Claire's book list 2012

[julie]

Hi there Chesil

Do you think you currently have more nonfiction than fiction ? I have found myself gradually leaning to the nonfiction books a lot more frequently lately. For some reason,they keep my attention better .

Whats the best travel book you have enjoyed ?

 

I understand too about wanting to get down to just Kindle books. It seems much easier to have them all in one place,doesnt it ?

[chesilbeach]

Hi Julie. On my TBR shelf, I have about 50/50 non-fiction to fiction, but I would say generally, it's usually about 10% of my reading. I always find them tempting to buy, but unless I read them immediately, they end up skulking on the TBR list for ages. I think nearly all the non-fiction on my shelf at the moment has been there for a long time. I'm much more inclined to read a travel book than a science book, but I am still fascinated by the science books when I get around to reading them. And I definitely only want to read one, or maybe two, non-fiction before I need a fiction fix. I love stories, and good travel often reads like a good story, whereas science, maths, history etc., requires a different mindset, and I find them harder to read as I want to read to relax.

 

The best travel book I've read ... hmm, that's a tricky one, but I think I'd have to go for Duende by Jason Webster. I've always had a thing about flamenco music and dancing, and a book about the writers journey to Spain on his own search for the essence of flamenco was a joy to read. I've read a couple of his other books as well, Andalus, where he looks at the Moorish roots of Spain, and Sacred Sierra, which was actually my favourite of his books, but is not strictly travel, as it's about how he and his girlfriend buy and restore a farm on a Spanish mountainside, and he also includes local folklore and stories, but it gets put in the travel section of bookshops anyway.

 

With regards to the Kindle, yes! I find it easier to read as well, as I don't have a great reading light in the evenings, and I always end up with shadows in the spine of the book, and some fonts are too small or two feint, and you just don't get that with a Kindle!

[julie]

Hi Claire

Yea, I understand about needing a good story in between if you read really involved nonfiction that takes a lot of concentration . I like the books like you mentioned, the ones where a person moves to a new country or a new house and talks about all the adjustments they make ,and it sounds kinda like a new start in life,so they are interesting to read how others accomplish that. We have moved a lot ,but never out of the same town I've been in my whole life. We havent moved in the past 10 years though. I think we're both pretty content with this place and are getting older,so the desire to move shrinks as time goes on . Lots of work . I have always loved moving to new houses though .

Maybe if you have some nonfiction that you've had for a really long time and you might not want to read it, you could possibly donate them or give them to a friend ,then it would shrink your book list some .

The Kindle definitely is handy for conserving space ,carrying around your entire library in one hand ,and the changing of the font size seems to be much handier ,if you stop and think about getting older and your eyesight gradually becoming less crisp ,the bigger font will be handy .

Do you have a kindle light on yours ? Have you tried using it outside ? I don't remember if I ever have . I tried the Fire outside and it's definitely not for outdoor reading . Very hard to see the screen with the sun glare .

I need to find time to latch onto a new book. Been really busy lately ,so I havent had much time to choose one. .

How many kindle books do you keep on yours ? I think I have 111 right now .

Edited April 8, 2012 by julie

[chesilbeach]

I regularly have a cull of my TBR, and anything I've decided I don't want to read after all, comes right off the list! All the books I've read and don't want to keep, or any I abandon or remove off my TBR all go to the charity shop, so someone else will hopefully benefit from them.

 

I don't have a light for mine, and to be honest, I haven't felt the need for one. Unlike open books, you don't get shadows across pages, so I've found the light I have next to my chair is fine for that, and I don't read in bed anyway, so that's not an issue either. I do read it outside quite a lot, and most of the time it's been fine. I'm not a big sun worshipper, so most of the time I'll be in the shade so again, the natural light is fine for that.

 

I've got 156 books on my Kindle at the moment, but because it's nowhere near full, at the moment, everything I've bought is still on it. I guess it'll take a long time for any housekeeping to be needed, so I'm not too bothered about archiving anything for now.

[julie]

Sounds great Claire

So when you get the rest of the books on your shelf completed, you have a nice big start on Kindle books,so you'll have lots to choose from .

[chesilbeach]

There are only seven books on my Kindle that I haven't read and are in my TBR list, but I have got my categorised wish lists on Amazon waiting for when I can just pick and choose what I want to read next, so I can just think what type of book I want to read, go to that wish list and download whatever I fancy. There are currently almost 200 books in total on my wish list, so I have plenty of inspiration from those to keep me going!

[chesilbeach]

Can't Be Arsed by Richard Wilson is one of those humorous list books, and the subtitle of this one is likely to explain everything ... 101 things NOT to do before dying. The authors theory is that all the things that are included on these type of lists are not all they're cracked up to be, and are usually either extremely expensive or take too much time, and it never lives up to the expectation, so life is just too short to waste time and money on them. For example, "See The Taj Mahal" which he says is always too crowded with people trying to take exactly that same photograph, with the pools in front of it, and the sun shining beautifully on it, but you always end up with a photo of other people in front of your camera and the smell from the polluted river behind it is.

