Janet

I'm definitely going to try to read another before the year is out. The question is, which one? I know plenty of other titles, even though I don't know what any are about. I'd heard a bit about this and The Mayor of Casterbridge before I read them, and I'd seen a film version of 'Tess' when it first came out on video (I think it was directed by Roman Polanski). I might go for Two on a Tower as my Mum loves Hardy and she mentioned this one the other day when we were discussing Stourhead. She was wondering whether the Folly there influenced one of Hardy's locations. I haven't Googled yet to see if it does.

I like your style! I've finished disc three of The Pursuit of Love today. It's brilliant - it's making me laugh out loud (I'm sure the excellent narrator, Emilia Fox, is helping). I want to get in the car and drive for five hours straight just so I can finish it!

So, who will be watching The Apprentice in 2015? The Candidates Aisha Kasim - Inventor & hair extensions specialist April Jackson - Boutique owner Brett Butler-Smythe - Builder Charleine Wain - Hair & beauty salon owner Dan Callaghan - Fragrance retailer director David Stevenson - Marketing company owner Elle Stevenson - Operations executive Gary Poulton - Programme manager Jenny Garbis - Business management student Joseph Valente - Plumbing business owner Mergim Butaja - Sales account manager Natalie Dean - Corporate account manager Richard Woods - Marketing agency director Ruth Whiteley - Training consultancy owner Sam Curry - Private tutor Scott Saunders - Senior account manager Selina Waterman-Smith - Events agency owner Vana Koutsomitis - Social media entrepreneur I'm going to miss seeing Nick. I think the right person went tonight - although I quite liked him. He came across well on You're Fired. No Dara this year.

Mine's a Counties Challenge book too!

I listened to the first two discs of The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford this morning. I'm loving it!

Yes, his characterisation in the three I've read has been fantastic. I can't wait to read some more. Ah yes, poor Fanny. I haven't seen a film version of it. I expect the new one will be on TV before too long.

I love the Charleston. Such fun. I'm glad Anthony went last night. Although from a lack of personality point of view I'd have preferred Ainsley to go, I will concede that he was the better dancer. I hope he doesn't stick around for too much longer though. Jeremy isn't as irritating as I thought he'd be - he's so smug on R2 that I usually end up switching off, which is a shame as I like the premise of his show. He's not coming across as too smug on SCD which is a surprise. Jay, Peter and Helen are definitely my favourites.

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy The ‘blurb’ Thomas Hardy's 'pastoral tale' of the wilful and capricious Bathsheba Everdene, her three suitors – the faithful shepherd Gabriel Oak, the lonely widower Farmer Boldwood, and the dashing but faithless Sergeant Troy – and the tragic consequence of her eventual choice remains one of the most enduring and popular English novels. This classic was another English Counties Challenge read- this time for Dorset. From that point of view it was an excellent choice, for what author is more synonymous with Dorset (albeit rebranded by him as Wessex) than Thomas Hardy?! My review is posted here. The paperback edition is 360 pages long and is published by various publishers including Wordsworth Editions. It was first published in 1874. The ISBN is 9781853260674. I read it on my Kindle. 5/5 (I loved it!) (Finished 20 September 2015)

There are probably too many superlatives in my review, but here goes! When shepherd Gabriel Oak encounters a mysterious woman with long dark hair he is immediately captivated, not only by her beauty but also by her spirit. Later, she saves his life and he proposes, but she rejects him and he resolves never to ask again. A change of circumstance means he is forced to head to Weatherbury to seek work, and there he once again encounters the woman – Bathsheba and two further suitors, gentleman farmer Boldwood and a womanising soldier called Sergeant Troy… When I first started reading this and logged it on Goodreads a friend posted the comment “Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, plot!” Fortunately, it didn’t feel that way to me and I got into it really quickly. As ever, the characterisation is spot-on. Oak’s warmth and kindness, Bathsheba’s strength, Boldwood’s steady but slightly pessimistic nature, Troy’s philandering ways, the tragic Fanny Robin... are all brilliantly portrayed - but it is not just the main characters who make this novel so great - the ‘supporting cast’ are all excellently written and their contribution helps to add humour to the novel. Hardy also has a great way of making the surroundings feel like part of the plot. The two previous Hardys I have read before have both been fantastic and thankfully this book was no exception. Hardy’s writing is simply wonderful and he’s definitely turning into one of my favourite classic writers. Brilliant. 5/5

