Booklog #22

I wouldn't be surprised if you were wondering who this is, it's been so long since I last posted..!  I have no excuse - thanks to all those bank holidays I only had to take a couple of days of leave to get two full weeks off work (the day job), so that's what I did.  After about three days I totally lost track of what day it was or even whether it was a weekend/week or a working day/public holiday and so all routine went out of the window.  I'm back at work now (booo) so am hoping to get back into the swing of posting here. 

As a result of that I have a ton of updates for you - much reading has been done! 

Since last Booklog I've finished:

* Take the Monkeys and Run ~ Karen Cantwell
Fun!  A comedic tale of a suburban American housewife who gets mixed up in the dealings of some very stereotyped Mafia gangster types in her neighbourhood.  It's a fast-paced story with more than a couple of unexpected twists (they were unexpected to me anyway) and a lot of humour.  Try it!  5/5

* In Praise of Savagery ~ Warwick Cairns

Hmm...I'm not sure whether I liked it or not!  It's about two journeys through Africa, one in the 1930s and then the same route again in present times (by different people).  The two stories interweave, comparing the journeys and the different problems they experienced.  I'll be completely honest - I'm not really that drawn to anything African-based (while I'll read pretty much anything Japan or China-related), for no particular reason it just doesn't do much for me, however the chapters in this are really short and snappy so you keep thinking "oh I'll just read one more, and one more, and...".  There's also a sprinkling of philosophical thought, which usually puts me off but in this case integrated quite well and did actually make me think (as opposed to making me skip past it..!).  I'd say that if you can get it for free or cheap (as I did) then give it a try...otherwise I probably wouldn't bother unless you're really interested in Africa during more colonial times.  2/5 

* Winter's Passage ~ Julie Kagawa

This is a novella which is set midway through a series, though I hadn't realised that when I downloaded it (another cheap Kindle bargain).  I could have done with reading the first one beforehand really as there are constant references to things that happened in it which clearly set up the relationship between the human/faery girl and the faery prince which is the focus here, as well as the reasons for the journey they're on throughout this tale.  Still, it was very good - well-written with good characterisation and a nice mix of real world locations with the world of faery.  I'll probably seek out the others in the series now...perhaps at the library now I've rediscovered it! 4/5

* Peter Pan ~ JM Barrie

I've never actually read Peter Pan...having seen the Disney film I never really felt the need to read the book (much like Alice in Wonderland).  However I was intrigued by the recently-written sequel Peter Pan in Scarlet and wanted to read that so thought I'd best zip through this first (especially as it was a free classic).  As with many stories, the original book is darker than the Disney film - there's more violence and death and it seems a lot more melancholic.  I felt so sorry for Wendy, John and Michael's parents, we return to them a couple of times after the children fly away with Peter and they were so sad - something you never consider during the film.  Perhaps it's because I'm reading it as an adult, but I spent most of the time feeling annoyed with the children for just upping and leaving!  Still love Tinker Bell though...you can't go wrong with a feisty fairy ;o)  3/5 

* Colosseum: Rome's Arena of Death ~ Peter Connolly

I got this from the library (prepare to hear that a lot over the coming months!) to help with my final Classical World course assignment - it's hardback with a lot of beautiful pictures of Rome, but also incredibly interesting (if you like that kind of thing) and very absorbing.  5/5 

* The Hunt Ball Mystery ~ William Magnay

As the name suggests, a mystery (in the form of a dead body in a locked room) that arises at a ball in a country house.  The usual Agatha Christie style hi-jinks ensue, with a gentleman questing to solve the mystery and protect the honour of the lady he loves.  Nothing earth-shatteringly original, but pleasant enough. 4/5

This puts me at 40/100 in the 100 Books in a Year Challenge! 

Since last Booklog I've started:

* My Life On A Plate ~ India Knight

I'm still reading:

* Crime & Punishment ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky (almost half way through - really enjoying it!)
* Rattle His Bones ~ Carola Dunn (book club was suspended temporarily while each of us was off work - we meet again tomorrow)

While I was off hubby and I visited the little library in our town and I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised.  The last time I used a public library (as opposed to the in-house one when I was at uni) I was about 16/17 and with the librarians' best intentions it was a bit dingy, the books weren't always in great condition and it felt a bit oppressive.  But this one couldn't be more different - though it's smaller (I live in a different town to the one I did as a teenager) it's spacious and light, all the books have plastic jackets on to keep them clean and nice, there's free wifi and it just seems a lot friendlier. 

The only thing that sucks is that it's shut on Wednesdays...yes, the one day of the week I'm off.  Typical!  I'll just have to go when they're open later into the evenings and on Saturday mornings.  You can renew loans and order/reserve things online (drastic improvement on how it used to be!) and even request books that are held anywhere else in Wales and they'll get it in for you.  I'm uber-impressed and will hopefully save a load of money now as I won't have to buy as many books (yeah, we'll see how that goes!).  If you don't already use it - try out your local library! 
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Booklog #21

I must begin with an apology - once again I wasn't able to post last Wednesday, but unfortunately I can't really tell you why.  I'll just say that all my spare time at the moment is going towards dealing with something going on here and little writing is likely to be done on Wednesdays for an undetermined period of time.  I'll still (hopefully) post my booklogs every Sunday, but don't be surprised (and please don't abandon me!) if I'm not able to get anything up on Wednesdays.  Fingers crossed that normal service will be resumed asap! 

