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Posts posted by Ben
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Well, two days into having a Kindle and I've already downloaded about 20 books! The 12 days of Kindle is not helping hehe!
Just been looking at the 12 days of Kindle sale and I'm having a very difficult battle with myself to not make purchases..
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Well, I must say that even though I'm a mere hundred pages into Inheritance at the moment, I do have a feeling it may be my favourite book of the series. Christopher Paolini is building the story nicely with great character development that I'm sure he wouldn't have been able to focus on if he hadn't split the series from three books to four. I'm really looking forward to see how the final confrontation with Galbatorix, so looks like I better get cracking with it.
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Seriously good Christmas haul there poppyshake, sounds like Alan's good at picking up on hints. My mum's similar - she notices when I spot something on a Waterstones advert or drop it into casual conversation. She's particularly attentive in the months running up to Christmas, thankfully, resulting in me getting some nice Christmas reading pressies.
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Nice review Claire, this one sounds like both a fascinating and enjoyable read. I admittedly haven't heard of Stella Gibbons before, but I might check this one out thanks to your good comments.
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As this seems to be the reading blog to hang out in, I've a question for you guys.
How do you classify the first read of the year? Is it the first book you start after the first? Or is it a book you've started with in December and then finished in 2012? I've got quite a few on the go at the moment and if I finish them all in the new year do I get to count them all as 2012 reads?
Yes, these are the important questions of life that keep me awake at night.
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This year I'm aiming to knock off a few of the older books from my TBR, read more generally, and finally, actually bring the TBR down!!!
Ah, to bring the TBR down, my nightmare aim for the year.
Best of luck with the 2012 reading Andrea, hope you have a good one.
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Missed out on the opportunity to go to Waterstones today as I didn't realise the buses would be running.
But I am determined to get there before the end of the week to have a good long browse, spend my shiny new vouchers, and perhaps even stop off for a nice hot Starbucks while I'm there. In any case today I got through about 80 pages of Inheritance by Christopher Paolini and about 50 pages of my new Manchester United statistics book.
Will be getting off to get cosy in bed and read for a couple of hours now too.
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Thanks Ben, I'm going to try and be a bit more varied in my reading this year, but definitely want to work on the Austen reading plan
I'm certain I'll be giving Pride and Prejudice a re-read in the next few weeks before my 18th century fiction exam, and as I really enjoyed it I may delve into some of other works as well (particularly Northanger Abbey as I have that waiting for me on Kindle). Austen's one of those authors I'm certain I'll read more of eventually, so I look forward to reading how you get on with the challenge.
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That's quite a TBR list Ben! Good luck with your reading in 2012, hope you find time to enjoy some books other than your university reading
I pledge it will be much smaller by 01/01/13.
So do I, and thanks, you have a good one too.
Yes
in 2012 Ben with both your reading and your university studies. I love your TBR list .. so many on there that I want to read too. I think we're all aiming to buy less and read more .. here's hoping
Yep, I think the one plus to having such an extensive TBR (well.. not compared to some people on here of course), is that I've got so many fantastic books waiting for me. Here's to a cracking 2012 for us both.
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Thanks Ben, I think the forum keeps us all encouraged when things start wobbling. I must apologise though for incorrectly titling the Worlds Book Night Longlist as the Worlds Booklist Longlist
I decided to go back and insert all the titles, not just the one's I've read, into the list and in doing so found I had read another one so woo-hoo and jubilations. It was short lived however as when I typed up the shortlist, I found that they hadn't taken them from the longlist (go figure) .. and I hadn't read many of the new inclusions .. they're really out to get me
No apologies necessary poppyshake, I had to search for the list so I had the complete one anyway, so ended up entitling correctly anyway!
That's just typical isn't it?! Think I'll probably just stick to the longlist and see how I can get on with that.
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Current reading status as we come to the end of the year is that I actually have three books on the go - something that's usually rare for me. I'm still reading An Atheist's Guide To Christmas which I'm quite honestly just flicking through at the moment. I'm also reading A Room With A View which I wanted to get finished before the new year. However, I received Inheritance by Christopher Paolini for Christmas and I've been waiting to read this for what seems like an age.
Synopsis:
It began with Eragon . . .
It ends with Inheritance.
Not so very long ago, Eragon - Shadeslayer, Dragon Rider - was nothing more than a poor farm boy, and his dragon Saphira, only a blue stone in the forest. Now, the fate of an entire civilisation rests on their shoulders. Long months of training and battle have brought victories and hope, but they have also brought heartbreaking loss. And still, the real battle lies ahead: they must confront Galbatorix. When they do, they will to be strong enough to defeat him. And if they cannot, no one can. There will be no second chance. The rider and his dragon have come father than anyone dared to imagine. But can they topple the evil king and restore justice to Alagaesia? And if so, at what cost?
