France

I love lots of wierd and random books but I don't want to go anywhere near Alice. I have the same feeling about Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye to the extent that I couldn't read any of her books for about 10 years afterwards.

One of the great thing about having children is that you get to re-read all your favourite books! And it's such a thrill when they pick up on a book you just adored but haven't told them you did, andyou also get to share in the new children's authors. Funnily enough even though I kept quiet about how much I hated Alice in Wonderland (read once when I was 8 and never again), all 3 of them detest it too.

Green Dolphin Street - Elizabeth Gouge

Green Dolphin Street - Elizabeth Gouge

A Madness of Sunshine is a murder mystery set in New Zealand which I downloaded because the reviews promised brilliant scene setting. They're right there, the sense of place is incredible but sadly the story is an absolute mess. Nalani Singh is a very successful romance writer but seems to know little about suspense plotting, or I suspect, about the way the police operate. It doesn't feel real, however if you want to read something that will give an idea of just how beautiful New Zealand is then it's worth giving this book a go. Ink & Sigil is the first in a new series from Kevin Hearne, the author of the Iron Druid series. Al MacBharrais is a sigil agent in Glasgow under a curse that makes anyone he speaks to for too long hate him so he has to communicate by text, nonetheless he still manages to do his job of basicially separating the worlds of faerie and humans and making sure they don't cross over illeagally. It's set in the same world as the Iron Druid books though Atticus and Oberon only have a very brief walk on part, it's written with a very light touch and I enjoyed it thoroughly. If you haven't read any of the Iron Druid books I recommend those, they are huge fun and there's an irresistable telepathic Irish woldhound.

The Crimson Petal and the White - Michel Faber

Two easy reads but hugely enjoyable that I finished this week (going through nearly a book a day at the moment) are A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik about a school for magic users where the object is to stay alive long enough to graduate. It's YA but this far from being YA loved it. The other is Ayesha At Last which I'd have never read if I hadn't seen it praised to the hilt on several book blogs. It's a Moslem rom-com set in Toronto based pretty loosely on Pride and Prejudice. Though it's not perfect, there are a couple of really obvious steotypes, t's fresh, funny, zips along at a terrific pace and is a bit of an eye opêner too.

20, some of them have been very short and I'm obsessively reading at the moment, nothing too tough. I think it's a climb down from several weeks of high stress - my husband had a stroke at Christmas and though we knew he should make a full recovery he wsn't an easy patient!

I just discovered, buried deep in my unread collection on my Kobo, Eve In Hollywood, a novella sized series of short stories about Eve from the Rules of Civility. It's utterly charming and well worth getting hold of if you can. According to Goodreads he withdrew it in 2016 so he could expand the stories into a novel but apparently it is still available legally on some sites. All I know is that I must have downloaded it from Kobo sometime in 2018/19.

I've read 50 on the list, and maybe a few more, I can't remember if I've actually read them or just talked about them with people who have. I read The Wind in the Willows and Alice in Wonderland when I was 8. It annoys me when these lists include Shakespeare's plays because though a lot of people are familair with Hamlet and Macbeth it's because they've studied them at school or seen the plays, not because they've picked them up voluntarily. Likewise with the lists that include "the Bible", my bible knowledge is pretty good due to having an amazing strip cartoon bible when I was a child and stories like Daniel in the lions' den are fantastic in cartoon form! I've never met anyone though who has genuinely read the whole bible (maybe some theological students do).

I have a feeling that I'm about to give up on The Second Sleep. I normally love Robert Harris's writing (who else can make the election of a pope exciting?) but I'm 200 pages in and it still hasn't caught my interest. Anyone else read it and think it's worth keeping on with?

Fun is exactly the word to describe the Thursday Murder Club. Not deep or meaningful but thoroughly enjoyable. I do hope they don't turn it into a TV series, light hearted books seem to become leaden when translated to the screen.

I don't just start twitching if I don't have something to read at hand, I need to have a sufficiently large TBR pile just in case there's ever a shortage of books. Paper as well as on the ereader - the electricity might go off for several days and I wouldn't be able to charge the Kobo.

I suppose that means I took part too as i did exactly the same (thoroughly enjoyed it too).

Whaaaay! Price had dropped this morning, it's in my library!

Usually, but not always and they can take a bit of time to catch up. For instance Kindle had Ayesha at Last on special in December, the price dropped on Kobo yesterday! Kobo doesn't always list price matches in their special deals section so I put put anything I'm tracking in my wish list and monitor the price there.

Kindle UK has Where the Crawdads Sing for 99p today.

Of course, I'd always wanted a black cat too but we already had two and three seemed a bit of a crowd.

