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Madcow's Book List - 2008


madcow

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Total books read in 2008 (46)

Jeremy Clarkson - The world According To Clarkson - 7/10

The Devil Wears Prada - Lauren Weisberger - 8/10

The Tenth Circle - Jodi Picoult 7.5/10

The Sinner - Tess Gerritsen - 7.5/10

The Cruel Mother - Sian Busby - 7/10

Stolen - Tess Gerritsen - 7/10

Bella of Bow Street - Carol Rivers 7.5/10

Water For Elephants - Sarah Gruen - 9/10

Gone - Lisa Gardner - 8/10

The Surgeon - Tess Gerritsen 8/10

Boy A - Jonathan Trigell 6.5/10

Sense & Sensibility - Jane Austen - 8.5/10

You Can Run But You Can't Hide - Duane 'Dog' Chapman - 7/10

Harvest - Tess Gerritsen - 9/10

Footprints In The Sand - Sarah Challis - 9/10

Vanish - Tess Gerritsen - 9/10

Blood Ties - Sam Hayes - 9/10

Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult - 9/10

For One More Day - Mitch Albom - 8/10

The Apprentice - Tess Gerritsen - 8/10

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee - Rebecca Miller - 7.5/10

A Small Part of History - Peggy Elliott - 8/10

Emotional Geology - Linda Gillard - 9/10

A Lifetime Burning - Linda Gillard - 9.5/10

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister - Gregory Maguire - 8/10

Being Emily - Anne Donovan 7/10

Star Gazing - Linda Gillard - 9/10

The Midwife's Tale - Gretchen Moran Laskas - 7/10

The Conquest - Elizabeth Chadwick - 8/10

Dead Lovely - Helen Fitzgerald - 8.5/10

Body Double - Tess Gerritsen - 8.5/10

The Mephisto Club - Tess Gerritsen - 9/10

Final Demand - Deborah Moggach - 7/10

After You'd Gone - Maggie O'Farrell - 8/10

No Time For Goodbye - Linwood Barclay - 8.5/10

A Season Of Eden - J M Warwick - 8/10

Unspoken - Sam Hayes - 8/10

Peony In Love - Lisa See - 7/10

The Bone Garden - Tess Gerritsen - 8.5/10

Blue Diary - Alice Hoffman - 8/10

The Love Of My Life - Louise Douglas - 8/10

A Whispered Name - William Brodrick - 8/10

Keeping The Dead - Tess Gerritsen - 9/10

Entertaining Angels - Joanna Bell - 7/10

The House At Riverton - Kate Morton - 8/10

Asbo Fairy Tales - Hans Christian Asbosen - 6/10

Edited by madcow
final update
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Really enjoyed Jezza's book I love his outlook on life!

 

Next up The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisenberger.

 

When Andrea firsts sets foot in the plush Manhattan offices of Runway she knows nothing. She's never heard of the world's most fashionable magazine, or its feared and fawned-over editor, Miranda Priestly. Soon she knows way too much.

She knows it's a sacking offence to wear less than a three-inch heel to work - but there's always a fresh pair of Manolos in the accessories cupboard. She know's that eight stone is fat. That you can charge anything - cars, manicures, clothes - to the Runway account, but you must never leave your desk, or let Miranda's coffee get cold. That at 3am, when your boyfriend's dumping you because you're always working and your best friend's just been arrested, if Miranda phones with her latest unreasonable demand, you jump.

Most of all, Andrea knows that Miranda is a monster boss who makes Cruella de Vil look like a fluffy bunny. But this is her big break, and it's all going to be worth it in the end. Isn't it?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finally finished TDWP and thoroughly enjoyed it, in my opinion it was better than the film.