 

It was a great read for a lazy bank holiday weekend, and justified that I was lounging around reading instead of trying to do something more interesting!

[chesilbeach]

When I read Rose Tremain's The Road Home a few years ago, I was really impressed by the writing, and it was then that I had one of those strange times where she seemed to pop up everywhere - she was on television programmes, radio programmes, interviewed in newspapers, and I couldn't seem to avoid her. I planned to read more of her books, and bought The Colour not long after, but for some reason, it then got neglected and sat there sad and lonely, waiting for me to take it off the shelf and start reading it. My challenge to reduce my TBR lead me to this book last weekend, and I'm so glad it did.

 

The story follows Joseph and Harriet Blackstone, who marry when neither are in the first flush of youth and therefore decided late for the times, the mid-nineteenth century. Joseph has a past he needs to escape from, and Harriet knows she can't face a life stuck in other peoples homes as a governess, so when he promises a journey to the other side of the world to start a new life, Harriet agrees to marry him and the couple, along with Josephs widowed mother, Lillian, are New Zealand bound. They buy some land and build a temporary house on the side of a mountain, and start their small holding with some livestock, but when Joseph digs the land to create a pond, and the water from the river is diverted to it, he gets his first glimpse of the colour - gold. The fever to prospect for gold grips Joseph, and their lives start to unravel.

 

I was absolutely gripped by this book. Harriet is a strong, independent and determined woman (the sort of character that Katherine Hepburn was superb at portraying on screen), while Joseph is more introverted, and haunted by something that has happened back in England which is eating him up, and his story is revealed throughout the book, but when it's finally revealed, although it wasn't exactly what I expected, it was quite horrific, and knowing that he'd got away with it, you could understand why he was unravelling in such a way.

 

Along side these great characters, is a very interesting story of the emigration of three people to the New World, where people are arriving all the time with the hope of starting a new and prosperous life, either working the land, or seeking their fortune in the gold rush. There is also a native Maori character who gives an insight into their lives and beliefs alongside these white settlers.

 

The only thing I would query about the book, and don't get me wrong, I did enjoy these parts as well, but I wonder if the introduction of Chen, a Chinese man who has travelled to New Zealand with the plan to rent some land for a vegetable plot near the prospecting lands in order to make money selling fresh produce to those men in their camps away from the main towns and shops. He does play an important role to a certain extent, but I'm not sure I was totally convinced by his place in the story.

 

Despite my feelings about that aspect, it was hard to find any real faults with the book, the story or the writing, and I will definitely be looking for more by Tremain to read in the future.

Edited April 14, 2012 by chesilbeach

[chesilbeach]

Needed a break from carrying a book again, so looked to my Kindle TBR for some inspiration, and decided to give The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman a go. This is the first of his books I've read, as although I'd been tempted in the past, I really didn't like the episode of Doctor Who he wrote, and I didn't feel like I wanted to bother with his books, but when I saw this on offer of only £1 for the kindle version, I thought I'd try it after all.

 

The story opens with a triple murder. A husband and wife, and their daughter have been killed by a man, but their young son who since he's become a toddler has been keeping his parents on their toes roaming everywhere he can, has toddled out of the house and into the cemetery down the road. The killers task was to leave no-one in the family alive, but his parents ghosts beg the spectres in the graveyard to look after their boy, and after successfully deflecting the murderer, they raise Bod themselves. The story follows Bod growing up amongst the dead who much teach him how to live, and survive, ever with the threat of those outside the graveyard who want him dead.

 

I know there are lots of Gaiman fans on the forum, and although I did like this book, I didn't love it, and that starts with the title. I don't know if it's just me, but I thought it was pretty unimaginative as titles go.

 

The idea for the story was good and I did enjoy it, but it felt as though the author had an idea for a story that made up one of the chapters, then came up with some other ideas on the same theme, then decided to write a narrative that could tie them together into a full length novel. I mentioned over in the thread for this book, that this sounds more disparaging than I mean it to, but it did strike me that it didn't quite flow well enough. I think it was because I wasn't convinced by the overriding narrative of the story of why the family were murdered. I'm not sure that it was fully explained in a way that I was happy with, whereas the individual chapter stories were rather charming on their own.

 

It hasn't put me off though and I will give Gaiman another go. I'll have to have a look at the other threads and see which of his books seems to be the best to take a chance on next.

[vodkafan]

It hasn't put me off though and I will give Gaiman another go. I'll have to have a look at the other threads and see which of his books seems to be the best to take a chance on next.

