Books
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It’s over a year since I began the concerted effort to read all the books on book mountain. There were 229 books. Now there are 189. In that time, I’ve bought loads more books, been given books and picked up one or two from the book drop at work. I’ve made a net gain of…
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I’m way behind on the 100 books in 2011 challenge, so I’m picking short, easy reads to try to catch up. Robert Crais is an easy read, and Voodoo River comes in at less than 300 pages. Elvis Cole is hired to find out about the birth parents of an adopted woman, who is a TV star…
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July’s book club book was The Ghost Writer by John Harwood. I was quite looking forward to this as the blurb was quite enticing. A boy, Gerard, grows up in Australia listening to his mother’s tales of Sussex and her idyllic childhood. One day he finds a story by his great-grandmother and a photograph hidden…
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Jeffrey Archer is an easy target. He’s a best-selling author that a lot of people think is a dreadful writer. So, given that I read in order to improve my writing skills, it seems to make sense that I should read some of those novels and authors that are widely considered to be bad. I can see…
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I was so looking forward to The Captive Queen by Alison Weir. Although I haven’t read any of her novels before, I have read several of her historical biographies. I think Alison Weir writes non-fiction really well and I especially enjoyed her biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine. That book was one I found particularly influential…
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I’ve been on blog hiatus for a little while as I was on holiday in Vienna. Which was lovely. You may also have noticed from the sidebar that I’m running a little behind on the 100 Books in 2011 challenge. This is because I have been re-reading A Song of Ice and Fire before A…
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Inspired by Leigh Butler’s fabulous A Read of Ice and Fire blog on Tor.com, I am going to do a chapter by chapter commentary of A Dance with Dragons. When not gushing about the general awesomeness of GRRM, I will be focussing on the writing. And as I have temporarily suspended the 100 Books in…
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The first third of Mistral’s Kiss by Laurell K. Hamilton is basically one long sex scene with the protagonist, Merry Gentry having sex with some of her guard. After a while it becomes apparent that the reason for this is that she needs to get pregnant in order to become the heir to her Aunt’s faerie kingdom.…
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Last week I miscalculated with how much I would read on the train. I knew I only had 40 pages of Globalization and its Discontents to go and I was half way through Beginnings, Middles and Ends, and I thought that would be enough for the commute. Only it wasn’t. I finished them both on…
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I was excited to read The Painted Man by Peter V. Brett. There’s been a lot of buzz around it and I like the cover a lot. There are three point-of-view characters; Arlen, Leesha and Rojer. We meet them when they are children and follow their stories through to their mid to late twenties. In…
Boudica Marginalia 