Kylie

Nooo! You can't say that and not tell me what it is! What are you reading? Thanks Noll. I'm about to start UtS now. I was mildly interested in Hadfield's book before, and now it looks like I'll definitely be adding it to my wish list! Glad it's going so well.

I've had a stellar start to the reading year! I've been taking full advantage of a lull in my work to read as much as I can (bonus: reading takes my mind off the fact that I'm not earning any money!) I've read five books already (10% of my Goodreads goal!) Even better, all of the books I've read so far have been truly wonderful. Happy Kylie. And in some non-book-related news, I'm adopting a new cat! I was supposed to get her last week, but a vet check-up revealed some teeth problems. After having some teeth removed, she had to stay in familiar surroundings at the animal shelter while she recovered, so the adoption was put off for a week. I went to visit her earlier in the week (having previously meet her briefly at my house), and the shelter owner will be bringing her to my place tonight. Yay! The kitty is a gorgeous tortoise-shell girl who is around 4 years old (close in age to my boy Jasper, who is 5). Here's a pic that I took of her at our first meeting (not a great pic because she was in her carrier). More photos will undoubtedly follow!

I've had a great start to the day. By 7 am (I've been up all night) I'd finished both Slade House by David Mitchell (brilliant!) and So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson (also brilliant!) Today's book activity will involve choosing my next read (most likely Under the Skin) and reshelving my 'Christmas tree' books, which are still heaped in piles around the house.

I understand your point! Al Franken's book makes fun of people like Trump (but not Trump himself, because it was written before Trump entered politics). I would love to read what Franken has to say about Trump, but I suspect his comedic writing days might be over, because Franken has entered politics himself since the book was published (he's a senator in Minnesota and is apparently doing a very good job!) I really loved the book, but I would hesitate to recommend it to you (or anyone else). I think it really depends on the individual and their take on politics (and their sense of humour, as Franken's humour borders on meanness). As I think I mentioned elsewhere, I'm not particularly into politics, but I enjoy seeing people called out for lying, so it was a winner for me. Good to know it's not just me!

A new 8-episode series of Anne of Green Gables is going to be made this year (to be aired in 2017). Link here. When I first saw the headline I was hoping it meant they were doing another miniseries with the original cast from the Megan Follows version, but alas it is not to be. For me, Megan Follows will always be the best Anne. But I would never write off another adaptation without first seeing it, so let's say I'm tentatively looking forward to it.

Yay! Happy reading, Janet!

I planned to do that with my colouring books, but my photocopier only takes up to A4, and the pictures are larger than that.

Happy anniversary! Hooray!! I love love love this book.

Happy anniversary, Claire.

I knew I loved Bowie for a reason. (Other than his awesome music.) Hmm, I see that CBtD has been mentioned above...does that mean it survived the recent cull? Congrats on an awesome reading year in 2015.

I'm watching the Big Bash (domestic T/20 cricket). There's a game of nearly every night for about a month, so I have my viewing schedule sorted!

Just a quick summary to wrap up 2015. My biggest achievement in 2015 was that, for once, I read more books than I bought. I bought 42 and read 43. Yes, I only just made it! And yes, I cheated by reading short books at the end of the year to ensure that I would make it. ) I've never come close to doing this before, so I'm quite pleased with myself. At Frankie's nagging request, I calculated that I read 7 books by debut authors. I have no idea how that compares to previous years though! I gave most of them a rating of 8/10, and two were given 9/10, so it seems to pay off to read debuts. I read quite a few books from series that I had started in previous years, so perhaps that may have affected the number of debuts. Ooh, that's another thing I'm quite proud of...I finished 6 series/trilogies that I had started before 2015. The best books I read were Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, closely followed by House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski, The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule and, well, loads of others (check my first page; I can't be bothered typing them all out). However, if I worked out my reading average for 2015 compared to previous years, I suspect it would be a lower average rating. I think I may be rating books just a little more harshly than I have in the past. I had a few disappointments, including Veronica Roth's Divergent trilogy, Cornelia Funke's Inkheart trilogy and Haruki Murakami's Underground. I've decided I need to be much more wary of reading contemporary young adult literature (especially dystopians). I've had a few too many disappointments in recent years, so I think I'll stick with older classics when reading YA lit. Another thing I'm pleased with is that I read quite a few books from my priority reading list. I haven't been very successful with that in other years, but I did well this year, reading 20 of 81 books. OK, when I write it like that it doesn't look very impressive, but considering how few books I read every year, it was better than I had expected. And 17 of those books were fiction, which is what I wanted to focus on. Um, I think that's about it. I don't do statistics because I don't feel I read enough books to make it worthwhile.

Don't be worried...I'm loving it so far! Thanks Noll. I'm very interested to see how it ends! I had a great day of reading yesterday. I ended up reading two-thirds of Slade House, and I also started (and read 100 pages of) So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson. Both of them are excellent so far!

