vodkafan

Where am I at the moment.....I am half way through at least five books....I stopped reading Game Of Thrones because my friend hasn't been reading Lyonesse, which was his end of the bargain. He told me yesterday he was going to start reading it again so I may finish GOT soon..still reading New Grub Street and a couple of others too

Sorry dtr I only just saw your last post! Actually I still haven't bought it yet. I forgot about it for a long while then went to the website and grabbed a load of photos from the galleries only last week...I think I will soon buy it. There is going to be a third series but I am not sure BBC are doing it , they might have sold it on.

Thanks Willoyd! I defineitely want this year to nail those classics you have mentioned...very soon I will have to read Elizabeth Gaskill's North And South. I enjoyed the TV four part dramatization very much because it tackles so many political issues and also sympathetically shows both sides. It seems incredible that at the time Charles Dickens (her editor) hardly considered it worthy of publication at all!

Ooh I wouldn't have started with New Grub Street..the poverty is a bit unrelenting at the moment..he does like to put his characters through the mill and no-one is safe..which I do like because of the four Gissings I have read I could not predict how they would end.

I got an idea for your TBR pile....do what the government does with unpleasant figures it wants to ignore...you can hide them like so: Look through your pile and separate them into ones that have been on there only 1 year (jan 2014) and the rest from before 2014 don't count! Another way is to look through nominate the ones you are really itching to get to (urgent must-read list) and relegate the others to "when I get to them"

Good start Alex! Your blog is one that I learned to keep an eye on last year... what did you think of The Five People You Meet In Heaven? I am half way through GOT book 1 by the way....

Thanks BSchultz...I am a bit nervous of Rebecca....

Thanks Claire! That Ali Smith book is another I am half way through..it's in my locker at work.. be interested to hear your thoughts

Thanks Noll I have actually read Perfume already years back but I bought another copy to read it again

Hi Kylie, yes about 60% kindle books. I am actually half way through New Grub Street. At the moment the plot is still developing, but The Odd Women and The Unclassed by the same author will be hard to beat, they were so good. I haven't got to any of the steampunk books yet.

Thanks everyone! I didn't realise people had been posting. It's really interesting to see that lots of the classics are very much liked by many.

Seen this 3 times now. So quirky. Yet I could not even sit all the way through that Darjeeling Railway thing he did. So boring.

Is it based on any true characters? Even a little bit?

I saw The Godfather! I have always avoided watching any of those Italian/American gangster movies. But I turned on the TV and it was on and I quite enjoyed it. I didn't even recognise Al Pacino till half way into the film, he looked so young.

Hi Kate . have a great reading year. I will look in and read your reviews

Well that's it it's all over. Only 44 books read in 2014. I have shamefully neglected this book log to boot.

Ok I guess I am open for business

Ah here is a bit of a new thing (stolen from Willoyd) It's an (edited) list of my top-rated books from the last two years. Only two years because I didn't start rating books until 2013. I may cheat later on and weigh up my reads from previous years and grant them a rating in hindsight. I felt I had to edit the list because looking back I could not understand why I rated one or two of them so highly; (the Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry springs to mind) and also I felt I can't be objective about Jack Vance ( as I am such a fanboy) so I took out all his. It pains me that some great books I rated just below top marks and so I couldn't include them when I feel now should have. So, in the end I don't really know what point I am trying to make with this list ; but, you may hopefully agree with some of my choices as good reads . Running With Scissors Augusten Burroughs (autobiography) The Odd Women George Gissing The Unclassed George Gissing In The Year Of Jubilee George Gissing How To Be A Victorian Ruth Goodman 1888- London Murders In The Year Of The Ripper Peter Stubley The Book Thief Girl Meets Boy Ali Smith Girl, Interrupted Suzanna Kayson Small Island Andrea Levy Flowers For Algernon Nineteen Seventy-Nine Rhona Cameron (autobiography) London In The Nineteenth Century Jerry White Jonathon Strange And Mr Norrell

