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More reading time required for 2017


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Better late than never!

 

Read in 2017
 
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. Amazingly I haven't really added to it over the year, but it hasn't gone down all that much either!

 

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)

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

Pullman, Phillip - Once upon a Time in the North

Richardson, Samuel - Clarissa Harlowe (9 vol) (Kindle)

Rothfuss, Patrick - The Name of the Wind (Kindle)

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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I've also had this challenge ticking away over the past couple of years, but I've never thought to post it before. Many years ago, there was a BBC poll for the nation's top 100 books. I've combined that list with a few other Facebook "100 books you must read" for something I'm slowly chipping away at in an effort to become more "widely read". :D


AA Milne - Winnie the Pooh
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
Alexandre Dumas - The Count Of Monte Cristo
Alexandre Dumas - The Three Musketeers
Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones
Alice Walker - The Color Purple
Anna Sewell - Black Beauty
Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
Antoine De Saint - The Little Prince
Anya Seton - Katherine
Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha
Arthur Ransome - Swallows And Amazons
Arundhati Roy - The God Of Small Things
AS Byatt - Possession
Audrey Niffeneger The Time Traveler’s Wife
Bill Bryson - Notes From A Small Island
Bram Stoker - Dracula
Carlos Ruiz Zafon - The Shadow of the Wind
Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens - A Tale Of Two Cities
Charles Dickens - Bleak House
Charles Dickens - David Copperfield
Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist
Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre
Colleen McCollough- The Thorn Birds
CS Lewis - Chronicles of Narnia
CS Lewis - The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code
Daphne du Maurier - Rebecca
David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas
Dodie Smith -I Capture The Castle
Donna Tartt -The Secret History
Douglas Adams - The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
EB White - Charlotte’s Web
Emile Zola -Germinal
Emily Brontë -Wuthering Heights
Enid Blyton - The Faraway Tree Collection
Eoin Colfer -Artemis Fowl
Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited
F Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
Frances Hodgson Burnett - The Secret Garden
Frank Herbert - Dune
Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Crime And Punishment
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love In The Time Of Cholera
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude
George Eliot - Middlemarch
George Orwell - Animal Farm
George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty Four
Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary
Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird
Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones’s Diary
Herman Melville - Moby Dick
Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory
Ian McEwan - Atonement
Jack Kerouac - On The Road
Jacqueline Wilson - Double Act
Jacqueline Wilson - Girls In Love
Jacqueline Wilson - The Story Of Tracy Beaker
Jacqueline Wilson - Vicky Angel
James Joyce -Ulysses
Jane Austen - Emma
Jane Austen - Persuasion
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility
JD Salinger - Catcher in the Rye
Jean M Auel - The Clan Of The Cave Bear
Jeffrey Archer - Kane And Abel
JK Rowling - Harry Potter series
John Fowles - The Magus
John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meaney
John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces
John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck - The Grapes Of Wrath
Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness
Joseph Heller - Catch-22
JRR Tolkien - The Hobbit
JRR Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings
Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day
Ken Follett - The Pillars Of The Earth
Kenneth Grahame - The Wind in the Willows
Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner
Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace
Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures In Wonderland
LM Montgomery - Anne Of Green Gables
Louis de Bernieres - Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Louis Sachar - Holes
Louisa May Alcott - Little Women
Malorie Blackman - Noughts And Crosses
Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid’s Tale
Margaret Mitchell - Gone With The Wind
Mario Puzo - The Godfather
Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night
Meg Cabot - The Princess Diaries
Mervyn Peake - Gormenghast
Michelle Magorian - Goodnight Mister Tom
Mitch Alborn - The Five People You Meet In Heaven
Nevil Shute - A Town Like Alice
Patrick Süskind - Perfume
Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist
Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials
Raymond E Feist - Magician
Richard Adams - Watership Down
Roald Dahl - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Roald Dahl - Matilda
Roald Dahl - The BFG
Roald Dahl - The Twits
Robert Louis Stevenson - Treasure Island
Robert Tressell - The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Rohinton Mistry - A Fine Balance
Rosamunde Pilcher - The Shell Seekers
Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children
Sebastian Faulks - Birdsong
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Stella Gibbons - Cold Comfort Farm
Stephen King - The Stand
Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar
Terry Pratchett - Guards! Guards!
Terry Pratchett - Mort
Terry Pratchett - Night Watch
Terry Pratchett - The Colour Of Magic
Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman - Good Omens
Thackeray - Vanity Fair
Thomas Hardy - Far From The Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy - Jude the Obscure
Thomas Hardy - Tess Of The D'Urbervilles
Various - The Bible
Victor Hugo - Les Miserables
Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
Wilkie Collins - The Woman in White
William Golding - Lord Of The Flies
William Shakespeare - Complete Works of Shakespeare
Yann Martel - Life of Pi

Edited by More reading time required
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Also, now I've read the last Discworld :wibbly:, I want to do a Discworld re-read from start to finish.

