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Alexi

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  1. I also found this week's installment a return to form - it's definitely interesting to discuss it like this as it was originally serialised. Otherwise I would have just ploughed on and not thought of the book as separate sections people read every week/month! Poor Kate - what an awful experience, her uncle is horrible good to see Nicholas back, but only temporarily it seems. I haven't read this week's yet, so will probably do it on Sunday when I have a day off. I like the idea of tea and a roaring fire! (no biccy as have started my pre-Christmas healthy eating plan!)
  2. I agree, but I found Roger's wife (and Roger himself to an extent!) terrible stereotypes who we never really learned much about - except I felt a bit sorry for Roger having to put up with her! Of course, he was in financial difficulties which makes a difference, but I found little to redeem her in it all. I've now finished The Wedding Gift, which I must review! It was a 4/5 for me, started brilliantly and raced a long but lost its way at the end somewhat. I'm now reading Sky of Red Poppies which counts for Iran in my World Challenge, which I have rather neglected this year! The first Nancy Drew mystery also just fell into my kindle basket for some good nostalgia!
  3. I didn't really get on with 1984 when I read it about 8 years ago, I've always meant to try again one day. I definitely mean to read Animal Farm though. Nice reviews Gaia!
  4. I downloaded it about two years ago but it has lain unread for so long I had completely forgotten the synopsis!
  5. I also enjoyed The Cuckoo's Calling! I finished The Wedding Gift - really good read about women in slavery and on plantations in 1850s Alabama. Although I didn't really understand the ending! Now onto The Sky of Red Poppies by Zohreh Gharemani, which is set in 1960s Iran. Only just starting but reckon this could be a harrowing one.
  6. I have said it elsewhere but I thought I would add it was lovely to meet Janet last night. Time flew by and I'm afraid I forced us both into very late dinners because we were nattering! It was brilliant to chat face to face after so long chatting online. It was really easy too, we had lots to say which was great and I was also privileged to meet Janet's husband who was also lovely! Had such a nice evening.
  7. Some of it is skewed by how long you commit to reading each day I think J. I'm not a particularly fast reader but I committed to 90 minutes reading per day (which is probably about average over a week I *think*) and it seemed to think I could read the entire series in a little over 3 months, much faster than average, but I guess I read more than the average person But 3 months?! Nah. Not a chance. I must get round to the first in the series though, it's waiting on the TBR.
  8. Great review! I bought this yesterday - it fell into my basket at the supermarket
  9. I do enjoy the occasional glass of wine, perish the thought. But my vices are books and clothes. It used to be handbags and then I got one expensive one I use all the time.
  10. #47 Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell Synopsis: From the hugely popular blog, a miscellany of hilarious and peculiar bookshop moments.(Amazon) Thoughts: Does what it says on the tin! This had me laughing out loud at moments, and other times wondering...this stuff's made up, right?! Some of these customers I recognise from my own work in pubs in a former life, others were just behind what I ever imagine experiencing. Some favourites: Hi, I just wanted to ask: did Anne Frank ever write a sequel? (!) Do you sell screwdrivers? Plus the customer who wanted money off because their own child had ripped some pages. Nearly as amusing was the following review of the book on Amazon: A series of light anecdotes that reminds me why I left Britain, and never intend coming back. Excellent. It's a very quick read, and I do question the wisdom of charging £3.80 full price (I got the daily deal) but I really enjoyed it. 4/5
  11. #46 Capital by John Lanchester Synopsis: Celebrated novelist John Lanchester (author of The Debt to Pleasure) returns with an epic novel that captures the obsessions of our time. It’s 2008 and things are falling apart: Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers are going under, and the residents of Pepys Road, London—a banker and his shopaholic wife, an old woman dying of a brain tumor and her graffiti-artist grandson, Pakistani shop owners and a shadowy refugee who works as the meter maid, the young soccer star from Senegal and his minder—are receiving anonymous postcards reading “We Want What You Have.” Who is behind it? What do they want? Epic in scope yet intimate, capturing the ordinary dramas of very different lives, this is a novel of love and suspicion, of financial collapse and terrorist threat, of property values going up and fortunes going down, and of a city at a moment of extraordinary tension.(GoodReads) Thoughts: I'm not sure what to say about this. I got to the end and wasn't sure it could be called an end as such because this books focuses on people's ordinary lives so the story begins without us and carries on on we've left. But I thoroughly enjoyed this. We follow the fortunes of the different residents of Pepys Road, once a working class haven now being sold off to millionaires. The last resident standing from the working class era is dying, and living alongside a teenage football prodigy and a city banker. But it's 2008 so we suspect that the rich characters in this scenario are under threat. Yes, the characters are stereotypical. We have the family from Pakistan running the corner shop presided over by the scary matron mother-in-law due to visit from the homeland, Roger is never there for his kids while his wife spends his money, employs nannies and thinks her life is hard, the Polish builder...you get the idea. And yet, and yet. This is fun. It's a great read, which zipped along and I found it difficult to stop reading. I cared about these characters and the glimpses I to their lives, and I even came to sympathise a tad with Roger the banker and inept father. I felt like I shouldn't enjoy this and yet it's so damned readable, I loved it. 4/5
  12. Sorry Athena, I missed that totally! Yes, it means permission to live there permanently I believe - any less than permanently and they I've you a visa. My company has an office in the USA but not keen on transfers. Sigh. I've been doing quite a lot of reading this week. I'm up to date with my Nicholas Nickleby group read and am now galloping along with The Wedding Gift - I'm 60 pages in, but it's a fantastic read so far centering on slavery and two girls fathered by the same man, only - you guessed it - one illegitimately. Shaping up to be awesome. Couple of reviews....
