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Noll's 2015 Book Blog


Nollaig

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Green = read
Yellow = reading or soon to be read
Grey = Rough reading schedule
Red = abandoned
 
Books rated out of five stars, denoted by (x*)
 
January (12)
 
Harry Potter and the Philorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J.K. Rowling
The Misremembered Man - Christina McKenna (4.5*)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
Elizabeth Is Missing - Emma Healey (3.5*)
A Robot in the Garden - Deborah Install (3.5*)
Where the Trains Turn by Pasi Iimari Jaaskelainen (4*)
Attachments - Rainbow Rowell (3*)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling
The Martian - Andy Weir (4.5*)
 
February (11)
 
The Book Of Lost Things - John Connolly (re-read)
Angelfall - Susan Ee (4*)
The Giver - Lois Lowry (5*)
Can Anybody Help Me? - Sinead Crowley (4*)
To Rise Again At A Decent Hour - Joshua Ferris (5*)
The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins (5*)
The Universe Versus Alex Woods - Gavin Extence (3.5*)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
The Humans - Matt Haig (5*)
Bird Box - Josh Malerman (4*)
The Ritual - Adam Nevill (3.5*)
 
March (10)
 
Penpal - Dathan Auerbach (4.5*)
The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes (4*)
The Sky Is Everywhere - Jandy Nelson (2.5*)
Only Ever Yours - Louise O'Neill (4*)
One More Thing - BJ Novak (3.5*)
Yesterday's Gone Season 1 - Sean Platt/David Wright (4*)
Magic 2.0: Off To Be The Wizard  - Scott Meyer (5*)
The Last Days Of Rabbit Hayes - Anna McPartlin (5*)
Yesterday's Gone Season 2  - Sean Platt/David Wright (4.5*)
Magic 2.0: Spell and High Water - Scott Meyer (4*)
 
April (11)
 
Half Bad - Sally Green (3.5*)
The Death House - Sarah Pinborough (4.5*)
My Heart & Other Black Holes - Jasmine Warga (4.5*)
The Art Of Being Normal - Lisa Williamson (5*)
Perfect Ruin - Lauren DeStefano (2.5*)
White Cat - Holly Black (4*)
Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng (4.5*)
World After - Susan Ee (3.5*)
Don't Let Me Go - Catherine Ryan Hyde (4.5*)
Burial Rites - Hannah Kent (4.5*)
Inkheart - Cornelia Funke (re-read)
 
May (10)
 
The Cipher - Kathe Koja (4*)
Magic 2.0: An Unwelcome Quest - Scott Meyer (5*)
NPCs - Drew Hayes (3.5*)
Critical Failures - Robert Bevan (4.5*)
The Shock Of The Fall - Nathan Filer (4.5*)
Jumpstart The World - Catherine Ryan Hyde (4.5*)
Internment Chronicles: Burning Kingdoms - Lauren DeStefano (4*)
The Quiet Earth - Craig Harrison (3.5*)
The Darkest Part of the Forest - Holly Black (4.5*)
Uprooted - Naomi Novik (4.5*)
 
June: (12)
 
Sleepless - Lou Morgan (4.5*)
Frozen Charlotte - Alex Bell (3.5*)
The Glass Demon - Helen Grant (3.5*)
Solitaire - Alice Oseman (4.5*)
Say Her Name - James Dawson (4*)
The Monstrumologist - Rick Yancey (5*)
The Curse of the Wendigo - Rick Yancey (3.5*)
The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley - Shaun Hutchinson (3.5*)
Falling - Emma Kavanagh (3.5*)
The Exit - Helen Fitzgerald (4*)
A Tap At The Window - Linwood Barclay (4*)
I Let You Go - by Clare Mackintosh (4.5*)
A Day at the Office - Matt Dunn 
 
July (14)
Mind Games - Teri Terry (4.5*)
The Last Leaves Falling - Sarah Benwell (4*)
The Legacy of Heorot - Larry Niven (3*)
Pines: Wayward Pines #1 - Blake Crouch (4*)
Wayward: Wayward Pines #2 - Blake Crouch (3*)
The Silence - Tim Lebbon (4*)
Unravelling Oliver - Liz Nugent (3.5*)

Are You Watching Me? - Sinead Crowley (4*)

