chesilbeach

After a bad start, I ended up with a very respectable 7/10! http://www.waterstones.com/blog/2014/08/waterstones-week-in-books-quiz-29th-august-2014/

Sorry, I hadn't really thought about when we would discuss, I was just thinking of putting down thoughts while I remembered them Maybe we should do that next time, so that we can all be at the same place when we discuss it? Shall we leave it until Sunday to carry on the discussion to let Alexi (and anyone else who might join in) time to read the first?

I do keep my own private record, and quite often find that when I come to review my reading at the end of the year to decide on my top books of the year, that's when I most often change some of my initial ratings. You could always go back to your review post and edit the rating you gave the book, with a comment to say you're upgrading your rating on further reflection.

I finished Capital yesterday and it was brilliant. Nearly 600 pages flew by, and I was utterly captivated. Today, I started Nicholas Nickleby and was pleasantly surprised to find that I'm enjoying it! I've not got very far with Dickens novels in the past, but reading this one as a group read for the English Counties challenge, plus reading it in instalments, I'm feeling a bit less apprehensive about it.

WARNING --- THERE MAY BE SPOILERS AHEAD FOR CHAPTERS 1-4 I read the first four chapters today. I have to say, so far, the style hasn't been too overbearing for me. I've previously started reading Oliver Twist and really struggled with the first chapter, but Nicholas Nickleby felt less florid and not quite as wordy. Knowing that these four chapters made up the first instalment, I think they do a good job of setting up the story and introducing the characters, but also give you some good pointers as to what might be going to happen, and altogether, plenty to make you want to buy the next edition when it was published. Nicholas does seem a rather naive young man so far, and Noggs is a sinister presence who sounds like he might be trouble in the future. I do wonder if we'll get any decent female characters, as it does look like it'll be centred around men and boys, but I guess we'll find out as we go along! Has anyone read the author prefaces? I didn't, and wondered if I should? I started reading the character listing at the beginning, but I thought I'd probably forget them all immediately, and it might be better to just wait and come across them as I read the book! One thing I did notice was that they weren't listed in the order in which they appeared, or alphabetically, so I was just a bit curious as to the thinking behind the order they are in. One thing I have noticed so far is that I do struggle with some of the names. There seem to be a lot of names that are just slightly out of the ordinary and I do struggle with pronouncing them in my head. For example, Dotheboys school - is that Doth-e-boys, Do-the-boys or Doth-boys? I guess it doesn't really matter, but none of them feel right, and it does make me stumble a bit in my head. Browsing through the character list, I can spot a few character names that I think I'll have similar issue with. Generally though, a good start, and I already feel less daunted. I think reading in instalments is going to work well for me, and I think if I was just reading this book, I'd be a bit frustrated by how little of the book I'd read, so knowing I've read my weekly allowance, I can go and read something else, and come back to it again next week.

We've just watched Saving Mr. Banks. Practically perfect in every way.

Just remembered, I saw on Twitter that @WeLoveThisBook (an online book magazine) will be taking the reigns for September, and @booksaremybag (online campaign to promote books and bookshops in the UK and Ireland) will step up in October.

Public transport was a big factor for me too - I used to have a 45-60 minute bus ride each way every day, a perfect excuse to read. SIX days and counting … :exc:

If you don't mind short stories, I would recommend Once You Break A Knuckle by D. W. Wilson - definitely rugged and very masculine in style and tone.

I never put my ratings on my reviews, as I often change my mind, some books stay with me longer, make me think about them more and get bumped up, and others which I enjoyed reading, lose something over time and can go down.

Anna, I can't even begin to imagine what you're going through, but hopefully, like Michelle says, there are no injuries, and physically you're all ok. Thinking of you

That sums it up perfectly for me too, Michelle. I like Peter Capaldi as an actor, but I find it hard to judge him as The Doctor from this over long (and frankly, at times, boring) introduction, and my first question at the end of the episode was, "Do we have to watch the rest of the series?" My OH countered that I'd chuckled at one point during the episode, and I told him it was just because there were a few references to The Girl in the Fireplace story, and I'd been thinking about that instead, which was also written by Moffat but was an absolutely cracking story, with action, humour, moral dilemmas and a horse on a spaceship!

