-
Review: Charlaine Harris – Shakespeare’s Landlord
As I expected, I read this book very quickly (especially compared to my last book). And also as expected, it was great!I already knew that I loved Charlaine Harris and this book was awesome just like the others. This one was slightly different to the other two sets that I have read, as it had nothing to do with the supernatural, just a straight-up murder mystery. I think this set is one of her earlier sets, written in the mid 90s.
As with all of the main characters in her books, Harris always gives them an ‘interesting’ back story, and Lily’s was definitely interesting. I won’t go into too much detail here in case you want to read the book, but I was quite shocked when I read that chapter, there was a lot more violence than I had expected.
I think my favourite part of this book was the narrative style, it made it very hard to put down. I picked it up this morning, and before I knew it an hour had passed and I had read over 100 pages.
I’ve never really read murder mystery books before, so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, and spent most of the book trying to guess the culprit. In the end, I was totally wrong. I kind of liked that though, it’s much better when books aren’t predictable.
The end of the book was left quite wide open with regards to Lily’s personal life and her future in the town, so I’m interested to read the next book and see where it goes.
-
Now Reading: Charlaine Harris – Shakespeare’s Landlord
Book number 2 on my 100 book reading challenge is Shakespeare’s Landlord by Charlaine Harris. I’ve read two sets of books by Charlaine Harris – the Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood) series, and the Harper Connelly series. I absolutely loved both sets of books and couldn’t put the books down once I’d started.I’ve now got two other sets of books from Charlaine Harris, The Aurora Teagarden series and the Lily Bard series. I got the Lily Bard series for Christmas from my parents, so I will be reading that one first. The review on the back of the book sounds pretty impressive:
“Harris writes about Lily with a quiet compassion that is compelling. A fine writer has written her best book yet.”
The books are considerably shorter than the last book I read, and given how much I liked her last books, I think this’ll catch me right up on my reading challenge.
On a totally unrelated note, my replacement iPod came today. Apple issued a recall for some first generation iPods, and mine was included. It had been in a drawer for 3 years, but I dug it out and sent it off, and the replacement arrived 7 weeks later. I was quite surprised that the iPod I got back was an 8GB new model, it’s way better than the one I sent them, and will be perfect for in the gym!
-
Review: Jonathan Franzen – The Corrections
So this book was the first of my 100 book challenge, and it took a lot longer than it should to read it, serves me right for picking such a long book to start off with! I need to read one book every 3.5 days on average, but here we are on the 6th January, and I’ve only just finished it.It took me a long time to get into this book, and I found it really hard to keep up at some points. The book jumped around a lot between the present time and the past, with no indication that the time had changed. I found myself a lot of times having to go back a couple of pages to make sure that I hadn’t missed something obvious.
My favourite books are the ones where I feel connected to the characters, but I just didn’t get any kind of connections to the characters, except Alfred and Enid, who were just such a lovely couple that you couldn’t help but feel sympathy for them and their situation.
As well as jumping forward and backward through time, there was also a lot of switching between characters, so at times it was hard to get a good flow from the story. Most of the book seemed to be about the back story for each of the characters, and about halfway through the book, it suddenly switched to a set of people that hadn’t been mentioned for the last 300 pages. I found it quite strange that it switched so suddenly without an explanation, although it did all became clearer later.
The ending of the book really disappointed me. After the copious amount of detail in the rest of the book, the ending seemed very rushed, and I was left with a feeling like after I read the last Harry Potter book – it felt like the last chapter was added on as an afterthought. The book was already at over 600 pages, so I don’t think it would have harmed to just add a little more detail.
All in all, I would say the book was okay, but definitely not one of my favourites, and probably not one that I will read again for a while.
-
Happy New Year (or should I say Prospero Año Nuevo?)
Happy New Year everyone – I can’t quite believe it’s 2012 already! I know everybody says this, but I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a good one!
I have a few resolutions for this year, which I thought I would share with you all, hopefully it’ll make me more likely to actually stick to them. Although saying that, my resolution from last year came true, so I’m hopeful for this year too!
- First up, I want to continue to read my bible more often. My OwnIt365 reading plan will help, as will listening to the Daily Audio Bible podcast which I have started doing every day.
- I really want to pick up on my Spanish again. I loved learning it when I was at school (and I used to be pretty good at it), so I’m going to get myself learning it again. It may sound weird but I do sometimes still think in Spanish, does anyone else find themselves doing that?
- Read more – I’ve signed up for Book Chick City’s 100 book reading challenge, which is definitely going to be a challenge, but hopefully one that is a lot of fun!
I’ve decided to combine the first two resolutions by reading my Spanish/English bible. I bought it a couple of years ago (it took me ages to find), it’s basically a bible with Spanish down one side of the page and English down the other:
Hopefully by the end of the year, I’ll be able to read my Spanish-only bible (Santa Biblia), without needing to consult the English version or a dictionary so much.
