CatyM's 2014 reading

So, everything I said at the beginning of 2013 holds for the beginning of 2014: after a failure in the quantity department for 2013, I'm hoping to be less overwhelmed by study soon, so 2014 might be a bit better. 2014 aims are: read good stuff, and visit the threads more. And, again, if I get up to 75, it'll be a bonus, and if I match my current annual record of 250, it may be a miracle.

It's likely to be a slow start to the year, though: I'm currently stuck in the middle of quite a few giant tomes, including Lord of the Rings.

Also up early on will be some GK Chesterton, possibly some non-Discworld Pratchett, and doubtless a few works of history and theology of some description.

January
1. Stardust - Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess
2. The Well and the Shallows - GK Chesterton
3. Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak
4. Seraphina - Rachel Hartman
5. Laying Down the Sword: Why we can't ignore the Bible's violent verses - Philip Jenkins
6. Dodger - Terry Pratchett
7. Books v. Cigarettes - George Orwell
8. The Lion's World - Rowan Williams

February
9. Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett (Re-read)
10. Pyramids - Terry Pratchett (Re-read)
11. Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett (Re-read)
12. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion - Jonathan Haidt
13. Paradoxes of Catholicism - Robert Hugh Benson
14. Can You Forgive Her? - Anthony Trollope
15. Letter to Families - Pope John Paul II (should be #11 but can't be bothered to renumber)
16. On Books and the Housing of Them - William Gladstone

March
17. The Singing Sands - Josephine Tey
18. Tales of St Austin's - PG Wodehouse
19. Loss and Gain - John Henry Newman
20. Deathless - Catherynne M Valente
21. Whispers Under Ground - Ben Aaronovich
22. The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith
23. The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything - James Martin SJ
24. The New Rector - Rebecca Shaw
25. The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
26. Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

April
27. The Misremembered Man - Christina McKenna
28. The Disenchanted Widow - Christina McKenna
29. Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde
30. Calvary and the Mass - Fulton Sheen
31. A Day at the Office - Matt Dunn
32. The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde
33. Something Rotten - Jasper Fforde
34. The Bad Beginning - Lemony Snicket
35. Living Faithfully: Following Christ in Everyday Life - John Pritchard
36. One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw - Witold Rybczynski
37. On the Cold Coasts - Vilborg Davidsdottir
38. The Lieutenant - Kate Grenville
39. Spe Salvi - Pope Benedict XVI
40. The Reptile Room - Lemony Snicket
41. Shakespeare: The World as a Stage - Bill Bryson
42. The Wide Window - Lemony Snicket
43. The Catholic Church and Conversion - GK Chesterton (re-read)

May
44. The Story of English - Philip Gooden
45. The Elements of Eloquence - Mark Forsyth
46. Deus Caritas Est - Pope Benedict XVI
47. Wolf Tide - Catherine Fox
48. Being Christian - Rowan Williams
49. An Intelligent Person's Guide to Catholicism - Alban McCoy
50. The Seven Storey Mountain - Thomas Merton
51. Quartet in Autumn - Barbara Pym
52. The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman
53. The Villa in Italy - Elizabeth Edmondson
54. Moth Girl versus the Bats - Michael Wombat

June
55. The Enchanted April - Elizabeth von Arnim
56. The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop - Gladys Mitchell
57. The Saltmarsh Murders - Gladys Mitchell
58. Death at the Opera - Gladys Mitchell
59. Consuming the Word - Scott Hahn
60. Summer's Child - Diane Chamberlain
61. Come Away, Death - Gladys Mitchell
62. Leave it to Psmith - PG Wodehouse (re-read)
63. Interesting Times - Terry Pratchett (re-read)
64. An Impossible Marriage - Pamela Hansford Johnson
65. Temeraire - Naomi Novik
66. The Golem and the Djinni - Helene Wecker
67. 7 Secrets of Confession - Vinny Flynn
68. The Silence of our Friends - Ed West
69. The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster

July
70. The Grimm Legacy - Polly Shulman
71. The Seventh Scroll - Wilbur Smith
72. The Bluffer's Guide to Cricket - James Trollope and Nick Yapp
73. Sealed with a kiss - Rachael Lucas

August
74. The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith
75. Acts and Omissions - Catherine Fox
76. Angels and Men - Catherine Fox

September
77. One of our Thursdays is Missing - Jasper Fforde
78. Shakespeare on Toast - Ben Crystal
79. First Among Sequels - Jasper Fforde
80. Coraline - Neil Gaiman
81. The Wells Bequest - Polly Shulman
82. Theology for Beginners - Frank J Sheed
83. Cotillion - Georgette Heyer (re-read)
84. The Cornish Coast Murder - John Bude
85. The One You Really Want - Jill Mansell
86. Don't Want to Miss a Thing - Jill Mansell
87. Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan
88. Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones
89. Starter for Ten - David Nicholls
90. Jeeves and the Wedding Bells - Sebastian Faulks

October
91. Broken Homes - Ben Aaronovitch
92. Tickled Pink - Christina Jones
93. Kiss a Girl in the Rain - Nancy Warren
94. Twenty-Eight and a half Wishes - Denise Grover Swank
95. The Write Match - Margaret Carroll
96. The Perfect Proposal - Katie Fforde
97. Going the Distance Christina Jones
98. Jumping to Conclusions - Christina Jones
99. Running the Risk - Christina Jones
100. The Beach Café - Lucy Diamond
101. Murder at the College - Victor L. Whitechurch
102. The Lake District Murder - John Bude
103. Dancing in the Moonlight - Christina Jones
104. A Scream in Soho - John G Brandon
105. Shot on the Downs Victor L. Whitechurch
106. Mystery in White - J Jefferson Farjeon
107. Prada and Prejudice - Katie Oliver
108. Love and Liability - Katie Oliver
109. Mansfield Lark - Katie Oliver
110. Murder in the Squire's Pew - JS Fletcher
111. Murder at Wrides Park - JS Fletcher
112. Lovestruck in London - Rachel Schurig
113. The Templeton Case - Victor L. Whitechurch
114. Ajax Penumbra 1969 - Robin Sloan
115. Murder in Four Degrees - JS Fletcher
116. Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party - Alexander McCall Smith
117. Wish Upon a Star - Olivia Goldsmith
118. Cobweb Castle - JS Fletcher
119. Murder at the Pageant - Victor L Whitechurch
120. Dead Simple - Peter James
121. Burial Rites - Hannah Kent
122. Dead Men's Money - JS Fletcher
123. Stormy Times - Beate Boeker
124. In the Mayor's Parlour - JS Fletcher

November
125. Ravensdene Court - JS Fletcher
126. Texas Secrets – Jean Brashear
127. The Yorkshire Moorland Mystery – JS Fletcher
128. Maid for Love – Marie Force
129. Fool for Love – Marie Force
130. Scarhaven Keep – JS Fletcher
131. To The Moon And Back – Jill Mansell
132. Hoping for Love – Marie Force
133. The Borough Treasurer – JS Fletcher
134. The Red Thumb Mark – R Austin Freeman
135. The Unpredictable Consequences of Love – Jill Mansell
136. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
137. The Santa Klaus Murder – Mavis Doriel Hay
138. Breaking the Ice - Mandy Baggot
139. The Chestermarke Instinct – JS Fletcher
140. The Herapath Property - JS Fletcher
141. The Practice Proposal – Tracy March
142. The Christmas Bargain – Shanna Hatfield
143. The Middle of Things – JS Fletcher
144. The Sussex Downs Murder – John Bude
145. Murder Underground – Mavis Doriel Hay
146. Married for Christmas – Noelle Adams
147. A Baby for Easter – Noelle Adams
148. Marchester Royal – JS Fletcher
149. Death on the Cherwell – Mavis Doriel Hay
150. The Middle Temple Murder - JS Fletcher
151. A Family for Christmas - Mona Ingram
152. The Duchess War - Courtney Milan
153. The Hanging Valley - Peter Robinson
154. Take A Chance On Me - Jill Mansell
155. The Box Hill Murder - JS Fletcher

