Little Pixie`s Bookshelf 2014

[Athena]

That`s great ; I think the joy I get from buying books has made me happy too.

Me too! But I have to address this issue next year. I'm glad books and buying books makes you happy .

[Little Pixie]

Me too! But I have to address this issue next year. I'm glad books and buying books makes you happy .

 

Talking of buying books, I didn`t go to the recent Abbey Fair myself, `cos it turned out to be a general fair with one book stall ( not as good as the one they did over the Summer with the whole Abbey `bookified` ).  So, I saved money there.    

[Athena]

Talking of buying books, I didn`t go to the recent Abbey Fair myself, `cos it turned out to be a general fair with one book stall ( not as good as the one they did over the Summer with the whole Abbey `bookified` ).  So, I saved money there. 

Ah, that's a shame, but good for your money though !

[Little Pixie]

Grr, major catch-up time. The internet is doing a `quick, quick, slow` dance, and sometimes kicking me off altogether, so a bare bones post coming up. 

 

The poor cat had a swollen lower lip, but is better now ( see Google pics for how she looked - just like those pouting kitties ), we flooded up to the garden but no house damage ( and the flood repairs had just been finished off, whee ) , I had a hospital  ultrasound yesterday and apparently have gallstones, grr,  and I`m currently reading Book 200. Phew. 

[Athena]

Awww your poor cat! I'm glad she's better now. I'm glad the flooding wasn't too bad either. I'm sorry to hear about the gallstones, I hope that will be okay . Your reading is going well! Which book are you reading and did you buy any books lately (you know I had to ask )?

[Little Pixie]

Awww your poor cat! I'm glad she's better now. I'm glad the flooding wasn't too bad either. I'm sorry to hear about the gallstones, I hope that will be okay . Your reading is going well! Which book are you reading and did you buy any books lately (you know I had to ask )?

 

 

 

 

Thank you, thank you and thank you. Hee, thanks for mentioning the cat first - that`s how it should be. 

 

The hospital report takes 10 days to get to my GP, so with Xmas and the New Year, I`ll make an appointment to go in about it sometime in January. 

 

I`m currrently reading Patricia Moyes - Black Girl, White Girl  ; I started reading this author in January, and this is maybe my 15th book of hers. This one`s set in the Caribbean and `white girl` is apparently slang for drugs. 

[Little Pixie]

Books read : 190                        TBR 764              New Books Bought : 213                       Total Cost : £391.92

 

3 more books bought :

 

 

If Walls could Talk - Lucy Worsley    £5.64

 

Death on the Cherwell - Mavis Doris Hay   £4.68

 

Home Sweet Homicide - Craig Rice     £3.91

Edited December 18, 2014 by Little Pixie

[Little Pixie]

Latest books read ;

 

191   Deryn Lake - Death at St James` Palace

 

Set in the Georgian Era, this involves a death witnessed by a blind man. The denouement is very clever, but didn`t quite make up for the research-heavy prose ( while some of it was interesting, sometimes it went off into lists in a manner of ` don`t want to waste all this research I`ve done` ). 

 

192   Claude Izner - The Marais Assassin

 

Set in turn-of-the-century Paris, a murder mystery which followed too many people for me to really get into it. 

 

193   Patrica Moyes - Night ferry to Death

 

Henry and Emmy get caught up in a murder on their way back to England via ferry from the Netherlands. The description of the life abaord the ferry makes you feel like you`re right thyere with them, and there`s a very clever solution to the crime. 

 

194   Nora Roberts - Key of Light

 

Three women get invited to a mysterious house and are told they`ve been chosen to free three mythical sisters ; it`s a fast, fun read, but I didn`t quite feel that I knew the characters,

 

195, 196, 197  Tanya Huff - Summon the Keeper,the Second Summoning, Long Hot Summoning. 

 

I felt like a re-read and this was as much fun as I remembered it. Claire ( a type of Witch ) and her talking cat Austin end up as proprietors of a Canadian Guest House...with a hellhole in the basement. Exciting and funny - the cat has the best lines. 

 

198   Connie Willis - To Say nothing of the Dog

 

Another re-read.  Ned and his team go back in time to Coventry Cathedral at the time of the WW2 bombing, to save a piece of art. Mayhem ensues. touching and funny, with a complex, clever plot. 

 

199   Connie Willis - Passage

 

Joanna - a hospital researcher - participates in a project investigating Near Death Experiences. You can guess what happens... But you`d be wrong.   The plot takes several interesting twists ; just when you think you`ve got it figured out, something else happens, and you go off in another direction. There are a couple of big twists which kept me reading avidly ( and it reallly didn`t feel like 780 pages ) . I want to read more of her work next year. 

