chesilbeach

Oh, and I forgot to explain why I've put Emotional Geology back on the TBR shelf for the moment ... after reading A Lifetime Burning, I'd been discussing the characters in depth, and I'm still mulling over some of them and can't quite get them out of my head yet. So, to be fair to Emotional Geology, I thought I'd take a short weekend break from any serious reading, and just go for no thinking required books.

Finally, I've managed to get to the library and pick up my copies of Living Dead In Dallas and Dead To The World from the Sookie Stackhouse series (Club Dead still isn't in yet), as well as Grave Sight, all by Charlaine Harris. Couldn't resist Living Dead In Dallas, so I've had a very enjoyable evening reading that! I'm loving this series - it's totally escapist, light-hearted entertainment. I would never have read them if they hadn't been recommended on here, so my thanks to everyone who suggested them. I'm not sure about Grave Sight, but thought I'd give it a go.

After a very late night yesterday (or should I say early morning!) following my rather lengthy discussions about A Lifetime Burning, I decided to go for a much lighter reading day, and had a quick re-read of Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris, as a nice reminder of the characters before I (hopefully) pick up the next three books in the series from the library tomorrow, plus I finished another re-read of Eclipse. Will hopefully be able to start Emotional Geology tomorrow.

I am! Well, listening to them mostly, as I'm at work, but you can't beat a bit of Test Match Special!

Apologies for all the spoiler marks, but I think they're probably necessary to avoid ruining the book for anyone who hasn't read it, but I wanted to respond to the last post by Linda. On a lighter note, I loved An Equal Music, but I had no idea there was a CD to go with it!

I finished this compelling book today, and I've written a full review in my reading list thread here. One thing I forgot to mention - I loved the Author's Note in the back, with the list of music featured in the book, as I'll definitely be looking them up. I actually listened to a CD of Beethoven: Piano Sonata's 22, 23, 24, 25 and 26, as well as the soundtrack to the film, "The Hours" and both suited the mood of the book beautifully.

You're welcome, Linda. It really was a compelling read. I'm just a fusspot when it comes to typefaces (as you'll probably remember from my review of Star Gazing), and it certainly didn't spoil the book, just slightly irritating. The family tree would definitely not be appropriate to put in the book, but making a note of it to start with helped me remember who they all were! As for Flora, I just felt sensation of hurting leapt of the page, whether it was dull throbbing ache or a sharp stabbing pain.

Thanks, Gyre. I hope you like it as much as I did.

I finished A Lifetime Burning by Linda Gillard today, and what a gripping read it was. A difficult subject matter, which I felt was dealt with very honestly, but an absolutely fascinating read. Unusually for me, I loved how the timeframe was constantly changing between the different periods of the characters lives, giving snapshots and glimpses of the events of the plot out of sequence, but always relevant to the part of the story that was being related. Often when a writer uses this structure, I find it confusing or just plain irritating, but here it was very successful. There is also a mixture of third person and first person narrative, and I loved Flora's sections immensely, which were direct and succinct, but always with the undercurrent, and sometimes outright, expression of her never ending torment. I did have to read the prologue twice at the beginning because after the first reading, I realised all the characters had very short, and sometimes similar, names, and I was confused with the relationships, so during the second reading, I made a little family tree to remind me who was who. Having said that, after reading about another hundred or so pages, I was then familiar with them all, and was able to discard it, but it did help initially. I did have a couple of minor gripes with the book layout. Firstly, when Flora was telling her story, a sans serif font was used, but it was too faint, and I found that unless I was reading under a very bright light, it was difficult to make out the text. The other thing was that for some reason, the space between the bottom of the text and the page number varied quite a lot, sometimes it looked like a couple of lines of text were missing and I found it very distracting. I thought it might be because a new section was about to start, but sometimes it was in the middle of a sentence, so there was no apparent reason for it. Going back to the book itself, I thought it was a very absorbing read. As I've mentioned (but don't want to give away what it is) the subject matter is a very difficult one, but at no time did I find it horrific or abhorrent, and I felt it was written candidly and sensitively, and felt nothing but compassion for the characters and their difficult lives.

Hello Well, you've come to the right place then, as this forum is seriously addictive, and you'll need to be prepared for your book wishlist to increase exponentially as you pick up all the recommendations! Have fun!

Sorry, Roxi, I was too busy being mature and sensible, and doing the washing up! Oh, and as I need to stay on topic, since I finished another re-read of New Moon yesterday as well as a first time read of Midnight Sun, I was getting Eclipse out ready for my bedtime reading tonight. I'm always eager to get to Eclipse because it's my favourite of the books. I don't usually read in bed, because it tires me out and I can't remember what I've read in the morning, but I don't mind reading these books, as I know them so well, it doesn't matter if I fall asleep and forget exactly which part I was on!

Don't let Roxi tell you off it's good to embrace your inner teenager occasionally - it keeps you young! Besides, if she's telling you two off, she'd have to include me as well, as I'm supposed to be a mature, sensible woman as well (although I have spent most the nearly twenty years since I was a teenager trying to deny that!)

I'm not sure what Michelle means ... surely you have come to your senses by succumbing to the lure of the Twilight world? I'd forgotten all about Midnight Sun until it was mentioned earlier in the thread, so I read it yesterday evening - definitely worth a look to get another fix of Twilight.

Hello

There's already a thread on this book here.

The Dunbar's are a good looking family - even the old ones - and massed in black, as they are now, impressive. A Lifetime Burning - Linda Gillard

No, don't read anything into it ... it's a completely opinion free comment. I didn't want to give you any clue as to what I was thinking so that you still had no preconceived ideas.

The Post Office Girl - Stefan Zweig

Kell, I totally understand why you loved Milady - I thought Dumas wrote an incredibly vivid portrayal of her with a very in depth look at the workings of her mind, and it was great to see such strength in the female characters in general in the book. Chimera, I didn't realise there were sequels to this story, but I think I'll stick with The Count of Monte Cristo first, and if I'm still thirsty for more after that, then I'll maybe look up some more Musketeer action!

The Girl at the Lion D'Or - Sebastian Faulks