More reading time required
-
Posts
498 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Books
Posts posted by More reading time required
-
-
I too love that blog & wish I'd discovered it earlier, when my eldest was first born, rather than about 2 years after! Still relevant howeverIt's such a brilliant book - defiantly going to be going back for re reads of this one
I may have to grab hold of a copy of this at some point myself
-
The film only came out last year and hasn't even made Sky movies yet so you could be waiting a fair while for it to show up on Netflix unfortunately.
I didn't realise that Child 44 was the first inspector Leo book in a series of three books. The farm is not one of those books though. I think I may have to read the rest of the series as this book is so good.
I read Child 44 a year or so ago & enjoyed it. The film is actually already available on Amazon Prime, but I've not got round to watching it yet, maybe because I fear I'll be disappointed!
-
Took the two nippers to see The Good Dinosaur at one of the half term kids cinema showings. It was pretty good.
-
I did not eat pancakes today! I ordered Dominos instead
How funny, so did we. Hubby's argument was that pizzas are round & flat like pancakes. Ha!
We did make a very small batch of pancakes beforehand so that our son could have one & we had one each, but that was it, though I now feel I haven't had my proper pancake fix this year yet.
-
I've never read a graphic novel before. I guess it's something I ought to try.
Have you read Maus by Art Spiegelman? A good friend of mine was raving about it at the weekend.Maus is very good, though rather a traumatic read.
-
After about the end of season 2, I read the first 2 compendiums of Walking Dead, then have been reading the graphic novels as they come out.
I used to like the show, but after reading the comic version, I felt the show was so disappointing in comparison, that I've since abandoned it. There's such great material in the comic, that I wonder why such wholescale changes were made to the tv storyline (OK, some of it might have been a bit harrowing). One of the seasons was totally dull apart from the last ep & then I tried to watch the last season that aired (that everyone reckoned was brill) but I just couldn't summon up the effort to watch it as I knew I'd ultimately be disappointed.
-
Locke & Key was a very good series. We read it comic by comic as it came out, which sometimes meant I had forgotten what had happened previously by the time I came to read a new one, so i should read it all again really.
-
I finished The Girl in the Spider's Web & picked back up my Wheel of Time re-read/new read, with book 5 - The Fires of Heaven.
-
The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz
More shady plots unravelled by investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist & his hacker friend Lisbeth Salander.
It's been many a year since I read the Millenium trilogy so I can't really remember if this book is written in the same style as Stieg Larsson's original, but it didn't really matter either way as this was an enjoyable yarn full of twists & turns.
I'd quite happily read more sequels if they're of the same calibre.
4/5
-
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
I can't easily give a brief synopsis as it's not really about anything much! The best description I could give is that it's about disaffected youth.
It was an odd story but I kinda found myself drawn along with it. I liked a lot of Holden Caulfield's internal monologues about people annoying him - I'm sure I've shared some of those annoyances. The funniest was when, after a long period of being talked at by his schoolmate, he asked if Holden was enjoying a book he was reading & Holden retorted with something like 'Well, this sentence I've been reading for the last 10 mins is great!' Haven't we all been there?
It did seem to have a very abrupt ending though, almost as though the author couldn't think of how else to take the story forward & also, the reasoning behind the title of book was peculiar, but in general I'm glad I read it.
3/5
-
Labyrinth - my 3 and a 1/2 year old loved it.
-
I finished Catcher in the Rye earlier in the week & have been reading The girl in the spider's web as my dad passed it onto me when he'd finished - which meant still no dent in the TBR.
-
I love that place! It's quite near me too & somewhere we'd always take visiting friends to, in the past.Thank you everyone!
It's good to see such positive things about The Eyre Affair! I'm going to Astley book farm soon so I want to check if they have it first, if not I'm going to order it.I'd forgotten about it until recently though, then my sister said she visited & they now had a cafe. I'd like to go again, though me thinks it wouldn't be as relaxing as it used to be meandering through the aisles with a 3 year old charging about!
-
Maybe it will do by the time I finish the trilogy.Great review! Shame it wasn't as good as Pillars or WWE but those were two really great books so hard to top them.
If I look on it as having read only a third of the book, then there's still time for it to catch up.
-
Ah ha! There it is! Great review, I am looking forward to it!
Did you feel there were too many characters/ storylines going on? Or does Follett handle that was well as he does in Pillars and WWE?