If you’ve made a resolution for the new year, leave me a comment and let me know!
-
Now Reading: Jonathan Franzen – The Corrections
This is another of the books that I got for Christmas – part of a set of two by Jonathan Franzen. The descriptions of them on The Book People looked really good, so I’m really glad my brother bought them for Christmas. The book was the winner of the National Book Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and came with this quote on the back:“A novel of outstanding sympathy, wit, moral intelligence and pathos, a family saga told with stylistic brio and psychological and political insight. No British novelist is currently writing at this pitch”.
That’s quite a lot to live up to, but it does look very interesting. It’s a long book, at more than 600 pages, so there’s no chance I’ll finish it before the new year, so I guess that this will count as the first book in my 100 book reading challenge. Let’s start as we mean to go on!
-
Review: Emma Donoghue – Room
This book definitely lived up to all expectations! I started reading it two days ago, and I finished it at lunch time today. It was one of the best books I’ve read for a long time, I couldn’t put it down. The book was written in such a way that you felt like you were connected to the characters, so there were more than a few teary moments.
The book is written from the perspective of 5 year old Jack, who has lived in ‘Room’ all his life. His mother was kidnapped by ‘Old Nick’ when she was 19, and rather than tell Jack, she let him believe that Room was the world, and everything else was just TV. The way that Emma Donoghue described the relationship between Jack and his Mum was simply wonderful, I could almost feel the love coming off the pages.
About half way through the book, they hatch a plan to escape. I started reading this part while I was on my lunch break at work, and I was so annoyed when my hour was up. During the escape and after, I couldn’t stop turning the pages, I just had to know what was going to happen next. I had my heart in my mouth more than a few times!
Once they had escaped, I was unsure about how the story would go, but the book was so well written that it felt like you were on the journey with them. All the new experiences that they have to go through are so well voiced through Jack, all the new people he has to meet, and getting to know ‘Outside’.
When it got to about 30 pages away from the end, I was really intrigued to see how the book would end, as this is where I am usually most disappointed by books, but I loved the way that Donoghue chose to end the book. The trip back to the room and Jack saying goodbye to everything totally made me cry like a little girl, but for me, that’s the sign of a great book!
-
100 Books Reading Challenge 2012
This year, I’ve decided to sign up to Book Chick City’s reading challenge to read 100+ books in a year. I love reading, and I read A LOT, so it’ll be good to see if I can manage 100 books in a year. I’ll be trying to review every book I read (in a bit more detail than I have done in the past), and I’ll be making a list on my 100 book challenge page. If you have any suggestions for books I should read, let me know in the comments – I’m always looking for new ideas.
-
Now Reading: Emma Donoghue – Room
The Auschwitz Violin was a really good book, too short for my liking though – one of those books that you just don’t want to end. The story is about a man who has been taken to Auschwitz and is pretending to be a carpenter. When they find out that he is a Luthier, he is set the task of creating a replica of a Stradivarius violin. If he doesn’t do it fast enough, he will be sent to be used for all manner of horrific things that happened in Auschwitz. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes reading books about World War Two.My next book is one that my cousin Hannah gave me at Christmas – Room by Emma Donoghue. I’m already 55 pages into it and I love it. The story is a bit strange at the moment, but I’m intrigued to see where it’s going to go.
-
Now Reading: Maria Àngels Anglada – The Auschwitz Violin
I got a few books for Christmas this year:
- The Auschwitz Violin by Maria Àngels Anglada
- Room by Emma Donaghue
- Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
- The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
- The Lily Bard series by Charlaine Harris
It was a tough choice to decide which to read first, so I’ve decided to read them in the order I opened them. First up is The Auschwitz Violin by Maria Àngels Anglada, which Cameron bought for me. I love reading books about the war; two of my favourite books are World War Two (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Diary of Anne Frank). I’ve got two days off, then it’s back to work for 3 days and then a 3 day weekend, so I’ve got plenty of time to get through a couple of books.Now it’s time to take a look at the January Sale email from The Book People. I had the catalogue through the door a couple of days ago, and there were some really good deals in there.
I think someone needs to confiscate my credit card…
-
Merry Christmas!
It’s a bit late in the day now, but wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!
I hope everyone had a great day. Mine was surrounded by family; chatting, laughing and opening presents – and eating turkey of course! The only thing missing was Cameron! I got some really cool stuff, including books, DVDs, music, make up and charms for my bracelet.
I wanted to share this picture that someone posted on Twitter, it really made me laugh:
I hope everyone enjoys boxing day, recovering from the over indulgence today! I’ll leave you with a couple of my favourite quotes this Christmas:
“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.”
Luke 2:14
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
John 3:16
Louise Douglas
(I've got no) Shelf Control…
Louise Douglas 