Nollaig
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I loved reading from lists too - there's an Irish DJ here who has started a review blog, and his reviews aren't particularly amazing but he seems to have a knack for picking great reads, particularly from Irish authors I've never heard of, so I've been making my way through his reviews and making a list of titles-endorsed-by-Rick that I like the look of
That's where a lot of my reads this year have come from, actually. -
It seemed to snow here last night, which I wasn't expecting at all!
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I just had a Subway. I've no food in since I wasn't here all weekend and I may have no money left for food after going to London.
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Have such a wonderful time! How long will you be gone? Do you have plans?
Just one night
Can't afford to go for longer. Going to see my favourite musician, Andrew McMahon, play a gig tomorrow night. Also stopping by Platform 9 3/4 and the Harry Potter Shop that's there, because I'm staying just across the road from Kings Cross, and also gonna pop down to 'Baker Street' from Sherlock (the BBC filming location).Quick trip, but a few nice things packed in
So excitttteeeeedddddd!!! 
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It's a shame, but I expected it because I saw George Takei mention the other day that Nimoy had been taken into hospital with chest pains.
RIP Mr. Nimoy.
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I have finished work for a week, and am off to Iceland again on Sunday morning for 5 days of mooching around my favourite city. I have booked the Northern Lights tour as per the usual advice for 6 hours after I land, and this time I am doing it properly - in a big jeep driven my an even bigger and burlier Icelander bearing vodka and hot chocolate - I know how to travel in style.
The Aurora forecast is looking good with one of the best nights of the season projected, All I want now then is for the clouds to stay away so that I can see them.Have a great time June! I'm always so jealous any time you go to Iceland, I'd love to go there. I definitely will, someday, I just don't know when. I have a friend who is from Akureyri, living in Reykjavik, so I'd love to go visit him and get a tour from a local.
A photo of the trees covered in the recent snow.
Oh what a beautiful photo Muggle! Thanks for sharing
I'm mostly packed for London, now I'm just waiting to hear back from the girl I'm going with about what time we're meeting in the morning. Not worried just yet that I haven't had a reply from her, but a bit irritated as we're gonna have to meet around 7:30 and it's now 9pm the night before.
Although if she has disappeared off the face of the planet, I already have her accommodation money so I'll just grab a different friend and go
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I really quite fancied The Ritual, but I decided to read his Apartment 13 first and didn't think much of it at all, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you think of this one
I'm tearing through it, but it feels like a guilty pleasure. There's nothing particularly remarkable about it - I'm getting the same pleasure out of reading it that I got out of watching The Ruins - which is just the laughs and occasional scares of a B-level story. But it's definitely an easy read, and I'm gonna get to the end no bother. I'd read his writing again, but I'd be more selective about the premise.
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Glad you're putting it aside for a while, might help a lot to come back to it fresh next week
First person has been dragged off into the woods, Blair-Witch-style \o/
Why oh why am I doing this to myself.It was really weird actually, while reading it last night I got really nervous, started getting palpitations and hearing all sorts of little noises in my room. When I sat up properly for a few minutes and came on here to post my attitude rapidly changed to 'for god's sake it's just a book!' and then it scared me again. Funny how your psychological/emotional context can change so rapidly.
Gonna try read a good chunk of this book today
It's by someone named Adam Neville. I think. I literally just googled 'really scary books' and grabbed the first one on my tablet. I got another one called PenPal which apparently started as a bunch of stories on Reddit. The cover also features a scary wood. -
That ought to not care with those parties!
If I were them, I wouldn't be complaining at anything- if anything they couldn't ask for an "otherwise" sound housemate.Yeahhh well. Honestly I'd take housemates with a few parties who don't mind me smashing their lights and paying bills late, than housemates without who don't party. There's always gonna be some flaw with housemates.
Except me, I am a flawlessly quiet, tidy, and generally absent housemate
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I want to buy many many sheets and wrap everything in my house in it, just to see how it looks on different shapes.
Then I want to put it on my wall.
So unusual!
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Glad to hear.
You didn't seem so sure about it (plot-wise) in another update, so I'm glad it turned around for you! I'm nearly 3/4 of the way through it. Too busy with work to get much reading done. 
Yeah, not a lot had happened at that point, it was mostly just funny events. It picked up pretty quickly plot-wise after that
I scared myself out of sleep last night with a random Blair-Witch-style book named The Ritual. It was the stupidest thing I could have done, I'm exhausted today, and tomorrow I have a seriously long day ahead of me.
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Great reviews Claire, I like the sound of both of those. Might stick em on the aul wishlist.
