Athena's Reading List 2014

[Karsa Orlong]

Blimey, amazing haul and then some

 

Sorry to hear about your boyfriend's nephew

[lopeanha]

Oh my, statistic-mania, I love it!

[Little Pixie]

Fantastic new books !

[pontalba]

Love it, love it!  Great hauls, Gaia!

 

I love the pictures of the bookseller's place.  Me want! 

 

I see a book by William Shatner has managed to sneak it's way into your piles.......

And Hillary Mantel.  Yays!

[Athena]

Thanks for all your comments ! I'm quite happy with all my new books.

 

EDIT: I just noticed I have over 5000 posts. That's a lot considering I've been here less than a year and a half .

Edited May 13, 2014 by Athena

[Alexi]

Great hauls Gaia!

 

Sorry to hear about your boyfriend's nephew, hope he is as good as can be expected at this time.

[Anna Begins]

Wow!  And to think I can only get through 5 or so a month!

[Karsa Orlong]

 

I see a book by William Shatner has managed to sneak it's way into your piles.......

 

Well, to be fair, he is a bit of a pain in the arse.

 

[Athena]

Great hauls Gaia!

x

Thanks .

x

Sorry to hear about your boyfriend's nephew, hope he is as good as can be expected at this time.

He passed away . Personally I believe in an after-life so I hope he's somewhere nice. My boyfriend doesn't believe in an after-life, though.

x

Wow!  And to think I can only get through 5 or so a month!

x

Thanks .

x 

Well, to be fair, he is a bit of a pain in the arse.

 

x

 

I haven't ever read anything by him so for €1 I thought I'd give the book a go.

[Signor Finzione]

Hi Gaia, sorry I haven't been around much but wanted to say again how sorry I am about Kyle. It must be really tough for your boyfriend and his family, and for you too. I hope they at least manage to find out what happened to him. 

 

On a positive note, Het Boekenfestijn looks amazing. What a great haul you came back with! Thank goodness for the book-carrying skills of boyfriends, eh?

[Athena]

Hi Gaia, sorry I haven't been around much but wanted to say again how sorry I am about Kyle. It must be really tough for your boyfriend and his family, and for you too. I hope they at least manage to find out what happened to him. 

x

Thanks Laura, I appreciate that.

x

On a positive note, Het Boekenfestijn looks amazing. What a great haul you came back with! Thank goodness for the book-carrying skills of boyfriends, eh?

x

Thanks . Yes, I find it really handy that mine carries my books .

[Athena]

George R. R. Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire 5: A Dance with Dragons 1: Dreams and Dust



Genre: Fantasy
Age-range: Adult
Format: Paperback
Pages: 624 (690 if you include the appendix)
Synopsis: (no synopsis because it's part of a series)

My thoughts: I was quite eager to continue reading the A Song of Ice and Fire series, wanting to know what happens with the characters and the world.

I enjoyed reading this book, but not as much as the other books in this series. There were quite a few chapters that weren't as interesting to me and that seemed to drag on a bit. The details of the world and characters were interesting but sometimes I felt not much happened in terms of the plot.

It was interesting to read about the characters I like and I did enjoy that. This book is no A Storm of Swords though, it was not as tense and suspenseful as that. There weren't as many good plot twists, not as much happened. It's probably all going to lead somewhere but it's taking a while.

Overall I still enjoyed reading this book but not as much as I enjoyed some of the previous books in this series.

Rating: **** (8/10)

Edited May 15, 2014 by Athena

[Athena]

Laura van Bouchout - JobShopper

 

 

Genre: Biography

Age-range: Adult

Format: Paperback

Pages: 288 (the book doesn't have page numbers though)

Synopsis (me):Laura decides to try out 30 jobs during one year (before she's 30), to find out what her dream job is. She takes a part time job and in the other half of her time she tries out 30 jobs for 3 days each.

 

My thoughts: I bought this book at the book fair earlier this year and felt like reading something non-fiction.

 

The book contains a report of the 30 jobs Laura tried, with after each few pages on her experiences a summary of what she thinks you'll come across in the job and what kind of person the job is suited for. She also comments on what she thought of it and whether it could be her dream job. In between the jobs there is sometimes an interlude of one page with Laura talking about how progress is going and other job related thoughts. The book contains cute illustrations and prints of photos to do with each job (all jobs have illustrations but not all of them have photo prints).

 

I quite enjoyed reading this book. Not all of Laura's job sounded as interesting to me to be honest. I can imagine other people liking it, her liking it, but many are definitely not my thing. It was interesting to read about the jobs, though some interested me more than others. The book is nicely written. I loved the illustrations and pictures, they make the story come more alive.

 

One thing I found interesting, was that I thought the book was written by a Dutch person (this is what I assume when the tekst seems Dutch and it's not translated from another language) but once I started reading it was said Laura lives in Belgium, so the book is written in Flemish. Flemish is very similar to Dutch, but some words are different and I find this interesting. Yes, the words pulled me out of the story a bit because I had to think, what does she mean? But it was  nice, I find it interesting to learn more about Flemish and the words that are different that the Flemish people use. I found it interesting. For example, the Flemish word for job is 'job', the Dutch one is 'baan', the Flemish word for the device microwave is 'microgolf', the Dutch one 'magnetron'.