  13. I don't like horror as a rule although I do like psychological thrillers. However, my love of the first King I've ever read - 11/22/63 - has persuaded me to try The Shining this October.
  14. Personally, I really didn't get on with this book at all but I see no earthly reason it should be banned.
  15. Really under the weather at the moment so had a bit of a reading day yesterday. I finished Capital by John Lanchester and Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell. Just finishing this week's instalment of Nicholas Nickleby and then must decide what to pick up next!
  16. Hi Frankie So glad things seem to be going so well in Espoo! I'm really envious of your library system. Ours is average and I'm lucky because my local library is the biggest in the county. I like the sound of the true crime book - onto the wish list!
  17. I think it's just different definitions I only count a book as read if I read all of it - although that may include some skimming which I will note in the review. Any books I read therefore cannot count as abandoned because I finished them. I generally review books I abandon, although the one exception was Money by Martin Amis (abandoned 2012) as I only read about 40 pages before deciding I couldn't bear to continue...!
  18. I don't really get it either - you count them as read and abandoned?
  19. Jealous! That was my favourite series as a kid. I am halfway through Capital and it's flying by, despite the 600 page length.
  20. I try not to worry too much about my spending. Like you mine is mostly on bargains from kindle and only the occasional paper purchase )although when I do buy paper books I tend to splurge on loads at once!). I don't smoke, go out to pubs a lot less than I used to and I can currently afford my book outlay. However, it does mean my TBR is ever increasing and some books linger for years without me getting to them. Not sure what the answer is, but I think there are worse vices.
  21. Thanks Julie! It was a magical trip, still having some of the post holiday blues if I'm honest! I love visiting the USA and would love to live there but getting a green card is nigh on impossible. Sigh. Yep, totally converted and interesting you had the same thoughts on 13 reasons why, I wasn't sure if it was because I read it on a plane but there was so little emotion there. *shrug* onwards and upwards! Thanks BB. I'm not really sure how I've reached 28 and only just read one to be honest. My Mum now tells me she has read every single one of his books and gets them as soon as they come out! Thank you! That's interesting on Auster. I'll leave it a few years and then give another of his books a try and see how I get on. Yes they were sticking cameras, phones iPads you name it out of the bars! I got some amazing pictures. I think my highlight was going to see the New York Giants (sorry, but I love them!) but the Empire State was pretty spectacular and we did a helicopter ride which was amazing too.
  22. Wow, what an amazing haul Kylie Am very jealous.
  23. I've just purchased Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. I read a few Judy Blume books as a kid and it seemed rude not to revisit at 59 pennies! Also purchased The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald and John F Kennedy:An Unfinished Life by Robert Dallek today. Well and truly fallen off the wagon! Started Capital by Lanchester.
  24. Hi guys! Sorry I'm late to the party but I've been away with limited reading time. I have now read up to the end of chapter 14, which is up to date I think and planning to read the next installment later this week. One of my favourite things about Dickens is his works aren't classics because they're "worthy", he tells a great story and this is shaping up to be no different. I'm getting on quite well with the language this time around - maybe having read Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol I'm used to it now? What awful people the Squeers family are! Now Nicholas and Smike are on their way/have reached London, will we meet them agin? I hope so, they are quite dreadful villains!
  25. I also have The Shining on my TBR - maybe I shall read it around Halloween! I love American history, the country fascinates me. It's so young but has such an interesting and varied history and is such a varied country - I suppose to be expected due to the size but the diversity in population and in ideas between north and south (to generalise far too much!) is very interesting.
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