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Andrea's books 2012


~Andrea~

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2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

 

Books completed in 2012:

 

The Secret of Crickley Hall - James Herbert (terrible)

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee/Sissy Spacek (audio) - wonderful

Turning Points in British History

Futurama - The Time Bender Trilogy (graphic novel)

I Partridge - Alan Partridge (audio)

Shakespeare's landlord - Charlaine Harris

God of Surprises - Gerard Hughes

Sherlock Holmes short stories - audio book

Silver Birches - Adrian Plass

Assassin's Quest - Robin Hobb

Think - Simon Blackburn

The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury

Questions of Truth - John Polkinghorne and Nicholas Beale

More than Matter - Keith Ward

Hens reunited - Lucy Diamond

The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery

Search Dogs and Me - Neil Powell

The Great Divorce - C S Lewis

The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova

 

Abandoned:

 

From the Holy Mountain - William Dalryple

Brighton Rock - Grahame Greene (audio narration was just too irritating)

 

Current books:

The Making of Modern Britain - Andrew Marr

A Wrinkle In Time - Madeleine L'Engle

Edited by ~Andrea~
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Unread books on the bookshelf:

 

Acquired pre 2009

 

1 Minnette Walters - The shape of snakes

2 Logic - A very short introduction

3 Wilkie Collins The Woman in White

4 Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales (modern translation)

5 From the Holy Mountain - William Dalrymple

6 Alice through the looking glass - Lewis Carrol

7 Joanna Trollope - The men and the girls

8 Damaged - Cathy Glass

9 The Essential tales of Chekhov

10 Othello

11 The Merchant of Venice

12 Julius Caesar

13 Twelfth night

14 A Winter's tale

15 Middlemarch (audio)

16 The French Leuitenant's woman

 

Begin year size: 16

End year size:14

 

Acquired 2009

 

1 The Soldier's return - Melvyn Bragg

2 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Coleridge

3 Collected works of Tennyson

4 The Secret of Crickely Hall - James Herbert

5 The Great Turning points of British History

6 The Making of Modern Britain - Andrew Marr

 

Begin year size: 6

End year size:4

 

Books acquired 2010:

1 Arthur C Clarke - A Fall of moondust (Feb)

2 Tess Gerritson - The Apprentice (4 Dec)

3 Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles (16 Dec)

4 Elizabeth Kostova - The Historian (25 Dec)

 

Begin year size: 4

End year size: 0

 

Books acquired 2011

 

1 Clean Code - Robert Martin

 

2 Shakespeare's Landlord - Charlaine Harris

3 I Partridge - Alan Partridge (audio)

4 To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee/Sissy Spacek (audio)

5 More Than Matter - Keith Ward

 

6 Hens reunited - Lucy Diamond

7 Search dogs and me - Neil Powell

8 Silver Birches - Adrian Plass

9 Six easy pieces - Richard Feynmann

10 Think, a compelling introduction to philosophy - Simon Blackburn

11 The everlasting man - G K Chesterton

12 The great divorce - C S Lewis

13 Brighton Rock - Grahame Greene (audio)

14 The adventures of Sherlock Holmes volume 1 - Arthur Conan Doyle (audio)

15 Blodwen Jones a'r aderyn prin - Bethan Gwenas (a novel for welsh learners

16 Questions of Truth - John Polkinghorne, Nicholas Beale

 

Begin year size: 16

End year size: 4

 

Books acquired 2012

 

1 Flowers For Algernon - Daniel Keyes

2 The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery

3. A Wrinkle In Time - Madeleine L'Engle

4. A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness (xmas)

5. The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals - Wendy Jones (xmas)

6. Chocky - John Wyndham

 

Audio:

7. The adventures of Sherlock Holmes - vol 2 and 3 (read by David Timson) (xmas)

8. Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka (xmas)

9. Miranda Hart - Is it just me? (read by Miranda Hart) (xmas)

10. The House at Pooh Corner - A A Milne (read by Alan Bennett) (xmas)

11. The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett (read by Alan Bennett) (xmas)

12. The woman who went to bed for a year - Sue Townsend (read by Caroline Quentin) (xmas)

 

Begin year size: 0

End year size: 11

 

Total Begin year size: 42

Max size: 42

Min size: 26

Current Size: 32

End year size: 32

Edited by ~Andrea~
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The Wish List (will there ever be time?)

