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Your Book Activity - December 2019


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It's December!  The year is almost over.  What's everyone reading this month?  Have you bought any books?

 

I've 80 pages left of Dracula.  It's been a verbose joy.

 

I'm about to start a re-read of A Christmas Malice by John Bainbridge.  It's a short novella, so it won't take too long, and it'll get me into the spirit.

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I'm trying very hard to convince myself that I don't need to buy another book, because I have a serious backlog of books I need to read! 

 

I'm not very far into Tom Cox's Help the Witch, so I'll be finishing that. I've also got a Wilkie Collins story to read from a collection of two called Who Killed Zebedee? (named after the first short story), but then I'm planning to read some of Dickens' Christmas stories :) 

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I'm almost done with A Christmas Malice, which I've thoroughly enjoyed.

 

Next up will be An English Murder by Cyril Hare.  It's a murder mystery that takes place on Christmas Eve.  Lots of snow, and an old country house filled with family members who all detest one another.  Perfect!  :cheers:

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Just finished The Favourite by Ophelia Field, the biography of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough,. upon which the film (starring Olivia Coleman and Rachel Weisz) was loosely based.  Gives a very different, convincing, perspective to the traditional, fairly negative, viewpoint, and worth reading for that alone, but at 485 pages, it felt overlong and hard work, with page after page of 'A wrote, then B wrote, then A wrote back' etc etc.  Whatever the merits or otherwise of the Duchess, hers was a life of being constantly in dispute with pretty much everyone close to her, and the detail of that became distinctly tedious after a while.  A solid, but not gripping, read: 3/6.

Tried following that with Robert Harris's The Dictator for one of my book groups.  It's had consistently positive reviews from readers, but within 50 pages I was bored to tears - not least because it's a straight retelling of the history, so why not just read the history?  Life is too short to persist with this sort of experience, and it's another 400+ page tome.  Need to find something more rewarding.

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I'm currently reading A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig. I'm reading this together with a friend (from YouTube), we're reading about 40 pages each day. So far I'm liking this story a lot. I'm also reading It's Not OK to Feel Blue and Other Lies by Scarlett Curtis & Others, a book with essays on mental health. I'm liking this one a lot as well.

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Finished Christmas, A History by Judith Flanders last night, a swift gallop through how Christmas has developed through the years. Unfortunately I found that I could remember virtually nothing of the content, it all happening in such a rush and all over the place in its structure - or so it felt. Never anything much more than superficial; 3/6.  Started and finished Cover Her Face by PD James today - a quick and enjoyable read, a very traditional murder mystery rather more character driven and well written than the average; 4/6.

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I've finished An English Murder.  I really enjoyed it, except I felt, perhaps, that the conclusion was wrapped up too quickly.  Here's who did it!  The end! 

 

I'm now about to start The Remaking of Corbin Wale by Roan Parrish, which will be my last festive read of the year.

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Finished Reading Allowed by Chris Paling this morning, recounting his experiences as a librarian in a proviincial city library.  Very similar to the best selling This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay, complete with issues of funding shortages and staff cuts, but more sympathetic to his 'customers' than Kay and, for me, a better book (partly as a result of this). Both books make me even more depressed about what happened on Thursday - it appears that turkeys do vote for Christmas.

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Finished In The Heart of The Country by HE Bates.  Vivid, evocative description of the seasons in The Weald in 1941.  His writing is sometimes a bit over descriptive, such that it's actually hard to follow the thread, but still loved both the images and atmosphere created.  Involving- 4/6.

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1 hour ago, Athena said:

I'm currently reading His Dark Materials 1: Northern Lights (my copy is called The Golden Compass though after the movie title) by Philip Pullman. I'm reading the book together with 2 others, we're reading about 50 pages each day.

Is it a re-read for you? I love those books!

 

I decided to start reading some of Dickens' Christmas books (The Holly Tree is next) but I also bought A Christmas Railway Mystery by Edward Marston yesterday, and I do feel like getting into a novel, so I might start reading that at the same time.

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I started reading Skipping Christmas by John Grisham about a month ago and then a long came a reading slump. Not sure I want to finish it. May come back to it at a later date. Currently reading The Holiday Swap by Zara Stoneley. 

Got 7 books left on my challenge. 

 

Hope everyone is enjoying their last month of reading for the year. 

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6 hours ago, Lau_Lou said:

I started reading Skipping Christmas by John Grisham about a month ago and then a long came a reading slump. Not sure I want to finish it. May come back to it at a later date. 

Hope everyone is enjoying their last month of reading for the year. 

 

The movie was funny but the book wasn't particularly memorable. However, I went on to read Grisham's A Painted House which was excellent.

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10 hours ago, Hayley said:

Is it a re-read for you? I love those books!