 

Overall I quite enjoyed reading this book. It's suited to be read by little bits at a time, because you can just read about the one job. It's ecudated me more about jobs though a lot of them sound very tiring to me.

 

Rating: **** (8/10)

Edited May 18, 2014 by Athena

[Athena]

I've read 22228 pages so far this year (and 79 books). That's an interesting number .

[Little Pixie]

Laura van Bouchout - JobShopper

 

My thoughts: I bought this book at the book fair earlier this year and felt like reading something non-fiction.

 

The book contains a report of the 30 jobs Laura tried, with after each few pages on her experiences a summary of what she thinks you'll come across in the job and what kind of person the job is suited for. She also comments on what she thought of it and whether it could be her dream job. In between the jobs there is sometimes an interlude of one page with Laura talking about how progress is going and other job related thoughts. The book contains cute illustrations and prints of photos to do with each job (all jobs have illustrations but not all of them have photo prints).

 

I quite enjoyed reading this book. Not all of Laura's job sounded as interesting to me to be honest. I can imagine other people liking it, her liking it, but many are definitely not my thing. It was interesting to read about the jobs, though some interested me more than others. The book is nicely written. I loved the illustrations and pictures, they make the story come more alive.

 

One thing I found interesting, was that I thought the book was written by a Dutch person (this is what I assume when the tekst seems Dutch and it's not translated from another language) but once I started reading it was said Laura lives in Belgium, so the book is written in Flemish. Flemish is very similar to Dutch, but some words are different and I find this interesting. Yes, the words pulled me out of the story a bit because I had to think, what does she mean? But it was  nice, I find it interesting to learn more about Flemish and the words that are different that the Flemish people use. I found it interesting. For example, the Flemish word for job is 'job', the Dutch one is 'baan', the Flemish word for the device microwave is 'microgolf', the Dutch one 'magnetron'.

 

Overall I quite enjoyed reading this book. It's suited to be read by little bits at a time, because you can just read about the one job. It's ecudated me more about jobs though a lot of them sound very tiring to me.

 

Rating: **** (8/10)

 

Sounds interesting ; I dimly recall some American authors doing something similar.

 

BTW, the Welsh for microwave is `popty ping`. Hee.

Edited May 18, 2014 by Little Pixie

[Little Pixie]

I've read 22228 pages so far this year (and 79 books). That's an interesting number .

 

Congrats !

[bobblybear]

I've read 22228 pages so far this year (and 79 books). That's an interesting number .

 

That's a big number! Congrats!

[Athena]

Sounds interesting ; I dimly recall some American authors doing something similar.

 

BTW, the Welsh for microwave is `popty ping`. Hee.

x

That's a funny word .

x  

Congrats !

x

Thanks ! 

x 

That's a big number! Congrats!

x

Thanks !

[Athena]

Dirk Johan Klanker and Arjen van Lith - Anti-recessiva

 

 

Genre: Information

Age-range: Adult

Format: Paperback

Pages: 128

Synopsis (me):A little book about how to combat the recession. It goes from A to Z and goes through terms to do with the recession and gives tips. Aside from tips, sometimes there's a story or something homourous (or a combination of all these).

 

My thoughts: I recently bought this book at the second hand shop. It's short so I thought I'd read it. I felt like reading an information book.

 

This book was interesting. Some of the tips given are pretty good (I've read them in other books not intended as humourous). The book contains quite a few quotes, from famous people and from people I didn't know. Sometimes they were funny, sometimes just nice. I liked most of the humourous bits, they were quite funny to read about. The book shows that even though you might have it bad at the moment, there are other people who might have it worse. There are good lessons in the book as well as laughs. I enjoyed reading it.

 

Rating: **** (8/10)

[lopeanha]

I've read 22228 pages so far this year (and 79 books). That's an interesting number .

 Oh my goodness, how do you do that??

[Athena]

Oh my goodness, how do you do that??

x

Thanks . I've always been able to read quite fast .

[Kidsmum]

Wow Athena, looks like you cleaned out the bookshop & the book fair, were there any books left for anyone else 

 

I see you got a lot of books by Robin Cook, i've never read any of his so will be interested to hear what you think of them. Yay for Wolf Hall, i loved it & it's sequel, Bringing Up The Bodies   

[Athena]

There were .

 

I've read quite a few of Robin Cook's books when I was a teenager, at the local library, and really enjoyed them at the time. It'll be interesting to see what I think of them nowadays . I've heard so many great things of Wolf Hall and the sequel so I hope I enjoy it .

[pontalba]

I've read 22228 pages so far this year (and 79 books). That's an interesting number .

 

Yikes and Yays!  You are one fast reader!  Congratulations.

[Athena]

Yikes and Yays!  You are one fast reader!  Congratulations.

Thanks, Pontalba !