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More reading time required for 2016


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I'll try and update this blog rather more than I did last year's effort! I.e. More than never! ;)

 

Read/started in 2015

 

January

 

The Shining Girls - Lauren Beukes

Before They Are Hanged - Joe Abercrombie

 

February

 

Raising Steam - Terry Pratchett

Mrs Bradshaw's Handbook - Terry Pratchett

Dragons of Crumbling Castle - Terry Pratchett

Dodger's Guide to London - Terry Pratchett

Time and Time Again - Ben Elton

 

March

 

A Slip of the Keyboard - Terry Pratchett

Last Arguments of Kings - Joe Abercrombie

 

April

 

Life...With No Breaks - Nick Spalding

Titanic - Filson Young

Jackdaws - Ken Follett

 

May

 

The Man from Petersburg - Ken Follett

Fear City - F Paul Wilson

The Shadow Rising - Robert Jordan

Don't Blink - James Patterson & Howard Donahughe

 

June

 

The Leopard - Jo Nesbo

Road Beneath My Feet - Frank Turner

 

July

 

The Twelve - Justin Cronin

 

August

 

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

Mr Mercedes - Stephen King

 

September

 

Number Ten - Sue Townsend

Oh Dear Silvia - Dawn French

 

October

 

Retromancer - Robert Rankin

 

November

 

Dissolution - C J Sansom

 

December

Fall of Giants - Ken Follett

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Not sure whether this is will be books finished or started seeing as Fall of Giants is in both last year's & this year's list! :lol:

 

Read in 2016

 

January

-----------

 

Fall of Giants - Ken Follett

The Catcher in the Rye - J.D Salinger

The Girl in the Spider's Web - David Lagercrantz

The Fires of Heaven - Robert Jordan

 

February

------------

 

March

--------

 

The Winter of the World - Ken Follett

The Monogram Murders - Sophie Hannah

Revival - Stephen King

 

April

------

 

Finders Keepers - Stephen King

Bazaar of Bad Dreams - Stephen King

 

May

------

 

Edge of Eternity - Ken Follett

 

June

-------

 

July

------

 

Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

Secret of the Dragon - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

My Booky Wook 2 - Russell Brand

Trigger Warning - Neil Gaiman

 

 

August

-----------

 

Emma - Jane Austen

Lord of Chaos (TWot6) - Robert Jordan

Preacher: Gone to Texas - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon

Preacher: Until the End of the World - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon

Preacher: Proud Americans - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon

Preacher: Ancient History - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon

 

 

September

---------

 

Preacher: Dixie Fried - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon

Preacher: War in the Sun - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon

Preacher: Salvation - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon

Preacher: All Hell's A-Coming - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon

Preacher: Alamo - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon

 

November

--------

The Long War - Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter

 

 

December

--------- 

Revolution - Russell Brand

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My TBR list, alphabetically by author, which has annoyingly only gone down by one. Too much library lending methinks! Mind you all my tree books were still in the garage up until last week so that's my excuse. :)



