More reading time required
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Posts posted by More reading time required
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Thank you for my challenges, Ben & Sarah. I look forward to them both.
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A few days ago I finished Wolves of the Calla, and I'm now just carrying on with Fool's Quest by Robin Hobb.
I picked up my free copy of Little Women (and Good Wives) the other day, so I might start with that one next, seeing as it's a Round Robin read.
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We watched Defenders and The Punisher recently. Both are really good (though the latter very violent!).We probably also need to watch Iron Fist and Luke Cage to fill in some of the gaps though.
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Challenges to me
1. Willoyd: Stalingrad by Anthony Beever
2. Madeleine: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
3.Chesilbeach: Wives & Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
4. Karen.d: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
5. Alexi: Skagboys by Irvine Welch
6. Chaliepud: Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
7. Little Pixie: Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
8. Frankie: East of Eden by John Steinbeck
9. Ben: Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Challenges by me
1. Willoyd: Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett.
2. Madeleine: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
3.Chesilbeach: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
4. Karen.d: Salem's Lot by Stephen King
5. Alexi: Joyland by Stephen King
6. Chaliepud: 11.22.63 by Stephen King
7. Little Pixie: Life of Pi by Yann Martell
8. Frankie: The Running Man by Richard Bachman
9. Ben: Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb
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On 06/01/2018 at 5:26 PM, karen.d said:
Hi I challenge you to read Alcott, Louisa May - Little Women. I love this book, I hope you enjoy it
Ooh thank you. I had this one on my radar what with the recent tv mini series (that I've recorded but not watched yet) and the fact that i'm going to get a free paperback copy of it via Radio Times next week. I have it on Kindle, but I'm currently in a 'tree book' preference mode.
Right, sorry for the delay all, here are my challenges:
1. Willoyd: Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett. I don't know if you are a Pratchett reader or not, but I saw this one on there and if you haven't read it, it's a good one to start with.
2. Madeleine: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. I enjoyed this trilogy and hope you will too.
3.Chesilbeach: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. This has been on my radar since it won the Booker prize, but I've never got around to picking it up.
4. Karen.d: Salem's Lot by Stephen King. With you being at the point you're at with the Dark Tower series, this fits in nicely to link the two.
5. Alexi: Joyland by Stephen King. It's a very different to his usual style but i really enjoyed it.
6. Chaliepud: 11.22.63 by Stephen King. Sorry I seem to have gone onto a bit of a King tangent, but this is another atypical King book that I thought was brilliant.
7. Little Pixie: I was torn between 3 from your list but I eventually settled on Life of Pi by Yann Martell. I picked it up for free on Kindle several years ago, after being aware it had won the Man Booker prize in the past and it was a book that sort of really surprised and astounded me.
8. Frankie: Back to the King theme, but I really had to recommend The Running Man by Richard Bachman. If you've ever seen the film version with Arnie, be prepared to wonder what the hell they were thinking when they adapted it, as this version is so so much better (imo, of course
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9. Ben: Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb. I'm just reading a new trilogy of hers after a long break and I'm remembering just how much I love her world. This was a fantastic opening book.
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Ooh exciting, thanks guys.
I'll have a look at suggestions for everyone else now.
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Now I've sorted out my 2018 blog, I'd like to join in, if I may?
My TBR list is at the start of my blog, albeit a bit messy at the mo - there's a limit to what you can do on a phone, but I'll sort it out.
Books I'm already definitely reading imminently are the rest of The Dark Tower, the rest of Robin Hobb's Fitz & the Fool trilogy and at least one Wheel of Time so you might want to avoid choosing them.
I'll look at everyone's lists tomorrow.
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Open for business
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Spare post
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Spare post
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Read in 2018
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Discworld re-read
Also, now I've read the last Discworld
, I want to do a Discworld re-read from start to finish.
The Colour of Magic
The Light Fantastic
Equal Rites
Mort
Sourcery
Wyrd Sisters
Pyramids
Guards! Guards!
Eric
Moving Pictures
Reaper Man
Witches Abroad
Small Gods
Lords and Ladies
Men at Arms
Soul Music
Interesting Times
Maskerade
Feet of Clay
Hogfather
Jingo
The Last Continent
Carpe Jugulum
The Fifth Elephant
The Truth
Thief of Time
The Last Hero
The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
Night Watch
The Wee Free Men
Monstrous Regiment
A Hat Full of Sky
Going Postal
Thud!
Wintersmith
Making Money
Unseen Academicals
I Shall Wear Midnight
Snuff
Raising Steam
The Shepherd's Crown
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I've also had this challenge ticking away over the past couple of years, but I've never thought to post it before. Many years ago, there was a BBC poll for the nation's top 100 books. I've combined that list with a few other Facebook "100 books you must read" for something I'm slowly chipping away at in an effort to become more "widely read".