Incomplete list for late November/early December. (This was all I recorded; there were lots more - maybe about 20 - but they were mostly short novellas, I can't remember their titles, and they weren't important enough to bother trying to hunt them down.)
The Birthday Scandal - Leigh Michaels
Who Killed Alfred Snowe? - JS Fletcher
The Orange-Yellow Diamond - JS Fletcher
Sealed with a Christmas Kiss - Rachel Lucas

Complete list from 10 December - but I have lost track of numbers
The Great Christmas Knit Off - Alexandra Brown
The Charing Cross Mystery - JS Fletcher

Welcome back! Lord of the Rings should count for at least three... :)

Thanks, Jim. :) I did wonder whether to count it as three, since it so often is three, but that didn't seem right for a single story.

So, on January 1, these are the books I'm currently reading.* Hopefully, they should be finished fairly soon - though, realistically, well, let's just say the chances aren't high.

Stardust - Neil Gaiman (recently started) COMPLETED 5/1/14
Tales of St Austin's - PG Wodehouse (recently started) COMPLETED 4/3/14
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (has been on the go for months, currently stalled about half way through)
The Complete Father Brown Stories - GK Chesterton (dipping into)
Introduction to Christianity - Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI (see Lord of the Rings)
The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene (see Lord of the Rings again)
The Man Who Was Thursday - GK Chesterton (er, see Lord of the Rings again)
The Imitation of Christ - Thomas a Kempis (dipping into)
Three Bags Full - Leonie Swann (Recently started but making slow progress)

There are also textbooks and academic tomes. I'm generally not counting those, because I'm not reading them cover to cover but rather only in part; any that should happen to get completely read will be included, but I don't think that's likely to happen, because academic stuff is at a stage where I'm mostly writing not reading.

Things I want to read soon (but may possibly change my mind about if new and shiny things - or indeed old and dusty things - catch my attention) include:

The Well and the Shadows - GK Chesterton COMPLETED 7/1/14
Reprobates: The Cavaliers of the English Civil War - John Stubbs
Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town - Mary Beard
The Lord - Romano Guardini
Rubicon - Tom Holland
Dodger - Terry Pratchett COMPLETED 19/01/14
God is Near Us - Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI
Autobiography - GK Chesterton
A Preface to Paradise Lost - CS Lewis
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
The Major Works - Anselm of Canterbury
The Complete Maus - Art Spiegelman

There is, of course, a fairly highly chance that the mere act of writing all these down as things I want to finish/read soon is giving the kiss of death to actually doing so, and that what I end up reading will turn out to be completely different.

*Or at least, the ones I have remembered that I am currently reading, and have decided that there is sufficient recent action to justify a claim to be reading them. A Place of Greater Safety and City of God have been sufficiently forgotten and abandoned that they need restarting, and I have (metaphorically) chucked them back on the To Read pile.

I read Dodger last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope that you do get around to reading it. I just finished Dodger's Guide To London which was quite good if you like a bit of 19th century history.

Interested as always to see what you are reading (and/or stalled on or intending to read but not yet started!).

The Tolkien geek in me says LoTR only counts as one because (as you say) it is one story - divided into six books and published in three volumes rather than one at the insistence of the publisher. But the length of it should certainly count for more. Or we should make this challenge about pages read rather than books... I hope you manage to get un-stalled on it again soon though.

I've got a number of stalled ones too - once put down, for whatever reason, it seems hard to pick them up again when a completely fresh book is beckoning.

Welcome back, Caty!

#6 That's good to know, Nicole; thank you.

#7 Thanks, Genny: I hope I managed to get unstalled too. It's a magnificent book: I'm awed by the creation of Middle Earth, and the use of linguistics and mythology underpinning it, and the depth and complexity of the story. On the other hand, though, I'm finding it an enormous effort, and rather slow, and really quite hard work to read, which means all sorts of other things offering immediate (or at least quicker) gratification become far more appealing. I shall get there, though. I think.

#8 Thanks, Darryl.

So, first up this year:

1. Stardust - Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess

This was great. I'd seen the film a few months ago and determined to read the book; I'd been intending to get the ordinary paperback at some point, but I stumbled across a second-hand copy of the illustrated version in the meantime, and snapped it up. I'm pleased about that: the illustrations are wonderful. The story is splendid, too: a light fairy tale with some dark bits, and sharp bits, and sweet bits, all told beautifully. Definitely recommended. 5/5.

One of my faves!

#11 Jim, that seems to be a common sentiment, which has been surprising me: it wasn't on my radar at all until a few months ago, but a friend was positively gleeful when I said that I was reading the illustrated version and really enjoying it.

2. The Well and the Shallows - GK Chesterton
An essay collection from late in Chesterton's career. He covers a variety of issues, but the general emphasis is (unsurprisingly) on religion and politics. Many essays are still hugely relevant and the arguments Chesterton makes still both valid and relevant; others (most notably on the Spanish Civil War) are, shall we say, a bit dated now. Overall a 4/5, though pushing a 4.5, and some essays are definite 5s.

3. Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak
Because, sometimes, the only thing to do is to pretend you are six again. And re-reading this book is one of the very best ways to do it.

(I feel a bit of a fraud counting this one given that it's about thirty lines of text - but, on the other hand, it's a book, and I read it.)

I loved Stardust, That is what really got me into Neil Gaiman. That and American Gods.

>13 Eat_Read_Knit:: Agreed. It's a book so it counts. I count all the new-to-us picture books that Charlie and I read, and I think it evens out in the end, because I don't count the countless re-reads we do with his books. I love Where the Wild Things Are enough that I even translated it into Latin. You know, just for fun. Because that's how I roll. *ahem*

Creeping out of my lurk to say that Stardust is one of my all time favorites too. Such a simple, beautiful, well-constructed story. Now I want to reread it!

#14 This was my first proper Neil Gaiman, though I loved Good Omens. I have Neverwhere in the TBR pile, and shall, I think, have to move some of the others higher up wishlist.

#15 Translating it into Latin sounds perfectly sensible to me.

#16 Then re-read it you certainly should. :)

4. Seraphina - Rachel Hartman

YA Fantasy. Seraphina, half human and half dragon in a world where peace between humans and dragons is tenuous at best and such hybrids are not supposed to exist, is unwillingly drawn into the task of solving a murder and preventing a war.

My main gripe about this book was that the ending was so obviously setting things up for another book, and left too much unresolved. I also struggled at times with the sheer number of characters, and for all we were told that the dragons felt no emotion, very few of them acted as though this were the case. The core plot was strong, though, and the world strongly constructed. Pretty good overall. 4/5

I hate it when books end with a setup for a next book and I don't know this in advance of reading it. I come away feeling as though I have been taken advantage of by the publishers/ marketers of the book to get the sales ramped. I know it's their bread and butter, but if they have signed the author to a three book deal right at the start and they know book two is in the works, a indication would be helpful. I can dream, I guess. ;-)

I hope you are having a lovely weekend!

