Little Pixie`s Bookshelf 2016

[Athena]

Thanks .

 

-1C tomorrow night here, bleah.   I quite like the crispy cold, but this is muggy and overcast. Stay warm !

Cold! Here the temperature has dropped, it's now only about 6 °C maximum I think. It is overcast but at least it's not raining at the moment. You stay warm too .

[Little Pixie]

So, I read Banana Yoshimoto`s Kitchen / Moonlight Shadow, a couple of days ago. Both novellas were excellent and I'm now a convert. She deals with the big questions - love and death - and does it in a beautifully meditative style. The language is just glorious !

 

An excerpt from Kitchen :

 

I saw myself reflected in the glass of the large terrace window while black gloom spread over the rain-hounded night panorama. I was tied by blood to no creature in this world. I could go anywhere, do anything. It was dizzying.

Edited November 8, 2016 by Little Pixie

[Athena]

I read the novellas Hardboiled & Hard Luck by Banana Yoshimoto and liked those. I'm glad to find someone else who's read something by her! I'm glad you liked the novellas you read .

[Little Pixie]

I read the novellas Hardboiled & Hard Luck by Banana Yoshimoto and liked those. I'm glad to find someone else who's read something by her! I'm glad you liked the novellas you read .

 

Ooh, I`ll give those a go  ; I was wondering which book of hers to try next.

 

Edit - I`ve ordered it now !

Edited November 9, 2016 by Little Pixie

[Athena]

Ooh, I`ll give those a go  ; I was wondering which book of hers to try next.

 

Edit - I`ve ordered it now !

How exciting! I hope you like them .

[Little Pixie]

How exciting! I hope you like them .

 

The book`s arrived already !  Looking forward to reading it.

 

I also ordered a book by Frances Crane, called The Applegreen Cat ; unfortunately, someone read a book code wrong and I`ve been sent a non-fiction book set in the Middle East by Joseph Braude called The Honoured Dead ( which does look interesting, anyway ). I`ve emailed the bopokseller to sort it out.   

[Little Pixie]

Hurray ! Jill Paton Walsh is writing another Lord Peter Wimsey book. I`ve read her other ones, continuing Dorothy L Sayers` series, so I`m thrilled  that there`s going to be another one.

[Chrissy]

Hurray ! Jill Paton Walsh is writing another Lord Peter Wimsey book. I`ve read her other ones, continuing Dorothy L Sayers` series, so I`m thrilled  that there`s going to be another one.

 

I love the Lord Peter Wimsey series, and have been impressed by Jill Paton Walsh's continuation of them. The Attenbury Emeralds were great, although I was a tad less happy with The Late Scholar, which I felt missed the mark at times.

 

It will be good to see what JPW comes up with, especially now the next generation Wimseys and Bunters are getting older. 

[Athena]

I also ordered a book by Frances Crane, called The Applegreen Cat ; unfortunately, someone read a book code wrong and I`ve been sent a non-fiction book set in the Middle East by Joseph Braude called The Honoured Dead ( which does look interesting, anyway ). I`ve emailed the bopokseller to sort it out.

I hope you can get it sorted . It sounds like a hassle.

[Little Pixie]

I hope you can get it sorted . It sounds like a hassle.

 

It was okay. They sorted it out within hours - full refund and I can keep the book too.  

[Little Pixie]

I love the Lord Peter Wimsey series, and have been impressed by Jill Paton Walsh's continuation of them. The Attenbury Emeralds were great, although I was a tad less happy with The Late Scholar, which I felt missed the mark at times.

 

It will be good to see what JPW comes up with, especially now the next generation Wimseys and Bunters are getting older. 

 

I wasn`t fussy - I enjoyed all the continuations.

 

Have you tried any of Jill Paton Walsh`s other books ? I read The Wyndham Case, but wasn`t enthused by it. 

[Chrissy]

No I haven't, and strangely have never even thought of them. Oh dear, I feel a bit guilty that I had only thought of her writings in context to Dorothy L Sayers. Oops!   

