More reading time required
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Posts posted by More reading time required
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We normally just read short picture books with my son at bedtime, but earlier in the week he found my set of Redwall books that he'd put on his shelf (for future use) and wanted us to read that to him. So I'm currently having great fun reading Redwall to him and putting on some appropriate voices for the characters.
Mind you, the language used is pretty advanced seeing as it's supposed to be for 9+! 
James seems to be enjoying it so far, however.
Tom read it to him last night though, so I'm going to have to skim read the bit I missed before I can carry on.
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14 hours ago, Alexander the Great said:
I'm kind of sad that my copy came with a bit of a cracked cover
But not sad enough to spend time and money sending it back, then getting a new one with probably a different kind of damage. Sadly this is what you get buying online.
If it's Amazon, I normally complain about damaged goods and then I get a voucher or a refund as an alternative to sending it back. It depends if you can cope with or not. The worst experience was when I bought some Lego for birthday party James was going to and it arrived with a crushed box. There was no time to guarantee a replacement in time (even though we have Prime), so I complained, got the money refunded and handed the present over whilst apologising for the state of the box!
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Sounds awful. My sympathies to you.
I'm trying to get back into work mode this week having had the last two weeks off work. One week we spent on day trips & back to school prep and the other where we went camping in the Lake District, at the side of Ullswater. We were incredibly lucky with the weather (not to say it was baking, but that it only rained once and that was overnight) and we had a great time all in all. Tom and I had been there about 6 years ago, and it was astonishing to see the changes in Pooley Bridge and Glenridding and how they've got back on their feet after the 2015 flooding.
This week it's been back to school for James and his first comment when asked how his first day back went was "It was rubbish. All we did was write and write and write. I didn't get to play at all".
The difference between Reception and Year 1, son. It seems to have opened up another world of clubs and after school clubs too. We had already started taking him to rugby on Sunday mornings and now he has the option of Mini tennis on Tuesdays and multi-club sports on Thursday after school. Plus he's starting suzuki violin next Tuesday (where I or Tom have to sit in the lesson with him). All this in addition to an increased homework load, means we'll probably all be very busy and/or very tired by the end of the week. -
I'm still reading Wizard & Glass, but only about 200 pages from completion. My reading has slowed a tad, but I'm still very much enjoying the series.
When we visited friends in Newcastle a couple of weekends ago, he asked me if I'd read the latest Robin Hobb trilogy - The Fitz & the Fool trilogy, which had completely passed me by. Anyway, I came away from there with 3 humongous hardbacks that he loaned me.
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On 9/7/2017 at 0:51 AM, Little Pixie said:
I finished Dreams of Gods and Monsters ; an excellent end to the trilogy. Such lyrical writing, and a great, uplifting message. No spoilers, cos it would spoil the whole series, but if you enjoy urban fantasy, it's a winner, and one of my books of the year .
Hmm, might give it a look see. Well, starting with the first in the trilogy, of course.
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18 hours ago, Virginia said:
The hurricane seems to be sitting on top of my state. Florida and parts of Georgia are being evacuated. Its really surreal because we are in the process of going BACK to Texas to help move dd and her kids back here as its just too much stress with her hubby being all over the country for his work. We leave a possible Cat 5 hurricane and drive through areas with hurricane damage and then possible head right BACK into a hurricane. Actually, if it hits, we'll detour to my mom's place in Virginia. What a headache.
Hope you manage to avoid it if at all possible. Scary times over there!
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On 8/30/2017 at 1:14 AM, Little Pixie said:
I watched the first eps of Top of the Lake : China Girl ( fantastic) and Midnight Texas ( okay, sticking with it )
I'm up to date with Twin Peaks ( Erm, except for tonight's ep ) , up to ep 4 of Outlander, have watched a couple of eps of a Flemish whodunit called Professor T ( okay ), and am still loving Inspector Montalbano.
I've seen the first three of TofL: CG - like it so far, and totally behind with Twin Peaks. I think we've only seen the first 2 or 3 so far, so we need to have a bit of a run at it before in disappears off Now TV in 25 days!
