Tag: reading

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 27 – September 2

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Finally finished The Templars this week – it was interesting, but really not my favourite period of history, so it felt like a bit of a slog.  You live and learn!

Read:

Maybe For You by Nicole McLaughlin

Video Killed the Radio Star by Duncan MacMaster

Yes We (Still) Can by Dan Pfeiffer

After You With the Pistol by Kyril Bonfiglioli

Rivers of London: Water Weed 3 by Ben Aaronovitch et al

Anyone for Seconds? by Laurie Graham

The Templars by Dan Jones

Started:

n/a

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance

Two ebooks bought.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 20 – August 26

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Another busy week…

Read:

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 1: Cosmic Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis

The Mystery of Three Quarters by Sophie Hannah

Lord Peter Wimsey: Complete Short Stories by Dorothy L Sayers

The Case of William Smith by Patricia Wentworth

Toucan Keep a Secret by Donna Andrew

Staged to Death by Karen Rose Smith

Started:

Yes We (Still) Can by Dan Pfeiffer

Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance

Maybe For You by Nicole McLaughlin

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

Two ebooks and two book-books bought.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 13 – August 19

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A working weekend and a trip to see The King and I (it was brilliant – Kelli O’Hara is amazing) affected the reading list this week.  But still not bad really.  I’m mostly working on finishing stuff that I’ve started at the moment as well.

Read:

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

Jewish History: A very short introduction by David N Myers

The Birth of Korean Cool bu Euny Hong

Star Dust by Emma Barry

The Lawrence Browne Affair by Cat Sebastian

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea by Alyssa Mastromonaco

Started:

n/a

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

Two ebooks and a book-book bought.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 6 – August 12

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Actually did quite well this week.  Finished one from the long runners and a couple of others that had been going for more than a week, so I’m getting there.  What I need to do now is have a proper sit down with the Templars and get that finished…

Read:

Together We Rise by the Women’s March Organisers

If Only They Didn’t Speak English by Jon Sopel

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Whatever’s Been Going on at Mumblesby by Colin Watson

Vinyl Detective: Victory Disc by Andrew Cartmel

Miss Bunting by Angela Thirkell

Lumberjanes Vol 8 by Shannon Watters et al

Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys

Started:

The Birth of Korean Cool bu Euny Hong

Jewish History: A very short introduction by David N Myers

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea by Alyssa Mastromonaco

One book bought, and one pre-order arrived.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: July 30 – August 5

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A steady week’s reading – but not as much progress on the long-runners as I would have liked – probably because I spent 2 nights away from home and away from the physical book pile which most of them are on.

Read:

Bingo Love by Tee Franklin

Autumn Term by Antonia Forest

The Governess Game by Tessa Dare

Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole

Cloche and Dagger by Jenn McKinlay

Cat Among The Herrings by LC Tyler

The Victorian Guide to Sex by Dr Fern Riddell

A Lady’s Code of Misconduct by Meredith Duran

Started:

Vinyl Detective: Victory Disc by Andrew Cartmel

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea by Alyssa Mastromonaco

Miss Bunting by Angela Thirkell

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

If Only They Didn’t Speak English by Jon Sopel

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

After the excesses of the book fair, this week I was very restrained and didn’t buy anything!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: July 23 – July 29

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Not as much read as usual this week- because I spent a long weekend at a book conference and it was lovely.

Read:

We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehesi Coates

Dark Days by James Baldwin

Dirty Like Me by Jaine Diamond

Thornyhold by Mary Stewart

Catherine Goes to School by Joanna Lloyd

Lucille: House Captain by Janet Grey

Started:

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Autumn Term by Antonia Forest

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

A Lady’s Code of Misconduct by Meredith Duran

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

If Only They Didn’t Speak English by Jon Sopel

I don’t want to talk about how many books I bought this week. I went to a book conference. I bought exactly as many as you would expect me to buy!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: July 16 – July 22

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Not actually a bad week’s work in reading to be honest – I would be pleased with myself except that the Long Running list is getting a little bit too long and feels sort of out of control.  That’s the next target: to sort that out a bit!

Read:

Plaster Sinners by Colin Watson

The Case of the Missing Treasure by Robin Stevens

Third Grave Dead Ahead by Darynda Jones

Slay in your Lane by Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinené

The Princess Trap by Talia Hibbert

A Gentleman Never Keeps Score by Cat Sebastian

Rivers of London: Water Weed 2 by Ben Aaronovitch et al

Wyrd Sisters: The Play by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs

Dating You, Hating You by Christina Lauren

Started:

We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehesi Coates

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

If Only They Didn’t Speak English by Jon Sopel

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

A Lady’s Code of Misconduct by Meredith Duran

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys

Three ebooks bought.  Positively restrained for me…

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: July 9 – July 15

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A fairly steady week all in – and given that I was working all weekend, I’m quite pleased with what I got read.