Ambrose, David - Superstition

Beah, Ishmael - Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Bradbury, Ray - Farenheit 451

Bradbury, Ray - Something Wicked this way comes

Barker, Clive - Weaveworld

Bugan, Carmen - Burying the Typewriter

Challis, Sarah - Footprints in the sand

Chesterton, G K - Orthodoxy

Conran, Shirley - Savages

Coupland, Douglas - Microserfs/JPod

Du Maurier, Daphne - Rebecca

Du Maurier, Daphne - The House on the Strand

Dunant, Sarah - Transgressions (recommended)

Dick, Philip K - A Scanner Darkly

Greene, Grahame - Brighton Rock

Greene, Grahame - The Third Man & The Fallen Idol

Harwood, John - The Asylum

Haugen, Gary (IJM) - Just Courage

Highsmith, Patricia - The Talented Mr Ripley

Hinton, Susan- Rumble Fish

Hodgson, Burnett Frances - The Secret Garden

Hodkin, Michelle -The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

Jerome, Jerome K - My Life and Times

Keyes, Daniel - Flowers for Algernon

Koontz, Dean - The Mask

Koontz, Dean - From The Corner Of His Eye

Koontz, Dean - False Memory

Koontz, Dean - Odd Thomas

London, Jack - White Fang

Neville, Adam - Apartment 16

McKinley, Robin - Sunshine

Mercer, Jeremy - Books, Baguettes & Bedbugs

Milne, A. A. Winnie the Pooh - complete short stories and poems

Mitchell, Margaret - Gone With the Wind

Moran, Caitlin - How to be a Woman

Moyes, Jojo - Me Before You

Niffenegger, Audrey - The Time Travellers Wife

Pargeter, Edith - The Heaven Tree

Rayner, Jay - The Oyster House Siege

Tolkein - LOTR

Trueman, Terry - Stuck in neutral

Trigell, Jonathan - Boy A

Wheatley, Dennis - The Haunting of Toby Jugg

Wyndham, John - Chocky

Wyndham, John - The Kraken awakes

Watson, S J - Before I go to sleep

Ruiz Zafon, Carlos - The Shadow Of The Wind

Ruiz Zafon, Carlos - The Angel's Game

Ryan, Carrie - The Forest Of Hands & Teeth

Wroblewski, David - The story of Edgar Sawtelle

Zusak, Markus - The Book Thief

Edited by ~Andrea~
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This year I'm aiming to knock off a few of the older books from my TBR, read more generally, and finally, actually bring the TBR down!!!

 

On my hit list:

  • From the Holy Mountain - William Dalrymple (has been on my shelf for years now, one of those books I think I'll enjoy but never feel like starting)
  • Great Turning Points in British History (I started this last year and am determined to get it finished this year)
  • Assassin's Quest - Robin Hobb (not listed on my shelves as this is one of OH's books I'll be borrowing. Book 3 of a trilogy and I'm determined not to leave such a gap this time as I did between the first 2 books)
  • Clean Code (A book I bought for work that I really ought to read)
  • God of Surprises - Gerard Hughes (this is another one I started last year. I really must learn to finish books! lol)
  • A HIstory of Modern Britain - Andrew Marr. I've had this for a while now. It's a bit of a tome. If I could just make a good start on it this year - like get at least half way through, I think I'd be happy with that. I imagine I will have to read it in stages, as I can't generally do too much heavy non-fiction in one go

Edited by ~Andrea~
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This year I'm aiming to knock off a few of the older books from my TBR, read more generally, and finally, actually bring the TBR down!!!

Ah, to bring the TBR down, my nightmare aim for the year. :lol:

 

Best of luck with the 2012 reading Andrea, hope you have a good one. :smile2:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks Julie.

 

Well I knocked a couple of books off of the TBR - I took them to a charity shop. :giggle: The Tess Gerritson I had picked up second-hand but discovered it was the sequel (or second part in a series) that came after a rather gruesome book, which I decided was not for me after all so I got rid of it. The Arthur C Clarke I felt I was just never going to get around to reading as it just didn't excite me enough. It was a second-hand freebie so it's no drama :)

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I'm trying the TBR thing too Andrea...have it under a 'challenges' section....lol. Be interesting to see how far I get with it. Good luck....reducing the TBR pile to a charity shop sounds like a plan too. I have books I have bought years ago and I know I will never read them!

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So I finally finished The Secret of Crickley Hall. What a load of utter tosh. This book is the worst written, most cliche-riddled pile of rubbish I have read in a long time. Right from the start I found the writing awful. I hoped it would pick up, but no. It's almost as if James Herbert deliberately tried to drop every writing clanger in the book, just to see if he could get away with it. It has it all: cliched themes, boring characters, badly written local dialect, info-dumping, outrageously villainous villains with no redeeming qualities at all, to name a few. The writing is amateurish and repetetive, the story predictable and it's not even scary. I even spotted a couple of continuity errors. It fails on all counts. The atrocious writing aside, the story itself is predictable (did I mention that?) and downright unpleasant in parts. The child abuse aspects are written without a scrap of sensetivity and are pure sensationalism, which is unforgiveable. A horrible book, badly written. A total waste of time.