We've also been watching Preacher series 2, started the first ep of Defenders, all of GoT (obviously)
and started the new series of Doctor Foster.
Oh, I also watched that spanish series, I Know Who You Are, which I enjoyed.
SpoilerI can't believe they left it on a cliffhanger though!
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Aww bless her. Hope she recovers well.
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I'm now about a third through Doom of the Dragon and I also finished off The Waste Lands and am part way through Wizard & Glass.
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Finally watched (and stayed awake for) Star Wars Rogue One the other day (and liked it). Although Ellie did try and ruin it by vomiting in her bed just after we started it, and then had to come downstairs with me as she wouldn't go back to bed. In fact she ended up watching pretty much all of it herself.
Also I was off ill myself earlier this week. In between sleeping on the sofa, I managed to watch a few films:
A Streetcat named Bob - cute, though the main actor was a bit naff
Nocturnal Animals - I liked half of the story (well, liked is a strong word - it was disturbing, but interesting) but the other half was odd
Florence Foster Jenkins - what I saw seemed quite good, but I kept dozing off
Miss Peregrine's home for peculiar children - not bad -
Last week I had a craving to try out Skyrim on PS3 (which I'd had for a while, but hadn't had time to start).
Anyway, I started it and loved it! I'd tried Witcher 3 several months ago but didn't get on with the control system but Skyrim was much easier to navigate around in. I will probably give Witcher 3 another go at some point though.
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12 hours ago, Little Pixie said:
Do you find when you are able to read, you're less inclined to put up with a so-so book now ?
I think so. Or if I persist with it (cos I stubbornly refuse to abandon books), I just end up dragging out the reading process as it doesn't make me reach for the book at every possible moment.
I'm working at home today and I've popped into town to drop off my last library book. Whilst I was in there, my hands had a craving to go and browse for more, but I managed to resist and get out of there unscathed!
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Saw Dunkirk last night. Non-stop, breathless stuff.
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Wow, I couldn't even contemplate driving that many miles in one journey (especially with kids)! I thought when I drove to Glasgow in Scotland that that was far (307 miles). In fact even the whole length of the UK is 826 miles and you doubled that - that's mind boggling!
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I sped through the rest of "my last library book" Moranifesto whilst I was also watching ep 9 & 10 of 24: Legacy (not concentrating 100% on it) in a bid to finish that off too.
Then it was back onto The Waste Lands.
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As we were camping at a festival at the weekend, I neither wanted to take my Kindle (in case it got wet or stolen), my library book (in case I lost it), nor The Waste Lands (as it's quite big and thought it might get damaged), so instead I started another book and took that - Doom of the Dragon by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, which is the final book in the Dragonships series, so I was wanting to get onto it soon anyway. I didn't manage to read much of it whilst we were away, though I am a bit flustered by having 3 (technically 4 with the Kindle's A short history of everything) books on the go at once.
I am mostly concentrating on finishing my library book though, so I can hand that back in - only 80 pages or so to go.
Yesterday, I read one of the articles in Moranifesto about how she has no time to read anymore "cos of y'know, kids", whereas in her youth she read loads. It kind of struck a chord with me! I was also at the library with my two on Monday (to get them books
) and Ellie happened to pick out this picture book that was about reading grumbles - citing various excuses that people have about not reading - it's too hard, it's boring, I don't have time - and then some people quoting various ways to get around it. The "i don't have time" one in particular talked about "I read before I go to bed", "whilst making dinner", "when waiting at the doctors", etc - all things I used to do, before the advent of kids (and smart phones). Something is trying to tell me something.
Recently I think I have done better and managed to fit more reading in though. I think the choice of book really helps!
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7 hours ago, Nollaig said:
I finished Heavy Rain! I got a pretty bad ending. Having googled a bit, it's not the WORST ending, but it was pretty bad. I was disappointed, as I did really well up to near the end, but I accidentally made one character do the opposite of what I intended, and couldn't manage to do what I wanted with another.
MAJOR ending spoilers below, but for anyone who has played it you can see the ending I got.
