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Just finished Reading (2015)
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Sophie
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Jul 07, 2015 04:47AM
I FINALLY finished American Gods this weekend. Not really sure why it took me so long (3 weeks) to get through as I actually did quite enjoy it. Maybe it wasn't fast-paced enough to grip me as intensely as other books have. I would still recommend though :)
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Well done. I think I read it in a couple of days
I can normally read books within a couple of days but this one just didn't inspire me to read like a maniac for some reason!
Sophie wrote: "I FINALLY finished American Gods this weekend. Not really sure why it took me so long (3 weeks) to get through as I actually did quite enjoy it. Maybe it wasn't fast-paced enough to gri..."Loved American Gods
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:-0
Deborah. I understand why people loved Brick Lane. I really quite liked it. But wouldn't read it again. Everyone loved it when first published. Thought I was in minority. You have now informed me that I am not. Glad you liked it anyway
Pat - my colleague at work had read it too and loved it - so we are three! I probably would read it again at some point just for the language - some wonderful expressions, I kept being struck by evocative word use that made me stop and repeat the words to myself.Thank you for your comment :)
I finished The Bell Jar and Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations this week. I was rather disappointed with The Bell Jar, I found Esther incredibly irritating although I did feel compassion for her as her life slowly unraveled. Path described mental anguish and the fallout of deteriorating mental health in graphic detail. Gertrude Bell is one of the most extraordinary women, even by modern day standards. I listened to this on the BBC4 Book of the Week, will definitely read the biography and letters.
I am giving up with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, I've tried so hard to finish it and two thirds in I can't stand it anymore. I have other books I want to read and am getting more and more frustrated, I don't like any of the characters. The plot line is very surreal and erratic, I am disappointed as I do usually enjoy his writing. I loved IQ84 and Norwegian Wood.
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Oh dear! It is never good hen you commit to a book and end up not liking it. I can imagine that The Bell Jar would make for uncomfortable reading, given the fragile mental state of Plath
Finished The Sandman, Vol. 8: Worlds' End, book 8 in the excellent Sandman series. Review here
Debbie wrote: "I finished The Bell Jar and Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations this week. I was rather disappointed with The Bell Jar, I found Esther incredibly irr..."I understand your disappointment with The Bell Jar, and applaud you for managing to stick with it. I started the book twice and couldn't make it past chapter three.
Gertrude Bell is certainly an extraordinary woman. While I've never read Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations, I have done research on her when I was in college.
Just finished The Metamorphosis. I recommend it. It is a short but rather interesting read.
Debbie wrote: "I finished The Bell Jar and Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations this week. I was rather disappointed with The Bell Jar, I found Esther incredibly irr..."Debbie: When I was in college, I read To The Lighthouse and thought it was the most wonderful novel I'd read (although I was not a big reader up to that time). I started another of hers years later and very quickly lost interest and put it away. I haven't tried her since then. I think it's the stream-of-consciousness (or in that direction) I find unsatisfying.
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Paul wrote: "I have enough trouble with my own stream of consciousness rather than worrying about everyone else's!"Same here.
Just finished Love Notes For Freddie which was a giveaway from GR. An easy read, but not fluffy, it was an interesting story with strong characters. Liked it
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I recently finished listening to The Martian and I did enjoyed it quite a lot. I wasn't bored by all the scientific things as many were. The narrator was great, I think he really got the spirits of characters right, so if you're looking for an audiobook, I would recommend.
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I was just talking to one of my book club buddies today about this book. She has had it recommended to her, neither of us has read it yet and are both slightly dubious as it falls squarely outside our normal reading zone.
Finished reading A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell. It was pretty good but there are a fair few names & places to remember, which confused me at times and put me off the book a bit. 3.5 stars from me.
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Finished Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James. I enjoyed it, but it's probably not a book for everyone:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Jo wrote: "Ana wrote: "I recently finished listening to The Martian and I did enjoyed it quite a lot. I wasn't bored by all the scientific things as many were. The narrator was great, I think ..."I disliked it, not because of the detailed scientific explanations, but because i found the main character (can't even remember his name) bland. His relentless good humour wore me down ! I didn't for one minute believe that he would not be rescued.
Finished Elizabeth is Missing and loved it. 5 stars. Hope Emma Healey cracks on and writes some more books very soon.
Just finished Mr. Mercedes - a cracking thriller. It's only the second Stephen King I've read (other was Joyland ) as I hadn't realised he wrote other genres than horror.I found a forgotten book token in the back of my purse today, so have just bought 11.22.63
Just finished Janice Galloway's Jellyfish, which was truly great. Now onto Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend. The cover isn't quite as hideous in real life, but fortunately the writing is much better (so far!)
