books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 7 – October 13

I’m having one of those spells where I’m finding it hard to settle down and read some of the things on the list – but instead bingeing through something else. In this case, it’s manifesting in Patti Benning novellas and some Charlaine Harris. Who can tell the mysterious ways my mind works, I certainly can’t. Anyway, the weather has been awful, it’s proper sit inside and read weather – I feel like my feet have been on the edge of being damp for about a month now it’s been so wet. Hey ho.

Read:

Autumn Chills by Agatha Christie

Mis-Steak-n Identity by Patti Benning

Steered Wrong by Patti Benning

Coroners Pidgin by Margery Allingham

Bite Moves by Patti Benning

Shakespeare’s Landlord by Charlaine Harris

Shakespeare’s Champion by Charlaine Harris

Shakespeare’s Christmas by Charlaine Harris

Started:

Unruly by David Mitchell

Still reading:

Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans

Haunted Ever After by Jen DeLuca

Astor by Anderson Cooper

Well, as usual in kindle offers week, a few ebooks bought – and I still have some samples left to read for other things so potentially more to come there. Two books in Foyles which you’ve already seen and a couple more ordered (but not yet arrived)

Bonus picture: some Art at the Outernet last week – it’s very cool but it makes my head hurt quite quickly!

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

Book News, Book previews

Series Redux: Thursday Next

You guys. It’s finally coming. I never thought it would. But it has a date now – an actual date, not just a year – and the date is on the publishers website as well as on Amazon. The eighth Thursday Next book is coming in 2025. And so before I start my re-read of the series ahead of the publication of Dark Reading Matter – “the eighth and last” in the series, I thought I’d remind you about them so you can join in too.

Back when I last wrote about the series, it had been eight years since book seven – it’s now been 12 and I had been thinking it might never happen – especially given that we’ve had a sequel to Shades of Grey from Fforde before we got another Thursday Next. And as ever I wonder how quick I am to spot this (see also yesterday’s post about the next H M The Queen Investigates) but I’m pretty sure this is pretty recent – Fforde’s own website isn’t updated with the release dates as I write this…

And if you want an explanation of the series, he has a good one on there which explains the fact that it’s a world where the Crimean war never ended, where time travel is possible as is entering a book and removing characters from existence. If you like books and reading, this is the sci-fi-fantasy-crime mash up for you. Also, it has this quote from Terry Pratchett.

‘Ingenious – I’ll watch Jasper Fforde nervously’

Terry Pratchett

As well as the Thursday Next novels, Fforde’s nursery crime series are set in the same universe so if you want to be a completist you can read those too. I probably will. Now the only question left is whether a) the cover of book eight will match and b) will I be able to cope with a hardback among my set of paperbacks. Who. Can. Tell.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: September 30 – October 6

The mornings are getting darker, we’re into October and it’s the final quarter of the year. Whatever happened to 2024? Anyway, a fairly ok week in books – not quite as much finished as I wanted, but there was a lot going on in the world.

Read:

The Hippopotamus Pool by Elizabeth Peters

Tour de Force by Christianna Brand

Dead End Street by Sheila Connolly

Nemesis by Agatha Christie

Death at the Dinner Party by Ellie Alexander

A View to A Grill by Patti Benning

Nose Knows by Patti Benning

Started:

Haunted Ever After by Jen DeLuca

Astor by Anderson Cooper

Still reading:

Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans

Well I started writing the Kindle Offers post so you know how that goes. But I didn’t buy any physical books so that’s something!

Bonus picture: misty mornings on the train continue…

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

books, stats

September Stats

Books read this month: 36* which seems like more than I was expecting!

New books: 29

Re-reads: 7 (all audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 13

NetGalley books read: 4

Kindle Unlimited read: 8

Ebooks: 4

Audiobooks: 7

Non-fiction books: 5

Favourite book this month: Kingmaker or the Masquerades of Spring

Most read author: Sheila Connolly – four in the Fundraising the Dead series

Books bought: still not counting, because Kuala Lumpur was… book heavy

Books read in 2024: 305

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 747

A pretty solid month I’m going to say helped a fair bit by those long haul flights right at the start. And now we enter the last quarter of the year heading towards the festive season and all the Christmas books…

Bonus picture: Worrals goes East may have been a terrible book, but it did push me over the 200 book mark for the year. Time to up the target!

*includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – including 4 this month!

Book previews

Out this week: New Ashley Herring Blake

It’s not that long since I wrote about Ashley Herring Blake’s Bright Falls series, so I wanted to mention that her new book (not set in Bright Falls) Make the Season Bright came out on Tuesday. This one features two exes who discover they are going to be forced to spend Christmas together after they are invited to spend it with a friend (the friends are sisters, the blurb isn’t clear on whether the sisters know that their friends are exes). I’m intrigued to see how this works out because the blurb says that Charlotte was left at the altar by Brighton and I’m not sure how you redeem that in romance terms.

