vodkafan

Thanks bobblybear. It's been ages since we had a chat. To be honest most of those books in my "random must reads" list have been there for over a year and I have in some cases forgotten what it was that attracted me to them. Alone in Berlin is one of them. Must go and read the blurb again. Happy New Year!

OK open for business

TBR Short Short List I decided that I could make a good start on the reading year by finishing off all the books I have already started but then left off. To this I have added a few that I want to to bump up the list that folks are always recommending me. Started: Wuthering Heights Afterglow Of Creation Life In Victorian Britain Kursk The Keys Of Egypt London The Biography Destined To Be Wives The sisters of Beatrice Webb The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins What Remains To Be Discovered Bump Ups: The Victorians Britain Through the paintings of the age Woman On The Edge Of Time Journey Through A Small Planet Of Mice And Men Oryx And Crake To Kill A Mockingbird

The TBR Pile organised! Victorian authors, obscure works and classics The Poor Gentleman Hendrick Conscience Two On A Tower The Return Of The Native A Laodician A Pair Of Blue Eyes Jude The Obscure The Woodlanders Far From The Madding Crowd all above by The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy Post Haste RM Ballantyne Autobiography Of Anthony Trollope Lady Anna Miss Mackenzie 4 above by The Way We Live Now Anthony Trollope Twelve Years A Slave Solomon Northup Letters Of Two Brides Balzac Birds Of Prey Charlotte's Inheritance Run To Earth A Novel The Doctor's Wife Lady Audley's Secret Mary Elizabeth Braddon Little Dorrit Charles Dickens The Mill On The Floss Madame Bovary Tess of The d'urbervilles Lady Susan Thoughts On The Education Of Daughters The Last Man Maria, Or The Wrongs Of Woman Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman The Perpetual Curate The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Equality Looking Backward 2000-1887 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Picture Of Dorian Grey Oscar Wilde Nicholas Nickleby Charles Dickens The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow Washington Irvine Little Women Louisa May Alcott Shirley Bleak House The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde The Moonstone The Woman In White Ruth The Importance Of Being Earnest Basil Les Miserables Wuthering Heights Mrs Oliphant Confessions Of An English Opium Eater Thomas De Quincey Testament Of Youth Vera Brittain Books set in Victorian times by modern authors Under A Cloud-Soft Sky The Singing Winds Shelter From The Storm Snow Angels Sweet Thames Matthew Kneale Pure - Andrew Miller The Road To Samarcand Patrick O'Brian Reference works and 18th-19th century history, social history London The Biography Peter Ackroyd The Siege Of Krishnapur J.G. Farrell The Victorians AN Wilson The Dictionary Of London Raj Lawrence James The Age of Revolution 1789-1848 The Age Of Capital 1848-1875 The Age Of Empire 1875-1914 Slavery A New Global History Jeremy Black The Warrior Queens Antonia Fraser Balti Britain - Ziauddin Sardar The Victorians Jeremy Paxman Life In Victorian Britain a social history Michael Paterson Asians In Britain 400 years of History Rozina Visram Random must reads Nice To See It To See It Nice Brian Viner It's A Small Medium And Outsize World John Taylor Cut Like Wound Anita Nair (signed copy, paperback printed in India!) Connections Rules For Virgins The Life And Loves Of A She Devil The Passion Of New Eve The Haunted Hotel Ten Interesting Things About Human Behaviour Slave Girl Sarah Forsyth (autobiography) The Man Who Loved Only Numbers Paul Hoffman (biography of Paul Erdos) The White Mists Of Power Kristine Kathryn Rusch Blitz The Civilian War 1940-45 Jane Waller Michael Vaughn-Rees (war memoir) I Think I'm OK Undercover: The True Story Of Britain's Secret Police King Solomon's Carpet Barbara Vine A Far Cry From Kensington Muriel Spark Capital John Lanchester Good Behaviour Molly Keane Miss Peregrine's Home For Unusual Children - Ransom Riggs Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood Stephanie Plum series 9-20 - Janet Evanovitch Forgotten Voices of the Blitz Joshua Levine One Day David Nichols Geisha Liza Dalby In The Heart Of The Sea Nathanial Philbrick Spycatcher Peter Wright The Midnight Palace Carlos Ruiz Zafon Ways Of Seeing John Berger Gunners On Tour Maurice Court Mother Tongue Bill Bryson Rivers Of London Ben Aaronovitch The Horse Whisperer Nicholas Evans The German Invasion Of Norway Geirr H Haarr Accidents In The Home Tessa Hadley Devoted Ladies Molly Keane A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck Lord Of The Flies William Golding Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier Untying The Knot Linda Gillard One of Our Thursdays Is Missing, Thursday Next First Among Sequels, Something Rotten, The Well Of Lost Plots, Lost In A Good Book, The Eyre Affair Jasper Fforde Life Of Pi - Yann Martel The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson Alone In Berlin The Terror Round the Bend The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins Two Eggs On My Plate Oluf Reed Olsen Infidel Ayaan Hirsi Ali Nerd Do Well Simon Pegg Forensic Clues To Murder Brian Marriner Bad Blood Lorna Sage The Voyage Out Virginia Woolf The Book Of The Dead Journey Through A Small Planet Emanuel Litvenoff The Other Side Of The Dale Gervaise Phinn SF Out Of Time-Five tales of Time Travel Strange Loops The Time Travel Megapack The Martian Way Isaac Asimov The Green Brain Frank Herbert The Steampunk megapack (26 stories) Viridis Lady Of Devices A Steampunk Adventure Steampunk Erotica Best New SF 25 Meeting At Infinity John Brunner Foundation Isaac Asimov The Naked Sun Isaac Asimov Of All Possible Worlds William Tenn The Makeshift Rocket Poul Anderson Life The Universe and Everything More Than Super-Human AE VAN Vogt