I'm getting started on this one right away, really interested to see how exactly Paolini brings the series to a close.
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Okay that's my reading blog all shiny and set up for 2012 with some challenges and a newly done TBR pile that looks daunting, but which I hope to make a dent in this year. The challenges on the other hand, are on-going; they're not my sole focus for the year but if I can tick off some as I go through that'll be great.
I think my total of sixty books is a realistic aim as I will have a lot of university reading to do on top of my normal reading. Painfully, I know that in the new year my TBR pile will immediately increase with the addition of the university books I'll be buying. Perhaps some Kindle additions will find there way on as well, with the deals that are on offer at the moment. That brings me on to the fact I'm aiming to not buy as many books this year, but we all know how difficult that is to achieve.
Anyway, happy New Year to you all and I hope 2012 is fantastic reading year for you all. I look forward to reading and commenting on everyone's blogs.
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Okay so I thought I'd make (or at least borrow from the web), a list of all the Sherlock Holmes adventures by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of which there were 60 in total (56 short stories, and four novels). I figure I'll do this as an 'on-going' challenge but I wouldn't mind trying to do it this year.
The Sherlock Holmes Challenge
(Medium blue indicates read)
A Study in Scarlet (1887) (Novel)
The Sign of the Four (1890) (Novel)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)
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'A Scandal in Bohemia'
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'The Red-headed League'
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'A Case of Identity'
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'The Boscombe Valley Mystery'
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'The Five Orange Pips'
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'The Man with the Twisted Lip'
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'The Blue Carbuncle'
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'The Speckled Band'
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'The Engineer’s Thumb'
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'The Noble Bachelor'
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'The Beryl Coronet'
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'The Copper Beeches'
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894)
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'Silver Blaze'
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'The Yellow Face'
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'The Stock-broker’s Clerk'
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'The ‘Gloria Scott'
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'The Musgrave Ritual'
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'The Reigate Squires'
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'The Crooked Man'
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'The Resident Patient'
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'The Greek Interpreter'
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'The Naval Treaty'
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'The Final Problem'
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) (Novel)
The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905)
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'The Empty House'
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'The Norwood Builder'
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'The Dancing Men'
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'The Solitary Cyclist'
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'The Priory School'
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'Black Peter'
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'Charles Augustus Milverton'
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'The Six Napoleons'
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'The Three Students'
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'The Golden Pince-Nez'
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'The Missing Three-Quarter'
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'The Abbey Grange'
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'The Second Stain'
The Valley of Fear (1915) (Novel)
His Last Bow (1917)
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'Wisteria Lodge'
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'The Cardboard Box'
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'The Red Circle'
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'The Bruce-Partington Plans'
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'The Dying Detective'
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'Lady Frances Carfax'
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'The Devil’s Foot'
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'His Last Bow'
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927)*
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'The Illustrious Client'
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'The Blanched Soldier'
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'The Mazarin Stone'
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'The Three Gables'
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'The Sussex Vampire'
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'The Three Garridebs'
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'Thor Bridge'
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'The Creeping Man'
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'The Lion’s Mane'
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'The Veiled Lodger'
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'Shoscombe Old Place'
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'The Retired Colourman'
*I posted these in the order which is in the majority of the newer copies of this anthology, not the chronological order.
Total: 13/60.
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'A Scandal in Bohemia'
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2012 Purchases - 64.
The Body In The Library. - Agatha Christie
Hound of the Baskervilles. - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
One False Move. - Harlan Coben
The Bone Collecter. - Jeffery Deaver
Dracula. - Bram Stoker
The Green Mile. - Stephen King
Zastrozzi. - Percy Bysshe
The Maltese Fiction. - Dashiell Hammett.
The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D, The Romantic Period.
The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies.
Farewell, My Lovely. - Raymond Chandler
Devil in a Blue Dress. - Walter Mosley
Jane Eyre. - Charlotte Bronte
Great Expectations. - Charles Dickens
Sons and Lovers. - D. H. Lawrence
Birdsong. - Sebastian Faulks
Before I Go To Sleep. - S J Watson
Mansfield Park. - Jane Austen.
Martha Quest. - Dorris Lessing.
The Hunger Games. - Suzanne Collins.
Catching Fire. - Suzanne Collins.
Mockingjay. - Suzanne Collins.
A Game of Thrones. - George R.R Martin.
A Clash of Kings by George R.R Martin.
A Storm of Swords (Part 1) by George R. R. Martin.
Bereft by Chris Womersley.
