Cid
A cozy mystery set in 1920s Britain that was… ok. Nothing special, easily solved.
I found the POV character, Charles Knox, a bit of an idiot and just wished that it was actually about Angela, one of the other characters who seemed much more interesting. And it seems that the rest of the series is about her, so I wasn’t alone in thinking that! For that reason alone I will read the next in the series and see if it’s worth continuing.
Aww, what a wonderful ending to the series! This one was my fave so far, I loved Huck so much. I hope she eventually adds more to the series!
I've been meaning to read this series for years now and I'm so glad I finally did! They're excellent! Good plot, delightful (and realistic) characters, and a good dose of humour. I appreciate the fact that they can teach a “lesson” without heavy handed moralizing.
I would definitely recommend Mystery at Lake Placid to young boys (and girls interested in sports) despite it being almost twenty years old. I think it's stood the test of time better that a lot of kids books!
This book has been on my reading list for a couple of years now am I'm so glad I finally read it, because it was excellent! It's a memoir, not about a celebrity or politician, but about an ordinary woman. In the same week that her husband of 15 years leaves her for a man he met on Gay.com, she's injured in a car accident and ends up returning to her Mennonite family in order to put her life back together.
It's not a straight forward memoir — it tends to flow from one story to the next, jumping around in time and place as one thing reminds her of another thing. It's partly about returning to her Mennonite roots and the strangeness of that after living with a militant athiest. It's partly about coming to terms with her ex-husband and his charm and bipolar disorder. It's mainly just a very entertaining story about an average woman.
I would highly recommend it to anyone who liked Eat Pray Love. I would also recommend it to anyone who loathed Eat Pray Love. I''s the story of a woman finding herself after her life falls apart, but she does it with warmth and humour and a lot less whining than Elizabeth Gilbert...
Quote that I read to everyone in close proximity:North American Mennonites all used to grow up speaking Low German, using an outhouse, and shelling peas, sometimes all at the same time. This makes us ace multitaskers. My mother, one of seventeen kids, grew up with a two-seater biffy so that people wouldn't have to wait to use the toilet; they could enter in pairs, do their business, and get right back to work. The family that shits together knits together.
Audio was not the right format to enjoy this book, despite how fun it was to hear Lin read it. It would be excellent as a little hardcover book you could flip open randomly whenever you needed a pick me up. As such, couldn't give it a rating.
Really enjoyed this collection of essays on the women of the Discworld. Pointed out a lot of things I hadn't really thought about, but mainly it just made me want to reread a whole bunch of the Pratchett books again!
I didn't realize until today that there were new books in the Screech Owls series, but I'm so happy there are! They are fun young reader books, ostensibly aimed at boys but may also appeal to girls who aren't into really “girly” books. This one especially is partially from Sarah's point of view.
I really hadn't planned on reading any of these new books by Christopher Tolkien — I've already read most of the History of Middle Earth books, so what new info could there be? But then I saw that the audiobook was read by Timothy & Samuel West! I would listen to Sam West read a phone book, so to Audible I went.
I had expected the audiobook to be a little strange given the format of the book — J. R. R. Tolkien's partially written stories surrounded with (and sometimes interrupted by) Christopher Tolkien's explanatory information — but it worked perfectly! Sam West read the tales and his dad read Christopher Tolkien's commentary, and they both did an excellent job. I shall listen to the Unfinished Tales soon!
I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to anyone who wasn't already a giant Tolkien nerd, but I loved it.
Sometimes it is so nice to read a book with a main character that you can actually identify with. They are few and far between for me, especially in the chick lit/romance genre, so this was a breath of fresh air.
Listened to this one solely because I enjoyed The Fall of Gondolin so much. But I was reminded why this is my least favourite First Age story... poetry. Scads and scads of poetry. It was gorgeously read by the brilliant Samuel West, but my god it just seemed to go on forever...
I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the first, but still an excellent cozy-mystery-with-royals.
As an aside: does it say something about the type of mysteries I read and watch that I keep expecting the DCI to be a love interest for Rosie? Yes, yes it does. And I'm so glad he's not!
I'm honestly not sure why I keep reading Alison Weir's non-fiction. They not bad, they're just... not for me.
