Hayley

I found it strange that I'd been thinking about David Bowie this week after reading a short story by Neil Gaiman in ​Trigger Warning ​called 'The Return of the Thin White Duke.' Apparently it was meant to accompany fashion drawings of David Bowie and his wife by a Japanese artist in a magazine, but it wasn't published. It's a great story. I think I'll always think of him as the goblin king though. 69 was certainly too young. Goodreads linked this list of David Bowie's 100 favourite books http://electricliterature.com/david-bowies-100-favorite-books/ some of them I think I could have guessed but others are fairly surprising.

Hi You'll definitely find lots of book recommendations here so hopefully you'll find something to equal your interest in The Hunger Games!

I thought my comment was controversial to be honest, the petition has a lot of support, I was surprised anybody agreed with me! ​I do agree it is a sweet idea though, it's lovely that anybody even thought of doing it. I don't even think it is a ​bad ​idea, it's just the thought of taking something that was meant to represent the imaginative and magical element of the world and making it define a thing that is just a piece of normal, rational matter, seems somehow jarring to me. Like it doesn't fit and I'm not sure if it should. Or it might help some chemistry students discover Terry Pratchett, that would be a good effect too

I saw this petition earlier today but I'm not sure how I feel about it. I love Terry Pratchett (as you may have noticed...) and I think it's brilliant that people want to remember him this way but I'm just not sure how I feel about assigning 'Octarine' to a real element. It's meant to be literally the colour of magic, the 'pigment of the imagination' as the article above quotes, 'a sign that mere matter was a servant of the powers of the magical mind.' If element 117 is given this name then Octarine will be a word for something that is mere matter, when the point is surely that the imagination is more than that, it's something that isn't bound by the rules of the rational world. I know I'm probably overthinking something that's just meant to be a nice gesture but still, half of me wants to sign and the other half doesn't!

I have The Woman in White on my bookshelf too, I loved The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins so I have high hopes for it I love The Book Thief too, I hope you're enjoying it! Good luck reaching your goals this year ​ ​

Thank you everyone! It's good to see such positive things about The Eyre Affair! I'm going to Astley book farm soon so I want to check if they have it first, if not I'm going to order it. Either way I'll hopefully get to read it soon! It is really difficult! I'm not too bad with the first few books, but then I find it hard to categorise books as the same rating the more I read, because I might feel completely different about two books even though I've given them both a '4' etc. Book nerd problems! First review time! ​Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman - ​Fantastically Magical ​​​I finished this book last night (well... actually this morning... I think it was about 1am when I actually finished... oops ) and I loved it. I feel like Neil Gaiman has the ability to create a very unique fantastical atmosphere. It was what I loved about Stardust and it's very present in this short story collection. The variety in it is also amazing, every story and poem takes you somewhere new. It's a bit like stepping through the looking glass and into a series of somebody else's dreams (somebody with a very active imagination). The background of fairy tale and mythology Gaiman uses is another feature I really love in his writing that comes through very strongly in these stories. ​For any fan of fantasy, fairy tale, mythology, even horror and sci-fi, I would absolutely recommend this book! ​

Oh dear, that's terrible It is good to see the support from authors though and it looks like the ebay auctions are doing really well, hopefully the shop (and the comic book shop) can rebuild soon!

I love ​The Colour of Magic​, I think with all the Terry Pratchett books it really depends on your sense of humour if you love them or not but hopefully you will ​ I'll be interested to see what you think of ​Assassin's Creed Renaissance​, I've picked it up before but couldn't decide whether to try it or not.

I'm really excited to start on my reading for this year. I have some great books I've been saving and I'm starting with one I've been looking forward to for a while, ​Trigger Warning ​by Neil Gaiman (which my sister got for me for Christmas ). ​ I thought I'd try something different from the normal rating system this year so instead of giving a certain number of stars or smiley faces after the book title I'm going to choose a short statement that summarises how I felt about the book. It might just be an 'I loved it' or 'I hated it' (although hopefully not the latter!) but could also be something more specific to that individual book. If it doesn't work then it will be back to smiley faces but I think it's worth a try I'm not going to type out a whole 'to-read' list because I know it's going to end up changing dramatically practically every month so I'll probably do short versions as I go. This month for example I would really like to read... Trigger Warning ​- Neil Gaiman (ok I will admit I already read the first two short stories in 2015, I tried to wait but I just couldn't help it! ) ​The Miniaturist ​​​- Jessie Burton and I really want to try something by Jasper Fforde, I think I'm going to look for ​The Eyre Affair​. And I think that's everything - time to start!