I finished Carbonel yesterday and Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them today. About to start David Mitchell's Slade House.

Ah, that *is* cool! Yay me! That reminds me that I still need to go back over my past logs and copy the reviews from there into Goodreads and perhaps my Book Collector software. I started it at some point but I can't remember where I got up to. Those two books are somewhat linked in my mind too. Maybe we keep discussing them together all the time?! I was so pleased to finally read The Stranger Beside Me. Hopefully I won't wait as long before reading Helter Skelter. Haha! Well, I think you were the one who originally wrote the list of the books that the three of us have in common, so I just followed on from that! I've edited the post of the books that are common to various challenge lists. And I've edited my post containing your and Kay's favourite books. I didn't like the formatting I had been using (all the cross-outs made it look really messy), so I've copied your way of just writing read/TBR for each book. It looks much neater now! Aw, don't write it off just yet! It's really, really funny and irreverent.

What a wonderful review, Angury! Very well said, and I agree with it all.

It can be difficult when there are so many I want to read ASAP, but there are generally a few I want to read more than others. I don't know...it just kind of happens. I might pick up a book just to look at, and the next thing I know I'm several pages in! Except that I'm lucky if I read 50 books a year. Huzzah for immortality! Thanks James!

I love the first pic in particular, Angury. I'm kind of torn. I love 'old' libraries with leather-bound books, but I also love the type of library I have: cheap and plain bookcases with colourful paperback spines. Maybe one day I'll win lotto and be able to have both!

Just a little update (mostly for my records). On Thursday I received three books in the mail: Carbonel by Barbara Sleigh (a young adult book about a cat—I've started reading it already) Mark Twain's Notebooks by Mark Twain (was on sale—looks like a lovely book) Psychology in Minutes by Marcus Weeks (part of a series of small books that briefly discuss various concepts in different subject areas) It's a quiet time of the year in terms of work, so I'm trying to take advantage by getting a bit of reading done. I'm currently about two-thirds of the way through Al Franken's Lies and Lying Liars Who Tell Them. It's a hilarious look at right-wing politics in America. I'm really enjoying it! I've read about 75 pages of Carbonel. I think I spotted this while browsing through Goodreads. I don't often go out on a limb and randomly buy a book like this, but it had quite good ratings, and it's about a magical cat, so how could I pass it up? It's going reasonably well so far. I'm also reading through the first compendium of The Walking Dead. It contains the first 48 issues of the comic, and I'm up to #11. I've also started watching the TV series from the beginning, and although I didn't intend this to happen, I'm at roughly the same point in the comics and the show at the moment. I must admit, it's a little confusing! Something happened in the show and I was like 'What? Didn't they already know about that?' and then realised that I must have read it in the comic. In other news, I've taken down my Christmas tree made of books. I took 'aerial' photos of each layer as I removed the books so I can recreate the tree exactly next year. Sometimes I love playing around with my books, but other times I wish I could just click my fingers and have all the books whoosh back into place themselves.

Great review! The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favourite ever books, so I hope you'll read that one day, if you haven't already. It's a huge book but a rollicking good read. I just know that I'll love The Three Musketeers when I get around to reading it.

I've been reading quite a bit of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. About two-thirds of the way through it. I'm planning to read an issue or two of The Walking Dead tonight.

I just looked it up and it does indeed sound good. I'll add it to my 'to watch' list, thanks! If you haven't already seen it, you might like to check out The Jinx—The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, which aired as a miniseries last year. The show actually uncovered some crucial information that made headlines around the world. But I recommend watching it all before finding out what happened next. Great documentary.

I already have too many books to read without joining book groups, but I love the idea and I love Emma Watson. It's a great idea!

Great review! I remember reading Poppyshake's review of it last year. For some reason I didn't add it to my wishlist at the time, but I'll certainly add it now.

That's a gorgeous photo! It's the very definition of 'patience', isn't it? It must be so worth it in the end. I remember visiting a zoo once and trying to take photos of some very fast-moving lemurs through the bars of a cage. I snapped blurry photo after blurry photo of their behinds or tails just swishing out of view, so I eventually gave up on trying to get even a half-decent pic. Then when I got home and was going through the photos I found quite a perfect photo of one sitting still and holding some food! To this day I don't know how I managed to get that pic. It would never win any wildlife photography awards, but it's a favourite of mine. The same thing happened when I was walking around the grounds of Fountains Abbey in England (one of my favourite parts of my trip). I saw some pheasants but they were so shy and quick to hide that I gave up on trying to get a pic. Then later I realised I'd taken a great photo of one! I used it as my desktop pic for years. My patience wore thin after about 5 minutes though. Don't know if I could do it for 6 years. Thanks for sharing.