souloftherose's year of (mostly) unplanned reading - part 5

Welcome to my fifth (and final) 2015 reading thread. My name's Heather, I'm in my mid-thirties and I live in a small town about one hour north of London in the UK with my husband and our slightly neurotic rescue cat. I read all kinds of things including a lot of older books (about a third of the books I read last year were published before 1950) but I also read contemporary books although more science fiction and fantasy than literary fiction.

This year I am not planning my reading as I realised last year that I get most enjoyment from my reading when I let myself pick up whatever I feel like rather than the book I feel I should be reading. There are already some exceptions to this rule though (see below) so we'll see how long my plan for unplanned reading lasts!



A Young Girl Reading by Jean-Honore Fragonard, c. 1770

Books read in October
#173 Ms Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson (Library)
#174 The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny (Reread)
#175 Ms Marvel, Vol. 2: Generation Why by G. Willow Wilson (Library)
#176 Cold Shoulder Road by Joan Aiken (TBR)
#177 Some of the Best From Tor.com: 2014 edited by Ellen Datlow (Free kindle)
#178 Ask a Policeman by The Detection Club (Library)
#179 Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds (Spousal unit's)
#180 Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch (TBR)
#181 Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Reread)
#182 Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Reread)
#183 Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie (TBR)
#184 The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery (Free kindle)
#185 The Prestige by Christopher Priest (TBR)
#186 Fables: The Deluxe Edition Book Six by Bill Willingham (Library)
#187 Fables: The Deluxe Edition Book Seven by Bill Willingham (Library)
#188 The Four Swans by Winston Graham (TBR)
#189 The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard (TBR)
#190 Summer Half by Angela Thirkell (TBR)
#191 Saga, Volume 2 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (Library)
#192 Victorian People and Ideas by Richard D. Altick (Library)
#193 A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley (TBR)
#194 The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie (Reread)
#194.5 In Morningstar's Shadow Aliette de Bodard (Free kindle)
#195 Complete Short Stories by Elizabeth Taylor (TBR)
#195.5 We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (TBR)
#196 Letters to Children by C. S. Lewis (TBR)

Books read in November
#197 Tinder by Sally Gardner and David Roberts (Library)
#198 Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell (TBR)
#199 Nimona by Noelle Stevenson (Library)
#200 Railsea by China Mieville (TBR)
#201 Heartless by Gail Carriger (Reread)
#202 The Serpent by Claire North (TBR)
#203 Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach (Library)
#204 The Angry Tide by Winston Graham (TBR)
#205 Ms Marvel: Vol 3, Crushed by G. Willow Wilson (Library)
#206 Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett (Reread)
#207 A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr (TBR)
#208 Sabriel by Garth Nix (Reread)
#209 The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (TBR)
#210 The Thief by Claire North (TBR)
#211 The Master by Claire North (TBR)
#212 Lirael by Garth Nix (Reread)
#213 Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny (Reread)
#214 The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin (TBR)
#215 The Separation by Christopher Priest (Library)
#216 Local Custom by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (Omnibus)

Books read in December
#217 Tea with Mr Rochester by Frances Towers (TBR)
#218 The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (Library)
#219 The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay (Amazon Prime)
#220 Fables: The Deluxe Edition Book Eight by Bill Willingham (Library)
#221 Railhead by Philip Reeve (TBR)
#222 The Riddle of the Labyrinth by Margalit Fox (Library)
#223 Scout's Progress by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (TBR)
#224 Cecilia by Fanny Burney (TBR)
#225 Abhorsen by Garth Nix (Reread)
#226 The Making of Home by Judith Flanders (Library)
#227 Mort by Terry Pratchett (Reread)
#228 Mouse and Dragon by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (TBR)
#229 Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns (TBR)
#230 Clariel by Garth Nix (Library)
#231 Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (TBR)
#232 Mairelon the Magician by Patricia C. Wrede (Omnibus)
#233 Sourcery by Terry Pratchett (Reread)
#234 Christmas at High Rising by Angela Thirkell (TBR)
#235 Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (TBR)
#236 Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman (Library)

Books read in July
#113 The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley (TBR)
#114 Agent of Change by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (Free kindle)
#115 Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer (Library)
#116 Fables: The Deluxe Edition Book Four by Bill Willingham (Library)
#117 Conflict of Honors by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (Omnibus)
#118 The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (TBR)
#119 Ha'penny by Jo Walton (TBR)
#120 Love Lessons: A Wartime Diary by Joan Wyndham (TBR)
#121 Catwings by Ursula K. Le Guin (TBR)
#122 Penric's Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold (TBR)
#123 Soulless by Gail Carriger (Reread)
#124 Fables: The Deluxe Edition Book Five by Bill Willingham (Library)
#125 Evelina by Fanny Burney (TBR)
#126 The Letter for the King by Tonke Dragt (Library)
#127 Carpe Diem by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (TBR)
#128 Catwings Return by Ursula K. Le Guin (TBR)
#129 Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings by Ursula K. Le Guin (TBR)
#130 Athyra by Steven Brust (Omnibus)
#131 A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh (TBR)
#132 The Toll-Gate by Georgette Heyer (TBR)
#133 Parker Pyne Investigates by Agatha Christie (Reread)

Books read in August
#134 Changeless by Gail Carriger (Reread)
#135 Blameless by Gail Carriger (Reread)
#136 The Blatchington Tangle by G. D. H. Cole and Margaret Cole (Borrowed)
#137 Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (Library)
#138 The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett (Free kindle)
#139 The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge (Library)
#140 Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns (TBR)
#141 Orca by Steven Brust (TBR)
#142 Victorian London: The Life of a City 1840-1870 by Liza Picard (Library)
#143 Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell (TBR)
#144 Sisters by a River by Barbara Comyns (TBR)
#145 The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss (Library)
#146 The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley (TBR)
#147 Murder Underground by Mavis Doriel Hay (Library)
#148 Plan B by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (Omnibus)
#149 First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde (Reread)
#150 The Yellow Dog by Georges Simenon (TBR)
#151 One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde (Reread)
#152 I Dare by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (TBR)
#153 Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie (Reread)
#154 The Sugar House by Antonia White (TBR)

Books read in September
#155 The Minority Council by Kate Griffin (Library)
#156 The Adventures of Margery Allingham by Julia Jones (Library)
#157 The Black Moon by Winston Graham (TBR)
#158 Just Patty by Jean Webster (Free kindle)
#159 Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope (TBR)
#160 A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke (TBR)
#161 Uprooted by Naomi Novik (Library)
#162 The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards (Library)
#163 The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (Reread)
#164 The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne (Free kindle)
#165 Saga, Vol 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (Library)
#166 Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie (TBR)
#167 The Tropic of Serpents by Marie Brennan (Library)
#168 The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin (TBR)
#169 Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie (Reread)
#170 Jane On Her Own by Ursula K. Le Guin (TBR)
#171 The Murder Stone by Louise Penny (Reread)
#172 Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy by Rumer Godden (TBR)

Books read in April
#58 The Hallowed Hunt by Lois McMaster Bujold (TBR)
#59 Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (Reread)
#60 Bellwether by Connie Willis (TBR)
#61 Demelza by Winston Graham (TBR)
#62 A Betrayal in Winter by Daniel Abraham (TBR)
#63 A Description of Millenium Hall by Sarah Scott (Library)
#64 Pavane by Keith Roberts (Library)
#65 The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (TBR)
#66 Austerity Britain, 1945-1951 by David Kynaston (TBR)
#67 Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss (TBR)
#68 The Priory by Dorothy Whipple (TBR)
#69 K by Mary Roberts Rinehart (Free kindle)
#70 The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (TBR)
#71 The Quiet Gentleman by Georgette Heyer (TBR)
#72 The Listerdale Mystery by Agatha Christie (Reread)

Books read in May
#73 Old Man's War by John Scalzi (TBR)
#74 Tamar: A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal by Mal Peet (Library)
#75 Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Library)
#76 Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832 by Stella Tillyard (Library)
#77 The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett (Reread)
#78 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (Reread)
#79 Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther by Elizabeth von Arnim (Free kindle)
#80 The Wool-Pack by Cynthia Harnett (TBR)
#81 Girl Reading by Katie Ward (Library)
#82 Jeremy Poldark by Winston Graham (TBR)
#83 The Ladies of Grace Adieu: and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke (TBR)
#84 Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth (Library)
#85 The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer (TBR)
#86 Fables: The Deluxe Edition Book Three by Bill Willingham (Library)
#87 In These Times: Living in Britain through Napoleon's wars, 1793-1815 by Jenny Uglow (Library)
#88 The Millstone by Margaret Drabble (Library)
#89 Warleggan by Winston Graham (TBR)
#90 War for the Oaks by Emma Bull (TBR)
#91 Poor Cow by Nell Dunn (TBR)
#92 Is by Joan Aiken (Omnibus)

Books read in June
#93 Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders (TBR)
#94 Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant (Library)
#95 Dark Satanic Mills by Marcus and Julian Sedgwick (Library)
#96 Touch by Claire North (TBR)
#97 The Very Dead of Winter by Mary Hocking (TBR)
#98 Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce (Reread)
#99 The Cruellest Month by Louise Penny (Reread)
#100 Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (Library)
#101 How to Create the Perfect Wife by Wendy Moore (Library)
#102 Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones (Reread)
#103 House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones (TBR)
#104 To Have and To Hold by Mary Johnston (Free kindle)
#105 The Far Cry by Emma Smith (TBR)
#106 Mr and Mrs Disraeli by Daisy Hay (Library)
#107 Apple and Rain by Sarah Crossan (Library)
#108 Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay (TBR)
#109 Why Didn't They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie (Reread)
#110 Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr (TBR)
#111 Time and Again by Jack Finney (Library)
#112 Cotillion by Georgette Heyer (TBR)

Books read in January
#1 The Lady of the Shroud by Bram Stoker (TBR)
#2 Frost in May by Antonia White (TBR)
#3 The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman (Library)
#4 The Girl with all the Gifts by M. R. Carey (Library)
#5 The Kingdom of Gods by N. K. Jemisin (Omnibus)
#6a The Awakened Kingdom by N. K. Jemisin (TBR)
#6b Bloodchild (short story) by Octavia E. Butler (Free kindle)
#7 The Lost Traveller by Antonia White (TBR)
#8 Year of the Griffin by Diana Wynne Jones (TBR)
#9 A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro (TBR)
#10 Patricia Brent, Spinster by Herbert Jenkins (Free kindle)
#11 The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley (Library)
#12 Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch (TBR)
#13 Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively (Library)
#14 An Episode of Sparrows by Rumer Godden (TBR)
#15 Italian Mysteries by Francis Lathom (TBR)
#16 Fables: The Deluxe Edition Book Two by Bill Willingham (Library)
#17 The Hound of Death by Agatha Christie (Reread)
#18 The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell (TBR)
#19 Arabella by Georgette Heyer (TBR)
#20 Lamentation by C. J. Sansom (TBR)