My TBR pile London The Biography Peter Ackroyd £2.81 incl. postage Amazon Air Geoff Ryman 30p Choke Chuck Palahniuk 30p There But For The Ali Smith 30p Nice To See It To See It Nice Brian Viner 30p A Life's Morning The Crown Of Life Eve's Ransom Our Friend The Charlaton Will Warburton The Private Papers Of Henry Ryecroft The Emancipated The Whirlpool The Paying Guest Denzil Quarrier The Town Traveller Born In Exile Demos all above by The House Of Cobwebs and other stories George Gissing free for kindle The Poor Gentleman Hendrick Conscience free for kindle 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 free for kindle Post Haste RM Ballantyne free for kindle Autobiography Of Anthony Trollope Lady Anna Miss Mackenzie 4 above by The Way We Live Now Anthony Trollope free for kindle Twelve Years A Slave Solomon Northup 49p kindle Letters Of Two Brides Balzac free for kindle Birds Of Prey Charlotte's Inheritance Run To Earth A Novel The Doctor's Wife Lady Audley's Secret Mary Elizabeth Braddon free for kindle It's A Small Medium And Outsize World John Taylor Cut Like Wound Anita Nair (signed copy, paperback printed in India!) Little Dorrit Charles Dickens The Mill On The Floss Madame Bovary Connections Rules For Virgins Tess of The d'urbervilles Lady Susan Out Of Time-Five tales of Time Travel The Life And Loves Of A She Devil The Passion Of New Eve The Haunted Hotel Ten Interesting Things About Human Behaviour The Diary Of A Nobody Strange Loops Equality Looking Backward 2000-1887 The Time Travel Megapack Thoughts On The Education Of Daughters The Last Man Maria, Or The Wrongs Of Woman North And South Elizabeth Gaskill Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman The Perpetual Curate The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde 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) The Martian Way Isaac Asimov The Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year Sue Townsend Freedom (The Rake And The Recluse Part One) I Think I'm OK Undercover: The True Story Of Britain's Secret Police Victorian Slang: Spunk Fakers, Slap Bangs and Tipping The Velvet Under A Cloud-Soft Sky The Singing Winds Shelter From The Storm Snow Angels New Grub Street King Solomon's Carpet Barbara Vine A Far Cry From Kensington Muriel Spark Capital John Lanchester Sweet Thames Matthew Kneale Good Behaviour Molly Keane The Green Brain Frank Herbert The Steampunk megapack (26 stories) Viridis Lady Of Devices A Steampunk Adventure Steampunk Erotica The Siege Of Krishnapur J.G. Farrell Miss Peregrine's Home For Unusual Children - Ransom Riggs Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen Balti Britain - Ziauddin Sardar Stephanie Plum series 9-20 - Janet Evanovitch Forgotten Voices of the Blitz Joshua Levine One Day David Nichols The Victorians AN Wilson Victorian London Liza Picard Geisha Liza Dalby In The Heart Of The Sea Nathanial Philbrick Spycatcher Peter Wright Best New SF 25 The Midnight Palace Carlos Ruiz Zafon Ways Of Seeing John Berger Gunners On Tour Maurice Court Mother Tongue Bill Bryson The Almost Moon Alice Sebold Rivers Of London Ben Aaronovitch The Horse Whisperer Nicholas Evans The Women Who Lived For Danger Marcus Binney The Unbecoming Of Mara Dyer Michelle Hodkin The German Invasion Of Norway Geirr H Haarr Raj Lawrence James Accidents In The Home Tessa Hadley Devoted Ladies Molly Keane A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Lord Of The Flies William Golding Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier Untying The Knot Linda Gillard The Picture Of Dorian Grey Oscar Wilde Nicholas Nickleby Charles Dickens The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow Washington Irvine Meeting At Infinity John Brunner Little Women Louisa May Alcott 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 Pure - Andrew Miller Who Dares Wins The Age of Revolution 1789-1848 The Age Of Capital 1848-1875 The Age Of Empire 1875-1914 Shirley Alone In Berlin Perfume The Terror 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 Shout At The Devil Thieves' Kitchen The Crowded Street Round the Bend A Special Relationship Hayfever (Parragon health guide) The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins Two Eggs On My Plate Oluf Reed Olsen Slavery A New Global History Jeremy Black The Warrior Queens Antonia Fraser Infidel Ayaan Hirsi Ali Nerd Do Well Simon Pegg Mrs P's Journey Forensic Clues To Murder Brian Marriner Confessions Of An English Opium Eater Thomas De Quincey Bad Blood Lorna Sage I Know My Own Heart Anne Lister The Voyage Out Virginia Woolf D-Day Stepehen Ambrose The Book Of The Dead Of All Possible Worlds William Tenn The Makeshift Rocket Poul Anderson Life The Universe and Everything More Than Super-Human AE VAN Vogt Testament Of Youth Vera Brittain Journey Through A Small Planet Emanuel Litvenoff The Other Side Of The Dale Gervaise Phinn Foundation Isaac Asimov The Naked Sun Isaac Asimov The Road To Samarcand Patrick O'Brian