Paper Towns - John Green (5*) (Re-read)

Longbourn - Jo Baker (5*)

The Name Of The Star - Maureen Johnson (3.5*)

The Door That Led To Where - Sally Gardner (3*)

Doll Bones - Holly Black (4*)

Seed - Lisa Heathfield (4*)

Hold Me Close, Necromancer - Lish McBride 

 

August (10)

Feed - M. T. Anderson (2.5*)

The Toymaker - (4*)

The Cry - Helen Fitzgerald (4*)

Becoming Chloe - Catherine Ryan Hyde (3*)

Birdy - Jess Vallance (3.5*)

Fly By Night - Frances Hardinge (5*)

The Donor - Helen Fitzgerald (3.5*)

Cuckoo Song - Frances Hardinge (4*)

The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster (3*)

Creepy & Maud - Diane Touchell (4*)

Dead Romantic - CJ Skuse 

 

September (8)

Asking For It - Louise O'Neill (4.5*)

Beyond The Great Indoors - Ingvar Ambjornsen (4*)

Alive - Scott Sigler (4*)

The Long Way To Small, Angry Planet - Becky Chambers (4*)

The Rest of Us Just Live Here - Patrick Ness (3.5*)

Read Between The Lines - Jo Knowles (3.5*)

Normal - Graeme Cameron (3.5*)

In A Dark, Dark Wood - Ruth Ware (2.5*)

 

October (2)

Dumplin' - Julie Murphy (3.5*)

The Returned - Jason Mott (2.5*)

 

November (10)

Dark Matter - Michelle Paver (4*)

Reviver - Seth Patrick (3.5*)

The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman (2*)

The Devil's Staircase - Helen Ftizgerald (4*)

Contamination: Book Zero - T. W. Piperbrook (3.5*)

Frost Hollow Hall - Emma Carroll (4*)

The Snow Sister - Emma Carroll (3*)

The Rabbit Back Literature Society - Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen (5*)

The Wolf Wilder - Katherine Rundell (4*)

In Darkling Wood - Emma Carroll (3.5*)

 

December (13)

The Enemy - Charlie Higgins (4*)

Dangerous Games - Teri Terry (3*)

Slade House - David Mitchell (4.5*)

Crenshaw - Katherine Applegate (2.5*)

The Last Of The Spirits - Chris Priestley (3.5*)

Grandpa's Great Escape - David Walliams (3*)

The Thing About Jellyfish - Ali Benjamin (4*)

A Pleasure & A Calling - Phil Hogan (4*)

Landline - Rainbow Rowell (3.5*)

All The Bright Places - Jennifer Niven (2.5*)

A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle (4*)

The Sign of Four - Arthur Conan Doyle (3.5*)

Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell (4*)

 

Total: 123
 
 
 
***Wishlist and TBR ***
 
Wishlist is light grey
TBR is dark grey
 
2015:
The Spinning Heart  - Donal Ryan
The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah
We Were Liars - E. Lockhart
The Guest Cat - Takashi Hiraide
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton
Long Lankin - Lindsey Barraclough - on hold
The 10PM Question - Kate De Goldi
The Bees - Laline Paull
The Unnamed - Joshua Ferris
The First 15 Lives Of Harry August - Claire North
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
The Undertaker's Daughter - Kate Mayfield
The Bullet - Mary Louise Kelly
Edge Of Dark Water - Joe R. Lansdale
Skin - Kathe Koja
Under The Poppy - Kathe Koja
Disenchanted - Robert Kroese
The Dark Water - Helen Moorhouse