Books read in February
#21 Taltos by Steven Brust (Omnibus)
#22 Yendi by Steven Brust (Reread)
#23 Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth (TBR)
#24 The Doctor, His Wife and the Clock by Anna Katharine Green (Free kindle)
#25 What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton (TBR)
#26 The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope (TBR)
#27 Jhereg by Steven Brust (Reread)
#28 My Dear Charlotte by Hazel Holt (Free kindle)
#29 Wild Robert by Diana Wynne Jones (TBR)
#30 The Victorian House by Judith Flanders (Library)
#31 Freaky Families by Diana Wynne Jones (TBR)
#32 Still Life by Louise Penny (Reread)
#33 The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton (Library)
#34 Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden (TBR)
#35 A Man's Head by Georges Simenon (TBR)
#36 Earwig and the Witch by Diana Wynne Jones (TBR)
DNF Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters (Library)
#37 Dead Cold by Louise Penny (Reread)
#38 Clockwork by Philip Pullman (Library)

Books read in March
#39 The Neon Court by Kate Griffin (Library)
#40 The Imprudence of Prue by Sophie Fisher (Free kindle)
#41 The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson (TBR)
#42a The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal (TBR)
#42b Burning Girls by Veronica Schanoes (Free kindle)
#43 The City & the City by China Mieville (TBR)
#44 Teckla by Steven Brust (Reread)
#45 Deadlier than the Male: An Investigation into Feminine Crime Writing by Jessica Mann (TBR)
#46 Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England by Amanda Vickery (Library)
#47 Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple (TBR)
#48 Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Library)
#49 Ross Poldark by Winston Graham (TBR)
#50 The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett (Reread)
#51 The Dinosaur Hunters: A True Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery of the Prehistoric World by Deborah Cadbury (TBR)
#52 A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan (Library)
#53 Phoenix by Steven Brust (TBR)
#54 Dido and Pa by Joan Aiken (TBR)
#55 The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer (TBR)
#56 Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (Reread)
#57 A Shadow in Summer by Daniel Abraham (Omnibus)

Paper books acquired




I need to buy fewer books.

January
#1 A Sea-Grape Tree by Rosamond Lehmann
#2 The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope READ
#3 What Makes This Book So Great? by Jo Walton READ
#4 The Heather Blazing by Colm Toibin

February
#5 The Squire by Enid Bagnold
#6 Shadow and Betrayal by Daniel Abraham READ
#7 The Diary of an Ordinary Woman by Margaret Forster
#8 Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple READ
#9 The Priory by Dorothy Whipple READ
#10 The Closed Door and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple

March
#11 Dido and Pa by Joan Aiken READ
#12 Peking Picnic by Ann Bridge
#13 The Book of Athyra by Steven Brust READ

April
#14 The Far Cry by Emma Smith READ
#15 Tea with Mr Rochester by Frances Towers READ
#16 Mariana by Monica Dickens
#17 The Sugar House by Antonia White READ

May
#18 The Lunar Men by Jenny Uglow
#19 Basil Street Blues by Michael Holroyd
#20 Hidden Lives by Margaret Forster
#21 The Wool-Pack by Cynthia Harnett READ
#22 Fanny and the Monsters by Penelope Lively
#23 The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley READ
#24 Jenny Wren by E. H. Young
#25 Evelina by Fanny Burney READ
#26 House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones READ

June
#27 Sisters by a River by Barbara Comyns READ
#28 The Whispering Mountain by Joan Aiken

July
#29 Catwings by Ursula K. Le Guin READ
#30 Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings by Ursula K. Le Guin READ
#31 Jane on Her Own by Ursula K. Le Guin READ
#32 Catwings Return by Ursula K. Le Guin READ

August
#33 The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley READ
#34 Welcome Strangers by Mary Hocking
#35 Letters from Constance by Mary Hocking
#36 Indifferent Heroes by Mary Hocking
#37 Summer Half by Angela Thirkell READ
#38 Good Daughters by Mary Hocking
#39 The Brandons by Angela Thirkell
#40 Christmas at High Rising by Angela Thirkell READ
#41 Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
#42 Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns READ
#43 The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns
#44 The Land of Spices by Kate O'Brien
#45 Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope READ

September
#46 No. 17 by J. Jefferson Farjeon
#47 Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns READ
#48 Tortoise by Candlelight by Nina Bawden
#49 The Intergalactic Bus Trip

October
#50 Enter a Murderer by Ngaio Marsh
#51 Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie READ
#52 Cecilia by Fanny Burney READ
#53 Dervish Daughter by Sheri S Tepper

November
#54 The True Game by Sheri S Tepper
#55 The Language of the Night by Ursula K. Le Guin
#56 Tell Me a Riddle & Yonnondio by Tillie Olsen
#57 Strangers by Antonia White
#58 To Hold the Bridge by Garth Nix

December
#59 The Sterkarm Handshake by Susan Price
#60 The American Senator by Anthony Trollope
#61 The Mystery of Mrs Blencarrow by Mrs Oliphant

Kindle books acquired

Last year I changed my buying habits by trying to only buy kindle books when I was confident I would want to read them almost straight away rather than buying lots of ebooks in the sales or daily deals and then not reading them for ages. I think it worked pretty well and I've read 80% of the kindle books I bought last year. So, the plan is to do this again this year. I'll keep track of the number I've bought and read here.




January
#1 Italian Mysteries by Francis Lathom READ
#2 Deadlier Than the Male: An Investigation into Feminine Crime Writing by Jessica Mann READ
#3 Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch READ
#4 Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth READ
#5 Arabella by Georgette Heyer READ

February
#6 Wild Robert by Diana Wynne Jones READ
#7 Freaky Families by Diana Wynne Jones READ
#8 Earwig and the Witch by Diana Wynne Jones READ
#9 A Man's Head by Georges Simenon READ

March
#10 The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal READ
#11 Ross Poldark by Winston Graham READ
#12 The Grand Sophy by Georgetter Heyer READ
#13 The Hallowed Hunt by Lois McMaster Bujold READ

April
#14 Demelza by Winston Graham READ
#15 Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders READ
#16 The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison READ
#17 The Quiet Gentleman by Georgette Heyer READ
#18 Old Man's War by John Scalzi READ

May
#19 Goodnight Ophelia by Penelope Farmer
#20 Jeremy Poldark by Winston Graham READ
#21 Touch by Claire North READ
#22 The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer READ
#23 Warleggan by Winston Graham READ

June
#24 Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay READ
#25 Cotillion by Georgette Heyer READ

July
#26 Ha'Penny by Jo Walton READ
#27 The Dragon Variation by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller READ
#28 Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
#29 Penric's Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold READ
#30 Carpe Diem by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller READ
#31 The Toll-Gate by Georgette Heyer READ
#32 The Black Moon by Winston Graham READ
#33 The Four Swans by Winston Graham READ
#34 The Angry Tide by Winston Graham READ

August
#35 Korval's Game by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller READ
#36 The Yellow Dog by Georges Simenon READ
#37 Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch READ
#38 The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch

September
#39 How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny

October
#40 The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
#41 The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard READ
#42 Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald
#43 Glorious Angels by Justina Robson
#44 A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley READ
#45 We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi ADichie READ

November
#46 Witches of Lychford READ
#47 The Serpent by Claire North READ
#48 The Thief by Claire North READ
#49 The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers READ
#50 The Master by Claire North READ
#51 A Matter of Magic by Patricia C. Wrede
#52 Railhead by Philip Reeve READ

December
#53 A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume I by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
#54 Mouse and Dragon by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller READ

An idea borrowed from Liz (lyzard), this lists ongoing series that I am actively reading. This doesn't include series where I have the first book in my TBR pile (i.e. series I haven't started reading yet aren't included). An asterisk indicates a series where I already have a copy of the next book.

Series I'm actively* reading (*for a rather lax definition of active)
*Albert Campion: Next up Hide My Eyes by Margery Allingham (19/25)
*Barsetshire Books by Angela Thirkell: Reading out of order. Next up The Brandons (5/29 read)
*Ebenezer Gryce: Next up That Affair Next Door by Anna Katharine Green (8/13)
*Fables: Next up Fables, Vol. 11: War and Pieces by Bill Willingham (11/22)
Finishing School: Next up Manners & Mutiny by Gail Carriger (4/4)
*Frost in May Quartet: Next up Beyond the Glass by Antonia White (4/4)
*The Gentleman Bastard Sequence: Next up: The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch (3/4)
*Gilead: Next up Lila by Marilynne Robinson (3/3)
The Girl Who: Next up The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two by Catherynne M. Valente (4/5)
Hainish Cycle: (Reading out of order) Next up Rocannon's World by Ursula K. Le Guin (3/8)
Hilary Tamar: Next up: The Shortest Way to Hades by Sarah Caudwell (2/4)
*Mairelon the Magician: Next up Magician's Ward by Patricia C. Wrede (2/2)
Lady Trent's Memoirs: Next up Voyage of the Basilisk by Marie Brennan (3/4)
*Liaden Universe Publication Order: Next up Fledgling by Shareon Lee & Steve Miller (9/21)
The Long Price Quartet: Next up An Autumn War by Daniel Abraham (3/4)
Maigret: Next up The Hanged Man of Saint Pholien by Georges Simenon (4/76)
*Mrs Tim: Next up Mrs Tim Carries On by D. E. Stevenson (2/4)
The Palliser Novels: Next up: The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope (5/6)
Poldark Saga: Next up The Stranger from the Sea by Winston Graham (8/12)
*Roderick Alleyn: Next up Enter a Murderer by Ngaio Marsh (2/32)
Seraphina: Next up Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman (2/2)
Small Change: Next up Half a Crown by Jo Walton (3/3)
*Tales of a New Jerusalem: Next up Family Britain, 1951-57 by David Kynaston (2/5?)
Vlad Taltos: Next up Dragon by Steven Brust (8/14)
Wolves Chronicles: Next up Midwinter Nightingale by Joan Aiken (10/11)