 

No, I'm reading it for the first time. I'm really liking it a lot so far :)! I'm on page 150 (of the first book). I did see the movie some years ago, but I don't remember much of it other than that I liked it a lot. People said it was quite different than the book. At the rate of 50 pages per day, we (the other 2 people and I) should have it finished by Christmas.

 

10 hours ago, Hayley said:

I decided to start reading some of Dickens' Christmas books (The Holly Tree is next) but I also bought A Christmas Railway Mystery by Edward Marston yesterday, and I do feel like getting into a novel, so I might start reading that at the same time.

 

I hope both of these are good reads for you :)!

 

10 hours ago, Lau_Lou said:

I started reading Skipping Christmas by John Grisham about a month ago and then a long came a reading slump. Not sure I want to finish it. May come back to it at a later date. Currently reading The Holiday Swap by Zara Stoneley. 

Got 7 books left on my challenge. 

 

Hope everyone is enjoying their last month of reading for the year. 

 

I've read bad things of Skipping Christmas :(. Though I did buy it when I found it at a library sale for €0,50 (that was before I knew of the bad reviews).

 

3 hours ago, poppy said:

The movie was funny but the book wasn't particularly memorable. However, I went on to read Grisham's A Painted House which was excellent.

 

1 hour ago, muggle not said:

A Painted House was one of my favorites by Grisham.

 

Oooh I have A Painted House on my TBR, glad you both liked it a lot :).

 

I haven't actually read many Christmas/wintery books yet, but somehow I've just been more in the mood for other types of books :shrug:.

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On 01/12/2019 at 4:24 PM, Hayley said:

I'm trying very hard to convince myself that I don't need to buy another book, because I have a serious backlog of books I need to read! 

 

 

I've been banned from buying any more books until Christmas is over so that narrows down what I'm getting as gifts :lol:

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Finished The Remaking of Corbin Wale.  It was a self-published novel.  I found the writing a little green, the dialogue often clumsy, and the plot fairly silly towards the end, but it was a quick read.

 

I'm going to tackle one more Agatha Christie before the year is out!  Here we go, with Mrs McGinty's Dead.  The first page has Poirot directly addressing his moustaches, so I think we're in for a good time.

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On 18/12/2019 at 4:07 PM, Athena said:

I'm currently reading His Dark Materials 1: Northern Lights (my copy is called The Golden Compass though after the movie title) by Philip Pullman. I'm reading the book together with 2 others, we're reading about 50 pages each day.

 

That was the name of the book when first published in the States.  Not quite sure why they changed it, but they kept the American name for the film, surprise, surprise.

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Finished Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, a collection of her short stories.  A cut above the other short story collection I've read this year (Malachi Whitaker's The Journey Home and Other Stories), although I can see others thinking the opposite.  Whilst somewhat dated, they kept me entertained and thinking (not necessarily in that order!).  4/6

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7 hours ago, willoyd said:

That was the name of the book when first published in the States.  Not quite sure why they changed it, but they kept the American name for the film, surprise, surprise.

 

Oh thanks, that's nice to know :)! I don't like it when they change the title for UK vs. US (or such) audiences, it can be confusing and make me think it's a new book by an author (since the shops I use sometimes have UK and at other times have US editions), rather than the same book retitled.

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13 hours ago, Athena said:

Oh thanks, that's nice to know :)! I don't like it when they change the title for UK vs. US (or such) audiences, it can be confusing and make me think it's a new book by an author (since the shops I use sometimes have UK and at other times have US editions), rather than the same book retitled.

 

I agree, very irritating.  Usually, I think, it's because of disparities in the two languages, which means that something perfectly innocent in one means something rather less so in the other, but here it's rather different, as Wikipedia explains here.

 

On a different note, have just finished reading Hallie Rubenhold's The Five, telling the story of the lives of the five women murdered by Jack the Ripper.  An absolutely fascinating and sympathetic piece of social history that turns many of the prejudices and myths surrounding the women completely on their heads, and goes some way to restoring their humanity.  Apparently the book disappointed many Ripperologists by almost completely eliminating all details of the murders themselves - which would have distracted from the whole point of the book.  I can totally see why it won the the Baillie-Gifford Prize (for non-fiction).  Excellent: 5/6.

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13 hours ago, willoyd said:

I agree, very irritating.  Usually, I think, it's because of disparities in the two languages, which means that something perfectly innocent in one means something rather less so in the other, but here it's rather different, as Wikipedia explains here.

 

Thanks for that! Really interesting to know :).

 

I'm making good progress in The Golden Compass / The Northern Lights book, reading 50ish pages a day. I read a lot in Lovely, Dark and Deep yesterday, I have almost finished it and should be able to finish it today.

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Another book finished in what seems to have become a bit of a traditional end of year reading fest, this one being The Pull of the River by Matt Gaw, in which he explores rivers around Britain by canoe, mostly in the south, and most of those in East Anglia.  Inevitably there is some repetition, but overall a real sense of an overarching journey, and some interesting insights.  4/6.

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