'Bartleby and Benito Cereno' by Herman Melville.
'Tell Me A Riddle & Yonnondio' by Tillie Olsen.
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson.
'Microserfs' by Douglas Coupland.
The Wide Saragasso Sea by Jean Rhys.
Foe by J. M. Coetzee.
Shame by Salman Rushdie.
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.
The Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga.
Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell.
Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Braddon.
Felix Holt: The Radical by George Eliot.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole.
A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe.
The Monk by Matthew Lewis.
Zofloya, or The Moor by Charlotte Dacre.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens.
Metamorphoses by Franz Kafka.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.
A Distant Shore by Caryl Phillips.
Selected Stories by Katherine Mansfield.
The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi.
Selected Poems by T.S. Eliot.
The River Between by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o.
Saturday by Ian Mcewan.
Modern Criticism and Theory by Lodge & Wood.
Orlando by Virginia Woolf.
The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon.
Crick Crack, Monkey by Merle Hodge.
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster.
Selected Poems by W.B. Yeats.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford.
White Teeth by Zadie Smith.
Beloved by Toni Morrison.
The Remains of the Day by Kazuro Ishiguro.
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Another on-going challenge I'm aiming to attempt, thanks to poppyshake for this.
World Book Night Top 100 Books 2012
(Bold indicates read)
A (K) indicates it’s a Kindle e-book.
(Bold and medium blue text indicates read in 2012)
1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
3. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
4. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
5. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
6. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
7. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
8. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
9. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
10. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
11. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
12. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
13. Harry Potter Adult Hardback Boxed Set by J. K. Rowling
14. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
15. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
16. One Day by David Nicholls
17. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
18. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
19. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
20. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
21. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
22. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
23. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
24. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
25. Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott
26. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
27. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
28. Atonement by Ian McEwan
29. Room by Emma Donoghue
30. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
31. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
32. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
33. Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres
34. The Island by Victoria Hislop
35. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
36. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
37. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
38. Chocolat by Joanne Harris
39. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
40. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
41. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
42. Animal Farm by George Orwell
43. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
44. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
45. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
46. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
47. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
48. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
49. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
50. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
51. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
52. Dracula by Bram Stoker
53. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
54. Small Island by Andrea Levy
55. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
56. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
57. Persuasion by Jane Austen
58. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
59. Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
60. Watership Down by Richard Adams
61. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
62. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
63. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
64. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
65. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
66. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
67. The Stand by Stephen King
68. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
69. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
70. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
71. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
72. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
73. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
74. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
75. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
76. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
77. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
78. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
79. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
80. Perfume by Patrick Suskind
81. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
82. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
83. Middlemarch by George Eliot
84. Dune by Frank Herbert
85. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
86. Stardust by Neil Gaiman
87. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
88. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
89. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling
90. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
91. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
92. Possession: A Romance by A. S. Byatt
93. Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
94. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
95. The Magus by John Fowles
96. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
97. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
98. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
99. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
100. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
25/100.
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Okay so this year I'm aiming to do a few challenges around my regular reading; I won't be 'focusing' on them as such, but they're on-going.
Rory's Book List (Thanks to Frankie)
(Bold indicates already read)
A (K) indicates it’s a Kindle e-book.
(Bold and in medium blue text indicates read in 2012)
1. Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides
2. 1984 by George Orwell
3. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
4. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Micheal Chabon
5. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
6. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
7. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
8. Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
9. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
10. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
11. Beloved by Toni Morrison
12. The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
13. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
14. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
15. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
16. Brick Lane by Monica Ali
17. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger
18. The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
19. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
20. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
21. Cousin Bette by Honor'e de Balzac
22. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
23. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
24. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
25. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
26. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
27. Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
28. Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
29. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
30. Emma by Jane Austen
31. Empire Falls by Richard Russo
32. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
33. Extravagance by Gary Krist
34. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
35. Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
36. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
37. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
38. The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
39. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
40. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
41. Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
42. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
43. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
44. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
45. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
46. Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
47. How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
48. How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
49. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
50. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
51. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
52. Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
53. The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
54. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
55. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
56. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
57. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
58. The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
59. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
60. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
61. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
62. The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
63. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
64. A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
65. My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
66. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
67. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
68. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
69. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
70. Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
71. Night by Elie Wiesel
72. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
73. Old School by Tobias Wolff
74. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
75. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
76. The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
77. Oracle Night by Paul Auster
78. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
79. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
80. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
81. The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
82. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
83. Property by Valerie Martin
84. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
85. Quattrocento by James Mckean
86. A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
87. The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
88. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir of Books by Azar Nafisi
89. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
90. Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
91. Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
92. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
93. Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
94. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
95. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
96. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
97. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
98. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
99. Small Island by Andrea Levy
100.The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
101. Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
102. The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
103. Songbook by Nick Hornby
104. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
105. Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
106. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
107. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
108. Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway
109. Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
110. Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
111. Time and Again by Jack Finney
112. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
113. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
114. The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
115. Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
116. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
117. Unless by Carol Shields
118. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
119. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
120. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
11/120.
