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Poppy's Paperbacks 2012


poppyshake

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Oh this is totally up my alley, going on the wishlist fo' sho! :D

 

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I'm so happy you loved this, isn't it just brilliant? Like you said, du Maurier is so clever with her writing, all the characters and the places come to life and you can feel it all :yes:

 

Your log is a dangerous, dangerous thing... I've now noted down Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, Lady Into Fox by David Garnett, The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin and Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happ... Sausages on a piece of paper and shall write them down on my wishlist. I dare say you are in the top three contributors of titles on my wishlist!! Tut tut :D

 

Thank you for the year 2012, it's been wonderful reading through your log throughout the 12 months. And I third the motion: No conscisiveness for you, missy!! :):friends3::flowers2:

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I enjoyed The Fry Chronicles, although I suffered from the fact that I knew absolutely nothing about some of the British people he kept yammering about :giggle: And of course I haven't seen some of the shows etc. But I'm happy to hear MIMW is better and funnier than this one, then I shall enjoy it doubly! =)

It's definitely better .. and there's minimal name dropping because of course Stephen was just smallFry then :D

Clever old Stephen, you say? I say annoying old Stephen. It annoyed me to no end that I couldn't pick up the next edition straight after finishing this one, I so wanted to read on and see what happened then. Bloody hell! I wonder if he's written the next memoir by now...?

I'm not sure about his progress, last time he had to give up twitter temporarily to finish. I think it'll be a while but it sounds like it will start with a bang. Actually I didn't think there would be any more (until I got to the end) but I guess the name is a bit of a giveaway. I've still got no idea what Moab is My Washpot means .. I sat down once and tried to work out if it was an anagram .. I must have got a life since then .. I think I found this place :)

Oh but you did! (After writing some other superb stuff!) *nods vigorously*

Awww .. thank you :blush2:

Yes, I suppose that this is one of the most popular and widely read books on here. It's been on my wishlist for quite a while now, I have my wishlist in an alphabetical order but this is very high on my mental wishlist. I won't read the review because I want to read the book first!

Very wise, I probably blabbed out too much. You'll love it I'm sure, it's a great read and so is the next one ... that is as far as I've got but I'm in for the long haul here .. it's not another case of the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency which, though I liked, sadly ran out of steam for me (I'm probably alone in this for there are thirteen at least now.)

What is this World Booknight?! And why do you call it a 'World' Booknight when your good old foreign frankie has no idea what it means and sees nothing happening over here while you're all having your bookish fun!

Do you know I don't know why they call it World booknight, as far as I know it's something that's done in the UK and Ireland only, maybe other countries join in too. They decide on a booklist and then print special copies and volunteers give them away, I got given John le Carre's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold one year. A man was standing outside the supermarket giving them away. It's to encourage reading so I felt a bit of a fraud but he looked desperate (and it was late) and so I happily took one. I see them a lot in charity shops actually which means it only worked up to a point :D It's a fairly new thing .. the first year they made a big hoo-hah out of it and there were programmes on TV and everything (lovely book type programmes) but it's been more low key since then sadly.

Do you think you will read Thurman's biography on Colette?

Yes, definitely .. she sounds fascinating .. and I can't read enough about fascinating women (I'm hoping to learn something I can use :D)

I've either forgotten or didn't know it in the first place, that this is a novelised true account. I think I should make more of an effort to finally read this. Thanks!

Sometimes I think that I've probably read enough about the holocaust, but then, can you ever? This is one of those true accounts that sound far too impossible to be true. In a lot of ways it was difficult to admire Oskar Schindler but he deserves huge respect for what he did for his Jewish workers. Thank goodness for people like him.

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Oh this is totally up my alley, going on the wishlist fo' sho!

Oh it's nuts but clever .. you'll love it.

I'm so happy you loved this, isn't it just brilliant? Like you said, du Maurier is so clever with her writing, all the characters and the places come to life and you can feel it all.

She is one of the best, I really enjoy her writing. I must read more .. I don't know why I haven't but it's nice knowing there are gems still to discover.

