vodkafan
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Posts posted by vodkafan
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22 hours ago, Hayley said:
Okay, as it has been a week now, I'd like to make a second suggestion!
Challenge Suggestion 5: Read something from a Victorian periodical (non-fiction, short fiction, serialised novels and poems all count). Here's a link to all the periodicals edited by Dickens, in case anybody wants to have a browse before deciding: Welcome to DJO .
That website seems a great resource, and it would be easy to dip in and read a bit from any of those. I would certainly take up that challenge as well as a bigger one or two
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Challenge Suggestion 6: A memoir or life story of a Victorian person, not necessarily famous...
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I really have to start doing some reviews...
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Sorry been out of it for a few days. I haven't really put any thought in yet , I just saw Lady Audley's Secret mentioned and knew it was a well known example of the genre.
The book I was going to put forward was A Victorian Family 1870-1900 by Molly Hughes but that was before I saw the categories, and it won't fit any of those mentioned, being a memoir. (and it is a trilogy!)
Back to the drawing board...
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Thanks Angury and Andrea. It's ramping up slowly.
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I'm in by the way
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I second Lady Audley's Secret! That is supposed to be the most shocking sensation novel of it's time. And I doubt any of us have read it yet.
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Has anybody else read this yet? Reading Daughter bought it for me and I read it in one day, I enjoyed it very much. Totally different to Strange and Norrell.
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Spare post
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spare post
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The Girl Who Wasn't There by Kirk Slater 1/5
This was the book that was funded on the Kickstarter platform, way back before the Pandemic hit us.
It is only fair I have to separate the actual book review and my experience of the Kickstarter. I went for the Full Monty reward which included some sort of an extra, large Limited Edition book which I think was illustrated with maps or something? I cannot now say, because I never received it.
The actual paperback came, and I think an email notification from Kickstarter that the other package was on it's way. But, a pandemic was on and my mind was on other things like keeping our family safe. So, by the time I realised that the Limited Edition had never arrived, months had gone by and it was too late to do anything about it.
I forget now exactly how much I paid up front to the Kickstarter, but it was very, very expensive for the slim paperback that was all I got.
For sure I will never buy a book this way again.
Having said all that, Whatever went wrong with Kickstarter, the book is going to be judged on it's own merits.
So, much later I actually picked up the book and hoped for something good.
Unfortunately, the book was a very big disappointment. The writing was pretty bad. The characters didn't make any sense or achieve any life in my head at all. The plot just seemed to be recycled from bits of popular ghost films (and at the end had very big nonsensical holes in it you could drive a horse and carriage through.)
The research was poor. For instance at one point the Housekeeper tells the servant girl to get sheets from the "Lining cupboard" and this word is actually used twice. It should obviously be linen cupboard.
Then the main character of the servant girl got completely destroyed when the author had her use the expression "she could care less". Of course no English person would ever use that expression; it being a very modern American derivative corruption of "could not care less." . Again, poor research that stopped me getting into the mind of the main character.
So, I didn't like it.
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Welcome to my very late 2021 Reading List!
(k) denotes kindle ebook
® denotes book read primarily for research purposes
keeping the same simple rating system this year:
1/5: I didn't like it
2/5: It was okay
3/5: I liked it
4/5: I really liked it
5/5: It was amazing!BOOKS READ IN JANUARY
Zero
BOOKS READ IN FEBRUARY
Zilch
BOOKS READ IN MARCH
Nada
BOOKS READ IN APRIL
Naff All
BOOKS READ IN MAY
Piranesi Susanna Clarke 4/5
BOOKS READ IN JUNE
The Girl Who Wasn't There Kirk Slater 1/5
The Time Keeper Mitch Albom 2/5
Rorke's Drift and Isandlwana 1879 A Battlefield Guide Chris Peers 2/5
Orange is The New Black Piper Kerman 3/5
BOOKS READ IN JULY
Magikind George Bakerson 3/5
Small Pleasures Clare Chambers 2/5
BOOKS READ IN AUGUST
The Triumphs of Eugene Valment Robert Barr 4/5
Young Miles Lois Macmaster Bujold 3/5
BOOKS READ IN SEPTEMBER
Once Upon A River Diane Setterfield 3/5
Self-Made Man Norah Vincent (re-read)
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I would go to Norway to hike about in the mountains above a fjord and at night would camp so I could sit by my fire and look out over the water and think my thoughts.....and of course to look for trolls.
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On 8/8/2020 at 3:34 PM, Chrissy said:
Hey VF. How's things? A funny old year for all things I think, including reading.
Hi Chrissy, it certainly is. Hope you and family are well?
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Even with extensive accurate research, It's incredibly difficult to convey the feeling of being in Victorian times; some quite successful authors (in my opinion) have failed utterly and their novels feel like a stage play set in modern times. Do you think you have avoided that?
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My question got answered already! Kirk I can see you have put a lot of effort into the research. This tunnel book sounds like something I must have as well!
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Do we get to ask him questions?
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Oh My Garsh….what's happened to my reading? I have hardly read a thing in months.
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48 minutes ago, Hayley said:
Is it because you have so much choice now or is nothing grabbing your attention at the moment? Either way I hope you find one to settle on! What are you reading at the moment?
Started five or six.....In The Cage by Henry James, She Looks Just Like You by Amie Klempnauer, Life As A Victorian Lady, One Of The 28th A Tale Of Waterloo, by G A Henty, Whoops by John Lanchester, The House Of Cobwebs by George Gissing; and one treebook, The Butterfly House
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Having a kindle again is doing weird things to my reading discipline...I can't seem to stay on one book, I keep jumping from one book to another after half an hour...hopefully this will wear off soon.
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Yes. It's also set in the same time period.
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The Five sounds very worth a read. My daughter at school has been researching Annie Chapman for a dramatic play they are doing, I am sure she would also find this interesting.
Just out of curiosity, has the author any connection to Jake Rubenhold?
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I felt the same way about Normal People and agreed with a lot of your review , but I still felt a little bad for Marianne at the end.
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The Salt Path sounds sad but good.
Victober
in Reading Challenges
Posted
Interesting comments coming out! And I haven't even got started yet! Been sidetracked by matters medical and practical.
Lady Audley's Secret sounds great. And also I thought I had read Dracula before but I don't remember actually reading it the way I can recall other books;
so maybe I have just absorbed the basic plot through all the various films. In that case I MUST read it for this challenge!