 

Coraline? By the way I think your system for getting your TBR pile down is brilliant Claire, all your little visual tricks .

[poppyshake]

I'd say Neverwhere but I know not everyone will agree. Stardust is also good. I enjoyed The Graveyard Book but was aware it was aimed at much younger readers and as such it was less complex than his more adult stories. It may be that he's just not for you though ... but I think he's worth at least one more chance.

 

Great reviews Claire

[chesilbeach]

Thanks for the comments Kay and vodkafan - I'm going to go back through some of the other threads and reviews from some more members on the forum as well, and see where to go next with his books

 

 

Wow, eight weeks since I bought a new book; who'd have thunk it! So my TBR has come down from 61 to 33 and I'm part way through two different books at the moment.

 

I'm finding it really difficult to pick the next book to read now, as I'm getting down to the books that I've had for ages. They were mostly either presents (and therefore not books I would have chosen myself, so didn't necessarily tempt me in the first place) or probably on offer and I only bought because they the equivalent of a freebie in a three for two offer. I think out of the 33, only seven are books I bought myself in the last year.

 

Still only 33 to go, and I'll be able to make a start on my wishlist and all those books I've picked up recommendations for from here! Hopefully it won't be too much longer now ...

[Kylie]

I'm so jealous of your self-control!! And yet I also feel the need to encourage you to buy more books.

 

I've read Gaiman's Neverwhere, Coraline and The Graveyard Book. I'm not sure that I'm as rapt in him as others are, but I do really enjoy his books and plan to read many more. I think I perhaps enjoyed Coraline the most, although it's another one that is aimed at younger readers, so maybe you'd like to try a more adult book next. The movie of Coraline is also brilliant.

[chesilbeach]

Don't worry Kylie, it won't be long before I won't need any encouragement, it'll be full steam ahead with my wishlist!

[chesilbeach]

The Bolter by Frances Osborne is a biography of Idina Sackville, who was famous in 1920s society for her many marriages, divorces and affairs. When she is thirteen, the author finds out that Idina, known as the eponymous title, The Bolter, was her great grandmother. It's been kept quiet in her family, ans her mother felt that Idina was a bad role model for her girls, but Frances is intrigued by this woman and eventually decides to find out more.

 

Even though I'm sure I read the back of the book before I bought it, I was convinced this was a novel not a biography, and it was only a few weeks ago when I was going through my TBR shelf that I realised what it actually was. I loved the first third of the book, it was fascinating to read, bringing to life the upper class society of the period, and Idina was brought to life beautifully. However, after this I have to admit, I got a bit bored with the endless stream of people flowing in and out of her life, the endless affairs and I started to flag. This caused me to skim read some sections, but I did keep reading until the end. What was obvious, was that despite her mothers attempt to keep her association with Idina hidden, Frances Osborne researched her great-grandmother extensively, and posthumously has great affection for her. My edition was a reprint, and included an afterword which was absolutely lovely, and proved that the fondness that Frances had developed for Idina was just and deserved.

 

I don't read a lot of biographies as I think a lot make me feel the same as this one, in that they're just lists of people, dates and facts and I just don't appreciate them. I think if you enjoy biographies, and are interested in the 1920s to the 1950s, you'll probably enjoy it, but it just isn't my cup of tea, I'm afraid.

[Chrissy]

I always love reading your reviews, and many a book has been added to my pile / wishlist because of them.

[chesilbeach]

Thanks, Chrissy! Glad I can be of assistance

[chesilbeach]

Gah! Just realised I've been so busy avoiding browsing Amazon, I've completely missed that Julian Clary has a new novel out. Loved the first two of his, and this new one will make perfect holiday reading. Will just have to wait ... (It's your own fault, Claire, you shouldn't have let that TBR get so out of hand in the first place )

[chesilbeach]

Right, been away for a week, and loaded up my Kindle before I went, so although I've read a lot, none of the books were off my TBR list. I'd planned for this from the beginning, knowing that holidays are for indulgence and entertaining reading as far as I'm concerned, and with only my Kindle to read, I'd already decided that this would be the temporary hiatus from my TBR reading plan.

 

I've read nine books, most of which were of the self-indulgent, purely pleasure category, but I've thoroughly enjoyed my break, and don't feel guilty in the slightest. Reviews to follow ...

 

Edited April 27, 2012 by chesilbeach

[chesilbeach]

The next book I read in My Year With Jane Austen journey was Colonel Brandon's Diary, one of the Amanda Grange books. The diary starts back in 1778 when Brandon is still at university and comes home to visit, and asks Eliza to marry him, and follows through their story, before joining up with Sense and Sensibility and his relationship with the Dashwoods.

 

As with the others I've read in this series, I've loved seeing one of my favourite books told from a different perspective, and the diary format works wonderfully for this. I think it's such a clever premise to start them earlier and give more body to the earlier lives of our heroes, and expand on the little back story that we know from the Jane Austen original.