#19 Yes, it would be very helpful indeed. It's not bad when the issues are actually in some sense resolved by the close of the book, even if there's fallout or changes or reversions or whatever in later books. It's the sense of unfinishedness that irks me.

5. Laying Down the Sword: Why we can't ignore the Bible's violent verses - Philip Jenkins

This is, I think, a good survey of the subject. Jenkins considers which verses of the Old testament are considered unpalatable, their content, their historical and Scriptural context, ways in which they have been dealt with in the past and present by Christians and Jews (including literal application to the enemy of the day, treating them as allegory, and ignoring their existence), and how believers ought in the author's view* to deal with them.

He also draws parallels between the Bible and the Qur'an to argue that violent parts of both texts not only can be dealt with similarly by Christians, Jews and Muslims in terms of textual analysis, historical context and non-literal meaning, but in actual fact are, and furthermore that the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures are more violent and more problematic than the Qur'an.

Jenkins' basic conclusion is that for Christians, Jews and Muslims alike, there is sufficient material in their Scriptures to justify violence if violence has been decided on and justification is being sought, but for the vast majority of all groups throughout the past and present, such justification was not being sought, and so the verses (where they are not ignored) constituted not a call to arms but either a problem to be explained, a metaphor for spiritual struggle, or both. Ignoring them or sanitising then is dangerous, Jenkins argues: because they can be used to justify appalling violence, it's important to know that they're there, and to understand them properly.

Also, I do like a book with lots of footnotes and a good index.



*He is very clear that, in this section, he is sharing a (informed) personal opinion. This is, in a sense, a suggestion on how the information in and conclusions of the rest of the book ought to be applied in practice.

6. Dodger - Terry Pratchett

Entertaining. Undeniably entertaining. Sound storytelling, engaging characters, and a fair bit of Victorian atmosphere. But undoubtedly historical fantasy rather than straight historical fiction -- which is not a criticism, because this is what is meant to be, and what it is clearly stated to be. It reminded me of some of the Discworld Watch books, though I didn't think it was quite as good as the Discworld books tend to be. Just scrapes a 4/5.

I have this one on my wishlist, It does look really interesting.

#23 It's fun. I hope you enjoy it when you finally get to it.

7. Books v. Cigarettes - George Orwell

A collection of essays written between 1936 and 1947. There's no real theme: the essays are on reading, bookshops, book reviewing, intellectual liberty, patriotism, war, poverty and the experiences of childhood, but they all range far more widely than their main theme. Some hugely interesting stuff, and much to ponder even when disagreeing profoundly with Orwell.

8. The Lion's World - Rowan Williams

An utterly magnificent and hugely profound analysis of CS Lewis's Narnia stories. Brilliant as both literary criticism and a consideration of Lewis's theology. I'm now determined to fill in the gaps in my reading of Narnia, and re-read the parts I'm familiar with. And this is definitely a book to revisit as I do so. 5/5.

Glad to read that you enjoyed Dodger. You are reading at a great pace so far.

#27 It's all gone a bit wrong on the pace thing now. Still, I daresay I shall catch up a bit. :)

9. Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett
Re-read.
I'm being lazy and copying and pasting my review from last time:

The Monks of History make sure that there's enough time in the places where it's needed - and when Jeremy Clockson starts making a clock which will keep time with the universe (and thus stop time), it's down to Lu Tze and his apprentice Lobsang Ludd leave the monastery, find the clock and stop it before it starts.

Incredibly funny and incredibly profound. Any description will barely scratch the surface of this book - but any novel that seamlessly mixes quantum mechanics, eastern philosophy and death by chocolate has to be a winner.

10. Pyramids - Terry Pratchett
Also a re-read. Not a favourite, but not bad: I gave it a 4/5 last time round, which seems fair.

11. Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett

Also a re-read. Still a 4.5, and this was the very short review I gave it back in 2009:

Someone's poisoning the Patrician, the golems are revolting and to top it all off a new dwarf has joined the Watch. A dwarf who's acting (shock, horror!) like a girl! Vimes is in a flap, Carrot is imperturbable, Nobbs is (much to his dismay) in the aristocracy, and Colon is neck-deep in something distinctly smelly that probably shouldn't be mentioned in polite company.

A very entertaining part of the Discworld City Watch series.

CatyM, I am new to Pratchett, do you suggest reading his books in any particular order? I would like to read them chronologically but that means filling in about 35 gaps in my shelves!

#31 Nicole, I would say there are various ways of starting out. I didn't read them in any particular order, and started with one that was particularly recommended to me because of a certain theme or scene or something in it (it was a while ago; I can't remember what it was). I didn't personally feel that this was a major problem, but it's undeniably the case that you lose the bigger story arc by doing it that way, and you suddenly realise that book X effectively has spoilers for book X-3 in the series, abd so I'd probably not recommend it to others.

The other extreme is to read them all in publication order, but, as you say, that means filling gaps and then sticking to a fixed order.

The middle way, which I think I personally would recommend, though others may differ, is to pick a subseries and start by reading *that* in order. There's overlap between the different subseries, but there doesn't *tend* to be major spoilers for one series in another. (There may be some, but *most* of the continuity is *within* sebseries.)

This reading guide gives you a good idea of what's in which subseries and how they all fit together: http://gb.pinterest.com/pin/273523377341457454/

I see from your library that you've got two of the 'Industrial' books already, so that might be a good series to start with. The earlier ones are pretty loosely connected, but Going Postal, Making Money and Raising Steam are more closely tied and are best read in that order, so those three might be a starting point.

Other subseries that have a strong continuity that you might like to try are the City Watch, the witches, and the wizards series. The Watch and witches subseries are certainly best read in order, on account of spoilers and overarching storylines.

Now that there are so many books, I think the benefit of reading subseries in order is that you get *some* of the bigger story arc, and thus the development of the whole series, without having to try to get the hang of the whole thing and tackle it all at once. And then, as you read more, you do eventually see how they all fit together.

12. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion - Jonathan Haidt

Short version: my initial reaction is that this was a good analysis, well argued and well supported. It made a lot of sense, and gave me a lot to think about. But I need to ponder it at further length if I'm to come to a considered verdict; I may or may not come back and write more about it.

Caty, Thanks for that very indepth explanation! You have really helped me out, I still feel like I should read them in publication order haha. I guess I can be a bit obsessive about things like that. Especially if I read subseries which may contain spoilers. It is just such a hard thing to decide, simple because of the scale of the series. I guess I will eventually work out how I want to go about it.

#34 You're welcome. And I hope you really enjoy all the books when you do finally work out which order you want to tackle them in. :)

13. Paradoxes of Catholicism - Robert Hugh Benson
If a series of early twentieth century Catholic sermons with a strong strain of apologetics running through them is even remotely your thing, this is excellent. Really, really, excellent. I fully intend to read more Benson, and shall be interested to see how his fiction compares to his sermons.

14. Can You Forgive Her? - Anthony Trollope
I had forgotten how much I like Trollope. And how much I liked this can be deduced from the fact that I got through this entire 850-page tome in less than a fortnight. Though now I'm more than a little sad that it's over.

*places Phineas Finn strategically near the top of the To Read pile*

After a short period of dithering about whether to include individual essays in the total (in which it was very quickly decided that if picture books count then sixty pages essays jolly well do too):

15. Letter to Families - Pope John Paul II (should really be #11 but I can't be bothered to renumber everything)
16. On Books and the Housing of Them - William Gladstone

17. The Singing Sands - Josephine Tey

Mostly excellent, and I loved the way the investigation was woven into the personal story of the detective, but I have a bit of a prejudice against endings where the murderer confesses by sending a letter to the detective detailing exactly what happened, which seems like a cop-out even where (a) it's fairly well in character, and (b) the detective's mostly worked it all out anyway, both of which were the case here, and so dropped it from a 5* read to 4.5* on that basis.