The Lie Tree - Frances Hardinge
 
Hollow World - Michael J. Sullivan
The Invisible Library - Genevieve Cogman
Exchange - Paul Magrs
The Future Of Us - Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
The Dynamite Room by Jason Hewitt
Something by Wally Lamb maybe
The Bone Clocks - David Mitchell (maybe)
All The Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
The Old Man And The Sea - Ernest Hemmingway
Quiet - Susan Cain
Malcolm Gladwell - The Tipping Point
The Girl With All The Gifts - M. R. Carey
The Thing About December - Donal Ryan
The Quick - Lauren Own
Love Virtually - Daniel Glattaeur
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
Just a Geek - Wil Wheaton
Wool - Hugh Howey
Something by Marcus Sedgwick
The Apple Tart of Hope - Sarah Moore Fitzgerald
Tomorrow, When The War Began - John Marsden
Cat Out Of Hell - Lynne Truss
Spill Simmer Falter Wither - Sara Baume
The Kind Worth Killing - Can't remember author
The Memory Box Eva Lesko Natiello
Death Of A Superhero - Anthony McCarten
The Man In The Window - Jon Cohen
How Dogs Love Us - Gregory Berns
Campari For Breakfast - Sara Crowe
The Glass Arrow - Kristen Simmons
The Year of the Rat - Clare Furniss
Me & Mr. J - Rachel McIntyre
Cut Both Ways - Carrie Mesrobian
Flawed - Kate Avelynn
Contamination Zero - T. W. Piperbrook
Finding Bethany - Glen Klinkhart
To Serve Them All My Days - R. F. Delderfield
The Dirty Dust - Maírtín Ó Cadhain
We Are All Made Of Stars - Rowan Coleman
How To Build A Girl - Caitlin Moran
Push - Sapphire
- Louis Sachar
Future Perfect - Jen Larsen
Trouble - Non Pratt
The Curvy Girls Club - Michele Gorman
The One I Left Behind - Jennifer McMahon
Timebound - Rysa Walker
His First, His Second - A. D. Davies
The Fire Sermon - Francesca Haig
The Accident Season - Moïra Fowley-Doyle
Summer At Shell Cottage - Lucy Diamond
The Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies by Martin Millar

'The Language of Flowers' by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller

The Wall
 
2014 and earlier (Wishlist AND TBR):
About A Boy - Nick Hornby

The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne
I Am The Messenger - Markus Zusak
An Abundance Of Katherines - John Green
The Sunday Philosophy Club - Alexander McCall Smith
Mrs. Palfrey At The Claremont - Elizabeth Taylor
I, Zombie - Hugh Howey
A Fraction Of The Whole - Steve Toltz
Kilvert's Diary - Francis Kilver
On The Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin
The Vintage TeaCup Club - Vanessa Green
Snake Ropes - Jess Richards
Sisterland - Curtis Sittenfeld
The Library Of Unrequited Love
Geek Love - Katherine Dunn
Coin Locker Babies - Ryu Murakami
The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinski
Out - Natsuo Kirino
Hopscotch - Julio Cortazar
Bad Behaviour - Mary Gaitskill
Tampa - Alissa Nutting
The Demon - Hubert Selby Jr.
 

Edited by Nollaig
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Thanks Michelle - I'm gonna go scouring some threads around here for ideas over the next couple of days. :D

 

Chesil - Azkaban is the first of the movies I really love, I also love Order Of The Phoenix and the two Deathly Hallows. I think the Deathly Hallows are my favourite films. Goblet of Fire is my least favourite film because it really does nothing for two hours (even if the last 40 mins are great). Not sure how all that will be reflected in the books, but I'm happy to say I'm tearing through Chamber Of Secrets and actually quite enjoying it. Maybe it's because I only just rewatched the first 6 films in the last week, and have the characters and plots fresh in my mind, but whatever it is, something is finally clicking and soon I'll be able to call myself a true Harry Potter fan! :D

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Thanks Julie!

 

Right, I just finished Harry Potter and The Prisoner Of Azkaban.

 

As I am a somewhat unusual case, being an avid fan of half of the movies, and never having read the books before - I'm going to evaluate the books by comparison with the films.

 

Philosopher's Stone and Chamber Of Secrets

 

The first two movies are exceptionally true to the books, and also I don't really like the films or books, so I'm not going to talk about them. The only thing I WOULD say, is the books in general explain things a lot better than the films. The end of the second book made far more sense to me than the film did the first few times. Also, the books feature much more of my beloved secondary characters - the Weasley twins and Neville - I knew they would, which is one of my reasons for wanting to read the books at all.