So I read ​Decline and Fall ​and ​​Last Argument of Kings​ in the end! ​Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh - ​ ​​This was quite a difficult one to rate, again, because there's no denying it's a very well written book and you can see how it got its status as a classic. On the other hand I didn't enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed other books which I've given two smiley faces to, so it only gets one. One of the main things I had heard about this book before I started it was that it was very funny, but it wasn't in the way I expected. It's not a book to make you laugh out loud, it's actually very tragic in parts, but it is humorous in a satirical way. Ultimately it's a book about the way people live their lives, from the point of view of a protagonist who is constantly observing other lives and learning their stories (whether he wants to or not) and it fits its purpose very well. It's thought provoking and although I wouldn't name it amongst my favourite books, I would still recommend anybody to read it. ​Last Argument of Kings - ​ ​ ​I was looking forward to reading this book so much I felt like I physically couldn't read it fast enough at times. I really wanted to know what would happen in the end to all the characters you get to know throughout the first two books and that alone probably proves how good I felt these books were. There were a couple of little things I would have changed about this one, which is why I didn't give it the highest rating. I would have liked certain things to be explained in more detail for example (although I am hoping some more explanation might be given in the books related to this series which I've seen, I need to look up more about them). It was still a great book though, well written, gripping and funny at times. I wish there were more!

I love point and click games, I'm playing Book of Unwritten Tales 2 at the moment (I just got it, it's in a really good sale on gog.com!). So far it seems good, I really liked the first one. The puzzles and combinations of items are actually logical, which is always nice! I only just worked out you can put a collar on your dog! I love that there's so much to explore and make though! I do love collecting things in games and Fallout 4 is like collecting paradise

Congratulations on reaching 425 books! That's quite an achievement! ​​

Hi Paul I like collecting old books too and I agree it's lovely when you find a personal inscription inside. There's a thread on here about unusual things found inside books you might be interested in too, here's the link if you want to have a look... http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/7872-have-you-ever-found-anything-inside-a-book/page-1?hl=found inside books

When you see it like this it seems amazing that we remember all the characters when we're reading a book!

These are brilliant, thank you everyone!

This is actually a question from my sister who asked me if I knew of any books set in Japan and I couldn't think of any! Then I remembered I knew the perfect place to find recommendations for any kind of book She particularly likes romance, historical fiction, fantasy and YA but all recommendations would be appreciated (She has already read Memoirs of a Geisha)

I can't believe how long it's been since my last post here! I've been having a busy but fun few weeks, getting quite a lot of work done but also having a lovely short holiday in Cornwall, where I finished reading... The Mystery of Cloomber by Arthur Conan Doyle - 1/2 I know it's probably cheating to introduce half smiley's but I was really stuck on this one. It wasn't the best example of Conan Doyle's writing but it was interesting and I did really want to read to the end. It's very much suspense based, there's very little action and when there is action it's generally not experienced by the narrator but related to him by another character, so as a reader you don't feel as involved as you might otherwise. On the other hand the suspense is done well and I liked the contrast of the very rational narrative voice with the mysterious plot. It reminded me of 'The Moonstone' (which I won't go into detail about because, although there wouldn't necessarily be any spoilers, I think this is the kind of book you should go into without knowing much about the story) but honestly I liked The Moonstone more. And that is the confusion that led me to give it one and a half smiley faces! After I finished The Mystery of Cloomber I actually started reading The Shining, which is one of my 'book bundle challenge' books. I had it in mind for a while that I would read this one near Halloween. When I actually came to read it though I just couldn't really get into it. I think like a lot of Stephen King books it's very heavily detailed and really requires your attention and because I've been busy with work I just didn't have the concentration to enjoy it. So after the first couple of chapters I decided it would be better if I put it aside until I could enjoy it properly and pick out more of a quick-read type book which led to me reading... ​ The Strings of Murder by​ Oscar de Muriel - ​ ​ I think I mentioned earlier that I found this book in a charity shop. The blurb describes a section of the police force which deals with the paranormal and this instantly reminded me of the Peter Grant novels by Ben Aaronovitch, which I loved. I then realised it was set in the Victorian period so then I just had to get it . While there are obviously some similarities with the Peter Grant novels though I was surprised at how different they were. I don't want to give too much away but the supernatural theme is dealt with very differently. I liked the characters, although the narrator has some qualities which make him quite unlikable at times they fit with his background and don't become distracting. I also liked the setting, it felt real and not over exaggerated. In some novels set in a specific time period (like The Interpretation of Murder!) the author seems to feel the need to shove random historical facts at you that are irrelevant to the story but that is absolutely not the case here. There are references to contemporary issues but they're very subtle and well placed​. I found out after I finished the book that it's the first in a series called 'Frey and McGray' (the two main detectives) and the next book, Fever of the Blood​ is set to release in February. I'm definitely planning to get it. I have a feeling that the series will only improve as the characters develop further​​. ​I'm thinking of reading Decline and Fall ​by Evelyn Waugh next. It's been on my shelf for ages, it's only a small book and I've heard it's really funny. I'm still really tempted by Last Argument of Kings though so I'll see ​​ ​

I do sometimes buy a few books in a short space of time and then realise they were all very (unintentionally) similar. I don't think I've ever done it with only male/female authors but to be honest I never thought about it before!