(Also, I am trying to look at the threads in this group more, but it's a bit like trying to jump onto a very fast moving train, and is proving hard. Sigh.)

18. Tales of St Austin's - PG Wodehouse

Some of Wodehouse's school stories, from the very beginning of his career. The artistic and linguistic genius which would later produce Jeeves and Wooster is present in embryonic form, and no more. It is a work which, as the master of the school might have concluded, shows promise.

There are some very good moments. There really are. The stories of cats, and missed trains, and illicitly escaped students accidentally ending up in the presence of masters who've set them the punishment from which they have escaped, are hugely entertaining. But avoid this book like the plague if cricket and rugby are alike anathema to you.

19. Loss and Gain - John Henry Newman
20. Deathless - Catherynne M Valente
21. Whispers Under Ground - Ben Aaronovich
22. The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith

All good - respectively scored at 4, 4, 4.5, 4 - but all quite different.

Loss and Gain isn't what you'd describe as having wide appeal; it's averagely written fiction with a tendency to excessive description, though fascinating if you're particularly interested in the Oxford Movement and Newman's own history. But you'd have to be *really* interested in those topics: it's not like Trollope's Barchester Towers where church politics is the backdrop; rather, church politics and the Catholic leanings of the central character are pretty much the whole story.

I'd been warned that Deathless was dark, but it was even darker than I was expecting; it's beautifully written, but I found it dragged in places, and I couldn't work out where it was going or why some things were in there, and I was frustrated by my unfamiliarity with the Russian folklore that it draws on. The section with the siege of Leningrad is both horrible and beautiful - raw and desperate, and very powerful.

I liked Rivers of London and Moon Over Soho when I read them a year or more ago, and had been meaning to follow up with Whispers Under Ground, but had somehow not got round to it until now. I liked the third even more than the first two - I suspect because there was a bit more plot and a bit less ghoulishness. Anyway, I'm kind of wishing I'd kept the first two so I'd have them to re-read - though I'm also glad to have passed them on to a friend and shared the series around.

A colleague had been raving about how good she thought The Cuckoo's Calling was, and so when it was available on Kindle for 99p I decided to give it a go. Clever, well-written and a solid mystery, I thought, though I fear the political and cultural references will make it feel dated quite quickly.

23. The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything - James Martin SJ

This is a very good introduction to Ignatian spirituality, about which I knew very little, and now feel that I know something.

I must read Rowan's book on Lewis soon - I bought it when it first came out and dipped into it straight away, but then it got put aside. Glad - but not surprised - to hear it is so very good.

#43 I hope you enjoy it when finally do get to it, Genny.

24. The New Rector - Rebecca Shaw
I have a long list of stuff I thought was dreadful about this, covering plot, structure, characters, pace, narrative and dialogue; that I made it to the end was pretty much down to stubbornness of the "I've paid for this, so I'm jolly well going to read it and try to like something about it" kind. I have read worse, though - and, attempting to be generous, I can just about stretch to scoring it at 2/5. That said, the generally positive reviews suggest that mine is very much a minority opinion.

25. The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde

Re-read. Think I liked it more this time around than the first time, possibly because I read more fantasy now than I did five years ago, possibly because I get more of the literary references now than I did then, and possibly both. I gave it a 4/5 when I read it before; I think I'm now going to give it a 4.5/5.

26. Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I shan't try to review this because there are plenty of reviews already, but I shall say that I *loved* this book, possibly even more than I loved Purple Hibiscus, and thoroughly recommend it. Also, I need to find where I left my copy of Half of a Yellow Sun and read it, sharpish.

Oops - I don't seem to have posted here this year. Hello Caty!

>36 Eat_Read_Knit: "Though now I'm more than a little sad that it's over." Trollope often leaves me feeling that way. There will be a group read of Phineas Finn later this year athough I don't think we've set a date yet.

>38 Eat_Read_Knit: I rediscovered Josephine Tey this year and thoroughly enjoyed Brat Farrar and Miss Pym Disposes. I still haven't got to her Alan Grant books though.

# 47 Hi Heather. :)

I've made a start on Phineas Finn already, but I shall keep my eye open for the group read even if I have finished it by then. For some reason I can't put my finger on, it's not (yet) gripping me as much as Can You Forgive Her? did, so I may still be going when the group read comes round.

Also, hurrah! The Alan Grant books are great, so you have more enjoyment ahead. (Well, those I've read are great, anyway; I should get round to finishing the series, really.)

27. The Misremembered Man - Christina McKenna
28. The Disenchanted Widow - Christina McKenna

There's a promotion on Amazon UK at the moment giving away free Kindle books if you buy Galaxy chocolate. This is basically a hideous and appalling temptation to those of us who have trouble saying no both to chocolate and to free books. Anyway, I've managed to accumulate four free books this way, and the only reason it's not more is that the selection of books is heavy on chick lit that I don't want to read.

One of the books on offer is The Misremembered Man. If it weren't by a Northern Irish author, I'd be thinking the Irishness was horribly overdone, but since it is, and I'm not exactly in a position to judge accurately, I shall give it the benefit of doubt in that respect.

At first sight, it looks like a romance. Set in the early 1970s, it tells the story of a man traumatised by an early childhood spent in an orphanage in which he was horribly abused, and of a woman he meets when his friends persuade him to answer a lonely hearts ad because he needs a wife. The woman, downtrodden by a domineering mother, is after a man to accompany her a wedding because she refuses to yet again take her mother as her +1.

The outcome was, I thought, fairly obvious; it was certainly signposted well enough through the book that it came as no surprise. But I cannot emphasise enough that, despite the premise of how these people meet each other, the romance tags are misleading, and must surely have been used by people who've not yet read the book. This is basically historical fiction, and the core themes are abuse and families.

The writing is passable, but not great, and I did think there was an over-reliance on improbable coincidence and deus ex machina in the plot. There are several very strong and idiosyncratic characters, and while individually they're okay, the cumulative effect is overpowering. Nonetheless, there's a spark of something very engaging there, some great comedy moments, some very powerful moments in respect of the abuse suffered by some characters, and (I think) the period is captured well. All round, it scrapes a 4/5.

The Disenchanted Widow is set within the same community as The Misremembered Man, some years later. The title makes it sound like a romance, but again, it's not. At the height of the Troubles, the widow in question escapes Belfast with her atrociously behaved son, in an attempt to escape from the terrorists whom her late husband attempted to defraud, only to discover that small villages come with their own share of difficulties, and that the Troubles are never far away. Again, the writing was competent rather than stunning, there was some humour, and a good sense of period, and the plot was sound if a tad over-reliant on coincidence and deus ex machina. Again, it gets a 4/5, though perhaps a slightly stronger one. (This one is actually part of another Kindle promotion, and this month costs the princely sum of £1.)

29. Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde

I read the first of these ages ago, and never went on the with series. I recently, and rather recklessly, picked up 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 in the series, and after re-reading 1 so I could remind myself what was going on, have made a start.

I loved this. I am trying now to remember why I only scored it at a 4.5/5 and not the full 5, and failing to remember where it fell short.

