50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Eight

71. The Lying Game - Ruth Ware

Isa gets a text from an old school friend that she needs her and off she goes to the village of Salten. Why was her time at boarding school there cut short? And what secrets do her and her friends hide?

Another not festive book. Enjoyable read from the library though!

Merry Christmas y'all. Hope everyone has had a restful couple of days, and that you're all able to carve out a little reading time between mince pies. Am watching the adaptation of The Miniaturist on telly, but am finding it much less atmospheric than the book (although would happily watch Paapa Essiedu all day long).

44. The 4.50 From Paddington by Agatha Christie. Mrs McGillicuddy witnessed a man strangling a woman on a train, as it pulls alongside the train she is travelling on. She reports the incident, but no evidence of wrongdoing is found, so she approaches Miss Marple for advice. It turns into a pretty standard country house murder mystery when the body eventually turns up. Good fun, not earth-shattering.

45. The Girls by Emma Cline. Fictional account of a teenage girl's experience of life inside a Manson-like cult in 1960s California. While the book detailed well how easily young girls can fall victim to sexual exploitation I thought it lacked depth and true reflection.

I am currently reading The Deaths by Mark Lawson, which contains some of the worst literary sex in recent memory. I sprayed tea everywhere when our anti-hero "released his busting truncheon".

56. Twin Peaks - The Final Dossier - Mark Frost

Short but satisfying (for TP fans like me) book which complements the third season of the show and fills in a lot of gaps in what happens to the show's characters.

108. Murder on Christmas Eve ed. by Cecily Gayford a collection of short crime and mystery stories set in the festive period, a bit hit and miss but overall enjoyed this.

61. Freakonomics by Stephen D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

Probably my last book of 2017 and a random selection from my library when browsing the non-fiction section. Published in 2005, this book has dated somewhat but the authors’ ideas and the way the book is written has definite echoes in more recent books- Sapiens, for example, has a very similar conversational tone.

Dubner summarises the common thread of the book: “It has to do with thinking sensibly about how people behave in the real world. All it requires is a novel way of thinking, of discerning, of measuring. This isn’t a difficult task, nor does it require super sophisticated thinking.... The most likely result of having read this book is a simple one you may find yourself asking a lot of questions.” Definitely! Less swallowing of media “facts” and more questions; I’m looking at you DF! 😘

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas! I was very lucky and received 13 books - three were books I had read from the library and wanted my own copy, but have lots of lovely new books to read including Timekeepers by Simon Garfield, Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty, The Importance of Being Trivial by Mark Mason, The Dry by Jane Harper and How To Stop Time by Matt Haig.

I also bought several books in the kindle sale! Currently reading Mr DickensAnd His Carol by Samantha Silva and enjoying it. Also bought The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce, The Axeman’s Jazz by Ray Celestin and a collection of Christmas themed murder stories. Plenty to keep my going (as if my TBR pile wasn’t big enough already)!

183. The Book Of Christmas by Jane Struthers
184. Christmas:A Biography by Judith Flanders

Two books about our Christmas traditions. The first was easier to read, the second went into more detail. Both good reads if you want to know more about the history of Christmas.

Stitches, I apologise, it was your rec (the power of habit), not Sadik's- I clearly sort posters by initial inside my head! It was great, thank you!

Happy Christmas everybody I didn't get any books this year, but maybe that's okay because I'm a definite Kindle convert. It's taking me an age to get through Our Endless Numbered Days in paperback, I've even thought about downloading it onto the Kindle but it seems such a waste to have it in two formats I've stopped myself, although I am enjoying it thus far. (They've just got to the forest hut.)
I've treated myself to Any Human Heart in the 12 days of Christmas kindle sale, but like others there wasn't much else that tickled my fancy.
And I'm listening to A Christmas Carol on Alexa which is free till 6th Jan if you have Amazon Prime. Hopefully I'll be able to add one more book to my total before the 31st!

Thanks, Cote

For those of you mourning the lack of Kindle Sale then Audible is doing some reasonable 2 for 1 Deals.
https://www.audible.co.uk/sp/2for1?sourcecode=EMLDisc1Bk7EM12201794UT&bppua=yes&ref=pee257231_231100841

Have just worked out I have over £100 worth of book tokens. Feeling giddy, can't wait to get to Waterstones!!

122. Thin Air - Michelle Paver Think I must have bought this in a Kindle Sale. Enjoyed it more than I expected. Ghost story set in 1930's during a mountaineering expedition. Page turner and atmospheric in places. Ending felt a bit rushed though. Now on to When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. Sticking to easy reads as grabbing time to read on my phone when I should be interacting with the family. Long journey home tonight = good reading time .

Just coming on here to say that This Is Not A Game: You Don't Get a Second Life is 99p on the Kindle. It's totally worth it, especially at this price.

Merry Christmas all! I didn't get any books but I did get a kindle paperwhite which I'm really enjoying.

12 days of Xmas sale was shit, too

Doesn't look like there's a Kindle Christmas sale this year :(

I read The Power of Habit a few weeks ago.

Glad you enjoyed it Tanaqui!

Agree it’ll come in handy for New Year’s resolutions!

55. The Grey King - Susan Cooper

Fourth in the Dark Is Rising fantasy series, and the best so far, I think. Will Stanton is sent to recuperate in rural Wales after a serious illness, and has no memory of the quest he's on for a magic harp until he meets a mysterious young man and gets caught up in a local feud with roots in an ancient myth. Cooper's writing is superb and just as good at creating strong characters as weaving fantasy and myth into landscape.

I look forwards to your review of Wanderlust Vanderly

Merry Christmas!

I was very happy to receive Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit. Also, I'm really forward to book shopping tomorrow at an indie bookstore that's closing soon (the owner is retiring); books are $1 each!

I haven't read The Power of Habit Tanaqui, but sounds like just my sort of thing!

Happy Christmas all!

I got The End of Alchemy by Mervyn King, Lord of Shadows by Cassandra Clare, Dark Matter by Blake Crouch and Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeanette Ng. Don't know anything about the last couple, but definitely looking forwards to the first two.

I also just bought for 99p an urban fantasy collection Charmed and Dangerous which looks like a nice easy read of long-ish novellas, & have I Contain Multitudes from the library, so I've got plenty to keep me going over the holidays :)

Thankyou noodlezoodle, I'm going to get it Any Human Heart! I may embarrassingly have mixed it up in my mind with John Boyne's The Heart's Invisible Furies and bought that last night, but that also looks excellent so I'll read both!

Merry Christmas everyone!! I got the Fever Tree Art of Mixing book and a very generous Waterstones voucher, looking forward to browsing to use it!

Happy Christmas! I hope everyone has had a lovely day.

I've got four books:

Terry Pratchett's Discworld Imaginarium - a collection of the artwork of Paul Kidby for the Discworld novels
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
Tales of Mystery & Imagination and Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe - unfortunately I already have a collected works of Poe but the thought was there!

Plus £25 worth of book tokens.

Merry Christmas everyone! 🤶🏻📚

DH gave me...
The House of Shattered Wings Aliette de Bodard
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things Jon McGregor
My Name is Lucy Barton
Burial Rites
Sweet Yotam Ottolenghi.
And a beautiful leather journal into which I can record all my favourite books.

My DB gave me Amazon vouchers to spend on even more books! 😊

!!