Your Book Activity 2023

[Hayley]

On 3/16/2023 at 5:43 PM, Chrissy said:

Finished About Time by Jodi Taylor, and thoroughly enjoyed myself with it. Her latest installment of her Time Police series. 

 

I have been laid up with a chest infection this week, so have spent most of it wrapped up to the gills in blankets and snuggled on the sofa, with hot drinks, a box of tissues, and my kindle close to hand. Reading in short bursts has been all I could manage, but has actually been a delight. 

I’m glad you at least enjoyed your book! Hope you’re feeling better now!

 

5 hours ago, Brian. said:

So many bugs going round at the moment. I was floored with the flu for 3/4 days in January and I’ve come down with something similar this morning.

And I hope you feel better soon too!

 

 

I finally finished The Hidden People by Alison Littlewood today. I was finding the middle part quite slow but it did pick up again eventually! I’m looking forward to starting something different now though. 

[France]

On 3/16/2023 at 6:43 PM, Chrissy said:

Finished About Time by Jodi Taylor, and thoroughly enjoyed myself with it. Her latest installment of her Time Police series. 

 

I have been laid up with a chest infection this week, so have spent most of it wrapped up to the gills in blankets and snuggled on the sofa, with hot drinks, a box of tissues, and my kindle close to hand. Reading in short bursts has been all I could manage, but has actually been a delight. 

I've got About Time on my Kobo and I'm saving it for when I really need a lift.

 

[poppy]

On 3/17/2023 at 6:43 AM, Chrissy said:

Finished About Time by Jodi Taylor, and thoroughly enjoyed myself with it. Her latest installment of her Time Police series. 

 

I have been laid up with a chest infection this week, so have spent most of it wrapped up to the gills in blankets and snuggled on the sofa, with hot drinks, a box of tissues, and my kindle close to hand. Reading in short bursts has been all I could manage, but has actually been a delight. 

I really must read some more of the St Mary's series ... there's a few of the main ones I still haven't got round to. They're such fun.

Hope you're continuing to feel better, Chrissy xxx

[willoyd]

Not been on the site for a few weeks, so a bit of a catch-up: completed The Ice Palace (Tarjei Vesaas) earlier this month as part of my Read Around the World (for Norway) - a slim but massively intense novel about a young girl coping with the loss of her best friend who goes missing playing truant. A book that demands rereading and more thought.  However, have moved on to one of my Tour of the US books, Another Country by James Baldwin, another powerful piece of writing.  Both books in an utterly different league to the very disappointing Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff, read for a book group in between these two.  Slung aside fairly early on: characters devoid of interest steeped in superficiality.  One of those books where the rave reviews are incomprehensible (Gone Girl was another - and several reviewers drew parallels, so perhaps not as surprising as might first appear).  I did enjoy The Monsters of Templeton though, and will soon be trying Matrix, which I already have on my shelves. It looks a completely different prospect though.

[Brian.]

I've had a decent few weeks reading and I'm slowly catching up with my mini-reviews in my thread. Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline, The Dark Tourist by Dom Joly, How to Play Winning Chess by Yasser Seirawan, and The Dark Night of the Shed by Nick Page are all completed and wating to be reviewed.

 

At the moment I am reading The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle.

[France]

Having read two biographies back to back I did some Kobo diving among my unread books and landed on The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly. I have no idea why I bought it as I got tired of psychological thrillers about the time Gone Girl came out, but so far I'm really enjoying it.

[lunababymoonchild]

Currently reading Fair Helen by Andrew Greig.

[Hayley]

I’ve just started The Appeal by Janice Hallett. 

[Chrissy]

Finished reading Orlando by Virginia Woolf, as part of the January - March BCF Reading Challenge.

 

It is a book I have been meaning to read for decades, but never actually got from the bookshelf, or more recently clicked on my kindle to read. I am so glad the challenge gave me that push to dive in.

 

Definitely a book you have to be in the correct frame of mind for, as the stream of consciousness style can make you feel like you are drowning in words rather than enjoying the flow of the narrative wash over you, if you are not in the right mood for it.

 

Fascinating, compelling, witty and often lyrical it manages to be an epic read as it stretches across the centuries, yet is equally quite a slow moving and intimate book, observing the title characters quest for life's meaning. I can understand why it is considered a masterpiece and the thought provoking themes make it an important book.

