vodkafan Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 (edited) Welcome to my 2017 reading experience, Like last year, no reading challenges just a mass of books on my TBR to get through. Reviews are found buried in the following pages: sorry if that is confusing to anybody, I haven't mastered the link thingy yet. Last year was a funny year for reading; my mojo disappeared down a rabbit hole. It may have had a lot to do with my kindle dying and I never got around to buying another one. I intend to do better this year. (k) denotes kindle ebook® denotes book read primarily for research purposes keeping the same simple rating system this year:1/5: I didn't like it2/5: It was okay3/5: I liked it4/5: I really liked it5/5: It was amazing! Books Read in 2017 January The Paris Enigma Pablo de Santis 5/5 Snobbery With Violence MC Beaton 2/5 The Watcher Jane Palmer 2/5 Outsiders Study in the sociology of deviance Howard S. Becker 3/5 Close to Critical Hal Clement 2/5 Ports Of Call Jack Vance 4/5 February Lurulu Jack Vance (re-read) 3/5 Night Lamp Jack Vance 5/5 Medusa's Children Bob Shaw 2/5 Space Opera Jack Vance 3/5 March Maske: Thaery Jack Vance 5/5 Dead In The Morning Margaret Yorke 2/5 The Secret Of Annexe 3 Colin Dexter 2/5 April Songs Of The Dying Earth Anthology 5/5 Lies We Tell Ourselves Robin Talley 4/5 A Gull On The Roof Derek Tangye 3/5 Gone Tomorrow Lee Child 2/5 Killing Floor Lee Child 2/5 The 100 Kass Morgan 1/5 May Necropolis London and its dead Catharine Arnold 4/5 Mrs Jeffries Reveals Her Art Emily Brightwell 3/5 The 100 Day 21 Kass Morgan 1/5 StirFry Emma Donoghue 3/5 Man Walking On Eggshells Herbert Simmons 3/5 The Red Badge Of Courage Stephen Crane 3/5 The Houses Of Iszm Jack Vance 4/5 June Shooting Victoria Paul Thomas Murphy 4/5 The Sealed Letter Emma Donoghue 5/5 Heap House Edward Carey 5/5 July Foulsham Edward Carey 3/5 From Outside In (Anthology) edited by Nushin Arbabzadah 3/5 August The Art Of Being Normal 2/5 Lisa Williamson Inverted World 3/5 Christopher Priest In Search Of Shroedinger's Cat 3/5 John Gribbin September The Man From Maybe 3/5 Leo P Kelly The Housekeeper's Tale The women who really ran the English Country House 5/5 Tessa Boase Time And Time Again 4/5 Ben Elton Over A Hot Stove 2/5 Flo Wadlow Servants 3/5 Sarah Lethbridge Why Do People Hate America? 4/5 Ziauddin Sardar, Merryl Wyn Davies Guardian Of The Horizon (Amelia Peabody #16) 3/5 Sarah Peters November The Time Traders 2/5 Andre Norton December The Girl In The Spider's Web 3/5 David Lagercrantz Edited December 22, 2017 by vodkafan addition Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted January 19, 2017 Author Share Posted January 19, 2017 (edited) The TBR Pile organised! Victorian authors, obscure works and classics The Poor Gentleman Hendrick Conscience Two On A Tower The Return Of The Native A Laodician A Pair Of Blue Eyes Jude The Obscure The Woodlanders Far From The Madding Crowd all above by The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy Post Haste RM Ballantyne Autobiography Of Anthony Trollope Lady Anna Miss Mackenzie 4 above by The Way We Live Now Anthony Trollope Twelve Years A Slave Solomon Northup Letters Of Two Brides Balzac Birds Of Prey Charlotte's Inheritance Run To Earth A Novel The Doctor's Wife Lady Audley's Secret Mary Elizabeth Braddon Little Dorrit Charles Dickens The Mill On The Floss Madame Bovary Tess of The d'urbervilles Lady Susan Thoughts On The Education Of Daughters The Last Man Maria, Or The Wrongs Of Woman Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman The Perpetual Curate The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Equality Looking Backward 2000-1887 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Picture Of Dorian Grey Oscar WildeNicholas Nickleby Charles DickensThe Legend Of Sleepy Hollow Washington Irvine Little Women Louisa May Alcott Shirley Bleak House The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde The Moonstone The Woman In White Ruth The Importance Of Being Earnest BasilLes Miserables Mrs Oliphant Confessions Of An English Opium Eater Thomas De Quincey Testament Of Youth Vera Brittain Books set in Victorian times by modern authors Under A Cloud-Soft Sky The Singing Winds Shelter From The Storm Snow Angels Pure - Andrew Miller The Road To Samarcand Patrick O'Brian Reference works and 18th-19th century history, social history London The Biography Peter Ackroyd The Siege Of Krishnapur J.G. Farrell The Dictionary Of London Raj Lawrence James The Age of Revolution 1789-1848 The Age Of Capital 1848-1875 The Age Of Empire 1875-1914 Slavery A New Global History Jeremy BlackBalti Britain - Ziauddin Sardar Asians In Britain 400 years of History Rozina Visram Random must reads