Just finished - just started Showing 11,901-11,950 of 13,832

[Kath]

Just finished a scifi which I loved. Inheritors of the New Kingdom

http://ignitebooks.blogspot.co.uk/201...

[Pam]

Patti (baconater) wrote: "Pam wrote: "Just finished volume 1 in the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...."

Yes! Wonderful review! You commented on pretty much every aspect that I found disappointing.

Will you sacrifice further reading time on the series?"

Well, I'd done my usual and bought the whole series, though to be fair, this time it was in a charity shop and they were VERY cheap. I thought I'd see if book 2 The Ask and the Answer had the same problems. It doesn't - the story is better because they are in place, and they are having to deal with manipulation by older people and it isn't black and white as both sides are villainous, but I found it very grim - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1811505806. Surprising how dark some YA books are these days.

[L.A.]

Just finished Just started . Really glad I decided on this series for a re-read, really enjoying it.

[Pam]

Read book 5 in the Witch World series by Andre Norton, Sorceress of the Witch World and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1716692837. A nice bit of light relief after the Ness books.

[L.A.]

Just finished just started These are seriously unputdownable!

[Kath]

A sci-fi now - a good four star read from Mads Sorenson The Presence

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Kath]

Another book finished over the weekend - Left Out by Jean Gill. I read this for review because I have a daughter who's a leftie - but there more than this to the YA story.

http://ignitebooks.blogspot.co.uk/201...

[Jim]

the scissors they used to hand out to us at junior school were virtually impossible to use as a left hander, I remember them well!

[Kath]

In my school they didn't cut if you were a right hander, either! School scissors were always rubbish.

[Desley (Cat fosterer)]

Finished Paid In Blood - a bit too many religious comments. Have one of our Mel's to read on kindle next Blind Justice and Playing Dead in paperback

[Pam]

Read the first in Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising sequence, Over Sea, Under Stone and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1366155267.

[Kath]

I loved that, Pam.

[Kath]

Just finished Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. Excellent sense of atmosphere and place but a slow moving story - and I wasn't fussed about the ending.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Natasha]

Just finished Ammonite by Nicola Griffith. It took me an age to get through. Lesbian sci-fi based on the planet Jeep where a virus has killed off all the men and a fifth of the women. I've never read a book with only female characters before. That was top. But I found the background to the story poorly explained at all times.

Just started The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson. More gentle ridiculing of the UK by the brilliantly witty American travel writer.

[Pam]

Read the short story by Patrick Ness, The Wide, Wide Sea, which fits after book 2 of his Chaos Walking trilogy, and reviewed it https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2041750455.

The short stories (this is the second) that he does aren't critical to the series, but interestingly are told in a straightforward third person narrative and, in this case at least, have a little bit more optimism than the series itself which so far has been rather a downer.

[Kath]

Why do you read things which are a downer? I've got to the stage of ditching stuff I'm not enjoying.

[Jim]

Kath wrote: "Why do you read things which are a downer? I've got to the stage of ditching stuff I'm not enjoying."

yes, life is too short

[Kath]

'Tis when you're my age! ;)

[Kath]

I've just read and reviewed A Horse Walks into a Bar A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman - it's the 2017 Booker prize winner. The fact that Netgalley felt it necessary to ask for reviews speaks for itself. It wanted to finish it - it was like watching a car crash - deliberately, I might add. I didn't feel like a better person for reading it. I now see that reviews range from five to one star. Intellectuals praising it and 'real people' being puzzled and bored by it. You wonder about these prizes, don't you?

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Kath]

I enjoyed this one much more - Born Bad by Heather Burnside.

http://ignitebooks.blogspot.co.uk/201...

[Lisa]

I just finished HOW TO TELL YOUR CAT ABOUT TRUMP it is very short so suitable for a bus or train ride. At times it was funny, at others less so.

[Desley (Cat fosterer)]

Started this on my old kindle Children on Death Row

[Kathy]

Just finished Maigret's Revolver. Didn't find the story as engrossing as some of Simenon's. Just started Sleeping on Jupiter.

[Pam]

Kath wrote: "Why do you read things which are a downer? I've got to the stage of ditching stuff I'm not enjoying."

Apart from a Horse Walks into a Bar? ;-)

Seriously, in this case, it was to find out what had happened ... I do have the whole trilogy coz I picked them up cheap.

[Pam]

Finished a book that I really did think seriously of abandoning - The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell - and reviewed it https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2049505312.

[Jim]

Pam wrote: "Finished a book that I really did think seriously of abandoning - The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell - and reviewed it https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...."

you stuck with it longer than I would have done :-)

[Kath]

I had to finish A Horse. I was reviewing it for Netgalley which brings with it a certain obligation. I got a £5.49 book for nothing. I owed them!

[Pam]

Kath wrote: "I had to finish A Horse. I was reviewing it for Netgalley which brings with it a certain obligation. I got a £5.49 book for nothing. I owed them!"