[Little Pixie]

No I haven't, and strangely have never even thought of them. Oh dear, I feel a bit guilty that I had only thought of her writings in context to Dorothy L Sayers. Oops!   

 

There are far too many books out there to keep up anyway....

[Chrissy]

There are far too many books out there to keep up anyway....

 

Hell to the yeah!  I am currently struggling to choose my next read - too much choice on my kindle and shelves. 

[Little Pixie]

Hell to the yeah!  I am currently struggling to choose my next read - too much choice on my kindle and shelves. 

 

Ditto.   I might go for another Constance & Gwenyth Little book - they wrote some lovely screwball mysteries from the 1930`s onwards. 

[Little Pixie]

Good grief, almost another year over. 

 

I`ve been a bit bleurgh lately - some medication I was taking affected my liver, leading to my hair thinning out ( luckily just at the front, so it`s disguisable ) and a general feeling of awfulness. I`ve stopped the tablets and will have another blood test in Feb, to check that the liver`s back to normal and it was definitely the medication causing it.

 

Oh, and the BT engineer had to come out again to fix the phone line, which stopped working. Slow/ non-existent internets - the horror ! :

 

Anyhoo, to the books !

[Little Pixie]

Books read : 152                      TBR 831              New Books Bought : 156                       Total Cost : £582.72   

 

Books ordered -  Something New( £8.84), Displacement (£10.45 ) , Relish (£8.29 ) - Lucy Knisley  Hardboiled and Hardluck - Banana Yoshimoto ( £2.81 ),  Adam Hall - Pekin Target (£2.81), Quiller KGB (£2.81), The warsaw document (£ 3.84 )  The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield (£2.01), Thyme of Death - Susan Wittig Albert (£2.81), Japanland - Karen Muller ( £2.80), The Rabbit Back Literature Society - Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen ( £2.80 ), Murder most frothy - Cleo Coyle ( £2.80 ), A plateful of murder - Claudia Bishop (£3.19 ), Night of the living deed - EJ Copperman ( £2.81 ), Finding your way - Martha Beck (£2.81 ), Pilgrimage Vol2 - Dorothy Richardson (£6.24 ).  

 

Edited December 11, 2016 by Little Pixie

[Little Pixie]

Twitter - Amazing Maps.  - Some fun - and thought provoking - stuff here.

[Athena]

I`ve been a bit bleurgh lately - some medication I was taking affected my liver, leading to my hair thinning out ( luckily just at the front, so it`s disguisable ) and a general feeling of awfulness. I`ve stopped the tablets and will have another blood test in Feb, to check that the liver`s back to normal and it was definitely the medication causing it.

 

Oh, and the BT engineer had to come out again to fix the phone line, which stopped working. Slow/ non-existent internets - the horror ! :

I'm sorry you haven't been feeling well . I hope you feel better soon !

Glad the internet is fixed !

 

Books ordered - Something New( £8.84), Displacement (£10.45 ) , Relish (£8.29 ) - Lucy Knisley Hardboiled and Hardluck - Banana Yoshimoto ( £2.81 ), Adam Hall - Pekin Target (£2.81), Quiller KGB (£2.81), The warsaw document (£ 3.84 ) The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield (£2.01), Thyme of Death - Susan Wittig Albert (£2.81), Japanland - Karen Muller ( £2.80), The Rabbit Back Literature Society - Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen ( £2.80 ), Murder most frothy - Cleo Coyle ( £2.80 ), A plateful of murder - Claudia Bishop (£3.19 ), Night of the living deed - EJ Copperman ( £2.81 ), Finding your way - Martha Beck (£2.81 ), Pilgrimage Vol2 - Dorothy Richardson (£6.24 ).

 

I hope you enjoy all your new books . I see you ordered Hardboiled and Hardluck, I hope you like it .

 

Twitter - Amazing Maps.  - Some fun - and thought provoking - stuff here.

Some of those maps are quite interesting !