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The Tenacious TBR
TBR as of 01/01/12: 219.
Current TBR: 235.
Bold indicates read (2012)
A (K) indicates it’s a Kindle e-book
Medium blue indicates a 2012 addition to TBR
Abbott, Jeff: Fear
Achebe, Chinua: Things Fall Apart
Adiche, N. Chimamanda: Half of a Yellow Sun
Alderman, Naomi: Doctor Who: Borrowed Time
Andrews, Virginia: Flowers in the Attic.
Aristotle: Ethics (K)
Atkinson, Kate: One Good Turn
Austen, Jane: Mansfield Park
Austen, Jane: Northanger Abbey (K)
Bakewell, Sarah: How to Live
Barrie, M. J: Peter Pan
Bernieres, D. Louis: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
Bowler, Tim: Starseeker
Braddon, Mary: Lady Audley's Secret
Bronte, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights
Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre
Brown, Derren: Confessions of a Conjurer
Carrel, L. J: The Shakespeare Secret
Carroll, Lewis: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (K)
Cast, C. P & Kristin: Untamed (#4)
Cast, C. P & Kristin: Hunted (#5)
Chandler, Raymond: Farewell, My Lovely
Chandra, Vikram: Sacred Games
Chevalier, Tracy: Girl With a Pearl Earing
Child, Lee: Running Blind (#4) (K)
Child, Lee: Echo Burning (#5) (K)
Child, Lee: Without Fail (#6) (K)
Child, Lee: Persuader (#7) (K)
Child, Lee: The Enemy (#8) (K)
Child, Lee: One Shot (#9) (K)
Child, Lee: The Hard Way (#10) (K)
Child, Lee: Bad Luck and Trouble (#11) (K)
Child, Lee: Nothing to Lose (#12) (K)
Child, Lee: Gone Tomorrow (#13) (K)
Child, Lee: 61 Hours (#14) (K)
Child, Lee: Worth Dying For (#15) (K)
Christie, Agatha: The Body in the Library
Clarkson, Jeremy: I Know You Got Soul
Coben, Harlan: Promise Me
Coben, Harlan: One False Move
Coetzee, J. M: Foe
Collins, Suzanne: The Hunger Games
Collins, Suzanne: Catching Fire
Collins, Suzanne: Mockingjay
Connelly, Michael: Angels Flight
Connor, Alex: Legacy of Blood
Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness (K)
Cooper, Susan: Over Sea, Under Stone (#1)
Cooper, Susan: The Dark Is Rising (#2)
Cooper, Susan: Greenwitch (#3)
Cooper, Susan: The Grey King (#4)
Cooper, Susan: Silver on the Tree (#5)
Cornwell, Patricia: The Front
Coupland, Douglas: Microserfs
Cussler, Clive: Dark Watch
Dacre, Charlotte: Zofloya, or The Moor
Dahl, Roald: Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life
Dahl, Roald: Boy
Dahl, Roald: Going Solo
Dahl, Roald: My Uncle Oswald
Dahl, Roald: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Dahl, Roald: Someone Like You
Dahl, Roald: Switch Bitch
Dahlquist, W. G: The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters
Dangarembga, Tsitsi: The Nervous Conditions
Darwin, Emma: The Mathematics of Love
Davies, Martin: The Conjuror’s Bird
Davidson, Andrew: The Gargoyle
Dawkins, Richard: The Greatest Show on Earth (K)
Dawkins, Richard: The God Delusion
Dawkins, Richard: The Selfish Gene (K)
Deaver, Jeffery: The Bone Collector
Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations
Dickens, Charles: A Tale of Two Cities
Dickens, Charles: Bleak House (K)
Dickens, Charles: A Christmas Carol (K)
Dickens, Charles: David Copperfield (K)
Dickens, Charles: Oliver Twist(K)
Dickens, Charles: The Old Curiosity Shop
Donnelly, Jennifer: A Gathering Light
Donoghue, Emma: Room
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment
Doyle, C. Arthur Sir: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (K)
Doyle, C. Arthur Sir: The Hound of the Baskervilles
Dumas, Alexandre: The Count of Monte Cristo
Easterman, Daniel: Midnight Comes at Noon