The description from the work page sums it up well:

Her adventures as a renowned Special Operative in literary detection have left Thursday Next yearning for a rest. But when the love of her life is eradicated by the corrupt multinational Goliath Corporation, Thursday must bite the bullet and moonlight as a Prose Resource Operative in the secret world of Jurisfiction, the police force inside the books. There she is apprenticed to Miss Havisham, the famous man-hater from Dicken's Great Expectations, who teaches her to book-jump like a pro. If she retrieves a supposedly vanquished enemy from the pages of Poe's "The Raven," she thinks Goliath might return her lost love, Landen. But her latest mission is endlessly complicated. Not only are there side trips into the works of Kafka and Austen, and even Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Flopsy Bunnies, Thursday finds herself the target of a series of potentially lethal coincidences, the authenticator of a newly discovered play by the Bard himself, and the only one who can prevent an unidentifiable pink sludge from engulfing all life on Earth.

Magnificent fun, all of it, and highly recommended. But this is definitely a series that needs reading in order.

30. Calvary and the Mass - Fulton Sheen

I could be wrong, but I'm guessing that a theology book structured around relating the various words of Christ on the cross to the the various parts of the Catholic Mass is of, shall we say, limited interest to most folk reading this thread. If I am wrong, then be advised that this is cracking good stuff, and definitely recommended. Sheen is (obviously) writing about the Tridentine Mass, and therefore some of the liturgical references will be less familiar to most readers today than when he was writing, but it's not at all inaccessible, and there's a huge amount in there to think about.

31. A Day at the Office - Matt Dunn

This was another free book the from Galaxy offer. I'd not have acquired it if I'd had to pay for it, it not really being my kind of thing, but it was the least unappealing one left when I went back for a fourth book. (Yes, I know: I have no self-control.) As it turned out, it was passable entertainment for a couple of hours, and I've scored it at 3/5. It's structured as a snapshot of a day in the life - Valentine's Day, in fact - of several colleagues in an office, several of whom have(a) romantic interest in each other, and (b) major hangups. Not great, complete fluff with no substance beyond entertainment, a couple of cringeworthy bits, but I've read worse, and the ending isn't utterly terrible. If I'd bought it - and certainly if I'd bought it at full price - I'd probably begrudge the money, but given that it was free, I don't begrudge the couple of hours spent reading it.

I was looking through the list of books that we'll probably be clearing from the lease book shelves in July and noticed Americanah was on the list. I am hoping we'll be able to hang onto that one permanently, but I did add it to my list to try to read before then. Of course, I'm not terribly worried about it if I don't because the public library has a copy too. I'm glad though that you loved it.

#50 Thanks, Lori. I hope you like it when you do get chance to read it, whenever that is. :)

32. The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde

Loved this. Very funny, very clever, incredibly imaginative. I'm glad I finally got round to reading this series. Next up, Something Rotten.

The Well of Lost Plots is next up in the series for me. I listened to the last one on audio and the narrator did a fantastic job.

33. Something Rotten - Jasper Fforde
Probably the best of the Thursday Next books I've read so far. Ties up all the loose ends from the last couple of books, includes the longest-awaited pun I've ever encountered, and has a splendidly anarchic and viciously fought croquet match. 5/5.

34. The Bad Beginning - Lemony Snicket
Ages ago - about, er, (*counts on fingers*) seven years ago - when I used to help out in school listening to kids reading, I heard some bits and pieces from assorted books in this series. I had sometimes pondered reading some of the books. Slightly oddly, I recently had a dream in which I was reading one of the books, which was, in the dream, in some way important. No, I can't remember how. And, yes, really. Anyway, after this, on a whim, I looked it up, and the omnibus of the first three books was cheap on kindle. So I bought it.

So. Hmmm. To my mind, and I expect there are lots who disagree, I didn't think this was among those kids' books that translate beautifully well to an adult audience. That is, it always felt as though I was reading a children's book rather than just reading a book. On the other hand, I don't think it translated desperately badly. I liked the humour, though I didn't always like the way the narrative voice was deployed. And I mostly liked the plot and the tone and the way the characters were written. So, very subjectively, a 3.5/5. I shall read the other two that I have, but at this stage I doubt I shall acquire more.

35. Living Faithfully: Following Christ in Everyday Life - John Pritchard
Lots of wise and helpful points to ponder, some excellent bits, a few sections that I profoundly (and unsurprisingly) disagreed with, but on the whole a good book. The format means it's probably best used within the context of a house group or similar - it's designed with that possibility in mind - but I read it alone and it still worked, though probably not as well. Very, very Anglican in tone, which is (a) entirely unsurprising given that the author is the Bishop of Oxford, and (b) plainly not a problem, but, being something which I think would stand out strongly to Christians from other traditions, seems worth mentioning. Also a 4/5, though I suspect it might have got to 4.5 had I had the group context.

36. One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw - Witold Rybczynski
Definitely one of those books that falls into the 'far more interesting that you'd expect it to be' category. Rybczynski starts by describing how he was commissioned to write a magazine piece on the best tool of the millennium, and how he chose his subject material and researched it. He then goes deeper, looking further into the roots of the screw and screwdriver, with the work of the mediaeval armourer, the mechanisation of the screw making process in the industrial revolution which led to mass production, and back into the discovery of the technical principles of the screw in ancient Greece, with wine presses and water screws.

This is beautifully written, and an example of how good writing and enthusiasm can make a subject interesting to those who started out with very little interest in it. Just scrapes a 4.5/5.

37. On the Cold Coasts - Vilborg Davidsdottir
Historical fiction, set in Iceland in the early 15th century. When the teenage Ragna becomes pregnant after an encounter with a shipwrecked English sailor, she is disgraced and her betrothal is called off. Ten years later, she becomes housekeeper to the new English bishop, and meets the man who was to have been her husband, now a priest at the Cathedral. Tensions between English sailors and the Icelanders is running high, and the presence of the English bishop, sent to try to ease those tensions, risks making them worse. And in all this, there are those on both sides determined to use the many facets of this set of circumstances for their own gain. Just about manages a 4/5, being a bit too much inclined towards telling not showing, and let down in a few places (but only a few) by infelicitous (at least to English ears, possibly less so to American) translation.

>53 cbl_tn: I hope you enjoy it!

38. The Lieutenant - Kate Grenville

More historical fiction, this time from Australia. Mathematically gifted and still somewhat traumatised by his experiences in war, marine Lieutenant Daniel Rooke is at heart an astronomer rather than a soldier, and it is in that capacity that he is recruited to join the expedition to settle a penal colony in New South Wales. Once in Australia, Rooke's isolation from the settlement in his observatory and his skills as a linguist lead him into a remarkable friendship with an Aboriginal child.

This tale, the author tells us, is strongly based on the history of Lt. William Dawes, though not so closely it could really be called a fictionalised account of his story.

A well-told story, with an intriguing and complex central character. 4/5.

I love the Thursday Next books and you're making me want to reread them! Be warned that I thought the series lost some of its sparkle after Something Rotten - they're still enjoyable but they stopped being 5 star reads for me.

Also, I have been thinking about the Eucharist/communion lately so I have downloaded Calvary and the Mass and will see if I can get it to play nicely with my kindle.

Hi Caty - I'm pleased to hear you thought Americanah was so good - I have that one waiting on my Kindle. Also haven't yet read Half of a Yellow Sun so I'm even further behind than you.

I'm also glad to hear Something Rotten is good. I've been reading that series slowly, and that's the next one up for me. I haven't enjoyed the series quite as wholeheartedly as you - I'm not sure quite why, but while I enjoy the ideas, the writing has felt a little forced or something. It's not that I mind the puns etc (I love Pratchett) so I'm not quite sure what it is. But anyway, I will at least be reading Something Rotten.

