Rennie's book list

[Renniemist]

Now that I have more time I have decided to try this blog in order to remember what I have read and what I still have to read. The following are on my shelf TBR.

The Woman in White byWilkie Collins
Jamaica Inn by Daphne duMaurier
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver
Portrait of a Killer by Patricia Cornwell
Exodus by Leon Uris
The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka
A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
Africa Diary by Bill Bryson
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Baudilino by Umberto Eco
Boy by Lindsey Colleen
Broken Verses by Kamila Shamsie
Derailed by James Siegel
Empire of the Sun by J G Ballard
Hey Nostradamus by Douglas Coupland
I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
Misery by Stephen King
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehrain
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Russka by Edward Rutherfurd
Shindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally
Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Gavin Bell
The Accidental by Ali Smith
The Covenant by James Michener
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The Falls by Ian Rankin
The Haj by Leon Uris
The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw
The Palace of Heavenly Pleasures by Adam Williams
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
The Peoples Act of Love by James Meek
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Sea by John Banvile
The Sicilian by Mario Puzo
The Suspect by Michael Robotham
Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis
Vernon God Little by D B C Pierre
What the body Remembers by Shauna Singh Baldwin
Wild Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder

[Renniemist]

So far this year I have read:

December

64 The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (reading)
63 Blindness by Jose Saramago 6/10
62 Prodigal Summer 8/10
61 The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett 7/10


November

60 The Secret River by Kate Atkinson 7/10
59 Black swan Green by David Mitchell 10/10
58 Never Far from Nowhere by Andrea Levy 7/10
57 Case Histories by Kate Atkinson 8/10
56 The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger 8/10
55 The Shining by Stephen King 6/10
54 Sharpe's Triumph by Bernard Cornwell 6/10
53 The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruis Zafon 8/10

October

52 March by Geraldine Brooks 6/10
51 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 6/10
50 Fingersmith by Sarah Waters 9/10
49 Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende 7/10
48 Sharpes Tiger by Bernard Cornwell 6/10
47 The Queen of the Tambourine by Jane Gardam 6/10


September
46 The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde 7/10
45 The Rotters' Club by Jonathan Coe 6/10
44 Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell 8/10
43 The Sacred Art of Stealing by Christopher Brookmyre 7/10
42 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 8/10



August
41 The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst 8/10
40 The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy 7/10
39 The World According to Garp by John Irving 8/10
38High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes 6/10
37 In Cold Blood by Truman Capote 9/10
36 Empress Orchid by Anchee Min 8/10


July
35 Out by Natsuo Kirino 7/10
34 The Good Earth by Pearl Buck 9/10
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova unfinished
33 Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson 8/10


June
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke unfinished
32 We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver 5/10
31 the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver 9/10
30 Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden 7/10


May
29 Old Filth by Jane Gardam 6/10
28 A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro 6/10
27 The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood 6/10
26 The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster 7/10
25 The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates 7/10
24 Baghdad Burning by Girl Blog from Iraq 7/10


April
23 When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro 6/10
22 White Teeth by Zadie Smith 8/10
21 The Van by Roddy Doyle 8/10
20 My Forbidden Face by Latifa 6/10
19 Disgrace by J M Coetzee 6/10
18 Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood 9/10
17 The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad 6/10


March
16 Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier 10/10
15 Purple Hibiscus by Chimananda Ngozi Adichi 9/10
14 The Secret History by Donna Tartt 6/10
13 I Claudius by Robert Graves 8/10
12 Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides 7/10


February
11 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle 9/10
10 The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan 6/10
9 Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro 9/10
8 Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks 10/10
7 Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood 8/10
6 Vanishing Acts by Jodie Picoult 6/10


January
5 Small Island by Andrea Levy 9/10
4 The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenger 6/10
3 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime Mark Haddon 6/10
2 The Other Boleyn Girl Philippa Gregory 5/10
1 Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie 8/10

[Renniemist]

Part of my Amazon order arrived today. :D

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Exodus by Leon Uris
The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka

I have now finished Jane Eyre. I had thought I had read it years ago, but it turns out that I had not. Anyway I enjoyed it very much.

I am now going to start on my September challenge and read The Sacred Art of Stealing by Christopher Brookmyre.

[Angel]

Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favourites. I love it!

[Renniemist]

I have been to Border’s and have used a book token that I got ages ago.

I got The Secret River by Kate Grenville, On Beauty by Zadie Smith, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver, Sharpe’s Tiger by Bernard Cornwell, The Rotters’ Club by Jonathan Coe, and Portrait of a Killer by Patricia Cornwell.

I don’t know when I will read them all, but I am feeling pleased with myself.

I am half way through The Sacred Art of Stealing and I am enjoying it very much. Although to begin with I was not sure about it, especially coming to it straight from Jane Eyre.

[Louiseog]

I have been to Border’s and have used a book token that I got ages ago.

I got The Secret River by Kate Grenville, On Beauty by Zadie Smith, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver, Sharpe’s Tiger by Bernard Cornwell, The Rotters’ Club by Jonathan Coe, and Portrait of a Killer by Patricia Cornwell.

