More reading time required

Hi all, where did that last month or so go? Everything suddenly got extremely busy and I had a series of events one after the other. From my husband going off to Download festival for 5 days and having to get my mum to stay over to help with the kids & the dog, organising & hosting my son's 4th birthday party in our garden (never again), staying at my parents for a week with the kids whilst our bathroom was ripped out and redone, then going off on holiday to Lanzarote for a week (which was lovely), followed by school settling in visits for my son (how did that come around so quick?). All that alongside the Brexit palaver, more sad celebrity deaths and crazy happenings in Nice and Turkey. This week has been a little less busy and I thought it was about time I caught up on the 8 (?!) pages of posts I'd missed.

I loved his earlier Alex Cross books and some of the Murder Club and Maximum Ride ones. They were truly gripping and gave me some genuine shocks during the time I read them. However, I stopped reading them at the point when the "twist" was no longer a twist (I can't remember which Alex Cross it was but I remember thinking "is that it?!?"). Plus his churn rate was getting ridiculous and they started to become "Large Print" books by default.

The Long Walk is a great story, I've read it several times. It's so brutal and horrific. It sits nicely alongside The Running Man (which is so much better than the film version).

Ah, it's a shame you didn't like them. I didn't find them that bad as I was interested in the history but I agree that it was difficult to keep track of the characters sometimes!

I'm shuffling the downloaded music on my phone and sometimes I get Rockabye Baby tracks (lullaby versions of songs from various bands like Nirvana, No Doubt, Beatles etc) as they are handy to have downloaded for helping my little one get off to sleep. I used to skip them, but now I'm finding they are quite nice and soothing to listen to.

I might just have to make Emma my next book to read after that review My delve into the classics (made easier due to Kindle) has somewhat suffered of late as I generally find them harder going.

I'm trying hard not to get sucked into this game as it's very frustrating when it often fails to load or crashes when you've caught something, but it does keep drawing me back in, particularly as there is loads of activity on the high street where I work and a Pokestop I can activate from my desk. I do need to be stay aware of what it's doing to my data allowance though, as I changed my contract to sim only and it's now capped at 2GB. I think it's a good thing that it's getting people out walking though as long as people show a modicum of common sense and look where they are going!

Started watching Preacher on Amazon Prime. It's good so far!

Not visited here for ages, so have had a little catch up this morning. I blame going back to work and being busy. Anyway, reading has been slow going too, but I did finish Bazaar of Bad Dreams which was a typical short story mixture of good, ok and not so good. I started Edge of Eternity, the final part of Ken Follett's Century trilogy, a few days ago. That's in-between reading a few weaning books & a 'preschooler bible' book and spending far far too long wasting time on Facebook & the subsequent websites it links you off to.

Was it as good as Legend of the Seeker?

I think it's The Alloy of Law that I bought. And yes of course, it's Mistborn not Mistwar. I thought it didn't sound quite right. That'll teach me for being too lazy to go and find the pile of new books in the back room.

And me! I have 4 new books I bought with birthday money sitting untouched because of my library borrowings, plus numerous other ones on my TBR, obviously. I bought the 2nd & 3rd books in the Long Earth series, Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman & the Mistwar sequel/prequel (whatever it is) by Brandon Sanderson. Started reading another library book, Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King. Well, I say started, I've read the intro but I haven't quite made the leap to beginning the first story over the last few days!

Yes I wasn't overly enamoured with Revival but Finders Keepers was much better. Not as good as Mr Mercedes though.

I may not bother with it then. Cheers All the channels seem to be getting in on the action with 'scandi thrillers' these days. I can't keep up!

I finished Revival and started Finders Keepers, also by Stephen King. I've not got too far in it yet though as I've been concentrating on reading weaning books!

Heh, well as my face was closer to the screen it was actually ok. I finished it off and enjoyed the last 2-3 eps. Am undecided as to whether to start Follow the money which replaced it in the schedule, as I'm now about 6 eps behind. Anyone watching that?

Finished The Monogram Murders and started Revival by Stephen King. Went back to the library & took out the last in the Ken Follett trilogy, Edge of Eternity and some weaning books for inspiration. Also got out The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding to check on info for returning to work & expressing as I only have one week left of maternity. I still ended up reading through half of the main book anyway just as a recap on our 7 months and to see if there were any other hints in there. Often I seem to be able to read through non fiction faster than fiction these days, particularly if it's relevant to something I'm experiencing at the moment. I also borrowed Your preschool bible which I will also probably whiz through once I've read through the more urgent books relating to my youngest.

Still stumbling along watching Trapped. I've got 3 eps to go and I'm still not all that engaged with it but I will finish it off. It's possibly cos it's a bit dark on my phone & I can't work out who is who half the time Noticed a 'the story so far' thing on Iplayer about Line of Duty which I thought would mean a new series soon (it did) and I'd noticed both series were on Netflix but I'd only seen series 2 so wanted to watch the first one. Series 1 was so compelling that it inspired me to see series 2 again (where there were parts that made a whole load more sense this time). Looking forward to starting series 3 now. The first ep aired yesterday.

Finished Winter of the World yesterday, which I enjoyed, then started on my next library book, The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah.

Lol, I think I can guess what you typed there! Welcome

Popped to the library the other day to take back some of James's books, had a quick scan to see what was there (not expecting to get anything) and ended up with 3 Stephen King's - Revival, Finders Keepers & The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, the new Poirot story The Monogram Murders and a paper version of the book I'm currently reading on Kindle - Ken Follett's Winter of the World as it's handy to leave my kindle upstairs & have the paper book downstairs rather than constantly carrying it up & down along with a baby & various other stuff I need.

I saw this the other day at Odeon Newbies (parent & baby screenings) with some baby group friends. There were good bits in it but it was confusing overall & seemed very bitty - mind you, the noise of other babies & the distraction of tending to my own probably didn't help. I think I'd need to see it again to form a proper opinion.

That's good to know. After 2 eps I was going to abandon it, but after reading the RT review of ep 7 which said 'it's a treat', I decided to persevere. Ep 3 much better. I'm also watching Happy valley, the people vs OJ Simpson, Spin & Back in time for the weekend (which has been a cool nostalgia trip - well, for the 80s & 90s at least )

Ben Elton's Time and Time Again is an excellent read

Fevre Dream is really good. It's difficult to explain why, as I read it many years ago but I do remember that I found it compelling stuff. I've not read any others of his though.