Nice To See It To See It Nice Brian Viner It's A Small Medium And Outsize World John Taylor Cut Like Wound Anita Nair (signed copy, paperback printed in India!) Connections Rules For Virgins The Life And Loves Of A She Devil The Passion Of New Eve The Haunted Hotel Ten Interesting Things About Human Behaviour Slave Girl Sarah Forsyth (autobiography) The Man Who Loved Only Numbers Paul Hoffman (biography of Paul Erdos) The White Mists Of Power Kristine Kathryn Rusch Blitz The Civilian War 1940-45 Jane Waller Michael Vaughn-Rees (war memoir) I Think I'm OK Undercover: The True Story Of Britain's Secret Police King Solomon's Carpet Barbara Vine A Far Cry From Kensington Muriel Spark Capital John Lanchester Good Behaviour Molly Keane Miss Peregrine's Home For Unusual Children - Ransom RiggsOryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood Stephanie Plum series 9-20 - Janet EvanovitchForgotten Voices of the Blitz Joshua LevineOne Day David Nichols Geisha Liza DalbyIn The Heart Of The Sea Nathanial PhilbrickSpycatcher Peter WrightWays Of Seeing John BergerGunners On Tour Maurice CourtRivers Of London Ben AaronovitchThe Horse Whisperer Nicholas EvansThe German Invasion Of Norway Geirr H Haarr Accidents In The Home Tessa HadleyDevoted Ladies Molly KeaneA Fine Balance Rohinton MistryLord Of The Flies William GoldingRebecca Daphne Du MaurierUntying The Knot Linda Gillard One of Our Thursdays Is Missing,Thursday Next First Among Sequels,Something Rotten,The Well Of Lost Plots,Lost In A Good Book,The Eyre Affair Jasper Fforde Life Of Pi - Yann MartelThe Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson Alone In Berlin The Terror Round the Bend Two Eggs On My Plate Oluf Reed OlsenInfidel Ayaan Hirsi Ali Nerd Do Well Simon PeggForensic Clues To Murder Brian Marriner Bad Blood Lorna Sage The Voyage Out Virginia Woolf The Book Of The DeadThe Other Side Of The Dale Gervaise Phinn SF Out Of Time-Five tales of Time Travel Strange Loops The Time Travel Megapack The Martian Way Isaac Asimov The Green Brain Frank HerbertThe Steampunk megapack (26 stories)ViridisLady Of Devices A Steampunk AdventureSteampunk Erotica Best New SF 25Meeting At Infinity John Brunner Foundation Isaac Asimov The Naked Sun Isaac Asimov Of All Possible Worlds William Tenn The Makeshift Rocket Poul Anderson Life The Universe and EverythingMore Than Super-Human AE VAN Vogt Edited January 21, 2017 by vodkafan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted January 19, 2017 Author Share Posted January 19, 2017 (edited) EXTRA TBR!! The above TBR list is transferred from last year with the pitifully few books I read from it removed. Many of them are on the kindle so I won't make any headway into that lot until I get a new one. The list below consists of "Tree Books" that seem to attach themselves to me when I go into charity shops. I haven't been listing them but I have been quite good at reading them straight away lately. I will attempt to get some sort of a list up sometime later today. The Serpent The Dragon Atlan The City all by Jane Gaskell Renoir My Father Jean Renoir Annie May's Black Book Debby Holt Shopping, Seduction And Mr Selfridge Lindy Woodhead Medusa's Children Bob Shaw Overlay On a Planet Alien Both by Barry Malzberg S.T.A.R. Flight EC Tubb Where Underpants Come From Joe Bennet Letters Of An Indian Judge To An English Gentlewoman Bone Idle Suzette A Hill Frankenstein Unbound Brian Aldiss 7 Trips Through Time And Space anthology Rahne Susan Coon Night Watch Andrew m Stephenson Close To Critical Hal Clement At Home Bill Bryson Wonderland Avenue Danny Sugarman Dorian Will Self Night Lamp Jack Vance Edited February 25, 2017 by vodkafan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted January 19, 2017 Author Share Posted January 19, 2017 (edited) URGENT SHORT LIST TBR This seemed to work last year, so I will do it again: I will give my TBR a quick bunk up by finishing all the books I have already started. Woman on The Edge Of Time Marge Piercy London The Biography Man Of Two Worlds Frank and Brian Herbert Victoria Victorian Things Asa Briggs Shopgirls Pamela Cox and Annabel Hobley Dear Bill Bryson Ben Aitken Shopping, Seduction and Mr Selfridge Lindy Woodhead Edited January 27, 2017 by vodkafan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian. Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 Good luck with your reading year James. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ian Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 Blimey, just reading your TBR list made me come out in a cold sweat! Hope your mojo finds its way back to you - happy reading! