Staffordcastle digs at the ROOT of the towers

Finished my first ROOT of the year: Bride of the Water God, Vol. 1.

#1

Woo hoo, off to a great start!!! :)

Now reading Tongues of Serpents; I noticed that the next book is out already, so I'd better get cracking!

Finished Tongues of Serpents.

#2

You are doing just great, Staffordcastle!

Thanks, Connie!

Finished The Italian Secretary

#3

Great books have been sitting on your shelves - loved Tongues of Serpents as well as the Italian Secretary.

I've heard good things about the other books by the author of The Italian Secretary.

Great progress, staffordcastle! I keep reading about the Naomi Novik books. Maybe once I've read my 30 tomes I will have a look for the first one :-)

That will be worth your while, Susan.

Yes, they are lots of fun, especially if you are a fan of Age of Sail books, like the Hornblower series, or Patrick O'Brien's or Alexander Kent's books

Thanks, Susan!

You've gotten your challenge off to a great start!

Thanks, DeltaQueen - I'm well into my next ROOT now - it helps that I'm unemployed at the moment, so have more time to read!

Finished The Queene's Cure, my #4.

Just finished (finally) The Library at Night, a wonderful book about books and reading. I had lost track of its location months ago, and it finally surfaced yesterday - only one chapter left to read!

#5

That's a great finish for relatively little effort! I was reading something on my Kindle a couple of years ago, wondering whether I would ever make it past about 70%, and suddenly it finished and the rest was endnotes and an index. I was so happy!

That's the problem with ereaders. I can't 'see' how long it's going to take me to finish the book.

Great progress! I found The Library at Night fascinating; Manguel's History of Reading is very good too.

On the other hand, I do like that the books weigh the same on an ereader whether they are 50 pages or 700. In fact, I made a point of reading Cutting for Stone as my first ereading adventure because I had found it so awkward to hold in hardback.

Robert, my e-reader has a slider that shows you how far you have gone/have to go, and it's also the mechanism for jumping to another place - you drag the little circle and a pop-up box shows you the page number. It's not a bad system, though not as immediate as just looking at how thick the unread pages are.

My Kobo and the ereader apps on my tablet only show percentages, which is not very helpful in gauging how much reading time is needed for a book.

Last night I finished another one that had been on a long hiatus: Conan Doyle's Through the Magic Door. A very interesting description of Doyle's favorite books; I was familiar with most of them except the ones in the chapter on military memoirs and Napoleon. Some of them sound quite intriguing.

#6

25: I didn't know that such a book existed! It sounds interesting!

It was; both as a look at what one specific man liked to read, and a window into the literary tastes of a time long ago. I recognized many titles, but haven't read very many of them.

Just finished The Children of the Sun by Alfred W. Crosby, a very interesting history of energy sources.

#7

Just finished To Ruin a Queen by Fiona Buckley, and started its sequel.

#8

For some reason, the touchstone for the title has the wrong author, and the correct one is not on offer. :-(

>20 Robertgreaves: The new kindle will tell you approx how long it will take you to read next chapter and to end of book based on your reading speed. Not got one myself so don't know how good it is, but thought it sounded like a neat idea

It sounds like a good idea but not good enough for me to trade in the ereader i only bought last Christmas. :-)

Wow, Staffordcastle, you are really motoring through your books! I'm most impressed.

Thanks, Bowerbirds! I just finished the next one, Queen of Ambition, which I've had for quite a while, since I hadn't read the previous one in the series when I was given it as a Christmas gift a few years ago.

#9

Finally have finished another oldie, The Queen's Conjurer. Started it years ago and stalled out, but this time I just galloped through it.

#10

Good for you, Stafford! That's what a challenge can do for you!

Thanks, Connie! Just pulled out another oldie, and finished it: Indigo, Madder and Marigold.

#11

Just passing through and noting that you seem to be totally on track to reach your goal. :)

Thanks, DeltaQueen!

I just finished Color: A Natural History of the Palette, which was interesting, though not quite what I expected. I have started Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced the World.

#12

Sounds intriguing.

Finished Indigo; again, not quite what I expected, but interesting. Am now starting A Perfect Red.

#13

I have stalled on A Perfect Red, but gone back to a very old abandoned title, A Memory of Honour. This is a two volume work, and since it has taken me SO long to get through it, I'm counting it as two books.

#14

Finished Mother of Winter, which I've had for a long time but never read. Now reading its sequel, Icefalcon's Quest, which won't qualify for this challenge.

#15

You are half way the Challenge. Yeah!

Thanks, Connie!

Just finished An Elegant Madness, and about to start Our Tempestuous Day - on a Regency kick, lately!

#16