This week I finished:

* The Game ~ Heather Killough-Walden
Continuing my journey through unexplored Kindle fantasy cheapie books, I sampled this mixture of dystopian sci-fi/Norse mythology (yes, you read that right) and was pleasantly surprised.  I'll admit that I didn't exactly love it at the start - our heroine, Victoria Red, is a team leader in something ominously known only as the Game.  The Game has been played for thousands of years and can never end or something unspeakably terrible will happen, and once Players are in it they do not age but also can never leave to go back to the outside world.  I thought it was going to be really techie and violent, without much emotional substance, but I was wrong.  Victoria despises her opposing team leader, Victor Black, but he has a proposition for her that leads them and their team members to places they've never been (or have they..?) as well as life-or-death encounters with Norse gods and the Game Lord himself.  The characters are very distinct (often a failing I've found in sci-fi is that I can't remember who is who because they're so similar) and the way relationships develop and change throughout is handled really well.  There's a little bit of Mills & Boon style sauciness as well, which I wasn't expecting!  For the fact that it takes a good basic idea and builds a convincing world around it, I give it 4/5

* The Parthenon ~ Mary Beard
Yes - at last!  It's over!  I finally pushed through and got to the end...  I really did want to like this - I've seen Mary Beard present TV documentaries about Pompeii and such and she made the subject so accessible, so I assumed this book would be the same.  It is easy to follow, but it's so terribly dry...I was just utterly bored throughout.  I had expected (perhaps unreasonably) that it would focus on the Parthenon in terms of its creation and original function within Athens, but the majority of the book is actually about what happened to it since then - how it was used as various different things by different groups occupying the area (Romans, Turks etc), how it was wrecked and pillaged by people right up until quite recent times and whether the artefacts removed should be given back to Greece.  I bought it to use within an Open University essay (for which the first chapter served wonderfully), but as a general read for interest it doesn't do very well.  I'd have preferred one chapter at the end to brief me about all the post-ancient-Athens events, but as I say it occupied most of the book and I found it a real slog to get through.  Perhaps my expectations were wrong, but I can't change how I feel about it now, so: 2/5

* How to Give Up Shopping (Or At Least Cut Down) ~ Neradine Tisaj
Before I start I must point out that I'm not a compulsive shopper (unless you're looking at Kindle downloads), but I was interested to find out how to tweak my habits to become a bit more thrifty.  This is quite a short book (just over 1000 Kindle 'locations') but I don't think that matters, as it's written in such a chatty and personable style that it feels more like a one-way conversation with a friend.  Tisaj writes from personal experience (and shares some extremely personal information at the end) which is good as it makes you feel a bit less silly about some of the same things that you might have done yourself (e.g. buying the same item twice because you forgot you already had it - I've done this with books!).  Her advice is fairly obvious, but sometimes it needs somebody else to say it to you before you really 'get' it.  Because it is rather short and I'd have liked to read more, I give it: 4/5

This week I started:

* Rattle His Bones ~ Carola Dunn (the new book club read) 

I'm still reading:

* Crime and Punishment ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
* Take the Monkeys and Run ~ Karen Cantwell

Till next week then, happy reading! 
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Booklog #20

Wow - the twentieth booklog!  It really doesn't feel like twenty weeks (more if you count the ones I missed over Christmas) since I started doing this...time certainly is flying by...

This week I finished:

* Styx and Stones ~ Carola Dunn
Once more, my two book club buddies and I have proved to be rubbish detectives - we failed to identify the murderer...again!  I really thought I had it this time as well!  As with Murder on the Flying Scotsman this is a traditional 'cosy' whodunit - an enclosed setting (this time a small village), a shortlist of possible suspects, an official police officer assisted by an unexpected amateur sleuth and so on. 

Our sleuth here is Miss Daisy Dalrymple, a young lady engaged to a Detective Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard (handy for getting her involved in investigating lots of crimes!).  This is a time when high class ladies simply Did Not Work...one generally married and became a mother while living off one's husband's income...however Daisy does work, she writes articles for magazines.  This is frequently commented upon with disdain by other ladies in the books, which I feel could get a bit wearing if it carries on through the whole series.  Otherwise though, they are very enjoyable - kind of 'Agatha Christie-lite', they don't have the depth of Christie but are the same style (and just as difficult to solve!).  4/5

This week I started:

* Take the Monkeys and Run ~ Karen Cantwell (strange title, I know!) 

I'm still reading:

* The Parthenon ~ Mary Beard
* Crime and Punishment ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
* The Game ~ Heather Killough-Walden

If you're a Kindle owner in the UK, you might be interested to know that a new 'crop' of free books were listed this week - if you click on 'Top 100 Free' you'll see some of them in the top rankings.  Buying one causes it to suggest a load of others to you, so you can find them all pretty easily.  I've got about 11 or 12 already...there were no reviews yet so they might be rubbish, but as they cost me nothing I don't care! 
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