Alcott, Louisa May - Little Women (Kindle)
Austen, Jane - Pride & Prejudice (Kindle)
Austen, Jane - Sense & Sensibility (Kindle)
Austen, Jane - Mansfield Park (Kindle)
Austen, Jane - Northanger Abbey (Kindle)
Barker, Clive - Abarat x 3
Barton, Beverly - The Dying Games (Kindle)
Batchelder, Dennis - Soul Identity (Kindle)
Beever, Anthony - Stalingrad
Bradshaw, John - Cat Sense
Bronte, Charlotte - Jane Eyre (Kindle)
Bryson, Bill - At Home (Kindle)
Bryson, Bill - Short history of everything (Kindle)
Burgess, Anthony - A Clockwork Orange (Kindle)
Campbell, Ramsey - The House on Nazareth Hill
Campbell, Ramsey - The Gruesome Book
Campbell, Ramsey - The Height of the Scream
Campbell, Ramsey - Alone with the Horrors
Campbell, Ramsey - The Hungry Moon
Campbell, Ramsey - Ancient Images
Campbell, Ramsey - The Nameless
Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales (Kindle)
Child, Lee - Jack Reacher series x 12 (Kindle)
Ciccone, Derek - Painless (Kindle)
Collins, Wilkie - The Moonstone (Kindle)
Defoe, Daniel - Moll Flanders (Kindle)
Dickens, Charles - Bleak House (Kindle)
Dickens, Charles - David Copperfield (Kindle)
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities (Kindle)
Dixon, E - Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights (Kindle)
Donaldson, Stephen - The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
Donaldson, Stephen - The 2nd Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
Donaldson, Stephen - The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss (Kindle)
Eliot, George - Middlemarch (Kindle)
Erikson, Steven - Malazan collection 1 (Kindle)
Flaubert, Gustav - Madame Bovary (Kindle)
Follett, Ken - The Key to Rebecca (Kindle)
Forster, E M - Howards End (Kindle)
Gaskell, Elizabeth - Wives & Daughters (Kindle)
Gaskell, Elizabeth - North & South (Kindle)
Hardy, Thomas - Far From the Madding Crowd (Kindle)
Herley, Richard - The Penal Colony (Kindle)
Hobb, Robin - Dragon Keeper (Kindle)
Hobb, Robin - Dragon Haven (Kindle)
Homer - The Odyssey (Kindle)
Hoover, Thomas - Life Blood (Kindle)
Hoover, Thomas - Syndrome (Kindle)
Hugo, Victor - Les Miserables (Kindle)
Hume, David - The History of England Vol 1 (Kindle)
Jacques, Brian - Redwall saga
James, E L - Fifty shades of grey
Jordan, Robert - Wheel of Time x 8
Joyce, James - Ulysses (Kindle)
Kay, Guy Gavriel - Tigana (Kindle)
King, Stephen - Dark Tower x 8
Knowles, James - The Legends of King Arthur (Kindle)
Littell, Johnathan - The Kindly Ones
Lovecraft, HP - Omnibus 1
Lumley, Brian - Vampire World x 3
Lumley, Brian - Lost Years x 2
Lumley, Brian - E-Branch x 3
Lumley, Brian - Harry Keogh & other Weird Heroes
Lumley, Brian - The Touch
Mariani, Scott - The Shadow Project (Kindle)
McCammon, Robert - Blue World
McCammon, Robert - Boy's Life
McCammon, Robert - Mystery Walk
McCammon, Robert - The Wolf's Hour
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick (Kindle)
Meyers, Stephanie - Twilight saga x 4 (Kindle)
Milton, John - Paradise Lost (Kindle)
Mitchell, Margaret - Gone with the Wind (Kindle)
Mock, Elizabeth C - Shatter (The children of man) (Kindle)
Montgomery, L M - Anne of Green Gables (Kindle)
Morris, Stan - Surviving the Fog (Kindle)
Newman, Kim - Bad Dreams
Newman, Kim - Jago
Newman, Kim - Unforgivable Stories
Paoline, Christopher - Brinsingr (Kindle)
Pepys, Samuel - Diary of Samuel Pepys (Kindle)
Pratchett, Terry - The Science of Discworld 1
Pratchett, Terry - The Science of Discworld 2

Pratchett, Terry - The Long Mars

Pratchett, Terry - The Long War

Pratchett, Terry - The Shepherd's Crown

Pullman, Phillip - Once upon a Time in the North
Richardson, Samuel - Clarissa Harlowe (9 vol) (Kindle)
Rothfuss, Patrick - The Name of the Wind (Kindle)