The FBI agent, Jayden, quit his job. Madison died in the apartment fire. Lauren drowned in the car. And I let Scott (the killer) go free at the end rather than shooting him. The result was, when the cops found me with my kid, there was nobody there to back me up as not being the killer myself, and they shot me dead. So yeah. Saved my son only to die, and everyone else died too except the killer and a disillusioned addict. Yep.
Oh Jeez.
That is a bad ending. I hope you have some earlier save points where you can retry from. I think I got a semi good ending, but not the best.
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On 7/31/2017 at 2:53 PM, karen.d said:
I finished 'The Gunslinger' by Stephen King and was generally disappointed with it. I couldn't work it out until nearly the end, where it finally gained my interest. So much so, that I've started 'The Drawing of the Three' the second book of the series. If I don't get on with this book, then I'm going to abandon the series.
I was going to reply "stick with it" when I saw you were struggling with The Gunslinger and then I saw further down that you'd completed it. He wrote The Gunslinger when he was 19 and probably didn't have all the writing skills he had later on. The Drawing of the Three is where it really gets going in my opinion. I finished it about a week ago (and read it in a few days) as even though I've read it before, I found it compelling. I hope you're liking this one better.
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On 7/27/2017 at 0:33 PM, Athena said:
Yesterday we watched Moana, I quite liked it. I wasn't sure what it would be about beforehand, I had only seen one trailer. But I enjoyed watching it
.
That film will probably be next up for James too.
Although sometimes he resists watching films we recommend that he's never seen before, unless he thinks it's his idea! -
I picked up Uncharted 4 again on Friday night for the first time in months. Turns out I was only about 3 missions from finishing it, so finish it I did.
T'was pretty good.
Not sure what is next on my list. I have Watch Dogs to finish on PS4 and several PS3 games to finish, but also non started PS4 games such as Assassin's Creed Unity, Batman Arkham Knight & Witcher 3. Hmm...
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Preacher season 2 - awesome
Game of Thrones season 7 - also awesome
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1 hour ago, Nollaig said:
Haven't seen it since the times of video cassettes - I recorded it, and after watching it through once, I then went back and watched it in chronological order (can't remember how it goes, but it's something like all the colour scenes are going forward and black and white going backward, or something!) So I rewound and fast forwarded as necessary to watch the whole thing chronologically
Much easier if you have the DVD/blu ray as I think there is a feature to play it in chronological order.
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On 7/22/2017 at 6:43 AM, Athena said:
We watched The Secret Life of Pets. It was okay, I enjoyed watching it but it wasn't the best movie ever (not that I was expecting that).
I watched that with my kids on Monday. James and I had seen it at the cinema and loved it then (he wanted to call our dog Max after seeing it
), so I knew he'd want to watch it again.
I saw I, Daniel Blake last night as it's on Amazon Prime. Really good but really depressing, especially as I believe it's supposed to be a pretty accurate portrayal of the state of the welfare system at the moment.
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Not sure this has ever happened since I started on this board, but I finished my two books on the same day - David Mitchell's Thinking About it Only Makes it Worse and Stephen King's The Drawing of the Three (4 days for this one, -if only I could keep up this pace
). I followed on with my "last library book for a while" 
, Caitlin Moran's Moranifesto and also made a start on Stephen King's The Waste Lands.
Your Book Activity - September 2017
in Past Book Logs
Posted
I finished Wizard & Glass the other day which I enjoyed.
I've got a bit of a dilemma about what to read next as I kinda want to read three things at once - Wolves of the Calla (Dark Tower 5), Fool's Assassin (Robin Hobb's Fitz & the Fool trilogy book 1) and, as I've not read one so far this year and I need to keep progressing in it, A Crown of Swords (TWoT book 7).
I figured I would read one chapter of each and see which one grabs me, or I might just rotate all three - though sometimes reading more than 1 book at a time means it takes longer for me to read any of them. I've started with A Crown of Swords, although the first chapter (prologue) is so long I've not managed to try out any of the other books yet.