More reading time required

Secret of the Dragon by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman This was improved by the fact that the main character, Skylan, was far more of a hero type in this rather than the whingy adolescent he was in the first book. The story moved along at a reasonable pace and even though I can't remember all that much of it now , I know it was good fun. I was tempted to carry on with book 3, but decided to hold off for now as the final volume (book 4) isn't out in paperback until January. 4/5

I finished Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman last night. I'm still reading Emma at work on the kindle, but to replace my 'tree-book', I'm going to start Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan to try and kick on with my TWoT re-read/new-read (as it's now been 2 years since I started it! ) I still might pick another book to read side by side though.

Hey there stranger Not that I can say anything after disappearing from message boards for about 3 years, Hope you've had a good few months.

I finished Booky Wook 2 and started Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman.

I did something I don't often do and started another book, Emma, on the kindle whilst I'm still finishing off my other book.

Sorry to hear that. When I had glandular fever (16 years ago), I had CFS for about 18 months afterwards. Thankfully it passed, but I can fully sympathise with how you're feeling.

I can instantly supply one answer for this from one of the last books I read. Skylan from Bones of the Dragon by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman - complete arrogant, stupid fool. He's better in the 2nd book though.

Lol, thanks Anna & Athena, but when I say 'very belated birthday presents', I mean extremely belated birthday presents - it was in March. We haven't seen as much of each other this year and when we have, she just kept forgetting to bring it with her. We're fairly relaxed about our present exchanges now - it's more about the kids.

Ooh, I didn't know about this book. I do like his other stuff so I'll have to check it out. I finished Secret of the Dragon the other day and decided to read one of two very belated birthday present books I got from my friend the other day - Booky Wook 2 by Russell Brand.

I've never heard of unwashed eggs either! I keep eggs in the fridge but if I'm baking, I'll get them out a few hours earlier to get them up to room temperature.

I felt exactly the same. I enjoyed it, but I didn't feel I was reading one of the Hodges trilogy.

It almost seems like it's my life quest to finish TWOT. Looking at Wikipedia, I must have started it about 20 years ago with books 1-7. I recall thinking there was an age to wait before book 8 came out at which point I had forgotten what had happened, found it difficult to follow, so I parked it until the series was done (little did I know I would be waiting so long). However, looking at the dates, it was just over 2 years between books 7 & 8, which is hardly George RR Martin pace. Still, I read a lot more in those days, so there was probably about 200 other books in between volumes. My fave Stephen King's are the ones with more of a fantasy element to them like The Dark Tower series, The Stand, The Talisman & The Black House (with Peter Straub) and Rose Madder, though I do like his classic horrors too. It's a much shorter list to say which of his I most dislike. Revival would fit into the same category as Dreamcatcher, Cell and Lisey's Story, though it's still probably not as bad as any of those.

I'm watching various things at the mo: Preacher - very sick and wrong but hilarious. It makes me want to read the graphic novels again. Silicon Valley - a bit techy at times (even for me) but has lots of laugh out loud moments in it Murder in Successville - silly but funny Supergirl - very cheesy but I kinda like it. Tom tells me Flash & Arrow are much better but I never got into those Green Wing - I missed it first time round but am watching it on All4. I love it, it's brilliantly wacky, especially Mark Heap's character

The Ab Fab Movie - it had its moments but wasn't nearly as good as the series

They are both in The Bachman Books collection and have that same "bleak future" feel about them.

Not nearly as many as you! Long ago are the days when I was competing with you on reaching 100 books for the year. Nothing brilliant this year yet, but I have a few options for my next book, including The Shepherd's Crown if I can bear to start it. The household is all good. I can't believe Ellie will be 11 months tomorrow and James has his last summer at nursery before he starts school. The animals are fine too. We thought we'd lost Clara after our holiday as the neighbour that was feeding her hadn't seen either cat but the food was going. She didn't turn up until 11.30pm on Tuesday (after we'd arrived home late Sunday) acting as if nothing was amiss. How are you & your kitty?

Bones of the Dragon by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman It's no Dragonlance, but I enjoyed it on the whole. However, I've never read a book where I found the lead character to be such a d*ck. He irritated me so much throughout the story and I wanted to strangle him. Still, by the end of the story it sounds like he's come to his senses and he might be better going forward. 3.5/5

Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett It was nice to finish of the series but it was definitely the weakest of the three books as there wasn't as much interesting history in this period, however it was good to read more about the Berlin Wall - its effect and the reasons behind it. I remember the wall coming down in the 80s and how important that was, but I never really understood why it was there in the first place. I did get completely lost with the family tree in this one, so I gave up trying to follow it in the end. This volume did seem to be more concerned with the character's romances rather than anything else, with everyone having affairs all over the shop. At least the sex scenes aren't as embarrassingly graphic as they were in his medieval books. 3/5 This was the last of the library books so now I've got to try and resist getting any more out so I can get through my own books instead.

Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King Usual mixture of some good, some not so good, some very weird short stories. 3/5

Finders Keepers by Stephen King I enjoyed the story, though it did seem a bit pointless to have Hodges in it. He was very much a secondary character and it seemed like he was shoehorned in just to force this into a trilogy. 3/5

Revival by Stephen King Not one of his best. There was some interesting build up story but then it goes a bit bonkers. I found myself grudgingly finishing it for a sense of completion rather than of enjoyment. 2/5

The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah It seemed contrived to start with, as if it was trying too hard. It was almost like a school kid writing a story after having plucked out one of her favourite literary characters to feature in it. However, I found myself sucked in & racing through it to see what happened (as I tend to do with Christie's) and I even started reading Poirot's words in my head in his accent, so I guess in the end, it actually worked. Part of my reading speed could have been because I was due to go to the library & wanted to take this one back as well seeing as I "only had 200 pages left of it" and it must have made some use of 'The Christie code' (to quote a programme trying to pin down what made her books so good). It wasn't as particularly exciting a story as it could have been though. 2.5/5

The Winter of the World by Ken Follett On the whole, I enjoyed it. There were lots of compelling twists & turns for the characters and it kept me wanting to know what was going to happen next. I did prefer the characters and plot of book one though and again, I was least interested by the Russian storyline. Scarily, the beginnings of Nazism bears some worrying parallels with the world today. 3/5

I've been jotting down notes as I finish my books, so it's probably about time to throw a few short reviews out there although I've already forgotten loads of what I might have said had I immediately posted them. The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan I can't remember what happens in this one - they all sort of merge into one after a while. Anyway, it's all ticking over nicely and I need to keep plugging away with this series so I can catch up to where I'd got up to (book 8) and then read the volumes I haven't previously started. 4/5

My impending holiday forced me to kick on with my dawdling reading of Edge of Eternity because I knew I couldn't take it with me as it was a library book, and I don't like starting new books if I have one already on the go (unless I am in the right frame of mind to read two books at once), so I forced myself to read about 600 pages in 4 days. If only I could do that all the time, my TBR list would dwindle much faster! Whilst on holiday I started and finished a whole book! Of course, back in the day it would have been about 2 or 3, but given my current reading speed, I was happy enough with that. It was Bones of the Dragon by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman. When I got home, I continued with book 2 of what appears to be a "quadrilogy", Secret of the Dragon, even though the first book said it would be a sextuplet.