Verity Reads Books (lots of them)
In which our heroine attempts to tame the to-read pile
Scuppered by nightshifts and a hen party…
Read:
We’ll Always Have Parrots by Donna Andrews
Mr Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia McNeal
Mad About You – Sinead Moriarty
Started:
The Valley of the Shadow by Carola Dunn
The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry
Still reading:
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
On the bright side only one book bought – the next Meg Langslow, which I couldn’t just resist in the end!
Oh nightshifts. You really do fry my reading plans. I suppose it doesn’t help that I’ve been re-reading Phryne Fisher during my dinner breaks rather than reading something new, but I need something easy and fun in the early hours. Still, I don’t think I’ve done too badly all things considering.
Read:
Mutton by India Knight
Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
Scruples by Judith Krantz
Started:
We’ll Always Have Parrots by Donna Andrews
Still reading:
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
The downside is that I had a bit of a book buying spree – one in the early hours of Monday morning, two in the early hours of Tuesday and two more in the early hours of Thursday. So the to-read pile hasn’t exactly shrunk this week – and I’m currently resisting the urge to by the next book in the Meg Langslow series as I’m enjoying We’ll Always Have Parrots…
Oh dear. All those train journeys and I didn’t manage to read much as I was hoping – the list was looking very poor until a concerted effort at the weekend. This week coming I’m on nights – so it could go either way…
Read:
The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan
The Perfect Match by Katie Fforde (review)
A Colourful Death by Carola Dunn
The Blessing by Nancy Mitford
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
Still reading:
Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
On the brightside, all I bought this week was a free short story on Kindle and a mystery novel on the Kindle for 99p and I’m counting that as progress!
Squeezed in a bit of over-time this week and had an elections briefing on Saturday – so you’d think that was plenty of commutes to get my teeth into some books, but I don’t seem to have covered as much ground as I was hoping. I’m blaming this on my attempts to reduce the number of non-fiction titles waiting to be read – because they take me longer to read than some light fiction does. But it remind me how much I enjoy good non-fiction and so I’m thinking of adopting a policy of having one on the go at all times. But then I already have too many rules and policies and it’s starting to get ridiculous.
Read:
A Delicate Truth by John le Carré (review)
Beautiful for Ever by Helen Rappaport
Death of a Mad Hatter by Jenn McKinlay* (review)
Fanny and Stella by Neil McKenna
Night of Pleasure by Delilah Marvelle
Started:
The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan
The Blessing by Nancy Mitford
Still reading:
Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
Now I was doing really well on the not buying books front, until Saturday lunchtime when I arrived really early for my shift and ended up wandering into a charity shop. Four books later and suddenly the to-read pile was looking monstrous again.
I had a bit of a panic earlier in the week when Jenn McKinlay’s book turned up – as I didn’t remember ordering it. It turned out that I hadn’t – it was a win in a Goodreads giveaway – so of course that had to jump straight to the top of the pile so that I could review it because when some one sends you a book and wants you to review it, you should really do that as quickly as possible…
The Railway Detectives is borrowed from my Dad, and the Terry Pratchett is the replacement for my duplicate copy of Trisha Ashley, so only 6 (gulp) books bought this week and a net gain of 2 on the pile (because the Delilah Marvelle was an ebook). I really do need to try harder, still, I have many shifts this week. But then that’s what I thought last week!
Only two days at work this week – and it was looking like a really bad week for progress down the to-read pile until I put some effort in over the weekend to improve the situation…
Read:
Tales of the Jazz Age by F Scott Fitzgerald
Sure of You by Armistead Maupin
Lavender Lady by Carola Dunn
Every Woman for Herself by Trisha Ashley (review)
The Viceroy’s Daughters by Anne de Courcey
Started:
Night of Pleasure by Delilah Marvelle
A Delicate Truth by John le Carré
Beautiful for Ever by Helen Rappaport
Still reading:
Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
On the plus side, I finally finished Tales of the Jazz Age after making a concerted effort not to go and start something new until I’d finished with it. And the Anne de Courcey was a book that I borrowed from my mum *literally* years ago so I’m really pleased to have read that so I could give it back to her. On the downside, the physical pile isn’t getting any smaller – as two books this week were from the kindle and that was before the Incident in the charity shops and the fact that the new Trisha Ashley came out – and was in two for £7 at the supermarket… On top of that I may have made an unscheduled stop in The Works in Leamington Spa on Saturday night and bought another one! At least five of the six were books that I already had earmarked to read on my Goodreads list. And I said last week that I wanted to get the number of books on the go at once down – and I have. By one. I’m grasping at straws aren’t I?!
I’ve girded my loins. I’ve taken a deep breath. I’ve done some dusting. Here is a photo of the to-read pile and the library book bag.
It looks bad doesn’t it? I know. It’s out of control. And the eagle eyed amongst you may notice that there’s two Jasper Fforde books from the same series on there too (breaking a rule of the to-read pile) and that’s because I spotted The Fourth Bear in a charity shop this morning for a pound and it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. I haven’t worked out an excuse for the Mrs Bradley mystery and the Frances Osborne which I bought in a different charity shop five minutes later. I’ll get back to you on that.
