Nollaig

Today I bought a mattress topper - one from Silent Night that is 5cm deep, because my mattress is thin and worn and the springs are uncomfortable. Not anymore! It's so soft and cosy! Delighted with my purchase.

Our temperatures stay up into the evening alright, its not unheard of to have low twenties until the sun goes down round 11. Not fun.

Y'all are mad to live in such conditions.

Day 1: Read The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper (301 pages)

I just sat in my garden there for a bit, in the shade, with my feet in the sunshine, and the warmth on my feet was absolutely lovely. When I stood in the sun for a couple of minutes, so all of me was getting the heat, it felt imposing. Couldn't stick it for long. Back in my room now with possibly slightly sunburnt toes! I know, I really am intolerant. But at least I don't also hate the cold - I know some people who need it to be a very specific temperature in the middle. Anything under 15C I'm delighted with.

Yep, that sounds about right. I just suffer so badly with the heat - moreso than most Irish people, for whatever reason. I dehydrate and get headaches very easily, get very lethargic, sweat buckets and all of that makes me bad tempered. In the winter I'm in heaven, everyone around me complaining that it's too cold when it's 4/5/6 degrees and I just love it. Refreshing and makes me want to get up and move. Heat makes me want to faceplant on the ground and never move again.

We get the humidity too, often up to 100%, which makes it much harder to bear the heat. It's probably also worth noting that Ireland tends to lack air conditioning. Houses, older buildings/workplaces etc have no means of coping with the heat. My room is unpleasant at night, to say the least.

22-23 degrees celsius. Bear in mind, I am Irish. I am not built for heat. To me, 12/13 degrees is comfortable, or 15/16 with a cool breeze.

I'm reading The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper. First book in my read-a-thon! Hoping to get it read today, and move onto a new book tomorrow.

I read tons as a child and teenager Then in college I read the odd book that I hear people raving about. But I have no real reader friends in real life, so yeah, maybe read four or five books a year Congrats on the day off, long weekends are always a nice treat. No excuses for a poor read-a-thon now!

That DEFINITELY happens to me. I spend more time updating my thread, reading other threads, looking up books I hear mentioned on goodreads, managing my goodreads..... how much more reading I'd get done if it weren't for all that! I never read before this forum, though. I loved books but didn't know the first thing about finding recommendations, so I just never read.

I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to review it but I'll give it a bash!

It's a bank holiday this weekend in Ireland, and I'm not planning on going to my parents, or outside in general, as its too hot, so I may try read-a-thoning I have a couple of ideas for creepy/horror/thrillers I want to read so I might tackle those. Anna, The Butterfly Garden sounds interesting, though there are a lot of allegations of it being compelling moreso than good! Still, I may add it to my list this weekend!

Wahey! I'll hopefully get to it soon

I looked it up, because I too can relate to being overweight - in my case significantly - but wow, the number of 1 star reviews do not do it any favours. They seem to all be from offended fat people, so they might not be true, but..... they're pretty condemning reviews.

I finished The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark. Weird book that I enjoyed reading, but had to look up some discussion of to try understand. I still loved it though. I have no idea what I want to read next! Considering tackling A Little Life at last, but might also go grab M. R. Carey's new one or try a Claire North. Decisions!!

I still haven't tried anything by Claire North. Opinions are so divided!

Screw that. Just. How. HOW. WHY, even. 22C here today and the minute I got in the door from my crawl home from work I climbed into a cold shower.

:exc:

Yay! I had heard mixed reviews about Fellside, but I might get it myself now

This still amuses me

Thanks Gaia What kind of laptop, and what operating system? Mine came with Windows 10 unfortunately, and I feel like that might actually have been the issue rather than the hardware. I'll installed my own non-microsoft software now for browsing etc and its working fine. But obviously, I'm a little nervous since it had a rough start. I'm not worried about having to bring it back, I just don't want the bloody inconvenience!!

I read the first Across The Universe book and I liked it, but I didn't like it enough to read any more. I think I had a bunch of problems with it - unfortunately I read it back when I wasn't writing as many reviews, so I don't remember the details. I read it at the same time as another book called Life As We Knew It, and I think I preferred that. But I gave both of them only 2/3 stars on Goodreads. I wonder if you would like Alive by Scott Sigler, or The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers? (If you haven't already read those). The former is a semi-sci-fi, mostly dystopia YA novel and the later is a sort of sci-fi space opera - set in space/on a ship but entirely character driven. I really liked both.

I'm absolutely fascinated now by the responses to The Passage. Several people with whom my interests frequently overlap have not liked it, despite thinking they would, as I think I would. I still kind of want to try it, but its very difficult not to be put off!

I too am curious about that!