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Wow I seem to have overlooked this thread for the last couple of days - belated happy birthday! What an awesome haul, and that wrapping paper is amazing, I need some!
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I'm afraid I might not come back though!
If you never go back to it, maybe it wasn't worth going back to? I know the feeling though, I temporarily abandoned a book mid-January, and I've yet to go back to it.
In other news, I don't know why I thought it was a good idea to start reading a horror book at night
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What to do what you are on the verge of abandon/ abandon not...Put it to one side for a while and come back to it
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That was pretty much my feeling on Elizabeth too, Janet
Glad you enjoyed it. -
Spoke to my housemate about my unintentionally removing a light fixture from the ceiling, and she's totally fine about it, so I'm incredibly relieved. The parties she and her BF have til all hours do my head in, but I honestly couldn't ask for an otherwise more sound housemate/landlord. I even capped my good fortune by taking her positive response as a sign that I should ask about paying the bills a couple days late, so I have some spending money for London this weekend, and her response was, 'pfft, course.' Delighted, no more stress now (hopefully) before London on Saturday.
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Just finished The Humans by Matt Haig. Superb book. Absolutely fantastic. Will take a little time to digest that one, before reviewing it, but it's definitely a 5 star book.
After reading Bird Box the other day, I'm kind of in the mood for some more horror, so I'm off to try hunt something down.
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Oh don't be sorry guys, I don't mind. Half the time I read spoilers even when I know they're there
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I just had a sandwich of chicken breast, red onion, gherkins and bbq sauce. Om nom nom.
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All these years later I still fit into my selected age bracket - I was 21 when I voted, and now I'm 27.
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That... I have to read, because it sounds totally bizzare, and also because David Duchovny
And yes, when it was airing originally, it was airing after my bedtime
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Glad you're on the mend
(It's by Emma Healey!)
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Yeah, I've seen a ton of spoilers that way. It all just appears as regular text with the word 'spoiler' in the middle.
Noll's 2015 Book Blog
in Past Book Logs
Posted · Edited by Nollaig
The Humans - Matt Haig
Synopsis: The Humans is a funny, compulsively readable novel about alien abduction, mathematics, and that most interesting subject of all: ourselves. Combine Douglas Adams’s irreverent take on life, the universe, and everything with a genuinely moving love story, and you have some idea of the humor, originality, and poignancy of Matt Haig’s latest novel.
Our hero, Professor Andrew Martin, is dead before the book even begins. As it turns out, though, he wasn’t a very nice man--as the alien imposter who now occupies his body discovers. Sent to Earth to destroy evidence that Andrew had solved a major mathematical problem, the alien soon finds himself learning more about the professor, his family, and “the humans” than he ever expected. When he begins to fall for his own wife and son--who have no idea he’s not the real Andrew--the alien must choose between completing his mission and returning home or finding a new home right here on Earth.
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Review: The novel starts out on a hilarious note and continues in that vein for probably the first third of the book. As much as humans might struggle in a country where they know neither the language or customs, you can only imagine what difficulties an alien, with no knowledge of even the basic cultural elements universal to almost all human beings, let alone the norms of the western world, might face on his first day on Earth. Naturally, the results are genuinely, laugh-out-loud funny. If nothing else can be said for Matt Haig, he can see the amusing side of everything.
Fortunately, many other things can be said for Matt Haig. As the novel progresses, it understandably becomes less funny and starts to focus on the fallout of spending so much time among humans - winding up caring for them. I felt like it took a little while for this to start happening, and at first wasn't sure if there was going to be a solid plot or if the entire story would just be one alien bumbling around Earth being funny. The plot does eventually make an appearance, and I'll be the first to admit that it is unoriginal, and merely a vehicle for Haig to throw out some ideas and sentiments about the human condition which are relatable and beautifully expressed. That is far more okay a thing than you might think, reading this review. This book is like a quirky expansion upon that famous "Don't Forget To Wear Sunscreen" song - it will make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, reminding you of what makes humans so special despite their myriad flaws.
Matt sounds like a man who has spent nights awake, wondering at his own place in a world that is sometimes difficult to understand - a man who is aware of, and has possibly experienced, the different ways that people try to cope - retreating into themselves, repressing their doubts and 'just getting on with it', and I wouldn't be surprised if this novel was as cathartic for him to write as it was for me to read. As a frequent cynic, particularly about the state of the human race, this book was a refreshing reminder of how people try, and how that is actually the most important thing anyone can do. With turns of phrase that made me teary, characters I myself came to love, just enough drama to stop it being soppy, and an alien with so much faith in humanity that it will restore your own, this is an absolute must-read.
Rating: 5/5