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Your Book Activity - May 2016


frankie

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I think that's pretty cool! I've never thought about doing it that way. My biographies are organised by 'subject', so ie. all the biographies of people with mental illness and syndromes, are next to each other, and the ones about ie. people with cancer are also next to one another.

That probably works better than my system if you're more interested in contemporary biography. Most of mine is historical - I've only got three or four biographies of people who are still alive (Jeremy Hutchinson's Case Histories; Jon Snow's and John Carey's autobiographies; and the three volume set of Chris Mullin's diaries). I also tried shelving by types of biographies, but got all caught up in which one fitted where: e.g. Wellington in military or political? I find some sort of ordering within broad categories suits me best. My alternative was to do it alphabetically by subject but as all my history is chronological as well (in broad categories), it sort of dovetailed neatly, and now feels 'right' (at least for the present!

 

Started reading Evelina by Fanny Burney. I'm reading this as my alternative to The Misses Mallett for the Bristol choice in the English Counties Challenge. I'm sure the latter is a good book, but it it's not in the same league when it comes to fame or acclaim. Whether Evelina is sufficiently set in Bristol - I'll see!

Finished this this morning - a pretty big read, 400 pages or so of fairly close type, and needing some fairly careful reading on occasions (remarkably modern for an eighteenth century book, but there were just a few times when I needed to concentrate because of language or different social subtexts from today). It was originally written in three volumes, as was much fiction of the time, and whilst the first two volumes are largely set in London (with one largeish section in the country), the third is entirely set in Bristol, so I think it qualifies well enough - certainly better than several others on the list! A good read, if not in the same league as, for instance, Jane Austen. Certainly an easier read than many eighteenth century works.

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That probably works better than my system if you're more interested in contemporary biography. Most of mine is historical - I've only got three or four biographies of people who are still alive (Jeremy Hutchinson's Case Histories; Jon Snow's and John Carey's autobiographies; and the three volume set of Chris Mullin's diaries). I also tried shelving by types of biographies, but got all caught up in which one fitted where: e.g. Wellington in military or political? I find some sort of ordering within broad categories suits me best. My alternative was to do it alphabetically by subject but as all my history is chronological as well (in broad categories), it sort of dovetailed neatly, and now feels 'right' (at least for the present!

That makes a lot of sense.

 

I'm reading Beth Revis - Across the Universe 2: A Million Suns. I'm pretty busy today though, so I don't think I'll be reading that much the rest of today.

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:D. I love everything I've read by PKD! I love the synopsis, it's going on the list! Thanks and enjoy Major Pettigrew's Last Stand :)

 

Thanks! It seems to be taking a long time to finish. I've been reading loads, but don't seem to be progressing! :o

 

This sounds like fun :). I love going to the library.

Same here! Problem is that they didn't have the book I wanted. When I got home, I checked the online catalog only to find it was at another library. :doh: Oh well, at least I got to visit a library I hadn't been to before. I felt I had to borrow something so I came away with Virus by Sakyo Komatsu. I haven't heard of it before, but it's a post apocalyptic book written in the 1960s, so it's a genre I like.

 

I read Maria Semple - Where'd You Go, Bernadette yesterday and I'm currently reading Beth Revis - Across the Universe 1: Across the Universe.

I loved Where'd You Go, Bernadette. It was very quirky and original.  Did you enjoy it?

 

I started reading This Is Life by Dan Rhodes last night, only 38 pages in but it seems very promising :smile2:

This one is on my wishlist, so I will be interested to hear what you think.

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Thanks! It seems to be taking a long time to finish.

The Phillip K Dick or Major Pettigrew?

 

I am finally reading again, slowly, but reading. I was going crazy not reading!

 

I started Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtel. She wrote one of my favorite books, More Now Again and deals with drug use and mental illness.

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The Phillip K Dick or Major Pettigrew?

 

I am finally reading again, slowly, but reading. I was going crazy not reading!

 

 

Sorry, the Major Pettigrew. It's not a very long book, but it seems to be never-ending. :lol:

 

Glad you are reading again. I'd go bonkers if I didn't read. :D

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Same here! Problem is that they didn't have the book I wanted. When I got home, I checked the online catalog only to find it was at another library. :doh: Oh well, at least I got to visit a library I hadn't been to before. I felt I had to borrow something so I came away with Virus by Sakyo Komatsu. I haven't heard of it before, but it's a post apocalyptic book written in the 1960s, so it's a genre I like.

It's a shame they didn't have the book you were looking for. I hope Virus is good :).

 

I loved Where'd You Go, Bernadette. It was very quirky and original.  Did you enjoy it?

I liked it :). I thought it was pretty original. I haven't read a lot of books that are written in this way (using letters, e-mails and such), but this was definitely one of the more original ones. 

 

Glad you are reading again. I'd go bonkers if I didn't read. :D

Me too!

 

I'm about 65% into Beth Revis - Across the Universe 2: A Million Suns. I hope to finish it later today. So far I'm enjoying it a lot, and I will probably start book 3 in this series after I've finished book 2.

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I didn't quite get all the reading done that I intended before the end of May, but it seems I still read 11 books last month so I'm pretty happy. I'm nearly finished two more, The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark, which, while I'm enjoying, I'm pretty sure is going to be lost on me, and The Deadly Space Between by Patricia Duncker which I'm neither enjoying nor understanding! I'm really hit or miss with these intelligent books - some I get and love, others baffle me :lol:

 

Anyway, with those two books to be finished in the first couple of days of June, hopefully I'll have a good reading month this month too :)

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Finally finished Tom Brown's School Days today for the English Counties challenge.  It was perfectly fine, but not outstanding, and felt a bit too wordy and descriptive, especially the first half, with very little dialogue.  That's not always a bad thing, but I felt for this type of story, for me, it would have benefited from more speech rather than description.

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