Kidsmum

Thanks VF, i'm really loving Sharpe's Eagle but the books are a bit formulaic so you couldn't read one straight after the other so i guess it'll be next year before i get through them all

Bumped this one up my list.

Hi Gabbie , Hope you enjoy Room i thought it was a really good read & passed it on to my eldest DD i keep nagging her to read it because i know once she picks it up she'll be hooked

Halfway through Sharpe's Eagle , I love the Sharpe books

I think i'm most like the All Timer/Voracious/ Anything goes Reader as i tend to read whenever i can fit it in while i'm eating or cooking in the kitchen, on the bus i take my book everywhere i go as you never know when you you'll get the opportunity to read a few pages

Yay well done Claire it must be so liberating not to have a TBR pile

Don't think i'll ever manage to get my TBR books down to that amount but like you i haven't bought as many books this year so at least i feel like i've chipped away at the mountain a bit Look forward to hearing what you thought of this one VF

August has been a good month reading wise i managed to read 7 books despite it being the school holidays. I'm going back to the Sharpe series for my first book of the autumn so going to be reading Sharpe's Eagle next i'd hoped to complete the whole series this year as i have the Flashman books waiting in the wings but with another 10 books still to go that's not looking very likely.

Still reading Somerset Maugham's short stories but put it to one side while i read First They Killed My Father a daughter of cambodia remembers by Loung Ung , a harrowing read of one girls survival of the Cambodian genocide.

It's definitely a book i wont be re visiting Julie

I enjoyed World Without End Karen but i agree with Bobbly it isn't as good as Pillars of the Earth,i think if you haven't got into it by now your probably not going to.

Hugely relieved to finally finish The Land of Painted Caves Jean M. Auel , if i hadn't read the rest of the series & been given the book as a pressie i'd have given up on it after the first 100 pages. Boring & repetitive this is the weakest book in the whole series, Ayla has become the most annoying character ever the only thing she can't do is sing & everybody either falls in love with her or is amazed by her wealth of talents by the end of the book i wanted to stove her head in with a rock. Imo the best books in the series are 1& 3.

Hi Ruth I'd definitely put I Capture The Castle in my top 5 , Cassandra was my favourite character & i cried laughing at the whole fur coat escaped bear fiasco at the train station . Glad you enjoyed most of it

I loved Jonathon Strange Bobbly in fact i've still got my copy as i intend to re read it at some point but i agree you need to read it in large chunks. I suppose it's inevitable that any story about magic will be compared to Harry Potter but i can't see the similarity either. I read her other book Grace Ladies of Adieu but i didn't think much of it , it wasn't a patch on JSAMN.

Great review Brian, i'm glad Murakami perked up your mojo i have a couple of his books ( The Wind- Up Bird Chronicle is one of them i think ) but haven't got round to reading them yet.

Goodness me Kylie you'll need a holiday to get over your holiday after all that driving Out of your list a big thumbs up for the Agatha Christie, Larsson & Burroughs . i 'll look forward to hearing what you think of the last one Anyway whatever you decide to read i hope you have a great holiday

Finally finished The Land of Painted Caves, thank goodness, i've now started Collected Short Stories Vol 1 by Somerset Maugham in the hopes that it will soothe my bruised mojo

The parts that described his intimate relationship with Bookman were a bit too graphic for me i certainly wouldn't like anyone to be reading over my shoulder went i got to those bits & i certainly hope the bit about toilet dipping wasn't true It's definitely a book i'd recommend reading i'm just not sure who i'd dare recommend it too they'd have to be pretty broad minded i guess.

What a shame Poppy both books sound so good as well i can see why you went for them.

Halfway through The Land Of Painted Caves, boy am i looking forward to finishing this book

Persevering with The Land Of Painted Caves it's slow going though now that i'm back home i don't have as much time to read

I'd be happy to send you the book Claire as i was planning on giving it to the charity shop anyway. Let me know if you want it Yes it was nice to get away for a break & visiting Hay on Wye was the highlight of the holiday for me of course Fattypuffs & Thinnifers is a childrens book about an underground country discovered by two young brothers who come upon a secret staircase ,one city is peopled by large people, the Fattypuffs & the other by thin people , the Thinnifers . The boys get caught up in a dispute between the warring factions. I bought it to read to my youngest 2 children at bedtime but they didn't seem too keen when i showed it to them so i might end up reading it to myself

yes our machines are supposed to do that but somehow they always seem to miss one so you've got to shuffle the books around till it finds the barcode or whatever it is that the machine needs to read it's really annoying but i guess i'm a bit of a technophobe i always avoid the self service machines in the supermarket as well

Got lots of reading done on holiday mainly because i was up before seven every day & then had nothing to do but sit around till everyone else decided to get up I read Shelters of Stone Jean M Auel - disapponted in this i think the series has definitely gone off the boil. The Novel in the Viola Natasha Solomons - loved this book Running With Scissors Augusten Burroughs - OMG this book was fascinatingly, horribly compelling & some parts made me cringe but i couldn't put it down & finished it in a couple of days. The Queen of Whale Cay Kate Summerscale - interesting biography found the bits about her boat racing career a bit boring but the rest was fascinating , funny how rich people are classed as eccentric where as poor people are just plain old mad Christmas Holiday Somerset Maugham - fantastic!!! I haven't read any Maugham for quite a few years but he's as good as i remember