 

The Colour of Magic

The Light Fantastic

Equal Rites

Mort

Sourcery

Wyrd Sisters

Pyramids

Guards! Guards!

Eric

Moving Pictures

Reaper Man

Witches Abroad

Small Gods

Lords and Ladies

Men at Arms

Soul Music

Interesting Times

Maskerade

Feet of Clay

Hogfather

Jingo

The Last Continent

Carpe Jugulum

The Fifth Elephant

The Truth

Thief of Time

The Last Hero

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents

Night Watch

The Wee Free Men

Monstrous Regiment

A Hat Full of Sky

Going Postal

Thud!

Wintersmith

Making Money

Unseen Academicals

I Shall Wear Midnight

Snuff

Raising Steam

The Shepherd's Crown

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Read in 2017

 

January

----------

 

The Unmumsy Mum by Sarah Turner

Hurrah For Gin by Kate Kirby
 
 
February
-----------
 
The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett

The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson 

Swallows & Amazons by Arthur Ransome

 
 
March
--------
 
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
 
 
April
------
 
Girl on a Train by Paula Hawkins
 
 
May 
-----
 
The Killing 3 by David Hewson
Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
Raising Girls by Steve Biddulph
 
 
June 
-------
Rage of the Dragon by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
End of Watch by Stephen King 
 
 
July
------
Thinking About it Only Makes it Worse by David Mitchell
The Gunslinger by Stephen King
The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King
 
August
----------
 
Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran
The Waste Lands by Stephen King
Doom of the Dragon by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
 
 
September
---------------
 
Wizard & Glass by Stephen King
A Short History of Everything by Bill Bryson 
 
October
------------
 
Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb
 
November
---------------
 
December
--------------
A Crown of Swords (TWoT7) by Robert Jordan 
 
Edited by More reading time required
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What did you think of The Alloy of Law? Or did you post about it elsewhere and I missed it :blush2:.

 

I wish you very happy reading in 2017 :readingtwo::).

 

Ah, I've not actually finished it yet. I should have added something at the end of two of those latter two books, which I've now done. :) So far so good though. :)

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  • 10 months later...

Abysmal reading year, absymal reviewing year! :giggle2:

 

Time to try and rectify that with some mini reviews. Some easier than others as I made some notes at first but then forgot about it later in the year.

 

The Unmumsy Mum by Sarah Turner 5/5

 

I loved this. I love her blog and this was a must read. It's so funny and rings so true.

 

Hurrah For Gin by Kate Kirby 5/5
 
Again, another must read blog and a must read book. I was reading this whilst many times going, "yes, yes, yes". :D 
 
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The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett 5/5
 
So this was it. The last Discworld. :wibbly: I don't think I've ever read a Discworld book so carefully. I mean, I still read it quick, but I didn't skim through it with my usual speed.
Anyway, it was great, but it was witty & amusing rather than riotously funny like his earlier books. I liked the premise of the elf trying to redeem herself, but the whole thing was quite brutal in a way. 

After the 2nd chapter, I cried. :wibbly:  This was based on what happened in the chapter - 

Spoiler

Granny Weatherwax dying :wibbly: ,

 

the loss of Terry Pratchett and on what had happened earlier that day IRL - a conversation about us maybe having to make a tough choice about our 11 year old cat who had gone completely incontinent. (A few days later we took him to the vets and found out he had bladder crystals. All this required was a change of diet - he went on the most expensive cat food ever and now has a new lease of life :cool:)


I felt better about the book by the time the 'credits rolled' then I felt sad again at the end reading about all the potential stories we'll never get to see.

 

Edited by More reading time required
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The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson 4/5

 

I enjoyed it, but it probably didn't help that I forgot all the workings of allomancy and what happned in the Mistborn trilogy.

There were some good characters and interesting baddies.

 

Swallows & Amazons by Arthur Ransome 3/5

 
Enjoyable enough but quite a fluffy and lightweight story.
 
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett 3/5
 
A story evolves into three different parallel strands based on a tiny change in the main thread.  Very cleverly done.
 
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Elantris by Brandon Sanderson 4/5
 
This was a very interesting premise. I liked the feistiness of the lead woman.
 
Girl on a Train by Paula Hawkins 4/5
 
I found Rachel very frustrating but it was a story that kept me gripped all the way through.
 