Welcome to my 2015 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 BOOKS READ IN 2015 January She looks just like you Amie Klempnauer (re-read 3/5) The Mangle Street Murders M.R.C. Kasasian 5/5 The Victorian Governess Kathryn Hughes 3/5 Whoops! Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay John Lanchester 3/5 (k) February The Crimson Petal and The White Michel Faber 5/5 New Grub Street George Gissing 4/5 (k) The Town Traveller George Gissing 4/5 (k) Game Of Thrones George RR Martin 2/5 Will Warburton George Gissing 3/5(k) March The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher or The Murder At Road Hill House Kate Summerscale 4/5 Mrs P's Journey Sarah Hartley 4/5 The Whirlpool George Gissing 3/5(k) Murder On The Verandah Love and Betrayal In British Malaya Eric Lawlor 3/5 The Emancipated George Gissing 2/5(k) April Thyrza George Gissing 3/5(k) North And South Elizabeth Gaskill 2/5(k) Ubik Philip K Dick 4/5 The Apple: Crimson Petal Stories Michel Faber 3/5 A Special Relationship Douglas Kennedy 3/5 May The Women Who Lived For Danger Marcus Binney 3/5 The Paying Guest George Gissing 5/5(k) The Victorian House Explained Trevor Yorke 5/5 ® There But For The Ali Smith 1/5 Our Friend The Charlatan George Gissing 5/5 (k) June Victorian London 1840-1870 Liza Picard 5/5 ® July Thieve's Kitchen The Regency Underworld Donald A.Low 4/5 ® A Life's Morning George Gissing 2/5 (k) Eve's Ransom George Gissing 5/5 (k) Hide In Time Anna Faversham 3/5 (k) August The House Of Cobwebs and other stories George Gissing 5/5 (k) Denzil Quarrier George Gissing 3/5 (k) Demos George Gissing 3/5(k) September Daily Life In Victorian England Sally Mitchell 5/5 A Brief History Of Time Stephen Hawking 4/5 A London Family 1870-1900 Molly Hughes 5/5 Mutants Armand Marie Leroi 3/5 October Workers In The Dawn George Gissing 4/5 (k) Born In Exile George Gissing 4/5 (k) The Anome Jack Vance (k) (Re-read) November The Brave Free Men Jack Vance (k) (re-read) The Asutra Jack Vance (k) (re-read) The Lost City Of The Incas Hiram Bingham 3/5 Spunk Fakers, Slap Bangs and Tipping The Velvet Patrick Chapman 5/5 (k) Life as A Victorian Lady Pamela Horn 4/5 (k) December

Should we be worried you identify with Dexter's worldview?

I thought it was a mishmash of a story and really not very good at all, and once again too much about Clara Oswald and her romantic life. I was very disappointed.

Thanks! I tried to delete one of them but it didn't work for some reason

Guardians Of The Galaxy. Just a remove -your -brain and enjoy entertainment. I thought Karen Gillan was pretty cool.

Wow that's a pile of heavy reading...