lunababymoonchild

Time for my annual read of Poldark. This year it’s The Living Cup, Poldark 10 (of 12, nearly done!)

I can’t make up my mind so will go with the majority vote

Currently reading the Time Machine H G Wells

I can do that too. Shall we vote?

If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller, Italo Calvino. It’s very good!

The Crow Trap is easier to understand

Good to hear from you and glad that things are going well. I read The Wood at Midwinter and loved it, but it’s not very long 😒

I’m in and time suits me

Currently reading Corrag, Susan Fletcher

I read 400 of the 600 pages when it came out and abandoned it. I have another copy and will try again but I couldn’t make heads nor tales of it

Amazon has a Religion and Spirituality section within which there are Christian novels, if that’s any help

I’m too afraid to count! I buy e-books because I ran out of storage for my paper books and sometimes I can get really cheap e-books, which does nothing at all for my frighteningly large TBR!

I loved it

Hello and welcome to the forum. I prefer reading paper books because I like the smell of them, the feel of them in my hands, I like that I can see the title of the book when I pick it up, I like using my Bookbandz book marks (which I adore and have a collection of), I like the fact that I don’t have to switch on a paper book and I like that I don’t have to wait until it “boots up” (as we used to say before the internet) and that I don’t need to charge it. Unfortunately I have run out of physical space for my beloved paper books and that’s why I buy e-books. That and sometimes they are really cheap!

Just started Existentialism : A very Short Introduction by Thomas R Flynn (non-fiction), companion to Fourteen Days.

I'm registered but haven't been on it that much

Thank you Poppy. Happy New Year everybody

Only just seen this and I second the recommendation

The Snow Was Dirty, Georges Simenon This was weird and difficult to describe what happened. It is nothing like Maigret and felt very much like a totally different author, what a talent! Frank is a teenage thug, petty criminal and son of a brothel owner (who was once a prostitute) - eerily reminiscent of Charles Manson, published when Manson was 14. It's a pyschological novel about the thoughts, actions and attitudes of Frank during what is clearly the military occupation of his home town. Descriptions of the snow being dirty and having black patches figures significantly in comparison to Frank's life. Highly recommended.

1 Oor Wullie Annual - completed (paperback) 2 Corrag, Susan Fletcher - completed (e-book) 3 The Time Machine, H G Wells (Paperback) 4 The Loving Cup (Poldark 10), Winston Graham - completed (paperback) 5 The Broons Annual - completed (paperback) 6 If On A Winter’s Night, Italo Calvino - completed (paperback) 7 The Awakening, Kate Chopin - completed (e-book) 8 Notre Coeur or A Woman's Pastime, Guy de Maupassant - completed (e-book) 9 The Key, Sarah Sheridan - completed (e-book) 10 The Snow Was Dirty, Georges Simenon - completed (e-book) 11 The House on the Strand, Daphne Du Maurier - completed (e-book) 12 The Ministry of Fear, Graham Greene - completed (e-book) 13 The Glimpses of the Moon, Edith Wharton - completed (e-book) 14 Snow Country, Yasunari Kawabata - completed (e-book) 15 The Dark Wives (Vera Stanhope 11) Ann Cleeves - completed (e-book) 16 The Painted Veil, Somerset Maugham - completed (e-book) 17 The Winter List, S G MacLean - completed (e-book) 18 Windswept and Interesting, Billy Connolly - completed (paper-back) 19 Ollala, Robert Louis Stevenson - completed (e-book, short story) 20 Master Humphrey's Clock, Charles Dickens - completed (e-book) 21 The City of Mirrors, Justin Cronin - completed (e-book) 22 A Hunger Artist, Franz Kafka - completed (e-book, short story) 23 The Spectral Hand, Jean Lorrain - completed (e-book, short story) 24 The Godfather, Mario Puzo - completed (e-book) 25 The Peepshow, The Murders at 10 Rillington Place, Kate Summerscale - completed (e-book) 26 The Nervous Breakdown, Anton Chekhov -completed(short story, e-book) 27 Claude’s Confession, Émile Zola - completed (e-book) 28 Cycle of the Werewolf, Stephen King - completed (paper) 29 Monkey, Stephen King- completed (e-book, short story) 30 The Mayfly, L A Birchon - completed (e-book, short story) 31 The Blackbird Oracle, Deborah Harkness - completed (paperback) 32 The Rules of Time Travel, L A Birchon - completed (e-book) 33 Amerika, Franz Kafka - completed (paper) 34 Raven Black, Shetland 1, Ann Cleeves - completed (paper) 35 Kaikeyi, Vaishnavi Patel - completed (paper) 36 Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, Oscar Wilde - completed (e-book, short story) 37 Julius, Daphne du Maurier - completed (paper) 38 Hell House, Richard Matheson - completed (e-book) 39 Maurice, E M Forster - completed (e-book) 40 The Door in the Wall, H G Wells - completed (e-book, short story) 41 Shadows in the Moonlight, Santa Montefiore - completed (e-book) 42 The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield - completed (paper) 43 The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls, Emilie Autumn - completed (e-book) 44 The Diary of a Madman, Nickolay Gogol - completed (paper) 45 A Poisoner’s Tale, Cathryn Kemp - completed (e-book) 46 The Spectral Hand, Jean Lorrain - completed (e-book, short story 47 Extinction, Thomas Bernhardt - completed (paper) 48 Magic, Sarah Pinborough - completed (e-book) 49 White Nights, Ann Cleeves (Shetland 2) - completed (paper) 50 Story of a Murder, Hallie Rubenhold - completed (paper) 51 Mysterious and Unexplained Scottish Urban Legends, 50 Myths and True Stories by Aaron Mullins - completed (e-book) 52 The Moon is Down, John Steinbeck - completed (paper, novella) 53 The Farthest Shore (Earthsea 3), Ursula Le Guin - completed (paper) 54 Fyodor Dostoevsky, A Gentle Spirit - completed (e-book) 55 Albert Camus, The Stranger - completed (e-book) 56 Henry James, Sir Edmund Orme - completed (e-book, short story) 57 Shauna Lawless, Dreams of Chaos - completed (e-book)