 

Next on the list The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult

Daniel Stone had thought it would never happen to him. How could it, when Trixie's face lit up every time she saw him, when for her whole life he'd been the centre of her world? But recently it seems without him noticing it, his daughter is gone, and in her place is a stranger. Until the night fourteen yoear old Trixie comes home from a party claiming she was raped, and suddenly she needs him more than ever. Because the whole school knew Jason Underhill broke Trixie's heart, but that doesn't make him a rapist, does it? For Daniel, there is no doubt: his daughter is innocent. He failed to protect her once. Now he will do anything to save her...

 

Also starting Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen, looking forward to reading this. I've never read Jane Austin's work before.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finished The Tenth Circle last night, another good read from Jodi Picoult, not sure about the cartoons but they did fit in with the story. Even managed to find the secret quote hidden in the cartoons!

 

Next on the list...

The Sinner - Tess Gerritsen

Not even the icy temperatures of a typical New England winter can match the bone-chilling scene of carnage discovered in the early morning hours at the chapel of Our Lady of Divine Light. Within the sanctuary walls of the cloistered convent, now stained with blood, lie two nuns - one dead, one critically injured; victims of an unspeakably savage attacker...

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Finished The Sinner whilst sat at the dentist waiting for tooth to be removed. This is the first book of hers i've read and quite enjoyed it. Same sort of style as Karin Slaughter and Kathy Reichs. I've got a couple more TG books on Mt TBR so I might just get to read them soon (ish!).

 

Next up The Cruel Mother by Sian Busby

In 1919 Sian Busby's great-grandmother, Beth, gave birth to triplets. One of the babies died at birth and eleven days later she drowned the surviving twins in a bath of cold water. She was sentenced to an indefinite term of imprisonment at Broadmoor. The murder and the deep sense of shame it generated obviously affected Beth, her husband and their surviving children to an extraordinary degree, but it also resounded through the lives of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It gave rise to a collective anxiety about their family's ability to parent and an obsessive fear of hereditary insanity.

In Sian's case, ill-suppressed knowledge of the event manifested itself in recurring nightmares and contributed towards a prolonged bout of post-natal depression. After the birth of her second son, she decided to investigate the story once and for all and lay to rest the ghosts which have haunted the family for 80 years...

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Finished Sian Busby's Cruel Mother this morning. It wasn't as harrowing as I was expecting but it did make for some interesting reading. Some of the 'remedies' that were advertised in the 1900's for how shall I put it..resuming the monthly cycle...were weird and what some women would do when pushed to extremes was slightly depressing. All in all it was a good read and an eye opener in places.

 

Next up is Tess Gerritsen's Stolen...

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Finished Stolen on Tuesday, I wasn't expecting it to be set on this side of the pond, I wouldn't say it was unputdownable but I did enjoy reading it.

 

Next up...

Bella of Bow Street by Carol Rivers

In 1941, the Isle of Dogs. Neglected by their drunken mother, young Bella Doyle and her brother Terry are left to roam the streets, fending for themselves and skipping school with ease. When her mother's boyfriend turnd violent, Bella finds refuge with Micky Bryant, a local ne'er-do-well. After the war, Bella marries Micky, helping him run his business as a club owner and manufacturer of illegal hooch. But with her husband falling ever deeper into a life of crime, Bella finds herself out of her depth as she struggles to stay one step ahead of the law, cope with Micky's increasingly wayward behaviour and control her growing feelings for his older brother Ronnie. It takes a shocking tragedy for Bella to realize that she must seize control of events in order to escape the squalor of the East End and shape her own destiny...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Managed to finish Bella of Bow Street last night. It reminded me very much of an early Martina Cole but not as gritty (must be the references to the East End and gangs moving in a each others 'turf'). Very enjoyable easy read, would definately read more of her work in the future.

 

Next up is Water For Elephants by Sarah Gruen.

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Next up is Water For Elephants by Sarah Gruen.

 

I have just started Water for Elephants today Madcow, it doesn't sound like my usual type of book but I am going to give it a try.

 

Looking at the list of books you have gone through so far this year I'm guessing you will be finished it before me, so it will be good to hear what you think.