I really like Marty, he's very cute I also like the casual art style and I thought the scenes were funny. I think the title is really good too, very catchy and memorable! If I could suggest one improvement it would just be to double check some of the dialogue. In the one where Nana is writing a novel, for example, Marty asks 'why don't you have a labor work as everybody?' I had to read that a couple of times before I realised he was asking why she didn't go out to work like other people. I don't think it's clear what 'a labor work' is when you first read it. In the same one the line 'you must start today, you're getting out of time' just feels slightly off because I think most people would expect it to say 'you're running out of time' which is a more common saying. I hope that doesn't sound really picky I like the comic, I think it could do really well and I hope it does

Thanks Chrissy! Tiffany should definitely be everyone's role model! I was 13 when I read The Wee Free Men and have been addicted to Terry Pratchett books ever since what I will call 'the frying pan incident' (to save using a spoiler!)​ I definitely don't think you'll be disappointed in The Shepherd's Crown! Clearly I was so emotional after finishing it, I forgot to give it a smiley face rating so... The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett - I was tempted to give it four but thought that would be cheating Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie - ​ I decided to read Before They Are Hanged after my last post and I'm glad I did, I really enjoyed reading it. In a way I didn't love it quite as much as the first book, but I think that's mostly because I had the excitement of finding a really good new series when I read the first one! I love the amount of really unique, detailed characters in the books. I think it's rare that an author makes you really care about the fate of every character you come across. I'm looking forward to reading Last Argument of Kings but I'm going to save it for a little while (although I was really tempted to just start it as soon as I'd finished Before They Are Hanged!) I've decided to read The Mystery of Cloomber by Arthur Conan Doyle next. I've enjoyed everything else I've read by Arthur Conan Doyle so I'm excited to see what this one will be like!

I love finding things like this in books ​ It's a shame your picture wouldn't work! I usually do mine through flikr, they seem to work from there. Is your volume the same as the one's woolf linked? It's just an idea but the seller of those said the label was an 'ex libris' label, which as far as I know was used for personal bookplates, suggesting John Pierce would be the books owner, not a book seller. Does yours also say ex libris?

I finally finished reading The Shepherd's Crown today. It's so sad knowing it's the final book but at the same time it was so perfect. It's probably the one Discworld novel that I would recommend only reading after the others, or at least after the other Tiffany Aching books, because there are so many references to different characters and places, which really added to the feeling of everything coming together at the end. On the surface it's a brilliant fantasy, full of witches, feegles, elves and a very clever goat. But as always with Terry Pratchett it's about so much more than that too. It's about selflessness, about human nature, about having the strength to be true to yourself and having the strength to know when you need to change. There's also an undercurrent of challenging gender stereotypes, a topic that comes up quite a few times in Discworld. ​ So although I am still very sad about this being the final book, I am also very happy we got to read this last one and that it fit its role so perfectly. I haven't decided what to read next yet, I have too many options! For pretty much the last month I've been really busy finishing my thesis, so I haven't really had time to read for fun but I still managed to buy another seven books . Actually one of them was free (The Girl in the Photograph by Kate Riordan) so I don't think I can be blamed for that one. I also found the next two 'First Law' books by Joe Abercrombie, Before They Are Hanged and ​Last Argument of Kings, in a second hand book shop. I was very happy about that. Then I spotted an Arthur Conan Doyle book, The Mystery of Cloomber​, which I'd never heard of so obviously had to get... ​Then there was the charity shop visit where I got Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Strings of Murder ​by Oscar de Muriel and The Miniaturist ​by Jessie Burton​.​​​​​​​​ I think I need to be kept away from bookshops for a while...

Are you positive it was a girl in the story? It sounds exactly like a part of Frankenstein, where the "monster" first learns about language.

^ I second that! You should definitely get the cover they show in the listing! Maybe they'll let you exchange it for the correct cover? I'm now going to go and look for the pretty covers myself, since your review made me want to read it