[willoyd]

Two books for my world tour back-to-back: first of the two, The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualuso (for Angola), followed closely by Who Among Us? by Mario Benedetti (for Uruguay - my first South American book of the challenge).  Both good, thought provoking reads.

[lunababymoonchild]

Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens

[willoyd]

Two more world tour books completed in the last couple of days:  History. A Mess. by Sigrun Palsdottir for Iceland, and The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield for New Zealand.  Both 5 star (excellent) reads, no mean achievement by the latter given my normal lack of connection with short stories.

[lunababymoonchild]

Well, I thought that I was reading Martin Chuzzlewit but it turns out that I'm reading Hard Times. Don't know how that happened but I have the Complete Works of Charles Dickens on Kindle so since I'm well into Hard Times I might as well keep going. The only way I found out was to look up one of the characters that I was reading about (on the internet) whilst wondering why a book called Martin Chuzzlewit hadn't mentioned not only Martin Chuzzlewit but any Chuzzlewit at all. I see by my book-mark that I had started out reading Martin Chuzzlewit. Hmmmm. It can only be my fault, I suppose.  

[Madeleine]

Sounds like you accidentally switched books somehow?

[lunababymoonchild]

20 minutes ago, Madeleine said:

Sounds like you accidentally switched books somehow?

I must have. I know that nobody else touches my Kindle so I must have somehow switched books. 

[Hayley]

20 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

I must have. I know that nobody else touches my Kindle so I must have somehow switched books. 

That’s weird! I love Hard Times though 😄

[lunababymoonchild]

2 hours ago, Hayley said:

That’s weird! I love Hard Times though 😄

It is weird and never happened before but that's alright, I'm enjoying Hard Times anyway.

[lunababymoonchild]

Sarah Bakewell, Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Enquiry and Hope. A favourite author of mine, I bought this in hardback

[Chrissy]

I recently finished the first two books in Alex Scarrow's TimeRiders series. A light and improbable romp through time, righting wrongs and occasionally causing them. Fast paced stories with (currently) nicely developing characters. I will pick up the others in the 9 book series as and when they pop up for 99p on kindle. 

 

Onto the Book Club Forum Book Club read for this second quarter! 'A book related to Charles Dickens'

For this I am starting with The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heap by HG Barry. 

 

I have the book, Tom-All-Alone (also known as The Man In Black or The Solitary House) by Lynn Shepherd arriving soon. This one is described as The story of Tom-All-Alone's takes place in the 'space between' two masterpieces of mid-Victorian fiction: Bleak House and The Woman in White (Amazon UK) 

 

Very much looking forward to reading both of these. 

[lunababymoonchild]

I too bought The Man in Black and it will arrive tomorrow. Still currently reading Hard Times by Dickens himself and enjoying that. 
 

1 hour ago, Chrissy said:

Onto the Book Club Forum Book Club read for this second quarter! 'A book related to Charles Dickens'

For this I am starting with The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heap by HG Barry. 

 

Interested to hear what you think of this.

[lunababymoonchild]

Currently reading Pietr the Latvian, Maigret number 1 by Georges Simenon

[lunababymoonchild]

Currently reading The Man in Black, Lynn Shepherd part of the second Group Read

[lightningammil]

"The Rosie Project" by Graeme Simsion.

[timebug]

Just read the biography 'Ray Davies' by Johnny Rogan. Not a particularly satisfying read, as Ray Davies himself, as is quite well known, is not the pleasantest of men. Notoriously mean and tight fisted with money, angry and screwed up, he nevertheless wrote many great songs that were/are a part of the fabric of my life. Quite a detailed account of the history of The Kinks, it comes across as a labour of love rather than genuine admiration on the part of the author. Speaking of which, I.M.O Mr Rogan, who has written about thirty such books, does not strike me as a particularly good writer. His prose is often stilted almost forced, and I foubd this marathon sized tome a bit of a slog to finish. I did make it to the end, but came awy fairly dissatisfied with both the writer and the way the book was presented. Interesting enough, but I would earmark it 'only for the real diehard fan'!

[lunababymoonchild]

Currently reading Hear No Evil by Sarah Smith, e-book. It's set in Edinburgh in 1817!