Athena's Reading List 2013

[Athena]

Scarlett Bailey - Married by Christmas

 

 

Genre: Chick-lit

Format: Paperback

Pages: 412 (excluding the excerpt of another book)

Synopsis (GoodReads): All she wants is a perfect Christmas Eve wedding... It's been on Anna's wish-list since she was a little girl, dreaming of a far happier family life than she'd ever experienced. But now - only two weeks before her big day - her perfect husband-to-be drops a bombshell... Only nothing's going to stop Anna's plans - not even the pesky inconvenience of discovering her groom already has a wife!

 

My thoughts: Last year just before Christmas I read The Night Before Christmas by Scarlett Bailey. I quite liked that book and so bought another one of her books, Married by Christmas. I thought I'd read it this year before Christmas, to get into the Christmassy mood etc. It'd be a bit weird reading a Christmassy book in the summer time, perhaps, so this seemed the right time for it.

 

This was a pretty good book. I really liked the main character, Anna. She loves to plan and organise and doesn't like it when unexpected things happen. I have these character traits too (because of my autism) so I could really understand a lot of her motivations and things she does. She loves to make lists, so do I. So I could identify pretty well with the main character.

 

I also liked the other characters, though some more than others. For example, Anna has a best friend called Liv, I quite liked her too. She sounds like a great best friend to have.

 

The story panned out differently than I thought it would. The ending didn't surprise me, by then I thought that things would happen like that, but especially in the first part of the book I couldn't predict what was going to happen. I often compare chick-lit books to romantic comedy films, at some point you kind of know what'll happen but it's still very enjoyable. I don't mind that predictabilityness, I kind of like that in my books now and then (which is why I tend to vary my genres and the kinds of books I read). I didn't know much about the book other than what the blurb on the back of the book says. I think it's nicest finding things out for oneself, so I won't spoil what happens.

 

The book mainly takes place around Christmas (mostly before), but has quite a few flashbacks and back story to the characters. I thought the main character especially was quite well developed (but also the other characters), she has a back story to her etc. The book put me in a bit more of a Christmassy mood, but not as much as The Night Before Christmas did last year. That said, it's still some time until Christmas whereas last year I read it much closer to Christmas. I also think the other book had more Christmassy elements whereas here the story elements were more focused on the characters. I like both books, they both have the same rating.

 

I enjoyed the contemporyness of the book, elements such as mobile phones and computers. They don't play a huge role or anything, but after reading some books that take place in earlier time periods, this makes for a welcome difference.

 

Overall I quite enjoyed this book. It's not a literary work by any means, but I enjoyed reading it. It has great characters and plot twists and back story. I really enjoyed reading it, definitely after the more heavier, epic books I've been reading lately (such as IT by Stephen King, which was pretty awesome). These kinds of books (what I call chick-lit books) aren't for everyone. They are mainly targetting a female audience, usually in the ages of 20-40. Love and friendship are two important elements in these types of books (in my personal experience). I love to read a chick-lit book now and then, just I like watching a romantic comedy film now and then (I read more chick-lit than that I watch things, though). Anyway, if you like these types of books I'd recommend this one (along with quite a few others ).

 

Rating: ***** (9/10)

Edited November 13, 2013 by Athena

[Kidsmum]

I've now read 124 books this year, I should be reading at least a couple more books before the end of the year, which means I'll surpass my stretch goal of 125! This is quite exciting .

 

Wow Athena you must be a really fast reader. Congratulations you can take it easy now for the rest of the year 

[Athena]

I always consider omnibus editions to be the number of books they contain, rather than just being one book. I usually consider short story collections to be one book, and just wondered what you thought?

x

I agree! That's how I feel about it as well. 

x 

Wow Athena you must be a really fast reader. Congratulations you can take it easy now for the rest of the year 

x

Thanks !

[Athena]

Marjon Kuipers-Hemken and Gijs Horvers - Plan B: Een Vernieuwende Handreiking voor Autisme & Communicatie

 

 

Genre: Information

Format: Hardback (not hardcover)

Pages: 166

Synopsis: (see below)

 

My thoughts: My mum read about this book being released and thought it might be useful for us. I was given it for my birthday and wanted to read it so I didn't wait too long before reading it.

 

This book is about autism and communication. It's also about sensory issues and what happens when too much input is perceived, when processing input. It's written by someone who knows a lot about autism, has a lot of training in it and who has a son with autism, and by someone who has autism.

