Little Allotment Fox blogs...

Update on 52 Books in 52 Weeks (cont.5)

So...I've finished my 52nd book tonight. So I thought I'd do another update. Obviously the year isn't over yet...so I'll carry on reading and recording. Last year I read 57 books...so it will be nice to see if I can beat that. I should add that Ive not included any of the non-fiction reference books I read as well. I'm a recipe and gardening book addict. 

Anyhow here's how I got to 52...

50. The Mime Order - Samantha Shannon

51. Rush - Maya Banks

52. The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch

 

Update on 52 Books in 52 Weeks (cont.4)

I thought I'd better do another quick update on my 52 Books challenge. Things are going really well, and I've just got 3 more to go to reach my target for the year. Hopefully I should manage this quite easily. Last year I managed 57 books in total...and a little part of me would like to beat this if possible too.

46. The Dirty Streets of Heaven - Tad Williams

47. The Gospel of Loki - Joanne M Harris

48. The Wolves of London - Mark Morris

49. The Dark Cathedral - Freda Warrington

A long long time ago, I read some of Freda Warrington's vampire books - A Taste of Blood Wine and a Dance in Blood Velvet. I absolutely loved Freda Warrington and I recently discovered a whole load of other books which she'd written. I actually got Dark Cathedral on audiobook, as it's not easy to get hold of as a paperback anymore. I couldn't stop listening...I truly loved it. I've got the next one in the series to read - Pagan Moon. So hopefully that'll be one of my next entries. 

Update on 52 Books in 52 Weeks (cont.3)

I had a lovely holiday in Corsica...such a beautiful Island!! And when I wasn't sightseeing, I was on the beach reading. The weather was amazing. But more of that in another post. Here's the update on my reading list:

37. The Kind Worth Killing - Peter Swanson

38. Hardwired - Meredith Wild

39. Deceptions - Kelley Armstrong

40. Queen of Shadows - Sarah Maas

41. A Rare Interest in Corpses - Ann Granger

42. Personal - Lee Child

43. Demon Road - Derek Landy

44. The Lost Soul - Gabriella Pierce

45. The Bone Season - Samantha Shannon

Update on 52 Books in 52 Weeks (cont. 2)

Lately, I've been doing quite a bit of driving. My job has shifted a little and is changing and the result is that I need to be in the office alot more over the next month or two. This is excellent for listening to the odd audio book. And the hotel stays are great for actual reading. As such, I'm not just up to date...I'm ahead of myself. Hooray!!

This is week 35 and here are my finished reads:

33. The Hand that Feeds You - A J Rich

34. I Let You Go - Clare Macintosh

35. The Crooked House - Christobel Kent

36. Normal - Graeme Cameron

I'm already into book 37, and I'm on my holidays next week too. I'm planning on lots of chilled out reading time.

Oh...and I should mention that the book I Let You Go...another really awesome read. I think that and The Book of You are my two favourites of the year.

Update on 52 Books in 52 Weeks (cont.)

So, August has been a very busy month and the time seems to have flow past. I was doing so well at the end of July with catching up on my challenge and then it went a bit wrong...however this is book week 33 and I have managed to read 32 books to date and am halfway through number 33...so all caught up.

Here's the next part of the book list:

29.  The Accident - C. L Taylor

30. You - Caroline Kepnes

31. Blythewood - Carol Goodman

32. Ravencliffe - Carol Goodman

That's all for now...suffice to say I am very happy to be back upto date.

Update on 52 books in 52 weeks

I've realised that my list of books read in 2015 only shows the last 10 entries. So I thought I'd start doing a monthly update on my 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge. I will admit I'm a couple of books behind. I'd hoped to get lots of reading done in the weeks after my operation. But the reality was I wasn't capable of doing much of anything that required focus and attention. I've been reading hard to try to catch up again and this is where I stand:

1. The Book of You - Claire Kendal
2. The Wolf Princess - Cathryn Constable
3. The Mangle Street Murder - M.R.C. Kasasian 
4. The Boy in the Snow - M.J. McGrath
5. A Cold Day for Murder - Dana Stabenow
6. Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
7. The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins
8. Throne of Glass - Sarah J Maas
9. A Breach of Security - Susan Hill
10. The Girl in 6e - A.R. Torre
11. Runaway - Peter May
12. The Wolf in Winter - John Connolly
13. The Gingerbread House - Carin Gerhardsen
14. The Quick - Lauren Owen
15. Her - Harriet Lane
16. Crown of Midnight - Sarah J Maas
17. The Third Wife - Lisa Jewell
18. Heir of Fire - Sarah J Maas
19. Amy Snow - Tracy Rees
20. Red Queen - Victoria Aveyard
21. The Lie - C.L. Taylor
22. Day Shift - Charlaine Harris
23. Day Four - Sarah Lotz
24. The Murder Bag - Tony Parsons
25. The Good Girl - Mary Kubica
26. Do Not Disturb - Alessandra Torre
27. Eeny Meeny - M.J. Arlidge
28. Fall from Grace - Tim Weaver

And that's where I've got to so far. This week is book week 30, so I'm behind by one book at the moment. I'm currently reading The Accident by C.L. Taylor. I expect I'll finish it this week. I have some holiday coming up in September...so I'm sure I'll be able to get caught up that week, if not before.

I should say that my absolute favourite book of the year so far is The Book of You by Claire Kendal. I literally couldn't put it down. It's also a really interesting topic and written in an interesting way. I highly recommend it. 

The Book of You by Claire Kendal

So this is my first book read of 2015 and what a start it was!!! I could not put this book down. I started it on a Sunday morning in bed with with a nice cup of tea and even had to take it into the bath with me. Thankfully it was a quick read and I was done by about 2pm. It's been a long time since I literally couldn't stop reading, or have really kicked back and relaxed on a weekend to catch up on a good book. 

And I really really liked this book. It's actually not that nice. It's definitely an interesting and disturbing topic. So perhaps 'liked' isn't the right word for what I think of this book. I guess I just needed to know what happened. 

This is a book about stalking. It's not a true story, but obviously there are enough real life examples out there and I think the author has definitely done a good job of researching them.

I don't know how many women out there have had a taste of an over-enthusiastic ex or just a guy you know, who doesn't like taking 'no' for an answer. I've had a couple of experiences which have been a bit scary and behaviour has been inappropriate. I'm glad to say I've never experienced anything like the woman in this book. But there were moments when I could absolutely relate and it made me resent and dislike individuals who don't realise the impact of their behaviour and who also don't realise they have behaved completely inappropriately. Anyhow, I digress...

One of the interesting aspects of this book is the way the writer has told the story from both the the third person and Clarissa's point of view. There were many times when I wanted to shout at Clarissa and tell her that she wasn't to blame, that she was not doing things right...but mostly, I was just gripped by the escalating stalking situation she found herself in.

I would highly recomend this book and am really glad this was my first book of the new year...it's given me a nice boost to this years challenge and made me realise that there's a whole world of great books out there. I was starting to feel like I was on a bit of a treadmill of getting through books towards the end of last year. And I think I was also reading a lot of 'good, but not great' books. This has encouraged me to spend a bit more time looking through book shops to seek out other great finds.   

New Year and new book challenge

Following on from last year's book challenge of '52 books in 52 Weeks', I wanted to aim for the same, if not more. I managed 57 books in 2014. You can take a look through the list on the left if you're interested and see what I read. So in 2015, I would like to beat the total I set. I'm off to a good start and have managed 5 books in the first twelve days of this new year. Admittedly a couple of them were already underway at the end of 2014, but I hadn't managed to finish them til this year. 

So here's to lots of good reads in 2015!