Series I've stalled on but want to get back to
*Allan Quatermain: Next up Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard (2/15)
*Arsène Lupin: Next up Arsène Lupin vs. Holmlock Shears by Maurice Leblanc (2/23?)
*Barsoom: Next up The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (3/11)
Bas-Lag: Next up The Scar by China Mieville (2/3)
*Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox: Next up Eight Skilled Gentlemen by Barry Hughart (3/3)
*Cicero: Next up Lustrum by Robert Harris (2/3)
David Wintringham by Josephine Bell: Reading out of order (2/12 read)
*Dolphin Ring Cycle: Next up Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff (5/8)
Dragonriders of Pern: Next up Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey (2/25)
Dragonslayer: Next up The Eye of Zoltar by Jasper Fforde (3/4)
Empire Trilogy: Next up: The Singapore Grip by J. G. Farrell (3/3)
*Father Brown: Next up: The Wisdom of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton (2/5)
*Fionavar Tapestry: Next up The Darkest Road by Guy Gavriel Kay (3/3)
Green Knowe: Next up: The Chimneys of Green Knowe by L. M. Boston (2/6)
Jimm Juree: Next up Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach by Colin Cotterill (2/2)
Julia Probyn: Next up The Portugese Escape by Ann Bridge (2/8)
Les Voyages Extraordinaires: Next up From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne (4/54)
*The Long Earth: Next up The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter (2/3)
The Magicians: Next up The Magician King by Lev Grossman (2/3)
Mistborn: Next up Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson (5/6)
Old Filth: Next up Last Friends by Jane Gardam (3/3)
The Penderwicks: Next up The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall (2/4)
*The Prairie Trilogy: Next up The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather (3/3) (Reading out of order)
*Richard Hannay: Next up The Three Hostages by John Buchan (4/5)
Romantic Poets and Nephilim: Next up A Time to Cast Away Stones in The Bible Repairman and Other Stories by Tim Powers (2/3)
Ruth Galloway: Next up A Dying Fall by Elly Griffiths (5/7)
Dr. Siri Paiboun: Next up: Curse of the Pogo Stick by Colin Cotterill (5/9)
*A Song of Ice and Fire: Next up A Dance with Dragons by G. R. R. Martin (5/7?)
Sorcery and Celia: Next up The Grand Tour by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer (2/3)
*Turtle: Next up Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver (2/2)
Wars of Light and Shadow: Next up Ships of Merior by Janny Wurts (2/10?)
Young Pilots: Next up Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein (2/3)

Series I'm rereading
*Colonel Race: Next up Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie (2/4)
*Discworld: Next up Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett (6/40)
*Hercule Poirot: Next up: Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie (13/39)
*Chief Inspector Armand Gamache: Next up A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny (7/11)
*Miss Marple: Next up The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie (3/13)
*Parasol Protectorate: Next up Timeless by Gail Carriger (5/5)
*Superintendent Battle: Next up Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie (3/5)
*Thursday Next: Next up The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jasper Fforde (7/7)
Tommy and Tuppence: Next up N or M? by Agatha Christie (3/5)

Up to date series
Matthew Shardlake: Latest book Lamentation by C. J. Sansom (6/6)
Ms. Marvel 2014: Next up Ms. Marvel, Vol. 4: Last Days by G. Willow Wilson (4/?)
Old Kingdom by Garth Nix (4/4)
Peter Grant: Next up The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch (6/6)
Shades of Grey: Latest book Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde (1/3)
Wolf Hall: Latest book Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (2/3)
World of the Five Gods: Latest book Penric's Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold (4/4)

Completed series
Catwings by Ursula K. Le Guin(4/4)
Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones (3/3)
Gameshouse Novellas by Claire North (3/3)
Howl's Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (3/3)
Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie (3/3)
Inheritance Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin (4/4)
Just Patty by Jean Webster (2/2)
Matthew Swift by Kate Griffin (4/4)

A few plans which snuck in under the radar....

The little bit of planning I'm allowing myself is Liz's tutored/group/shared reads as follows (shamelessly copied and pasted from her thread)

2015 group activities:

Tutored reads:
January: Italian Mysteries by Francis Lathom
March: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Group reads:
February: The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope
May: Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
July: Evelina by Fanny Burney
September: Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope

Virago chronological reads:
April: Millenium Hall by Sarah Scott
November / December: Cecilia by Fanny Burney

Georgette Heyer:
Arabella
The Grand Sophy
The Quiet Gentleman
Cotillion
The Toll-Gate
Bath Tangle
Sprig Muslin
April Lady

Agatha Christie:
The Hound Of Death
Murder on the Orient Express
The Listerdale Mystery
Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
Parker Pyne Investigates
Three Act Tragedy
Death in the Clouds
The ABC Murders
Murder in Mesopotamia

Georges Simenon:
The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien
La Tête d'un Homme (aka A Man's Head)
The Yellow Dog
The Night at the Crossroads

Happy new thread, Heather! Still have to catch up with your previous thread, but I am snagging a seat here first!

Happy new thread, Heather. What a lot of good books here!

Happy New Thread, Heather!

I have come to your belief that "that I get most enjoyment from my reading when I let myself pick up whatever I feel like rather than the book I feel I should be reading." Although I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the authors in the American and British Author challenges, I was saddened that I was concentrating more on those than the other books I've so wanted to read. So next year, I'm going to forgo the challenges of any sort and just follow my whims. I've already started and I'm happy with that.

Happy new thread! I love your topper so much that I have a reproduction hanging above the bookcase next to my bed!

Hi Heather! I fell hopelessly behind on your last thread, and though I do still intend to catch up on all I missed, am quite pleased you have a new thread for me to start over with. Happy New Thread! and happy continued reading. It looks like the little planning you did is going well despite your intention to follow your whims!

Happy new thread, Heather!

Came by while you were under construction, so returned to wish you Happy New Thread, Heather!

Happy new thread, Heather!

Congrats on your shiny new thread, Heather. I'm impressed by your series. There is a lot going on. I should keep an eye on my series, too.

Happy new thread, Heather!

>10 Crazymamie:, >11 BLBera:, >12 Carmenere:, >13 cbl_tn:, >14 Smiler69:, >15 humouress:, >16 ronincats:, >17 scaifea:, >18 Ameise1:, >19 connie53: Thank you for the good wishes on the new thread! I genuinely intended to write a couple of reviews after creating it but suddenly Monday came round again and then work hit me hard.

>12 Carmenere: Lynda, I'm glad you're finding following your whims results in more enjoyment of what you're reading. I have been debating whether or not to follow along with some of the author challenges next year and I think I may keep track of them but not really commit to anything because I have enjoyed reading with my mood so much this year.

>13 cbl_tn: How lovely, Carrie! I chose the picture because of the autumnal colours. I don't think I'd seen it before but I like it a lot.

>18 Ameise1: Yes, I think the series lists may be a little out of control....

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Book #177: Some of the Best From Tor.com: 2014 edited by Ellen Datlow - 4 stars



Book #195: Complete Short Stories by Elizabeth Taylor - 4 stars



I'm bad at reading short story collections: I either get distracted by a compelling longer narrative, or an impending library deadline or the frantic rush at the end of the month to meet the Take It or Leave It challenge. Even having the short story collection on my bedside table doesn't seem to give me the nudge to remember to pick these collections up. So, it's actually taken me the best part of the year to finish these two collections reading one on my kindle and one in (a massive) paperback.

Some of the Best From Tor.com: 2014 was a great anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories (and some longer novellas or noveletters) and I discovered a lot of new interesting writers to follow.

Complete Short Stories by Elizabeth Taylor were also very good - I always enjoy Taylor's insight into the everyday and domestic and the internal lives of people. I wasn't such a big fan of this recent edition - it contains all the short stories Taylor published which were previously published as separate collections (such as The Devastating Boys and The Blush) along with some stories which have not previously been published. But there's no information about when each story was published, what order they're listed in, which book they were originally in and I would really have liked to know that.

--------------------------------------------

Having finished these two chunksters I have added a much shorter collection of short stories to my bedside table with the hope that I won't be quite so remiss at reading from it this time. So far, I am two stories in to the lovely Persephone edition of Tea with Mr Rochester by Frances Towers and enjoying the stories a lot.

Lovely opening painting, Heather. Happy last thread of 2015!

I'm also bad at reading short story collections, but it sounds like you really enjoy these by Elizabeth Taylor. Well done!

I have the Taylor short story collection but have never read it cover to cover. I think I've read most of the stories already through Virago editions. I agree it would be nice if it were indexed somehow so I could easily find the ones I haven't read before.

>21 lit_chick: Thanks Nancy.

>22 lauralkeet: Laura, I think the stories are in publication order but I'm not sure.

Book #181: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie - 5 stars
Book #182: Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie - 5 stars
Book #183: Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie - 5 stars



(I have only just realised that the covers make one continous picture when lined up like that).

*Please accept my apologies for a bit of a fan-girl review*

It's rare that I read more than one book by an author back to back and although I reread quite often it's rare that I read a book more than once in the same year. But I did both of these things with this series when the concluding volume, Ancillary Mercy was released. I love these books and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to do them justice with this review.

They're space opera which I think can sound quite cold - all about artificial intelligence, space ships, space stations etc. But although all these things are in these books, they're primarily about the relationships between the characters (and the characters are some of my favourites in fiction) and are warm, funny and sad by turns.

Leckie's use of gendered pronouns throughout this series has come in for some comment - the primary civilization in her book is gendered but doesn't care much about gender and doesn't use gendered pronouns at all. To show this in the book Leckie uses female gencdered pronouns throughout (she, her etc.). I liked this, probably because I like books that play around with gender ideas, occasionally there are clues to a character's underlying gender (I only really spotted these when rereading) but I think for the majority of the characters there is really no information either way and it was interesting to see how my perception of characters could be influenced by this. I've read that Leckie is a big fan of Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and I think you could almost see Ancillary Justice as a response of some kind to Le Guin's book. The books share a lot of similar themes - the gender issue is probably the most obvious, but also themes of friendship, sacrifice and someone struggling to come to grips with a culture as an outsider.

In addition to the big serious themes there were so many little touches I also loved and admired even more on rereading: tea is a marker of status and an obsession to the characters that as a Brit I can only approve of, the cultural significance of gloves, Breq's singing and the way the crew of Kalr join in to name a few. And I cannot describe how much I loved the characters in these books - the main character, an AI called Breq, is wonderful and my personal favourite but Translator Zeiat who only finishes in Ancillary Mercy almost stole the show in that book.

I dithered for a long time about ratings: structurally Ancillary Justice is the strongest and probably the best book of the three and I feel like that distinction should be reflected in my ratings but I loved these books so much that after writing this I've ended up on a 5 star rating for all three.

For those interested in the gender angle there's an interesting article by Ann Leckie on the thinking behind her gendered language here.

>23 souloftherose: Good to hear, Heather. I really liked the first book and have the second and third here on my tbr shelf. I read the first from the library and although I intended to buy it when I bought the third, Mysterious Galaxy didn't have it in stock. I do want to reread the first and go straight into the other two from there.

>24 ronincats: I think they work really well being read back to back as it's really one continuing story across the three books. I hope you can get your hands on a copy of the first to reread soon.