Hi Caty, a long time between visits for me. You are powering along with your reading! I completely agree about trying to particpate more in others threads, it is just too hard. There are so many threads and posts its hard to keep up! I like staying in my own quiet corner for now. The Thursday Next books have been on my TBR list for awhile, will have to see if I can hunt them down, I want the pretty brittish covers! I have read the first in his Nursery rhyme series, if that is what its called, and have the second waiting to be read. That was really quite witty and enjoyable. Hope all is well.

Oh, gosh, I'm way behind.

>57 souloftherose: Thanks for the warning, Heather, and I hope you get something useful from the Sheen book.

>58 gennyt: I hope you enjoy them both when you get to them, Genny.

>59 NicolePatrick: I hope you enjoy them, Nicole. I've not read the Nursery Rhyme series yet: I have those to come. And quiet corners can be wonderful places. :)

39. Spe Salvi - Pope Benedict XVI
40. The Reptile Room - Lemony Snicket
41. Shakespeare: The World as a Stage - Bill Bryson
42. The Wide Window - Lemony Snicket
43. The Catholic Church and Conversion - GK Chesterton (re-read)
44. The Story of English - Philip Gooden
45. The Elements of Eloquence - Mark Forsyth

Out of those, I really recommend the Bryson book on Shakespeare, and The Elements of Eloquence. Both are warm and witty examinations of their subject at a popular level, and both manage to cover lots of ground and to avoid superficiality. Bryson, obviously, looks at Shakespeare and his plays. Forysth analyses various rhetorical figures, how they work, and how they've been used to great effect - and does it with considerable style himself. Witness this pair of passages from his introduction and his final summing up:

What Shakespeare had beaten into him at school, we might, occasionally, use by accident and without realising it. We just happen to say something beautiful, and don’t know how we did it. We are like blindfolded cooks throwing anything into the pot and occasionally, just occasionally, producing a delicious meal.

Shakespeare had a big recipe book and his eyes wide open.

The figures are alive and thriving. The one line from that song or film that you remember and don’t know why you remember is almost certainly down to one of the figures, one of the flowers of rhetoric growing wild.

...

I hope I have dispelled the bleak and imbecilic idea that the aim of writing is to express yourself clearly in plain, simple English using as few words as possible. This is a fiction, a fib, a fallacy, a fantasy and a falsehood. To write for mere utility is as foolish as to dress for mere utility. Mountaineers do it, and climb Everest in clothes that would have you laughed out of the gutter. I suspect they also communicate quickly and efficiently, poor things. But for the rest of us, not threatened by death and yetis, clothes and language can be things of beauty. I would no more write without art because I didn’t need to, than I would wander outdoors naked just because it was warm enough. Again. (pp. 4-5, 201)

(And for UK Kindle users, The Elements of Eloquence is also in the May monthly deal selection. Just, y'know, in case you were interested.)

Oh, that book plan rhetoric sounds interesting ... and a kindle deal...

>62 gennyt: It's great. Go for it. :)

Another brief update:

46. Deus Caritas Est - Pope Benedict XVI
47. Wolf Tide - Catherine Fox
48. Being Christian - Rowan Williams
49. An Intelligent Person's Guide to Catholicism - Alban McCoy

Wolf Tide is fast-paced YA fantasy. Solidly written (though with occasional rough edges to plot or character), a complex society minutely realised, something of a page-turner, pretty good stuff. Cautiously recommended.

Being Christian is a short (85 pages or so) examination of four dimensions of the Christian life: baptism, the Bible, the Eucharist and prayer. It comes out of a series of Holy Week talks given by Dr Williams in Canterbury. There is much to ponder, and sensible application of the principles being discussed to everyday life, and despite being something of a quick overview, it has depths which make me think it would have something to say to Christians of all levels of experience and commitment. Highly recommended.

An Intelligent Person's Guide to Catholicism is exactly that: an apologetic of Catholic teaching that presupposes only a moderate amount of prior knowledge, but expects a reasonable degree of intelligence and desire for serious enquiry into the subject.

50. The Seven Storey Mountain - Thomas Merton
51. Quartet in Autumn - Barbara Pym
52. The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman

Respectively, 5, 4.5, and 5 out of 5. All of them immensely powerful, in very different ways, and all of them highly recommended.

53. The Villa in Italy - Elizabeth Edmondson
55. The Enchanted April - Elizabeth von Arnim
56. The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop - Gladys Mitchell

I liked The Villa in Italy quite a lot as a light read; it was entertaining, with some strong characters and interesting human dilemmas. it's about four people summoned to (unsurprisingly) a villa in Italy by the terms of a mysterious will. Not great literature, but nice enough. 4/5

The Enchanted April was also a nice light read, and it was actually interesting to read this immediately after The Villa in Italy, since each is centred on four people, strangers to each other, all going off to stay together Italy. Where Villa was about people summoned by forces outside their control, April was about four very different women who all wanted a holiday, so shared the cost of letting an Italian castle for a month. Both books have a strong concentration on the sense of place, particularly the gardens and culture, and the relationships the people who are staying there have with each other and with the people they've left at home. The characters are a little better developed in The Enchanted April than The Villa in Italy, and the writing more polished, but April just has a bit too much tweeness to score a 5. So, 4.5 stars.

Back to England for the Gladys Mitchell book, which slightly disappointed me. It was a much better book than it was mystery: the ending was rather anticlimactic, which was a pity because the characters, the setting and much of the plot were great. I was recently given half a dozen or so of Gladys Mitchell's Mrs Bradley mysteries by a work colleague who'd taken a bit of a punt on them in a charity shop, never having read them before, and then didn't like them; while I'm not going to be counting Gladys Mitchell among my favourites just yet, I'm looking forward to reading the rest, and hoping the endings will match the standard of the rest of the book. I keep changing my mind on stars, but either a high 3.5 or a low 4 out of 5.

57. The Saltmarsh Murders - Gladys Mitchell
58. Death at the Opera - Gladys Mitchell
61. Come Away, Death - Gladys Mitchell

After the promising note on which last post ended, I have changed my mind. Given that I like so many of the writers similar to and roughly contemporary with Gladys Mitchell - Dorothy L Sayers, Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey, Ngaio Marsh, Edmund Crispin etc. - it's odd that I don't like her books. But I really think I don't. I am beginning to dislike them intensely.

After reading four of them, they seem to be uniformly depressing, disturbing, lacking any real reference to/involvement of the criminal justice system in plots and resolutions (which I find implausible and ethically problematic, and which leaves out a core component of the genre), and gruesome. The endings are anticlimactic, and there is a superabundance of repellant characters.

Come Away, Death was the worst of those I've read, and gets a 2.5/5. I'm surprised I made it to the end, because as well as all the above it was incredibly tedious. However, that said, the characters are highly developed and consistently written, so it redeems itself a little there.

The Saltmarsh Murders was better, and gets a 3. The plot was better paced, and almost entirely lacking tediousness. On the other hand, the racial epithets and stereotyping were way beyond what I could write off as 'normal for 1934'; *some* of that was certainly down to a particular character, rather than authorial voice, which is entirely reasonable, and some of the rest was 'normal for 1934', but it really did make me wince a great deal.

In comparison, I didn't actually dislike Death at the Opera, I'd give that one a 4. It probably had the edge over The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop (see previous post), which I'm inclined now to rate as a 3.5. The plot was well worked, the characters and setting were strong, and it was a bit less anticlimactic, so apart from being depressing, disturbing, and lacking 'proper' resolution according the norms of the genre, it was pretty good.