 

I particularly enjoyed the illustrative examples of real people (including those from Gijs Horvers, one of the authors). There were one or two examples I liked less, because the things that happened wouldn't work for me, but I'm glad they work for the people involved.

 

What I liked a bit less, for myself, was that a lot of the information seemed written for people close to someone with autism and not the person themselves (there are exceptions, though).

 

There is a lot of good information in the book. I find though, that I just communicate the way I've learned it, I'm too tired to think about other layers of it, atm. I think though, that part might be mainly for people without autism, to know how to communicate better with people with autism, but I could be wrong. It was definitely interesting to read about.

 

I quite liked the three states, green, orange and red, to do with the amount of sensory input processing (there are better words in Dutch but I'm not really sure what the best words for these things in English are). In green everything is fine, in red the person with autism panicks and can't respond accurately to input. In orange too much input has been given but it's possible to go back to green by doing certain things, such as take the input away (or the person away from the input). I think it'd be good for me to think about and better analyse when I'm in orange and what's too much and what's not.

 

(As a side note: I need to think of which things give me energy rather than all those things that take it away. The problem is that a lot of the things I've thought up so far, all have their limits. Book buying cheers me up immensely, but I can't do it too much because of money and space reasons. Buying other things, the same rules apply. I can't eat too much nice stuff because I'm trying to lose weight and eat healthier. I can't have too many showers or baths in a day (not more than one), because of money reasons, water waste and it'd be unhealthy for my body. I can't spend too much time with my boyfriend because he needs to do his own things too. With the dogs and animals it really depends, how noisy and movement-full they're being. If one of our dogs just wants to be pet, that can be nice. But if the two of them are jaleous of each other or playing then it's tiring. I hope to be finding more things that give me energy.)

 

The book talks about making a 'plan B' for when things don't entirely go the way you thought they would. It leaves things pretty generic but I think it'd be good for myself to think about.

 

Anyway, about the book. I quite liked the layout of the book. The new smell (is it just me who likes the smell of new books?), the colours used, the bold that was used, the fonts, etc. The book also contains quite a few pictures, which I liked.

 

I'll definitely let my parents read this book, my mum has already said she wanted to. Maybe afterwards we could talk about it, I think there's definitely some useful things in there. My boyfriend can't read much Dutch so unfortunately he couldn't read it if he wanted to (maybe in the future though).

 

Overall I quite enjoyed this book, if not perhaps as much as I was hoping I would. But I quite enjoyed reading it and it'll be useful so that's good .

 

Rating: ***** (9/10)

[Athena]

Martine Delfos and Marijke Gottmer - A-ggZ: Leven met Autisme

 

 

Genre: Information

Format: Hardback (not hardcover)

Pages: 177

Synopsis: (see below)

 

My thoughts: I bought this book at a library sale. I've read one other book by Martine Delfos (Een Vreemde Wereld), when I was a teenager and really liked that one.

 

I liked this book but unfortunately, due to my knowledge already on the subject, it didn't offer me a whole lot of new insight. There were some things that were new to me, but most of the information wasn't. This isn't the book's fault, I recently read, for example, Plan B by Marjon Kuipers-Hemken and Gijs Horvers (see an earlier review in this thread), which was published this year. This book (Leven met Autisme) was published in 2006. Despite this, I found that there were a few words being used that I would consider 'old-fashioned'. I don't hear them much being used these days (this could also be me). I also thought the writing style was a bit formal at times, the book doesn't read easily.

 

I did enjoy reading this book. I also liked the cartoons, now and then there was a cartoon illustrating the subject or a situation, I quite enjoyed these.

 

I felt the book could've talked a bit more to the person with autism (me) rather than to someone in the environment of. This is a problem many books have, though, most of them talk to the environment of the person. I'm not sure why to be honest, personally I feel the people themselves are important too (well, duh ).

 

So overall I liked to read the book, but it wasn't brilliant.

 

Rating: **** (7/10)

[Athena]

I've updated the first post with links to my reviews (where I wrote them). I've been thinking about how I'm going to do my next reading log (using some of your reading logs as inspiration ), so thought I might as well apply this tidbit to this reading log.

[Athena]

I bought some paper books:

 

Peter V. Brett - Demon Cycle 3: The Daylight War

Lisa Genova - Love Anthony

Heather Vogel Frederick - The Mother-Daughter Book Club 6: Wish You Were Eyre

Jo Walton - Among Others

Scarlett Bailey - Just for Christmas

 

And I bought some Kindle books:

 

Ann M. Martin - The Baby-Sitters Club Super Special 11: The Baby-Sitters Remember

Ann M. Martin - The Baby-Sitters Club Super Special 12: Here Come the Bridesmaids!