I'm over halfway through Capital now, and I'm still loving it. Hoping today will be a quiet day so that I can sit down and have a good reading session, then I can use the Bank Holiday tomorrow to start *deep breath* … Nicholas Nickleby

Oops, I've missed a few days For Helps to tackle a tricky subject, I've picked A Lifetime Burning by Linda Gillard. Linda used to be a regular member here, and quite a few people will have read her books, but this one was quite a tough read dealing with a pretty much taboo subject, incest. I had a very in-depth discussion with Linda about the book at the time (which we ended up carrying out in messages as it was getting difficult to avoid giving away spoilers), and it was fascinating for both of us to see how completely differently we viewed on of the characters and their motives! A difficult subject to tackle, but a compelling book to read. Next up was C19th novel characters: let's play shag/marry/kill. My choices would be Captain Wentworth from Persuasion because I've always pictured him as an athletic, strong, handsome man, then Henry Tilney from Northanger Abbey who I just adore, he seemed to have it all, common sense, a moral backbone but a sense of humour and loves to read! I've chosen in the sense of killing off a literary character, I would go for Mr Woodhouse from Emma just because I found him so annoying, and could have done without him in the book. Just makes me realise I need to broaden my reading in 19th century literature! Best picture book for older readers - I'm taking this to mean older children, as we've already done Best Graphic Novel, so for this category, I would have to say A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness and illustrated by Jim Kay. A brilliant marriage of words and pictures, and it tackles the difficult subject of the terminal illness of a parent. And then we're up to today for Whose Life? Best biography/autobiography. I struggle with biographies and autobiographies, and I haven't actually read that many, as I just find them rather boring. I did read one a couple of years ago that was very interesting, and that was Now All Roads Lead to France by Matthew Hollis, a biography of the First World War poet, Edward Thomas. It really only covered the last few years of his life in depth, and looked at the changing literary world, where he was working at the same time as W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound and Rupert Brooke, his friendship with Robert Frost, and his decision to serve in the war. Excellent book.

I was probably about 8 when the bookshop closed. I remember buying my copy of the highway code book there before I did my cycling proficiency test at school, which was about that time, but I know it had gone by the time I was 10. I think I gave up reading between the ages of about 14/15 and 18, so it wasn't that long, but once I started work and had more time (and money!), it picked up again. Having said that, it was also slow in my early twenties too, and even though I was reading a lot before I joined the forum, it really did step up into another gear once I had people to discuss books with every day.

I can't tell you how long it's been since we've had a decent local bookshop, hence why I'm so excited! In fact, I can. When I was growing up there was a tiny bookshop in the village shops, but that closed down not long after I moved here. At the time, WHSmith was actually not a bad bookshop, and as I lived mostly on a diet of Enid Blyton, it could quite happily satisfy my purchasing needs, with the addition of the local library, I was quite happy. We had two libraries, one in the village and one up on the hill. We always visited the village one, as it was a 10 minute walk from the house, and in among the shops where my mum would do her shopping. Everyone was happy. Then … the smaller library closed, and we now had a 40 minute walk (each way) to the library, which made it an expedition, rather than something tagged on the end of the shopping, so instead of going when I had run out of books, we had to leave it for a trip in the car with my dad who also wanted books. This was back in the days when shops had only just started opening late one evening per week (and that was only until 7pm) and it meant only going once every three weeks on their evening opening, but had to be mixed with the big weekly shop, so a pleasant dawdle around the library was no longer an option, it was a short, serious, concentrated effort, mainly on making sure the books I was borrowing I hadn't read before. At about the same time, I was growing out of Enid Blyton, and the small WHSmiths book selection was shrinking as they branched out in to other product lines, so the selection of books available seemed to get smaller and smaller. Alongside exams and studying, and being a teenager and going out with my friends, I gave up reading for a while. After I left school, I started work in the city centre and had access to the main shopping centre during my lunch break at work with a couple of decent bookshops, then when I moved out of home a couple of years later, I moved to the city - BIG excitement, bookshops EVERYWHERE!!! I didn't go to university, but I lived very close to it, so I had three of the biggest bookshops in the city right on my doorstep, literally within two minutes walk from our flat … I'd never had more choice! We moved back to my town a couple of years later, but now I had the benefit of a car, so a trip to the city for shopping happened quite regularly and I didn't think much of it, but gradually, the bookshops have closed, and apart from a couple of branches of Waterstone's (our only big bookshop chain), there's not much left. So now, the nearest city with good bookshops is over an hour to drive to, plus parking fees, and the inevitable coffee break, and just popping out for a book requires setting aside a whole morning of my precious free time at the weekend, and to make it worth my while, I have to buy more than one book, which makes it a very expensive trip in terms of time and money. So, a bookshop within walking distance, and on a street I go to most weekends for shopping anyway … what a boon! I'll be able to browse and not even feel like I have to buy anything if nothing grabs my attention (yeah right, like I could go in a bookshop and NOT come out with a book ), or if I want a book, I can just pop in on my way home from work, or when I'm shopping on a Saturday. Book signings and author events, possibly a book group, anything else they might offer … that will be a bonus, but the fact we'll have a proper, local, dedicated bookshop, now that's worth celebrating. :exc: SEVEN days and counting …

I feel exactly the same.

