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More reading time required

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Posts posted by More reading time required

  1. I wasn't sure where else to put this, but I thought this would be an appropriate topic, since it's something I learned today.

     

    Through the Modern Mrs. Darcy website, I came across this link: How non-English speakers are taught this crazy English grammar rule you know but have never heard of and it's about an English grammar rule that native English speakers use but don't really know about.

     

    I'll quote a part here:

     

     

    I don't remember being taught this rule (opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun), though maybe I have been taught and just forgot about it. But it sounds interesting. I've never really thought about it, but putting the words in a different order, does make it sound wrong!

     

    Fabulous! :clapping: I can't remember ever being taught this but it just must be an inherently instinctive thing we all do based on how something sounds. ;)

  2. I've nearly finished Cell....one chapter to go which I will finish tonight (unless I fall asleep). It wasn't as good as I remembered, and I have struggled with some parts of it.

     

    Next up for me is The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber. The synopsis doesn't particularly appeal, but I've enjoyed his other books so I will keep an open mind.

     

    Cell, along with Lisey's story is one of my least favourite Stephen King's. :(  Yet it starts off so well, iirc.

  3. Managed to see more of the Olympics than I thought seen as though we were away most of the time.

     

    Mostly got to see the highlights but was a good all round effort from England.

    Ahem, you mean Great Britain & NI ;)

  4. I've never read or gotten into any graphic novels. Have you ever read V for Vendetta? I've come close to reading it before and want to, just wondering if it's as good as it sounds.

     

     

    I haven't actually read that one, so I can't comment, sorry. :) I've not read loads of them myself, but I have read Sin City, Sandman, Watchmen, The Walking Dead (which is much much much better than the tv series), The Dark Tower prequels and the Buffy & Angel comics that came out soon after the series ended, before I had to abandon them as they got too plain weird! :lol:

     

    I finished book 2 and started book 3: Preacher: Proud Americans

  5. The tv version I recently watched has inspired me to read the Preacher graphic novels again. I'm already through the first one, Gone to Texas and have started the 2nd one, Until the End of the World. My normal book reading was stalling again, so I figured I needed something easy to read & compulsive to get back into it.

  6. How come? They actually stayed true to the cartoon material. 

     

    To be fair, I'm not familiar with the comic book material, but I found the acting was cheesy & bad (apart from maybe Will Smith & Margot Robbie) and the storyline was pretty uninspiring. In fact, it was like a very bad version of the Buffy episode: Graduation Day part 2. :lol:

     

    The one plus point it had was that I didn't fall asleep in the cinema whilst watching it...and I do that a lot lately.  :giggle2:

  7.  

    That's a shame. The Age of the Five is different than The Black Magician Trilogy. I think The Traitor Spy Trilogy is more similar to the latter than to The Age of the Five. But I totally get you stopped reading after not really getting on with The Age of the Five. 

     

     

    It may have just been one of those situations when sometimes you don't get on with books at certain times in your life, but revisiting them gets a better reaction. :)  I probably will have a look at the Traitor Spy trilogy at some point if that is more like the BM trilogy.

  8. Congrats on the job, Noll. :yahoo:

     

    Wow, good going on the recovery,  QK. Hope things only improve for you. :)

     

    Over the weekend we were supposed to be going camping in Wales at a place called Shell Island in the Snowdonia National Park. The forecast didn't look good but we were committed to going as we were meeting 4 other groups of friends there, all with kids apart from one single friend in our group. We stopped off at Telford to convoy with one of them and after a rainy but lovely 3 hour scenic drive to the campsite, we eventually started to set up in a very windy spot. One friend's tent pole snapped as they tried to set up, but they reckoned they had a spare in the awning, and then as we tried to fit our second pole, the first pole shattered, so that was the end of that! We then had a mad rush to gather everything back up and get off the campsite before we were trapped by the tidal road, which we made it by 5 minutes! 

     

    To add insult to injury, we followed the advice of our other friends that hadleft, to find a 'lovely restaurant they knew' only to drive an hour out of the way to a place that was closed, to end back on the road we would havd been on, only it was miles longer (I don't know what they were thinking! :mad:) so we only got home at 1.15 in the morning after several layby stops of cramming in random food from the car and making cold coffee as a pick-me up. :doh:

     

    We had a fairly chilled weekend after that though. It was our daughter's first birthday on Sunday (where has the time gone) so we had a more relaxed day than we would have had at the campsite, so it wasn't all bad :)

  9. Yeah, where were the cell phones.......hah! :D

     

    We've watched all of Luther...even the last series (only two eps).  Wow.  Wowee!  Absolutely loved it.    Gotta love Alice.  :D

     

     

    Luther is amazing. :) We're still waiting for the last 2 eps to be on some streaming service for free though. We hadn't yet watched it when it was on BBC at Christmas otherwise we would have taped it. :doh:

  10. Welcome to the board :)

     