Ann M. Martin - The Baby-Sitters Club Graphix 1: Kristy's Great Idea

[Kidsmum]

I've updated the first post with links to my reviews (where I wrote them). I've been thinking about how I'm going to do my next reading log (using some of your reading logs as inspiration ), so thought I might as well apply this tidbit to this reading log.

 

Your so organised Athena, i'm impressed 

 

I don't recognise any of your new books but i remember my eldest daughter enjoying some of the Baby-Sitter books 

[frankie]

 

Thanks . All book fairs from Het Boekenfestijn are on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday (open from 10:00 - 21:00 except on Sunday, they close at 18:00 on Sunday). We're planning on going on Thursday, then have Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the read-a-thon. Then on Monday or such I'll sort out the newly bought books. 

 

I can't remember if you've said But is this an annual book fair?

 

 

xx

Awww thanks . I agree, it's a great therapy.

 

And you know how vexing book buying and catalogueging can be, therefore we need more book buy therapy... It's a nasty (excellent ) vicious circle!

 

Stephen King - IT

 

 

 

 

Great review! It's one of those books one can re-read time and a time again, there's so much to the story. People have told you you should read The Stand, and I know you've already said you would, but I just wanted to say I would recommend it, as well

 

Here are the books I bought recently:

 

At Het Boekenfestijn:

 

What a massive book haul, awesome!

 

I've now read 124 books this year, I should be reading at least a couple more books before the end of the year, which means I'll surpass my stretch goal of 125! This is quite exciting .

 

124 books?!? That's bloody amazing, I've never read that many books per year, and you still have over a month to go Good job!

 

 

x

 

Would you consider short story collections and/or omnibusses one book or multiple?

 

I'm with Seafort on this one: A collection of short stories is one book. But an omnibus is a collection of more than one book, so I would say that if an omnibus contains three different books, you've read three books

 

 

I bought some paper books:

Lisa Genova - Love Anthony

 

I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this one!

[Athena]

I can't remember if you've said But is this an annual book fair?

x

Each place they usually go to annually, but various places are visited throughout the year. Here is a link to the schedule for the next while. I go to the places that are close to me that are easy to get to, always at least Eindhoven and Utrecht. I've never been to a Belgian one, because public transport across the border is pretty bad and I don't drive much anymore. It was great when they still visited Den Bosch but that hasn't happened in the last few years. I often go to Maastricht or Nieuwegein as well.

x

Great review! It's one of those books one can re-read time and a time again, there's so much to the story. People have told you you should read The Stand, and I know you've already said you would, but I just wanted to say I would recommend it, as well

x

Thanks, that's great to hear !

x 

What a massive book haul, awesome!

x

Thanks !

x 

124 books?!? That's bloody amazing, I've never read that many books per year, and you still have over a month to go Good job!

x

Thanks ! It's actually now 130 (once I've updated the first post and posted two more reviews). Thank you! 

x 

I'm with Seafort on this one: A collection of short stories is one book. But an omnibus is a collection of more than one book, so I would say that if an omnibus contains three different books, you've read three books

x

That makes sense! 

x 

I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this one!

x

I'm quite excited about reading it, I hope it'll be good .

[Athena]

Charles Dickens - Christmas Books

 

 

Genre: Literature

Format: Paperback

Pages: 383

Synopsis (back of the book): Each of these five short stories was written specifically for Christmas, and is infused with tremendous vitality as Dickens combines his concern for social ills with the myths and memories of childhood and traditional Christmas spirit-lore.

 

The very words 'Merry Christmas' were first coined in A Christmas Carol, the first of these books, which ahs become a touchstone of English Christmas fiction, and an enduring favourite the world over.

 

My thoughts: I bought this book at a book fair some time ago. With Christmas coming up, I thought it'd be a nice time to read this.

 

Below follows a summary of each of the five stories and my thoughts specific to that story. First follow a number of general remarks.

 

First off, there were some words I didn't know. I think they were mainly old-fashioned words, words that are no longer used much these days. I had to ask my boyfriend or look them up.

 

Secondly, the writing style was very complicated. I felt a lot more could've been said in less space.