Yup, we'd start the first section on 18th and then start the discussion on 25th, on which day we'd then start the next section, and so on... My Kindle shows the chapter divisions so hopefully yours will. I'm not sure how we/you would work out when you need to stop if not.

Thanks, Chrissy. Lack of time at the moment is holding up my progress but I'm hoping to have a good old session at it on Wednesday.

I'm glad you're enjoying it. I've read three Hardys so far and have loved them all.

Peril at End House by Agatha Christie The ‘blurb’ Nick Buckley was an unusual name for a pretty young woman. But then she had led an unusual life. First, on a treacherous Cornish hillside, the brakes on her car failed. Then, on a coastal path, a falling boulder missed her by inches. Later, an oil painting fell and almost crushed her in bed. Upon discovering a bullet-hole in Nick’s sun hat, Hercule Poirot decides the girl needs his protection. At the same time, he begins to unravel the mystery of a murder that hasn’t been committed. Yet. Peter and I listened to another Poirot audio book whilst we were on holiday recently – once again wonderfully narrated by Hugh Fraser. Poirot is holidaying at Cornwall with his friend Captain Hastings when he meets a young woman known as Nick. Whilst they are chatting near the hotel, a wasp startles Nick and she goes on to tell Poirot how odd things keep happening to her including the failure of her car’s brakes and narrowly missing being hit by a falling rock whilst out walking. She leaves and Poirot discovers that it wasn’t a wasp that nearly hit the young woman at all. Concerned that someone is out to kill Nick, Poirot investigates quickly, hoping to prevent a murder… As ever, this book is full of twists and turns that kept us guessing right up until its conclusion. Our choice of murderer changed many times, each suspect being a plausible one, until the dénouement which was a result that we didn’t guess at all! Another top book by the queen of vintage crime – roll on the next one. The paperback edition is 256 pages long and is published by Harper Collins. It was first published in 1932. The ISBN is 9780008129521. I listened to it on audio book. 4/5 (Very good) (Finished 16 September 2015)

Ooooh very good book, Enjoy! Yes, it's fab!

I've just realised that my offer to help isn't going to work at all if your Kindle version is all in one go! If it's any help, I read this version on Kindle and it tells me how long I have left in each chapter... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Far-Madding-Crowd-Thomas-Hardy-ebook/dp/B0084B0DOK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1444342090&sr=1-1&keywords=far+from+the+madding+crowd

I'm off out in just 5 minutes, but when I get back I can look in my book for you.

It's fine - I like discussion in my thread! I hope you enjoy South Riding.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster The ‘blurb’ When Milo finds an enormous package in his bedroom, he’s delighted to have something to relieve his boredom with school. And when he opens it to find – as the label states – One Genuine Turnpike Tollbooth, he gets right into his pedal car and sets off through the Tollbooth and away on a magical journey! Milo’s extraordinary voyage takes him into such places as the Land of Expectation, the Doldrums, the Mountains of Ignorance and the Castle in the Air. He meets the weirdest and most unexpected characters (such as Tock, the watchdog, the Gelatinous Giant, and the Threadbare Excuse, who mumbles the same thing over and over again), and, once home, can hardly wait to try out the Tollbooth again. But will it be still there when he gets back from school? I really wanted to love this book – especially because it has been touted as a modern Alice in Wonderland and because it’s one of Kylie's favourites, but it just wasn’t up there for me with Carroll’s wonderful books. The wordplay was clever but I just couldn’t warm to Milo at all and although I don’t mind books with a moral message, it rather came across as preachy. It wasn’t all bad – there were some fun characters in the book and it’s certainly imaginative. I was amused by the character called Dilemma having horns – being on the horns of a dilemma is a phrase my Mum uses a lot (and as is the nature of such sayings, so do I) but I’ve never come across it in a book before and when I mentioned it in someone's blog here a few people hadn't heard of the the saying. I’m pretty certain that if I’d read it as a child it would have become a favourite. I just read it for the first time at the wrong time. Sorry, Kylie. The paperback edition is 256 pages long and is published by Random House. It was first published in 1961. The ISBN is 9780007263486. 2/5 (It was okay) (Finished 4 September 2015)

