Group Reading Log: October 2012

Still reading Amelia Peabody in The Hippopotamus Pool. Good fun.

Hi wookie and thanks for the new thread. I'm here, but not reading much at all right now. Almost finished To Say Nothing of the Dog, but struggling to find much time...

I'm giving Louise Penny a tryout and reading A Trick of the Light. It is OK, I guess but I've read better books. Maybe once I get further into it I'll change my mind about it.

I'm reading Hotel on the corner of bitter and sweet. Finding it really difficult to find books to read so I found this one by searching for popular book club reads. It's a bit sugary but keeping my attention.

Pink, I've got the first Louise Penny on the stacks, Still Life, as people who love her books *REALLY* love her books, and I'm curious as to what it's all about. I'm just not quite convinced I'll be one of the lovers, so it's never really moved quickly up the stacks. I'm kind of waiting for the right mood to strike, I think.

fushmush, I wish I could find it difficult to find books to read. However, I do tend to fall over them when I hop out of bed in the morning. Must revamp Mt TBR, it's suffered a landslide lately, hence the tripping hazard.

Mr Bear & I have one chapter left of The Golden Door by Emily Rodda!

Finished The Golden Door, and my, she wrapped it up quickly! But satisfyingly, and Mr Bear wants to know when we're going to the library to get book #2 in the series...

Also finished The Hippopotamus Pool was was typical good Amelia Peabody fun, although the ending was probably a bit too tangled.

Currently reading (slowly) Autumn Laing, which is good, but requiring more brain power than I currently possess.

I am about halfway through A Village in the Valley by Beverley Nichols. I am finding it a bit of a struggle because he alternates between very funny and waffling on about how beautiful the moonlight is on his garden or some other such thing. He is a bit too precious and I am tending to skip over those parts to get back to the goings-on in the village.

Not much time to read over the school holidays but they're over now and I finished Rivers Of London today. It was a fun read and I'm definitely interested in continuing with the series, though I'm not compelled to pick up the next book right away.

Tonight I've started on Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, two chapters in and I'm loving it. I don't usually visualise books as films but this one screams for the Tim Burton/Nightmare Before Christmas treatment..

I have just finished reading The Shooting in the Shop by Simon Brett. Two lady sleuths - Jude, blowsy and relaxed and Carole and uptight ex-civil servant.

It is a bit contrived but a relaxing read with very little brainpower required.

After Beverley Nichols who writes beautifully but one has to concentrate a bit too much if one wants to get the full blast of the wind singing through the trees like the spirits of evening or the heady scent of his night jasmine with the moon shining ethereally and reflecting on the white blossoms.

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago - precious ...

I am about halfway through the latest Kerry Greenwood book. It is one of the Phryne Fisher series and is called Unnatural Habits which is a pune, (to quote Captain Carrot) as it is about nuns.

It is, as usual, very light reading; I hardly need to engage my brain at all but it is better than some of her earlier Phryne books.

Ah, a friend of mine (wot works in publishing) gave me a copy of Unnatural Habits last week. Looking forward to finding time to squeeze it into the reading schedule! :)

Making better headway with Autumn Laing - it's good, but I really should be reading something fluffier at the moment. I'm not really doing it justice (but I want to get it finished for book group, and if I stop now, I know I'll never go back).

Started Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone with Miss Boo last night. Such delightful fun.

I have rediscovered Cyril Hare and am about halfway through When the Wind Blows about a mysterious ring-in clarinetist who may or may have murdered a violinist.

All good fun and a genuine member of the 'Cozy' whodunnit genre.

I finished John Wyndham's Chocky the other day. It was a bit different from what I was expecting, given the blurb and the cover, and a good quick read. Unfortunately dated in parts wrt language and attitudes though, especially to do with women...

Now I've just started Neverwhere by the Master, Neil Gaiman.

Oh no, I seem to have hit a reading slump! Just can't focus on anything, and spending time doing stupid stuff like games on my phone instead of reading! Nyargh. Hopefully it won't last long...

Gah. Reading slumps suck. I won't bore you with the list of books I picked up, and discarded listlessly. But I will cheerfully inform you that I started Alif the Unseen last night, and I'm gripped. I think the slump may be over!

I'm currently reading Tragedy at Law by Cyril Hare. It must be his first book because the hero is not married and has a wife, Eleanor, in the other books I've read in the series.

I seem to have done it backwards because he only wrote a few books before he died and I think that I have now read all of them. Pity about that!

Glad your slump has been bested, wookie. It's a real PITA when that happens...

I've finished Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman and thoroughly enjoyed it. Great story, great characters, and just a good old uncomplicated and fun fantasy.

Now reading something completely different - Changing Lives: Gustavo Dudamel, El Sistema, and the Transformative Power of Music by Tricia Tunstall. So far one word springs to mind . . . inspiring!

OMG, 40 pages to go, the bad guy and his evil djinni have our heroes surrounded, and I get felled by a migraine. All the way home (lift from a kind workmate), I cursed my fate, as I'd spent most of the day looking forward to the evening commute and finishing Alif the Unseen.

Now I've had some sleep, the headache is gone, and I'm going back to bed to finish it off!!

I am having some ups and downs with reading too. (I have told myself that those word games on the phone are for mind stimulation but I confess to getting hugely sidetracked!) I have picked up and put aside a few books which I should get rid of instead of keeping for later. Must learn to stop reading the books that I started and am really not interested in. Why do I always have to plod on to the end? I am currently reading and really enjoying The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry :)

Oh, I've heard good things about Harold Fry. Was it also shortlisted for the Booker this year?

I did finish Alif the Unseen and had a ball. Recommended to anyone whose eyes light up at he mention of "hackers and djinni". :)

Am now most of the way through Niceville which is a strange book, but compelling. Written like a thriller, with spooky/creepy undercurrents, and a black sense of humour.

I am trying to read Break no Bones by Kathy Reichs but what with sitting in a cramped seating for about 9 hours, flying to Sydney and back, coupled with some heavy retail therapy and a dose of jetlag I think that I am going to have to start again from the beginning.

Oh, it's a looooong flight between Sydney and Perth! (Last time I did it, I did the train though. That's even loooooooooooooooooooooooonger...)

Almost finished Niceville. It's been on helluva romp. Not sure what I'll pick up next.

Yes - but in the train you can walk about. It was a full plane coming back - 180 in cattle class and only two loos so there was a constant relay of people cluttering up the aisle and I hate to think what state the loos were in by the end of the flight.

Ew.

I repeat, EW.

The train was also fun because it was with a lot of friends. Although we were all a bit sick of card games by the end of it all. :)

Finished Niceville and it was a good fun read. Recommended, although it's pretty violent at times and quite black. Not to everyone's tastes, I'm sure.

And am continuing with the spoooooooky theme for Halloween, with Something Wicked This Way Comes. It's an unintentional theme, I didn't realise Niceville had a supernatural bent to it until I started read it.

>20 wookiebender: Yes, Wookie, you are right (and I hadn't realised) ... Harold Fry is on the 2012 Booker longlist ....

I am still reading it - half-way through, at the moment .... By the way, a friend was showing me her kindle-fire ..... She loves it and tells me that one gets used to it. I was impressed!! I am curious to know how many of you are reading on e-readers. (I think we have already had a discussion about e-readers before but it seems a while ago.) I have a few books on the iPad but I just can't read them .... I love to hold a real book.

I think it's time to start the November thread... and I'll copy over your question Carole, sorry I didn't see it before.

November thread!