 

Then, there were a lot of confusing metaphors, analogies and descriptions. They often didn't mean anything to me, I didn't understand what was meant. I've always had problems with metaphors, to me things are what they are and comparing them to other things that have in first light, nothing to do with each other, is confusing. Ie. (and I'm making this one up) 'his hair shone like the sun on a warm summer's day where the wind blows through the trees', doesn't tell me anything. 'His hair was beautiful and shiny', tells me more in much less space. I can see why, if you do understand the prose, it's great to read, but to me a lot of these words were useless input that I couldn't process.

 

Some words were written with a capital, I didn't understand why. Baby, Blind Daughter, Cricket were all written with a capital, but old man, young man or chemist aren't. Several verbs were written with capitals too, such as Put Down, Ordained, Exulted (I have no idea what these last two mean anyway).

 

What I found really confusing too, was that people were referred to by several names. For example, as Mr. Firstname, Mr. Lastname and as 'old man'. It was very confusing to me who was who. In the same conversation, you'd have "Mr. Firstname said", "Mr A said", "Mr. Lastname said" "Mr B said" "the old man said" and some of these people are the same person. I don't get why you'd switch in the middle of a conversation, it was very confusing. Why not call people by just one name? To me a thing has one name, or a first and a last name, to be used such as Firstname or Firstname Lastname or Mr. Lastname. The person shouldn't also be known as 'the young man' because how do I know which one of the company is the youngest?

 

I thought the narrator was a bit odd too. I'm unsure who or what he's meant to be, but he seemed to, well not interfere, but give his own opinion on the matter a lot. I found it detracted me from the story.

 

A Christmas Carol

A mean man who doesn't care much about other people, is visited by three spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

 

This was by far my favourite of the stories. It really helped that I knew the story, I've seen it appear in for example video games and TV series. It was great to read the original.

 

Rating: ***** (9/10)

 

Chimes

This story is about some bells and a man's life. I didn't get what happened at the end, it was confusing.

 

Rating: *** (6/10)

 

The Cricket on the Hearth

This story is about some people. What was sad was that the Baby didn't have a name other than "Baby" and he didn't seem so important to his parents. They were much more busy with other things. I understand he's perhaps not important to the story but he seemed to not be very loved. My boyfriend told me later that often in those days babies didn't get their names until their christening ceremony, so that makes more sense then.

 

I also wasn't sure if the cricket mentioned was a real cricket.

 

I understood most of the plot of this story.

 

Rating: *** (7/10)

 

The Battle of Life

This story is about a man and his two daughters and what happens in their lives.

 

I was confused at the beginning, because the story talked about the two daughters dancing around, so it seemed to me that they were about 8 and 10 years old or something. It was strange how later on I found out they were actually more like teenagers, one of them being engaged to a man.

 

There were a lot of characters, this was confusing. The sisterly love was quite weird, how the sisters behaved towards one another seemed a bit unrealistic to me. What happens is weird, I wouldn't call it immoral but weird at least.. (don't want to spoil it though)

 

Rating: ** (4/10)

 

The Haunted Man

I abandoned this story after a while. The first few pages were all metaphors and descriptions I didn't understand, so I skipped through that. Then people were referred to under several names, so just when I thought I knew who 'the chemist' was, it turned out it was someone else. It was really confusing and I couldn't figure out who was who or what the point of the story was. After the pages of descriptions the characters then rambled on about a person's wife, and after that a man met a phantom. It was very confusing.

 

Rating: * (1/10)

 

Overall I expected more from the book. Dickens has been lauded as being very famous and very enjoyable to read. Unfortunately, the book became a slog for me. It could be that because of my tiredness (I've been very tired lately), I wasn't able to appreciate it as much as I perhaps otherwise could have. Overall I liked reading A Christmas Carol, great to read the original of that, but I didn't care much for the rest of the stories. It might have been better if I had read several other books in between each story, as to not overload on it, I don't know. I'm sorry to say I didn't like the book more than I did. It became a slog but once I made the decision to abandon the last story and to read something nicer and easier on the mind, I felt a whole lot better.

 

I'm a bit worried now about all my other literature that's TBR. Earlier this year I read Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's and didn't enjoy it a lot either. I read some children's literature this year which I did enjoy (Black Beauty, The Little Prince). I have quite a few more books by Dickens on my TBR. I don't think I'll be attempting more literature any time soon , even though there's quite some of them on the TBR.