Hi Heather, I am a little late to your brand new thread but I do love your opening picture. A trilogy where each volume gets a 5 star rating is a trilogy that I must read!

*sigh* I really, really enjoyed Ancillary Justice, but I haven't been able to get the other two yet. Thanks for your review. You make me want them a LOT!!! And I'm favoriting #23 so that I can come back for Leckie's remarks on gendered language.

>26 DeltaQueen50: Oh, I do hope you enjoy them Judy.

>27 LizzieD: Peggy, if you really, really enjoyed Ancillary Justice, I predict you will really, really enjoy the next two. I hope you can get hold of them soon.

Book #189: The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard - 3.7 stars



Intriguing fantasy novel set in an alternate 20th century, post-apocalyptic Paris where various houses/factions strive for influence and power in the war torn landscape. There's an interesting mix of Christian mythology (angels fallen from heaven) and Vietnamese mythology as the author is Franco-Vietnamese, living in Paris but writes in English. I enjoyed the world-builidng and the descriptions of the now-ruined Paris. A lot is left unexplained (we never really find out the details of what left Paris and the rest of the world in this state) but I was ok with that. The author has said there may be further novels set in this world but she's not sure if they will be direct sequels or focus on a different house.

There are some short story collections/novellas from the same author in the same series which brings me to:

Book #194.5: In Morningstar's Shadow by Aliette de Bodard - 3.7 stars (not really long enough to count as a whole book)



Three short stories that precede The House of Shattered Wings and give a bit more insight into the history of some of the characters in the novel. This is currently available as a free ebook on Amazon UK and I think worth a try. It doesn't matter which one you read first.

Also available as an ebook (but not a free one) is Of Books, and Earth, and Courtship, another prequel which I haven't read but probably will do so as I like this author.

Book #197: Tinder by Sally Gardner, illustrated by David Roberts - 4.1 stars



Shortlisted for both the 2015 Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal (one for writing, one for illustration) this is an illustrated retelling of The Tinderbox, one of Hans Christian Andersen's fairytales, set during Europe's 17th century Thirty Years' War. This is a dark fairy tale retelling but not without hope and well deserving of its award nominations.

Book #199: Nimona by Noelle Stevenson - 4.2 stars



A very entertaining and thought-provoking graphic novel set in a quasi-medieval society which also has access to science! (mandatory exclamation mark). Blackheart is a supervillain, trying to take down the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics and his arch-nemesis, Sir Goldenloin. Nimona turns up out of the blue and insists on being taken on as his side-kick and that's when things start to get complicated.

Wishlisted The House of Shattered Wings, Heather. It looks good.

Hi Heather - Tinder is beautiful. Nimona was a fun one, wasn't it?

I've just reserved Nimona from the library. Only one copy though, so I'll have to wait my turn. I'll look for Tinder too. I had taken out a version of The Tinderbox illustrated by Bagram Ibatouline and retold by Stephen Mitchell, which was simply gorgeous. The cover gives you a bit of an idea:

Hi Heather!
I'm finally getting round to catching up with some of my favourites here on LT! I haven't read any of your reviews of the Leckie's because I have the first one at the top of the TBR pile and want to get to it soon but don't want any spoilers, not that I think you'll include spilers as such, just that I want to discover what's good about it for myself I guess. 3 lots of 5 stars certainly seems like a ringing endorsement though!

De-lurking Thanks for the review of The House of Shattered Wings & In Morningstar's Shadow wish listed ...

Agree with you on Ancillary series if you can read them back to back - Just received Ancillary Mercy looking to read the other two again before I read....

*sigh* *back into lurk*

>12 Carmenere: & >20 souloftherose: Lynda & Heather, I think that yours is the right approach. There is no point in reading something you don't really fancy just because of a particular challenge - be it AAC, CAC, TIOLI or my BAC. What I do like about the challenges is that it allows me to focus or choose part of my reading whilst I can use whim and fancy for the rest.

If a challenge coincides with what you want to read then great, if it doesn't pass it by - my tears soon dry :D

Congratulations for whizzing beyond 200 books already, Heather. With life distractions I haven't been around here anywhere near as much as I would normally like and I only just noticed that you are working your way through the Poldark books. I have got the first two and may follow in your footsteps shortly.

Have a lovely Sunday. xx

>30 Fourpawz2: Hope you enjoy it, Charlotte!

>31 BLBera: Yes, the drawings in Tinder were stunning and Nimona was fun! I was looking at some of Noelle Stevenson's other graphic novels (Lumberjanes) but the library doesn't have them.

>32 Smiler69: The cover looks lovely, Ilana - I've only previously read one book illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline which was Kate DiCamillo's The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (I think also on your recommendation).

>33 HanGerg: Hannah, I do hope you enjoy Ancillary Justice.

>34 roundballnz: Thanks for delurking Alex - I hope you enjoy your reread of the first two Leckie books.

>35 LizzieD: Aw, Peggy, come back!

>36 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul. I have been making a list of the BAC (and CAC) choices and will definitely consider them each month :-)

And speaking of the Poldarks:

Book #188: The Four Swans by Winston Graham - 3.9 stars
Book #204: The Angry Tide by Winston Graham - 4.5 stars



Books 6 and 7 in the Poldark Saga - I'm still reeling emotionally from the The Angry Tide, particularly the ending. Graham writes his characters so well that even though I often feel incredibly frustrated with Ross for his inability to let things go, he is still a sympathetic character. Anyway, impossible to summarise the plot without all kinds of spoilers but there is no shortage of drama in the lives of the characters. To offset the awfulness of Elizabeth's death I was pleased that there was a glimmer of happiness ahead for Drake and Morwenna.

Although there are another 5 books in the Poldark Saga I think this is the last one that focuses on Ross, Demelza and co. Book 8, The Stranger from the Sea, is set 10 years later and I think follows the lives of their children. I may take a brief break to allow my emotions to settle before picking this one up in the new year.

Book #200: Railsea by China Mieville - 4.5 stars



China Mieville blows my mind a little bit. How can he be so consistently inventive? Railsea is different to any of the other Mieville books I've read - I started of thinking it was a steampunk fantasy but by the end wasn't sure whether it was actually a futuristic dystopic version of Earth. It's probably one of the most complex young adult novels I've read, it's very clever and has a lot of literary allusions and yet the story also completely sucked me in. The most obvious literary inspiration is Moby Dick but there are also elements of Greek myths and R. L. Stevenson's adventure stories. On top of all that, and most importantly, it was great fun to read.

Book #203: Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach - 3.8 stars



Mary Roach has the ability to take a slightly obscure (and often slightly gross) subject and make it fascinating and funny to read about. Gulp is no exception and although I admit I was careful not to read it around mealtimes (just in case) I was always fascinated but, surprisingly, rarely grossed out.

>37 souloftherose: I don't think I got that far with the Poldark saga. Maybe I should give it another go.

>38 souloftherose: It looks like I should try some Mieville. I always think that 'China' is a lady's name, though. And Gulp looks like a good book to buy for the library I volunteer at.

>37 souloftherose: That has tipped the balance I will be starting Poldark this week. xx

You got me with Railsea, Heather. Adding that one to the list!

>39 humouress: I love the Poldarks, Nina, but I don't think the later books are particularly different to the earlier ones - not trying to put you off but it's probably one where if you don't like the first book you probably won't like the others either.

I was actually reading something about where China Mieville's name came from in this interview:

My parents were hippies, and the story is that they went through a dictionary looking for a beautiful word to name me. They nearly called me Banyan, but flipped a few pages on and reached “China,” thankfully. The other reason they liked it is that “china” is Cockney rhyming slang for “mate.” People say “my old china,” meaning “my old mate,” because “china plate” rhymes with “mate.”

>40 PaulCranswick: Ha ha - got you! :-)

>41 Crazymamie: I hope you enjoy Railsea Mamie - it was a fun read!

Book #193: A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley - 4.4 stars



I seem to have really got into old-fashioned children's timeslip novels this year (earlier this year I read and loved Tom's Midnight Garden and Charlotte Sometimes). Strangely, A Traveller in Time is probably the one I've had on my wishlist the longest and the one it took me the longest to get round to reading.

The story apparently comes from vivid dreams the author had as a child living in rural Derbyshire. In the story the young Penelope Taberner Cameron is sent to stay with her uncle and aunt at their farm, Thackers, to recover her health after a long childhood illness. This part of the story is set in the early 20th century - reading these books it always strikes me how often children used to have serious illnesses which required long convalescences. Thanks to vaccines and antibiotics these seem thankfully so much less common now.

Penelope loves life at Thackers but is surprised to find herself also slipping in and out of local life in the 16th century when Thackers was a country manor house. The whole novel has a dreamlike quality to it including the way Penelope's presence in the 16th century is accepted - some people realise she's out of her own time and others just accept her as a distant relative of the cook/housekeeper at the time. Mixed up with this is the fact that Mary Queen of Scots is currently imprisoned at the nearby Wingfield Manor and that the owners of the Thackers are the Babingtons who were loyal supporters of Mary Queen of Scots and were involved in plots against Elizabeth I which eventually led to Mary's execution.

This was a lovely, evocative book - in many ways very unlike novels would be written for children/young adults today but beautiful if melancholy as we and Penelope are only too aware of the tragedies that will overcome her friends in the 16th century.

>42 souloftherose: I did enjoy the Poldark series, and I got quite a long way in, but I don't think I got to the end (maybe the library didn't have them). But it was quite a while ago; I think I'll try and find them again.

>42 souloftherose:: A Traveller in Time and Charlotte Sometimes were childhood favourites for me, and I've reread them in the last few years. Suzanne has just reread A Traveller in Time too. For some reason I remember nothing about Tom's Midnight Garden (think I might have read it and I do have a copy) - time to rectify that perhaps.

A Traveller in Time sounds wonderful, Heather! I also read Tom's Midnight Garden earlier this year and loved it!

You will find plenty of Ross and Demelza in the rest of the series, Heather. I can, however, respect your need for a break!
A Traveller in Time does sound lovely!

>42 souloftherose: Hah! You have gotten me again with that one, Heather.

Have a great weekend.

Hi Heather, I finally find time to do some weekend greetings. Wishing you a most lovely weekend.

I love Mary Roach - She is an original thinker. I've read Bonk and one other of hers -- it's not coming to mind right now. I got to meet her a couple of years ago, and the amount of research she does is amazing.

You also got me with A Traveller in Time -- another one to add to my future-Scout-reads pile.

>43 humouress: They are very entertaining reads Nina, I hope you can find them.

>44 elkiedee: Yes, it was seeing Suzanne list A Traveller in Time for one of the TIOLI challenges that finally inspaired me to get a copy. Very happy she did because I loved it. I think if you enjoyed A Traveller in Time and Charlotte Sometimes then you will love Tom's Midnight Garden so do find a copy. I've been meaning to go on to try Philippa Pearce's other books none of which I read as a child.