I don’t know when I will read them all, but I am feeling pleased with myself.

I am half way through The Sacred Art of Stealing and I am enjoying it very much. Although to begin with I was not sure about it, especially coming to it straight from Jane Eyre.

What a fab mixture!

[Renniemist]

I like to try something new. I have never read any Bernard Cornwell books and thought that I would start with Sharpe’s Tiger. A friend recommended Portrait of a Killer and another friend recommended The Rotters’ Club. Some of the others were on offer, 3 for the price of 2. So I am looking forward to reading them all. :)

[Renniemist]

I have now finished The Sacred Art of Stealing. It was very good. I will definitely read more by this author.

I have started Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It say on the inside cover that it is ‘a novel of mind bending imagination and scope’. I am certainly finding it a little strange.

[Renniemist]

I finished Cloud Atlas yesterday. I enjoyed it very much.

I am now starting The Rotters’ Club by Jonathan Coe.

Jonathan Coe’s tale of Benjamin Trotter and his friends’ coming of age during the 1970s is a heartfelt celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up. Set against the backdrop of the decade’s class struggles, tragic and riotous by turns, and packed with thwarted romance and furtive sex.

I am going off to France on holiday now, and I am also taking The Queen of the Tambourine, Sharpe’s Tiger and the Eyre Affair with me. Probably will not get that much reading done because I am going to be doing a lot of travelling in the car and I can’t read in the car because of motion sickness. :grr: :cry: Anyway better to have the books just in case.:)

[Renniemist]

I finished The Rotters’ Club on holiday and enjoyed it very much.

I also read The Eyre Affair. Great stuff. Very imaginative!

There is another 1985, where London’s criminal gangs have moved into the lucrative literary market and Thursday Next is on the trail of the new crime wave’s Mr Big.

I also managed The Queen of the Tambourine, which I did enjoy although it left me quite confused.

I have started now on Sharpe’s Tiger by Bernard Corrnwell.

The Adventures of the raw young private soldier Richard Sharpe in India, before the Peninsular War.

[Renniemist]

Well I have been to the library and had some success. :)

I brought home Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, March by Geraldine Brooks and Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende.

I also asked about Blindness by Jose Saramago, and the lady said she would buy it in for me. :D It will probably not arrive in time for me to read in the October Read, but I hope to get around to it shortly after that.

I was feeling quite pleased with myself until I got home discovered that I had forgotten to get Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. This is not a good way to start the October Book of the Month. It will be next month before I get anywhere.:irked:

[Renniemist]

I have now finished reading Sharpe’s Tiger and I am starting on Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende.

Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the British colony of Valparaiso, Chile, by a well-intentioned Victorian spinster, Miss Rose, and her brother Jeremy. Just as she meets and falls in love with the highly unsuitable Joaquin Andieta, a lowly clerk who works for Jeremy, gold is discovered in the hills of northern California. By 1849, Chileans everywhere have fallen prey to feverish dream of wealth. Joaquin takes off for San Francisco to seek his fortune and Eliza, pregnant with his child, decides to follow him.

[Renniemist]

I have finished Daughter of Fortune and found it very good if a little slow to start with. I thought that after that it was excellent and I felt that the descriptions were vivid.

I have now started reading Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.

London 1862. Sue Trinder, orphaned at birth, grows up among petty thieves - fingersmiths – under the rough but loving care of Mrs Sucksby and her ‘family’. But from the moment she draws breath, Sue’s fate is linked to that of another orphan growing up in a gloomy mansion not too many miles away.

[Lilywhite]

Oooh, I have this one waiting to be read. I loved Tipping the Velvet. I hope this one livesa up to that for you.

[Renniemist]

Thanks. I am really enjoying it so far.

[Renniemist]

I have now finished Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. I think it is amongst my favourite books this year so far. Set in Victorian times it has some wonderful twists in it that made my head spin at times.

I will now start on Frankenstein for the BOTM.

[Renniemist]

Finished Frankenstein last night so I have now started on March by Geraldine Brooks

From Louisa May Alcott’s beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks takes March, the absent father gone to war, and conjures the story of a passionate man struggling not just to return to his family, but also to keep his faith – in himself, in his fellow man and in love itself.

[Louiseog]

Right putting Fingersmith to the top of the pile!

[Renniemist]

Hope you enjoy it.:)

[Louiseog]

Should mention that top of the pile is still 4 down after done books of the months!!

[Renniemist]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[Renniemist]

I have finished reading March now, and so I am starting on The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.



Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the ‘Cemetery of Forgotten Books’, a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles. To the library, a man brings his ten-year-old son, Daniel, one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book and from the dusty shelves pulls the Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carex. But as Daniel grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carex and to save those he left behind.

[Sarahrob]

Oh I loved that one - hope you like it!

[Renniemist]

I have now finished The Shadow of the Wind. I thought it was very good. It was a little slow in the middle, but for the last 100 pages or so I just had to keep reading.

I am now starting on Sharpe’s Triumph by Bernard Cornwell. It is the second in the Sharpe series.