OK, I'll let you off this time ;-)

[Desley (Cat fosterer)]

Had a good reading weekend - read a novella by Mel, impressed that she did such a well written story in such few words Blind Justice

Then read Medical Mystery - The Yale Experiments - not a bad medical thriller, I thought it was quite original, but formatting/grammatical errors

Now started By Hook or By Crook and 30 More of the Best Crime and Mystery Stories of the Year So far a mixed bag

[Kath]

I love Sarah Waters' writing style and her ebooks are on offer this month at £2.99. I bought The Night Watch and it's a belter. I loved it and its back-to-front telling of the story.

http://ignitebooks.blogspot.co.uk/201...

[David]

Just finished The Departure , which was damn fine: Dystopia, space battles, Mars colony, killer robots and much more.

Just about to start Slur.

[Will]

I'm starting Water Margin, Volume 1

It's cultural. Oh, and the source material for a lot of films.

[Kath]

Just snagged a preview copy of Andy Weir's (author of The Martian) next book, Artemis - about a lunar colony - from Netgalley! Engages smug- mode!

[Pat ()]

Kath wrote: "Just snagged a preview copy of Andy Weir's (author of The Martian) next book, Artemis - about a lunar colony - from Netgalley! Engages smug- mode!"

So frustrating, I'm jealous!

[Elizabeth]

Just finished Kid Rodelo. I'd almost forgotten the survival skills needed for crossing a desert. Wallowing in Louis L'Amour for recreation at the moment - probably the best western writer of them all with proper respect for the position and fighting skills of the American Indian and an unrivalled historical knowledge of the country and folk he writes about.

Just starting Comstock Lode. A story of the gold rush that brought Virginia City into being. I reckon I could now placer mine with the best of them - but it's the folk who provide the services to the miners( mule supply trains, bakeries, saloons and bordellos) who generally get the richest.

[Patti (baconater)]

Kath wrote: "In my school they didn't cut if you were a right hander, either! School scissors were always rubbish."

I go round other people classrooms knicking the decent scissors for my kids. Shhh. Don't tell.

[Patti (baconater)]

Okay, now I want the new Andy Weir. And a microwaved potato.

Okay, maybe not the potato.

I've not actually read much so far this holiday. I proofed Darren's latest and I'm about 5% away from finishing a Dean Kootz that's very middling. I can't seem to sit in a chair long enough to disappear into a book cuz it hurts my back and when I lie down, fall asleep!

[Kath]

Just reviewed Last Seen Alive by Claire Douglas. Really enjoyed it - out today.

https://ignitebooks.blogspot.co.uk/20...

Also loving the new Andy Weir!

[Jim]

Patti (baconater) wrote: "Kath wrote: "In my school they didn't cut if you were a right hander, either! School scissors were always rubbish."

I go round other people classrooms knicking the decent scissors for my kids. Shh..."

I thought that was a skill they taught at teacher training college?

[Patti (baconater)]

Yes, that's where I learned it. ;)

I finished the Koontz and then almost started Oscar and Lucinda but my copy seems to have issues. Couldn't be bothered putting wifi on my kindle to try to fix it, so I started Last Night in Twisted River. So glad I did! It's really, really good. Shouldn't be surprised. I've never read a John Irving I didn't like.

[Patti (baconater)]

Kath wrote: "Just reviewed Last Seen Alive by Claire Douglas. Really enjoyed it - out today.

https://ignitebooks.blogspot.co.uk/20...

Also loving the new Andy Weir!"

You gloated. ;)

[Kath]

I did an' all! :)

[Kath]

Just finished another book from Netgalley - The Roanoke Girls, which I wouldn't really rave about. A subject which some people find difficult and I think it was ramped up for the shock value - shocking twists seem to be the thing these days - and they don't always convince.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Will]

Not from Netgalley but free in the goody bag from Edge-lit: Morlock Night

Early steampunk. The style is a little off: Americans do seem to find it hard to write as a Victorian Gentlemen - but the description of an Atlantean Submarine in the Sewers under London was interesting

[Daniella]

Just finished "The Black Widow" by Daniel Silva. Another spine-tingling thriller. He gets better with every book.

Just started "The Kaiser's Last Kiss" by Alan Judd

[Kath]

Will wrote: "Not from Netgalley but free in the goody bag from Edge-lit: Morlock Night

Early steampunk. The style is a little off: Americans do seem to find it hard to write as a Victorian Gentle..."

I notice Darren wasn't impressed. I think it's hard for a modern Amercian to get into a Victorian mindset.

[Will]

The language used was very inconsistent. The story itself doesn't seem to be too bad, but the speech patterns used jar with me and the sense of actually being in a Victorian time just wasn't convincing.

[Will]

I also got free a sampler from the new Grimdark fantasy that's causing a stir: Godblind

The sampler has done nothing for me and I certainly won't be buying the full book.

[Kath]

I started that for Netgalley. It was one of the very few I've sent a Did Not Finish report to, with reasons.

[Will]

I've also got the latest Robin Hobb and The Court of Broken Knives in hardback to get on with.