Athena

What a shame The Girl Who Reads on the Metro was not great for you . I hope you will have a 5/5 star read to review / to read too.

book

I am so sorry to hear of his passing. Thank you for explaining to me what happened. (yes the link button is broken at the moment unfortunately, but it should be fixed once the forum is hosted with the new hosts).

I totally forgot about it to be honest . Thank you Marie, for reminding me! To be fair to myself, the past couple of weeks have been rough, we had a loss in the family . I'm reading The Pillars of the Earth together with a friend, all through February, and each day I am planning to read the assigned pages/chapters. So I will be reading that on the read-a-thon Friday, Saturday and Sunday too. I'm currently also reading Boys Don't Cry but I expect to have that finished before the weekend. I'll have to see which of my graphic novels, graphic memoirs, comics, illustrated children's books, I feel like reading.

I found it for you, here you go: http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/13857-athenas-reading-list-2016/&do=findComment&comment=467640

I'm currently re-reading The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (together with a friend) and reading Boys Don't Cry by Malorie Blackman. I'm enjoying both books.

Oh wow, hi everyone!! How nice to see/have some more people! I am so sorry BGO will close . I was a member of BGO a long time ago, in 2013. I remember though that at some point something went wrong, and some (months? of) posts were lost. Since I was a new member, that meant all of my posts at the time, from what I recall. So at the time I did make a few more posts after that, but at some point I stopped going there. Ah, I've just logged in to the Book Group Online forum, seems I registered in February 2013 but if I look at the earliest post I made, it was in August 2013, and I see that what I'm typing was after the posts were lost. Now I regret not having stayed .

Fame

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline (I have only read Ready Player One, which I liked a lot at the time, years ago. I've heard mixed things of Two though, not sure that I'll pick it up to be honest).

That's good to know, and thank you . It looks like I have AdminCP access, so that should be enough .

Well book 1 is called The Hunger Games so I think it counts . The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

toad

For Your Eyes Only ~ Edenbridge

That's lovely, Muggle Not!

Thank you so much for all your work, Hayley! (P.S. to respond to the announcement, my partner and I made the theme. I wasn't sure if you knew that, but if it is possible and not too much work to make it work with the new forum version, I'm sure he would help me to work it out, if you like. We love the theme but if you want to try something different by ie. downloading a free theme or such, then I don't want to stand in your way).

I wasn't expecting it either, but it was a pleasant surprise! I quite enjoyed it too . I'm pretty sure a lot of references went over my head too, my partner recognised more of them as he has seen things more often than I have. But yes there were a lot of references and he probably didn't catch them all either.

I have this one on my TBR! A friend of mine read it and she liked it a lot (so I ended up buying it when I found it with a good deal). I hope you like it too! Hmm, well to my knowledge, her later / more reeently published books are more thrillers (or thriller-like), whereas most of her earlier works are more contemporary fiction rather than thrillers. So I guess it depends what kind of mood you are in. I have read these ones: My Best Friend's Girl, The Flavours of Love (from what I recall this felt like the first book when the author tried out to make it part thriller and part contemporary fiction), That Girl From Nowhere and From There to Here (a short prequel story to That GIrl From Nowhere). I really liked / or loved all 3 novels and I liked the short prequel story. I have a lot of her works on my TBR, out of those I have heard the most about The Ice Cream Girls, but since I haven't read it myself yet I can't tell you if I like it. I would say, go by which one appeals to you most, but if you have to buy or loan it (ie you don't have any more of her books on your TBR/shelves), I guess you can also by what is available or price/cost etc. I don't mind the swearing but if you like I can edit your post to make it say 'd*ck' instead? I think you should be able to edit it, as far as I know all members that have more than a small amount of posts (so the badge of your profile says 'member' or 'advanced member' and not 'new member'), should be able to edit their own posts. Yours says 'member' and you have 700+ posts so it should be possible, I think. If not, I'm happy to do it for you, it'd only take me a few seconds. I really don't mind but I won't do it without you giving me permission. I could also ask Hayley to look into why you can't edit your posts if it turns out you can't and it bothers you that you are unable to do so (it would require admin profile so I can't do that anymore, but it should be easy to check). I'm glad you are liking it! Yes, I love that too! Most (almost all?) of Jodi Picoult's books have points of view from more than one character (at least, I've read a lot of them, and I think all novels have that except maybe her very first novel (which I DNFed / abandoned), her novellas and short stories usually don't have this feature). Thanks . It didn't (what a load of toss dumpster fire was that! 1.5 star), but ahh they can't all be winners (so far worst book I read in 2021, but then again January isn't over yet ). The Adrian Mole diaries are much more liked by this author, in comparison, I will try them at some point. Oh yes I love that . I used to re-read a lot more as a child and young teenager. I didn't have much money to buy lots of books and I loved the comfort of reading a book I already loved. I didn't know much about the book world, nor had information of what would be released etc. I went to libraries lots, and often when I had finished my loans and couldn't yet go to the library again, I'd re-read a book I owned already. Or for example, when we went on holidays, camping, I'd bring some of my owned books, because I'd probably finish my library loans too soon (at the time children (at my town's library) were allowed a certain amount of loans on their card (8? 16? I think it was 4 fiction and 4 non-fiction at first, then later on when I was allowed the 'star' subscription, I was allowed 8 fiction and 8 non-fiction) and since I read fast.. yeah. My mum actually took me to two libraries because one wasn't enough lol (the one in the town we lived in, and the one in the next town over). That all said, there are also library loans I remember re-reading! Mostly books I loved the first time around. I'm glad you really enjoyed Tod Hunter Moon! I read the first two books of the Septimus Heap series (based on your recommendation!) but then stopped (as I got in the mood for something not-fantasy I think).. I should go back to it again at some point (I will but.. so many books to read... ). I have been doing parallel reading / reading more than one book at once, more often in the past year. I hardly ever did that in the years before then, I did do it when I was in high school as we had to read literature / literary works for Dutch and English class and I also wanted to read a book of/for my own (that was not-literary). I've been doing it more often the past year, because I've been reading books more often with people from BookTube and usually they have a schedule of so many pages or chapters a day. So I read in my 'own' book when I have finished those pages/chapters but I still have more time and feel in the mood to do more reading. Good luck with the rummage ! I hope you enjoy doing parallel reading again after a long time!