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Managed to finish Water For Elephants this morning ( I got up half an hour early to so that I could!). What a wonderful book it was I felt I got to know Jacob and felt empathy (I think thats the word I'm looking for) with him, Marlene and a few of the other characters including Rosie. I was transported back to a time of hardship and the need to survive and I loved the ending, it wasn't what I was expecting :lol:. Thanks for recommending it guys it really was a pleasure to read.

 

Not sure what to read next so I'll finish Sense and Sensibility whilst I decide.

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I went to the library yesterday to return some books and (here's a first...) I came home empty handed :lol:. Nothing caught my eye. When I got home I realised I had forgotten one book so with 3 days left before it's due back I'm going to read Gone by Lisa Gardner

 

When someone you love vanishes without a trace, how far would you go to get them back?

For ex-FBI profiler Pierce Quincy, it's the beginning of his worst nightmare: a car abandoned on a desolate stretch of Oregon highway, engine running, purse on the driver's seat. And his estranged wife, Rainie Connor, gone, leaving no clue to her fate.

Did one of the ghosts from her troubled past finally catch up with Rainie? Or could her disappearance be the result of one of the cases they'd been working - a particularly vicious double homicide, or the possible abuse of a deeply disturbed child Rainie took too close to heart? Together with his daughter, FBI agent Kimberly Quincy, Pierce is battling the local authorities, racing against time and frantically searching for answers to all the questions he's been afraid to ask...

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Forgot to update this when I finished Gone by Lisa Gardner. Another good read from her and it did keep me guessing right up to the end, her books are very easy to read without being too graphic.

 

Next to read is You Can Run But You Can't Hide by Duane 'Dog' Chapman, looking forward to this as I love his show (Dog The Bounty Hunter) thanks to Kat :blush: it's her fault I started watching it, and this is her book to boot.

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Just finished The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen, a great read had me hooked from the start. Can't wait to get hold of the next one after reading the first part at the end of the book.

 

Next up...

Boy A by Jonathan Trigell - bookring book.

Jack has spent most of his life in juvenille institutions; he's about to be released with a new name, new job, and a new life. At 24, he is utterly innocent of the world, yet guilty of a monsterous childhood crime. To his new friends, he is a good guy with occasional flashes of unexplained violence. To his girlfriend, he is strangely naive and unreachable. To his case worker, he is a victim of the system and of media-driven hysteria. And to himself, Jack is on permanent trial: he struggles to start from scratch, forget the past, become someone else.

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Managed to finish Boy A last night, can't say I was overly impressed with it.

Like Kell I couldn't help but think about the Jamie Bulger case and my thoughts on those two aren't suitable for such a nice forum :lol:

. The only people I had any sympathy for were Terry and Michelle. The ending left a few lose ends. Don't think I'll rush to read any more of his work.

 

Next up....

Harvest by Tess Gerritsen

Medical resident Dr. Abby Matteo is elated when the elite cardiac transplant team at Boston's Bayside Hospital taps her as a potential recruit. But faced with a tormenting life-and-death decision, Abby helps direct a crash victim's harvested heart to a dying teenager - instead of the wealthy older woman who was supposed to receive it. The repercussions leave Abby shaken and plagued with self doubt.

Suddenly, a new heart appears, and the woman's transplant is completed. Then Abby makes a terrible discovery. The donor records have been falsified - the new heart has not come through the proper channels. Defying the hospital's demands for silence, she begins her own investigation that reveals a murderous, unthinkable conspiracy. Every move Abby makes spawns a vicious backlash...and on a ship anchored in the waters of Boston harbor, the grisly truth lies waiting...

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Finished You Can Run But You Can't Hide by Duane 'Dog' Chapman, although I have seen a lot of his tv series (Dog The Bounty Hunter) it was interesting to read about how it all came about, his childhood , family and the way he turned his life around.

 

Still reading Harvest, hopefully have it finished in a day or two so I can get started on Footprints in the Sand which came home from the library with me today along with Shirley by Charlotte Bronte, Vanish by Tess gerritsen and Deafening by Francis Itani.

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