Read:

Lord Rayven’s Revenge by Trisha Ashley

Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials by Ovidia Yu

The Milliner’s Hat Mystery by Basil Thomson

Elizabeth’s Lists by Lullah Ellender

Lumberjanes Vol 7 by Shannon Waters, Noelle Stevenson et al

A Murder is Arranged by Basil Thomson

In Pursuit of… by Courtney Milan

Started:

Dating You, Hating You by Christina Lauren

Plaster Sinners by Colin Watson

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

A Lady’s Code of Misconduct by Meredith Duran

Slay in your Lane by Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinené

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys

Three ebooks bought and three book-books.  A touch naughty to be honest!

Book of the Week, reviews, Young Adult

Book of the Week: Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda

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Yes. I know. I’m so far behind the curve it hurts.  This always happens.  You know this always happens. This is the problem with giant to-read backlog.  It’s the whole raison d’être for the blog.  Anyway.  As you will have seen yesterday, I read a lot of stuff on holiday last week, and I’ve already written about one of last week’s books, so that’ was ruled out.  And some of the other books that I read were out for this because of a) other posts I’ve got planned or b) not liking them enough to want to recommend them.  I’m honest like that.  But luckily, at the end of the week I found my copy of Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda again and read it pretty much in one sitting, so I feel like I can genuinely make it a BotW.

cover of Love Simon

In case you’ve missed it somehow, this is the story of Simon Spier.  He’s sixteen and he knows he’s gay but he’s definitely not out at school.  But he’s got an email correspondence going with another boy at his school who is also in the same boat.  Simon doesn’t know who it is, and Blue doesn’t know who Simon is, but they’re getting on really well.  But when some of the email correspondence falls into the wrong hands, Simon finds himself the target of a blackmailer and on top of this, his friendship group starts to get really complicated.  How can Simon sort it all out?

In case you’ve missed it, this was recently turned into a film, under the title Love, Simon, and originally I was going to read this before the film came out.  Well we all know how well that’s turned out.  But having read the book, I can totally see why the film has struck a chord with people and got the almost universally positive reviews.  It’s a relatable, readable, page turner about a young man trying to navigate High School.  It’s a story we’ve heard before and which has always been my catnip.  The difference here is that the hero is gay and that’s not a story I’ve really seen done before.  And Becky Albertelli has done a great job for my money.  Obviously I’ve never been a gay teenage boy, but for me it captured the experience of being a teenager – how everything is life and death and how school is a complete minefield that has to be carefully navigated – but with an experience outside my own that I was really interested to read about.  I’m not a big YA reader, but would happily have read another 100 pages of it – and not just because it doesn’t involve teens killing each other or dying of cancer.

As previously mentioned, I’m way behind the curve, so you should be able to get a copy of Love, Simon anywhere – my copy is the movie tie in edition as you can see so watch out for the two different titles kicking around.  Try the supermarkets and the secondhand bookshops for sure.  The Kindle edition has also popped up as a Daily Deal more than once as well. And the DVD of the movie is out in August, so it’ll probably be popping up on the streaming services soon too. Albertelli has a sequel of sorts out now too – Leah on the Offbeat – which focuses on one of Simon’s friends and which I’ll definitely be looking out for.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: July 2 – July 8

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In case you can’t tell from the length of the list, I was on holiday last week!  And although we did a bit more sightseeing than usual for a beach holiday which meant a bit less reading time, I still managed a fairly good total.  All in all it was a marvellous holiday – I thoroughly recommend Croatia, especially while they’re on a World Cup run! And if you missed it you’ve already read about one of my books I read last week coz in a bit of a cheaty move, I made The Kiss Quotient last week’s BotW.  All that heat clearly went to my head…

Read:

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

The Dartmoor Enigma by Basil Thomson

Beneath This Mask by Meaghan March

Love Under Contract by Dean Hodel

An Unfinished Murder by Ann Granger

Strictly Business by Sheryl Nantus

O is for Outlaw by Sue Grafton

Who Killed Stella Pomeroy? by Basil Thomson

Emperor Mollusc vs The Sinister Brain by A Lee Martinez

Beaches in Paradise by Kathi Daley

Lumberjanes Vol 6 by Shannon Watters, Noelle Stevenson et al

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertelli

Started:

Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys

The Milliner’s Hat Mystery by Basil Thomson

Lord Rayven’s Revenge by Trisha Ashley

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

A Lady’s Code of Misconduct by Meredith Duran

Slay in your Lane by Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinené

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Four ebooks and one book bought.  And the three of the ebooks were the Thomson books on this list because I’m reading them one after the other…