chesilbeach

To call Portia Kane a waste of space was being charitable. Living With The Dead by Kelley Armstrong

Days of Thunder

I love the Will & Grace theme, but can't bear the programme itself.

I was trying to clear some space on my bookshelves, and came across my little Ladybird collection of books, and found my Tasseltip books. I remember absolutely loving these when I was little - anyone else remember them?

I went back to the supernatural for my next read, and I finished Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong today. Not my favourite of the series, but still good entertainment, cheering me up on a nasty, rainy day. Bought a few books from Waterstone's today, including another Women of the Otherworld series, Personal Demon which I started this evening.

Smiles of a Summer Night

Last Action Hero

Thanks Mia I like all the professionals, and my favourites change all the time, but I love Anton and Erin (saw their live tour earlier in the year - they were brilliant!), Brendan, Lilia and Flavia. Ian was never one of my particular favourites, but he's grown on me a lot over the years, and last year, him and Jodie were the funniest couple in the show. The new series starts on Friday 18th September, and eight of the couples will dance a ballroom, then on Saturday 19th September, the same eight couples will dance a latin dance, and at the end of the Saturday show, the public can vote, followed by dance-off of bottom two and judges final vote to save one of the couples. The other eight couples will go through the same process the following week, then from week three it will be back to one Saturday night show including vote, dance-off and one couple leaving.

There was a time in my life when the prospect of watching a man die would have filled me with horror. Personal Demon - Kelley Armstrong

*blush* Thanks, Ben. I've just made the big step up to real website A lot of hard work, but I've loved it, and I am now officially ultimatestrictly.com

One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing

Hey Burto

Hello

I'm so glad there are some other Anton fans here On another forum I look at, most of them can't stand him, but I think he's funny and charming, and I don't care if he can't really do the latin dances because he's a ballroom specialist, at least he has fun and is entertaining.

Hey Laura

A good, interesting, arresting cover goes a long way towards encouraging me to buy a book, and a bad one can definitely discourage me from buying others. The only thing I would say is that while I like a recurring theme and style being used for a series of books, I hate the way some authors who don't write series of books, but individual stand alone novels, seem to be made into an identifiable brand of books. The authors that spring to mind for this are Anita Shreve, Jodi Piccoult and Dan Brown - having read only one or two of each of their books and not liking any of them, it now instantly puts me off reading any more of any of theirs, and they're so easy to identify because of their brand.

Although I'm really too old, I do still read YA books but I've never read any of this authors. I do think that the cover design on them is brilliant and very appealing, and they always stand out on the displays in the bookshelf. The Twilight series used to as well, but there seem to be a lot of similar themes and designs to those covers creeping in to the bookshop, I've noticed.

My To Be Read list is literally that - the books on my shelf that I already own that are waiting to be read. The reason I keep a list, and I've put them in order as well, is because I used to leave the scattered among the many shelves in my house, but when I finished one book and was looking for the next, I used to spend ages dithering about which book would be next, and wasted precious reading time. I finally decided to collect all the books into one bookcase so that they're all there waiting for me, and although I've got a order I plan to read them in, I'll happily pick something else off the shelf that takes my fancy if I feel like it. However, my wishlist is a completely different kettle of fish. That's the list of books that I've heard about, read about, or been recommended that I would like to buy. In theory, I take this with me to the bookshop and would pick books from it when I'm in a buying mood. In reality, I forget all about it, wander aimlessly and pick up whatever looks appealing at the time. For example, today I bought four books, one was the next in a series I'm already reading, one was a book on my wishlist by an author I've read some other books by and really enjoyed, one was a book that I'd seen a lot of coverage for as it had won an award and looked fascinating (these were all on a 3 for 2 offer) and the final one was a book I'd never seen before, by an author I've vaguely heard of, but just looked fascinating. Don't take this the wrong way, but surely as a reviewer, you're hoping to encourage people to buy good books that they might never otherwise pick up? That's certainly why you're being asked to review the books. I agree to a certain extent that it's great to pick up books without any preconceived ideas or without being influenced by other people's views, and you're in quite a privileged position to be sent books for free to review without knowing what the next style, genre, author will be, but for me, I sometimes want to know that I'm sharing the very individual reading experience with people I trust and whose opinions I respect by reading books they've recommended.

Yup, that's the one. Tell me about it!!! I've been immersed in Strictly for the last week, and I'm desperate for it to start now, especially after all the announcements today! Pretty much the same for me, although I prefer the hot guys to the hot women! I did enjoy Matt & Flavia's Salsa, but my favourite ever dance (as can be seen by my avatar ) is Mark & Karen's Argentine Tango. I still get goosebumps watching it, and when the scores are given out, I get all teary along with Karen

I do intend to keep watching it, and it does sound like series two will be more to my liking, but it's not exactly must watch tv for me at the moment.

I know, I know!!! I don't know if it's because I watch very little tv drama, and even less American drama, or if it's because I've only seen the episodes on FX so far, which has had very little Eric, or because I don't like the portrayal of and writing for Sam's charater (as you know, he's one of my favourites), or maybe because I find it such slow going compared to the books.

People being late. If they're going to be late, why can't they phone or text or email to say so?

Todd adjusted his leather power seat and smiled. Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong

D'ya know, I'm still not sure about True Blood. I love the books, but I 'm just not bothered about the TV series.