Athena

I agree as well. Nice review of Joyland, shame the ending let it down for you.

That is one great looking cover ! I hope you enjoy all of your new books !

Under Rose-Tainted Skies by Louise Gornall.

This week's topic is: January 24th: Books You Disliked but Love to Discuss Author's Note: -- Some books we disliked or they were just okay, but they still have a lot of discussion points to sink your teeth into. I can't really think of any right now to be honest. Most of the books I like to talk about, are books that I really liked! Maybe I'll think of something later.

Sorry you had such a bad experience with a book . I don't know a lot about the book but I did know it'd got some good reviews from some people, I've seen it on a bestseller list and things like that. I hope your next book will be a better experience for you!

Yesterday I read Paul van Loon - De Leeuwenkuil 1: Paniek in de Leeuwenkuil. It was pretty nice, I enjoyed reading it. I think it's interesting the set up of the family owning a zoo, is based on real-life, with a friend of the author, the friend's family actually owned a zoo when the friend was a young boy. Anyway, I like this author's children's books, I'm a fan of his horror-work. This book is a contemporary fiction story, with a little mystery mixed in. It was enjoyable.

I'm glad you liked A Column of Fire . I've got it on my TBR. How was The Kicking the Bucket List, was it any good? Yesterday I read Paul van Loon - De Leeuwenkuil 1: Paniek in de Leeuwenkuil and in the evening I started re-reading Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time 2: The Great Hunt.

I applaud the use of spreadsheets .

Female

I read Hilary Reyl - Kids Like Us. I read this in one day! This is a YA contemporary fiction story featuring a male main character who has autism. There is also a love story. I quite liked this book. I really liked the main character, Martin. I also liked a lot of the side characters (I really liked Layla!). I was less keen on Martin's mum, because of her stance on 'curing autism' and she wasn't really called out on it. The book takes place in France, Martin and his family go to France for a while, so his mum can film a movie there. I loved reading about the French food, and about other elements of France. I've been on holidays to France for quite a few times, so it was really nice to read about certain foods and towns and things like that, in this book. Ie. I enjoyed reading about the castle they go to. The author lived in France for several years, nowadays she lives in New York City. Martin really likes this old book, a classic work of French literature. While I didn't know much about it, I did like how it was woven into the book and how it helped Martin understand the world. Overall then I enjoyed this book a lot. Not quite as much as Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde and The State of Grace by Rachael Lucas, but I still liked it quite a lot. A new favourite!

I'm glad you enjoyed your re-read of The Colour of Magic. Such a great book. It was my first Discworld book and because of that it will always have a special place in my heart.

Rain

The Rythmatist by Brandon Sanderson.

Light

That sounds good . I hope I like it when I get around to reading it.

I read Marian Keyes - This Charming Man. I hadn't read a book by Marian Keyes before, though I own several. I bought this book a little while ago and somehow the interesting format and different fonts appealed to me about a week ago and thus I started reading it. The book has a few main characters that each talk in a different voice. I liked the distinction between the voices of the characters, I thought that was well done. At times it felt like the plot could have progressed quicker (the book could have been shorter), but I was enjoying the read so I wasn't too bothered by it. I liked the characters, though there was one main character that I thought was a bit mean / stereotypical in her opinion of certain side characters. It wasn't something huge in the story, but it wasn't quite PC. I did approve of some other things she did though. Overall I enjoyed reading this book for the most part. It dragged a bit in places, but I enjoyed reading the book.

We watched Your Name and really liked it (Thanks @Nollaig for your recommendation !). I really enjoyed watching it. Yesterday we watched Inside Out for the second time, it was very good.

Oil

I hope things get better soon! I'm glad Coran is okay. Good luck with all the work, it sounds really tough! Yesterday we had a really bad storm here. Gladly we're all allright and so are our animals. One of my neighbour's trees fell over, and throughout the country there are lots of damages. Almost no trains were going for most of the day yesterday so my mum got stuck at work. Gladly my dad could pick her up with the car after his last appointment. They were back home after midnight. Two people died too (because of the wind, things falling on top of them). Today the weather seems quieter, so that's good. I know it may be a bit early for most, but I wish everyone a nice weekend .

