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Your Book Activity - June 2017


Kylie

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We're nearly halfway through the year! What's your book activity today?

 

I've sadly done very little reading lately, although I ordered a few books online in the last day or two. :)

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Finished Georges Simenon's The Misty Harbour this morning, the next Maigret in the series I'm reading. Usual high standard.  Am meant to be reading Dave Eggers's book, The Circle next, for my book group, but twenty pages in and it looks decidely unpromising (trying to be polite!), so will see if can keep it going.

Edited by willoyd
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Made a start on The Persephone Book of Short Stories this morning, and the first three were fantastic, including a Katherine Mansfield story. I can't believe I'm only just reading Mansfield - she's an amazing short story writer.  Will definitely be reading more of hers.

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On 01/06/2017 at 3:59 PM, willoyd said:

 Am meant to be reading Dave Eggers's book, The Circle next, for my book group, but twenty pages in and it looks decidely unpromising (trying to be polite!), so will see if can keep it going.

 

Kept going for another 130 or so pages, but couldn't take any more.  An interesting concept ruined by simply awful writing.  Mae, the central character, is the most uninteresting, shallow protagonist I can recall coming across.   Maybe it was deliberate, the thought of another three hundred or so pages of this filling me with the sort of dystopian horror that I think the author was trying to inspire. Perhaps not so deliberate though, the horror was more to do with the future of novels than the future of society.  More of this would surely sink us all.

Finished with this sooner than anticipated, so not sure what am going on to next.

 

Later edit: Have moved on to Tracey Chevalier's The Lady and the Unicorn.  Whilst I am not ecstatic about all her books, she is a consistently good story-teller and writer.

Edited by willoyd
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I'm still reading How The Mind Works by Steven Pinker. I think I'll be reading it for a while as it's a very lengthy book with loads of information. 

 

I bought quite a few Kindle books this morning, from the daily and monthly deals. Here's what I got:

 

Emotional Intelligence - Daniel Goleman

Total Recall - Arnold Schwarzenegger

Superforecasting: The Art of Science and Prediction - Philip Tetlock, Dan Gardener

The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair - Joel Dicker

Here I Am - Jonathan Safran Foer

The Establishment: And How They Get Away With It - Owen Jones

Breakfast Is A Dangerous Meal - Terence Kealey

A History of the World - Andrew Marr

House of Cards - Michael Dobbs (never watched the series but it's on my Netflix list)

Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and The Age of Amazon - Brad Stone

Who Rules The World: Reframings - Noam Chomsky

The Lost City of Z - David Grann

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I hope you, BB and Madeleine, enjoy your new books :)!

 

I've been trying to read but nothing seems to really stick right now. I don't know if it's because I'm very tired, but somehow I've read the beginnings of about 10 books but there isn't one that really makes me feel 'yes, I must read that right now'. So, I don't know. I guess have to see what happens.

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I've bought a few books since I last posted.  On Kindle:

 

The House at the Edge of the World by Julia Rochester

The Castlemaine Murders by Kerry Greenwood

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

 

And I've also bought a couple of paperbacks from the Wainwright Prize 2017 longlist:

 

Wild Kingdom by Stephen Moss

Foxes Unearthed by Lucy Jones

 

I've read Murder in Montparnasse by Kerry Greenwood and also Wild Kingdom by Stephen Moss, and have started The Castlemaine Murders by Kerry Greenwood this morning. :)

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Finished Foxes Unearthed yesterday and very good it was.

 

Bought a couple more books on the Wainwright Prize long list - Fingers in the Sparkle Jar by Chris Packham, and The Running Hare by John Lewis-Stempel.  Also fancied something silly and fun to read in between, so I've also bought a couple of M. C. Beaton regency romcoms, The Glitter and the Gold and Miss Fiona's Fancy.  Currently reading The Glitter and the Gold. :D

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Just finished John Irving's Until I Find You and still not quite sure how I feel about it. I've started Ransom Riggs' Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, a book I received as a birthday gift last year - almost a year ago! Finally got to it (although I admit I moved it up over about 1,000 other books on my TBR pile).

Edited by Alexander the Great
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Finished The Running Hare this morning, and it was excellent.  A perfect mix of farming, wildlife, history and nature.

 

Forgot to mention I bought a couple more books yesterday.  I'm inspired by a lot of the books they talk about on the Backlisted podcast, and I'm intending to read all of Anita Brookner's books, so I bought her second novel, Providence.  I've already got a copy of Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield (an old Virago Modern Classics, I think?) but it's in storage and also I want to buy all the Persephone catalogue eventually, so when I spotted their edition in the bookshop yesterday, I couldn't resist.  TBR is getting out of control again!

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Ooh,ooh, Diary of a Provincial Lady  - all the volumes - are some of my favouritist ( ;) ) books ever. :) I hope you enjoy them as much as I did ; she's like a 1930`s Bridget Jones. :D

 

I think those were my first Virago books.

 

Edited by Little Pixie
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I have read the first one of the ...Provincial Lady books, but I have the complete set to read on Kindle.  :)

 

I'm still reading The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot.  I'm up to 39% now.  I imagine this will take me a few weeks, not because of the content, which I am enjoying, but because of lack of time!

 

Peter and I started listening to The Call of the Wild by Jack London - I think we're about two-thirds of the way through, but we only listen in the car and are going away for the weekend with friends on Friday, so won't finish it until the following weekend.

 

 

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How to Find Love in a Bookshop -  Veronica Henry - close to the end

The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry - just started

A Cornish Stranger - Liz Fenwick - taking away with me when I go away for a few day this week.

Cherringham books 19-21 - just finished book 19 - these are so easy to read

 

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