Eddings, David & Leigh: The Redemption of Althalus
Eliot, George: Felix Holt: The Radical
Eliot, George: Middlemarch (K)
Eliot, T.S.: Selected Poems
Elton, Ben: Inconceivable
Falconer, Duncan: The Protector
Farndale, Nigel: The Blasphemer
Faulks, Sebastian: Birdsong
Feist, E. Raymond: Magician: Apprentice (K)
Fielding, Helen: Bridget Jones’s Diary: The First Columns
Fletcher, Charlie: Stone Heart
Ford, Madox, Ford: The Good Soldier
Forster, E.M.: A Passage to India
Fowler, Christopher: Bryant & May: Off the Rails
Fullerton, S. George: An Introduction to Philosophy (K)
Gaiman, Neil: Stardust (K)
Gaiman, Neil: Neverwhere (K)
Gaskell, Elizabeth: Mary Barton
Gentle, Mary: 1610: A Sundial in a Grave
Gibbins, David: Atlantis
Gillard, Linda: Emotional Geology
Golding, William: Lord of the Flies (K)
Goodkind, Terry: Debt of Bones (K)
Grisham, John: A Time to Kill (K)
Grisham, John: The Street Lawyer (K)
Grisham, John: A Painted House (K)
Grossman, Lev: The Magicians
Grossman, Lev: Codex
Hamilton, K. Laurell: Guilty Pleasures (K)
Hammet, Dashiell: The Maltese Fiction
Hannah, Sophie: The Point of Rescue
Hardy, Thomas: Far From the Madding Crowd
Hardy, Thomas: Tess of the d’Urbervilles
Hardy, Thomas: The Woodlanders
Hardy, Thomas: Under the Greenwood Tree
Harris, Charlaine: Dead and Gone (#9) (K)
Harris, Charlaine: Dead in the Family (#10) (K)
Hawking, Stephen: The Grand Design (K)
Hawkins, Simon: Silver
Heller, Joseph: Catch-22
Hemmingway, Ernest: A Farwell to Arms (K)
Hill, Stuart: The Cry of the Icemark (#1)
Hislop, Victoria: The Island
Hobb, Robin: Dragon Keeper (#1) (K)
Hobb, Robin: Dragon Haven (#2) (K)
Hobb, Robin: Assassin’s Apprentice (#1) (K)
Hobb, Robin: Royal Assassin (#2) (K)
Hobb, Robin: Ship of Magic (#1) (K)
Hobb, Robin: Mad Ship (#2) (K)
Hodge, Merle: Crick Crack, Monkey
Homer: The Iliad (K)
Hosseini, Khaled: A Thousand Splendid Suns
Hugo, Victor: Les Misérables (K)
Hurwitz, Gregg: I See You
Huxley, Aldous: Brave New World (K)
Ishiguro, Kazuo: Never Let Me Go
Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Remains of the Day
Jennings, Amanda: Sworn Secret
Jones, Sadie: The Outcast
Joyce, James: Ulysses (K)
Kadare, Ismail: The Siege
Kafka, Franz: Metamorphoses
Kant, Immanuel: The Critique of Practical Reason (K)
Kemp, Martin: An Autobiography: True
Kilworth, Garry: The Welkin Weasels: Castle Storm (#2)
King, Stephen: 11/22/63
King, Stephen: Blaze
King, Stephen: Carrie (K)
King, Stephen: Insomnia (K)
King, Stephen: It (K)
King, Stephen: Lisey’s Story
King, Stephen: Misery (K)
King, Stephen: Pet Sematary (K)
King, Stephen: The Dark Half (K)
King, Stephen: The Gunslinger (K)
King, Stephen: The Green Mile
King, Stephen: The Eyes of the Dragon
King, Stephen: The Shining (K)
King, Stephen: The Stand (K)
King, Stephen: Salem’s Lot (K)
King, Stephen: Under the Dome (K)
Kingsolver, Barbara: The Lacuna
Kipling, Rudyard: The Jungle Book (K)
Knowles, James Sir: The Legends of King Arthur (K)
Koontz, Dean: The Good Guy
Koontz, Dean: Intensity (K)
Koontz, Dean: Life Expectancy
Koontz, Dean: Midnight (K)
Koontz, Dean: The Taking
Koontz, Dean: Velocity (K)
Kostova, Elizabeth: The Historian
Kureishi, Hanif: The Black Album
Lawrence, H. D: Sons and Lovers
Lee, Harper: To Kill a Mocking Bird (K)
Lessing, Dorris: Martha Quest
Levy, Andrea: The Long Song
Lewis, Matthew: The Monk
Lodge & Wood: Modern Criticism and Theory
Lindsey, Jeff: Darkly Dreaming Dexter (#1) (K)
Lindquist, A. John: Let the Right One in (K)
Ludlum, Robert: The Hade’s Factor (#1)
Ludlum, Robert: The Bourne Identity (#1) (K)