 

 

I have now picked up Think by Simon Blackburn, which is an introduction to philosophy. So far so good.

Edited by ~Andrea~
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So I finally finished The Secret of Crickley Hall. What a load of utter tosh. This book is the worst written, most cliche-riddled pile of rubbish I have read in a long time. Right from the start I found the writing awful. I hoped it would pick up, but no. It's almost as if James Herbert deliberately tried to drop every writing clanger in the book, just to see if he could get away with it. It has it all: cliched themes, boring characters, badly written local dialect, info-dumping, outrageously villainous villains with no redeeming qualities at all, to name a few. The writing is amateurish and repetetive, the story predictable and it's not even scary. I even spotted a couple of continuity errors. It fails on all counts. The atrocious writing aside, the story itself is predictable (did I mention that?) and downright unpleasant in parts. The child abuse aspects are written without a scrap of sensetivity and are pure sensationalism, which is unforgiveable. A horrible book, badly written. A total waste of time.

 

It's a shame that you have been unable to express what you feel about this book Andrea! :giggle: Your review may be damning, but it is brilliant written. Great stuff.

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So I finally finished The Secret of Crickley Hall. What a load of utter tosh. This book is the worst written, most cliche-riddled pile of rubbish I have read in a long time. Right from the start I found the writing awful. I hoped it would pick up, but no. It's almost as if James Herbert deliberately tried to drop every writing clanger in the book, just to see if he could get away with it. It has it all: cliched themes, boring characters, badly written local dialect, info-dumping, outrageously villainous villains with no redeeming qualities at all, to name a few. The writing is amateurish and repetetive, the story predictable and it's not even scary. I even spotted a couple of continuity errors. It fails on all counts. The atrocious writing aside, the story itself is predictable (did I mention that?) and downright unpleasant in parts. The child abuse aspects are written without a scrap of sensetivity and are pure sensationalism, which is unforgiveable. A horrible book, badly written. A total waste of time.

 

 

I have now picked up Think by Simon Blackburn, which is an introduction to philosophy. So far so good.

 

You didn't like it then? Think I'll give it a miss! :giggle:

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In between chapters of 'Think' I've been reading chapters from 'Turning Points in British History' which I started last year and really want to get finished soon. However, between the two books my brain is suffering from information overload, so I have also picked up 'God of Surprises' by Gerard Hughes which again I started but didn't finish last year (can you see a pattern emerging? :) ) which is slightly lighter. I'm really looking forward to getting to some light fiction once I'm done with those three.

Edited by ~Andrea~
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This year I'm aiming to knock off a few of the older books from my TBR, read more generally, and finally, actually bring the TBR down!!!

 


Good luck with reducing your TBR list Andrea! Happy reading in 2012 :)

 

That is my one resolution every year - to get the TBR down. So far I have never managed it, but will keep trying!

So I finally finished The Secret of Crickley Hall. What a load of utter tosh. This book is the worst written, most cliche-riddled pile of rubbish I have read in a long time. Right from the start I found the writing awful. I hoped it would pick up, but no. It's almost as if James Herbert deliberately tried to drop every writing clanger in the book, just to see if he could get away with it. It has it all: cliched themes, boring characters, badly written local dialect, info-dumping, outrageously villainous villains with no redeeming qualities at all, to name a few. The writing is amateurish and repetetive, the story predictable and it's not even scary. I even spotted a couple of continuity errors. It fails on all counts. The atrocious writing aside, the story itself is predictable (did I mention that?) and downright unpleasant in parts. The child abuse aspects are written without a scrap of sensetivity and are pure sensationalism, which is unforgiveable. A horrible book, badly written. A total waste of time.

 

 

I have now picked up Think by Simon Blackburn, which is an introduction to philosophy. So far so good.

The Secret of Crickley Hall may not be an entertaining book, but your review definitely is entertaining! :)

 

I bought that book ages ago - goodness knows why, because it every time I see it, I think "No, don't fancy reading that yet." I think I may just send it to the charity shop, and be done with it.

Edited by Ruth
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Haha wow, that's some review of Crickley Hall. I've actually read it too, and though I remember being underwhelmed, I don't remember it being THAT bad... it's a hefty book and I made it to the end at least which for me usually means some bit of enjoyment was had... but maybe I should shut up, I may be risking my reputation for having good taste :giggle:

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Hehe - thanks guys. I'm glad my review has been such a hit lol! The most enjoyable bit of the book was getting to write that review! To be fair Noll, the book isn't totally without merit, but I just found it so amateurish coming from a writer such as James Herbert that I found I couldn't be in any way forgiving.

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That's a fair point - I've only read that and Haunted by him so I don't really have an extensive knowledge of the highs and lows in his work, or any comparison between the two. Suffice it to say thought that neither book really stayed with me, I barely remember the plots.... actually I don't remember them, lol!

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