Athena

Thanks ! Good luck with the house, Virginia! I hope it all works out .

It was freezing here this morning too! It's quite cold outside, definitely colder than last week. It is sunny though so that's very nice. It rained on Saturday but the sky looks nice at the moment. I'm sorry to hear about your summer plants .

How was everyone's weekend? I had a great weekend . I celebrated my birthday with my family. It was really nice to spend lots of time with my (extended) family . I got some nice gifts too and the food was very nice. Our family friend, she always bakes me a birthday cake. It was delicious, I just finished the last slice. Michael and I spent Saturday afternoon baking a birthday cake as well, which was also delicious. We had a nice lunch and dinner also. The weekend was pretty tiring for me, so I plan to try to rest for a couple of days.

I celebrated my birthday with my family this past weekend and got some more books! My dad travelled to India and there he bought these books for me : John Grisham - The Rooster Bar Renuka Narayanan - Hindu Fables From the Vedas to Vivekananda John Green - Turtles All The Way Down Ken Follett - Kingsbridge 3: A Column of Fire Dan Brown - Robert Langdon 5: Origin And my sister has been going to the charity shop in her town this past while, and bought me some books there : Emily Rodda - Deltora 3 3: Kristaleiland (Deltora Quest 3 3: Isle of the Dead) Di Toft - Wolfling 2: Het Circus van Schemerschaduw en Illusie (Wolven: The Twilight Circus) Di Toft - Wolfling 3: De Aanval van de Woeste Wolf (Wolven 3: Bad Wolf Rising) Robyn Miller, Rand Miller and David Wingrove - Myst: Het Boek Van Atrus (Myst) Rafael Ábalos - Het Geheim Van De Gouden Azen (Poliedrum) Eva Raaff - De Taragon Trilogie 1: Het Groene Vuur Maggie Furey - De Kronieken van Aurian 1: De Magiers Van Nexus (Artefacts of Power 1: Aurian) Maggie Furey - De Kronieken van Aurian 2: De Harp Der Winden (Artefacts of Power 2: Harp of Winds) Maggie Furey - De Kronieken van Aurian 3: Het Vlammende Zwaard (Artefacts of Power 3: The Flaming Sword) Maggie Furey - De Kronieken van Aurian 4: Dhiamara (Artefacts of Power 4: Dhiammara) I also bought books at the library sale, the charity shop and the book fair. I've been buying a lot (got a lot of cataloguing to do). I'll have to try to not buy much the rest of the year!

I haven't heard a lot about this book but I look forward to your review when you've finished it . I'm glad you like it so far! I haven't read (any books) in about a week, because I've been busy. I did however buy books and was gifted books for my birthday (will post about it in my thread later).

Weight

Yes, we did have a topic of characters you love to hate! But maybe that's something different than characters you don't want to like but you like them? I have no idea, I find both pretty confusing!

I don't celebrate Thanksgiving myself - since I'm from the Netherlands and all that - but I'd like to hear from others on the forum (ie. from those in the US) if they have any Thanksgiving plans.

I'm sorry, but I have to ask. This book doesn't have any reviews online (on ie. Amazon and GoodReads) and was only recently released. Are you connected to the author in any way?

This week's topic is: Problematic Faves Author's Note: --Characters you don't want to love, but you can't help liking. I have to say I don't quite understand the topic (that's probably just me though). I don't think it's happened that I don't "want to like" a character but then I do like them? I can see if it means liking a character that maybe has some shady sides, but I don't know if that's what's meant..?

Spicy

Here are some that came to mind for me: Stephen King - The Stand Scott Meyer - Magic 2.0 series Ted Walliams - Otherland series Geronimo Stilton, Thea Stilton - Various Books Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Traveler's Wife Melanie Rose - Could It Be Magic? Eowyn Ivey - The Snow Child Neil Gaiman - The Ocean at the End of the Lane George Orwell - Animal Farm I'm sure various children's books would fit as well, but I already named 9 things, so .

