chesilbeach

I finished The Horologican today, and I have no idea what to read next. I've started a couple of books, but neither appeal at the moment, and I don't have that many others on my TBR now. I might throw caution to the wind and pick something off my wish list to try and boost my mojo for the weekend, unless someone can come up with a good suggestion in the Hallowe'en Read-A-Thon thread!

I'd actually have time to join in this weekend, but I don't like scary books! Anyone recommend anything gently spooky for me:

Ooh, I love Daisy Dalrymple books!!! This one is definitely set in winter, and the skating and outdoors in the season play a big part in the story.

I bloomin' well can .. and MUST!!!! It's a masterpiece!

You're all wrong! The correct answer is: 1. Persuasion 2. Mansfield Park 3. Sense and Sensibility

I've read a few more chapters of The Horologican today, and chuckled out loud a few times. Can't wait to hear what you think of it!

I think Kate is starting to eek her way into her uncle's heart (which will have to grow like the Grinch's, if he's going to come to the rescue eventually), so maybe he will have some redemption later on? Isn't interesting how Nicholas can just assume another name without any worries? Nowadays, he'd need fake ID's or to have a stage name under an Equity card! I can't imagine it's going to make his fortune, so I suspect something else will be happening to our Nicholas as he makes his way through the world, and hopefully back to his family. I've also been thinking about how the story meanders each instalment, and I wonder if Dickens planned the whole story before he started, or maybe a brief outline that he worked to, or just made it up as he went along, seeing where his characters took him?

Lordy, I'm getting behind on the reviews again I've had a bit of a uneven reading ride over the last couple of weeks, and especially this week, but I have managed to catch up with Nicholas Nickleby, and I've finished the wonderful How To Be Both by Ali Smith. This week has been decidedly dodgy, so I decided to treat myself to a few M. C. Beaton Regency romcoms, and I finished the Daughers of Mannerling series, which are silly but great fun. Haven't been able to settle to anything this weekend, so I've now got four books on the go! I'm still partway through Italian Ways by Tim Parks and over the last few days I've started both The Horologicon (which is a non-fiction and suits reading the odd chapter here and there) and the novel, One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper. They are a mixture of Kindle and paperbacks, so I'll have to pick one to read to take to lunch with me tomorrow at work, but still not sure which one it'll be yet!

Thanks for the summary, Janet. What I've been doing is that if I've forgotten where I've got up to in the story, I've been going back to the start of the previous chapters and reading the little subheading which tells you what's going to happen in the chapter. The whole theatre scenario came out of nowhere for me! I still genuinely have no idea where the story is going to go with each upcoming instalment. I love the names of Verisopht and Hawk - I'm assuming it's meant as "very soft" for the foppish Lord, and the "Hawk" refers to the predatory nature of Sir Mulberry. Kate's lot is not a happy one at the moment, is it? I hope she's going to have a happier time in the future. Janet, I haven't seen any adaptations of it, but my OH has a BBC radio adaptation. We're trying to find out more info about it, but I think it might be this one and he says it's really good (30 x 15 min episodes). We're not sure if it's the same one, but I also found an Audible version on iTunes, with Anna Massey, Sophie Thompson, Ken Campbell, Alex Jennings and Tom Baker. Looking on IMDB, there are a few film and television versions, so I might see if I can find any to watch one after we've finished reading the book.

I ended up watching Hot Fuzz again last night - brilliant film, the detail is just amazing and you just look in awe at some scenes as the cast is just incredible! Of the three Cornetto trilogy films, I think this is the best, but OH is sticking with Shaun of the Dead, which I also love, but this one just edges it for me.

Here's what Waterstone's think: http://www.waterstones.com/blog/2014/10/the-most-terrifying-characters-in-fiction/

I rarely re-read much, the main exception being Jane Austen and Ali Smith. I have, on occasion, finished the last page of a book and immediately turned back to the first page and started reading all over again, but this was mainly when I was younger. The trouble is that I love the mystery of what is going to happen in a book as I read it - once I've read it, the mystery is gone, and I'm more often than not, not interested in reading it again.

No plans as such. Still watching my TBR dwindling, carrying on with Nicholas Nickleby and that's about it really.