>45 lit_chick: I think you would love A Traveller in Time Nancy.

>46 LizzieD: Good to hear, Peggy - I'm looking forward to getting back to the Poldarks soon but this year seems to be running away from me a bit.

>46 LizzieD:, >47 PaulCranswick: Yay - more people intrigued by A Traveller in Time - it's on the 1,001 children's books list and I think deserves its place there.

>48 Ameise1: Thank you Barbara - that's a lovely image :-)

>49 BLBera: Mary Roach, is definitely an original thinker Beth. I've still got a few of her books to read which I will borrow from the library at some point (Bonk is one).

Book #185: The Prestige by Christopher Priest - 4.2 stars



I'd heard a lot of good things about Christopher Priest and this novel in particular before finally getting around to reading it. You're perhaps more likely to know it as the Christopher Nolan film (also called The Prestige) about two 19th century feuding magicians. I saw the film several years ago (I think without realising it was based on a novel) - I can't remember as many details of the film but having now read the book I would say it seems as faithful an adaptation as a popular film could be of what is quite a complex novel.

Anyway, the book is very hard to describe, partly because it's the sort of book where it's made clear very early on that nothing may be as it seems. It's not a book I'd recommend if you like feeling that you've understood everything that happened once you've finished. It's brilliant, very clever, deftly written and won or was nominated for a whole bag of awards when it was originally published (one fantasy, two science fiction and one literary - like I said, kind of a hard book to pin down).

So, I will definitely be exploring more of Christopher Priest's books in the future.

Book #192: Victorian People and Ideas by Richard D. Altick - 4.5 stars



(Clearly published at a time when publishers didn't feel they had to make book covers look appealing! It's very brown.)

Subtitled 'A Companion for the Modern Reader of Victorian Literature' this is an excellent and (unsually for a book written by an academic) very readable look at the beliefs and ideas which influenced Victorian authors and readers. It's therefore more of a cultural history rather than a social history but invaluable for a reader who wants to really get to grips with Victorian literature. By way of evangelicalism, romanticism, utilitarianism and probably some other 'isms' that I've forgotten, Altick makes the case that the period of time we think of when someone says 'Victiorian' is actually the relatively short 20 years from 1850-1870 and that things were very different earlier and later in Queen Victoria's reign. I took lots of notes whilst I was reading but I found this so helpful that I think I want my own copy. I also appreciated that Altick seems to have a fairly balanced view of the ideaologies of the period and never completely dismisses or demonises a particular group.

Liz wrote a much better review when she read this last year which you can find here.

An attempt at some shorter reviews:

Book #194: The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie - 3.2 stars



A reread and one where I remembered the solution! I don't know whether I just wasn't in the right mood but I didn't enjoy this as much as I remembered from my previous reads.

Book #195.5: We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - 3 stars



Three stars for the format rather than the content - this is a transcription of a 30 minute TED talk Adichie gave in 2012. The talk is great (on youtube here) but I found the exact same content didn't work in print format - what sounded good when spoken came across as very simplistic language when written. So, as a very short ebook it gets 3 stars but I would definitely recommend the TED talk.

Book #196: Letters to Children by C. S. Lewis - 3.2 stars



A short selection of letters C. S. Lewis wrote to children throughout his life in response to letters they had written to him (mostly about his Narnia books). I was impressed to read that he replied personally to each and every letter he received. I always feel a bit frustrated with collections of letters as they usually only show one side of the correspondence - this is the case again here and I kept wanting to see what the children had written to Lewis. His responses are good, always take the children's questions seriously. They're very Christian and sometimes quite critical if the children have sent him samples of their writing. I was a bit taken aback by both - neither is something I can imagine a modern author doing but it's interesting to see a glimpse into these relationships. I think the criticisms Lewis made of the children's writing goes alongside him taking them seriously - he wouldn't just respond (as I would) to say 'How lovely!' but tells them what he liked and then gives them points to work on. Lots of the children wrote back again so I imagine they weren't bothered by this. And I'm not sure why I still feel so taken aback by this.

Book #198: Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell - 4 stars



Part of a publishing series of novellas by tor.com (by publishing series I mean none of the novellas are connected other than by their publisher) - I heard an interview with the author, a British science fiction and fantasy author whose married to a Church of England vicar and lives in the Cotswolds. He wanted to write a modern fantasy story that reflected what life is like in rural parts of England today and this is the result. I really enjoyed it - it takes an event common to a lot of small towns (the proposed opening of a supermarket on the edge of town) and successfully combines this with more traditional fantasy elements like the fae and witches. The witches elements reminded me in some ways of Terry Pratchett's Witches novels in that both authors are taking the traditional tales of three witches and putting a more modern spin on it. I will definitely be checking out more of his books and I'm happy to hear that Tor have commissioned some more novellas in the same setting.

Book #201: Heartless by Gail Carriger - 3.3 stars

#

A reread and one I wasn't such a fan of this time around. Alexia is starting to get on my nerves a bit and I'm sure the amount of running around she does in this book is completely unrealistic for anyone 8 months pregnant let alone for a woman in the 19th century, even an alternate one. Maybe I just need to take a break from this series for a bit.

Okay, the Cornell book went straight to the wishlist!

Wow!! Congrats on surging past your high goal of 200 books this year! Very impressive. Maybe next year you can rub off on me a little and I will make my 75. : )

>54 ronincats: Ooh, I hope you enjoy it Roni!

>55 Berly: Thanks Kim! I seem to have read a lot this year - no doubt helped by lots of graphic novels and ebook novellas and very little heavy reading...

-----------------------------
Some more novellas:

Book #202: The Serpent by Claire North - 3.9 stars
Book #210: The Thief by Claire North - 3.9 stars
Book #211: The Master by Claire North - 3.7 stars



Three linked novellas from Catherine Webb writing as Claire North: the Gameshouse is a mysterious establishment which exists in several times and places throughout history. It's a place where people come to test their skill and luck in games like chess and backgammon, but a select few are invited into an even more exclusive league where games of skill are played out in the real world and the results of these games can topple kingdoms and dynasties.

Each novella focuses on a different individual who is a member of this league: the first, The Serpent is set in 16th century Venice, The Thief is about a deadly game of hide & seek in 1930s Thailand and The Master is a game of chess played across hundreds of years all over the world. I enjoyed all of these but I thought The Master was the weakest of the three because of its ending - there was an attempt to tie all these games into something more meaningful which I didn't think really worked.

I have very little brain lately so there have been a lot of comfort rereads:

Book #206: Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett - 3.8 stars



Continuing my (very) slow reread of the Discworld novels. Strangely I remembered liking this less than the first two Rincewind books (which probably explains why it took me so long to get round to rereading it) but I actually enjoyed it more than either Rincewind novel on this reread. On rereading it was strange seeing a lot of things that never made it into any of the later Discworld novels (Granny Weatherwax's teaching position at Unseen University for example) as if this was still not the final version of Discworld. I almost think of Esk as the Beta version of Tiffany Aching.

Book #208: Sabriel by Garth Nix - 4.3 stars



I love the world Nix has created with the mix of magic from the Old Kingdom and the world more mundane and similar to ours across the wall. Sabriel is a great protagonist even if she seems much older than the 18 year old she's supposed to be. There's a bit of romance and a lot of close escapes from the very dark forces threatening to overwhelm both worlds. I thought it was fitting that at the end it's only the combination of forces and the sacrifices made by people from both worlds that are enough to counteract these forces.

Book #212: Lirael by Garth Nix - 4.5 stars



Lirael is a sequel to Sabriel but set about 14/15 years later with a different protagonist. Initially I was slightly disappointed that we don't get to find out what happened to Sabriel and Touchstone immediately after the end of Sabriel but that disappointment fasded when I realised I liked Lirael as a character even more than Sabriel. Lirael is a lot more vulnerable than Sabriel so it's more meaningful watching her overcome this (with the help of the wonderful Disreputable Dog). Also, she's a librarian! In some ways Lirael is just buildup to the events that will follow in Abhorsen but I really enjoyed Lirael's personal journey and discovering more about the magic of the Old Kingdom so, if anything, I enjoyed this more than the first book.

And the only thing that stopped me going on to read the next book, Abhorsen, straight away was that I didn't own a copy and had to order one. (It's arrived now - yay!)

Book #213: Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny - 4 stars



One of my favourites of the Louise Penny stories this has three threads to the story; the first is one where Gamache and Jean-Guy are recovering from a Sûreté operation that seems to have badly gone wrong. In the second, Gamache has asked Jean-Guy to go back to Three Pines to investigate the case they thought they had closed in The Brutal Telling but about which Gamache is now having doubts and in the third Gamache is on leave in Quebec City but is unable to stop himself getting involved in a murder case which seems to be tied up with the historical mystery of the location of Samuel de Champlain's remains. After all, where would crime fiction be if detectives ever took real holidays?

>36 PaulCranswick: LOL I'm glad the tears subsided quickly, Paul. I will certainly keep tabs on your list and if something clicks BLAM! I'm on it.

Heather, you totally amaze me! 213 books and the year is not over. So impressed :0)
Gulp and Railsea look interesting. After The City and The City, I'm a bit scared of Mieville but I may see if my library has this one.

I really enjoyed Bury Your Dead, too. It's rare for me to find each thread in a multi-thread story equally compelling, but I was caught up in all three...

Heather, so glad you're enjoying Louise Penny. I really like Bury Your Dead, too. And you've introduced me to the Claire North novellas which sound very interesting : ).

Wishing you a lovely weekend, Heather.

>59 katiekrug:, >60 lit_chick:, >61 Ameise1: Hi Katie, Nancy and Barbara - thanks for stopping by!

Just to prove I have been doing a tiny bit of more serious reading:

Book #207: A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr - 3.8 stars



Long and detailed but ultimately rewarding, this covers the history and politics of Britain from 1945 to the early 2000s (the book was published in 2007). I get the title of this book confused with a sequel called The Making of Modern Britain which was published a couple of years later and covers the first half of the 20th century (on my too read pile). I'm sure the author has a bias but I couldn't really spot it and felt he presented the successes and failures of the various parties fairly equally. What came across was that post-WWII Britain seems to have lurched from one financial crisis to another which is oddly encouraging in a way given that we experienced another crisis almost as soon as Marr had written the book. Recommended for anyone interested in British politics in the second half of the 20th century.