Nice to see you've made a book (b)log . I've got Liu Cixin's trilogy on my shelves, I bought it recently but I haven't read it yet. Glad to hear you liked it! I am a big fan of Peter F. Hamilton's books, so I'd definitely recommend both The Night's Dawn and the Commonwealth Saga (with the former being my favourite, though that series was the first I read by him, so I might be biased). It's true that a lot of his books are massive. I find I really like them when I'm in the right mood for them. But I do have to be in the right mood (I'm a mood reader). I wish you happy reading in 2018 !

Welcome here ! I hope you like the forum.

I'm putting the Helliconia trilogy on my wishlist . I like the Culture novels (those I've read), and the Philip K. Dick books I've read. I've got a few books by Heinlein and Asimov but I haven't read those yet. Vodkafan (VF)'s favourite author is Vance, I've not read anything by him yet but I do own a few books by him.

This week's topic is: Forgettable Books Author's Note: --Whether you loved or hated them at the time, these are books that you just don't really remember... I'm not sure what to say about this one, as because they are forgettable books, it's not very likely that I'll remember to think of them, if that makes sense. They're probably books that received a 'meh' rating. If it's about how much do you remember from books, then I have to say that in general I don't tend to remember a lot about books that I read a while ago. That's not the fault of the books though generally but has more to do with my own brain and memory.

Well, here in the Netherlands it doesn't often get hot, air conditioning is available but expensive to buy and have installed into your house, so most people don't have it (as far as I'm aware). I think every car sold here has airconditioning though (people often go on holidays to warmer countries). My grandparents have air conditioning in their upstairs floor that they had installed a while ago, because it can get pretty hot there in summer, and the air conditioning can also heat the room up so it will get warm in winter if it's too cold. But generally it is somewhat expensive so most people don't do it for those relatively not so many days a year. Most newer houses are better isolated so if you don't open the windows too often (of course often enough to have fresh air), it won't get too hot in summer depending on the house. Temperatures above 30 °C are quite rare, though in the past few years we've had more heatwaves than before I feel. My parents' farm stays nice and relatively cool in the summer, but the bakery heats up more easily due to bad isolation. We have an upstairs floor with attic and my boyfriend's office (slanted roof upstairs), and we have a downstairs floor with living room / kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Upstairs it can get really hot in summer (so hot the thermometer upstairs goes off the gauge) and in the winter it gets really cold up there (to the point of freezing). There is a hatch between upstairs and downstairs, so if neither of us has to be upstairs and it's a bit cold, we tend to keep it shut to preserve the heat downstairs. Right now it's a couple of degrees above °C outside, we've had some rain and hail and a little bit of snow today so far, sky is overcast. The past month and a half we've not seen much direct sunlight, as it has almost always been overcast during the day. It's not cold enough outside for the snow and hail to stay, so it does melt away. I'm feeling kind of cold.

I'm glad you're settled into your new home and that you're loving it . I hope you enjoy your family gathering. I find them fun but also exhausting. Things are okay here. I had a dentist appointment this morning and I'm very glad everything was okay and that it's over for another half a year!! I always get extremely anxious for dentist appointments (as some of you know) and the cleaning of the teeth was difficult because it is so much input. But I'm really glad it's over again now!! My sister and her fiancé planning to move into their new house soon, so I expect we'll go there in February once they're settled in. My brother and his girlfriend are doing well too, and are also thinking of moving in a while. They're currently living in a rented apartment in the city but they'd like to buy a house. My boyfriend and I will be the last to move, but that is okay with us, as for now we're good where we are. But it is nice to talk about it and hear about other people's tastes and opinions. Last weekend I saw most of my family and it was nice to spend some time with them. I'm planning to rest a bit today, as the dentist appointment cost me a lot of energy and I didn't sleep very well last night (in part due to a bad headache). But I'm really glad the dentist appointment is over for another 6-ish months again!!