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Pam B's 2019 TBR Self Challenge
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Finished a massive historical novel by Sharon Penman, When Christ and His Saints Slept and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2887886157.
Read a quick and free short story, A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies by Alix E Harrow, available at https://www.apex-magazine.com/a-witch... recommended by Phyrnne in this group and others (and Patti).Reviewed it here - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2893196723.
Read a history book about WWII - Fortress Malta: An Island Under Siege 1940-1943 by James Holland - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2891918698.And Scapa Flow by Malcolm Brown and Patricia Meehan, about the Royal Navy base, in both World Wars, told through the experiences of ordinary people - review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2898088168.
Also read The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2898113756.
Just caught up with a big pile of book reviews:Ian Rankin's Tooth and Nail - reviewed https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2898128107.
Another Rankin Rebus novel - Dead Souls - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2913019901
Third Rebus novel - A Question of Blood - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2913048350.
Neil Spring's The Lost Village - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2913063374
And four from Jodi Taylor's time travel series - first book 1 - Just One Damned Thing After Another - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2913098729
book 2 - A Symphony of Echoes - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2913129437
book 3 - A Second Chance - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2913163772
and finally book 7 - Lies, Damned Lies, and History - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2913232735
Read a couple of non fiction for a change - Dunkirk: The History Behind the Major Motion Picture by Joshua Levine - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2913467762
and
People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil by M. Scott Peck - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2917670343.
Read book 7 of the Indigo series by Louise Cooper - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2784951361.
Read Daphne Du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2920392442 and The Fresco by Sheri Tepper - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1381976366
Read a couple of biographies. Loved the first, not so much the second:Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2923787278
and
A Life In Secrets: The Story Of Vera Atkins And The Lost Agents Of Soe by Sarah Helm - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2934217362.
Read another Clark Ashton Smith short story collection, Lost Worlds: Volume 2: Atlantis, Hyperborea, Xiccarph and Others - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2867995776and
Volume 1 of Joe Abercrombie's trilogy The Blade Itself - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2934335538.
Read Blood Heritage by Sheri Tepper and posted a review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2939750061.
Also read the sequel, The Bones and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2939751877.Also read Mark Lawrence's Prince of Thorns and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2943516699.
Read A Merritt's Seven Footprints to Satan and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1649443781.
Read Barbara Michael's The Dancing Floor and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2946774412.
Read Stephen King's The Outsider and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2950259389.
Read Wild Chamber by Christopher Fowler and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2954357223.
Read Green Phoenix by Thomas Burnett Swan and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2950258456
Read The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2955788832.
Read a biography of Stephen King, Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King by Lisa Rogak - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2959462243and
Foxglove Summer, fifth in a series by Ben Aaronovitch - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2963683666.
Read books 2 and 3 of Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy and reviewed them:Before They Are Hanged - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2963703654.
Last Argument of Kings - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2963703816.
Prompted by a re-read on another group, read Garth Nix's Sabriel, first of the Abhorsen series, and sadly found it less involving than the first time around - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1274428027.
Finished Thomas Burnett Swann's Lady of the Bees and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2955794217.
Finished C J Sansom's Dissolution and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2498550682.
Read Thomas Burnett Swann's Where is the Bird of Fire? and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2979823508.
After reading book 1 I have got rather into the Shardlake series by C J Sansom so have now read (all I had to hand):Book 5 - Heartstone - review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2981055422
and
Book 6 - Lamentation -review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2981055866.
Just finished a Thomas Burnett Swann which has taken ages as I've been off reading the Shardlake novels - Moondust and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2959469326
Read number 2 in the Shardlake series Dark Fire and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2981055707.
Read Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2982225433.
First of my catchup - read Clarissa Pinkola Estes Women Who Run With The Wolves: Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2998996188and
PD James' Death in Holy Orders - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3022933473.
Second catchup - Majorie Blackman's Noughts & Crosses - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3022944817
and
Laline Paull's The Bees - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3027116720
Final catchup - read Anthony Horowitz's Crocodile Tears - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3027143904.
Caught up on reviews of latest books read:1. Bond of the Fire by Anthony Fon Eisen - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3039643488.
2. The Jargoon Pard by Andre Norton - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1954249194.
3. The Crystal Gryphon by Andre Norton - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1954248909.
4. Other Dimensions volume 1 by Clark Ashton Smith - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2998994738.
Forgot to add my previous two reads - Ray Bradbury's Machineries Of Joy - reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3027934766
and
Tom Baker's Doctor Who: Scratchman - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3027934766.
Just read the first in a series by Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3040627556and
first in Jack Vance's Lyonesse series - Lyonesse aka Suldrun's Garden - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3044269507.
Just read book 2 in Dean Koontz's series, Forever Odd - review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3047340521
A catch up of some books read recently:Book 2 in Jack Vance's series, Lyonesse: The Green Pearl - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3047380738.
Book 3 in Dean Koontz's series - Brother Odd - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3059192270.
Circe by Madeline Miller - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2954345042.
and
Book 2 in Marjorie Blackman's series - Knife Edge - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3059239431
Just finished the latest in the Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead. Loved it but thinking about it afterwards, the mystery it revolves around doesn't make sense! Reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3059403450.
A big catchup on reviews:1. H. Warner Munn's Merlin's Godson - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1391792506.
2. The sequel, Merlin's Ring - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1391792872
3. Abraham Merritt's supernatural tale - Burn Witch Burn - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1954250635
4. Thomas Burnett Swann's The Gods Abide - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3032010135
By the way I completed my target of 120 books - now at 131. I had meant to increase it again before Christmas but was caught out. Typically, the one year I actually set it to 150 I came up a few short.
Pam wrote: "By the way I completed my target of 120 books - now at 131. I had meant to increase it again before Christmas but was caught out. Typically, the one year I actually set it to 150 I came up a few sh..."Congrats! In my opinion, it is always better to aim slightly lower and overshoot than to feel pressure about not reaching your goal.
Leslie wrote: "Pam wrote: "By the way I completed my target of 120 books - now at 131. I had meant to increase it again before Christmas but was caught out. Typically, the one year I actually set it to 150 I came..."Thanks Leslie.
I'm going to be recording my next year's reads just in the general thread because I already have a challenge thread in the UK Forum group and it is quite time consuming copying my updates to several threads as I do now. But I will finish the 2019 ones here.
Read book 3 in the Noughts and Crosses series by Majorie Blackman, Checkmate and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3090697596. Thought this was better than the first two.
Enjoyed book 2 of Den Patrick's series, The Boy who Wept Blood, and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2639528434.
Pam wrote: "I'm going to be recording my next year's reads just in the general thread because I already have a challenge thread in the UK Forum group and it is quite time consuming copying my updates to several threads as I do now. But I will finish the 2019 ones here..."I understand. But please post a link to your thread in that other group so I can check on your progress in 2020!
Leslie wrote: "Pam wrote: "I'm going to be recording my next year's reads just in the general thread because I already have a challenge thread in the UK Forum group and it is quite time consuming copying my updat..."Thanks Leslie, yes I will add it to my first 2020 review link in the general thread.
Closing my 2019 challenge with the last book I read in 2019 - Other Dimensions volume 2 by Clark Ashton Smith - reviewed here - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2998994965
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Books mentioned in this topic
Other Dimensions volume 2 (other topics)The Boy who Wept Blood (other topics)
Checkmate (other topics)
Merlin's Godson (other topics)
The Gods Abide (other topics)
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Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1389245412.
Brilliance of the Moon by Lian Hearn - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1404851594.