Category Archive

Well, my plan to catch up on my reading during a week of travel failed miserably. The journeys out from London inevitably required working on the train, on the journeys back I was actually too tired to concentrate and on my one overnight stay I decided to catch up on blog reading. So I dragged my copy of Pirate King all the way around England to no good purpose.

However, things have been very different this weekend. I don’t know about you but I find travelling really, really tiring, so I resolved on Saturday to do as little as possible. That allowed me to curl up late afternoon and to read Pirate King to its conclusion. And very enjoyable it was too, exactly what I needed at the end of the week. I have also just this morning completed one of the best ghost stories I have read this year, The Dead of Winter. Both of these will be reviewed shortly.

Only one new book purchase this week but it looks like a real winner:

• Mister Creecher by Chris Priestley: can’t do better than the blurb “1818. London. Billy is a street urchin, pickpocket and petty thief. Mr Creecher is a monstrous giant of a man who terrifies all he meets. Their relationship begins as pure convenience. But a bond swiftly develops between these two misfits as their bloody journey takes them ever northwards on the trail of their target….. Victor Frankenstein.” Wonderful stuff

I feel on a bit of a roll at the moment and it’s a much more sensible working week coming up so let’s hope I can keep the reading thing going.

A very quiet reading week, not finished anything and to be honest not really had the time to read – very busy at work and slumping when I get home. I made a bit of progress with Pirate King and have started reading Lovecraft Unbound short stories so not a complete wash out, but hoping my week of travels which starts tomorrow will give me some time to catch up.

Having said all theat, the following new books made their way into the house:

• Look at Me by Jennifer Egan – more fallout from my girlcrush on A Visit from the Goon Squad this sounded really intriguing and may be a holiday read for my break in October
• The Adventures of the Princess and Mr Whiffle: The Thing Beneath the Bed by Patrick Rothfuss – as seen on a number of RIP participating blogs, this was irresistible

I have a couple of posts to write and the interview with Hilary Mantel from The Culture Show on Saturday night to watch and if I achieve all of those I can feel suitably bookish.

So, a couple of books read this week, bit for the RIP challenge being hosted by Carl, the second one only finished this morning so still mulling it over in my mind. But the review of Duma Key will be up in the next day or so.

Only one new book bought this week, Pirate King, the new Laurie R King Mary Russell novel which I am going to read next, but probably won’t class as an RIP book – I focus very much on horror, ghosts and supernatural mysteries rather than straight crime which this is, I think; usually pick those up in my August is Crime Month personal challenge (though I didn’t  do that this year).

I’ve had a really good exchange of book ideas with my good friend Silvery Dude, and the Book God has also suggested a couple of things I might take to read on holiday with me but more on that in a future post. My achievement has been to get both men to read and enjoy Christopher Fowler’s Bryant & May series which I love.

Quite a bit of travelling within the UK coming up over the next two weeks and being trapped on a train is a good incentive to get some reading done, so watch this space.

It has been an interesting reading week, though I only actually finished one book, The Shadows in the Streets by Susan Hill which I’ll review properly in the next couple of days.

I bought the following new books:

• The Keep by Jennifer Egan – because I loved A Visit from the Goon Squad and wanted to read more of her stuff, and this has a mysterious castle, a sinister baroness, a tragic accident and so on
• A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore – because someone whom I can’t remember blogged about it and said it was good; pre-WWI, dark secrets etc
• A Stranger in Mayfair by Charles Finch – because I have read and enjoyed the first three and enjoy a good mid-Victorian tale

I’ve signed up for the RIP VI challenge and selected quite a good range of books and committed to the short story and movie perils as well as the main reading challenge. The details are here, and I am already well into my first read, Stephen King’s Duma Key. Now this is turning out to be a real page-turner; I only started it on Saturday morning and am already well over 400 pages into it and likely to finish it today assuming I get my chores and other stuff out of the way. Enjoying it thoroughly, really creepy.

I’m also thinking about signing up for Fall into Reading 2011, but want to give some more consideration to the goals for that challenge before I commit myself. All looking good on the reading front at the moment!