Hayley

Wow, I just looked up those books and they all sound brilliant! I feel like crime is a good genre for autumn too, there's something about the darker and more rainy days that makes a good atmosphere for them I think!

First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde 4.5/5 I just love all of these books and I loved this for the same reason as the others. Fforde has a ridiculously fantastic imagination, combined with a brilliantly sharp and witty writing style. Throw in the fact that this series is written for book lovers and what is there not to love? I knocked off half a star purely because this wasn't my favourite book in the series. For the first time we jump forward in time a lot (by fourteen years, if I remember correctly) and that felt a little bit weird when I started reading, because the main character has developed a lot without us seeing it. The time gap was necessary to the plot though and in the end I felt like it was quite nice to see how Thursdays life is going over a decade later. Now I'm only a couple of reviews behind! I've read 22 books so far this year, so I have a long way to go if I'm finally going to meet my 50 target for the year, but you never know!

Ah well, I suppose it's not that much longer. It could have been worse!

Hi Alena, I'm guessing there was meant to be a picture here but we can't see it. Have you tried looking up the publisher? Sometimes there are small changes in a publishing company name over time and that lets you narrow down the dates. I love finding interesting old books in charity shops and David Copperfield is one my favourites, I hope you manage to find out more about it .

We've had some discussions about winter reading in the past but I don't think we've ever had a thread about the other seasons! So, do you have any books that you like to read in autumn? Maybe spooky themes for Halloween? I think I might finally get round to reading The Woman in Black in October, as well as The Book Collector by Alice Thompson, as I think they're really the only books I own that could be considered horror. I'm really tempted to look for some kind of gothic short story collection too. I definitely don't need more books but it's still tempting...

Oh no! I wonder what happened. It seems quite close to the planned release to change the date.

I thought I'd just use this thread to let you all know that the very first seasonal giveaway will be happening on the second week of October. It's spooky and exciting and I can't wait to show you what it is

Sometimes having to wait ages for a book makes it more exciting to read, at least

Ah, that makes sense! I was wondering if it was someone's nickname

I do like the Thursday Next books better than 'Early Riser', but Fforde does just have a brilliant imagination doesn't he? I hope the library get 'This Tender Land' in for you soon!

It is pretty isn't it? I noticed that Waterstones has a mysterious clothbound version available too. It still says 'final cover to be revealed.' I've just realised that Laura Purcell's new book Bone China is out in a couple of days and that looks really good.

I'm glad your last read was a bit of an improvement on the previous three . It has an intriguing title too!

Well it's nice that you came back to talk about books with us, even if it wasn't your main intention originally. I can change your name to LoneSoul if you want me to?

Thanks for the replies! Reading through them, I've realised something - I actually feel differently about collections of short stories by the same author. I've never questioned, for example, if I should review all of the short stories from a Neil Gaiman collection separately. Like @Madeleine said, I'd just comment on which ones were my favourite. But when it's a mix of stories by different authors, it feels a bit more like you're reviewing the editor, and whether they made a good selection, not the writing quality... which is what I think felt a bit weird. I don't think it helps that some of the stories in my Penguin collection are quite substantial. Some, like The Heart of Darkness, could probably be considered novellas. So that makes it seem more odd not to talk about the individual story. It is tricky isn't it! I think I would have reviewed the first four Earthsea books together if I'd read them all at once.

11-12-13th works for me

That is strange. I’ve never used Scribd but I haven’t heard good things about it. It sounds like they might have been displaying books that weren’t actually available, which is why they stopped showing up once you signed up. They’re well known for making it difficult for members to unsubscribe too so make sure they don’t charge you at the end of your free subscription!

Hi, welcome to the forum! What kind of books do you like?

