50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Eight

Merry Christmas everyone! I got a kindle paper white AND a kindle fire so am sorted for all my reading needs (the fire does OverDrive!). Am very pleased with DH.

54. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg Another rec from Sadik I think, and again one I really enjoyed; fascinating stuff and worth a look before you make any new year resolutions! {grin}

D2's ex bought me a vegetarian/vegan cook book, which I thought was really lovely and thoughtful.

I bought the Mary Beard for DD so looking forward to borrowing it.

I got Over The Hills And Far Away -Candida Lycett-Green and Diary of an Ordinary School Girl - Margaret Forster plus some book tokens so I am very happy.

No cookbook this year for the first time ever so I think that is where the book tokens will go.

Merry Christmas all !!!

I have been given Jo Pratt - A Flexible Vegetarian by my sister. I do have a bit of a thing for cook books.

I got Ed Yong's We Contain Multitudes. I'm hoping I might have Mary Beard's Women and Power lurking somewhere in the remaining small heap of unopened gifts. Also got Waterstones gift vouchers. And I got myself Feynman's Six Easy Pieces which I intend to start if I get any time.

In fact...

54. The Lost Words - Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris

A stunning illustrated treasure trove of word 'spells' - acrostic poems summoning the spirits of otters, conkers, herons and other supposedly 'lost' nature words from children's vocabularies, although pleased to say that mine knew most of them!

Merry Christmas all. Will post my (relatively small) book stash later.

Happy Christmas fellow bookworms!

I got The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, and Twin Peaks - The Final Dossier - both lovely hardbacks to be poured over at leisure.

Plus a vintage mountaineering book, The Long Climb Up To Hell by Jack Olsen, which DH had already bought for my birthday in June and forgotten to take off his present ideas list so if anyone fancies it I have a spare!!

Same as the last two years -- a set of the Booker prize shortlisted titles. And I'm actually going to read them this year.

Merry Xmas Everyone. Like Southeast I too have book tokens . Did get one book but have register to my mum as I have already read it! That's why I get book tokens!!

Mariana by Monica Dickens and The Letters of Sylvia Plath. Very happy - merry Christmas everyone

Merry Christmas everyone! I got His Bloody Project and Stalker - Lars Kepler. Very festive

The Ali Smith Autumn and Winter books from my husband. One is paperback and one is hardback though. Will crack Autumn open after lunch. The books I bought all went down well.

Murine I remember loving Any Human Heart although it's a long time since I've read it and I'm very hazy on the details. I may reread it as I'm a sucker for anything written in diary format, whether it's a real diary or a novel.

Into Thin Air Jon Krakauer This has been well reviewed on here, I will keep it short and add my voice to the recommendations. It is hard to review a book like this. It is so sparingly well written that I felt as though I was witnessing the events described, and Krakauer is painfully honest in his attempts to account for the disaster on Everest. It is fascinating, compelling, and terribly sad.

89. The Amazing Maurice and the Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett

Maurice is a streetwise tomcat who, having been surprised to discover he and a group of rats in Ankh-Morpork can talk, has found a stupid-looking kid and is working a scam. They cause a plague of rats in towns they come to then the kid plays the rat piper and is rewarded for saving the town. But in Bad Blintz they find a town without rats which thinks it has a plague - food is short and all the money is going to the rat catchers. There's something else in this town, something evil, and now it's no longer a game.

106 A Gentleman's Position by KJ Charles

More regency romance, sequel to my two previous books. Can I start by saying those objecting to too much pole definitely don't want to read this series

I wasn't as keen on this final book in the trilogy to start with - it's more conventional 'will-they-won't-they' romance. It really got going about a third of the way in though, turning into full-on farce by the end - and I totally forgave the lack of politics for the final denoument (in White's, naturally).

A nice touch was a sprinkling of Heyer in-jokes - a very well liked chap called Freddy makes several fleeting appearances (and is definitely not a 'gentleman who likes gentlemen'), a 'rather horse-faced woman' called Eustacia turns out to be an adored wife and mother, etc

Also counting A Child’s Christmas in Wales.

Too much pole! Arf. Carry on, Mumsnet.

A gratuitous excess of pole Satsuki

I love that composteleana, totally counts.

scribbly The lady doth protest too much, methinks...and er ghostie is not protesting nearly enough

Sounds like too much pole, not enough star.

55. A Child’s Christmas in Wales - Dylan Thomas - yes it’s basically a poem, and my lovely new illustrated version was a mere 70 pages long, but I need all the help I can get at the moment, so I’m counting it.

Scribbly & ghostie