Book #214: The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin - 3.7 stars



A biography of Dickens' mistress, Nelly Ternan - I suppose strictly I should write alleged mistress as I think there are still some scholars who claim nothing happened but to a non-scholar like me that seems unlikely. This was probably quite a tough book to write as so many documents and letters were destoyed that it's difficult to do more than state the known facts about Ternan's life - there's no real sense of her personaility in the book. Nelly Ternan came from a family of actresses and she met Dickens when he was putting on a play of The Frozen Deep. Dickens became obsessed with Nelly and eventually kicked his wife out of their marital home and set Nelly up in a separate establishment. Their affair continued until Dickens' death. Dickens doesn't come out of this well but I thought Tomalin did a good job of exploring his motivations and the way he was caught between his own desire to keep up his appearance of a wholesome family man and his love for Nelly. It's more difficult to know what Nelly Ternan thought of all this - towards the end of her life she 'confessed' the affair to a priest and said she regretted it but as a late Victorian women she didn't really have any option other than to say she regretted it. And whilst the affair gave her financial security it also put her life on hold so she may well have loved Dickens and still regretted what the affair cost her.

I enjoyed this although I don't think it's my favourite of Tomalin's biographies but recommended reading for anyone interested in Dickens or women's lives in the 19th century. There's also a brief glimpse of the Trollope family as Nelly Ternan's eldest sister married Anthony Trollope's brother (small world).

Two alternate history novels:

Book #218: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick - 2.5 stars



This was one I had high hopes for but ended up struggling with and only finished it because I kept thinking it would get better (it didn't). This is set in a late 1950s USA where the Axis Powers won WWII. What we know as the USA has been divided between Germany (East Coast) and Japan (West Coast) with a neutral zone as a buffer down the length of the Rocky Mountains. We follow some characters in the Japanese occupied USA with a brief visit to the neutral zone. A lot of the characters are reading a novel called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy which is a work of alternate history which imagines what would have happened if Japan and Germany had lost the war although the events in The Grasshopper Lies Heavy do not correlate with our universe. A lot of the characters are obsessed with I Ching and refer to this daily to direct their lives.

There may well be a good book in here that I just failed to understand but I found the characters uninteresting, the writing didn't wow me and it was just too philosophical and weird. The ending didn't help matters The I Ching apparently wrote The Grasshopper Lies Heavy and the events in The Grasshopper Lies Heavy are the 'true' version of history. What?!?!

Apparently this is Dick's least weird book so it may be he's not an author for me.

Book #215: The Separation by Christopher Priest - 4.2 stars



Another alternate history novel about WWII. Like the other Christopher Priest novel I read this year (The Prestige) this one took me a little while to get into but once I did I was utterly gripped. Like The Prestige there's an ongoing theme of twins/doubles throughout the book, multiple narratives and an ambiguous ending.

Identical twins travel to Germany in 1936 to compete in the Olympics. Whilst there they become involved in helping the Jewish daughter of a family friend escape from Germany back to the UK. Once back in the UK the twins separate; one joins the RAF as a bomber pilot and the other registers as a conscientious objector and works for the Red Cross. In 1941 one brother dies when his Red Cross ambulance is hit by a bomb. The other is injured in May 1941 when his plane goes down returning from the final bombing raid of the war before the peace deal is agreed with Rudolf Hess. Wait, did the conscientious objector die? Now we see him involved in detailed negotiations around the peace talks? Now the bomber pilot is interviewing Hess after his arrival in Britain and the war carries on.

Given how annoyed I was by The Man in the High Castle I probably shouldn't have enjoyed this novel either because in some ways Priest plays around with the same idea and themes and ends in a way that annoyed many reviewers (although personally I liked it). I wonder if there's some literary background to Dick's writing that I'm just not getting (having read far fewer American authors than British). Priest is strongly influenced by H. G. Wells who I grew up reading and although I wouldn't really say I saw these influences in The Separation perhaps there's a shared reading background which means I 'get' The Separation where I didn't 'get' The Man in the High Castle?

Hi, Heather! I'm intimidated by all your reading - and SO envious! Why am I not doing this???
I agree about Tomalin's Ternan bio, by the way.
Anyway, congratulations, and read on. my friend, read on. (That's what I said to my mother who got through Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates and Heidi for me when I had red measles and was confined to the dark.)

I have family members watching The Man in the High Castle tv series at present, though I only lasted the first episode. I've read enough alt history of WW2 to need a break. The separation sounds intriguing, I should probably go for The prestige first.
Love that you read such bulky nonfiction as the Marr book. I seem to end up listening to these types of books on audio and while it means I get through them, I do miss browsing through the book to reread sections.

>63 souloftherose: *delurking* I confess I'm confused.

Hi Heather. I'm getting fed up of seeing that RIP icon (funny as it is) on your thread and mine, so I'm just posting.

Oh, Heather, I am chagrined to say that I haven't been by since mid-November! But now I remember why I was staying away — I always get hit by so darn many book recommendations on your thread! Why, just in the last few minutes I've had to add Railsea, AND the Andrew Marr book (I know him from listening to the "Start the Week" podcast from the BBC), AND the Philip K. Dick AND the Christopher Priest.

Yep, visiting your thread is dangerous for my TBR list!

See you next month over in 2016. ;-)

Wishing you a wonderful weekend, Heather.

Hi there, Heather,

To quote Granny Weatherwax, "I Aten't Dead", just been a bit overwhelmed by life but I am hoping to get a little bit of LT time before we head off to stay with my in-laws over Christmas.

>64 LizzieD:, >66 humouress: Oh dear, I didn't mean to cause intimidation, envy or confusion! :-) I don't really know how I've managed to read so much this year and I certainly don't feel like I have been reading particularly challenging books. Life has been a bit de trop this year and I think I have probably been escaping into the books a bit.

>65 avatiakh: I'm hoping to catch up with the TV series of The Man in the High Castle over Christmas/New Year at some point. It seems to have got good reviews although from just watching the first episode I think it may be quite different to the book.

I had the Andrew Marr as an ebook and actually as an omnibus edition which includes The Making of Modern Britain. I think it took 2-3 weeks to read and I did have to pause at various points and pick something else up before coming back to it. It was interesting enough that it didn't feel like it was dragging despite the length and detail.

>68 humouress: Thanks Nina :-)

>69 rosalita: Oops! Sorry :-)

>70 Ameise1: Thank you Barbara!

>71 Carmenere: Thanks Lynda!

Just looked at my list of books and realised there are still a couple from November I haven't commented on.

Book #205: Ms Marvel: Vol 3, Crushed by G. Willow Wilson - 3.7 stars



More superhero fun from Ms. Marvel - in this collection Kamala gets a crush on the son of an old family friend who might actually be a boy her parents would approve of but, of course, things aren't going to be that straightforward. I'm looking forward to Volume 4 which I think has just been released.

Book #209: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers - 4.5 stars



This was a lovely, optimistic and warm-hearted space opera. It's about the crew of a small engineering ship which opens wormhole-like tunnels in space that allow fast travel. The ship and crew win a big contract to build the first tunnel in a far away region of space but it's the journey the ship takes to get to this new region of space which takes up most of the book as without an existing tunnel they have to travel the slow way. It's not plot focused, it's really about the disparate set of characters on the ship, their different cultures and personalties, the relationships between them and how they get along (or don't). It's lovely and one of my favourite reads of 2015.

I think partly because of the slightly episodic nature of the story, this reminded me of TV series like Firefly and Star Trek - I was interested to read that Becky Chambers is a huge Star Trek fan. The book isn't cheesy like Star Trek but it does share something of that sense of optimism the Star Trek universe has.

Hi Heather, I'm not sure why it took me so long to catch up with you again, probably because I wanted to make sure I was able to put my full attention to reading your reviews and I'm so "out" of it most of the time these days that I didn't feel I was able to do that. I had insomnia last night so again, am far from being at my full intellectual powers (can barely string words together actually), but felt it was high time I dropped by and see what you've been up to. Congrats on your reading numbers, I'm impressed! Who cares whether you've been reading light or heavy stuff? The point is reading has been a source of comfort for you and that in itself is worth celebrating.

I remember really enjoying The Prestige as well, but somehow hadn't though until now to look into more of Priest's work. I too had seen the movie first not knowing it was based on a book. The movie was pretty great actually and I wouldn't mind seeing it again.

I've been curious about that Adichie Ted talk, and while I considered reading the book, also at some point came to the conclusion I should just see the talk itself. Still haven't done so, but you've reminded me of that intention.

I'm so grateful you found the time and will and energy to partner with me these last months in a project I think came together very nicely. I hope you have happy holidays and are able to bear up family celebrations with equanimity and good cheer. I know I wouldn't feel up to it and begged out of an invitation for Christmas dinner with a cousin and a few family members. I just want to have quiet dinner at home with Pierre and my pets, and luckily, I can get away with it.

Hugs to you my dear.

Hi Heather, I wanted to drop by and wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas. It's been fun following along here (although quietly) this year. I hope to be a little more active in my posting next year.

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas, Heather, full of love, laughter, and books.

Claire was very high on The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, too. I hardly ever read science fiction, but I may have to make an exception for this book.

Oh, Heather, I was just reading about the Chambers book and waffling on it--no longer! Onto the wishlist it goes.



For my Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice image this year, I've chosen this photograph by local photographer Mark Lenoce of the pier at Pacific Beach to express my holiday wishes to you: Peace on Earth and Good Will toward All!

Happy Christmas Heather!

Merry Christmas Heather. I saw you taking some BBs over on my thread, though mostly YA so not too ambitious. One I've just started and I think you might relish is The man who spoke snakish, I'm not far enough in to give a verdict but it seems to be a mix of folklore and fantasy about tradition and change set in an Estonian forest.

Happy Christmas Heather. I hope it all goes well with the in-laws, and you can get some reading time in :-)

Have a lovely holiday, Heather. xx

Warm wishes for a magical holiday season, Heather!

Best wishes for the holiday season, Heather!

Seasons greetings whatever you celebrate enjoy - smell the roses , slow down, enjoy your time with yours

Merry Christmas and Happy, Happy New Year, Heather!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Heather.

Merry Christmas and happy Boxing Day, Heather! Hope you've had a really relaxing few days.

Thank you to Barbara, Ilana, Judy, Nancy, Roni, Rhian, Kerry, Susan, Paul, Katie, Liz, Alex, Peggy, Beth, Kim and Cushla for the Christmas wishes!

As of yesterday evening we are back home from Yorkshire and have had a PJ day today in preparation for seeing my family tomorrow. I do like seeing family at Christmas but I feel a bit like I could do with a holiday to recover from my Christmas holiday at the moment. I am exhausted. *Sobs quietly*

Anyway, not sure if this will work but here is a picture of my extremely cute 14 month old nephew dressed as Santa on Christmas Day:



I am really appreciating the fact that we don't have plans for new year. Hopefully I will have a chance to make some comments on my December reads. Currently I am finding everythng I'm trying to read a bit too challenging for my exhausted brain and have picked up the next Pratchett (Wyrd Sisters) for a reread in the hope that will do the trick.