Your log is a dangerous, dangerous thing... I've now noted down Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, Lady Into Fox by David Garnett, The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin and Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happ... Sausages on a piece of paper and shall write them down on my wishlist. I dare say you are in the top three contributors of titles on my wishlist!! Tut tut.

:D We'd all have much smaller wishlists if we didn't come a reading on here .. I didn't used (is that supposed to have a d on the end? it looks odd) to have a wishlist. I think I just went to Waterstone's and stared at the books until one sort of fell off the shelf into my hands. It was a very hit and miss affair I can tell you.

Thank you for the year 2012, it's been wonderful reading through your log throughout the 12 months. And I third the motion: No conscisiveness for you, missy!! :friends3::flowers2:

Thank you for reading and visiting :friends0: I think it was an empty promise .. about being more concise. I tried it the other day and gave myself a headache (and it was still three paragraphs long). I take comfort in the fact that most people know me by now and they've worked out that they can just read the start and the finish and not miss a thing.

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The Hundred Year Old man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson

 

Amazon Synopsis: It all starts on the one-hundredth birthday of Allan Karlsson. Sitting quietly in his room in an old people's home, he is waiting for the party he-never-wanted-anyway to begin. The mayor is going to be there. The press is going to be there. But, as it turns out, Allan is not...Slowly but surely Allan climbs out of his bedroom window, into the flowerbed and makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash, and incompetent police. As his escapades unfold, we learn something of Allan's earlier life in which - remarkably - he helped to make the atom bomb, became friends with American presidents, Russian tyrants, and Chinese leaders, and was a participant behind the scenes in many key events of the twentieth century.

 

Review: I adored it but I'm totally in concurrence with those FM's who thought that Allan's present day escapades were far more entertaining than the flashbacks to his past. Not that they weren't interesting, they were fascinating (because they linked him to all sorts of key political events .. see above) but all the time I was wanting to get back to him and his motley band of accomplices (which included an elephant for goodness sake :)) to find out what was happening and sometimes it felt like those 'past' passages were a bit too long and drawn out. He's a great character, I can't see anyone not loving him from the minute he decides to bunk out of his care home window in his carpet slippers. When you reach one hundred years old, you want a bit of respect but you don't necessarily want an organised birthday party with invited local press, the mayor and assorted old folk ... that's depressing especially when it's been organised by Director Alice with her inbuilt vodka bottle detector nose and her ability to kill joy at twenty paces. It's the party or a bunk to freedom, Allan doesn't give it a lot of thought, out he climbs on creaky knees.

 

Some seriously unfortunate events take place following his escape .. he could have been related to the Baudelaire children. Quite by chance he gathers about him a bunch of, for the most part, lovable rogues. He manages to, quite mistakenly, steal a large amount of money and is complicit in several quite unintentional murders (of very bad people). He has people on his trail including some rather hapless policeman (hoorah!). It's all quite farcical and Ealing comedy. But, though he has managed to bag himself some half decent footwear by now he's still just winging it really, he's continually on the move and seemingly only moments away from capture. I suppose that's where the revelations of his past add a nice contrast. Here's this doddery old man, it's difficult to believe that he has lived a full and exciting life. I guess that could be said of any elderly gentleman you see shuffling to the shops although it's highly unlikely that they would have had quite such a remarkable past .. Allan has the benefit of being fictional :D

 

It's an amazingly successful book and it thoroughly deserves to be, I wish it would spawn a lot of other tales about pensioners behaving badly but then, they would probably be pale imitations so best not to wish for it. I'm going to get the audio for my dad .. he'll love it (but I'll make sure there are locks on his windows .. or rather I'll confiscate his ramp :D)

 

I was drawn to the cover and the title and, once again, they didn't let me down. Highly recommended, if you even think it might be your sort of thing then read it, I've not come close to doing it justice (did I say it was funny? ... I meant to :))

 

9/10

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I have this one on my Kindle waiting to be read, and I think I might be starting it tomorrow after reading your review! I'd already seen the other great reviews around the forum, but it's good to see you enjoyed it too. It sounds fantastic, and I'm really looking forward to it now.