He handled it well, overall. I think there needed to be that many characters in order to be able to describe the war preparations of all the involved groups. Even though I thought the American was a bit pointless, he wasn't in there totally without merit as he was advisor to the president so you got to see the American point of view.
-
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
This story revolves around five families at the time of the outbreak of WW1 & their various roles in it.
There's a Welsh family of minors, an English earl, who is also an MP, & his suffragette sister, two Russian brothers -one of whom is a complete d*ck, an American advisor to the president who's a bit pointless and a German nobleman.
Their stories intertwine throughout whilst covering such topics as mine safety (or lack thereof), the start of the war, trench warfare, the Somme, women's suffrage, the differences between classes & the Russian revolution.
As some of the characters are high up in government, there is an insight to the circumstances that lead up to the start of it. But I have to say, I'm still none the wiser! Not that it wasn't clearly explained in the book, just that the real life reasons for the start of WW1 are so ridiculous!
The parts about the main war were really interesting, though later in the book I was a bit bored by the Russian revolution stuff. It all seemed a bit convoluted, but that may have just been because I was more interested in other character's stories at the time.
Anyway, whilst it didn't quite hit the heights of Pillars or World Without End, I still really enjoyed it & will look forward to book 2, which is presumably covering WW2. I don't know if any of the same characters will be present - I hope so.
4/5
-
My TBR list, alphabetically by author, which has annoyingly only gone down by one. Too much library lending methinks! Mind you all my tree books were still in the garage up until last week so that's my excuse.
Alcott, Louisa May - Little Women (Kindle)
Austen, Jane - Pride & Prejudice (Kindle)
Austen, Jane - Sense & Sensibility (Kindle)
Austen, Jane - Mansfield Park (Kindle)
Austen, Jane - Northanger Abbey (Kindle)
Barker, Clive - Abarat x 3
Barton, Beverly - The Dying Games (Kindle)
Batchelder, Dennis - Soul Identity (Kindle)
Beever, Anthony - Stalingrad
Bradshaw, John - Cat Sense
Bronte, Charlotte - Jane Eyre (Kindle)
Bryson, Bill - At Home (Kindle)
Bryson, Bill - Short history of everything (Kindle)
Burgess, Anthony - A Clockwork Orange (Kindle)
Campbell, Ramsey - The House on Nazareth Hill
Campbell, Ramsey - The Gruesome Book
Campbell, Ramsey - The Height of the Scream
Campbell, Ramsey - Alone with the Horrors
Campbell, Ramsey - The Hungry Moon
Campbell, Ramsey - Ancient Images
Campbell, Ramsey - The Nameless
Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales (Kindle)
Child, Lee - Jack Reacher series x 12 (Kindle)
Ciccone, Derek - Painless (Kindle)
Collins, Wilkie - The Moonstone (Kindle)
Defoe, Daniel - Moll Flanders (Kindle)
Dickens, Charles - Bleak House (Kindle)
Dickens, Charles - David Copperfield (Kindle)
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities (Kindle)
Dixon, E - Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights (Kindle)
Donaldson, Stephen - The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
Donaldson, Stephen - The 2nd Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
Donaldson, Stephen - The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss (Kindle)
Eliot, George - Middlemarch (Kindle)
Erikson, Steven - Malazan collection 1 (Kindle)
Flaubert, Gustav - Madame Bovary (Kindle)
Follett, Ken - The Key to Rebecca (Kindle)
Forster, E M - Howards End (Kindle)
Gaskell, Elizabeth - Wives & Daughters (Kindle)
Gaskell, Elizabeth - North & South (Kindle)
Hardy, Thomas - Far From the Madding Crowd (Kindle)
Herley, Richard - The Penal Colony (Kindle)
Hobb, Robin - Dragon Keeper (Kindle)
Hobb, Robin - Dragon Haven (Kindle)
Homer - The Odyssey (Kindle)
Hoover, Thomas - Life Blood (Kindle)
Hoover, Thomas - Syndrome (Kindle)
Hugo, Victor - Les Miserables (Kindle)
Hume, David - The History of England Vol 1 (Kindle)
Jacques, Brian - Redwall saga
James, E L - Fifty shades of grey
Jordan, Robert - Wheel of Time x 8
Joyce, James - Ulysses (Kindle)
Kay, Guy Gavriel - Tigana (Kindle)
King, Stephen - Dark Tower x 8