>78 kidzdoc: Darryl, Claire and I managed to push The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet onto Bianca as well who also loved it. It's fairly easy reading so might be quite unlike your usual reads. There are more complex science fiction books I would probably recommend to you rather than The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet if you were considering trying some science fiction.

>79 ronincats: Don't dither about the Chambers Roni - read it!

>81 avatiakh: So what you're saying is, you saw I had taken lots of BB on your thread and then had to make a special visit to my thread to ensure you hit me with another one? Well, thanks :-)

awaiting The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet to arrive myself, so pencil me in to the fan club ....

Darryl is going to read science fiction , will be interested to see what he makes of this

Hi Heather. I wanted to thank you for your very pretty bookish wishes, and wish you and your family also a peaceful and joyous Christmas and 2016.

Here's hoping you found a good book to settle down with and are feeling more energised now.

>91 souloftherose: Yeah, well sorry about that! Hope you have a relaxing few days ahead of you.

>91 souloftherose: What a cute little Santa!

Even though it isn't my usual fare, I'd still like to give The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet a try after glowing reviews from you and Claire. However, due to my every increasing (and Tribble like) TBR library I'll probably hold off getting it, or much of anything else other than "required reading" (Booker Prize longlist, Wellcome Book Prize shortlist) in 2016. We'll see how well that goes...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Books!

Your nephew is adorable, Heather! What a sweet outfit!

What a cute little guy! Good thing you've got New Year's off, sounds like you definitely need a rest! That's what I've been doing all week: resting. Sleeping so much it's absolutely indecent, but I'm just dragging myself around all the time. Big plans for New Year's Eve with Pierre include guzzling down a half-bottle of champagne between the two of us. What can I say? We party hard that way! :-D

>92 roundballnz: I hope you enjoy it Alex!

Thanks Nina, Kerry, Megan, Darryl, Nancy and Ilana for stopping by and for the compliments on my nephew :-)

I think I have finished my last book for 2015 so I will try to do a quick whiz through my December reads before starting a thread in the new group.

Book #216: Local Custom by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller - 3.4 stars
Book #216: Scout's Progress by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller - 3.8 stars
Book #228: Mouse and Dragon by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller - 2.5 stars



Further space adventures in the Liaden universe. These are prequels to the main storyline that started with Agent of Change but you could also start reading the series with either Local Custom or Scout's Progress. Local Custom is about the romance between Er Thom yos'Galan and Anne Davis. I liked it ok even though it featured one of my least favourite romance tropes where the entire plot is built on a misunderstanding because the couple won't communicate. I found it slightly less annoying than I usually do as Er Thom and Anne are from different cultures on different planets so have some excuse for failing to realise they really need to communicate better.

Scout's Progress is about the romance between Aelliana Caylon and Daav yos'Phelium. I liked this - Aelliana was previously abused by her husband and is still abused by her brother and I enjoyed seeing her healing and slow growth into confidence. Also a heroine who is a mathematician is always good. I enjoyed this so much that I downloaded Mouse and Dragon straight away which is a direct sequel to Scout's Progress continuing Aelliana and Daav's story. I didn't like Mouse and Dragon - perhaps I'd overdosed on Liaden stories at this point but the romance annoyed me and the book didn't feel well structured.

Book #217: Tea with Mr Rochester by Frances Towers - 4.2 stars



A lovely collection of short stories from Persephone Books; these aren't romance stories but, as the afterword puts it, the 'stories are about love, love imagined and yearned for, love lost and mourned or love found and joyously celebrated, all depicted in clear, shimmering, watercolour tones'. There's an element of the fantastical to most of the stories and I don't think there was a single story I didn't enjoy. Towers died before this was first published (in 1948) and this was her only collection of stories - sad to think she didn't live to write anything else.

Book #219: The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay - 3.7 stars



Another Christmas themed mystery in the British Library's Crime Classics series. This is a country house murder mystery where the killer appears to have dressed up as Santa Klaus in order to commit the murder. I enjoyed this and hope to read Hay's Death on the Cherwell next month.

Book #220: Fables: The Deluxe Edition Book Eight by Bill Willingham - 3.9 stars



This contains Fables, Vol. 10: The Good Prince which focuses on Flycatcher (the frog/prince) and I really enjoyed the focus on this character and the theme of heroism. Unusually for the Fables series this is quite an uplifting story. Vol 11 is called War and Pieces though so I expect will be a return to darker themes.

Book #221: Railhead by Philip Reeve - 4.3 stars



An excellent science fiction novel for teenagers that isn't a dystopia(!) This reminded me a little of Railsea as both books feature teenage protagonists on quests using futuristic train systems. In Railhead Zen Starling as been hired to steal an item from the emperor's train but quickly gets caught up in events beyond his control. I think this will be published in the US in 2016.

That Persephone sounds like a good one. I have fond memories of being in the Persephone shop, and you egging me on, trying to "help" me take advantage of their special pricing on 3 books. I would love to make a return visit.

Just finished catching up with your thread, Heather, and Julia's right - this is a dangerous place! I have added A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet to my WL for 2016 - sounds right up my alley. ANd I have Agent of Change in the stacks, and am hoping to get to it this year; it will be my first venture into the Liaden universe, which I met to explore last year but never got to it.

The photo of your nephew is charming - what a cutie! I know just what you mean by all the family gatherings being exhausting at the holidays. To be perfectly honest, that is one thing that I really love about moving to Georgia - we're too far away to gather regularly with everyone. Ha! We used to host a lot of the get togethers, and it was fun, but I always needed a few days to recover afterwards. I like my solitary comforts!

Hoping that the New Year brings you only good things and that it is filled with fabulous!

>101 lauralkeet: 'I have fond memories of being in the Persephone shop, and you egging me on, trying to "help" me take advantage of their special pricing on 3 books.'

Now in my defence, I wasn't asking you to do anything I don't regularly do myself!:-D I'm still impressed by how well you resisted temptation that day.

>102 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie! I hope you enjoy ALWtaSAP - it is a fun read.

My in-laws moved further away this year but not so far that it's not practical to visit, just far enough that the drive there is now completely exhausting on its own (especially with the increased traffic at holiday periods). Well, they're very happy there and it is a lovely part of the country.

Book #222: The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code and the Uncovering of a Lost Civilisation by Margalit Fox - 3.9 stars



(Love the cover design)

This is the natrrative of the discovery and decipherment of Linear B, an ancient Mediterranean script discovered in the 19th century at Knossos, Crete by an archeaologist called Arthur Evans. Fox's book is split into three parts and each is a biography of one of the key individuals involved: Arthur Evans, the archaeologist who uncovered the writing, Alice Kober, an American classicist who did much of the ground work needed for the eventual decipherment and Michael Ventris, a British architect who put the final pieces of the puzzle together with the assistance of John Chadwick in the 1950s.

Fox's sympathy and passion is clearly for Alice Kober who comes across as brilliant, methodical and totally dedicated to Linear B, doing all her work on the language at night after a full teaching load in her day job. Sadly, Kober died in 1950 before she had the chance to complete her work and it seems that her contribution was initially overlooked when Ventris completed the decipherment. Fox likens Kober to Rosalind Franklin whose contribution to the discovery of DNA was also overlooked.

I knew nothing about Linear B or ancient languages before reading this and Fox did a great job of explaining the decipherment of an unknown language and keeping me turning the pages.

Book #224: Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress by Fanny Burney - 4 stars



Fanny Burney's second novel was my longest of the 2015 (my edition was 1,062 pages incl introduction and notes making it my longest book by over 250 pages). I still haven't finished the introduction or made it over to the group read thread to read the final comments but I enjoyed this a lot. There are similarities to Burney's first novel, Evelina, in that again we have a young and fairly unprotected heroine having to make her way in the fashionable world but Cecilia is darker than Evelina in tone and looks more seriously at the moral choices made by the characters.

I'm looking forward to Camilla and The Wanderer in 2016.

Book #226: The Making of Home: The 500-Year Story of How Our Houses Became Homes by Judith Flanders - 3.7 stars



Judith Flanders normally writes about the 19th century and I've really enjoyed The Victorian House, The Victorian City and The Invention of Murder so I was intrigued to see her most recent non-fiction book was a study of home over the last 500 years. Flanders looks primarily at home life in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and America as well as touching on home life in the rest of Europe. It seems that homes in these countries share many characteristics that homes in the rest of Europe don't and Flanders explores these differences and puts forward theories about the reasons for these differences.

I think the book probably suffered a little bit from trying to cover too large a period of time and I found the first chapter rather difficult to follow but this was still very interesting and one of those books where I kept having to read snippets out loud to my husband as I was reading. What fascinated me was how recent many of the customs about home life I take for granted actually are - for example, having furniture that has only one function like a chair. Or the ways views on women's work has changed over the centuries.

Book #225: Abhorsen by Garth Nix - 4.5 stars
Book #230: Clariel by Garth Nix - 3.7 stars



Abhorsen was a reread and just as enjoyable the second time around. Clariel is the newest volume in this series and a prequel set approximately 600 years before Sabriel. I don't know whether it was my mood (I had a definite reading dip in December) but I really struggled to get into Clariel for the first 100 pages. Clariel as a character wasn't particularly interesting to me and the story was all scene-setting. After this things started to happen and the book got a lot more interesting. Clariel is Chlorr of the Mask, one of the bad guys from Lirael and Abhorsen but what I found interesting was that Nix portrays Clariel as a flawed heroine. Her intentions are good but her decisions don't always match up to this and she has to live with the consequences of this. I'm not sure we really found out why/how Clariel became Chlorr though. I appreciated the shades of grey in Clariel's character but this doesn't seem to match up to the Chlorr we met in the earlier books. An entertaining read but nowhere near as strong as the original trilogy.

Book #227: Mort by Terry Pratchett - 3.8 stars
Book #233: Sourcery by Terry Pratchett - 3.2 stars

(On this reread it has struck me that the Josh Kirby covers pictured could make the books look quite sexist. They're not - Pratchett excels at writing female characters - but for some reason Kirby can only picture them overflowing from their skimpy outfits. This bothers me much more now than when I was a teenager.)



I seemed to lose my reading mojo this month so have ended up rereading some Discworld novels. I enjoy these because of Pratchett's storytelling skills, his sense of humour and the way he pulls together so many references and allusions in his books, most of which I miss on my first read through (to get an idea of the sheer volume of allusions in the books check out the Annotated Pratchett File at this link). Mort is the first book in the Discworld subseries that feature Death as a main character - a lot of people love these but the Death books have never been my favourites for some reason. I enjoyed this though and you can definitely see Pratchett starting to get into his stride with Mort (it's the 4th Discworld novel overall). Sourcery is a Rincewind novel and I like this even less than I thought I would. The early Rincewind novels are parodies of sword and sorcery fantasy novels from the 1970s(?) - I've never read any but still find The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic make me chuckle but didn't find Sourcery all that interesting or particularly funny.

