50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Four

PoeticLE

I read lying on my side and holding the kindle next to me, until I fall asleep and it drops harmlessly onto my pillow. I never realised how many kindle-related injuries I've saved myself from!

"A Kindle hitting my face is my signal to go to sleep at night."

Too true

I once dropped a book on my breast-feeding baby during a night feed . I went through a PFB-induced self-flagellatory period, where I chose books not based on their content but based on the possible damage they could do if they fell on the baby. I was the mad woman standing in the bookshop weighing up books. Not weighing them up intellectually, you understand? Actually weighing them in my hand and making dropping actions

That baby is now 10 years old and is quite the bookworm herself, so the knock on her head obviously did her no harm

I have personally also been whacked on the nose by my kindle when I have had the audacity to fall asleep in bed while trying to read it

Have also been known to try read in bed with one eye closed, to "rest" it you see

Best, the shardlake love is not quite universal! Not a fan here but I don't generally like whodunnits.

Whippet! Love my Kindle too but still have to cheat on it with real books every so often. Can't beat the thrill of paper!!

whippet that's crazy no it's not

at whippet

whippet

DH wouldn't eve think that's funny. He already complains that my Kindle gets far more attention in bed than him.

Ha, Satsuki, I fell asleep holding my Kindle last night. I love my Kindle. If I could, I would marry it and have lots of baby Kindles, all loaded with hundreds of unread books. Then I would form a Kindle army and take over the world.

Great line Satsuki - exactly what happened to me last night!

I loved A Little Life last year. I was definitely in the camp of those who thought they wouldn't like it - wouldn't go near a misery memoir with a bargepole - but just couldn't put it down. In fact I borrowed it from the library but will buy a real copy to keep.

19. The Twelve - Justin Cronin. Well I've already complained about this, but basically what he's done is not write a sequel so much as write a different story using the same premise from the first book and just chuck our loved characters in halfway through with a scanty explanation of what they've been doing for the last 5 years. The second half was better than the first and I feel like I need the closure of the third now, but wildly differing standard to the first.

I do think this happens in a lot of trilogies. People have a good idea, build a world and write some decent characters, but then either don't know how to finish the story, or fall so in love with their world they lose sight of plot.

Just checking in to keep this on my active list. I've hit a bit of a fallow patch right now. I'm slowly reading The Essex Serpent which is beautiful, but definitely needs a clear block of time when I'm not tired. I picked up Me Before You in the library as a light read, got to around page 100 then realised that a key plot point was much too close to home right now so have abandoned that.

On audio, I've got The Devil In The Marshalsea, but I'm not really getting on with it, and keep skipping back to old books. It should be just my sort of thing, but I'm finding it rather over-written, and just feeling too often that characters do things for the sake of the plot. I suspect I'd like it much more as a paper book where I could skim & enjoy the setting/story without thinking too hard about it.

"A Kindle hitting my face is my signal to go to sleep at night."

Nobody in RL would understand this. I love you lot

Thanks stillloving yes I'm definitely going to get an essay collection I really enjoyed her writing.

I read mainly when my toddler naps and also when I sit up with them at bedtime. A Kindle hitting my face is my signal to go to sleep at night. I would make use of your lunch break if you can, my dh started reading at lunch and he has been so much more and productive. We're both generally too tired in the evening to read for long.

Satsuki I LOVE heartburn! Glad you enjoyed it too. Worth considering Nora Ephron's essays too eg this or this.

As for me, instead of making book recommendations, I should buckle up and start reading much more than I currently am as I'm only on book 9 and can't seem to finish this particular book. I normally read loads but am going through a Mumsnet-exhausted-on-the-sofa-phase in the evenings which I need to snap out of. And when I pick up my kindle in bed to do some reading finally in the evening, I fall asleep promptly.

Tips to fit in more reading in my day? Maybe I should make a rule of reading non-work-related stuff during my lunch break at work?

RMc my mum has been trying to get me to read Shardlake for years and it was only because of the unanimous love on this thread that I eventually did. I'm waiting for #3 to come in to the library.

33. Dark Fire - C.J Sansom Why have I not read these Shardlake books before!! Loved it and loved it even more discovering there are six in the series and all are already down loaded on our Kindle account. And I thought DH only ever read rubbish!! Somehow I managed to start with book 2 but have now started on book 1.

I've never been to IKEA, but I'd choose a trip there over a re-read of The Loney. Even my auto correct hates it, keeps changing it to the Money. It was like the author had been given a creative writing exercise, and had to write something in the style of Dennis Wheatley and Cold Comfort Farm, but hadn't realised that Cold Comfort Farm was actually funny.

Yes!

Remus Ham hated The Loney. And so did the rest of our book group. Load of old twaddle. Used a thousand words, when one would have done. About as atmospheric as IKEA!

Ham - I'm so glad to hear that somebody else disliked The Loney. I thought it was dreadful, but my dp loved it.

37. The Day of The Jackal - Frederick Forsyth . Great thriller about the planning and detection of an assssination attempt on De Gaulle. The joy of this book is in the detail. I remember loving it when I read it the first time around as a teenager.

38. Almost too embarrassed to declare this as it is probably the worst book I've read in a while. Sleeping Tiger - Rosalind Pilcher. I didn't really mind The Shellseekers, it's the kind of book you can let wash over you on a summer holiday but this was bad. Really really bad. Just glad I didn't pay for it.

biblio. Zither and thither. It only had a cameo though so tentatively reading on.

Exit pursued by zither, Satsuki?

14. Heartburn by Nora Ephron

I have always enjoyed her writing in film scripts, just now getting around to reading this novel, which draws much from her life and which was made into a film with Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson. It describes Rachel's discovery of her husband's affair 7 months into her second pregnancy, and, as she says in her introduction, her primary achievement in fictionalising events was in turning something so painful into a comedy. It is funny, I laughed out loud a couple of times, it is also of its time in ways I wasn't expecting - language that wouldn't be considered PC now (well, homophobic actually, although it is deployed in the service of wry humour, and at a time when the mores surrounding sexual orientation were still being negotiated, but still) and the seeming acceptance of faithlessness in long term relationships, despite the pain so obviously caused. It was also very modern in ways I wasn't expecting; the discussion of male and female roles in marriage and parenting haven't moved forward all that much. It was enjoyable, but slight, and I look forward to getting a collection of her essays and digging a little deeper. There are also lots of recipes and descriptions of food in here and that always endears a book to me.

I am going to pick up the Dave Eggers again after that little interlude, and I'm also reading the first Red Rising on the Kindle - pretty good so far, though nearly had me running at the mention of a zither a few chapters in - once bitten, twice shy

Yes, A Little Life is the only book to actually make me feel faint. It also made me cry loads but I have a very soft spot for it and I did really enjoy it. It's a terrific read and very rewarding but deeply harrowing.

Just finished two more:

1. Days Without End by Sebastian Barry. The story of a young Irish lad who joins the US army in the 1850s and what happens to him after that. Lots of gory battles and it also touches on the fact he is gay but just incorporates that as part of the book rather than focusing on it with a lot of hoohah, which I liked. The author won the Costa book aware and talked about writing it because his son was gay and it was a way of trying to get into his world, which touched me.

10. The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I listened to this on audible and by God it was amazing. Incredible. I didn't want it to end and felt bereft. It's a from a few years but but I have never read it, the audible narrators (a different one for each character) were so wonderful and I laughed and cried loads during the book. Super highly recommended, especially the audiobook which will blow you away.

Thanks for the info about Helen Dunmore's The Lie - that sounds wonderful and right up my street. I need to tackle a few books on my TBR pile before I can buy anything else though.