lunababymoonchild

Not that I'm an expert but are there any blank pages throughout the book, eg to make clear where the next book starts? There are 4 books and 4 pages missing from the total so I'm guessing that when you finish book 1, say, the next page announces book 2 but is otherwise blank. This happened to me with The Darker Arts. The pages are counted whether they have a number/text on them or not. Could these be the pages you're missing?

Fifth in the Frey and McGrey series, this one is about McGrey's consultant clairvoyant who ends up accused of six murders and is set to hang for them. The explanation is as convoluted as the story but it's a wonderful romp through 1800s Edinburgh and the spiritualist things that were then believed with an astonishing forensic science obviously in it's infancy but none the less growing. Recommended

Currently reading Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell

I bought the first Longmire book for my father today. We both loved the Longmire TV series.

I read Dracula on my second attempt. As for The Great American Novel, John Faulkner wasn't the only one to write one so you could choose something more to your liking - The Greatest American Novels you should read (penguin.co.uk)

Me too.

Beowulf is amazing, Shakespeare sublime, not read much by the Greeks myself, Crime and Punishment is well worth the trouble, John Faulkner (why?), and Dracula is also amazing. I have not read all of Paradise Lost but Milton's other work is astounding - my father used to quote On His Blindness from time to time. I too have ambitions for Clarissa, Les Miserables, Proust and Portrait of a Lady, simply for the pleasure of reading them. I'll get there eventually.

Currently reading The Darker Arts, Oscar de Muriel. Number five in the Frey and McGrey series.

From Amazon : War & War begins at a point of danger: on a dark train platform Korim is on the verge of being attacked and robbed by thuggish teenagers. From here, we are carried along by the insistent voice of this nervous clerk. Desperate, at times almost mad, but also keenly empathic, Korim has discovered in a small Hungarian town's archives an antique manuscript of startling beauty: it narrates the epic tale of brothers-in-arms struggling to return home from a disastrous war. Korim is determined to do away with himself, but before he commits suicide, he feels he must escape to New York with the precious manuscript and commit it to eternity by typing it all out onto the world wide web. Following Korim with obsessive realism through the streets of New York (from his landing in a Bowery flophouse to his move far uptown with a mad interpreter), War and War relates his encounters with a fascinating range of people in a world torn between viciousness and mysterious beauty. Following the eight chapters of War & War is a short 'prequel acting as a sequel', 'Isaiah', which brings us to a dark bar, years before in Hungary, where Korim rants against the world and threatens suicide. Written like nothing else (turning single sentences into chapters), War & War affirms W. G. Sebald's comment that Krasznahorkai's prose far surpasses all the lesser concerns of contemporary writing. I would add that this book is incredible. It's divided into chapters which are then divided into paragraphs but where this differs from everything else is that the paragraphs are numbered and consist of a single sentence. They vary in length, some are two pages long and some are three lines long. And the story itself is something that I've never read before. I struggled with it until the last chapters but enjoyed it so kept reading. Even though I struggled I wanted to find out what happened next. Weird but recommended

Hello and welcome to the Forum. Please feel free to add to any thread you would like to contribute to and congratulations on your book.

I saw that result on the news. Being Scottish I thought it was incredibly funny (I always do). I do not understand one thing about cricket and only found out recently that Scotland has a national team and I'm absolutely certain that they will be worse than England (we are very used to our national side getting thrashed) since they don't seem to play in the same type of matches that England does. That said, yesterday's result did seem spectacularly bad for England and something serious needs to be done.

Bought books 1 - 8 in the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch on Kindle, as recommended by Raven

I feel ghost stories lack a little punch too. I've read M R James and didn't find it that spooky, Edith Wharton has a ghost stories book and I read that and didn't find it spooky. I have, in the past, been convinced by Stephen King though. And agree that H P Lovecraft does weird rather than spooky. Maybe it's because I just can't see how ghosts could exist but then I have no trouble believing that the Bogey Man lives in the dark where I can't see him - obviously a matter of personal taste. I love stories of were-wolves (not that common), vampires, zombies (also not that comon), minor deities, and devils, not to mention witches and warlocks and read them when I can.

Personally I'd read Framley Parsonage anyway, it's a while before October. I love Victorian literature and will discuss it anytime so help yourself. To answer your question, no I don't do Victober nor will I be.

Does anybody, like me, do this? Tsundoku: The Practice of Buying More Books Than You Can Read (treehugger.com)

I'm so sorry to hear about you and your boyfriend's cat. It is an actual bereavement so I hope that you can pull together to get through it. My heartfelt condolences to you both.

Just bought Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Currently reading War and War, László Krasznahorkai and bought Correction by Thomas Bernhard

Hard as nails, me. I haven't read either of those, to be fair.

I'm not entirely sure if there would be anybody in this forum who actually knows who Ronnie James Dio was let alone be interested but I'll review the book anyway. Ronnie James Dio was a singer - one of the best, if not the best - in a genre of music which was then known as Hard Rock but now better known as Heavy Metal. There are distinctions between the two and the genre has grown to include an eye-watering amount of different styles, but when Dio was alive it was actually known as Hard Rock. He was the man responsible for the 'devil's horns' hand gesture now synonymous with Heavy Metal. He has always been a personal hero of mine and I was much disappointed in this book. First, he only managed to write his life story up to 1979 and the rest of it was written by his wife and their close friend, journalist Mick Wall. The problem is that the book is being promoted as written by Ronnie James Dio. It also ends in 1986 some 25 years before his career and his life was ended by cancer. So not an autobiography, at best it's volume one of the man's life. What I don't like about it is the book is being promoted as an autobiography and written by the man himself. Not only did he not write the whole book it stops long before his career and life was over. For those who don't know, Ronnie was in three of the greatest Hard Rock/Heavy Metal bands of all time - Rainbow, Black Sabbath and his own band called Dio - and was a legend in his own lifetime. The book is well written and very well researched and is a very quick read. Ronnie was 67 when he died (in 2010) and I feel certain that he could have packed a lot more into an already eventful life but I won't be buying the next volume as it seems like an exercise in money-making.

Hasn't happened to me.

Currently reading Rainbow in the Dark, Ronnie James Dio

Still reading Unnamable but now started Maigret's Holiday, Georges Simenon.

No, I didn't, although the next one does have the word in it's title.

The fourth book in the series starring Frey and McGray. The action takes place on the beautiful island of Isle Maree and several surrounding islands on the loch of Loch Maree in the Scottish Highlands - the place does actually exist - and Frey and McGray get involved in a double murder which, true to form, isn't straight forward. This one involves legends and bats and drinking human blood and not going out in the sun. A great escapade, much fun, complicated story and, as is now de Muriel's habit, real things. Gothic and action packed it's worth reading. Recommended.