I love Dune and IT too, 5 stars both from me also. I'm glad you were still able to do some reading using your Kindle . And it's kinda cool that long books became a feature unintentionally! Usually at least for myself, really long books can intimidate me so I don't pick them up as often as medium size books (then again, I have more medium size books on my TBR, than really long books.. but still). Yay for your experience with Charles Dickens! I've only read some of his short stories (with A Christmas Carol being my favourite by far), not any novel. I'm glad you loved both novels you read by him.

May they both rest in peace .

I read this book many years ago and loved it. I actually found My Best Friend's Girl by coincidence, in a charity shop in the UK (while visiting my boyfriend and his family). I had never heard of the author or the book (this was also way before I knew of the book community, before I found BCF, before I found blogs and YouTube etc). The book's syopsis on the back, sounded appealing to me so I bought it. I loved it. To this day, I haven't heard much about it, in comparison to some of the author's other novels (for example, I hear more about The Ice Cream Girls which was also published some time ago but recently got a new cover). But I loved My Best Friend's Girl at the time, and it made me go and buy more novels by the author. So far I liked or loved all those I have read (and there are still more to read). I'm glad you enjoyed it! I hope you enjoy the next work from the author that you pick up . Agreed. It was definitely not one of my favourites, but still an enjoyable read. Excluding book 10, Christmas Shopaholic, which I have not read yet, I enjoyed the first few books in the series more than the last couple of books. Wow, this sounds terrible! And I have read and liked some books by this author. I had not heard of this one.. but it doesn't sound good at all. I read My Sister's Keeper years ago and loved it. It made me buy and read more books by Jodi Picoult, as that was my first one. I re-read My Sister's Keeper somewhere in the past few years and liked it a lot still (there is also a movie, so I remembered the story more because I saw the movie twice as well. Even though there are some significant differences between the two). I hope you enjoy it!! EDIT: I'm currently reading The Woman Who Went to Bed For a Year by Sue Townsend, with 2 other people. So far it is okay.. it has aged / is dated. I don't think it will get a high rating from me but I'm glad it is at least readable as one of the two people I read it with, has DNFed (did-not-finish) / abandoned it. I have not read anything else by the author, people have told me this is definitely not her best work. I have a couple of the Adrian Mole diaries so I will give those a go at some point. Alongside it I'm currently rereading Verdriet met mayonaise by Carry Slee. It's a Dutch children's book and I have re-read it several times in my life.

Nice to see you again, Ian!! How've you been? Any favourite books you read in 2020 you want to tell us about? I'm glad your first two books read in 2021, were both 5 stars! You can delete posts you've made double but I don't think members can delete their own double posted topics. No worries, I'll take care of it .