 

Prisoner Of Azkaban - **SPOILERS ABOUND!**

 

The third book! Well. I, for one, never want to read about another bloody Quidditch match again. Three in one book? Get away with ye. Two trips to Hogsmeade, and a PUBLIC conversation between Professors and the Minister? Get AWAY with ye. Absolutely no mention of Peter Pettigrew still being alive and roaming Hogwarts until the scene in the Shrieking Shack at the end? Come onnnnnnn. All the raw material is in the book, but the movie outdoes the book on presentation and conciseness in almost every situation. I distinctly remember the first time I saw the film, after trudging through the first two films - the scene where Harry sees Pettigrew on the map and then wanders into the hallway at night, only for Pettigrew to mysteriously, invisibly walk right by? The mystery and intrigue of that scene was a turning point in me paying attention to the films. I was baffled and intrigued and dying to solve the mystery. That mystery is entirely absent from the book. I genuinely think the film completely outdoes the book there. I also prefer the time-travel sequence in the movie - throwing the rocks, Hermione wolf-calling Lupin etc. I love those things.

 

The only two things I would say are better about the book are:

1. The Shrieking Shack scene, simply because of the volume of information we're given. I never knew that the Shack was 'haunted' by Lupin, built for him, and that the Willow was planting to protect the entrance. I also never knew James Potter was an animagus. That's the kind of information I'm reading these books for - it's stuff that will enhance future viewings of the movies.

2. The bit at the end where Sirius gives Harry the permission slip. The movies never displays any familial relationship between them except for the brief mention of Harry living with Sirius. I actually started crying when I read the permission slip. Poor aul Sirius.

 

All in all, a very good book, of course, because it's the foundation to an excellent film. But I do feel that it was drawn out, short as it was, with far too much Quidditch.

 

***

 

Onwards, to Goblet of Fire - the worst and most pointless film in the series apart from the last 30 mins. (Harry has to participate, because it's a rule, and rules must be followed - except the one about underage participants, and the one about 1 participant per school, we can break those because the plot needs us to! If this book can explain THAT, I'll be impressed.)

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Thanks Janet! I cheated with book 1 - I finished it on New Year's Eve but decided to include it because otherwise it would be the only one missing :giggle: But it's still 3 books in 5 days, and I'm well into book 4. :D

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Happy reading in 2015!  Already making short work of it I see :D

 

Os keeps harassing me to read the HP books, as I should like them when you look at the other books I like.  I tried to read them many years ago when they were first popular and I just couldn't make it past the third book.  Maybe, if I see a few more positive reviews, I'll be tempted to go back and give them another go.

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Os keeps harassing me to read the HP books, as I should like them when you look at the other books I like.  I tried to read them many years ago when they were first popular and I just couldn't make it past the third book.  Maybe, if I see a few more positive reviews, I'll be tempted to go back and give them another go.

 

I was always the EXACT same. I've tried these books three or four times before now, over 15 years (I read the first one when it was published - so I tried these books at various ages too). Honestly, I don't know what's happened this time - but I am an absolutely AVID fan of most of the films, and loads of the characters - and I think my desire just to read every printed bit of canon information about the characters has made me tear through the books.

 

I still hate the childishness of many names/words/events (Professor "Grubbly-Plank", I ask you :banghead: ) but it's utterly worth it to learn so much about the characters I love. And there genuinely are many hilarious scenes, quotes, etc. But I would suggest you need to be invested in the characters, if you already tried the books and didn't like them.

 

Less than 200 pages to go in book 4, should get it finished today :D

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Finished book 4! It was.... interesting. I still disliked/was bored by the Tri-Wizard Tournament, BUT, each task was mercifully short and to the point. The film really overdid them. Also, the film's depiction of the two other participating schools as A) not co-ed and B) simplistically gender stereotyped was awful.

 

There was SO MUCH in this book that wasn't in the film - getting to see way more of Sirius was awesome, as was learning lots of things like how the twins' shop came to be funded. I did feel it was a tad over-complicated with both Crouch and Bagman, though - the movie did just fine without Bagman. All the same, it was a good enough book. Wouldn't be a favourite. But certainly it's more respectable than the film.

 

Onto book 5!

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Thanks, so far (about 100 pages) so good!

 

It feels like fanfiction, because I'm used to such limited screen time for my favourite characters, but here they all are - Sirius, Remus, and the twins - ALL IN ONE ROOM! Normally I only get what I want in fanfic! :P I feel totally spoiled hehe!

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I watched the first Harry Potter movie, but didn't enjoy Daniel Radcliffe - sorry HP fans :blush:

 

I then went to read the first book but just couldn't get Daniels voice out of my head. Maybe I should try again now it's been awhile...

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