[Little Pixie]

I'm sorry you haven't been feeling well . I hope you feel better soon !

Glad the internet is fixed !

 

 

I hope you enjoy all your new books . I see you ordered Hardboiled and Hardluck, I hope you like it .

 

 

Some of those maps are quite interesting !

 

 

Thank you !  

 

And now to get up to date with Books Read.

[Little Pixie]

#153   Honest Doubt - Amanda Cross

#154   The Letters of Dorothy L Sayers 1899-1936

#155   I Remember Nothing - Nora Ephron

#156   The Empty Day - Richard lockridge

#157   Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto

#158   Painted Roofs - Dorothy Richardson

#159   Backwater - Dorothy Richardson

#160   The Saturday Morning Murder - Batya Gur

#161   Visible City - Tova Mirvis

#162   Asking for murder - Roberta Isleib

#163   Something new - Lucy Knisley

#164   The grey Mist Murders - Constance and Gwenyth Little

#165   Honeycomb - Dorothy richardson

#166   the Black Coat - Constance and Gwenyth Little

#167   Thyme of Death - Susan Wittig Albert

#168   murder on a Kibbutz - Batya Gur

#169   Murder Duet - Batya Gur

#170   The Passover Murder - Lee Harris

 

  

[Athena]

Nice ! Do you think you'll get to 175 this year?

[Little Pixie]

Nice ! Do you think you'll get to 175 this year?

 

Maybe. I was thinking of reading one big book to finish - like The Luminaries ( Eleanor Catton ) or The Valley of Amazement ( Amy Tan ) - but now I`m thinking that to feel a bit more Christmassy, I could dig into some Festive Books. 

 

Do you think you`ll get to 450? 

[Athena]

Maybe. I was thinking of reading one big book to finish - like The Luminaries ( Eleanor Catton ) or The Valley of Amazement ( Amy Tan ) - but now I`m thinking that to feel a bit more Christmassy, I could dig into some Festive Books. 

 

Do you think you`ll get to 450? 

Those are both good ideas . I'm thinking of doing some festive reads myself (my current one is festive).

 

Haha, no . I doubt I'm going to get to 425 to be honest. I've currently read 416 books. December is always a busy month for me and I want to focus on some festive reads and books for adults and YA for a while, generally longer books than the short children's books I have been reading the past while, so I don't think I'll get to even 425. It also doesn't help that I've got a new hobby now - colouring for adults, and I'm doing a lot of book cataloguing, fixing things up in my database. But who knows, maybe it'll be around 425. I'm kind of saddened I won't be getting to 100,000 pages this year - currently I've read 92944 pages (minus my current read) and I'd have to read a whole lot to get to 100,000. It was a nice accomplishment in 2015 though (as was 502 books). But for the next while I plan to focus on longer books for adults and YA rather than short children's books and not go to the library as often, just read what I want to when I feel like it. We'll see how things go though, I probably won't be able to resist going to the library in a while so .

[Little Pixie]

Those are both good ideas . I'm thinking of doing some festive reads myself (my current one is festive).

 

Haha, no . I doubt I'm going to get to 425 to be honest. I've currently read 416 books. December is always a busy month for me and I want to focus on some festive reads and books for adults and YA for a while, generally longer books than the short children's books I have been reading the past while, so I don't think I'll get to even 425. It also doesn't help that I've got a new hobby now - colouring for adults, and I'm doing a lot of book cataloguing, fixing things up in my database. But who knows, maybe it'll be around 425. I'm kind of saddened I won't be getting to 100,000 pages this year - currently I've read 92944 pages (minus my current read) and I'd have to read a whole lot to get to 100,000. It was a nice accomplishment in 2015 though (as was 502 books). But for the next while I plan to focus on longer books for adults and YA rather than short children's books and not go to the library as often, just read what I want to when I feel like it. We'll see how things go though, I probably won't be able to resist going to the library in a while so .

 

You`ve had a really productive year   ( and colouring books still count, right ?  ).