Knowles, James - The Legends of King Arthur (Kindle)
Littell, Johnathan - The Kindly Ones
Lovecraft, HP - Omnibus 1
Lumley, Brian - Vampire World x 3
Lumley, Brian - Lost Years x 2
Lumley, Brian - E-Branch x 3
Lumley, Brian - Harry Keogh & other Weird Heroes
Lumley, Brian - The Touch
Mariani, Scott - The Shadow Project (Kindle)
McCammon, Robert - Blue World
McCammon, Robert - Boy's Life
McCammon, Robert - Mystery Walk
McCammon, Robert - The Wolf's Hour
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick (Kindle)
Meyers, Stephanie - Twilight saga x 4 (Kindle)
Milton, John - Paradise Lost (Kindle)
Mitchell, Margaret - Gone with the Wind (Kindle)
Mock, Elizabeth C - Shatter (The children of man) (Kindle)
Montgomery, L M - Anne of Green Gables (Kindle)
Morris, Stan - Surviving the Fog (Kindle)
Newman, Kim - Bad Dreams
Newman, Kim - Jago
Newman, Kim - Unforgivable Stories
Paoline, Christopher - Brinsingr (Kindle)
Pepys, Samuel - Diary of Samuel Pepys (Kindle)
Pratchett, Terry - The Science of Discworld 1
Pratchett, Terry - The Science of Discworld 2Pratchett, Terry - The Long Mars
Pratchett, Terry - The Long War
Pratchett, Terry - The Shepherd's Crown
Pullman, Phillip - Once upon a Time in the North
Richardson, Samuel - Clarissa Harlowe (9 vol) (Kindle)
Rothfuss, Patrick - The Name of the Wind (Kindle)Sanderson, Brandon - The Alloy of Law
Shakespeare, William - Complete Works of Shakespeare (Kindle)
Simmons, Dan - Hyperion (Kindle)
Smith, Clark Ashton - The Emperor of Dreams
Smith, Clark Ashton - Out of Space & Time vol 1
Steinbeck, John - East of Eden (Kindle)
Stephenson, Neal - Reamde (Kindle)
Tchaikovsky, Adrian - Empire in Black & Gold (Kindle)
Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair (Kindle)
Tolkien, J R R - The Silmarillion
Tolkien, J R R - The Children of Hurin (Kindle)
Tolstoy, Leo - Anna Karenina (Kindle)
Tzu, Sun - Art of War (Kindle)
Various - The Bible (Kindle)
Various - LA Noire: The Collected Stories (Kindle)
Verne, Jules - A Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Kindle)
Verne, Jules - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Kindle)
Weeks, Brent - Shadow trilogy x 3 (Kindle)
Weis, Margaret - Dragonships series x 1
Weis/Hickman - The Second Generation (Kindle)
Welsh, Irvine - Ecstasy
Welsh, Irvine - Glue
Welsh, Irvine - Porno
Welsh, Irvine - The Secrets of the Master Chef
Welsh, Irvine - Skagboys
White, Neil - Fallen Idols (Kindle)
Yekov, Kirill - The Last Ringbearer (Kindle) -
Not sure whether this is will be books finished or started seeing as Fall of Giants is in both last year's & this year's list!
Read in 2016
January
-----------
Fall of Giants - Ken Follett
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D Salinger
The Girl in the Spider's Web - David Lagercrantz
The Fires of Heaven - Robert Jordan
February
------------
March
--------
The Winter of the World - Ken Follett
The Monogram Murders - Sophie Hannah
Revival - Stephen King
April
------
Finders Keepers - Stephen King
Bazaar of Bad Dreams - Stephen King
May
------
Edge of Eternity - Ken Follett
June
-------
July
------
Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Secret of the Dragon - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
My Booky Wook 2 - Russell Brand
Trigger Warning - Neil Gaiman
August
-----------
Emma - Jane Austen
Lord of Chaos (TWot6) - Robert Jordan
Preacher: Gone to Texas - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
Preacher: Until the End of the World - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
Preacher: Proud Americans - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
Preacher: Ancient History - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
September
---------
Preacher: Dixie Fried - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
Preacher: War in the Sun - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
Preacher: Salvation - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
Preacher: All Hell's A-Coming - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
Preacher: Alamo - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
November
--------
The Long War - Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter
December
---------
Revolution - Russell Brand
-
I'll try and update this blog rather more than I did last year's effort! I.e. More than never!
