Needles on the Move

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

This was a great book, but not a style I would tend to re-read, a bit too dismal for fun. Worth visiting once though.

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I’m now reading The Divine Comedy: Hell

First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
After devouring the first four, and impatiently ranting at Amazon for not delivering them quickly enough, I found book 5 of the series to be a miserable disappointment. Yes, I know it’s hard to be hilariously funny all the time, but what about patching up some of the gaping plot holes, big enough for the Hesperus to fall into.

At frequent intervals during the book I found myself wondering ‘Was this written by a different person?’ and then, ‘If so, have they even read the other four books???’. A cute twist towards the end did a little to redeem it for me, but I had to make myself finish chapters, and as far as I’m concerned the series ended with book four.

Two stars.

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The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde

My review

Book series sometimes get a bit lame towards the middle or the end (film series too), just ask anyone who’s still persevering with Wheel of Time. Thursday Next #3, however, is still up there with the best and I can’t wait to get my hands on number four.

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Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Loved this just as much as the first one :-) Light, geeky and entrancing.

And apparantly I’ve still got several Thursday books left to read - Woo!

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A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved this! It took me a long time to get around to reading it, and I wish I had earlier. My only gripe was the huge, critical, spoiler in the chapter notes - very disappointing. I can only assume that they just think everyone has read the book already by now.

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The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve had this book for about 18 months - it was a thankyou gift from a friend who stayed with us for a while. I can’t believe I never read it until now!

It was very fun, very lit-geek. I loved the way the characters were named, although I’m sure I missed a lot of the more subtle connections. I ended up so entranced that I read the whole thing - beginning to end in a day.

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Just saw a new group form for this over on Ravelry, and I love the idea so I’m going to pledge :-) I probably won’t join the group, but thought I’d document my progress here, and maybe try and find some geeky thing for my sidebar as well!

So, to go back to my list of books from a couple of weeks ago (which was when I really started thinking I should read more!) I have on my list:

Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres Mans
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Dune - Frank Herbert
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (haven’t read this, but always wanted to. It’s my favourite show by a huge margin)

Those are the ones I happened to underline on that day.

I also want to read:

Twilight (well, that won’t be hard, I got it for Christmas)
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood (and someone recommended Oryx and Crake)
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Forde
The Night Watch series - by Sergei something

Plus a bunch of stuff I can’t think of offhand. Also, I’d really like to go back and re-read some stuff I only ever read once, sometimes a loooong time ago. When I was a teenager I read a lot of ‘Classics’ and stuff that was really a bit over my head, and I don’t think it’s quite fair to say I’ve ‘read’ those books when I didn’t understand half of it.

Plus, audio books count :-)

I don’t think I’ll get to 52, but I’ll see how I go, maybe set 40 as a goal.