50 Book Challenge 2019 Part Two

DecumusScotti Sadly not, that's the problem - it only shows me books that I bought on the kindle. If I go to the manage your content page on the Amazon website I can see them and tell it to download them but it doesn't work. Amazon are insisting that it is because my kindle won't connect to wifi which is incorrect.

thank you.

That's reminded me, Decmus that when I buy my monthly free kindle book that comes with my subscription to The Times, I have to go to my kindle library & and download it manually from there.

Have you tried disconnecting your laptop from wifi & reconnecting it?

5. Whispers Underground - Ben Aaronovitch

Another fun escapade with DC Grant and the supernatural beings of London. I didn't enjoy this one as much as the first two; there seemed to be a long lull in the middle where it felt like not a lot was happening. As usual, the final chapters were pacy and action packed. An enjoyable read.

Silly question, perhaps, brizzle, but in your kindle library you should be able to see all the books you own, including the ones not on your device. Can you see them and download them manually from there?

Thanks...I'll try updating it - I've not had that.
Amazon customer service were, unusually, totally useless.

Have not had that problem. My kindle recently (3/4 days ago) had a big update - has yours?

I would also try shutting your kindle down completely & then restarting it (fixes a lot of things).

And I'd try disconnecting it from your wifi & reconnecting it.

Hope I haven't been stating the bleedin' obvious..............

On the monthly deals I got

Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore after a recommendation on here.
Heist by Howard Sounes
After the crash by Michel Bussi
Born under a million shadows by Andrea Busfield
SIlent Tears by Kay Bratt*
Open Secret Stella Rimington
The Secret Mother by Shalini Boland - I've read a few of hers and they have always been good.
The wife before me

The Postcard by Leah Fleming is one of the deals, I read it not so long ago and can recommend it. The Secret Piano is another, as is The Apothecary's daugher

Going off topic, sorry. Have any of you had this problem with your kindle?

It will download books that I buy on the kindle without problems.
If I buy a book on my laptop it will not download it to my kindle despite it being the default device.
Amazon insist that the only problem is that my kindle will not connect to wifi but obvious that's nonsense because it will download books that I buy on the kindle.
If I go to the amazon website and tell it to download books to my kindle it won't do them.

I have just spent 2 hours on the online chat with them telling me rubbish and it's still not fixed!

Hey, there's a wolf book The Wolf in the Attic. Doesn't look too gripping but doesn't look terrible either.

Would I like The Rosie Project? I know many of you read it way back, but I never got round to it, and I'm trying to remember if there was something putting me off.

I was coming on to say that Monthly Deals are the best I've seen for ages. I've only skimmed through them but will go back & pick later.

I too switched off the alarm and immediately checked the Monthly Deals!

Murine you are obviously a woman after my own heart, whose first action on waking up on the first day of the month is to check the Monthly Deals

They do indeed, KeithLeMonde! I picked up:
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie
The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
Brainstorm by Suzanne O’Sullivan
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Ooohhhh kindle monthly deals look decent this month for a change! Worth a look - I'll update later with a list of what I'm buying.

Only just finished first book of the year

1. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

Was OK, a better ending than the tv series (which I found a bit of a let down) but not the fab read I was hoping for.

Am trying At Home with Jane Austen (Lucy Worsley) next - hopefully I'll get through this one a bit more quickly!

Hasn’t Mo Hayder written a book called Wolf? Not that I can recommend it - far too scarred by Pig Island to ever pick up another one. Terrifying!

Odd coincidence but I just found 15 year old DD lying on the floor of the spare room reading Wolf’s Magnificent Master Plan and chuckling away to herself. I hadn’t seen it in years but it was a big favourite of all the DCs when small. She’d highly recommend it!

1. The Two Towers - JRR Tolkien

More Hobbity fun. Suffers a little from 'middle book of a trilogy' syndrome and the second half, dealing entirely with Frodo and Sam's dreary march to Mordor, drags a bit; but it is livened by the appearance of Faramir who along with Aragorn was one of my teenage crushes in the books [grin

7. Catriona Macpherson - A Step so grave
   The latest in the Dandy Gilbert series of crime novels set from 1918 onwards. We're now in the 30's and up in the Highlands where Dandy's son Donald is getting married. There are murders and bits about clothes and "odd" Gaelic customs. I've really looked forward to these books coming out but I feel the author has lost interest. I suspect she'll finish the series on the eve of WW2.

   8. The Mangle Street Murders - MRC Kasasian This was slightly odd. Another murder mystery about an orphaned young woman in Victorian times who is taken under the wing of a guardian who is a noted private detective. I liked the detail of Victorian slum London but the detective was just strange!

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan is one of my all time favourites. It has a lot of blood and sex, true, but it's not so much a horror as a playful literary exploration of what it would mean to be the last monster standing.

I have Death At Wolf’s Nick by Diane Janes on my shelf. It’s non fiction looking at a case of an unsolved murder in the 1930s. Haven’t read it yet so don’t know what it’s like!

There actually is a Daughter of the Wolf? That’s checking 2 boxes on title bingo We just need The Wolf and his Girl or The Girl and the Magician’s neice’s Wolf for a full house!

I suppose Call of the Wild doesn’t count?

Finished #11 Bird Box turned out to be very enjoyable not a difficult read and I like the claustrophobia of the situation and that not everything is neatly tied up at the end.

I need a bit of a change of pace so #13 The Definitive Biography of Freddie Mercury is next. I'm a huge Queen fan and this was a Christmas gift from my mum (she knows me well).

On the Wolf recommendation I enjoyed Daughter of the Wolf by Victoria Whitworth last year. Historical fiction rather than fantasy and told from an interesting viewpoint.

Has anyone mentioned Virginia Wolf Woolf yet?

Wolf of the Plains is really good. I was totally gripped throughout it.

I'm left with the impression the murderer made life unnecessarily complicated for themselves, purely for the sake of narrative convolution.

Ooh, I wholly second abookandgin’s recommendation for Bareback. It’s excellent. The mention has also prodded me to check if Kit Whitfield had written anything else and apparently she’s written a novel about an alternative Tudor timeline where merpeople exist. Knowing what she did with werewolves in Bareback this is going straight on my TBR list.

And as for Wolf titles, there’s also Wolves of the Calla in the Dark Tower series.

I really enjoyed Wolf Border when I read it. Wonderful sense of place.