short stories do tie in a bit with the overall story. The book has a few nice illustrations. The book is scary. There is a nice fourth wall breaking / paradoxal element to the story. On occasion the book is funny. The books in this series can be fully read as standalone stories I think, though obviously reading them in order is the obvious way to read them.

 

It was great to re-read this book. A lot of memories came back to me as I read it. I really enjoyed re-reading this book. The whole story is scary, it suits the October / Halloween mood :witch:. Paul van Loon is one of my favourite Dutch horror authors (of children's books) and this is one of his most famous books. I plan to (re-)read the other books in the series that I own, some time. I'd also like to read the ones I don't own, I'll see if I can borrow them from the library some time.

 

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

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Paul van Loon, Eddy C. Bertin, Tais Teng, Ton van Reen, Jaques Weijters, Bies van Ede and Els Rooijers - 30 Verhalen uit De Griezelclub (re-read)

 

(I wasn't able to find a picture of the cover of this book, online)

 

Genre: Horror

Age-range: Children

Format: Paperback

Pages: 185

Date read: 22-10-2015 <-> 23-10-2015

ISBN: 9789066922235

Synopsis (me): 30 Horror stories for children, written by seven Dutch horror authors.

 

My thoughts:

 

This is one of my favourite Dutch (children's) horror books. The book contains thirty horror stories. It would take some time and effort to review them all, so I'm not going to do that right now (especially since some are only a couple of pages long). Instread, I will just give an impression of my overall feelings on the book. The stories are arranged by author, in the order I've mentioned them (it's the same order the book lists the authors in).

 

Some stories by some authors, are part of a 'series' of stories about the same characters. By that I mean, that per author the stories have similarities. Between authors the stories are very different. But for example, one author's stories feature the same witch character. One story had a lot of references to books and authors, I really liked that.

 

A few stories were not particularly great, but I enjoyed most of the stories a lot. The stories are scary and I enjoyed re-reading them. I didn't remember most of the stories, and it was pretty fun to read them again.

 

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

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John Green - An Abundance of Katherines

 

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Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Age-range: Young-Adult

Format: Paperback

Pages: 234 (excluding excerpt)

Date read: 23-10-2015 <-> 26-10-2015

ISBN: 9780141346090

Synopsis (GoodReads): 19 Katherines and counting...

 

When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact.

 

On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun - but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.

 

My thoughts:

 

After reading two Dutch children's horror books, I felt in the mood for something different. Somehow this book grabbed my eye. I was in my room / library and sat down on the floor, to put a book back that I felt wasn't in the right spot (because that annoys me :D). Then my eyes fell upon this book and I remembered my friend Anna really liked this book. So I started to read a few pages and liked them, so I decided to read this book.

 

This was a very enjoyable story. I really liked the characters, in particular Colin, Hassan and Lindsey. The book is filled with nerdy knowledge Colin has, and I really liked this. The book also has lots of footnotes, which are interesting or sometimes funny. The story itself has a lot of humour to it. The book also includes some maths, which really spoke to the beta-side of me. There are some American accents in the book, but gladly I was able to understand the text just fine. I also liked the mention of books, that Colin was reading in the story. I liked the writing style.

 

Overall then you can say I really enjoyed this book. I look forward to read more books by John Green, I have a few more books by him, that I haven't read yet.

 

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

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I went to the library and bought some books in their sale. I also borrowed some books. And I received some books as birthday gifts (a couple more should get here soon). It will take me a few days to recover from my birthday and to catalogue all the books, but I will be posting pictures and lists of it all :):exc:. And there's a book fair coming up too :giggle2:. I have received some money for my birthday from some people so I can use it to buy some books at the book fair :).

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Nice review of the John Green book. I have mixed feelings about his books. Loved Paper Towns but didn't like The Fault In Our Stars. I bought Looking For Alaska a couple of weeks ago because it was on offer, so I shall have to see how I get on with that one.

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Nice review of the John Green book. I have mixed feelings about his books. Loved Paper Towns but didn't like The Fault In Our Stars. I bought Looking For Alaska a couple of weeks ago because it was on offer, so I shall have to see how I get on with that one.

That's pretty interesting, maybe his books are a bit hit-or-miss (I think that's the English expression). I hope you enjoy Looking for Alaska :). I haven't read it yet but it's one of his books I do own. I also haven't yet read Papertowns, I read a few pages and for some reason it hasn't grabbed me yet. But maybe when I'm in a different mood it will grab me, whether I enjoy a book really depends on my mood.

 

 

Thanks Gaia! Just make sure you don't forget next time. :theboss:

 

Just kidding. :giggle2: Yay for new books and birthday times!! :D

Haha, I'll make sure :). In fact I have already taken photos of my birthday books, but I usually wait with posting pictures until I have a list of authors and titles to accompany the photos (and I usually catalogue the books first in Book Collector, and then in GoodReads). It'll be a little while (maybe a few days), because I acquired a lot of books :blush2::giggle2:. Thanks :D!!

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