You haven't but it's always a good idea

Oops, I missed your original post about the article! I just read it. It's definitely an interesting one, with a lot of potential discussion points. It's hard to compare the Norwegian system to the UK one without knowing things like the comparative budgets and crime rates. It says at one point, for example, that England and Wales lock up almost 140 people per 100,000 of the population, compared to 63 per 100,000 of the population in Norway. It doesn't explain though whether that's because there's a higher crime rate in England and Wales, or whether you're more likely to be imprisoned for a crime here. Do they have more alternative punishments in Norway, maybe? Or does it suggest we're too quick to imprison as a punishment? The much better training for prison staff in Norway sounds great. It would definitely be nice if they could fund that here. Not that I imagine for a second that they would... The question of whether the prison is 'too cushy' is an interesting one. On one hand, the punishment (the lack of freedom) is still there, no matter how nice they make the prison inside. It's obvious from the article that at least some of the prisoners thrive in that environment and that they may genuinely be able to leave with the skills to begin new and successful lives for themselves. I think the problem is, a lot of people don't want someone who's murdered another person to have a happy ending. To leave prison with a whole set of qualifications (ones that other people would possibly have to pay a lot of money to get) and start new lives, when they have irreversibly taken the life of someone else, and damaged those of the people who loved them forever. And it's probably hard, if not impossible, to remove that emotional response even in the face of the obvious benefits of reform. Essentially I think some people feel that they need to know the criminal is suffering and it's harder to picture that suffering in a comfortable environment. I was also surprised that there are no life sentences in Norway. It does make me wonder how it feels to be a victim, or the family of a victim, after that maximum 21 year sentence, knowing that every 5 years from now on that person might be released. I wonder whether they do get much recurring crime. I can't imagine that they do, otherwise they surely would have changed that system. This is a little bit off topic but I found it really weird that the picture of the prison cell in that article is exactly the same as my room in my first year at university. Literally the only difference is that the bed was under the cork board and the desk opposite it. The wardrobe, where the bathroom is, even the type of wood are exactly the same. I hope you enjoy Ducks, Newburyport, it does sound good so fingers crossed! I'm definitely going to be reading Margaret Atwood's The Testaments but (as I think I said before) I want to re-read The Handmaid's Tale first, to make sure I don't miss anything!

Maybe I've heard of him from your reading blog! It was cool! I know the publishers are based in my county but I honestly didn't expect any of the stories to be set nearby. I hope you've enjoyed all your reading so far!

That was really good going! I've heard of David Baldacci but I can't remember why, The Finisher doesn't sound familiar. I hope you enjoy it! Happy reading to you too! Yesterday I read the first story from the Alchemy Press Book of Ancient Wonders. I'm glad I did read that in the end. I was in the mood for a short story and really enjoyed it. Weirdly, it was mainly set in a park that's close to where I live! I can't remember if it had page numbers, I'll have to check. Earlier I read to page 35 of Once Upon a River, which isn't much but it's so beautifully told I don't want to rush it! It's one of those books where you go back to read the last sentence because it was just so perfect.

I read the synopsis a while ago and wasn't sure. I liked the idea of the story in general but it sounded like it had a lot of main characters and I didn't know if that would make it a bit choppy or confusing. But I think it's worth trying for 99p! I think it was!

New read-a-thon plan for me as I'm not at home and, stupidly, forgot to bring either Once Upon a River or my Penguin book of short stories... Luckily though, I do have my kindle, so I'll be choosing something from that instead! Good luck with the writing challenge! I hope you get to finish The Crow Trap (I originally read it as The Cow Trap, which doesn't sound nearly as mysterious )

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton is one of the kindle daily deals today for £1.19 (I remember someone on here saying it was really good but I can't remember who!) Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo is also one of the daily deals for 99p, another book I've heard really good things about

This question occurred to me recently and I wondered how you all felt about the subject. When you read a collection of short stories, or a collection of novels in one volume, do you review them individually, or as a set? I have the first four Earthsea books in a single volume but, especially as I decided not to read them one after the other, I decided that I'd review them separately, and log them as separate books over on goodreads (because that's really the only way to review them separately there anyway). This seemed like a simple solution, it just means that I can't put the actual edition I'm reading on goodreads. As some of you may have noticed over on the read-a-thon thread, I've been reading a Penguin collection of classic short stories for a while. Today I started thinking about how I'm actually going to review that when I've finished. The stories themselves are wildly different, it has everyone from Charles Dickens to Virginia Woolf to Joseph Conrad. If I review it as a collection though, there's not much more to say than it was a good/bad selection of stories. I could do both types of review on my reading log here but I couldn't really separate them on goodreads, without it saying that I've read about fifteen books, rather than one... I might be over thinking this but what do you all do? Would you review even short stories separately? Do you think even a collection of novels should be reviewed as one book?