I was given seven, and have three more remaining, all much later works than the four I've read. I'm inclined to give them ago rather than chuck them out - Mitchell could certainly write - but I'm not optimistic.

59. Consuming the Word: the New Testament and the Eucharist in the Early Church - Scott Hahn
60. Summer's Child - Diane Chamberlain

And on to books not by Gladys Mitchell.

Hahn's Consuming the Word is exactly what is sounds like: an examination of the relationship between the New Testament Scriptures and the Eucharist. It's aimed at a sort-of informed amateur level; that is, it's not academic theology, but it's not for complete beginners either. Hahn looks at the development of the New Testament Scriptures, their use within the liturgy of the early church, and how the early church understood the relationship between Scripture and the Eucharist.

Hahn's basic argument is that the term 'New Testament' ought not to be understood as referring purely to a set of writings: the writings are, rather, the writings of of the New Testament (more accurately, New Covenant), and the Eucharist embodies and enacts that New Testament/New Covenant, and if we fail to see the Covenant, Sacrament and Scripture in their proper relationship then we fundamentally misunderstand all of them.

Hahn builds his argument gradually, and makes it very carefully; I thought the book was excellent and rated it as a 5. However, I suspect some folk from other ends of the theological spectrum would take issue with some of his points.

And finally, Summer's Child was not desperately bad as fluff fiction goes; the plot is sound enough and keeps the reader's interest, but I found several characters extremely unconvincing. The subject matter was handled in way that was just depressing rather than profound - it seemed to be trying for profundity but not getting deep enough - and the romance subplot was somewhat odd and implausible. 2.5/5.

>68 Eat_Read_Knit: Consuming the Word sounds interesting... I used to do an exercise with groups (both young people and adults) who were exploring the meaning of the Eucharist, asking them to list all the items/elements they thought necessary for a celebration of the Eucharist. All kinds of things would be mentioned, from the obvious 'bread' and 'wine' to the less tangible 'love' or 'prayer' - but invariably no-one in any of the groups would mention Scripture/the Gospel. I came to rely on the fact that they would omit to mention this, and used it as a teaching point about precisely that relationship which this book examines.

>69 gennyt: Yes, it's a hugely overlooked aspect more or less universally, I suspect.

Short update:
62. Leave it to Psmith - PG Wodehouse (re-read: always magnificent - 5/5)
63. Interesting Times - Terry Pratchett (also a re-read; also always magnificent - 4.5/5)
64. An Impossible Marriage - Pamela Hansford Johnson (intriguing character study, not what you'd call cheerful reading - 3.5/5)
65. Temeraire - Naomi Novik (interesting premise and great fun, but the period aspect is unconvincing; enjoyed this one but probably won't continue the series - 4/5)
66. The Golem and the Djinni - Helene Wecker (beautifully conceived and written, but rather stretched and possibly too long - 4.5/5 )

Great batch of reading here! I agree with your assessment of The Golem and the Jinni. For me the ending feel a bit flat for me but I don't know what I was expecting for an ending, either. I loved His Majesty's Dragon but I listed to the audiobook - didn't 'read' the book - and found myself captivated by the characters Temeraire and Laurence and the conversations they had. I will admit I didn't pay too much attention to the period aspect of the story.

>71 lkernagh: Yes, Temeraire is a great character.

Quick (and somewhat overdue) update:

67. 7 Secrets of Confession - Vinny Flynn
68. The Silence of our Friends - Ed West
69. The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster
70. The Grimm Legacy - Polly Shulman
71. The Seventh Scroll - Wilbur Smith
72. The Bluffer's Guide to Cricket - James Trollope and Nick Yapp
73. Sealed with a kiss - Rachael Lucas
74. The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith
75. Acts and Omissions - Catherine Fox

The pace has slowed rather, but I have made it to 75 and hopefully things will pick up again shortly.

Congrats!

Congrats on reaching 75! :)

Congratulations on reaching 75 Caty!

>67 Eat_Read_Knit: Sorry to hear you didn't get on with Gladys Mitchells' books. I haven't read any of her books but have been meaning to try them for a while as I enjoy other mystery authors from that time.

>68 Eat_Read_Knit: Consuming the Word sounds interesting. I seem to have a massive mental block about reading Christian books at the moment (I've read the first chapter of so many books this year and then completely stalledf) but I'm making a note of it for whenever I manage to start reading that sort of thing again.

>70 Eat_Read_Knit: & >73 Eat_Read_Knit: Leave it to Psmith and The Phantom Tolbooth are two of my favourites. I think the flowerpot throwing scenes are comedy genius.

I just bought Angels and Men by Catherine Fox on Luci's recommendation as this and Acts and Omissions seem to have good kindle discounts at the moment. Tempted to also get Acts and Omissions having seen your rating.

>74 drneutron: >75 NicolePatrick: Thank you

>76 souloftherose: Thanks, Heather. Yes, the flowerpot hurling is great. I hope you like Consuming the Word whenever you do get back into reading Christian books. And I definitely recommend Acts and Omissions: I read it more or less in one sitting yesterday, and laughed a lot, and cried a bit, and loved the characters.

Congratulations on reaching 75!

> 78 Thanks :)

Quick update:
76. Angels and Men - Catherine Fox
77. One of our Thursdays is Missing - Jasper Fforde
78. Shakespeare on Toast - Ben Crystal
79. First Among Sequels - Jasper Fforde
80. Coraline - Neil Gaiman

(Yes, I read Thursday Next 5 and 6 in the wrong order. I didn't even realise until I picked up First Among Sequels, though I had thought One of our Thursdays is Missing was a bit more baffling than usual. Reading First Among Sequels duly brought debafflement.)

81. The Wells Bequest - Polly Shulman
82. Theology for Beginners - Frank J Sheed
83. Cotillion - Georgette Heyer (re-read)
84. The Cornish Coast Murder - John Bude

I am basically binge-reading fluff at the moment. And too often mediocre fluff. Which is really not good. But if I weren't, I'd almost certainly not be reading anything at all, because I don't seem to be able to manage proper concentration.

Chick lit and romance:
85. The One You Really Want - Jill Mansell (decent enough but nothing special)
86. Don't Want to Miss a Thing - Jill Mansell (decent enough but nothing special)
92. Tickled Pink - Christina Jones (decent enough but nothing special)
93. Kiss a Girl in the Rain - Nancy Warren (fairly dire)
95. The Write Match - Margaret Carroll (fairly dire)
96. The Perfect Proposal - Katie Fforde (fairly dire)
97. Going the Distance - Christina Jones (re-read; decent enough but nothing special)
98. Jumping to Conclusions - Christina Jones (re-read; decent enough but nothing special)
99. Running the Risk - Christina Jones (decent enough but nothing special)
100. The Beach Café - Lucy Diamond (decent enough but nothing special)
103. Dancing in the Moonlight - Christina Jones (utterly, utterly dreadful)

Crime/mystery:
91. Broken Homes - Ben Aaronovitch (excellent)
94. Twenty-Eight and a half Wishes - Denise Grover Swank (not particularly good)
101. Murder at the College - Victor L. Whitechurch (pretty good)
102. The Lake District Murder - John Bude (pretty good)
104. A Scream in Soho - John G Brandon (decent enough but nothing special)

Other:
87. Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan (pretty good)
88. Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones (pretty good)
89. Starter for Ten - David Nicholls (not particularly good)
90. Jeeves and the Wedding Bells - Sebastian Faulks (decent enough but nothing special)

Still binge-reading fluff. The golden age mysteries (Farjeon, Whitechurch, Fletcher) are far better than the chick lit, despite their Kindle editions being riddled with errors from iffy OCR scanning.