Mansfield, Katherine: Selected Stories
Marshall, Ian: The Official Manchester United Book of Facts and Figures
Martel, Yann: Life of Pi (K)
Martin, R. R. George: A Game of Thrones
Martin, R. R. George: A Clash of Kings
Martin, R. R. George: A Storm of Swords (Part 1)
Martin, R. R. George: A Storm of Swords (Part 2)
Martin, R. R. George: A Feast for Crows
Martin, R. R. George: A Dance with Dragons
Matheson, Richard: I Am Legend
Maurier, D. Daphne: Rebecca
Marquez, G. Gabriel: One Hundred Years of Solitude (K)
McEwan, Ian: Atonement (K)
McEwan, Ian: Saturday
Melville, Herman: 'Bartleby and Benito Cereno'
Mill, S. John: Utilitarianism (K)
Montaigne, D. Michel: Essays (K)
Montanari, Richard: Broken Angels
Montanari, Richard: Kiss of Evil
Montanari, Richard: The Rosemary Girls
Morris, Jonathan: Doctor Who: Touched By An Angel
Morrison, Toni: Beloved
Mosley, Walter: Devil in a Blue Dress
Mosse, Kate: Labyrinth
Nesbo, Jo: Nemesis (K)
Nesbo, Jo: The Redeemer
Nesbo, Jo: The Leopard
Niffenegger, Audrey: The Time Traveler’s Wife
Nimmo, Jenny: The Time Twister
Nix, Garth: The Ragwitch
Nowel, Joshua: Operation Typhoon Shore (#2)
Obama, Barack: The Audacity of Hope (K)
Olsen, Tillie: 'Tell Me a Riddle & Yonnondino'
Ondaatje, Michael: The English Patient
O’Neil, Joseph: Netherland
Orwell, George: Animal Farm
Patterson, James: Max (#5)
Phillips, Caryl: A Distant Shore
Pinter, Jason: The Fury
Plath, Sylvia: The Bell Jar (K)
Plato: Laws (K)
Poe, A. Edgar: Essential Tales and Poems (K)
Pollen, Bella: The Summer of the Bear
Pratchett, Terry: Equal Rites (K)
Pratchett, Terry: Hogfather
Pratchett, Terry: Monstrous Regiment
Pratchett, Terry: The Light Fantastic (K)
Pratchett, Terry: Mort (K)
Preston, Marcia: The Butterfly House
Puzo, Mario: The Godfather (K)
Pyle, Howard: The Adventures of Robin Hood (K)
Radcliffe, Ann: A Sicillian Romance
Rankin, Ian: Hide & Seek
Rhs, Jean: The Wide Saragasso Sea
Rice, Anne: Interview with a Vampire (K)
Rushdie, Salman: Shame
Sebold, Alice: The Lovely Bones
Selvon, Sam: The Lonely Londoners
Shelley, B. Percy: Zastrozzi
Skelton, Matthew: Endymion Spring
Slaughter, Karin: Triptych
Slouka, Mark: The Visible World
Smith, Zadie: White Teeth
Starling, Boris: Messiah
Steinbeck, John: The Grapes of Wrath (K)
Steinbeck, John: Of Mice and Men (K)
Stevenson, L. Robert: Kidnapped (K)
Stoker, Bram: Dracula
Suskind, Patrick: Perfume
Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver’s Travels (K)
Temple, Peter: The Broken Shore
Thackeray, M. William: Vanity Fair
Thiong'o, Ngugi: The River Between
Thompson, Kate: The New Policeman
Tolstoy, Leo: Anna Karenina (K)
Tracy, J. P: Dead Run
Tracy, J. P: Live Bait
Twain, Mark: The Prince and the Pauper
Various: Killer Year (Edited by Lee Child)
Verne, Jules: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (K)
Walker, Alice: The Colour Purple
Walpole, Horace: The Castle of Otranto
Walters, Minette: Acid Row
Watson, J S: Before I Go To Sleep
White, John: The United Miscellany
Wilson, Sloan: The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
Winthrop, H. Elizabeth: December
Williams, Adam: The Emperor’s Bones
Womersley, Chris: Bereft
Woolf, Virginia: Orlando
Yeats, W.B.: Selected Poems
Zafón, Ruiz. Carlos: The Angel’s Game (K)
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Ben’s Reading 2012
Hey all, and welcome to my 2012 reading blog; I was going to wait until the first of the year, but I got too excited and relented. Last year I was aiming for 50 books, and I managed to just about get over the line.