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  • 3 months later...

I've finally got round to preparing a statistical analysis of your reads from last year!  You've probably forgotten, but you were prepared to bribe me with coffee and cake if I did it for you  :D

 

Anyway, here you go:

 

You read 89 books in total, meaning you read a book every 4.1 days on average, of which …
 
63 were from your own bookshelves,
11 were borrowed from the library,
7 were loaned or gifted to you, and
8 were audiobooks downloaded from Audible
 
and …
 
59 were fiction, and 
30 non-fiction
 
plus …
 
47 were by male authors, and
42 were by female authors
 
and of those …
 
1 was a Biography
2 were Children's fiction
8 were Classic fiction
2 were Collected letters
2 were Crime/Thriller
2 were Fantasy fiction
1 was on Feminism
7 were Historical fiction
4 were Humourous fiction
20 were Literary/General fiction
15 were Memoir
1 was Poetry
5 were Science fiction
2 were Short stories
10 were Travel
2 were War fiction
1 was a Western
4 were YA
 
You rated your reads as follows (TEN=best; ONE=worst):
 
19 books at TEN
29 books at NINE
30 books at EIGHT
6 books at SEVEN
3 books at SIXE
2 books at FIVE
0 books are ONE, TWO, THREE or FOUR
 
Giving an average rating of 8.6
 
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Oh thank you so much Claire :friends0: .. how good of you to do that for me. I definitely owe you cake :D I didn't do too bad last year did I .. all things considered. This year will be a different matter unless I suddenly becoming a reading machine and do nothing else for the rest of the year :D

 

I should have listened to more downloads though because I have a credit each month and have none to spare so basically I've downloaded and not listened to four (and I know Les Miserables is one of them :blush2:) .. although another was a French language course so that would account for one other (though I've ignored that as well). Every year I make a pledge to read more poetry and every year I fail :blush2: 

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  • 4 months later...

belljar.jpg
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Amazon Synopsis
: 'I was supposed to be having the time of my life'. When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realise her dream to become a writer. But in between the cocktail parties and piles of manuscripts, Esther's life begins to slide out of control. She finds herself spiraling into depression and eventually a suicide attempt, as she grapples with difficult relationships and a society which refuses to take women's aspirations seriously.

Review: Poor Esther, she's a fish out of water in New York. The fashion industry isn't for her, it's banal, superficial and disorienting. She has no interest in it but finds herself instead dwelling on the impending execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (a real life couple tried and executed for espionage in the US). Her boyfriend Buddy thinks they should marry but he is currently in a sanitarium recovering from tuberculosis and after he confesses to an infidelity Esther loses faith in him. Things start to slide .. she returns home .. she hopes to attend a writing class but doesn't get accepted. She makes plans to do several things (write a novel, learn shorthand etc) but loses interest. She stops bathing .. doesn't eat properly and can't sleep. The feelings of unreality which began in New York become more frequent. This gradual drift into madness is frightening. No-one is raving or panicking, there's a sort of dull-eyed acceptance that's quite terrifying. It's like listening to someone describing how they are drowning or suffocating .. the walls are closing in and they're powerless to make it stop, they don't even have the will to want it to stop. They're not kicking or pushing against it, they just want out :(

I'm so glad that I loved the story, I wanted to but was worried I might not. It did make me feel quite low although the beginning is funny in parts and quite breezy. Sylvia has a sharp eye and a love for the absurd which was a surprise to me. The writing is outstanding, it would've been a pleasure to read it if it hadn't been so heartbreaking. It's hard to separate her true life story from this fictional tale, there are so many echoes here and she has such an understanding of what it means to sink to the lowest depths, truly it's a very sad case of writing about what you know. :(

I recommend it highly but it is depressing so don't read if you're low. Read it when you're feeling pretty robust and happy but definitely read it. :) 10/10

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