Currently reading Fourteen Days as written by various and edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston

Alright then I'll have a go. Your favourite book shop/retailer of 2024. Amazon. I use Amazon the most and it rarely lets me down Your most read author of 2024. In equal first place with six reads each Shauna Lawless and Ann Cleeves Your recommended re-read of 2024. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens. The only re-read this year but why would it not win? Your book that wasn't worth bothering with in 2024 (my 'Duffer of the Year'). Dead Meat, Day 0, Nick Clausen. A short story which is why I managed to finish it. It's a zombie apocalypse type story which I got for free and has continuation errors in it which got on my nerves so I didn't pursue the rest of them, which were available on Amazon for 99p for the 8 of them ('nuff said). The book you most wanted to read in 2024 but never actually got around to. Dante's Circles of Hell Your discovery of the year (book, author, genre, publisher etc) Shauna Lawless, superb author of stories based on her native Irish myths and legends and I just can't get enough Your favourite illustrated book of 2024. Julie Peters, The Full Moon Year Book. Big Glossy coffee table type book in full colour explaining the moon in every month and giving it's various names by different cultures. Your children's book recommendation of 2024. Ursula Le Guin, Earthsea Books. The only children's book I've read this year and I've yet to finish book two the Tombs of Atuan but it's superb. Your recommended classic of 2024. Charle Dickens, A Christmas Carol. Bound to win that one every time. Your favourite short story (or collection) of 2024. I read a lot of short stories this year and enjoyed every single one of them, except the Zombie apocalypse Dead Meat, so sorting out a favourite is going to be tough but it would need to be Shauna Lawless,The Last Pysker. A Science fiction short story about troops in battle and a soldier who was psychic. Did have an effect and I still wish that it was longer because I was thoroughly involved in the story. Your favourite literary character of 2024. Karleth, Psyker in the Last Pysker by Shauna Lawless and psychic. Wouldn't like to be psychic myself but this story was totally real to me. Your poetry recommendation of 2024. A Poem For Every Day of Christmas as edited by Allie Esiri. Excellent collection of festive poetry, I managed to read one every day and thoroughly enjoyed them all. Highly recommended Your favourite genre of 2024 (you can invent your own!). If I have to narrow it down I'd say it's still Victorian Gothic. Your favourite biography/memoir of 2024. Another difficult one even although I only read two biographies this year. Jeanneatte Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? What an upbringing! Your non-fiction recommendation of 2024. Another tough choice from the very few non-fiction that I read this year. I think I'd like to nominate Angela Chen, Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society and the Meaning of Sex for this one. I learned a lot and the information was presented in an informal but not too informal way with plenty of examples. Fascinating and recommended. Your fiction book of the year 2024. Even harder because there's a larger choice and I just don't finish anything that I don't enjoy. It would have to be the epic The Passage by Justin Cronin, a vampire novel of more than 900 pages and painted vampires in a totally different and unexpected way. An apocalypse novel and highly recommended - but read it on e-book! Your author of the year for 2024. Shauna Lawless, I just can't get enough of her. Your overall book of the year, 2024. Oh, this is sooo hard! What do I choose? There have been so many excellent books that have had a very good effect on me this year, how do I single out just one? I'll go for Sarah Pinborough, Behind Her Eyes. Surprised the livin' daylights out of me right at the end and shook me to the very core. Excellent writing and keeping the twist in the end totally unpredictable was absolutely genius and delicious. I'd like to add : Your Honourable Mentions of 2024 (Just because they weren't mentioned doesn't mean that they were not worthy) Mine are : Cormac McCarthy for Child of God - what an author! C S Robertson for The Trials of Marjory Crowe - what a story! Lee Child for his Jack Reacher character and surprising me by not being as rubbish an author as I thought he would be. To everybody that made it on to my reading list : "thank you very much for the entertainment, you made a very difficult year worthwhile"

A Poem for Every Day of Christmas edited by Allie Esiri I managed to read this one day at a time as was intended. The collection is just right for the festive season and at one poem a day is easily achievable. Thoroughly enjoyed this and will be bringing it out every year. I might even buy the hardback, having read this on Kindle, there's just something more special about a paper book and this one justifies a place on my over-stocked shelves. Highly recommended

That’s on my virtual (i.e. in my head) TBR list

I am enjoying it