Tag: books

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: November 5 – November 12

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I officially have too many books on the go at once.  Admittedly some of them are hardbacks and I’ve been staying away from home a lot, but some of them are books I’ve started and not got into and ended up leaving in favour of something else.  So this week I’m going to try and do something about that – either finish some of them or give up and cull them.   And I’ve still got more #Noirville entries to read too…

Read:

Holiday Wishes by Jill Shalvis

Altered to Death by Christina Freeburn

A Spy in the House by Y S Lee

The Deep End by Julie Mulhern

Paper Girls Vol 3 by Brian K Vaughan et al

The Very First Damned Thing by Jodi Taylor

The Great St Mary’s Day out by Jodi Taylor

Started:

Imprudence by Gail Carriger

Clouds in my Coffee by Julie Mulhern

Still reading:

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

China Court by Rumer Godden

Mystery in White by J Jefferson Farjeon

Marling Hall by Angela Thirkell

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

No  books bought at all – although 2 pre-orders did arrive on my Kindle.

Book of the Week, Series I love

Book of the Week: The Days of Anna Madrigal

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Quite a short BotW post this week, for a multitude a real life reasons, so sorry about that.  Any way, this week’s pick is the final (for now at least) Tales of the City books.

Library copy of Days of Anna Madrigal
In case they’ve somehow passed you by, the nine Tales of the City Books tell the interconnected stories of the residents of a house in San Francisco, starting in the 1970s and going up until pretty much the present day. Written by Armistead Maupin, the books started off as a newspaper column in the San Francisco Chronicle. Most of the books are episodic and jump between the different characters’ points of view. 

True to my no-spoilers policy, there’s not a lot about the plot of this that I can tell you, except that we rejoin the redoubtable Anna Madrigal, now in her 90s and some of her former tenants as she prepares for a road trip that will see her revisit her past and try to resolve some unfinished business. If you haven’t read the other books in the series, please don’t start here, go back to the start and read Tales of the City and follow them through. It’s taken me three years to do the whole series, and it’s been so worth it.

This isn’t my favourite of the nine, perhaps because I knew it was the last one and I didn’t want to say goodbye to the characters, but it’s still a wonderful trip with old friends, who you feel like you know inside out because you know them so well. A bittersweet end to the journey.

My copy of The Days of Anna Madrigal came from the library, but you should be able to find it in all good bookshops. 

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: October 30 – November 5

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Round Two of #Noirville arrived this week, so that’s where some of my reading time has gone, but it’s also been a super busy week.  It happens.

Read:

My Kind of Wonderful by Jill Shalvis

Nobody But You by Jill Shalvis

The Days of Anna Madrigal by Armistead Maupin

The Wyndhams Went To Wales by Mabel Esther Allan

Seeds of Revenge by Wendy Tyson

Only Beloved by Mary Balogh

Started:

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

A Spy in the House by YS Lee

Still reading:

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

China Court by Rumer Godden

Mystery in White by J Jefferson Farjeon

Marling Hall by Angela Thirkell

 

books, stats

October Stats

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New books read this month: 25*

Books from the to-read pile: 13

Ebooks read: 11

Books from the Library book pile: 0 (although I have a couple on the go)

Non-fiction books: 2

#ReadHarder categories completed: 0

Most read author: Jill Shalvis (two read and a third started)

Books read this year: 262

Books bought: 8 (all ebooks)

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf: 525 (I don’t have copies of all of these!)

Till eight categories left to cover but only two months to go…

*Includes some short stories/novellas/comics (1 this month)

 

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: October 23 – October 29

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Plenty of late night train journeys for reading this week and some progress down the pile. Some excellent books, some… not, but it was all enjoyable on some level.

Read:

First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones

Kidnappers at Elmhurst School by Betty Laws

Second Chance Summer by Jill Shalvis

To Bed With Grand Music by Marghanita Laski (writing as Sarah Russell)

Get Me the Urgent Biscuits by Sweetpea Slight

Moonstruck 1 by Grace Ellis et al

Top Secret Twenty One by Janet Evanovich

The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin

Started:

Mystery in White by J Jefferson Farjeon

Marling Hall by Angela Thirkell

Still reading:

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The Days of Anna Madrigal by Armistead Maupin

China Court by Rumer Godden

No actual books bought, but two ebooks bought…

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: October 16 – October 22

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Another week with lots of work and lots of unpacking.  So another steady week of reading.  What can you do?!

