Bookworms 2020

elsien

daz378 said:

Hi thought I'd jump in ....I'm rereading Terry goodkind  sword of Truth series  at the moment.....also  enjoyed Michael Connelly  Bosch  detective series  and John Connelly  Charlie parker  novels 

I did find  the Terry Goodkind books ok to start with if a bit samey after a while Although I did also have to make an effort to ignore the underlying politics and misogyny. And all the BDSM/rape. 

Having read what I’ve just written I now wonder why I did enjoy the first ones. But I did. 

gettingtheresometime

Hobsons_Choice said:

Just finished the latest Robert Galbraith book (J.K.Rowling) "Troubled Blood".  The best of the series so far imo

and at almost 900 pages, a satisfying read.

My neighbour lent me Career in Evil last summer ☺️...one of my pet hates is to read a book only to realise that it's part of a series, so finally have got around to the audio book versions of the first two Cameron Strike books which I enjoyed so will be starting Career in Evil tonight.

I finished last night The Boy in the Woods by Harlan Coben which was enjoyable & could see it being made into a tv series.

dolly84

I used to post on here last year but stopped when I was finding it difficult to focus on anything.  Since then I've settled into reading again and am still working my way through the 100 books to read before you die list mixed in with other random choices, now I find there is a 1001 books to read list which I've had a look at and feel totally overwhelmed with.  I am missing the library, charity shops and secondhand book shops but am glad I have plenty of books in the house to read.  I am slowly but surely building up a small collection of vintage classics, I love old books especially ones with notes from the owner or gift giver in the front, my oldest is from 1918 with the most recent ones being from the 70's and I bought a vintage book holder to keep some of my favourites on.

I am currently reading Wuthering Heights for the first time, I live about 20 minutes from Haworth and often walk on the moors, I am enjoying it a lot especially the dialogue from Joseph which is all done in old, broad Yorkshire and has reminded me of many terms and words I haven't heard since childhood, a lot of people reading it must find those bits a mystery.

SadieO

ruby_eskimo said:

Morning all!  Finished The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - really enjoyed it as did everyone else in my bookclub   Lots of great themes throughout that were explored in a sensitive way (e.g. race, feminism, misogyny) with added humour and not a lot of gore which is rare for Grady Hendrix.  

Ruby_eskimo, I read this last year and haven't met anyone else who has read it. I hadn't heard of the writer before but spotted it in in the library and was attracted by the enjoyably camp sound of the title! I thought it would be a fun, slightly silly read but wasn't as camp (or as gory) as I expected, I actually found it quite sad and moving (in a good way). I am a wuss about horror but it made me investigate his other work and I have just read Horrorstör, which I also thought was cleverly and quite sensitively written. 

ruby_eskimo

dolly84 said:

I used to post on here last year but stopped when I was finding it difficult to focus on anything.  Since then I've settled into reading again and am still working my way through the 100 books to read before you die list mixed in with other random choices, now I find there is a 1001 books to read list which I've had a look at and feel totally overwhelmed with.  I am missing the library, charity shops and secondhand book shops but am glad I have plenty of books in the house to read.  I am slowly but surely building up a small collection of vintage classics, I love old books especially ones with notes from the owner or gift giver in the front, my oldest is from 1918 with the most recent ones being from the 70's and I bought a vintage book holder to keep some of my favourites on.

I am currently reading Wuthering Heights for the first time, I live about 20 minutes from Haworth and often walk on the moors, I am enjoying it a lot especially the dialogue from Joseph which is all done in old, broad Yorkshire and has reminded me of many terms and words I haven't heard since childhood, a lot of people reading it must find those bits a mystery.

A few years ago I set myself the challenge of reading the 1001 books list - there's actually over 1200 books on the list as they update it every few years and add stuff and take others away.  Every time I request a book from the library, I also make sure I request one from the list too.  I've made my way through 84 of them so far which is pretty good progress, definitely going to take me longer than 10 years to work through but it's exposing me to books I might not necessarily have chosen.