The Killing 3 by David Hewson 3/5
 
I read this because I missed it when it was on tv and it's still yet to appear on a streaming service. :angry: I quite enjoyed it but it was definitely more confusing to keep up with the characters than if it was on tv. I'm not sure if the ending was the same too. The intro seemed to infer it wasn't. I'd still like to see the tv interpretation too. 
 
Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig 3/5
 
As someone who's suffered with ill mental health in the past, I could very much empathise with the feelings he had in this, but as a self-help book, there are not many practical advice of getting better in this. It just seems to happen for him.
 
Raising Girls by Steve Biddulph  3/5

This was a practical book about how to handle the various stages of raising a daughter. There is some reasonable advice in here but by the time Ellie gets to the age that it'd be relevant, I'll have probably forgotten it! :D 
 
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Rage of the Dragon by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman 3/5
 
Book 3 - not bad
 
End of Watch by Stephen King 2/5
 
Both enjoyable and disappointing. It all got a bit fantastical which didn't really fit what happened in the first two books.
It was pretty sad at the end though.  Also, it recapped the stuff that had happened in Mr Mercedes and I was struck down by the scarily similar comparisons to the recent terror attacks - the car driving into crowds and the bomber in a concert full of youths. :wibbly: 
 
Thinking About it Only Makes it Worse by David Mitchell 3/5
 
Some interesting articles in Mitchell's own imitable style.
 
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The Gunslinger by Stephen King 3/5
 
A slow and intriguing start to the series. Still one of the best opening lines to a book series.
 
The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King 4/5

Oh, and this is where it really gets going. 
 
Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran 3/5
 
I can't really remember much about this, but I'm sure I found it funny! :) 
 
The Waste Lands by Stephen King 4/5
 
Not the best of the series, but I do love the scenes with Blaine.
 
 
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Doom of the Dragon by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman 4/5
 
Decent finish to a fairly good 'quadrilogy' .
 
Wizard & Glass by Stephen King 5/5
 
This is my favourite of the series. Roland's back story is very moving.
 
A Short History of Everything by Bill Bryson 4/5
 
It took a while to get through (mainly as I only read it at occasional work lunchtimes) but I found it fascinating. My most favourite thing was the bit about the dandelion plant:  
The dandelion was long popularly known as the 'pissabed' because of its supposed diuretic properties, and other names in everyday use included 'mare's fart', 'naked ladies', 'twitch-ballock', 'hounds-wee', 'open arse', and 'bum-towel' :giggle2:
 
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Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb 5/5
 
Oh how I've missed reading Robin Hobb. :wub: It gave me a warm glow inside. I'd stupidly skipped the Rain Wilds series as I'd read a bad review, but I definitely need to go back and sort that out, I think.  
 
A Crown of Swords (TWoT7) by Robert Jordan 3/5

It took a while to get going but once I was reading more regularly, I got more into it. I'm starting to lose track of all the characters a bit, but I'm just about managing to follow. I'm looking forward to getting into some new material once I hit the halfway point of book 8! 
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3 hours ago, Athena said:

Wow, that's a lot of mini-reviews!!

 

I'm glad your cat is okay now, it's always difficult when a pet is unwell :(.

 

Is it Mario who was poorly ? Glad he`s on the mend ; echoing, Gaia, it`s so awful when a Furry Family Member is ill. :( 

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  • 1 month later...
On 12/31/2017 at 1:41 AM, More reading time required said:
End of Watch by Stephen King 2/5
 
Both enjoyable and disappointing. It all got a bit fantastical which didn't really fit what happened in the first two books.
It was pretty sad at the end though.  Also, it recapped the stuff that had happened in Mr Mercedes and I was struck down by the scarily similar comparisons to the recent terror attacks - the car driving into crowds and the bomber in a concert full of youths. :wibbly: 
 
 

 

I was so disappointed in End of Watch. The supernatural element just ruined it for me. 

 

On 12/31/2017 at 1:42 AM, More reading time required said:
Wizard & Glass by Stephen King 5/5
 
This is my favourite of the series. Roland's back story is very moving.
 
A Short History of Everything by Bill Bryson 4/5
 
It took a while to get through (mainly as I only read it at occasional work lunchtimes) but I found it fascinating. My most favourite thing was the bit about the dandelion plant:  
The dandelion was long popularly known as the 'pissabed' because of its supposed diuretic properties, and other names in everyday use included 'mare's fart', 'naked ladies', 'twitch-ballock', 'hounds-wee', 'open arse', and 'bum-towel' :giggle2:
 

 

Wizard & Glass is my favourite of the series too. I need to give it a re-read this year, I think!

 

I love A Short History of Everything. I read it every couple of years, and always pick up on something new. 

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