lunababymoonchild

Currently reading The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula Le Guin. Book two in the Earthsea series

Nope, not heard of him/it either

Similarly, I'm looking for a short read for the end of the year and I bought Conclave, so thanks for that

I don’t recall reading it as a child but was less than impressed when I read it as an adult, although boring wasn’t what I thought

I have chosen my own books since I was 4, so can’t name a book that bored me in childhood. I even liked the set texts we got in school, except for Of Mice and Men, which horrified me but wasn’t boring. That said, I wasn’t too keen on Stig In the Dump which we read after The Power and the Glory and I thought was too infantile for us (so did the teacher).

Yes, merry Christmas everyone

It does

I do too but I think 12/13 years old is too young for it.

Maybe that’s why I don’t remember the racism. And I was 12 or 13 at the time so probably not aware. Either that or the horrifying story pushed it into the background

I read this at school and it positively horrified me (too close to home in my personal life). As a result I had no idea that Steinbeck had written anything else until relatively recently. I discussed this on my previous reading forum, no longer available, and discovered that this work horrifies most of the children who read it. I don’t remember any racism (and no, I’m not going to read it again). and now this : Of Mice and Men taken off syllabus

Being a fictional character I don't think that Jack Reacher really cares. He's already killed numerous people before he got to this book. In real life I imagine it would be extremely difficult for the average person to kill anybody, although the feeling that you want to might arise from time to time.

Love Jack Reacher.

72 so far and due to finish at least 2 more before the end of the year. More than I’ve ever read before. No idea what will happen next year but I will be reading something and always like to challenge myself. Good luck @Brian.

Currently reading The Twelve by Justin Cronin. The middle book of his vampire trilogy, the first of which (The Passage) I’ve read

Yes, I read that and I can understand why you would get bored, it comes across as a usual story at the start. I haven’t seen it so can’t comment but the book is definitely worth reading (unless you know the ending)

Sarah Pinborough, Behind Her Eyes It's been decades since a book surprised me. So very long that I can't remember the last time. This one did. Louise meets a man in a bar and astonished that he finds her attractive, sleeps with him. To her horror, when she next goes into work, she finds that he is the man that she will now be working for. Then she meets his wife, as if accidentally. She becomes the wife's best friend, promising herself that a) she will end it with the husband, and b) she will end it with the wife. She doesn't and then BLAM! the denouement hits you like a ton of bricks. Totally unforseen and utterly brilliant. I'm not sure that what happened is possible in real life but it might be, which is where the cleverness is in the story (didn't Stephen King once say that he took things that were real and embellished them with his imagination to what they might be and that's what made his stories scary?). Highly recommended.

Hauntings, Neil Oliver I don’t normally feel moved to write a review - if I like the book I finish it and if I don’t I don’t finish it. In a review I find it difficult to say much more than I liked the book. However, I feel moved to review this one. I’ve given this book three stars because although I enjoyed it well enough, in my opinion it would have been much improved if there was much less in it about Neil Oliver’s personal life, and by much less I mean nothing at all. I wasn’t expecting to read about his personal life and found it surprising and distracting as well as wholly unnecessary. He wrote about his parents, childhood, childhood home, friends he used to have, where he filmed and for what programme, siblings, wife and children. Why? A second star was knocked off for the amount of similes Neil insisted on using. He did, I will grant, come up with some very good ones but did he really need that many? I think not. Other than that it was an informative and fairly interesting book, once I got past Neil himself. I really think that there should be a warning about his personal life being included to quite that extent, had I known I would not have bought it.

Hauntings by Neil Oliver. Not as good as I anticipated, too much about his personal life and boy, does he like a simile! Some are exceptionally good, I’ll grant him but far too many to be useful and not enough about ghosts and hauntings. I’m glad it’s finished

I’m glad that you are OK and that you didn’t stop reading

All my presents are bought - 2 of them! One Christmas card sent through the post, to the one person who does keep in touch throughout the year (and yes, I'm as guilty of not keeping in touch as everybody else. I'm just not prepared to pay 85p for a second class stamp and buy/make Christmas cards for it anymore). Not putting up decorations this year, and my brother is in charge of food. We are not hosting so it'll be quiet, which is what we all prefer.

Good wasn’t it?

Hello @Wiktoria and @friendofbooks, welcome to the board. I find these 'name your favourite books' incredibly difficult because I never finish a book that I don't enjoy, that and the fact that my favourite can change at a moment's notice. With that in mind, here is my top three for (the mnoment) this year : Sara Sherdian, The Secrets of Blythswood Square C S Robertson, The Trials of Marjory Crowe Cormac McCarthy, Child of God

Just started Murder in my Backyard by Ann Cleese,, Inspector Ramsey 2

Just started Hauntings by Neil Oliver. A factual book about ghosts in historical places

Just started The Visitor by Lee Child, Jack Reacher 4.