Category: The pile

Can you tell what I did last week? Ding, ding, ding! You’re right: I was on holiday and spent my week on a sun lounger reading. Much fun was had.  However this is also the reason why some of the long-runners are still on the list – because I wasn’t taking part-read hardbacks on holiday with me!

Read:

Lonelyheart 4122 by Colin Watson

Charity Ends at Home by Colin Watson

Murder at the Mushroom Festival by Janet Finsilver

Nun After the Other by Alice Loweecey

Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce

Hetty’s Farmhouse Bakery by Cathy Bramley

Bookworm by Lucy Mangan

The Marmalade Murders by Elizabeth J Duncan

Once a Ferrara Wife by Sarah Morgan

Detective Nosegoode and the Museum Robbery by  Marian Orlon (trans Eliza Marciniak)

The Lido by Libby Page

Started:

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Wicked and the Wallflower by Sarah MacLean

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume

The Templars by Dan Jones

 

 

A lot of time spent this week finishing The Vanity Fair Diaries, which turned out to be a bit of a slog. Certainly not quite what I was expecting. But still, not a bad list all in.

Read:

The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club by Sophie Green

Murderous Mayhem at Honeychurch Hall by Hannah Dennison

B is for Burglar by Sue Grafton

C is for Corpse by Sue Grafton

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark

Started:

The Templars by Dan Jones

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume

Two ebooks bought and one actual book.

 

A couple of books off the long runners list – so that’s good – and I’m working on a couple more.  A fun (and varied!) week’s reading!

Read:

Death by the Sea by Kathleen Bridge

Blame it on the Duke by Leonora Bell

The Long Weekend by Adrian Tinniswood

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Going to the Theatre by West End Producer

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks

The Marlows and the Traitor by Antonia Forest

Lumberjanes: The Moon is Up by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Brooklyn Allen

Started:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club by Sophie Green

Lots of discussion going on last week about diversity in romance and the problems faced by Authors of Colour – so I may have had a little ebook buying spree there as a result!  And I bought one paperback too.

Another really busy week – at work and with things to do and people to see for Easter.  Not quite as much read as I wanted to, but some times real life is more important than reading.  I’ve been working on some of the long runners too – just not enough to get any more of them finished.  This week is going to be the week.  I hope.

Read:

Mirror, Mirror by Cara Delavigne

The Girls of Dancey Dene by MB Manwell

Pillow Stalk by Diane Vallere

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

Fire and Fury by Michael Woolf

Started:

n/a – I finished all the new stuff I started and was concentrating on long runners…

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks

The Long Weekend by Adrian Tinniswood

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club by Sophie Green

Blame it on the Duke by Leonora Bell

Three books bought – in a moment of weakness when I went into Foyles.  Oops.  That said, I’ve just been going through my list of NetGalley books to get it straight in my head and in my journal where I track what I’ve got to read and have realised that I’m massively over committed for April, and have a reasonable sized backlog too, so I think that’s going to be a handy reminder to me not to buy more books until I’ve got that more under control.

Some progress on the long-runners, but over all not as much progress this week as I would have liked.  Roll on next week.

Read:

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

Emily Windsnap and the Falls of Forgotten Island by Liz Kessler

The Unfinished Palazzo by Judith Mackrell

Devil’s Breath by GM Malliet

Uneasy Prey by Annette Dashovy

Started:

The Girls of Dancey Dene by MB Manwell

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks

The Long Weekend by Adrian Tinniswood

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club by Sophie Green

Blame it on the Duke by Leonora Bell

And I bought a couple of books – well three – this week as well, but one of them was the paperback version of something I already have read (to complete the set on my bookshelves) so that doesn’t count!

Ok, so it might not look like the long-runners shelf has improved much this week, it really has – I’ve done some serious time on the non-fiction entries and I’m hoping to get some more done this week coming.  I will sort this out!