India, 1803. Sergeant Richard Sharpe witnesses a murderous act of treachery by an English officer who has defected from the East India Company to join the Mahratta Confederation. In the hunt for the renegade Englishman, Sharpe penetrates deep into the enemy’s territory where he faces temptations more subtle than he has ever dreamed of. And behind him, relentlessly stalking him, comes his worst enemy, the baleful, twitching Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill who is determined to break Sharpe once and for all.

[madcow]

I am now starting on Sharpe’s Triumph by Bernard Cornwell. It is the second in the Sharpe series.

India, 1803. Sergeant Richard Sharpe witnesses a murderous act of treachery by an English officer who has defected from the East India Company to join the Mahratta Confederation. In the hunt for the renegade Englishman, Sharpe penetrates deep into the enemy’s territory where he faces temptations more subtle than he has ever dreamed of. And behind him, relentlessly stalking him, comes his worst enemy, the baleful, twitching Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill who is determined to break Sharpe once and for all.

Just reading this brings to mind Sean Bean and a uniform, what a combination ;)

[Renniemist]

Did you see him in ‘Sharpe’ on TV?

I missed it, but now you mention it I’m picturing him now. :smile2: :lol:

[madcow]

Did you see him in ‘Sharpe’ on TV?

I sure did, whooaarr :lol:

[Renniemist]

Well that is me finished with Sean (Oh oh I mean Sharpe :lol: ) and I am now starting on The Shining for the Stephen King Reading Circle.

[Renniemist]

Well I have managed to finish reading The Shining and now I am starting on Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger

[Renniemist]

I finished The Catcher in the Rye and also Case Histories by Kate Atkinson.

I am now starting on Mother’s Milk by Edward St Aubyn

The Melrose family is in peril. Through shifting perspectives, Edward St Aubyn’s elegant and scathingly witty new novel examines the troubled allegiances between parents and children, husbands and wives.

[Gyre]

I sure did, whooaarr :lol:

Oh I liked Sharpe on tv too..:D

[Renniemist]

I finished Mother’s Milk last night and I am starting on Never Far from Nowhere by Andrea Levy.

Olive and Vivien are sisters, born in London to Jamaican parents and brought up on a council estate. They go to the same grammar school. Vivien’s life becomes a chaotic mix of friendships, youth clubs, skinhead violence, A-levels, discos and college. Olive, three years older and a skin shade darker, has a very different tale to tell…

[Renniemist]

I have now finished reading Never Far from Nowhere. It was very good.

I am starting on Black Swan Green by David Mitchell.

It’s a dank January in the Worcestershire village of Black Swan Green and thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor - covert stammerer and reluctant poet - anticipates a stultifying year in the deadest village on Earth. But Jason hasn’t reckoned with junta of bullies, simmering family discord, the Falklands War, an exotic Belgian émigré, a threatened gypsy invasion and the caprices of those mysterious entities know as girls.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I absolutely loved Black Swan Green, and think Mitchell's one of the best authors writing in English at the moment.

[Renniemist]

I have now finished Black Swan Green and I agree with Andy that this is one of the best books I have read this year. I loved it and would recommend it to everyone.

I am now starting on The Secret River by Kate Grenville.

London 1806 – William Thornhill, happily wedded to his childhood sweetheart Sal, is a waterman on the River Thames. Life is rough but bearable until William makes a mistake, a bad mistake for which he and his family are made to pay dearly. His sentence; to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. Soon Thornhill, a man no worse than most has to make the most difficult decision of his life…

[Janet]

I am now starting on The Secret River by Kate Grenville.[/I]
I'll be intersted to read what you think of this. :)

[Renniemist]

I have now finished The Secret River. I enjoyed this one.

I am now starting on The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett for the December Read. I have not read any Terry Pratchett before so should be interesting.


Where is the big jolly fat man? Why is Death creeping down chimneys and trying to say Ho Ho Ho? The darkest night of the year is getting a lot darker….

Susan the gothic governess has to sort it out by morning otherwise there wont be a morning. Ever again…

[Renniemist]

The Hogfather was a good read for this time of the year.

I feel I need something a bit less winter like now so I am starting on Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsover.

Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives amid the mountains and farms of southern Appalachia. Over the course of one humid summer, this novel’s intriguing protagonists face disparate predicaments but find connection to one another and to the flora and fauna with which they necessarily share a place.

[Renniemist]

I have finished Prodigal Summer. This is a really good book and an easy read. Barbara Kingsolver is a great author.

I am now starting on Blindness by José Saramago for the October Reading Circle. A little late I know but I only manage to get hold of it yesterday.

No food, no water, no government, no hierarchy, no obligation, no order. This is not anarchy, this is Blindness.

A driver waiting at the traffic lights goes blind. An ophthalmologist tries to diagnose his distinctive white blindness, but is affected before he can read the textbooks. It is becoming a contagion, spreading through the unnamed city.

[Renniemist]

I finished reading Blindness on Friday before going north. I have now started on The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.

The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 was one of the great wonders of the world. This is the extraordinary story of its realization, and of two men whose fate it linked: one an architect, the other a serial killer….