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Andrea's Reads, 2017


~Andrea~

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Previous logs:

 

2016

2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007

Read:

 

The Various Haunts of Men - Susan Hill

Silence - Shusaku Endo

Revelation for Everyone - N.T.Wright

Nocturnal Animals - Austin Wright
Nomad - Alan Partridge

The French Leuitenant's Woman - John Fowles

A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy of Science

1984 - George Orwell

The Gargoyle - Andrew Davidson

Easily Distracted - Steve Coogan


Currently reading:

The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

Sarah Millican - How to be Champion

 

Edited by ~Andrea~
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Unread books on the bookshelf:

Acquired pre 2011

  1. Minnette Walters - The shape of snakes
  2. Logic - A very short introduction
  3. Wilkie Collins The Woman in White
  4. Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales (modern translation)
  5. The French Lieutenant's woman
  6. The Essential tales of Chekhov
  7. A Winter's tale
  8. Othello
  9. The Merchant of Venice
  10. Julius Caesar
  11. Twelfth night
  12. Collected works of Tennyson

Begin year size: 12
End year size: 11

Acquired 2011

  1. Clean Code - Robert Martin
  2. Blodwen Jones a'r aderyn prin - Bethan Gwenas (a novel for welsh learners)

 

Begin year size: 2
End year size: 

Acquired 2013:

 

  1. The Four Loves - C S Lewis
  2. Pilgrim's Progress - John Bunyan
  3. The Trial - Franz Kafka (audio)

 

Begin year size: 3
End year size: 

 

Acquired 2014:

 

  1. Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings - Edited by David Chalmers
  2. Godric - Frederick Buechner

 

Begin year size: 2
End year size: 

 

Books acquired 2015:

 

  1. Ian Rankin - Watchmen
  2. Susan Hill - The Various Haunts of Men
  3. Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities
  4. JoJo Moyes - The Girl You Left Behind
  5. The Road Less Traveled

  6. Philosophy of Science. A very short introduction.

 

Begin year size: 6

End year size: 4

Books acquired 2016:

 

  1. Nomad - Alan Partridge
  2. Nocturnal Animals -

 

 

Begin year size: 2

End year size: 0

 

Books acquired 2017:

 

  1. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
  2. C J Sansom : Dark Fire
  3. Joanne Harris - Five quarters of the orange
  4. Val McDermid - Beneath the Bleeding
  5. Robert Goddard - Take No Farewell
  6. Steve Coogan - Easily Distracted
  7. Sarah Millican - How to be Champion
  8. Ronnie Corbett - High Hopes

 

End year size: 6

 

Total Begin year size: 21

Max size:
Min size:
Current Size:
End year size:

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  • 1 month later...

The Wish List
Ambrose, David - Superstition

Alexander, Denis - creation or evolution: do we have to choose?
Beah, Ishmael - Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Bradbury, Ray - Farenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray - Something Wicked this way comes
Barker, Clive - Weaveworld

Brother Lawrence - The Practice of the Presence of God
Bugan, Carmen - Burying the Typewriter
Challis, Sarah - Footprints in the sand

Chalmers, David J - Philopsphy of Mind - Contermporary and Classic Readings
Chamberlaine, Diane - The Midwife's confession recommended
Chesterton, G K - Orthodoxy
Conran, Shirley - Savages
Coupland, Douglas - Microserfs/JPod

Coben, Harlan - Six Years recommended
Du Maurier, Daphne - Rebecca
Du Maurier, Daphne - The House on the Strand
Dunant, Sarah - Transgressions (recommended)
Dick, Philip K - A Scanner Darkly

Faber, Michael - The Crimson petal and the White recommended

Foster, Richard - Celebration of Discipline

Gaarder, Jostein - Sophie's World

Green, John - Turtles All the Way Down recommended

Greene, Grahame - Brighton Rock
Greene, Grahame - The Third Man & The Fallen Idol
Haugen, Gary (IJM) - Just Courage
Highsmith, Patricia - The Talented Mr Ripley
Hinton, Susan- Rumble Fish
Hodgson, Burnett Frances - The Secret Garden
Hodkin, Michelle -The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
Humphries, Alistair - Microadventures recommended

Jerome, Jerome K - My Life and Times

Jefferson Farjeon, J - Mystery in White recommended

Kasasian, M.R.C. - The Mangle Street Murders recommended (read by Emma Gregory)

Krauss, Nicole - Man walks into a Room recommended
Koontz, Dean - The Mask
Koontz, Dean - From The Corner Of His Eye
Koontz, Dean - False Memory

Lennox, John - God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?

Lennox, John - Seven Days that Divide the World.

London, Jack - White Fang

Mandel, John - Station Eleven recommended

Marion, Issac - Warm Bodies recommended
McKinley, Robin - Sunshine
Mercer, Jeremy - Books, Baguettes & Bedbugs
Mitchell, Margaret - Gone With the Wind
Moran, Caitlin - How to be a Woman recommended

Moss, Sarah - Night Waking recommended
Moyes, Jojo - Me Before You
Moyes, Jojo - The Last Letter From Your Lover recommended
Neville, Adam - Apartment 16

Semple, Maria - Where'd you go Bernadette - recommended
Phillips, Caryl - A Distant Shore (recommended)
Pargeter, Edith - The Heaven Tree

Penny, Stef - The Tenderness of Wolves recommended
Rayner, Jay - The Oyster House Siege

Sachar, Louis - There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom - recommended