Read:

The Doctor’s Engagement by Sarah Morgan

Cold as Ice by Julie Mulhern

Dancer in Danger by Lorna Hill

Murder is Binding by Lorna Barrett

Death at the Alma Mater by GM Malliet

Started:

Get Me the Urgent Biscuits by Sweetpea Slight

First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones

Still reading:

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The Days of Anna Madrigal by Armistead Maupin

The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin

China Court by Rumer Godden

No actual books bought, but three ebooks bought.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: October 9 – October 15

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My house has furniture again!  More importantly my books are back – as you’ll know if you’ve read my new State of the Pile post.  But all the unpacking means that I haven’t read as many books as I was hoping for this week – although I have started making inroads into the newly returned backlog!

Read:

Moonlight over Manhattan by Sarah Morgan

Fireworks in Paradise by Kathi Daley

Margaret finds a Future by Mabel Esther Allen

Takedown Twenty by Janet Evanovich

Blue Ridge Sunrise by Denise Hunter

Started:

The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin

China Court by Rumer Godden

Murder is Binding by Lorna Barrett

Still reading:

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The Days of Anna Madrigal by Armistead Maupin

And given the state of the aforementioned pile, I’m redoubling my efforts not to buy books and so I have been newly virtuous and haven’t bought anything this week.  Lets see how long that lasts…

Adventure, Book of the Week, Fantasy, historical, mystery

Book of the Week: To Say Nothing of the Dog

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Lots of painting and filling and cleaning in my week off work, and not as much reading as usual, but in the end it was an easy choice for this week’s BotW – Connie Willis’s To Say Nothing of the Dog. Delightfully this was a recommendation from a work colleague who thought I would love it and he was totally right. I love it when that happens.

Ned Henry has time-lag. He’s been shuttling between the 21st century and the 1940s trying to find a hideous artefact in the ruins of Coventry cathedral. But all those jumps have scrambled his brain and he’s sent to Victorian England to recover away from the demands of Lady Schrapnell – who is rebuilding the original Coventry cathedral in the middle of Oxford. The bad news is he has one job to do in the nineteenth century before he can relax. The trouble is, the time-lag means he can’t remember what it is. There’s a boat trip, eccentric dons, drippy maidens, dopey undergrads, a cat and a fellow time traveller called Verity Kindle.

I loved this so much. It’s got so much of my catnip in here: it’s got modern people having to grapple with the Victorian era, it’s full of references to other books – of particular interest to me through thread of Peter Wimsey and Golden Age crime novels – and a mystery adventure plot as they try and hunt down the Bishop’s Bird Stump and prevent the future from being altered because of their actions.

To recap: time travel, history, humour, literary in-jokes and Peter Wimsey references galore. What more could I want?

This was my first Connie Willis book, so now the research is going on to figure out which of her other novels might be my cup of tea. If you like the Chronicles of St Mary’s series, by Jodi Taylor, you should definitely try this but I can’t think of many other books to compare this to (If you have any other suggestions for fun time travelling novels please do let me know) although I think if you like steampunky novels this might work for you, ditto books full of references to books. I need to go and read Three Men in a Boat because that’s a big influence here, and I’ve never read it. I also need to go and buy myself a copy of this because I want one for myself so I can lend it and I’m going to have to give this copy back.

You can get a copy of To Say Nothing of the Dog from all the usual sources.

Happy reading!

 

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: October 2 – October 8

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A week off work – where we should have been going on holiday, but ended up working on the house.  So not as much reading time as I would have had had I been on the beach.  But the list is deceptive – I’ve also read my 30+ first round submissions for #Noirville and I can’t wait to tell you about my favourites!

Read:

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

The Ninja’s Illusion by Gigi Pandian

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

In the Market for Murder by TE Kinsey

Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott

Started:

The Days of Anna Madrigal by Armistead Maupin

 Still reading:

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Moonlight over Manhattan by Sarah Morgan

 I may have bought a few books – but then I was on holiday and what’s a girl to do? You’ve got to have a holiday book or two!*

*NB actually six – two ebooks and four actual books. 

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: September 24 – October 1

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The home renovations continue – and once again my reading time is down.  And I’m not expecting the book count to go up a lot in the next few weeks because I’m expecting the Fahrenheit #Noirville entries to arrive soon and then I’ll be reading them instead!  Exciting times.

Read:

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Nadiya’s British Food Adventure (sampler) by Nadiya Hussain

The Wizards of Once by Cressida Cowell

The New Deadwardians by Dan Abnett

Die Like an Eagle by Donna Andrews

Fresh Complaint by Jeffrey Eugenides

Started:

Moonlight over Manhattan by Sarah Morgan

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

The Ninja’s Illusion by Gigi Pandian

Still reading:

Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

On the brightside, I didn’t buy any books last week.  Which as we all know is a real achievement for me!