Quick Links
Previous Reading Blogs
This year I will be once more alternating between reading digitally on my e-reader, and of course my 'real' books. In the following posts I will be simply commenting on books as I read them, finishing up with a short summary and a rating out of 5, every time I finish one. I’ll also write some complete in-depth reviews which will be linked on here to the BCF reviews page. I'm aiming for 60 books this year, but we all know how aims can turn out. This year I'm going to be attempting a couple of challenges, which will be posted in the posts below this.
Total Read 2012: 81.
January
1. A Room With A View. - E.M Forster. Thoughts.
2. Doctor Who: Touched By An Angel. - Jonathan Morris. Thoughts.
3. The Hound of the Baskervilles. - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thoughts.
4. Girl With a Pearl Earring. - Tracy Chavalier. Thoughts.
5. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thoughts.
6. Legacy of Blood. - Alex Connor. Review.
February
7. Great Expectations. - Charles Dickens. Thoughts.
8. A Midsummer Night's Dream. - William Shakespeare. Thoughts.
9. The Body in the Library. - Agatha Christie. Thoughts.
10. 'The Murders In The Rou Morgue.' - Edgar Allan Poe. Thoughts.
11. 'The Purloined Letter.' - Edgar Allan Poe. Thoughts.
12. Dracula. - Bram Stoker.
13. Birdsong. - Sebastian Faulks.
14. Cirque Du Freak. - Darren Shan. Thoughts.
15. The Vampire's Assistant. - Darren Shan. Thoughts.
16. Tunnels of Blood. - Darren Shan. Thoughts.
17. Vampire Mountain. - Darren Shan. Thoughts.
18. Trials of Death. - Darren Shan. Thoughts.
19. The Vampire Prince. - Darren Shan. Thoughts.
20. The Merchant of Venice. - William Shakespeare.
21. Hunters of the Dusk. - Darren Shan. Thoughts.
22. Allies of the Night. - Darren Shan. Thoughts.
23. Killers of the Dawn. - Darren Shan.
24. Before I Go To Sleep. - SJ Watson. Thoughts.
25. The Green Mile. - Stephen King. Thoughts.
March
26. Much Ado About Nothing. - William Shakespeare.
27. The Hunger Games. - Suzanne Collins.
28. Love's Labour's Lost. - William Shakespeare.
29. Catching Fire. - Suzanne Collins.
30. Mockingjay. - Suzanne Collins.
31. As You Like It. - William Shakespeare.
32. Netherland. - Joseph O'Neil.
April
33. Sons and Lovers. - D. H. Lawrence.
34. Farewell, My Lovely. - Raymond Chandler.
35. Twelfth Night. - William Shakespeare.
36. Jane Eyre. - Charlotte Brontë.
37. Zastrozzi. - Percy Bysshe Shelley.
38. Devil In A Blue Dress. - Walter Mosley.
39. Martha Quest. - Doris Lessing.
40. The Lake of Souls. - Darren Shan.
41. Lord of the Shadows. - Darren Shan.
42. Sons of Destiny. - Darren Shan.
May
43. The Good Father. - Noah Hawley. Review.
44. Rebecca. - Daphne Du Maurier. Thoughts.
45. Lethal. - Sandra Brown. Review.
46. The Bones of Avignon. - Jefferson Bass. Review.
47. The Count of Monte Cristo. - Alexandre Dumas.
48. To Kill a Mockingbird. - Harper Lee. Thoughts.
49. If You're Reading This, I'm Already Dead. - Andrew Nicoll. Review.
June
50. Catch-22. - Joseph Heller. Thoughts.
51. Marked. - P.C & Kristin Cast. Thoughts.
52. Betrayed. - P.C & Kristin Cast.
53. The Thief. - Fuminori Nakamura. Review.
54. A Game of Thrones. - George R. R. Martin.
July
August
55. A Clash of Kings. - George R. R. Martin.
56. Fifty Shades of Grey. - E. L. James.
57. A Christmas Carol. - Charles Dickens.
58. Wide Sargasso Sea. - Jean Rhys. Thoughts.
59. The Castle of Otranto. - Horace Walpole. Thoughts.
September
60. Mary Barton. - Elizabeth Gaskell. Thoughts.
61. 'Life in the Iron Mills'. - Rebecca Harding Davis.
62. Foe. - J. M. Coetzee.
63. 'Bartleby the Scrivener'; - Herman Melville.
64. 'Yonnondio'. - Tillie Olsen.