In more book shop news … they've added a note to the poster to say it opens next Saturday! They've still got the paper shielding the windows, so I can't see inside, but they do now have a website and I've been around the local shops today and seen flyers on countertops promoting the shop with the opening date on. EIGHT days and counting …

I can understand you not liking him. In the first series of Strictly he was on, the way the training footage was edited, he looked like he was a strict, no-nonsense teacher to his celebrity partner, almost coming across as a bully, and this reputation has never left, despite lots of subsequent partners saying he was a great teacher. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending him, but I think if you're in a profession like ballroom dancing, everything is about competition, performance and looks, and it must have an effect on individuals in respect to how they feel they need to portray themselves to the outside world. I can't comment on his appearance on CBB, but as with Strictly, what I would say is that programme makers edit footage to their own advantage to entertain and maximise the potential to bring in viewers for ratings, so you only see the a small amount of what's happening. He's certainly not my favourite of the professional dancers on Strictly, but he's also not my least favourite, but I can imagine what he's like on a show like CBB, and if my assumptions are right, I can understand why you don't like him!

I know it won't be for everyone, so I won't be begging you to read it. I like something lighthearted and a bit funny, and I like the romantic elements, plus I love that the heroine isn't the usual blonde, lithe, beautiful woman. If you do read it, I'll be interested to see what you make of it, and I hope you enjoy it, but I'm not going to pester you into reading it! Sorry, but no. Well, in an interesting development, I'd mentioned the book at my reading group meeting a couple of months ago, and one of the other members liked the sound of it and read it too. Now, while I thought it was humorous, she thought it was incredibly sad! She thought it was a fantastic read, but she just got a completely different feeling from the story, so I'm now hoping someone else will also read it so I can find out how it comes across to them. Woohoo! I love these books, and I'm hoping to read books four and five soon. The only thing about the first book, is that it does feel a bit like a few disparate short stories which sort of come together at the end, so I don't think it's the best book of the three I've read, but, if you like the characters, setting and style of the first one, you will definitely love books two and three. I know! I plan to take my camera along on my first visit, and I'm hoping there will be a good selection of books to make me a regular visitor.

I'm just over 200 pages into Capital by John Lanchester, and I absolutely love it! So far there are a lot of characters, but it's not confusing, there's not much happening other than following their daily lives, but it's not boring, and it's like immersing yourself in the life of London which is sort of what you'd expect from a book called Capital! In other news, I've downloaded a few books for holiday reading from the Kindle Summer Sale ... Fiction: Moon Bear by Gill Lewis Vivien's Heavenly Ice Cream Shop by Abby Clements Jessica Cole: Model Spy by Sarah Sky Non-fiction: The Hotel on the Roof of the World: Five Years in Tibet by Alec le Sueur Toute Allure: Falling in Love in Rural France by Karen Wheeler Love Nina: Despatches from Family Life by Nina Stibbe

Absolutely! The more the merrier I've set up the thread here

Oh, I'm so far behind with reviews, it's not even funny I'll try and catch up a bit this weekend The radio programme is called A Good Read and each week the presenter has on two famous guests and they each pick a paperback book they think is a good read The presenter chose this book, but one of the guests was a writer whose work I like, and she also chose a Barbara Pym book, who I adore, and she loved The Winter Guest too, and so when I saw it in a bookshop, I couldn't resist.

I was rather disappointed with Mrs Ames, as I've read all the Mapp and Lucia series and thought they were much better. Having said that, there are a lot of similarities between the story in Mrs Ames, and I looked it up afterwards, and Benson wrote it before the Mapp and Lucia books, and it seems like he liked the idea and maybe thought he could make it funnier and more satirical, and when you then look at the later books, you can see this is where they've come from.

I've just re-read this thread after your post and realised you were talking about The Winter Queen by Boris Anunkin … I read that last month after it was recommended on a radio programme, and thought it was great! I don't think I've actually written a review for it, as I'm so far behind, but I enjoyed it a lot. I didn't know much about the author, or any of the subsequent books in the series, but now I'm going to have to do some more digging …