How nice to see a revival of this thread! I have learnt more about myself since I wrote that first original post, but first I will reply to the new posts. Oh wow that is really interesting about the driving! I'm trying to remember if I have that too, but then with the left hand side as that is how we drive here in NL. I'm trying to remember if I've read a book set in Britain in which a car was driven.. but I don't recall any right now. Yes I find it hard to imagine the book characters too if I've already seen the movie, I end up just picturing them as their movie / TV version. I usually prefer to read the book(s) first, though on occasion that ends up not being the case. That sounds cool . I too am waiting for him to finally finish the series! I have seen the first four seasons of the TV series but not more than that (the books were still ahead, which I read first before watching). I lost interest in the TV show because our TV signal at the time was 'buggered' is maybe the British way of saying it, so it was impossible to watch season 5's episodes without lots of signal interruptions, sound loss and image loss. My boyfriend wants to see the rest of it after re-watching it all at some point, but I've kind of lost interest and tbh I prefer the books over the TV show. I read the books before I watched the show, well the ones that are out, the first 5 novels. Ugh I want the 6th and 7th book already.. it is taking so long.. I feel like he seems to (have) spend/spent more time on the TV show and other books (like the history one? Fire and Blood) rather than the actual novels. Of course, he's allowed to do whatever he wants, I just would like to read the last 2 books in the series and finish it. I too have certain images in my mind from specific books that I recall. It's cool you have that too! I really liked The Player of Games (I can kind of see parts of the 'game' in my mind as I imagined them back then) and The War of the Worlds. I didn't know Mike Gayle is Black, nice to know! I know nothing about him, I won one of his books in a giveaway many years ago. I haven't read it yet, nor any of the otehr books by him that I bought after winning the giveaway one, whenever I saw them on a sale or saw them cheap. Yes I find that if skin colour is not described at all, often white authors write white main characters. Definitely not always, but often. And many older books written by white authors, don't mention skin colour until a character of colour appears in the story, and then their skin colour is described, but not the skin colour of any of the main (presumed white) characters. I call this 'white-as-default'. I know now how it works for me (see below), but it is totally possible that for you it has to do with being a slow reader and therefore your mind having more time to fill in the details. It's not 100% the case for me, but I can certainly see that it could be hte case for someone else! It was definitely entertaining! 20 years!! Wow. I liked the LoTR films. I was not a fan of The Hobbit films. I have not read the LoTR books but I have read The Hobbit (and prior to seeing the films). In the case of The Hobbit, I much prefer the book. By making one book (and not a huge one at that) into three separate movies, they added stuff.. I felt the actual plot that is in the book, was drawn out in places. I haven't read the LoTR books but the films are very good (and better than The Hobbit ones imo, shrug). When I watched the first LoTR movie, before the others were out, I was unaware it was going to be a trilogy, and I didn't know much about the original books. So I was kind of disappointed that after a long movie it ended on a cliffhanger / open ending rather than end properly (going to add a spoiler here just in case): And I was disappointed when that did not happen in the first movie. My sister and also my brother loved all the movies. Some years later.. when I watched all of the LoTR movies, they were the extended versions that my parents have on Blu-ray, and.. I'm never doing that again..! I find it hard enough nowadays to concentrate on a 25- or 45-min episode in a TV show. Watching a film that is 4 hours long, times 3.. nope. At the time we divided each LoTR film into 2, so we'd watch 2 hours at a time. I haven't seen a movie in some time, most days I don't have the energy nor the concentration for a movie, and nowadays most movies are 2 or 2 1/2 hours long and not 1h 30 mins anymore. I watched the 3 Hobbit films on 3 separate times, I think as the Blu-rays came out after each film was released and my dad bought them / was gifted them. I can imagine if you love the universe of LoTR that you like the movies, but I don't, so.. shrug. I know it is one of the most quintessential fantasy stories, and one that was super important to the beginning of the genre. Yet it was always my sister's, and to a lesser extent my brother's thing, when I was a teenager, not my thing. At some point as a teenager I started reading adult fantasy, and it was those books I loved, not LoTR. My sister tried to read LoTR when she was a teenager, but she said the Dutch translation (that my parents had at the time) used a lot of unfamilair words so she gave up. I know I've gone off topic, but one of my favourite elements of fantasy (epic high adult fantasy is my favourite) is magic, particularly when the main characters / the heroes / the good characters have magic and that it is not just an evil thing. --- Okay now onto the bit of information I referred to in the beginning of my post. I have since writing that first post, learned that I have (self-diagnosed) partial faceblindness, or prosopagnosia. I have trouble remembering and identifying faces. I mostly recognise people by their hair and skintone, and I do not take in the details of their face much. It is easier with people that I see very often, but with people I see less often it can be hard. It happens sometimes that I'm watching a TV show or movie and have to ask my boyfriend, is this a new character or am I supposed to recognise him? I remember once my boyfriend was watching a movie and I tried to see part of it after I got downstairs or whatever, but there were 2 main characters who had a similar hairstyle and haircolour, and I just could not tell them apart. My boyfriend did not have such issues and he could follow his film allright. I feel the fact that I have trouble with faces in real life, definitely has something to do with how I imagine characters in my head. And recently, I 'met' someone online who said in a video, she has something similar, I don't recall the name now but she can't imagine much at all, no images are in her mind when she reads (I'm trying to remember). And she thought it was because of that, that she read faster and read more books in a year than most other people she knew in the book community. Because she didn't spend time imagining the book because she can't (which can be difficult with other areas in your life, and feel isolating, I can imagine).

It sounds like a terrible read.. !

I loved The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (really liked book 2 in the series, book 3 was allright), and have To Be Taught, If Fortunate on my TBR. I have heard from other people who have read both, that The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was better. I can't verify this myself until I've read the novella, but I thought I'd let you know anyway.

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, book 1) by George R. R. Martin