Sanderson, Brandon - The Alloy of Law
Shakespeare, William - Complete Works of Shakespeare (Kindle)
Simmons, Dan - Hyperion (Kindle)
Smith, Clark Ashton - The Emperor of Dreams
Smith, Clark Ashton - Out of Space & Time vol 1
Steinbeck, John - East of Eden (Kindle)
Stephenson, Neal - Reamde (Kindle)
Tchaikovsky, Adrian - Empire in Black & Gold (Kindle)
Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair (Kindle)
Tolkien, J R R - The Silmarillion
Tolkien, J R R - The Children of Hurin (Kindle)
Tolstoy, Leo - Anna Karenina (Kindle)
Tzu, Sun - Art of War (Kindle)
Various - The Bible (Kindle)
Various - LA Noire: The Collected Stories (Kindle)
Verne, Jules - A Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Kindle)
Verne, Jules - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Kindle)
Weeks, Brent - Shadow trilogy x 3 (Kindle)
Weis, Margaret - Dragonships series x 1
Weis/Hickman - The Second Generation (Kindle)
Welsh, Irvine - Ecstasy
Welsh, Irvine - Glue
Welsh, Irvine - Porno
Welsh, Irvine - The Secrets of the Master Chef
Welsh, Irvine - Skagboys
White, Neil - Fallen Idols (Kindle)
Yekov, Kirill - The Last Ringbearer (Kindle)

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Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

 

This story revolves around five families at the time of the outbreak of WW1 & their various roles in it.

 

There's a Welsh family of minors, an English earl, who is also an MP, & his suffragette sister, two Russian brothers -one of whom is a complete d*ck, an American advisor to the president who's a bit pointless and a German nobleman.

 

Their stories intertwine throughout whilst covering such topics as mine safety (or lack thereof), the start of the war, trench warfare, the Somme, women's suffrage, the differences between classes & the Russian revolution.

 

As some of the characters are high up in government, there is an insight to the circumstances that lead up to the start of it. But I have to say, I'm still none the wiser! Not that it wasn't clearly explained in the book, just that the real life reasons for the start of WW1 are so ridiculous! ;)

 

The parts about the main war were really interesting, though later in the book I was a bit bored by the Russian revolution stuff. It all seemed a bit convoluted, but that may have just been because I was more interested in other character's stories at the time.

 

Anyway, whilst it didn't quite hit the heights of Pillars or World Without End, I still really enjoyed it & will look forward to book 2, which is presumably covering WW2. I don't know if any of the same characters will be present - I hope so. :)

 

4/5

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Ah ha!  There it is!  Great review, I am looking forward to it!

 

Did you feel there were too many characters/ storylines going on?  Or does Follett handle that was well as he does in Pillars and WWE?

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Ah ha! There it is! Great review, I am looking forward to it!

 

Did you feel there were too many characters/ storylines going on? Or does Follett handle that was well as he does in Pillars and WWE?

He handled it well, overall. I think there needed to be that many characters in order to be able to describe the war preparations of all the involved groups. Even though I thought the American was a bit pointless, he wasn't in there totally without merit as he was advisor to the president so you got to see the American point of view.

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Maybe it will do by the time I finish the trilogy. :) If I look on it as having read only a third of the book, then there's still time for it to catch up. ;)

That's true, it is a trilogy. Did the book end on a big cliffhanger?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

 

I can't easily give a brief synopsis as it's not really about anything much! The best description I could give is that it's about disaffected youth.

 

It was an odd story but I kinda found myself drawn along with it. I liked a lot of Holden Caulfield's internal monologues about people annoying him - I'm sure I've shared some of those annoyances. The funniest was when, after a long period of being talked at by his schoolmate, he asked if Holden was enjoying a book he was reading & Holden retorted with something like 'Well, this sentence I've been reading for the last 10 mins is great!' Haven't we all been there? ;)

 

It did seem to have a very abrupt ending though, almost as though the author couldn't think of how else to take the story forward & also, the reasoning behind the title of book was peculiar, but in general I'm glad I read it.

 

3/5

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The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz

 

More shady plots unravelled by investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist & his hacker friend Lisbeth Salander.