    I am desperate to read more - I have a massive TBR list (though not as big as some members here ;) ) - but rather than in the past when I would read during every spare minute I was stationary - cleaning my teeth, during my lunch break at work, whilst 'watching tv' in the evening and whilst laying in bed at night - I tend to find that now I get drawn into looking at my phone instead. It's either Facebook, news sites, sport sites or emails and before long, the time I would have read is taken up with reading pointless stuff. Even catching up with what I've missed on this forum takes time away from when I would have otherwise read a book. :lol:

     

    I think with me it's a bit about having young kids and not having much spare time (and the time I have spare, I'm either running around after them or doing chores) and a bit about it being 'too easy' to waste time on social media. Maybe I should do what I did with Pokemon Go after a week and just delete FB off my phone - now that was a real time suck. ;)

     

    As I've spent the last year breastfeeding my daughter, you'd think with all the sitting down time, I would have have shed loads of time to read, but instead my phone or telly tended to win out. I have to properly force myself to get my book out first or else that 'quick look at my phone' turns into a whole session of phone time. :doh:

     

    I think iPhone has effectively killed my reading mojo! :D

  11. Thanks :D.

     

    Out of her books, I've read these:

     

    Trudi Canavan - The Black Magician Trilogy 1: The Magicians' Guild

    Trudi Canavan - The Black Magician Trilogy 2: The Novice

    Trudi Canavan - The Black Magician Trilogy 3: The High Lord

    Trudi Canavan - The Black Magician Trilogy 0: The Magician's Apprentice (prequel)

    Trudi Canavan - The Traitor Spy Trilogy 1: The Ambassador's Mission

    Trudi Canavan - The Traitor Spy Trilogy 2: The Rogue

    Trudi Canavan - The Traitor Spy Trilogy 3: The Traitor Queen

    Trudi Canavan - The Age Of The Five 1: Priestess Of The White

    Trudi Canavan - The Age Of The Five 2: Last Of The Wilds

    Trudi Canavan - The Age Of The Five 3: Voice Of The Gods

     

    I haven't read:

     

    Trudi Canavan - Millennium's Rule 1: Thief's Magic

    Trudi Canavan - Millennium's Rule 2: Angel of Storms (the new one)

     

    I would recommend reading The Traitor Spy Trilogy after reading The Black Magician Trilogy, because The Traitor Spy Trilogy takes place in the same world but some years later. I would also recommend reading The Black Magician Trilogy before reading the prequel The Magician's Apprentice, because I think it's a nicer introduction this way (you could read The Magician's Apprentice first too though). The Age of the Five is a trilogy in a completely different world, not related to the other two trilogies. Her books are high fantasy and feature strong female characters (in my opinion). So I guess I'd recommend starting with The Black Magician Trilogy 1: The Magicians' Guild (her debut, though probably the weakest novel out of all of them) or The Age Of The Five 1: Priestess Of The White, or Millennium's Rule 1: Thief's Magic, which is her YA high fantasy series, but I haven't read it yet so I can't tell you if it's good (I might wait until book 3 is out before reading all 3 of them). I've liked all of her books that I've read.

     I really liked the Black Magician Trilogy (though have not read the prequel yet), but I didn't really get on with the Age of Five trilogy, so I haven't read any of hers since. 

  12. Nice reviews :). I'm glad the Weis & Hickman book was nice. I'm also not the biggest fan of short story collections, I prefer novels. I do read short stories every once in a while though. Which Gaiman book(s) would you recommend?

     

    I've read a couple - The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Coraline and Fortunately, the Milk... and liked all three of these. I own but haven't read yet: The Graveyard Book, Good Omens (together with Terry Pratchett), American Gods 2: De Bende Van Anansi (Anansi Boys), Stardust (Ster) (Stardust) and I own a couple of short story collections which contain 1 short story by Neil Gaiman each.

     

    I haven't heard of Fortunately, the Milk! :o  I really enjoyed Ocean at the End of the Lane and The Graveyard Book. Good Omens is great because well, Terry, and Stardust is a really sweet story (plus an excellent film). I can't really remember too much of his other novels apart from that I liked them: Neverwhere, American Gods & Anansi Boys.

  13. Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman

     

    I don't get on as well with short story collections as I do with proper novels (so I am not sure why I have read two of them in my last 6 books :lol:) so it's not really a reflection on this book that I'm not marking it super highly, however I don't think it's quite as good as some of his other short story collections.  There are some fairly good stories contained in here though and they generally have some kind of twist in the tail or dark undertones.

     

    3/5

  14. My Booky Wook 2 by Russell Brand

     

    This was a pretty amusing read that I managed to get through quite quickly. It follows on from Russell's exploits in My Booky Wook and covers his rise in popularity, his break in Hollywood and such events as the MTV video awards and the infamous Radio 2 phone calls to Andrew Sachs. Whether you enjoy this or not basically comes down whether you like Russell Brand.  The book also has an unfortunate dedication: "To Katy. This is my past, you are my future." Errmmm, not for long. :lol:

     

    3.5/5

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