Taylor, Jodie - Just One Damned Thing After Another - recommended

Tolkein - LOTR 

Tremayne, S.K - The Ice Twins recommended

Trueman, Terry - Stuck in neutral
Trigell, Jonathan - Boy A

Wheatley, Dennis - The Haunting of Toby Jugg

Winter, Tom - Lost and Found recommended
Wyndham, John - The Kraken awakes
Watson, S J - Before I go to sleep
Ruiz Zafon, Carlos - The Shadow Of The Wind
Ruiz Zafon, Carlos - The Angel's Game
Ryan, Carrie - The Forest Of Hands & Teeth
Wroblewski, David - The story of Edgar Sawtelle

Zevin, Gabrielle - The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry recommended

Edited by ~Andrea~
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It's an old Penguin Classics version: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Canterbury-Tales-Classics-Geoffrey-Paperback/dp/B011DAH346/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1489580349&sr=8-5&keywords=canterbury+tales+penguin+classics

 

Though the last time I looked for it I couldn't find it so maybe it went to a charity shop. I probably need to do a stock take.

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The Various Haunts of Men - Susan Hill

A woman vanishes in the fog up on the Hill in Lafferton. The police have one lead – a pair of expensive cuff-links found in her flat, with a mysterious note attached to them.

This was OK. An interesting enough crime novel but didn't set my world on fire and I don't think I'd bother reading any more in the series.

 

Silence - Shusaku Endo

A portugese priest travels to 1640s Japan where the brutal persecution of Christians is taking place, in search of his former mentor Father Ferreira who has reportedly renounced his faith.
I loved this, it's a beautifully written/translated and quite haunting tale of a man wrestling with his faith in the face of suffering. Wonderful.

 

I'm currently reading Nomad by Alan Partridge which has had me laughing out loud, and Nocturnal Animals by Austin Wright which is an utterly compelling psychological thriller. :readingtwo:

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I didn't know Silence was a book.  I've seen the trailer and reviews of the recent film version by Martin Scorsese, but it didn't look appealing as a film, however, I'm rather intrigued by the story, so I might give the book a go at some point.  I've added it to my wishlist just in case. :D

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  • 1 month later...

Well I finished Nocturnal Animals by Austin Wright.

 

Susan unexpectedly receives the manuscript of a novel, Nocturnal Animals, from her ex-husband Edward, whom she hasn't seen in years. She reads it over several days while her husband Arnold is away at a conference. There are two novels in one here, the story of Susan, her past with Edward, and her present with Arnold, and the gripping, disturbing story of Tony, the central character of Nocturnal Animals, who is pushed to the limit as he encounters a group of thugs during a drive to Maine with his family.

 

This was utterly compelling, really well written and I loved it. A multi-layered novel: on one level, a very straightforward psychological thriller, and on another, a well observed domestic drama, with more to say on life and art and how one influences the other. As soon as I finished it, I wanted to go back and read it again, with the benefit of hindsight, and I intend to do so soon.

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I loved Nomad, by Alan Partridge.

 

AP goes on a hike from Norwich to Dungeness Power station on the South Coast, in 'the footsteps of his father' who once had a job interview there. This had me laughing out loud, and cringeing in equal measure! If like me you love AP you'll love this book.

 

Next read: The French Leuitenant's Woman by John Fowles.

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I finished The French Leuitenant's Woman. Wasn't sure what to make of it. A strange book in a way. I enjoyed reading it but I did think there was too much commentary, and found the narrator's voice very intrusive. (It's quite deliberate that the narrator has a strong presence in the book, but I didn't like it much.)

 

I've not long started May We Be Forgiven by A. M. Homes and I'm not sure if I'm enjoying it or not. A lot of shocking and interesting things have happened so far, so the story is quite engaging, but the narration is quite mundane and every day, so much so that I'm finding it a little dreary.

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I've given up on the A M Homes and I'm now reading 1984 by George Orwell. It's much better and I'm thoroughly hooked! Never read it before, or even seen the film. Obviously a lot of the ideas in it are familiar to me as they've seeped into popular culture, but I'm looking forward to getting stuck in and seeing how it all pans out.

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I did enjoy 1984 although it struck me as incredibly over the top. It's not a pleasant read (though not a depressing as I'd expected, perhaps because I found it so OTT I couldn't take it that seriously). Still, I doubt I'll read it again.

 

I'm now about half way through Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle and I have to say it's great! Very well written, thoroughly readable and pretty unusual too!

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I finished The Gargoyle, which is about the recovery of a porn star who is horrifically burned in a car accident and his relationship with the ex-mental patient Marianne Engel who comes to visit him in hospital and claims to know him from a past life.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this unusual but gripping story which is half contemporary drama, half historical romantic adventure. It was very well-written, dark in places, humourous in others, and always had me turning the pages. It was Andrew Davidson's first novel, but I'd definitely look out for others by him. An excellent read.

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I started The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold a couple of days ago, but I couldn't face it last night, so I started My Favourite Wife by Tony Parsons. However, I've since discovered a load of terrible reviews on amazon so I'm not too hopeful about that one. We'll see how I get on with these two!

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I read The Lovely Bones years ago - I just checked my Goodreads account and it was in July 2011. I wasn't in the habit of writing reviews at the time and I have no particular memory of it other than reading it because I'd liked the film. But I gave it four stars, so I must have enjoyed it! I'm now curious to see what you think of it perhaps reread it.

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I finished the Steve Coogan which was OK. It was a straightforward autobiography and not particularly comic. I felt it jumped around a bit and the writing was a little lacklustre. SC says in the book that he always writes collaboratively so maybe this was written by just him. There were some interesting bits though, for example the stuff about the phone hacking scandal of which he was a victim, and I enjoyed reading about his family life and how he got into comedy. However, overall I was slightly disappointed.

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