 

It's been many a year since I read the Millenium trilogy so I can't really remember if this book is written in the same style as Stieg Larsson's original, but it didn't really matter either way as this was an enjoyable yarn full of twists & turns.

 

I'd quite happily read more sequels if they're of the same calibre.

 

4/5

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Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

 

I can't easily give a brief synopsis as it's not really about anything much! The best description I could give is that it's about disaffected youth.

 

It was an odd story but I kinda found myself drawn along with it. I liked a lot of Holden Caulfield's internal monologues about people annoying him - I'm sure I've shared some of those annoyances. The funniest was when, after a long period of being talked at by his schoolmate, he asked if Holden was enjoying a book he was reading & Holden retorted with something like 'Well, this sentence I've been reading for the last 10 mins is great!' Haven't we all been there? ;)

 

It did seem to have a very abrupt ending though, almost as though the author couldn't think of how else to take the story forward & also, the reasoning behind the title of book was peculiar, but in general I'm glad I read it.

 

3/5

This is on my list. I've been wanting to read it for a while. The abrupt ending part scares me...I hate it when authors do that! Was it a sad ending? I feel when books end on a rather tragic note authors frequently end quite abruptly. It gives you no time to recover! I need to mentally prepare myself, lol. I'm glad you liked it, though!

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...

I've been jotting down notes as I finish my books, so it's probably about time to throw a few short reviews out there although I've already forgotten loads of what I might have said had I immediately posted them. :doh:

 

The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan

 

I can't remember what happens in this one - they all sort of merge into one after a while. :giggle: Anyway, it's all ticking over nicely and I need to keep plugging away with this series so I can catch up to where I'd got up to (book 8) and then read the volumes I haven't previously started.

 

4/5

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The Winter of the World by Ken Follett

 

On the whole, I enjoyed it. There were lots of compelling twists & turns for the characters and it kept me wanting to know what was going to happen next. I did prefer the characters and plot of book one though and again, I was least interested by the Russian storyline.  Scarily, the beginnings of Nazism bears some worrying parallels with the world today.   :unsure:

 

3/5

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The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah

 

It seemed contrived to start with, as if it was trying too hard. It was almost like a school kid writing a story after having plucked out one of her favourite literary characters to feature in it. However, I found myself sucked in & racing through it to see what happened (as I tend to do with Christie's) and I even started reading Poirot's words in my head in his accent, so I guess in the end, it actually worked.

 

Part of my reading speed could have been because I was due to go to the library & wanted to take this one back as well seeing as I "only had 200 pages left of it" and it must have made some use of 'The Christie code' (to quote a programme trying to pin down what made her books so good). It wasn't as particularly exciting a story as it could have been though.

 

2.5/5

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Finders Keepers by Stephen King

 

I enjoyed the story, though it did seem a bit pointless to have Hodges in it.  He was very much a secondary character and it seemed like he was shoehorned in just to force this into a trilogy.

 

3/5

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Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett

 

It was nice to finish of the series but it was definitely the weakest of the three books as there wasn't as much interesting history in this period, however it was good to read more about the Berlin Wall - its effect and the reasons behind it. I remember the wall coming down in the 80s and how important that was, but I never really understood why it was there in the first place. I did get completely lost with the family tree in this one, so I gave up trying to follow it in the end. This volume did seem to be more concerned with the character's romances rather than anything else, with everyone having affairs all over the shop. At least the sex scenes aren't as embarrassingly graphic as they were in his medieval books. ;)

 

3/5

 

This was the last of the library books so now I've got to try and resist getting any more out so I can get through my own books instead.

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Bones of the Dragon by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

 

It's no Dragonlance, but I enjoyed it on the whole. However, I've never read a book where I found the lead character to be such a d*ck. :mad: He irritated me so much throughout the story and I wanted to strangle him. Still, by the end of the story it sounds like he's come to his senses and he might be better going forward.

 

3.5/5

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