Welcome to my 2016 reading blog, which you may notice is very much the same as last year. Like last year, no reading challenges just a mass of books on my TBR to get through. Reviews are found buried in the folowing pages: sorry if that is confusing to anybody, I haven't mastered the link thingy yet. (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! Last year my reading was in the doldrums. I plan to do much better this year especially with my reviews! Books Read In 2016 January The Victorians A.N. Wilson 5/5 ® Life In Victorian Britain A social history Michael Paterson 4/5 ® In The Year Of Jubilee George Gissing (reread) 5/5 (k) Journey Through A Small Planet Emanuel Litvinoff 4/5 Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte 4/5 (k) The Afterglow Of Creation Marcus Chown 2/5 Of Mice And Men John Steinbeck 4/5 (k) February Eye Frank Herbert 1/5 The Victorians Britain Through The Paintings of The Age Jeremy Paxman 2/5 ® Destined To Be Wives The Sisters of Beatrice Webb Barbara Caine 2/5 ® Wayward Women Female Offending In Victorian England Lucy Williams 3/5 ® March The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins 5/5 Railway To The Grave (Railway Detective 4) Edward Marston 3/5 Kursk Lloyd Clark 4/5 The Yard Alex Grecian 3/5 2/5 (downgraded) The Keys Of Egypt Lesley and Roy Adkins 5/5 Capturing Jack The Ripper Neil R A Bell 5/5 April Useful Toil Edited by Prof John Burnett. 4/5 May The Maid's Tale Rose Plummer/Tom Quinn (re-read) Rite Of Passage Alexi Panshin 4/5 Mother Tongue Bill Bryson 4/5 June The Man Who Was Thursday GK Chesterton 2/5 The Diary Of A Nobody George and Weedon Grossmith 4/5 The Crowded Street Winifrid Holtby 4/5 July What Remains To Be Discovered John Maddox 4/5 The Zulu War 3/5 The British Army On Campaign 1856-1881 Micheal Barthorp 2/5 The British Army On Campaign 1882- 1902 Micheal Barthorp 2/5 British Infantryman In South Africa 1877-1881 Ian Castle 2/5 August Made In America Bill Bryson 4/5 The Last Castle Jack Vance 5/5 Seahorse In The Sky Edmund Cooper 1/5 Rifleman Victor Gregg 3/5 Chariots Of Fire W J Weatherby 2/5 September Bedford Square Anne Perry 3/5 House Of Silk Antony Horowitz 4/5 The Long Farewell Don Charlwood 4/5 October The Passenger Lisa Lutz 5/5 The Midnight Palace Carlos Ruiz Zafon 1/5 November Sweet Thames Matthew Neale 5/5 December

This is something I completely did not expect from you Michelle! The Neil Gaiman books sound very interesting. I had no idea he had collaborated on graphic novels.

Now you have got me wondering what Bill Bryson's voice sounds like....

Hi Kylie Its a mash up of all the Dickens characters into ONE story DON'T read the episode list!! Spoilers!! Unless you want to of course here's a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickensian_(TV_series)

I watched the first part of And Then There Were None, and I watched an animated film with the kids The Croods during the afternoon. We were playing board games when the Dickensian thing was on but it has been recorded for another time.

Looking back, I am surprised too. I did both English and English Literature at O level. After searching my memory banks I recalled that we DID study Romeo and Juliet. But we didn't read the parts aloud in class to each other. We never went on any theatre trips though and I never saw a play performed on stage until years later.

I think it is a good idea. The positives outweigh the negatives by a long shot. Sadly when I was at school this was not part of the English curriculum and there was no drama department either, a teacher tried to start one in his own time as an after school activity but it didn't last.

I have gone off this series. I used to like it but I think it has now jumped the shark. Scenarios looking a bit old and tired.

I just got back from watching Star Wars 7. It was a spur of the moment thing to keep Big Son company. I give it 4 out of 10. I judge this as a kids film but was not as engaging to the emotions as for instance Zathura or Spiderwick Chronicles One thing I found interesting and a bit spooky. The young female character is like Keira Knightly but with facial expressions. That was Uncanny Valley.

Seen Star Wars 7 this morning. I give it 4/10.

We should perhaps call you Onion Bumpy...OK that was poor I know....

I do too! I never thought about it before, but I do in fact do this "processing " thing and have always been unconscious about it until now. Thanks for bringing up the subject Athena.

Having seen the 4 hour DVD first, (and 3 times since) which is a fantastic piece of TV, I was slightly disappointed with the book, as I wrote somewhere else on another thread.

I would like to see a version that is faithful to the book. Thanks for the heads up raven!

I like Jeanette Winterson's writing so I will look out for The Passion thanks. Is Maurice set pre WW1 by any chance?

This is the new one with Carey Mulligan yes? How was it?

Not familiar with that one but maybe someone here will know it.

Small Son and I were on our own last night so we watched Unleashed with Jet Li and Bob Hoskins. I had not seen it before and I enjoyed it.

Welcome! 3 books a week is a terrific reading rate.

I have this one on a shelf it seemed intriguing but haven't read it yet. Is it good?

Watched Gettysburg again last night. Just felt in the mood to watch a man film.