 

One thing I felt with this book was how much younger Brandon felt, even twenty years after it starts, you still feel there's a youthful side to him, despite the image of himself he projects, and it is especially awakened when Marianne comes into his life.

 

Another thoroughly enjoyable book in this diary series from Amanda Grange.

[chesilbeach]

Drink Deep is the fifth book in the Chicagoland Vampire series from Chloe Neill, following Merit, the Sentinel of Cadogan House. In this installment, Merit is still grieving, but the house is under investigation by the group that governs the vampire community, and there are some very strange unnatural phenomena happening in the city fuelling the hostility between the human and vampire population.

 

This was my first indulgent holiday read, catching up on the latest book in this series. I really enjoy these books, as Neill has developed a whole new society and set of rules that Merit must navigate her way through. Not only is she still learning about her new vampire community and rules, but she has to deal with the other supernatural creatures in her home town, and try to maintain relations with the mayor and people of Chicago who are becoming more antagonistic towards her new family.

 

Good storytelling and interesting characters and plots make this book another satisfying, entertaining read.

[chesilbeach]

Out Of Sight, Out Of Time by Ally Carter is the fifth book in the Gallagher Girls YA series about Cameron, in her last year at an exclusive girls boarding school which is actually a front for a school for spies. At the beginning of the story, Cam wakes up in a nunnery in the mountains, suffering from physical injuries as well as amnesia - she has no memories of the last few months.

 

The books follows Cammie as she tries to recover her memories and find out exactly what has happened to her over the summer, and what she has become.

 

Although I'm not a fan of violence and murder, I do find spy novels intriguing, so a YA series about teenage spies suits me perfectly. Fast paced action, thrills, spills and strong female characters all match up to a fantastic escapist read on a rainy holiday afternoon.

[chesilbeach]

Another chance for me to catch up with another series next with Eye of the Tempest by Nicole Peeler. The series follows Jane True, who finds out that she is half selkie and has magic running through her. In this latest story, on their way home to Rockabill, Jane and her barghest friend, Anyan, are attacked, leaving Anyan seriously wounded, while Jane almost kills herself taking out the attackers before they can kill her. When she wakes up weeks later, she finds out that something ancient and incredibly powerful is being sought and she and her friends must find it before everyone else can and misuse the power it offers.

 

Another escapist fantasy story, and Jane is another heroine who is both feisty and vulnerable, and offers a way in to her supernatural world for us human readers. I do like this series, although I have to admit I don't think this is my favourite of them so far. I can't put my finger on exactly what it was, but I think it might be that there was too much of just Jane and Blondie, and I missed all the other familiar characters that I've become attached to over the previous three books. It was still enjoyable, and again, great entertainment for a rainy holiday.

Edited April 27, 2012 by chesilbeach

[chesilbeach]

The latest YA Morganville Vampires book next with Last Breath by Rachel Caine. More supernatural tales, following Claire Danvers who lives in the Glass House with her boyfriend Shane, and best friends Eve and Michael, in the vampire run town of Morganville. In this book, Claire is concerned with the disappearance of some of the vampires in the town, leading her to a new face in town, Magnus who doesn't seem to be human, but also doesn't seem to be vampire either. Who is he, and where are the vampires disappearing to?

 

This book was a bit of a disappointment for me. I'm going to have to spoiler this review, as I can only explain why I didn't like it as much by giving away some big spoilers. Please DON'T read this if you are reading the series and haven't read this book yet!

 

 

Claire dies. She becomes a ghost and is saved by the Glass House as Michael was when we first started the series. But unlike Michael, Claire isn't a member of the Glass family, so although her ghost is saved, she can't materialise a body at night. The main thrust of the story is the disappearance of the vampires, but with Claire a mere ghost for the majority of the book, I just didn't enjoy it as much as other stories. I know it's all fantasy and fiction anyway, but the repetition of the house saving a resident and then them coming back to life (albeit in a different way) was just a bit too far fetched even for me!

 

 

Still, it's not like I'm going to give up on the series after what I think is one weaker book, but disappointing all the same.

[chesilbeach]

It's always a good day when I have a new Kelley Armstrong book to read and this time it's the second in the Darkness Rising trilogy, The Calling. Difficult to say what this is about without giving away spoilers for the first book, but the action starts from the very first page as Maya and her friends make their escape.

 

What I loved was how Armstrong picks up the story from exactly the point where it left off in the first book, and seamlessly within the first few pages, there are enough snippets of information to catch you up with the basics of the story in case you've forgotten anything. The action never lets up, and there's plenty of information to start developing the story and characters along the way, and all in all, a satisfying read. Can't wait for the conclusion of the trilogy.