I was going to post this in the Children's/YA section, but as so many adults love this book I thought I'd post it here instead as it's about the edition rather than the content. Yesterday Bloomsbury released a new, large, hardback edition of it, illustrated by Jim Kay. I saw it today in Waterstone's and it's wonderful! Apologies if you've seen this on my FB/Instagram: It's £30 but worth every galleon to a big Harry Potter fan! Is anyone tempted? I think it's lovely but I'm not sure I'd buy it.

I missed this post. It made me chuckle!

No need to apologise - it was very interesting. I'm very much looking forward to it (I like a bit of old-fashioned!).

I am on page 168 of Midnight's Children! Whilst I'm not loving it, I am enjoying it - so hurrah!

Sounds good to me. I've edited the title of this to say 'discussion' so we can have a nice fresh thread when we start.

Thanks, Kylie - that's very useful. And I'm glad you're joining us, Woolf Woolf and Timstar. I have the Vintage version (although I'm going to read it on Kindle!). It's 404 pages long, so we could try for five weekly instalments of 80 pages? We can always review if that's too much. Obviously that's just my suggestion - I'm very open to alternatives. My suggested breakdown would work like this: Vintage edition - ISBN 9780099511854 Week 1 Issue 1 – Book 1, Chapters 1 to 4 (p 27) Issue 2 – Book 1, Chapters 5 to 6 (p 51) Issue 3 – Book 2, Chapters 1 to 3 (p 80) – total 80 pages Week 2 Issue 4 – Book 2, Chapters 4 to 6 (p 107) Issue 5 – Book 2, Chapters 7 to 9 (p 135) Issue 6 – Book 2, Chapters 10 to 13 (p 161) – total 81 pages Week 3 Issue 7 – Book 2, Chapters 14 to 15 (p 184) Issue 8 – Book 2, Chapters 16 to 18 (p 209) Issue 9 – Book 2, Chapters 19 to 21 (p 233) – total 72 pages Week 4 Issue 10 – Book 2, Chapters 22 to 24 (p 260) Issue 11 – Book 3, Chapters 1 to 3 (p 286) Issue 12 – Book 3, Chapters 4 to 7 (p 313) – total 80 pages Week 5 Issue 13 – Book 3, Chapters 8 to 9 (p 341) Issue 14 – Book 3, Chapters 10 to 12 (p 371) Issue 15 – Book 3, Chapters 13 to 15 (p 404) – total 91 pages

I found this. Issue 1 – Book 1, Chapters 1 to 4 Issue 2 – Book 1, Chapters 5 to 6 Issue 3 – Book 2, Chapters 1 to 3 Issue 4 – Book 2, Chapters 4 to 6 Issue 5 – Book 2, Chapters 7 to 9 Issue 6 – Book 2, Chapters 10 to 13 Issue 7 – Book 2, Chapters 14 to 15 Issue 8 – Book 2, Chapters 16 to 18 Issue 9 – Book 2, Chapters 19 to 21 Issue 10 – Book 2, Chapters 22 to 24 Issue 11 – Book 3, Chapters 1 to 3 Issue 12 – Book 3, Chapters 4 to 7 Issue 13 – Book 3, Chapters 8 to 9 Issue 14 – Book 3, Chapters 10 to 12 Issue 15 – Book 3, Chapters 13 to 15 Source - http://dickens.stanford.edu/dickens/archive/tale/two_cities.html I'm not sure how long each 'Issue' is. I don't like the idea of reading this over 15 months!