Read:

A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole

A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton

A Tribe of Mentors by Timothy Ferris

Pietr the Latvian by Georges Simenon

Grave Mistake by Ngaio Marsh

The Town in Bloom by Dodie Smith

Full Speed by Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes

Started:

The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club by Sophie Green

Blame it on the Duke by Leonora Bell

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

The Unfinished Palazzo by Judith Mackrell

The Long Weekend by Adrian Tinniswood

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

If I didn’t get many long-runners finished, I didn’t buy any books either.  Small victories!

It’s been a bit of a week.  And the Still Reading list grows ever longer.  I really must do better, but weekend working doesn’t lend itself to reading time.

Read:

Hopjoy was Here by Colin Watson

First Kiss of Spring by Emily March

Rivers of London: Cry Fox 4 by Ben Aaronovitch et al

Stiff Competition by Micah Persell

Where There’s Smoke by Peter Murphy

The Furthest Station by Ben Aaronovitch

Started:

Grave Mistake by Ngaio Marsh

A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

The Unfinished Palazzo by Judith Mackrell

The Long Weekend by Adrian Tinniswood

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Pietr the Latvian by Georges Simenon

The Town in Bloom by Dodie Smith

A couple of ebooks bought – there were some good deals and I was at work at the weekend, it leads to book buying…

The ongoing list seems to be getting longer rather than shorter – despite all my best efforts.  I think it’s because I’ve got so many non-fiction books on there and they take me longer to read than the lighter fiction does – and I’ve often got them as hardbacks, which means I don’t take them to work with me.

Read:

The New Girl and Nancy by Dorita Fairley Bruce

Murder on the Pilgrims Way by Julie Wassmer

Make Me Want by Katee Robert

On the Edge of Scandal by Tamsen Parker

On the Brink of Passion by Tamsen Parker

Maybe This Time by Nicole McLaughlin

The House of Hopes and Dreams by Trisha Ashley

A Killing in C Sharp by Alexia Gordon

A Country Escape by Katie Fforde

Started:

Pietr the Latvian by Georges Simenon

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

The Town in Bloom by Dodie Smith

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

The Unfinished Palazzo by Judith Mackrell

The Long Weekend by Adrian Tinniswood

One ebook bought.  That’s it. Progress!

Actually a better week’s reading than I was expecting  – the Deborah Cadbury was 400 pages long so for a while there wasn’t a lot on this list at all, but in the end it all came together when I finished off a few books that had been lingering on the Goodreads shelf.

Read:

The Pajama Frame by Diane Vallere

Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking by Deborah Cadbury

Last Ditch by Ngaio Marsh

England Expects by Sara Sheridan

Single, Carefree, Mellow by Katherine Heiny

A Spoonful of Murder by Robin Stevens

Bright Young Things by Alison Maloney

Started:

The Long Weekend by Adrian Tinniswood

The New Girl and Nancy by Dorita Fairley Bruce

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

The Unfinished Palazzo by Judith Mackrell

Two ebooks bought – and one book acquired at an author teaparty on Sunday.  So not bad at all.

I’m really trying to get a handle on the long-running backlog in the Still Reading list – but it’s taking some time, because there’s chunky hardback non-fiction in there and literary prize winners.  I will get there in the end though.  Some of the books on the read list this week have been marked as being in the process of being read on my Goodreads account for some time – so I’m taking that as a partial win on that front.

Read:

Dimsie Among the Prefects by Dorita Fairlie Bruce

Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders

Postcards from the Edge by Carrie Fisher

The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith by Patricia Wentworth

A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear

The Gift of a Family by Sarah Morgan

Fire on the Ice by Tamsen Parker

The Chimneys of Green Knowe by Lucy M Boston

Bump in the Night by Colin Watson

Started:

England Expects by Sara Sheridan

Last Ditch by Ngaio Marsh

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

The Unfinished Palazzo by Judith Mackrell

A Spoonful of Murder by Robin Stevens

Three actual books and two ebooks bought…