Some I have access to and some I don't, so the challenge will also be to track down those ones I haven't read - preferably without paying!
AA Milne - Winnie the Pooh
Aldous Huxley - Brave New WorldAlexandre Dumas - The Count Of Monte Cristo
Alexandre Dumas - The Three MusketeersAlice Sebold - The Lovely Bones
Alice Walker - The Color PurpleAnna Sewell - Black Beauty
Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
Antoine De Saint - The Little Prince
Anya Seton - Katherine
Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a GeishaArthur Ransome - Swallows And Amazons
Arundhati Roy - The God Of Small Things
AS Byatt - PossessionAudrey Niffeneger The Time Traveler’s WifeBill Bryson - Notes From A Small IslandBram Stoker - Dracula
Carlos Ruiz Zafon - The Shadow of the WindCharles Dickens - A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens - A Tale Of Two Cities
Charles Dickens - Bleak House
Charles Dickens - David CopperfieldCharles Dickens - Oliver Twist
Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre
Colleen McCollough- The Thorn BirdsCS Lewis - Chronicles of NarniaCS Lewis - The Lion the Witch and the WardrobeDan Brown - The Da Vinci Code
Daphne du Maurier - RebeccaDavid Mitchell - Cloud Atlas
Dodie Smith -I Capture The Castle
Donna Tartt -The Secret HistoryDouglas Adams - The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
EB White - Charlotte’s Web
Emile Zola -GerminalEmily Brontë -Wuthering HeightsEnid Blyton - The Faraway Tree Collection
Eoin Colfer -Artemis Fowl
Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead RevisitedF Scott Fitzgerald - The Great GatsbyFrances Hodgson Burnett - The Secret GardenFrank Herbert - DuneFyodor Dostoyevsky - Crime And Punishment
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love In The Time Of Cholera
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude
George Eliot - MiddlemarchGeorge Orwell - Animal FarmGeorge Orwell - Nineteen Eighty Four
Gustave Flaubert - Madame BovaryHarper Lee - To Kill a MockingbirdHelen Fielding - Bridget Jones’s Diary
Herman Melville - Moby DickIain Banks - The Wasp Factory
Ian McEwan - Atonement
Jack Kerouac - On The Road
Jacqueline Wilson - Double Act
Jacqueline Wilson - Girls In Love
Jacqueline Wilson - The Story Of Tracy Beaker
Jacqueline Wilson - Vicky Angel
James Joyce -UlyssesJane Austen - EmmaJane Austen - Persuasion
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen - Sense and SensibilityJD Salinger - Catcher in the Rye
Jean M Auel - The Clan Of The Cave BearJeffrey Archer - Kane And AbelJK Rowling - Harry Potter series
John Fowles - The Magus
John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meaney
John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of DuncesJohn Steinbeck - Of Mice and MenJohn Steinbeck - The Grapes Of Wrath
Joseph Conrad - Heart of DarknessJoseph Heller - Catch-22JRR Tolkien - The HobbitJRR Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings
Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the DayKen Follett - The Pillars Of The EarthKenneth Grahame - The Wind in the Willows
Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner
Leo Tolstoy - Anna KareninaLeo Tolstoy - War and PeaceLewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures In Wonderland
LM Montgomery - Anne Of Green Gables
Louis de Bernieres - Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Louis Sachar - Holes
Louisa May Alcott - Little Women
Malorie Blackman - Noughts And Crosses
Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid’s Tale
Margaret Mitchell - Gone With The Wind
Mario Puzo - The GodfatherMark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night
Meg Cabot - The Princess DiariesMervyn Peake - Gormenghast
Michelle Magorian - Goodnight Mister Tom
Mitch Alborn - The Five People You Meet In Heaven
Nevil Shute - A Town Like Alice
Patrick Süskind - Perfume
Paulo Coelho - The AlchemistPhilip Pullman - His Dark MaterialsRaymond E Feist - MagicianRichard Adams - Watership DownRoald Dahl - Charlie and the Chocolate FactoryRoald Dahl - MatildaRoald Dahl - The BFGRoald Dahl - The TwitsRobert Louis Stevenson - Treasure Island
Robert Tressell - The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Rohinton Mistry - A Fine Balance
Rosamunde Pilcher - The Shell Seekers
Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children