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Pixie Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 Happy Reading in 2017. Ooh, lots of lovely Jasper Fforde books to keep you occupied. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted January 22, 2017 Author Share Posted January 22, 2017 Happy Reading in 2017. Ooh, lots of lovely Jasper Fforde books to keep you occupied. All on the kindle I'm afraid. I haven't read one yet, are they good? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted January 22, 2017 Author Share Posted January 22, 2017 Blimey, just reading your TBR list made me come out in a cold sweat! Hope your mojo finds its way back to you - happy reading! It never gets any smaller. But I am not afraid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted January 22, 2017 Author Share Posted January 22, 2017 Good luck with your reading year James. Thanks Brian you too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Pixie Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 All on the kindle I'm afraid. I haven't read one yet, are they good? They`re excellent - I love Jasper Fforde`s writing and the Worlds he creates. He`s about the only author I buy in hardback. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 I wish you a great reading year in 2017 ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrCat Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 Have fun reading Asimov. Excellent SF author even though he is a bit outdated, especially when it comes to robots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontalba Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 Interesting lists, James! Some I haven't even heard of, so good luck with them all. And a very happy and productive reading year to you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppyshake Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 Happy reading in 2017 James! Good luck with the old TBR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted January 28, 2017 Author Share Posted January 28, 2017 Thanks Athena, Mr Cat, Pontalba and Poppyshake! Great to be back actually Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted January 28, 2017 Author Share Posted January 28, 2017 The Paris Enigma 5/5 Pablo de Santis It seems fitting to start off my 2017 reviews with (in my opinion) an absolute stonker of a book. This one surprised and delighted me so much. The main story is set in Paris of 1889, (which is why I originally picked up the book) but there is very little in the way of historical description or setting. However I didn't even miss it, and it was a revelation to me that a story can work so well without it. It is a very meta-physical book, you feel you are glimpsing the hidden nature of truths and realities. There seem to be no absolute truths, everything is in flux, and that sort of writing excites me no end. Twelve great Detectives from all over the world are to meet at the upcoming Paris World's Fair while the Eiffel Tower is being built, bringing their twelve acolytes, who in their different ways acts as foils and sidekicks to the great men. However, at the last minute the renowned Argentinian detective Renato Craig becomes melancholy and sends his newly appointed acolyte Sigmundo Salvatrio in his place. Salvatrio is only the son of a shoemaker , and feels he is there under false pretences, but since childhood he has always secretly dreamed of being a great detective himself. When one of the Detectives is mysteriously murdered he attempts to prove himself. This is not a book of action and fisticuffs or even much clever deduction. But if you love flowery dialogue and tongue-in-cheek metaphysical exposition (I do) in your stories then this is worth a look. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted January 28, 2017 Author Share Posted January 28, 2017 The Watcher 2/5 Jane Palmer While on holiday last year in Portsmouth I unearthed two books by an English writer called Jane Palmer. Her thing seems to be SF with a second-wave feminist twist. This one was the first I attempted. It started off really well and hooked me in. On an alien planet far away the intelligent bird-like life forms (which can change sex when needed, but seem to spend most of their time being female) have come under attack by a vampiric creature that moves through space and eats energy. With instruments they manage to track the creature back to its source, which turns out to be Earth. The bird creatures are not a space faring race, but they get in touch with another ancient race which is interested in Earth for its own reasons; they are amphibians who want to colonize the oceans of planet Earth once the humans have died out, which they figure won't be too long the way we are going. On behalf of the bird race they agree to send an