65. Shame. - Salman Rushdie.
66. Lady Audley's Secret. - Mary Braddon.
67. A Sicilian Romance. - Ann Radcliffe.
68. The Monk. - Matthew Lewis.
October
69. The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. - Sloan Wilson.
70. The English Patient. - Micheal Ondaatje.
71. Nervous Conditions. - Tsitsi Dangarembga.
72. Felix Holt: The Radical. - George Eliot.
73. Tess of the D'Urbervilles. - Thomas Hardy.
74. Zofloya. - Charlotte Dacre.
75, Frankenstein. - Mary Shelley.
76. Three Vampire Tales. - Anne Williams.
November
77. The Bell Jar. - Sylvia Plath.
December
78. Memory of Bones. - Alex Connor.
79. The Hobbit. - J.R.R. Tolkien.
80. The Amulet of Samarkand. - Jonathan Stroud.
81. The Golem's Eye. - Jonathan Stroud.
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For a moment then I was confused as I wondered how it was possibly that you had read a book in 2012 already when it hadn't started yet. Then I realised..
In any case, best of look with your 2012 reading, you do have some great reads ahead of you judging by that to-be-read pile. I'm also planning on reading Crime and Punishment in the early part of the year so I'll looking forward to hearing how you get on, and to reading your thoughts. That also goes for all the other books you'll be reading this year; have a good one, Brian.
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Good Christmas haul on the book-front this year, was very pleased. In addition to vouchers for Waterstones and Amazon, I received:
Inheritance - Christopher Paolini.
11.22.63 - Stephen King.
The Official Manchester United Book of Facts and Figures - Ian Marshall.
Doctor Who: Touched By An Angel - Jonathan Morris.
Doctor Who: Borrowed Time - Naomi A. Alderman.
All of which I'm looking forward too, and will now act as late editions to 2012's starting TBR list.
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Thanks Ben
... the best of luck to you too in 2012. I'm a bit worried now that I'm going to have to read some books that I hate (or at least hate the sound of) in 2012 but I need to shake up my reading habits so it's the only way to go. I reckon 90% of my reading will still be in my comfort zone but the other 10% could be anything. Basically what ever the charity shop has to offer that fits in with my motivational thoughts. I saw a Kerry Katona book in the Sue Ryder shop last week but as I said to Alan, it's not 2012 yet .. I may as well wait until January to give up all forms of pleasure
.. See, I seriously need to shake that attitude!
Ah, the endless battle with temptation that we all suffer with on here always seems more apparent at the start of the new year when we've convinced ourselves of fresh starts and challenges, and we've promised ourselves not to make too many acquisitions. Our efforts our fruitless; I'm convinced it never works.
I wish you the best of luck with the shake-up, however, and I'm sure you'll get many friendly words of encouragement here if you ever start to waver!
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Subscribed, looking forward to reading your thoughts and reviews in 2012; hope it's a good reading year for you Claire.
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Eventhough I've called it 'my original Rory list' or something along those lines, I haven't actually put the list together myself, I've copied it from some website many many years ago. I only call it 'my list' on here as a remainder for myself that it's the first list I have personally started tackling, way before I joined BCF, and this way I won't confuse it with the other lists
So feel free to copy the list
I hope you have fun with it, and do record your journey in the appropriate Rory Gilmore books challenge thread if you like
Ah I see. I just thought I'd ask, that's all. Also, as you've brought it over from whatever website you got it from, I think it seems appropriate to credit you with it anyway. I've got it all set up with my shiny new book blog that's waiting to be posted soon. I'll definitely pop by the thread as well. I'm sure this will be a great challenge, there's some fantastic books on the list and of course a fair few I've never heard of so I'll definitely find something new.
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Ha ha I was was doing my TBR list last night, but I got rid of a lot, and starting again, cos I couldn't remember why I put them there in the first place, so having a clean slate for 2012
Well I was just trying to include everything I own on my shelves, even if it doesn't seem likely I'll read some of them in the near future. Big mistake.
Ben's Reading 2011
in Past Book Logs
Posted
Got some pretty interesting news this evening. Earlier in the year I read The Rembrandt Secret by Alex Connor, and sent her my review on the off-chance she'd give it a read. We exchanged emails a few times about various things (mostly my interest in writing myself), and she said she enjoyed my review. Now about half an hour ago she emailed me about her new book Legacy of Blood which comes out January 12th, and which I'll be receiving an early review copy of, to review for BCF.
I was delighted to hear she remembered the last one and asked me to review it, and I had nosey on her website to see what it was about. Interestingly, I found that she had included my review from the BCF on her blog page under 'media reviews', which I thought was rather cool. It's here, anyway, if anyone's interested: http://alexconnorthrillers.com/therembrandtsecret/reviews.html