Sebastian Faulks - BirdsongSir Arthur Conan Doyle - Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Stella Gibbons - Cold Comfort FarmStephen King - The StandSylvia Plath - The Bell JarTerry Pratchett - Guards! Guards!Terry Pratchett - MortTerry Pratchett - Night WatchTerry Pratchett - The Colour Of MagicTerry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman - Good Omens
Thackeray - Vanity Fair
Thomas Hardy - Far From The Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy - Jude the ObscureThomas Hardy - Tess Of The D'Urbervilles
Various - The Bible
Victor Hugo - Les Miserables
Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy
Vladimir Nabokov - LolitaWilkie Collins - The Woman in WhiteWilliam Golding - Lord Of The Flies
William Shakespeare - Complete Works of ShakespeareYann Martel - Life of Pi -
TBR list
Austen, Jane - Pride & Prejudice
Austen, Jane - Sense & Sensibility
Austen, Jane - Mansfield Park
Austen, Jane - Northanger Abbey
Barker, Clive - Abarat
Barton, Beverly - The Dying Games
Batchelder, Dennis - Soul Identity
Beever, Anthony - Stalingrad
Bradshaw, John - Cat Sense
Bronte, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
Bryson, Bill - At Home
Burgess, Anthony - A Clockwork Orange
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
Child, Lee - Jack Reacher series
Ciccone, Derek - Painless
Collins, Wilkie - The Moonstone
Coyne, Matt - Dummy
Defoe, Daniel - Moll Flanders
Dickens, Charles - Bleak House
Dickens, Charles - David Copperfield
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities
Dixon, E - Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights
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
Eliot, George - Middlemarch
Erikson, Steven - Malazan collection 1
Flaubert, Gustav - Madame Bovary
Follett, Ken - The Key to Rebecca
Forster, E M - Howards End
Gaskell, Elizabeth - Wives & Daughters
Gaskell, Elizabeth - North & South
Hardy, Thomas - Far From the Madding Crowd
Herley, Richard - The Penal Colony
Hill, Joe - The Fireman
Hobb, Robin - The Rain Wild Chronicles
Hobb, Robin - The Fitz and the Fool Trilogy
Homer - The Odyssey
Hoover, Thomas - Life Blood
Hoover, Thomas - Syndrome
Hugo, Victor - Les Miserables
Hume, David - The History of England Vol 1
Izzard, Eddie - Believe Me
Jacques, Brian - Redwall saga
James, E L - Fifty shades of grey
Jordan, Robert - Wheel of Time
Joyce, James - Ulysses
Kay, Guy Gavriel - Tigana
King, Stephen - Dark Tower
Knowles, James - The Legends of King Arthur
Littell, Johnathan - The Kindly Ones
Lovecraft, HP - Omnibus 1
Lumley, Brian - Vampire World
Lumley, Brian - Lost Years
Lumley, Brian - E-Branch
Lumley, Brian - Harry Keogh & other Weird Heroes
Lumley, Brian - The Touch
Mariani, Scott - The Shadow Project
McCammon, Robert - Blue World
McCammon, Robert - Boy's Life
McCammon, Robert - Mystery Walk
McCammon, Robert - The Wolf's Hour
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
Meyers, Stephanie - Twilight saga
Milton, John - Paradise Lost
Mitchell, Margaret - Gone with the Wind
Mock, Elizabeth C - Shatter (The children of man)
Montgomery, L M - Anne of Green Gables
Morris, Stan - Surviving the Fog
Newman, Kim - Bad Dreams
Newman, Kim - Jago
Newman, Kim - Unforgivable Stories
Paoline, Christopher - Brinsingr
Partridge, Alan - Nomad
Pepys, Samuel - Diary of Samuel Pepys
Pratchett, Terry - The Science of Discworld 1 & 2
Pratchett, Terry - The Long Earth series
Pullman, Phillip - Once upon a Time in the North
Richardson, Samuel - Clarissa Harlowe (9 vol)
Rothfuss, Patrick - The Name of the Wind
Shakespeare, William - Complete Works of Shakespeare
Simmons, Dan - Hyperion
Smith, Clark Ashton - The Emperor of Dreams
Smith, Clark Ashton - Out of Space & Time vol 1
Steinbeck, John - East of Eden
Stephenson, Neal - Reamde
Tchaikovsky, Adrian - Empire in Black & Gold
Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair
Tolkien, J R R - The Silmarillion
Tolkien, J R R - The Children of Hurin
Tolstoy, Leo - Anna Karenina
Tzu, Sun - Art of War
Verne, Jules - A Journey to the Centre of the Earth
Verne, Jules - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Weeks, Brent - Shadow trilogy
Weis/Hickman - The Second Generation
Welsh, Irvine - Ecstasy
Welsh, Irvine - Glue
Welsh, Irvine - Porno
Welsh, Irvine - The Secrets of the Master Chef
Welsh, Irvine - Skagboys
White, Neil - Fallen Idols
Yekov, Kirill - The Last Ringbearer
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Past year totals (since records began!)
