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Hayley

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Everything posted by Hayley

  1. Oh no! And also, ouch! I hope the gel works quickly so you can get back to reading soon!
  2. Well I was hoping we’d get a few more suggestions but it does seem a little excessive to hold a poll for just two! As Chrissy seconded ‘A Book Related to Charles Dickens’ I’m happy to go with that, as long as everyone else is!
  3. I hope you’re having a nice relaxing Easter weekend now. It’s great that you have an extra pair of hands there while you recover!
  4. My wish list is huge right now but both of these are being added! I also think, without having actually read The Book of Chameleons, that you’re right about the meaning of the title. It actually seems like quite a clever way of drawing the reader’s attention to the idea!
  5. I’m intrigued by this but also not sure whether I like or hate the idea of Dorothy becoming the villain who has to be killed! Does it feature the other characters from the original, like the tin man and scarecrow?
  6. I really want to try it too 😄
  7. Oh I’m also sorry to hear this! Did they discover the second issue because of the syncope? If so, at least they know about it now and can treat it. Although it must be really annoying to have your ability to drive taken away for a while .
  8. That definitely doesn’t disqualify you from entering a new topic! Please go for it if you have an idea .
  9. That does sound familiar - I think it’s daisies!
  10. I’ve just started The Appeal by Janice Hallett.
  11. Orlando was one of the books I nearly chose too! I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it 😄
  12. Somehow, I missed this review in January! I already have this book on my wish list but I’m excited to get my hands on it again after reading your review! I love books with multiple intertwined plot threads (as long as it’s done well and isn’t just a jumble of different things). The cover is very nice as well, I agree. And I’m also tempted to try this one now!
  13. I love that line! In honour of the fact that I saw a little patch of daisies in the grass for the first time the other day: Daisy Time By Marjorie Pickthall See, the grass is full of stars, Fallen in their brightness; Hearts they have of shining gold, Rays of shining whiteness. Buttercups have honeyed hearts, Bees they love the clover, But I love the daisies' dance All the meadow over. Blow, O blow, you happy winds, Singing summer's praises, Up the field and down the field A-dancing with the daisies.
  14. The Haunting Season: Ghostly Tales for Long Winter Nights 4.5/5 - I loved it I have to admit, I was initially drawn to this because of the cover, which is gorgeous. There was even a special edition was pretty sprayed edges! Then I looked at the contributing authors and there were a few whose books I've really enjoyed, including Laura Purcell and Jess Kidd. So, obviously, that was a sign that I had to buy it (in the special sprayed edge edition...). It wasn't just pretty on the surface though, it is genuinely an excellent collection of stories. Each is very different. The authors all have their own style and there was obviously no attempt to make the collection too homogenous. Most of them aren't actually scary (which I didn't mind, personally!) but have a creepy gothic edge, which I always enjoy. I ended up reading a few of them in one sitting and they were all very easy to get lost in. My favourites were Thwaite's Tennant by Imogen Hermes Gowar (which seems to have been inspired by The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) and The Chillingham Chair by Laura Purcell. The one and only criticism I have is that the story by Natasha Pulley (The Eel Singers) contains a big spoiler for those who haven't read The Watchmaker of Filigree Street yet and (more annoyingly for me because I have read The Watchmaker of Filigree Street) gives something away that must happen in the second book, The Lost Future of Pepperharrow. I would highly recommend this one but know that you should skip The Eel Singers if you don't want Watchmaker spoilers! The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield 4.5/5 - I loved it This is a short story I started reading for the stream of consciousness book club challenge. As I've mentioned elsewhere, Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf is my favourite work in the stream of consciousness style, but I didn't want to read that again. When I was browsing, trying to decide what to read, I spotted this one and thought 'ah, also about a garden... and I know Katherine Mansfield - let's go for that'. I was about a page and a half in when I realised I had actually read it before! That was okay though because I do really like this story. It's beautifully written and a good example of the way stream of consciousness can capture the minutia of everyday experience and perceptions; but it's also a clever commentary on class and privilege. It's a quick read and one that I also highly recommend. The Hidden People by Alison Littlewood 3/5 - I enjoyed it but... This technically ticks a lot of boxes