When we moved in together over 20 years ago, it never even occurred to me to keep our books separate - everything just got put on any shelf space we had (which wasn't much), and I remember having plies of books lining the walls of our flat! When we bought our house a couple of years later, books remained in boxes in the attic until we had time to build shelves, and then when they were eventually shelved, again, it was just put them anywhere as we had so many books between us. We have categorised some of them (e.g. Virago, Vintage Classics, Penguin, travel books), but generally, everything's just mingled in together. Having said that, I know the shelves so well, that I can tell you where almost any book we have is, and I can still tell you which books were mine, and which were OH's, but we have some genres we both like reading, read each others books, and any new books that come in I consider "ours". Neither of us are particularly bothered by the condition of books, it's more important what's in them than what they look like, so I think that's why we've never really worried about keeping them separate. When I've read a book, you often can't tell it's been read, as I don't hold it wide open, whereas OH tends to open it as wide as he can, and sometimes this will mean the spine gets broken, and I have a habit of reading and drinking when I'm reading, so there might be some crumbs or coffee spots in them. I would never treat anyone else's books like this, but for our own books, I'm not bothered, neither is OH, so they're just "our" books.

I've managed to catch up with my Nicholas Nickleby chapters! Due to work this week, haven't had much reading time this week, and it's mostly been in small chunks of between 5 and 20 minutes, but I'm starting later in the mornings for this week only, so I've been trying to fit my lunch break reading in before I start work, but it's been a bit hit and miss. Still, I have managed more reading than I thought I'd get in, and I've now started The Horologican by Mark Forsyth, which is non-fiction and all about long lost English words, but has chapters that fit nicely into a smaller chunks of reading time, with places to stop in the middle of chapters too, if necessary. Plus, it's really good! Happy Claire

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/22/enid-blyton-faraway-tree-series-film-sam-mendes I was addicted to Enid Blyton books when I was little, and I must have read the Faraway Tree series dozens of times. Oddly, can't remember that much about them now, but they're still up on my shelf, so maybe a re-read is in order! Funnily enough, only the other day, I was chatting to my colleague at work, and he was telling me that he was reading this series with his little girl at the moment. I'm sure I read somewhere previously that the books had been updated recently and made more politically correct, so I'm glad I kept my original ones.

Ok, it sounds like you too are both ok to stick to the schedule, so I'll make sure I catch up this week, and we'll keep the to the original dates.

Blimey, it's windy out there. We've got the tail-end of Hurricane Gonzalo going over us in the UK at the moment, so hold on to your hats out there everyone … actually you might want to hold onto something more solid too, just to stay on your feet!

We all mentioned we were a bit behind in the Book Activity thread, so I thought we might want to adjust our dates so that we can all catch up with each other! I'm just about to start chapter 25, which should have been the middle of last weeks chapters - where are you both up to?

I somehow managed to squeeze in some reading time yesterday and finished the magnificent How To Be Both by Ali Smith. I'm also a bit behind with Nicholas Nickleby! I'll post more in the group read thread without putting any spoilers, and we can all see where we're up to and if we need to adjust our dates to catch up with each other.

I had a pack of small bright pink post-its next to me when I was reading it, and the book is now peppered with them, reminding me of some of my favourite bits!

Work, work and more work! Trying to make sure I set aside some time today for some reading as I think next week looks a bit bleak for book time … even lunch hours probably won't be available. It's only a week though, and after that it should improve. On the plus side, I've been out for coffee (and toast ), finished my shopping, and managed to sneak in an hours reading already today, so looking promising for a few hours of peace and quiet this afternoon instead.

Apart from The Humans (which is my favourite novel of the year so far), I've only read The Radleys so far, and enjoyed it a lot, and it was because I'd liked it that I picked up The Humans, as I wanted to read more of Matt's books. I'm definitely going to read more at some point, and will probably read the children's books too, as I'm like that … I tend to read everything by an author once they've got their claws into me!

I've picked up How To Be Both again, and I've made sure all my chores are done, or will be done by lunchtime, so that I've got the afternoon to read. I read about 30 pages this morning, and it's just so, so good. This morning I noticed that a couple of books I wanted for my Jane Austen challenge were quite cheap on Kindle, so I bought Sense and Sensibility by Joanna Trollope and Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid, and also that Jenny Colgan's Christmas at Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop was only £2.99 as well, so I've downloaded those to be saved for later. So I am now a very happy Claire.

Haven't done this one for a while, but managed a very respectable 7/10 this week. http://www.waterstones.com/blog/2014/10/waterstones-week-in-books-quiz-17th-october-2014/