Let me put it this way. I am reading these books to find out more about women from history. I get there isn't a ton of information to go on, but there is only so much I can care about how much money their fathers/husbands/brothers/sons/lovers spent on them. Or vice versa. I feel like Weir's primary resources were bills and accounts, which is a cool way to learn more about these women, but maybe keep it in the background a bit more?
What a strange, strange book. I can't even decide if I loved it or not. 5 stars for world-building, everything else will need contemplation.
Started out decently but ended with a whimper. Very much a filler book. As a continuity nerd I noticed rather glaring timeline issues between this and The Bloody Sun, which just annoyed me. I'll see if they are explained away in the books set between.
I posted a longer review and then deleted it because I decided I had dwelled on the things I didn't like about the book to the detriment of the parts I loved.
The parts I loved? The last quarter. Strangely enough, the chapters set after “The Streak” ended said more to me than all the rest combined.
Just the right mix of fluff and seriousness to catch my current incredibly short attention span. I've started about 12 books in the last 2 weeks, and this was the only one I actually got more than a couple of chapters into.
Things I love about this book:
1. Partially written in an epistolary format. Possibly my favourite format ever, when well written.
2. Lincoln. You know, a main male character who is awkward and nerdy and kind and NOT A FUCKING ALPHA MALE. Sorry for the caps abuse, just really sick of the same male character over and over again.
3. A really excellent look at a realistic female friendship.
Highly recommended, two thumbs up. Though, possibly not to anyone who doesn't remember 1999...
It's like history within history, a matryoshka doll of travel writing. Published in 2004, about Kapuscinski's travels in the 1950s and 60s, while reading and deliberating on Herodotus's investigations from 2000 years before that, which were often set centuries before his time. Two thumbs up!
[Complete tangent: apparently matryoshka dolls were created in the 1890s during a period of interest in “folk art” but were not actually based on anything historically Russian. They just looked “folky” and people in places like Paris had a hard-on for what they thought Russian peasant life was like. I learned this fact from a completely different book.]
The very first Horrible Histories I have read, and I'll definitely be reading the rest! So much fun!
This used to be a favourite of mine, but I hadn't reread it in 20 years. Unfortunately, the Suck Fairy had visited in the interim, especially in the last 2 or so chapters (though not as bad as Dragonflight and Dragonquest!)
I originally read the Protector of the Small series years ago and it wasn't my favourite of the Tortall sub-series, but this time around I appreciated it a whole lot more. For one, Kel is an awesome character.
She isn't special in any way – no magic, no special link with the gods – and earns everything she gets through hard work and common sense. Sure, she started learning her weapons at the ripe old age of 6, but she gets really good at them because she never gives up, even when everything hurts and she could be sleeping in. Plus, she cares. She's compassionate without being a mother-figure (or at least that's how I see it, despite some of the boys calling her “Mother” in jest.)
The other thing I love about this series is that there isn't a love story. Sure, Kel has her crushes and relationships, but she realizes that other things are higher on her priority list that love and/or sex and just gets on with them. How often do you see that in a teen book?
I read all of the Xanth books that were out at the time in junior high school and loved them, so I thought I'd be nostalgic and reread a couple... and discovered that the Suck Fairy had most definitely visited.
I'm not yet capable of being coherent about this book. But I definitely think it deserved all the awards it won. Go, read.
What a strange headfuck of a book. I haven't a clue what to rate it — I loved it and was disturbed by it in equal measures. On the whole, I would recommend it... I'm just not sure to whom!
The audio narration (by the author) was brilliant, and I hope he is making enough in royalties to pay for years and years of therapy. Good to know that lots of religions produce fucked up human beings...
An absolutely fascinating look at life after death — the lives of all those who deal with the aftermath of death. The author speaks to all sorts of people in the “death industry,” from morticians to crime scene cleaners, and also learns a lot about her own response to death.
The audiobook is read by the author, who does an excellent job. It makes her personal journey hit just that little bit harder, I think.
I would recommend this to fans of pop-science like “Stiff” by Mary Roach and year-in-the-life bios like “The Year of Living Biblically” by A.J. Jacobs.
Disclaimer: I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Normally Rainbow Rowell books are solid 5 star books for me, but this one suffered a little from lack of plot. Or maybe too many plots?
Of course, the lovely relationship development (both Simon/Baz and Penny/Shepherd) came damn close to making up for it. Throw in some very interesting new characters and flying goats and I'm still a firm Rowell fan!