agent to Earth to locate and destroy the creature. This is the Kybion, which is a unique thing of half machine and half genetic material, which has the ability to construct and disguise itself. I was fascinated by the concept of the Kybion, especially when it accidentally comes into contact with a group of shipwrecked Victorian humans when it is only half constructed, and cold-bloodedly decides to use them for it's own purposes. The action then moves on 100 years and centres on an orphaned Indian girl living in England. Unfortunately for me the plot then became very silly, and became more and more a lightweight romance where the author had fell in love with her characters and didn't want anything bad to happen to them. For that reason I could only give it 2/5. I still love the Kybion though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted January 28, 2017 Share Posted January 28, 2017 I wish you a fabulous reading year, voddy Jasper Fforde is great, although I've only read The Eyre Affair so far. But that was simply amazing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted January 28, 2017 Author Share Posted January 28, 2017 I wish you a fabulous reading year, voddy Jasper Fforde is great, although I've only read The Eyre Affair so far. But that was simply amazing! Thank you! I will replace my kindle soon and Jasper will be right at the front of the queue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angury Posted January 29, 2017 Share Posted January 29, 2017 Interesting TBR - I look forward to reading more of your reviews. I was wondering what you thought of Howard Becker's Outsiders: Study in the Sociology of Deviance? It is something I have been thinking of buying as I have an interest in that area, but wasn't sure how relevant it would be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted January 29, 2017 Author Share Posted January 29, 2017 Interesting TBR - I look forward to reading more of your reviews. I was wondering what you thought of Howard Becker's Outsiders: Study in the Sociology of Deviance? It is something I have been thinking of buying as I have an interest in that area, but wasn't sure how relevant it would be. Hi Angury, I didn't think anybody would be interested in this! Pass me your address I will send you my copy. I found it useful, and it was probably a landmark study at the time, but things that were then regarded as deviant are now considered part of the normal spectrum of human diversity. It is also American-centric. However, all that to the side, the central planks of his theory are pretty sound and it made perfect sense to me. It's another tool of looking at the world that I didn't consider before. It will be useful to me for my characters in my novel, who as time travellers have to disguise their differentness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted February 4, 2017 Author Share Posted February 4, 2017 This year I am making a big effort to get hold of Jack Vance SF books that I have not yet read. To my surprise there are still a few. I got hold of Ports Of Call and now am half way through Night Lamp. There is another I haven't read called Space Opera . I also have obtained copies of the Demon Princes novels and one of the Cadwell trilogy called Throy I have been after for a long time. ( I have read them all on kindle, but also wanted treebooks for my shelf). Some of the rarer titles on ebay have been and still are crazy prices (Like £300 for an old paperback!) but I have had a bit of luck and managed to fill in all the gaps inexpensively. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrissy Posted February 4, 2017 Share Posted February 4, 2017 What others are you still seeking VF? We could all keep an eye out for them. Enjoy your reading this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted February 4, 2017 Author Share Posted February 4, 2017 (edited) What others are you still seeking VF? We could all keep an eye out for them. Enjoy your reading this year. That is very kind of you Chrissy! But I have never seen any Jack Vance books in any charity shop, and I have been looking perhaps 20 years! Why this is I can only speculate. Apart from Space Opera, the only ones I know of are some anthologies of his short stories, which seem to be extremely rare. Jack Vance seems to be a marmite author. People who like him REALLY like him, and those who don't get him don't read past the first few pages. Ah, such is life. But I am happy for myself that his work exists, and it has given me much pleasure and inspired my own efforts to scribble a bit. Edited February 4, 2017 by vodkafan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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