 

200   Patricia Moyes - Black Girl, White Girl

 

I`ve got 80 pages left of this, but it`s as good as the rest of her mystery books. Henry and Emmy go to a Carribbean Island to investigate drug dealing. The book involves characters from a couple of her previous books ( interesting note : the author lived on Virgin Gorda for several years, and says that the reason some people in the Carribbean have exotic first names is `cos many are descended from slaves, who all took their slave owner`s surname, so there are plenty of people with the same surname and they choose distinctive first names to identify themselves. )

[Athena]

Thank you, thank you and thank you. Hee, thanks for mentioning the cat first - that`s how it should be. 

 

The hospital report takes 10 days to get to my GP, so with Xmas and the New Year, I`ll make an appointment to go in about it sometime in January.

Yes !

 

I'm glad your reading is going well . I hope you enjoy your new books!

[Little Pixie]

Thank you.    Two of them are still in the post to me, but obviously I have enough books to be going on with. 

[Athena]

Thank you.    Two of them are still in the post to me, but obviously I have enough books to be going on with. 

I hope you will receive them speedily .

[pontalba]

Ouch...sorry you are having the health problems!

 

And glad the baby is better.

 

I've read some Connie Willis, not my favorite, but I've read two, and abandoned one or two. She's a bit long winded I thought.

What a great total of books read this year!! I can't even approach it! Congratulations!

[Little Pixie]

Ouch...sorry you are having the health problems!

 

And glad the baby is better.

 

I've read some Connie Willis, not my favorite, but I've read two, and abandoned one or two. She's a bit long winded I thought.

What a great total of books read this year!! I can't even approach it! Congratulations!

 

Thank you, thank you and thank you ! 

[Little Pixie]

Books read : 203                        TBR 751              New Books Bought : 213                       Total Cost : £391.92
 
#201    Concise Cambridge Guide to History of English Literature
 
Phew, took me all year to read this. It was written by different people specialising in the various periods, and I felt that some academics enthusiasm came over more than others ( I especially liked the early Monks history , Elizabethan theatre, early Americian authors and the history of journalism ). I picked up my book in a used book place ( it dated from 1975 ) ; it was a bit odd at times to see what the thoughts of some academics were on English Lit 40 years ago - the Brontes were sneered at, Trollope got one paragraph only, and  John  Cowper Powys got several pages ( I`ve never heard of him ). African and Caribbean authors got a big chapter though  . I`d like to read the Oxford guide at some point, to get a different - and more recent - view. 
 
#202  Duck the Halls - Donna Andrews
 
Meg Langslow investigates a mystery in her small town in Virginia. Not as funny as other books in the series, but more poignant and with a theme of the various religious bodies in the town pulling together to help out others. There`s a nice moment when Meg looks though her Xmas cards and you get to catch up  with what`s been happening with characters from previous books in the series. A lovely read for Christmas.
 
#203  Death on the Cherwell - Mavis Doriel Hay

 

A British Library Crime Classic, republished form 1935.  A group of female undergrads find a body in the river and investigate the mystery. The beginning is a bit silly and too Enid Blyton-ish, but it improves into a fun read. 

[Little Pixie]

Well, that`s me done for the year ( time for a nice lie down now  ).

 

Thank you so much to everyone who stopped by here ; I`ve really enjoyed reading everyone`s book blogs.

 

My total of 203 books for the year is a personal best, whoo ! Though - oops -  buying 213 books has also been a personal best ( double whoo ! Ahem. )

 

Favourite books of the year - Patrica Moyes` Dead men don`t Ski,  ( the first in the Henry Tibbett series - just a delightful mystery. Someone gets bumped off in a ski lodge in the Italian Alps. So evocative and charming, it made me want to sit in bed drinking hot cocoa. I hadn`t finished this book and I was already  `forced` to order the other 16 or so books in the series, it was so good )  )  , Isabel Allende`s Eva Luna  ( set in Venezuela, it`s an epic story of the daughter of a maid, who is orphaned and has to make her own way in the world. A beautiful read ),  Louise Penny`s The Beautiful Mystery and Bury your Dead ( two of the Inspector Gamache novels: I felt I was right there with the protagonists, sitting with them while they worked on the cases ) and Lisa Kogan`s Someone will be with you Shortly ( Just. Plain. Funny ) .

 

 

I managed to read 2 out of 12 of my Mighty Tomes ( though I did read some other long books, it`s just that I didn`t find myself too enthused by the ones which I`d particularly picked out; I have 3 more of the Mighty Tomes list on the go, but it just wasn`t making me happy to read them... ) 

 

Happy New Year and Best Wishes for 2015 ! 

[pontalba]

Congratulations on all  your numbers, you've done yourself quite proud, imo.

 

Happiest of 2015 to you and yours!  

[Athena]

Congratulations on reading so many books ! I wish you a very Happy New Year!

[Little Pixie]

Thanks Kate and Gaia ! A very happy New Year to you too !