I'm currently reading Wyrd Sisters which is one of the witches books and I'm really enjoying this one on a reread. The witches and the guards Discworld novels tie as my favourites but it's been years since I reread the witches books - they're still good :-)

Comments on the final 6 books of 2015 tomorrow (resolution for 2016 is to try to stay more on top of this....)

Hi Heather, just dropping by to catch up with you and wish you a Happy New Year, especially as you'll get to 2016 before we in NA do.

I'm thinking of slotting in a Discworld book in January if I can manage it, but will keep in mind to stay away from the Rincewind novels, as they don't sound like they'd suit me either.

It was a joy to share this past year with you, however tenuously. See you on the other side!

Heather, I'm glad to see you enjoyed The Riddle of the Labyrinth. I loved it too - it was quite unlike anything I'd read before.

Happy New Year, - see you in the new group tomorrow.

May we all make the best of what 2016 brings us .....

ooh, I like the sound of the riddle of the labyrinth. Is that a paper book in your possession? ...although I do still have rather a lot of your books on loan already....

>106 Smiler69:, >107 susanj67:, >108 Ameise1:, >109 roundballnz: Happy New Year to you too! Thanks for the messages.

>106 Smiler69: I think you've read Small Gods and Guards! Guards! so far? If you liked Guards! Guards! then Men at Arms continues the story of the beleagured Ankh-Morpork City Watch. Otherwise I am really enjoying my reread of Wyrd Sisters which is another possible entry point.

>107 susanj67: It was really interesting and not something I would have heard about if it wasn't for LT (it's in the language section of the library where I don't tend to wander). I can't remember who originally recommended it to me now but if it was you - thank you!

>110 eclecticdodo: Sorry, no, I borrowed it from the library. It's only a couple of years old so hopefully your library will have a copy...

Book #229: Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns - 4 stars



It feels like 2015 has been the year of Barbara Comyns for me - actually, looking at my books I've only read 3 of her novels this year but although her books are short she has such a unique writing style that they've made a big impact on me.

Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead was her third novel and it is just as bizarre and possibly even more macabre than the other two I've read (Our Spoons Came From Woolworths and Sisters by a River). The setting is similar to Sisters by a River: a group of young siblings being brought up unconventionally and almost by neglect and a rural setting with a river. The book opens with a dramatic flood which affects the whole village. Then, one by one, the villagers go mad and die and eventually the family at the centre of the book are affected. It sounds horrible and there is a strong sense of the macabre yet this was nowhere near as dark as I feared it might be and there's actually a lot of kindness in the book and the characters, whilst often bizarre, are very well drawn. Someone else described this as Jane Austen with a morbid sense of humour and I can see where they're coming from. If you're comfortable with surreal and bizarre then I recommend Barbara Comyns.

Opening lines:

The ducks swam through the drawing-room windows. The weight of the water had forced the windows open; so the ducks swam in. Round the room they sailed quacking their approval; then they sailed out again to explore the wonderful new world that had come in the night.

Book #231: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor - 3.7 stars



(Love the cover)

Another novella from Tor: Binti Ekeopara Zuzu Dambu Kaipka is the first member of her African tribe to be accepted to Oomza University, the most prestigious university in the galaxy. The short novella is about the journey Binti makes as she leaves her family (in secret, as they don't want her to attend) and the cultures she encounters on her journey, both human and alien. I enjoyed this but there was something that stopped me loving it - maybe the ending is a bit too easy? I don't really know what else I wanted from the story but I enjoyed it enough to look up Okorafor's other works.

Book #232: Mairelon the Magician by Patricia C. Wrede - 3.3 stars



The intention was for this to be my not-much-brain-required read over Christmas but I hadn't realised that parts of the plot would get so complicated and I didn't really have enough brain to follow this properly. It's a Regency England with magic and Kim is a female thief (pretending to be a boy because thief is preferable to prostitute) who has been hired to steal something from a street magician/conjuror. Except the street magician turns out to be a real magician and catches Kim, but that's ok because he's nice, and they end up travelling around the country trying to steal the thing that Kim was originally hired to steal but several other groups are also trying to steal the same thing and it all got horrendously complicated in a way that I think was supposed to be reminiscent of a Heyer novel but was actually just very confusing. I'm sure my lack of brain probably didn't help.

I have the sequel because I bought an omnibus edition - hopefully with a more rested brain I'll be able to follow the plot this time.

I've added Tea with Mr. Rochester to my 'to read' list, sounds very charming....and this morning I saw a tweet by Philip Reeve that he was signing off social media in order to write Railhead 2.

Book #234: Christmas at High Rising by Barbara Comyns - 2.5 stars



This is a selection of short stories put together by Virago which are marketed as if they're Christmas stories and set in same world as her Barsetshire novels. Most don't relate to Christmas and only some are in the Barsetshire world: that didn't really bother me but I struggled to do anything more than endure most of the stories. Not sure if this was my mood/energy levels or whether Thirkell just doesn't work for me in short story format.

Book #235: Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein - 3.5 stars



Well, this is an interesting one. Firstly, there's a film of the same name which I think I have seen but don't remember much about except that there are big insect aliens trying to kill humans. Otherwise the film is not really anything like the book. But they've used an image from the film to sell the book.

Secondly, it's quite easy to read the book as a rightwing, pro-military propaganda piece. I'm still undecided whether it is that or not (or whether Heinlein intended that or not) or what on earth I do think of it.

The main character is a young man, Juan, who signs up for military service in a future earth and we follow his training (lots and lots of training) and eventual promotion to officer. The emphasis is on service: the future earth is set up so that only people who have voluntarily completed a minimum two year term of service can become citizens and vote (this doesn't necessarily need to be fighting service but I wasn't clear if the service could be totally non-military in nature). This has apparently resulted in an almost utopic society (with the exception of all the aliens trying to kill them). What the military do is fly around space and fight/kill aliens - there's not much background given about why they have to fight the aliens rather than, say, talk to them. Details of Juan's training are interspersed with flashbacks to his time at school and the teaching/brainwashing (depending on your point of view) he received about why military service is important and the structure of society. Juan seems to accept everything he's told without question - my uncertainty is over whether Heinlein thinks the reader should do the same or whether he's subtly mocking his main character and people who do accept things unquestioningly. If the latter, it's almost too subtle.

The novel suprised me by being more thought-provoking than I expected - I still feel uneasy about it but I have also spent a lot of time thinking about it so in that sense I guess the novel is a success. I do plan to read more Heinlein but I don't think he's going to become an author I love.

Also, at one point there's a hypothetical discussion on killing left-handed redheads which Liz had mentioned to me before and now I've read it!

"Anyone who clings to the historically untrue-and thoroughly immoral-doctrine that 'violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedom."

Book #236: Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman - 4.5 stars



My last book of the year and going straight on my books of the year list - this is a brilliant novel about Caden Bosch, a 15 year old boy, and his descent into psychosis and the effect this has on him and his family. Shusterman alternates the narrative between the real world where Caden starts to behave increasingly erratically and a dreamlike fantasy world where Caden is trapped on a ship journeying across unknown oceans which is used to portray the hallucinations and delusions Caden experiences. I thought this technique worked really well. The book has the potential to be very dark but although Shusterman doesn't shy away from realities of recovering from a mental illness and the future prognosis (something I really appreciated) the book ultimately felt very hopeful for Caden and his family.

Shusterman wrote this after his son Brendan experienced a similar mental illness at 15 and Brendan has supplied the illustrations used in the book. This reminded me in many ways of Nathan Filer's The Shock of the Fall and it does encourage me that there are more and more novels which normalise the experience of mental illness for adults and teenagers. Both books are strongly recommended.

And that was 2015!

>113 avatiakh: I hope you enjoy Tea with Mr Rochester Kerry. I don't know what the availability of Persephone books is like in your hemisphere but it was also published as a Penguin orange paperback back in the day.

And great news on Railhead 2! I realised after reading Railhead that it had been too long since I read anything by Reeve and I had never got round to the Mortal Engines prequels so will try to line those up for 2016.

Best of 2015 (in reverse order of reading)

Non-fiction



There's a bit of a 19th century theme here....
Victorian People and Ideas by Richard D. Altick
In These Times: Living in Britain through Napoleon's Wars, 1793-1815 by Jenny Uglow
The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed by Judith Flanders
What Makes This Book So Great: Re-Reading the Classics of Fantasy and SF by Jo Walton

Rereads



Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce

Fiction



Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
Frost in May by Antonia White

Series





Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie (new series this year)
Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen by Garth Nix (rereads this year)

Honourable mentions (because 20 best of books apparently isn't enough)

Barbara Comyns for Our Spoons Came From Woolworths, Sisters by a River and Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead
Christopher Priest for The Prestige and The Separation
Winston Graham for Ross Poldark through to The Angry Tide

Please come join me on my 2016 thread!

Glad you enjoyed the Barbara Comyns, though I thought I reread Who Was Changed and I don't remember that description at all! It sounds almost too topical at the moment though.

>118 elkiedee: Luci, yes the flooding is rather too topical. Let's hope the strange deaths don't also follow!

Heather, I hope I'm not being a bother, but may I ask exactly which edition of The Blue Sword you have, and where you bought it? I see you linked to this edition in your library:

www.librarything.com/work/26673/book/120488380

Its publication info is listed as "London Futura 1991," but I haven't been able to find that edition anywhere online. I have found several "Orbit 1991" copies, but none of those listings provide cover images; the sellers who responded to my inquiries about the cover image said they're selling a different edition.

I'm rather desperate to get my hands on it, so any help you can offer would be very much appreciated. =)

Happy new year!

>120 heyashers: No bother!

I checked the copy of my book and it is the 1991 Orbit reprint with ISBN 0708881556 and the cover shown in my catalogue. The Futura reference must have come from whatever cataloguing source I used when adding it to my library and I guess I didn't spot that and change it when I added it.

I share your frustration with online sellers and cover issues. The cover shown by the online seller I bought the book from was different to the one I got - I guess they have such a volume of books it's not worth them uploading the correct covers for the rare bookbuyer that cares about that.

>114 souloftherose: >115 souloftherose: I listened to the audio of Challenger Deep and it was excellent, with the different accents for the pirate and the parrot etc. I also have it as a highlight read for the year.

Tea with Mr Rochester is very unavailable here and I see that used copies aren't that cheap.

Of your 2015 highlights, I've read a few on the list and will have to check out The long way to a small angry planet and the rest of the Ancillary Justice trilogy/series.