Make the Season Bright now is out now on Kindle and Kobo and also in paperback- and all the Waterstones near me seem to have copies available.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: September 23 – September 29

A total mix of reading this week – non-fiction, fiction, children’s fiction, murder mysteries, new stuff, old stuff. And it’s been a real mixed bag although it was fairly easy to decide what to write about tomorrow! And tomorrow is the start of a new month too, so there’ll be all the usual bits and pieces this week as well.

Read:

Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell*

Hitchcock’s Blondes by Laurence Leamer

Heartburn by Nora Ephron

Sniffed Out by Patti Benning

Ruff Stuff by Patti Benning

Worrals goes East by W E Johns

Rocking It by Patti Benning

High Style and Homicide by Kathleen Bridge*

Started:

Dead End Street by Sheila Connolly

Still reading:

Tour de Force by Christianna Brand

Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans

No books bought. A minor miracle.

Bonus picture: it has been so wet this week. It feels like it hasn’t really stopped raining, although of course it has. This is a photo from outside town at the start of the week (thanks dad!) – basically you shouldn’t be able to see any water here – the brook runs between the trees to the right – and is usually well out of sight.

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

Book previews

Out this Week: New Sarah Morganthaler

This really is the weirdest time of year for book releases. We’re not past Halloween yet, but the we’re already into the Christmas-themed book releases. And yes, I’ve picked on today, I can’t help myself, because its the new book from Sarah Morgenthaler – after a four year gap since the end of her Moose Springs series.

The blurb for The Christmas You Found Me has a single dad answering an advert that was meant to be a joke and a fake marriage plot with a recently divorced ranch owner, so that he can prove that he has the money for the mediations his daughter will need after a potential kidney transplant. Which sounds like a lot, and a bit of a turn from the Moose Springs books which were unabashedly Grumpy-Sunshine romances, but I really liked Enjoy the View (it was a BotW after all) so I will keep my eye open for it for that, but also because it’s set in Idaho, which is traditionally one of the harder states to cover in the 50 States challenge! Morgenthaler in fact was my regular solution to Alaska, so I’ve had that as an issue the last couple of years. And this year in fact…

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: September 16 – September 22

A slightly shorter list than I would have hoped this week, but Kingmaker is *really* long – 500+ pages all in – but it’s also really good, so I’ve spent a fair bit of time reading that this week. And I’m nearly done with Hitchcock’s Blondes too – I’ve reached Tippi Hedren, but as I said last week, it’s a hardback and they don’t travel to work with me. Anyway, fingers crossed this week I’ll actually finish them as we barrel towards the end of September.

Read:

Light Thickens by Ngaio Marsh

Murder in Waiting by Lynn Cahoon

Negligent in New York by Patti Benning

Razing the Dead by Sheila Connolly

Privy to the Dead by Sheila Connolly

The Man Who Didn’t Fly by Margot Bennett

Started:

Tour de Force by Christianna Brand

Still reading:

Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell*

Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans

Hitchcock’s Blondes by Laurence Leamer

One book and one ebook bought – and a couple of last week’s purchases arrived too!

Bonus picture: after mentioning Maigret in my post about Parisian books on Wednesday, I noticed this themed display tower in Waterstone’s Gower Street when I was in there on Thursday!

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: September 9 – September 15

Another really busy week – but this time commuting from home every day so lots of reading time on the train! A pretty good list to be honest, even if I didn’t manage to finish everything I started the previous week – but some of that is a hardback copy issue. Will work on that this week!

Read:

Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer

The Talisman Ring by Georgette Heyer

The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey

Between a Flock and a Hard Place by Donna Andrews

Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer

Memories and Murder by Lynn Cahoon

Monument to the Dead by Sheila Connolly

Vicki Finds the Answer by Helen Wells

Started:

Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell*

Murder in Waiting by Lynn Cahoon

Still reading:

Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans

Hitchcock’s Blondes by Laurence Leamer

Five books bought. Oopsie daisy.

Bonus picture: Distinctly autumnal on the train to work last week. Which was a contrast with Kuala Lumpur on the temperature front that I was not appropriately dressed for.

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: September 2 – September 8

Well that was quite a week! I’m back in the UK now, but I’ve been travelling again for work – this time to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. I had an amazing time and I also had a lot of reading time on the journey home. I’ve finally got the still reading list sorted out – but I’ve also started a bunch of stuff so unless I’m careful it’ll be building up again…

Read:

Five Love Affairs and a Friendship by Anne de Courcy

Devil’s Cub by Georgette Heyer

Sylvester by Georgette Heyer

Daughter of Time by Joesephine Tey

Let it Crow! Let it Crow! Let It Crow! by Donna Andrews

What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust by Alan Bradley*

The Red House Mystery by A A Milne*

The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer

The Masquerades of Spring by Ben Aaronovitch

Started:

The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey

Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans

Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer

Hitchcock’s Blondes by Laurence Leamer

Still reading:

N/a

So many I’m trying not too think about it…

Bonus picture: so many pictures I could have chosen from last week, but I’ve gone for this one because the Petronas Towers are iconic and they look so cool at night.

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.