Love the sound of your vintage classics collection, I'd love to start something similar but the lack of access to book shops / charity shops at the moment is halting that.

ruby_eskimo

SadieO said:

ruby_eskimo said:

Morning all!  Finished The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - really enjoyed it as did everyone else in my bookclub   Lots of great themes throughout that were explored in a sensitive way (e.g. race, feminism, misogyny) with added humour and not a lot of gore which is rare for Grady Hendrix.  

Ruby_eskimo, I read this last year and haven't met anyone else who has read it. I hadn't heard of the writer before but spotted it in in the library and was attracted by the enjoyably camp sound of the title! I thought it would be a fun, slightly silly read but wasn't as camp (or as gory) as I expected, I actually found it quite sad and moving (in a good way). I am a wuss about horror but it made me investigate his other work and I have just read Horrorstör, which I also thought was cleverly and quite sensitively written. 

I read Horrorstör when it first came out and loved it and when I heard Hendrix was publishing TSBCGTSV, I knew I had to make it my next choice for book club.  As you say, his books are quite sensitive to the subject matter rather than being filled with gore for the sake of it.  Once I've worked my way through the pile of books on my shelves, My Best Friend's Exorcism is next on my list to purchase.

dolly84

I have finished Wuthering Heights, this is one of my vintage books that will stay in my permanent collection (printed in 1953) and I may read again in the future.  I live close to Haworth and there are always people there who have travelled 1000's of miles to visit the area, many because they love this book so I felt I had to read it and I'm glad I did, I loved it.

RecoveringAndy

I've always avoided Orwell in the belief that it would be a grim slog. 
Had a read through of Animal Farm on Saturday morning and I couldn't have been more wrong. A nice short read. Although the themes and morals involved can be translated across to a Stalinist Soviet Union, the book is written in plain, simple, English. The "fairy story" works even without the historical context.

1984 has also been on the shelf for a few years so I'm more encouraged to pick it up. 


When I was looking to check it off on GoodReads, I noticed that there is a new audible collection of both Animal Farm & 1984 narrated by Stephen Fry. Fry is particularly good at narration in my opinion. If I didn't already own the hard copies, I may have been tempted to buy that.

ruby_eskimo

Since the last update I've finished The Five and loved it.  Not only did I learn more about the lives of the (suspected) victims of Jack the Ripper but I learnt more about the lives of the working classes in Victorian England.  You always hear about the workhouses, but this went into the intricacies of how they worked and the bearing they have on the welfare system today.  Very interesting and poignant and made me almost shed a tear in places.  

Also finished Beach Read by Emily Henry, an impulse request from the library for a bit of light relief.  Not my cup of tea but distracted me for a bit with the tale of two completely opposing authors who decide to switch genres and try to compete to see who can get published first.

Currently reading Rosewater by Tade Thompson, an African Futurist book which is a new genre for me but one I'm finding enjoyable - a little Sci Fi but it's believable that people could be living this way in 20 - 30 years time.  A mixture of sci fi with a spy novel, it jumps around a bit between time periods but you slowly get an emerging picture of what's really going on.  Apparently its the start of a trilogy so have the other books on order with the library already.

dolly84

RecoveringAndy said:

I've always avoided Orwell in the belief that it would be a grim slog. 
Had a read through of Animal Farm on Saturday morning and I couldn't have been more wrong. A nice short read. Although the themes and morals involved can be translated across to a Stalinist Soviet Union, the book is written in plain, simple, English. The "fairy story" works even without the historical context.

1984 has also been on the shelf for a few years so I'm more encouraged to pick it up. 


When I was looking to check it off on GoodReads, I noticed that there is a new audible collection of both Animal Farm & 1984 narrated by Stephen Fry. Fry is particularly good at narration in my opinion. If I didn't already own the hard copies, I may have been tempted to buy that.

I love Animal Farm too, I've tried 1984 but gave up but it is on my bookshelf to give it another go, sometimes you just need to be in the right frame of mind for some books.