My daughter found him abandoned in the woods when he was about 7 weeks old. I thought we'd be able to find him a home as he's so beautiful and nicknamed him Kevin the Kitten, by the time we realised the French won't adopt black cats the name had stuck!

The Frey and McGray books look huge fun, added to my wish list. Sadly the first one is full price on Kobo even though they claim to match Kindle prices, I shall keep a beady watch.

I listened to her latest book about 10 days ago - an excellent listen, very well paced though to be honest the plot didn't hang together as well as her previous books. If you like Austrailian noir I'd recommend Chris Hammer, absolutely brilliant. Just finished his latest. Start with Scrublands, it's the beginning of a series.

If anyone has a Kobo there are two versions of Richard Osman's book listed - one under his full name at £9.99, the other one under Osman Osman for £3.80. Must be a mistake which they'll rectify soon.

Print/Kindle 1. Begin Again - Ursula Orange **** 2. A Single Thread - Tracy Chevalier ****1/2 3. The Left Handed Booksellers - Garth Nix**** 4. The Sixteen Trees of the Somme - Lars Mitterling ***** 5. All The Ever Afters - Danielle Teller DNF 6 The Last Painting of Sara de Voss -Dominic Smith **** 7. The Burning Jane Casey **** 8. Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout ****1/2 9. Snow Song - Sally Gardner ***1/2 10. Trust -Chris Hammer ****1/2 11. On Chapel Sands - Laura Cummings ****1/2 12. The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman ***** 13. The Second Sleep - Robert Harris 14. Closed for Winter - Jorn Lier Horst *** 15. Eve in Hollywood - Amor Towles ***** 16; Olive Again - Elizabeth Strout ***** 17. A Deadly Education - Naomi Novik****1/2 18. Ayesha Again - Uzma Jaluddin ****1/2 19. The Unfinished Clue - Georgette Heyer ***1/2 20. Tales from the Folly - Ben Aaronovitch **** 21. The Mystery of Henri Pick ** 22. The Religious Body - Catherine Aird *** 23. A Madness of Sunshone - Nalini Singh **1/2 24.Ink & Sigil - Kevin Hearne **** 25. The Strings of Murder - Oscar de Muriel **** 26. The Queen of Bloody Everything - Joanna Nadin ****1/2 27. The Grove of the Caesars - Lindsay Davis ****1/2 28. I Am, I Am, I Am - Maggie O'Farrell ***** 29. Troubled Blood - Robert Galbraith ***** 30. Three Women and a Boat - Anna Youngsen ***1/2 31. Pulpit Rock - Kate Rhodes **** 32. After the Fire - Jo Spain **** 33. Writers and Lovers - Lily King ****1/2 34. The Giver of Stars - Jojo Moyes ****1/2 35. Normal People - Sally Rooney ****1/2 36. The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective - Susanna Stapelton **** 37. The Lost Future of Pepperharrow - Natasha Pulley ***** 38. MI5 and Me - Charlotte Bingham ****1/2 39. The Most Fun We Ever Had - Claire Lombardo ***1/2 40. The Penguin Lessons - Tom Mitchell ****1/2 41. Fanny Burney: Her Life - Kate Chisholm **** 42. Spies and Stars - Charlotte Bingham *** 43. The Tropic of Serpents - Marie Brennan **** 44. Abide With Me - Elizabeth Strout ***** 45. The Whole Truth - Cara Hunter **** 46. Jane Austen at Home - Lucy Worsley ****1/2 47 The Fire Court - Andrew Taylor **** 48. Euphoria - Lily King **** 49. A Country Road, A Tree - Jo Baker ****1/2 50. The Darkest Evening - Ann Cleeves ****1/2 51. She Lies in Wait - Gytha Lodge ** 52. The Killing Season - Mson Cross**** 53. The Midnight Queen - Sylvia Hunter ****1/2 54. The Fifth Season - N K Jemisin ***** 55. Close to Home - Cara Hunter ***** 56. Dog days - Ericka Waller ** 57. Bordeaux, Private Eye - Rorie Smith *** 58. The Miseducation of Evie Epworth ****1/2 59. The Great Alone - Kirsten Hannah *** (just) 60. The Kingdoms - Natasha Pulley +++++ 61. The Summer Book - Tove Jansson not sure. 62. The Water Clock - Jim Kelly ++++1/2 63. Wild Strawberries - Angela Thirkell ++ Behind Closed Doors - B A Paris - abandoned 64. Confusion - Elizabeth Jane Howard ++++ 65. Casting Off - Elizabeth Jane Howard ++++ - both r/r for book club 66. The Widows of Malabar Hill - Sujata Massey ++++1/2 67. Beach Read - Emelie Henry ++ 68. V2 - Robert Harris ++++1/2 69. Ask Again, Yes - Mary Beth Keane ++++ 70. The Perfect Lie - Jo Spain +++++ 71. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - N K Jemisin ++++1/2 72. The Bedlam Stacks - Natasha Pulley +++++ 73. Big Summer - Jennifer Weiner ++ 74. A Town Called Solace - Mary Lawson +++++ 75. Lady of Devices - Shelly Adina +++1/2 76. Lady of Magic - Sylvia Hunter ++++ 77. One More Croissant for the Road - Felicity Cloake +++ 78. The Night Raven - Sarah Painter +++ 79. The Dictionary of Lost Word - Pip Williams ++++ 80. Mother May I? - Joshilyn Jackson +++++for first 5/6, ++ for last 1/6 81. The Reckoning - Jane casey ++++1/2 82. The Samaritan - Mason Cross ++++1/2 83. Missing Pieces - Tim Weaver ++ 84. Writing Jane Austen - Elizabeth Aston +++ 85. 1971, Never A Dull Moment - David Hepworth ++++1/2 86. Kindred - Octavia E Butler 87. The Third Girl - Jane Casey ++++ 88. Ghosting - Jennie Erdal ++++1/2 89 The Stranger You Know - Jane Casey ++++ 90. The Kill - Jane Casey ++++ 91. Manhattan Beach - Jennifer Egan +++1/2 92. The Art of Dying - Ambrose Parry +++1/2 94. Small Spaces - Katherine Arden ++++ 95. Anything is Possible - Elizabeth Strout +++++ 96. The Firebird - Susanna Kearsley +++1/2 97. No Way Out - Cara Hunteer ++++ 98. The Last Thing He Told Me - Laura Dave ++++1/2 99. Anxious People - Frederick Backman ++++1/2 100. Early Morning Riser - Katherine Heiny ++++ 101. The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym- Paula Byrne ++++1/2 102. Ninth House - Leigh Bardugo ++++1/2 103. Getting Rid of Bradley - Jennifer Crusie ++++ 104. Sorcery and Cecilia - Patricia Wrede & Caroline Steventon ++++1/2 105. A Master of Djinn - P Djeli Clark ++++ 106. Love After Love - Ingrid Persaud +++++ 107. Darkness Fall - Robert Bryndza ++++1/2 108. Devil's Table - Kate Rhodes ++++1/2 109. Property - Valerie Martin 110. Small Pleasures - Clare Chambers +++1/2 111. The Girl in the Ice - Robert Bryndza +++ Audio books The Rules of Magic - Alice Hoffman **** The Survivors - Jane Harper ****1/2 The Accusers - Lindsay Davies **** The Postscript Murders - Elly Griffiths retruned See Delphi And Die - Lindsay Davies **** A Room with a View - E M Forster (read by Emilia Fox) La Belle Sauvage _ Phillip Pullman***** Deep Secret - Diana Wynne Jones ***** The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue - V Swarb - returned due to infuriating historical inacuracies which really started to grate. Brazil - Michael Palin ****1/2 The Night Circus - Erin Morganstern ***** Birds, Beasts and Relatives - Gerald Durrell **** The Huntress - Kate Quinn ***** narrator, ** story Miss benson's Beetle - Rachel Joyce ++++ Erebus - Michael Palin The Seventh Sinner - Elizabeth Peters ++++ Unholy Harmonies - Elizabeth Aston ++++ The Enchanted April - Elizabeth von Arnim +++++ Cranford - Mrs Gaskell +++++ Die for Love - Elizabeth Peters ++++ Children of Chance - Elizabeth Aston ++++ The World, The Flesh and the Bishop - Elizabeth Aston ++++ Volcanic Airs - " " Unaccustomed Spirits " " Elizabeth and her German Garden - Elizabeth Von Armim +++++ Troubled Blood - Robert Galbraith +++++ Good Omens - Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman ++++1/2 The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman +++++ The Telephone Box on the Edge of the World ++++ Miss Mapp -E H Benson ++++1/2 Poseidon's Gold - Lindsay Davis ++++ 1/2 Her Husband's Secret - Liane Moriaty

I really enjoyed the first two (both reading and listening to them) but have got stuck on this one. I think it's partially because it's so long, too long, I think she's being rather self indulgent, and also because I know what happened to Cromwell and don't really want to have to live through it by reading it.

Hi Meg and Madeleine, I'm Viccie on BGO (can't remember why I've got two different names!)