for the things I normally enjoy (folklore, fairy, a mysterious murder...) but I didn't love it as much as I thought I might. When the main character, Albie, finds out that his cousin was burned on her own hearth as a changeling, he travels from his comfortable city life into the countryside to come to terms with what really happened to her. This begins the sort of 'is it supernatural or isn't it?' dilemma which I've also really enjoyed in other novels. Unfortunately though, it just didn't stay very exciting in this one. The beginning was good and the ending really picked up, but there was a large chunk just past the half-way point where I really started to lose motivation. It just felt as though Albie's actions had stopped progressing the story and nothing was really going anywhere. The lack of communication between Albie and his wife, although part of the story of their relationship, also started to become frustrating and less believable. The final page was oddly unsatisfying after a really nice boost in the final part of the story and I wonder whether the author originally might have had different intentions for how things would go. There was enough about this book that I enjoyed it overall but I wouldn't particularly recommend it. And now I can't decide what I want to read next! It's been quite a stressful couple of weeks and I have to do my taxes as a freelancer for the first time this week, so I'm thinking something gentle!
  15. My suggestion: A book related to Charles Dickens (Suggestions: aside from books actually written by Dickens, this could include novels like Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H.G. Parry or Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series).
  16. It is already the final week of March - the daffodils are out, the sun is (sometimes) out and it's time to choose our next book club category! As a reminder for those who aren't familiar with the idea: Throughout 2023, the BCF Book Club will be in session! We will vote on categories four times per year (January-March, April-June, July-September, October-December) and participants will choose a book from that category. This means that we might not all be reading the same book, but we will all be reading from the same category. Please start posting your suggestions for categories below. We will then decide our April-June category by poll .
  17. Just a reminder that you only have until the end of the week for the first book club category - Stream of Consciousness! Look out for voting on the next category
  18. We were obviously all feeling a lot more poetic in Spring than other seasons last year! Maybe that’s the thing that made me remember this thread today, so here’s a new Spring choice! ‘Today’ by Billy Collins If ever there were a spring day so perfect, so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze that it made you want to throw open all the windows in the house and unlatch the door to the canary's cage, indeed, rip the little door from its jamb, a day when the cool brick paths and the garden bursting with peonies seemed so etched in sunlight that you felt like taking a hammer to the glass paperweight on the living room end table, releasing the inhabitants from their snow-covered cottage so they could walk out, holding hands and squinting into this larger dome of blue and white, well, today is just that kind of day.
  19. I’m glad you at least enjoyed your book! Hope you’re feeling better now! And I hope you feel better soon too! I finally finished The Hidden People by Alison Littlewood today. I was finding the middle part quite slow but it did pick up again eventually! I’m looking forward to starting something different now though.
  20. Yes, you should find some talk of it in the horror section! It is (as I’ve said over there) probably my favourite horror
  21. You can get access to them all for free through Project Gutenberg or Archive.org . The formatting is generally very good!
  22. I second Jasper Fforde too - absolutely love the Thursday Next books
  23. Nothing particularly jumped out at me from the Spring set so I hadn’t looked at the prices but that seems like a steep jump! I did actually think that Roadside Picnic had a nice spine and pretty sprayed edges but it just reminds me of the time my boyfriend asked whether he could listen to Roadside Picnic in bed and I, thinking it was some kind of gentle travel book, said ‘yeah, of course!’ An hour later I was lying there wide awake and slightly traumatised 🥲.
  24. They have a much stronger fantasy element than Fray and McGray. Set in the modern world but one where magic is very much a real thing and is dealt with by a specific branch of the police. That series is still going too so there are more books to look forward to 😄.
  25. Always! 😄 And Prey sounds interesting - I’ve added it to my wish list! Wow that is cool - what a birthday present!! I’m really glad to hear that he was kind in person too. I imagined he would be, from the characters in Fahrenheit! Have you seen the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch? A few of us on here enjoy those too
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