105. Shot on the Downs Victor L. Whitechurch
106. Mystery in White - J Jefferson Farjeon
107. Prada and Prejudice - Katie Oliver
108. Love and Liability - Katie Oliver
109. Mansfield Lark - Katie Oliver
110. Murder in the Squire's Pew - JS Fletcher
111. Murder at Wrides Park - JS Fletcher
112. Lovestruck in London - Rachel Schurig
113. The Templeton Case - Victor L. Whitechurch
114. Ajax Penumbra 1969 - Robin Sloan

*waving* at Caty

>83 alcottacre: *grins and waves back*

A few more to add. Still fluff.

115. Murder in Four Degrees - JS Fletcher
116. Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party - Alexander McCall Smith
117. Wish Upon a Star - Olivia Goldsmith
118. Cobweb Castle - JS Fletcher
119. Murder at the Pageant - Victor L Whitechurch

I'm becoming rather a fan of Fletcher and Whitechurch, and especially of the latter; I've got at least a dozen more of Fletcher's books queued up on the kindle, but sadly seem to have come to the end of the affordable Whitechurch. My main gripe is that the quality of the ebooks is pretty dire: they don't really seem to have been edited after OCR scanning, so there are a lot of errors with (for example) 'rn' where it should be 'm', or B instead of K. You can make sense of them perfectly well, but it's annoying and it makes me sad that more care hasn't been taken - especially since the whole point of the scanning is to make old treasures available again.

Fatty O'Leary was a fairly typical Alexander McCall Smith offering, but for some reason the humour didn't quite chime with me: I could see it there, but something just ... didn't quite work for me.

The Olivia Goldsmith book started off utterly dire, and I nearly gave up several times, but it improved after the first third or so to become merely not particularly good.

120. Dead Simple - Peter James
121. Burial Rites - Hannah Kent

Good and excellent respectively. And hooray for finally reading something that is not fluff.

>82 Eat_Read_Knit: I really hate the OCR errors in kindle editions. The Whitechurch books sound interesting but I think the errors would annoy me too much. As I have plenty to read I will wait and hope someone else turns them into better quality ebooks!

>85 Eat_Read_Knit: Hooray! Burial Rites has been on the wishlist for a while - glad you enjoyed it.

>86 souloftherose: Yes, it would excellent if some better-edited editions were to appear on Kindle soon. And, thanks. :)

Still binge-reading junk. Sigh.

Golden Age crime:
122. Dead Men's Money - JS Fletcher
124. In the Mayor's Parlour - JS
125. Ravensdene Court - JS Fletcher
127. The Yorkshire Moorland Mystery – JS Fletcher
130. Scarhaven Keep – JS Fletcher
133. The Borough Treasurer – JS Fletcher
134. The Red Thumb Mark – R Austin Freeman
137. The Santa Klaus Murder – Mavis Doriel Hay
139. The Chestermarke Instinct – JS Fletcher
140. The Herapath Property - JS Fletcher
143. The Middle of Things – JS Fletcher
144. The Sussex Downs Murder – John Bude
145. Murder Underground – Mavis Doriel Hay
148. Marchester Royal – JS Fletcher
149. Death on the Cherwell – Mavis Doriel Hay

Chick Lit and romance:
123. Stormy Times - Beate Boeker
126. Texas Secrets – Jean Brashear
128. Maid for Love – Marie Force
129. Fool for Love – Marie Force
131. To The Moon And Back – Jill Mansell
132. Hoping for Love – Marie Force
135. The Unpredictable Consequences of Love – Jill Mansell
138. Breaking the Ice - Mandy Baggot
141. The Practice Proposal – Tracy March
142. The Christmas Bargain – Shanna Hatfield
146. Married for Christmas – Noelle Adams
147. A Baby for Easter – Noelle Adams

Other:
136. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

I so have to get back to reading at least some books that are not utter fluff. Some of the chick lit/romance is fairly mediocre - a lot of it is free kindle stuff - but the Jill Mansells are excellent. All of the Golden Age crime is decent enough; the Bude is excellent, the Hay books are pretty good, and the Fletcher books are variable but most are good and some are excellent. And I loved The Hunger Games.

Still reading junk.

150. The Middle Temple Murder - JS Fletcher
151. A Family for Christmas - Mona Ingram
152. The Duchess War - Courtney Milan
153. The Hanging Valley - Peter Robinson
154. Take A Chance On Me - Jill Mansell
155. The Box Hill Murder - JS Fletcher
156. The Birthday Scandal - Leigh Michaels

I seem to have been mainly comfort reading this month too. On the subject of Golden Age mysteries, have you tried Mary Roberts Rinehart. I just read The Circular Staircase and really enjoyed it - the style is more melodramatic and over the top than British mysteries but I enjoyed it a lot. There's quite a few available free on Project Gutenberg.

And you've done a double 75 - congratulations!

>90 souloftherose: I'd never come across Mary Roberts Rinehart. I shall download two or three from Project Gutenberg and give her a go. Thanks.

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All sorts of junk not worth mentioning has been read - I think I am technically up to about 180 or 190, possibly slightly more, but (a) that includes a big stack of short novellas from the last few weeks, and (b) I haven't been tracking all the junk properly since somewhere around the 140 or 150 mark.

Noteworthy reads are two more from JS Fletcher: Who Killed Alfred Snowe? and The Orange-Yellow Diamond. Neither is great and I've rated both at 3/5; the latter has a spectacular quantity of unpleasant racial stereotyping, but I've only docked it one star from the 4 it would otherwise scrape because, while that makes for very uncomfortable reading, it's not really fair to criticise a book from 1921 for containing the attitudes of people from 1921.

Must start keeping proper track of books again. Really must. Must, must, must.

Anyway. Two more to add. Sealed with a Christmas Kiss is a follow-up novella to Sealed with a kiss, which I read in the summer. 80 pages or so, average chick lit, scores a 3.

And The Great Christmas Knit Off is chick lit I downloaded on a whim this morning and sort of accidentally read straight off. Also average, but rather sweet, and scores a 4. Description from Amazon (because I'm too lazy to actually write a review. Sorry.):

"Heartbroken after being jilted at the altar, Sybil has been saved from despair by her knitting obsession and now her home is filled to bursting with tea cosies, bobble hats, and jumpers. But, after discovering that she may have perpetrated the cock-up of the century at work, Sybil decides to make a hasty exit and, just weeks before Christmas, runs away to the picturesque village of Tindledale.

"There, Sybil discovers Hettie’s House of Haberdashery, an emporium dedicated to the world of knitting and needle craft. But Hettie, the outspoken octogenarian owner, is struggling and now the shop is due for closure. And when Hettie decides that Sybil’s wonderfully wacky Christmas jumpers are just the thing to add a bit of excitement to her window display, something miraculous starts to happen…"

Another to add: The Charing Cross Mystery - JS Fletcher. One of his better tales. 4.5 stars.

*sticks head round the door*

Still mostly binge-reading chick lit. Nothing worth mentioning. If I should read anything worth mentioning before the end of the year, I'll add it, but I'll ignore the fluff and start tracking properly again on next year's thread come January 1.

Also, belatedly, happy Christmas everyone.

*waves and wanders off again*

Belated merry Christmas to you too Caty. Looking forward to following your thread again next year (the new group is here.