Read/started in 2015
January
The Shining Girls - Lauren Beukes
Before They Are Hanged - Joe Abercrombie
February
Raising Steam - Terry Pratchett
Mrs Bradshaw's Handbook - Terry Pratchett
Dragons of Crumbling Castle - Terry Pratchett
Dodger's Guide to London - Terry Pratchett
Time and Time Again - Ben Elton
March
A Slip of the Keyboard - Terry Pratchett
Last Arguments of Kings - Joe Abercrombie
April
Life...With No Breaks - Nick Spalding
Titanic - Filson Young
Jackdaws - Ken Follett
May
The Man from Petersburg - Ken Follett
Fear City - F Paul Wilson
The Shadow Rising - Robert Jordan
Don't Blink - James Patterson & Howard Donahughe
June
The Leopard - Jo Nesbo
Road Beneath My Feet - Frank Turner
July
The Twelve - Justin Cronin
August
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Mr Mercedes - Stephen King
September
Number Ten - Sue Townsend
Oh Dear Silvia - Dawn French
October
Retromancer - Robert Rankin
November
Dissolution - C J Sansom
December
Fall of Giants - Ken Follett
-
Did you like Fall of Giants? I plan on read it later this year. I hope you like Catcher in the Rye!
I have written a review
Another kind of resolution is to actually post something on my reading blog this year, once I've created it that is. -
I've got two cats (pictured in my avatar) called Mario & Clara and recently, in October, a 2 year old staffy called Jessie who we got from the RSPCA. We had no plans to get a dog, but saw her on a random visit and really liked her temperament. We thought what with me being on maternity leave, it's either the best time or the worst time to get a dog but we went with it and she's fitted in nicely. We're still working on the cat/dog integration though!
Routine went a bit out of the window over the Xmas break and she's a total fair-weather dog - doesn't like walking in cold, rain, wind or dark, which is problematic when I don't manage to have time to take her out in the afternoon, like the last 2 days. She just digs her heels in, sits down and won't move. She's so stubborn.
Today I had to take Mario (the tabby) to the vets as he seemed to be under the weather. He'd stopped going outside and thus was going to the loo in the house rather than using the cat flap (& we have no litter tray) then he made a strange pained noise and hissed when I picked him up. He's not a hisser so we knew something was up. Anyway, the vet found a largish puncture wound in his side, poor thing. He's dosed up on antibiotics and painkillers and I have to take him back on Friday to see if they need to put him under anaesthetic to cut some of the bad skin off. She didn't think he was up to an op today otherwise she would have already done it.
Not sure what the cause could have been. I asked if it could have been a cat bite as there are a few bully cats around and she said it's in an odd place for a cat bite but it could be that. For all we know, he may have fallen on something, or injured himself trying to escape from somewhere. He did disappear for over a day earlier in the week and when he came back he didn't seem his usual self so that's probably when it happened, whatever 'it' was.
-
Maybe a bit of a New Years resolution, but I've kicked on more with my reading over the last two days. I finished the last 400 odd pages of Fall of Giants in the space of one evening/middle of the night feed/first thing in the morning and now I'm halfway through The Catcher in the Rye.
It's possibly also related to a comment that someone made on this forum to just try and pick up a book for at least 5 mins a day and you may feel you want to read on for longer, but if not, at least you've read for 5 mins!
-
Watched the And then they were none mini series. It was pretty good and had plenty of atmosphere but I was a bit disappointed they went with the play style ending.
It seems a bit 'bond villainesque' to me. I remember when I read the book and I was like 'what the f...? So who the hell did it?' And then you get to the message in the bottle epilogue (or something like that anyway - it's been many years since I read it), and the slow reveal which is so satisfying.
-
I was really pleasantly surprised by The Hunger Games trilogy. I didn't think it'd be my cup of tea at all, but I found myself quite gripped. The film adaptations are really good (& true to the book) too.
Your Book Activity - March 2016
in Past Book Logs
Posted
I finally finished The Fires of Heaven (TWOT book 5) on Friday after starting it in late January! It was good, though also possibly the starting point of the story dragging, hence why I didn't fly through it as quickly as I might have done. Plus, I missed Perrin (nearly typed 'Pippin' then - wrong fantasy book
, who was missing for the entirety of it.