 

Rating: *** (5/10)

[Athena]

The Mind Gym - The Mind Gym 3: Relaties (Relationships)

 

 

Genre: Information

Format: Paperback

Pages: 299

Synopsis (their own website): Whether it’s the boss, clients, friends or lovers, getting relationships right matters. This book shows how to make yours shine.

 

Drawing on the latest research and the experience of 500,000 people who use Mind Gym, Relationships reveals how to:

 

Be loved, respected and even obeyed

Build trust in a moment that lasts for years

Turn an angry argument into an unbreakable bond

Get on with people who don’t get on with anyone else

Repair a broken relationship so it’s stronger than ever

 

You don’t even need to read this book. Fill in the questionnaire at the beginning and discover which chapters will help you and which to skip.

 

My thoughts: This is the third Mind Gym book. I picked it up at a book fair, along with the first two books, because it sounded interesting, because I liked the cover and because I liked the layout of the book.

 

This book is about relationships and how we can improve them. While I think not all chapters will be as useful to me, for example, there are chapters about arguments, I don't have a lot of arguments, there are some that will be useful.

 

I might be too tired as of yet to really do a lot with the knowledge, but I liked reading about it and I know where the information is if I want to find it again.

 

One chapter consisted of blog posts and replies between two (fictional) people, discussing a certain situation that was bothering one of them, at work. I thought this was a very original way of doing this, so I thought this was interesting.

 

I do think my relationships work slightly different sometimes than most people's, for example one chapter discussed certain to's-and-fro's between two people. Because my brain is different, I think I might interpret certain things differently. But it was interesting to read about it, if this is how it works for most people.

 

As with the first two books, I liked the layout, font, tests, frames. I didn't write out any tests this time, I kind of did them in my head because I knew what the answer would be or the situation wasn't totally applicable to me.

 

With the book comes a code that you can use online to get more tests and information. I haven't done this yet. The second book also came with a code, which I haven't yet used either.

 

Overall I thought it was interesting to read about a lot of these subjects. Other subjects discussed are how to be more charismatic, how to be kind, what to do with annoying people, how to solve a conflict in a calm way, and more. Note that these titles are what I make of them, not what the chapters are called (the chapters have better names).

 

Rating: ***** (9/10)

[Kidsmum]

 Nice review Athena, I love the cover of your Dickens book as well, was it that which attracted you to buying it in the first place? From the short stories i only know A Christmas Carol but i shall look out for his other short stories 

[Athena]

Thanks, yes that was one of the reasons . I also wanted to read the original A Christmas Carol after seeing its story used in several other media.

[Signor Finzione]

A Christmas Carol is one I've been meaning to read for years but never seem to get round to. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

 

The cricket thing sounds weird. Maybe they had a pet lizard and kept crickets for its food?

[Athena]

Thanks !

 

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it was a common thing back in those days, to have a cricket sitting on your hearth. In the story some of the characters like the sound it makes, its song.

[shelley.s]

Ive just read A Christmas Carol too. I love Dickens. Well done on reaching your target, 124 books is a huge amount, i dont know how you manage to get anything else done   

[Athena]

Thanks !

 

I was in the city yesterday and bought some (second hand) books:

 

Dirk van Weelden - Literair Overleven

Frank Lovece - The X-files Declassified

Patrick Tilley - The Amtrak Wars 6: Earth-Thunder

Paul B. Thompson and Tonya R. Carter - DragonLance: The Elven Nations Trilogy 1: Firstborn

Anne Lesley Groell - The Cloak and Dagger 3: Cauldron Of Iniquity

Ronald Anthony Cross - The Eternal Guardians 2: The Lost Guardians

Stephen Lawhead - The Pendragon Cycle 2: Merlin

Katie Waitman - The Merro Tree

Jack L. Chalker - The Four Lords of the Diamond 3: Charon: A Dragon At The Gate

Jack L. Chalker - The Four Lords of the Diamond 4: Medusa: A Tiger By The Tail

Melanie Rawn - Dragon Star 1: Stronghold

Melanie Rawn - Dragon Star 2: The Dragon Token

 

[Marie H]

Great haul!  Hope you enjoy reading them.

[shelley.s]

What a haul! I'm not familiar with any of the titles so ill be looking out for your reviews 

[Signor Finzione]

Great haul! Never heard of any on the list, but I do like the amount of dragon-related books on it.

[poppyshake]

Not familiar with them either but they look great and I bet you had a lovely time browsing and selecting them Gaia  Hope you enjoy them x

[Athena]

Thanks all !

[Little Pixie]

Hurray for your new books !

[lauraloves]

Great books