Joy, I didn't realise either. May give that a try in future. Don't do horror. I did a Stephen King in my youth. It was excellent but never again. Too good a t describing horror for me.
Joy, I didn't realise either. May give that a try in future. Don't do horror. I did a Stephen King in my youth. It was excellent but never again. Too good at describing horror for me.
Finished the The Long-Legged Fly by James Salis. I have mixed feelings about the book:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Joy wrote: "Ive recently read Replay which is another book in the Harry August line, though written in the 80s. I really liked it very much, especially that there were unexpected twists and turns..."Agreed! Replay is an excellent book. Love the ending.
Jon wrote: "Finished the The Long-Legged Fly by James Salis. I have mixed feelings about the book:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."
Jon: Enjoyed your review. That's kind of how I felt about "Provinces of Night". Some beautiful imagery, but the story didn't seem to warrant it.
I just finished "A Concise History of the Russian Revolution." I've been curious about that event and finally got around to doing something about it. Richard Pipes abridged his 2 volume, 1300 page epic on the subject (for readers like me, who take forever!). It's an extraordinary account of an extraordinary event. He dismisses all the efforts to justify the bolsheviks absolute barbarism and makes an interesting distinction between intellectuals and "the intelligentsia", the former being more observers of life and the latter being those who actually purport to shape it themselves. He argues it's derived from the Enlightenment belief in the "tabula rasa" conception of man, i.e. determined completely by his environment. Hence, if you create the perfect environment, you create perfect human beings.
How the bolsheviks believed they could create the perfect environment by terrorizing, brutalizing, lying, cheating and generally not being nice guys is the subject of the book.
One quote I particularly liked: "Hordes of graduate students, steered by their professors, ...especially in the U.S., have assiduously combed historical sources in the hope of unearthing evidence of worker radicalism in pre-revolutionary Russia. The results are weighty tomes, filled with mostly meaningless events and statistics that prove only that while history is always interesting, history books can be both vacuous and dull."
Finished So You've Been Publicly Shamed and So You've Been Publicly Shamed The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. Enjoyed both but for different reasons.Claire North has made a n incredible debut with the story of harry August. It is a must read. I could not put it down.
Jon Ronson's latest left me feeling quite disturbed at how easily judged we are these days on public social media platforms. The stories of people's lives been ruined for an ill-judged glib comment make for very difficult reading.
Just finished reading: I Love Dick. I purchased the book on a whim (because of the title), and it wasn't until I read reviews that I actually found myself wanting to read it. Once I started I couldn't stop. It was unlike anything I've read before. I'd recommend the book to anybody up for something new, challenging and witty.
Read Slaughterhouse Five and Gibson's Spook Country this week - a bit randomly as I had them on my kindle, and they fit some missing bits in the full deck challenge (number in the title + Spy book) - Both were unexpectedly great though!
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Just finished Alissa York's "Effigy." it was a weird one, but the characters were interesting.
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Read The Shipping News for the book / film challenge. Thought it was a good tale of a man at his lowest ebb, find a new life on the very harsh Newfoundland coast. My review is here
Finished next, A Storm of Swords: Blood and Gold, the second part of book three of A game of thrones. Excellent book. My review is here
Finished Bird Box. Really enjoyed it, liked it more than I thought I would.
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Paul wrote: "Finally written my review on Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Good, but not great. And very long. My review"I tried this one when it was first published. It sounded just my sort of book, but I gave up half way through - so long-winded!
I seem to be reading a whole stream of time-travel books lately. Most recently I've finished 11.22.63 and Making History, which I didn't realise was one when I borrowed it from the library. I liked the Stephen King one, good atmosphere and well worked out plot, although I wasn't quite happy with the ending. (view spoiler) I also felt it was just a bit over-sentimental in places.
The Stephen Fry was the first of his I've read and I enjoyed it very much. (Quite a surprise as I'm not a big fan of his generally, finding him rather over-elaborate and pompous-sounding.) This one had a good plot and was well-paced.
Still my quarrel with almost all time-travel books is that things can never be improved by changing the past, whereas I'm convinced that in reality it would be better if some things had not happened (both on a global scale and personally). I don't want to sound jaded but I'm not sure this is 'the best of all possible worlds'(Candide).
Finished reading The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy today. Wonderful book. Touching, funny, sad - it's got it all, imo. Think I even preferred it to Harold Fry..and I gave that 5 stars.
Finished Wake yesterday - a beautifully written novel set in 1920, with the ceremony to remember the Unknown Warrior as a theme running through it. Reminded me a bit of Birdsong. Really enjoyed it.
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