2005 - 33
2006 - 53
2007 - 65
2008 - 90
2009 - 95
2010 - 107
2011 - 120
2012 - 50
2013 - 24
2014 - 27
2015 - 26
2016 - 25
2017 - 23
(Can you tell when I became a parent?
)
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I started Fools's Quest by Robin Hobb after being at a loose end upstairs for a bit, with my current book downstairs and my phone on charge.
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Happy new year everyone!
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Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb 5/5Oh how I've missed reading Robin Hobb.
It gave me a warm glow inside. I'd stupidly skipped the Rain Wilds series as I'd read a bad review, but I definitely need to go back and sort that out, I think.
A Crown of Swords (TWoT7) by Robert Jordan 3/5
It took a while to get going but once I was reading more regularly, I got more into it. I'm starting to lose track of all the characters a bit, but I'm just about managing to follow. I'm looking forward to getting into some new material once I hit the halfway point of book 8! -
Doom of the Dragon by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman 4/5Decent finish to a fairly good 'quadrilogy' .Wizard & Glass by Stephen King 5/5This is my favourite of the series. Roland's back story is very moving.A Short History of Everything by Bill Bryson 4/5It took a while to get through (mainly as I only read it at occasional work lunchtimes) but I found it fascinating. My most favourite thing was the bit about the dandelion plant:The dandelion was long popularly known as the 'pissabed' because of its supposed diuretic properties, and other names in everyday use included 'mare's fart', 'naked ladies', 'twitch-ballock', 'hounds-wee', 'open arse', and 'bum-towel'
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The Gunslinger by Stephen King 3/5A slow and intriguing start to the series. Still one of the best opening lines to a book series.The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King 4/5
Oh, and this is where it really gets going.Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran 3/5I can't really remember much about this, but I'm sure I found it funny!
The Waste Lands by Stephen King 4/5Not the best of the series, but I do love the scenes with Blaine. -
Rage of the Dragon by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman 3/5Book 3 - not badEnd of Watch by Stephen King 2/5Both enjoyable and disappointing. It all got a bit fantastical which didn't really fit what happened in the first two books.It was pretty sad at the end though. Also, it recapped the stuff that had happened in Mr Mercedes and I was struck down by the scarily similar comparisons to the recent terror attacks - the car driving into crowds and the bomber in a concert full of youths.
Thinking About it Only Makes it Worse by David Mitchell 3/5Some interesting articles in Mitchell's own imitable style. -
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson 4/5This was a very interesting premise. I liked the feistiness of the lead woman.Girl on a Train by Paula Hawkins 4/5I found Rachel very frustrating but it was a story that kept me gripped all the way through.The Killing 3 by David Hewson 3/5I read this because I missed it when it was on tv and it's still yet to appear on a streaming service.
I quite enjoyed it but it was definitely more confusing to keep up with the characters than if it was on tv. I'm not sure if the ending was the same too. The intro seemed to infer it wasn't. I'd still like to see the tv interpretation too.
Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig 3/5As someone who's suffered with ill mental health in the past, I could very much empathise with the feelings he had in this, but as a self-help book, there are not many practical advice of getting better in this. It just seems to happen for him.Raising Girls by Steve Biddulph 3/5
This was a practical book about how to handle the various stages of raising a daughter. There is some reasonable advice in here but by the time Ellie gets to the age that it'd be relevant, I'll have probably forgotten it!
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The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson 4/5
I enjoyed it, but it probably didn't help that I forgot all the workings of allomancy and what happned in the Mistborn trilogy.
There were some good characters and interesting baddies.
Swallows & Amazons by Arthur Ransome 3/5
Enjoyable enough but quite a fluffy and lightweight story.The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett 3/5A story evolves into three different parallel strands based on a tiny change in the main thread. Very cleverly done. -
The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett 5/5So this was it. The last Discworld. I don't think I've ever read a Discworld book so carefully. I mean, I still read it quick, but I didn't skim through it with my usual speed.
Anyway, it was great, but it was witty & amusing rather than riotously funny like his earlier books. I liked the premise of the elf trying to redeem herself, but the whole thing was quite brutal in a way.
After the 2nd chapter, I cried.
This was based on what happened in the chapter -
SpoilerGranny Weatherwax dying
,
the loss of Terry Pratchett and on what had happened earlier that day IRL - a conversation about us maybe having to make a tough choice about our 11 year old cat who had gone completely incontinent. (A few days later we took him to the vets and found out he had bladder crystals. All this required was a change of diet - he went on the most expensive cat food ever and now has a new lease of life
)
I felt better about the book by the time the 'credits rolled' then I felt sad again at the end reading about all the potential stories we'll never get to see.
What Are You Watching Now? - 2018
in Music / TV / Films
Posted
Yep, we're fans of this too. It's really rather funny.