That's true, sometimes authors get it wrong. I really don't like it when mental illness is represented wrongly. If I can, I try to read some reviews of a book dealing with mental illness, before reading it, so I get an impression of if it's been well done or if the author got it wrong. Awesome! I'm glad you had a great time with your sister at the book fair . It's nice to spend time with your siblings . I loved The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End too, such great books. There does exist a paperback edition of the third book, though I don't know about its availability in Belgium. My dad just came back from his trip to India and he bought me a paperback version of the third book there (as a birthday present). I don't know if it's available outside of India though, as I have searched on Dutch websites and was only able to find a hardcover here. I hope you will be able to find the paperback edition in Belgium some time. I had no idea Epica used to be called Sahara Dust! Anyway, concerts are not really my thing, but I am excited for you . I wish you lots of fun . Please post about it after you've been, so I can enjoy reading about your experience .

Warm

I wish you a nice, relaxing weekend . Thanks, Virginia ! It sounds easy that your new house is not far from your old one, in terms of moving your belongings. I hope things go well with the move. I wish you a good weekend! I wish everyone a nice weekend !

I'm sorry your reading hasn't been great lately. I hope you read some more enjoyable books soon .

Yesterday we finished watching Clannad (the first season), an anime. I look forward to start Clanned: After Story (the second season), some time soon.

I'm glad to hear that, Chesil . I've read the book but not seen any film adaptations, I look forward to see the new one and see how it compares to the book. I'm glad you liked it a lot. The last film I saw was Beetlejuice. It was different than what I was expecting, but it was nice .

@Virginia Good luck moving house! I agree, it sounds like a nice idea . And then visit your mum some time around Christmas (not on Christmas Day but another day). I'm so sorry to hear this . I'll probably think more about Christmas about halfway through November or such. That's when I usually put up our tree. Which I know is early, but I'm excited about it so heh. I'm not sure where we're going to put it this year as we brought Michael's (who is my boyfriend) desk down in the beginning of this year, so we can't put the tree where it used to be. I'm determined to find a good place for it though, as it makes the room look nicer. We don't do gifts for Christmas here, but my boyfriend's birthday is on Christmas Day, so I will start thinking of and buying gifts for him in a while. I also plan to start thinking about Christmas dinner and what I plan to make for it. We usually do it so that most of us make one of the dishes of the meal, so I'll give it some thought on what I want to do this year.

I wish you a great holiday ! Thanks Brian ! So quick, right?! Thanks, MRTR !

Great review of Endurance ! I'm glad you liked it a lot. I have An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield on my TBR (based on Nollaig's recommendation). I'm not sure how that compares or anything, but Endurance sounds good too .

Thanks . I don't usually abandon books this quickly, but I was on my holiday and wanted to read relaxing books / easy to understand ones. The first two chapters of The Other Side of You totally confused me, so I decided to put it aside and read something that would be easier for me to understand. I might go back to The Other Side of You at a later time. It's part of the QuickReads series, and for my holiday I had just grabbed a couple of unread GoodReads books to take with me (as well as other books to take with me), without closely looking whether their synopses was what I felt in the mood for. I thought I'd get a couple of quick reads out of the way before delving into the novels I brought, but it turned out I felt more in the mood to read the novels I brought with me.

Great review of The Shock of the Fall! I'm glad you really liked it . I read it a couple of years ago and really liked it too.

I'm glad you enjoyed her books . As far as I know, some of Lisa Jewell's books are not thrillers but more contemporary fiction (or rom-coms), so you saying those other two books were more character-driven, makes sense to me. I have The House We Grew Up In classed as 'contemporary fiction', not a thriller (but then, I'm sometimes wrong about genres, so who knows. I'll have to read the book to find out ). Today I'm reading the November chapter of Gretchen Rubin - The Happiness Project, since today it's the 1rst of November.

Hi Nollaig! Nice to 'hear' from you again . I'm glad your life is going well. Are you enjoying your course / Are you finding it interesting and useful? I'm excited for celebrating my birthday this weekend with my family. Last night my sister and her boyfriend spent the night, I saw them off this morning. I'll see them again this weekend. The book fair nearby is coming up too, so I'm excited about that, and there is a library sale going on, which is also exciting and I plan to take a look there After my birthday weekend, I can start looking around for birthday presents for my boyfriend (his birthday is in December). I have a few ideas. Yesterday it was Halloween, and in honour of that I read a horror book and I watched a horror movie. We changed clocks last weekend, and it gets dark much earlier now. I don't think I posted about it on here, but we have little chicken again (after a persistent mother chicken hid herself and her eggs somewhere and we couldn't find her for a while). All the little ones and the mother are doing well. I've been on new medication for a couple of months now, and it's going well.