Books #28

[cherrymoon]

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It was a 3rd generation kindle which was my first. It looked like this the first book I ever read on it was The Snowman by Jo Nesbo.

I was obsessed with scandi thrillers in the 2000s

Love the snowman, went back and read the first in the series but it was all over the place

 

[Chocolategoggler]

Anyone read Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield?
I've had it recommended.

 

[emmer_moans]

All the books are 70% off RRP. So my books had an RRP of £240 (they tell you when you checkout) would have cost me £144 on Amazon and I paid £75. The staff are clear to point out that it’s no refunds but I can safely say I’ve never felt the need to return a book!

The aisles are vaguely split into aisles of children’s books, aisles of non-fiction and aisles of adult fiction but that’s as far as it goes. The books are stacked on shelves up to the ceiling-there’s stools around to reach the highest ones. There are aisles and aisles and aisles, I was there for 2 1/2 hours and I only wanted adult fiction. I think you could easily get overwhelmed. The aisles are close together, you can’t stand back to back and look at the shelves, you would have to move past each other and stand to the side. There’s no windows and downstairs is quite tight, it’s not for the less mobile or the weak, I got a serious arm workout as I had 22 books in my basket after the first floor which I carried around for 1 1/2 hours!

I went because I live fairly locally and they advertised that there was no queue ( a couple of weeks ago it was 3-4 hours long!). I went to explore with an open mind, hoping I’d find books that intrigued me. You can’t go expecting specific books to be there, there’s no guarantee they will be or that something that was there last time will be there again.

If it’s not busy on one of the weekends before Christmas and I’ve read most of the ones I’ve bought I’ll probably go again, I enjoyed it and got some bargains.

Here’s what I bought:
The After series - Anna Todd
6 books from The Rivers of London Series - Ben Aaronovitch (I already had the first 2 and they didn’t have a couple of the others)
Flawless and Heartless by Elsie Silver
Shadow Dance and Leopard’s Scar by Christine Feehan
The Discorvery of Witches Trilogy by Deborah Harkness
The Woman in Black - Susan Hill
Past Mortems - Carla Valentine
The Secret World of Weather - Tristan Gooley
The Lies of Locke Lamora Trilogy - Scott Lynch

Do you recommend the Rivers of London series? I have the first book which I got for a few quid somewhere cheap, but I haven't got around to it yet.

 

[LaBlonde]

The Lies of Locke Lamora Trilogy - Scott Lynch

I LOVE THESE BOOKS - they’re such fun reads, and so clever. i’ve given up hope about the next one ever coming out though

 

[thegirlscout]

I’m listening to The Glass Ocean and I’m finding it so tedious. Some parts I have on x1.5 just to rush through it. I want to find out the twists (part of the story is about espionage) but my lord the rest of it is a snooze fest

 

[tp1986]

I've just finished the third Magnolia Parks, has anyone else read it? I found their relationship stuff dragged slightly but the ending was a bit of a shocker!

 

[Brightlycolouredbowels]

Ohh I really enjoyed this trilogy, much prefer this one to HB's more recent stuff. Do let us know what you think of the third.

Spoiler: End of Folk of the Air/Cruel/Prince/Wicked King/Queen of Nothing discussion

I finished it last night, enjoyed the ending and how it all came out alright in the end! I was trying to figure out what would happen to the serpent, how the prophecy could work and how she was going to get one over on Madoc. I gave them a solid 4 stars as they were easy, interesting reads but I didn’t have a huge amount of empathy for the characters. They still didn’t quite get me like the ACOTAR books.

 

[WeepingCassandra]

I haven’t been on these threads for a while, mainly because when I come on them my tbr gets longer and longer and longer so I ‘unwatch’ for a while to read them all!

5 star reads (I rate a book as 5 stars if I literally won’t put it down and carry it everywhere) in the last few months have been:
The Death of a Bookseller (recommended on here!) devoured it on Kindle then went to the local independent book shop and bought a hardback copy for the shelf.
Ryan Rule by Sadie Kincaid- 250 pages of pure filth.
If We Were Villians, M L Rio - I have a background in acting schools so I loved this.
Yellowface, R.F Kuang
Gild, Raven Kennedy
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin - was set in my gamer era so just so much nostalgia there for me.
Not a Happy Family - Shari Lapena

That’s an awful lot more 5stars than usual, normally I only get a couple a year.

Has anyone heard of The 66 Book Club in Hemel Hempstead (UK) it went ‘viral’ last year because it sells discounted books to trade but opens a weekend every months for non-trade. I went yesterday and bought 24 books so the tbr pile is far larger that it was! I was planning to add to it today by popping into The Works and buying the Tommen Boys books (influenced by here!) by they didn’t have them(!) on to the Amazon wish list they go!

Has anyone ever tried to read House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski? I’m fascinated but don’t like horror. Every discussion about it is incredibly obscure though. I’m not sure I ‘get it’ and I can’t figure out whether it’s really scary or not.

I was desperate to go to 66 Books before I got pregnant but it's definitely not something I'd bother doing now.

I love House of Leaves, I've tried to read it several times, given away at least two copies and bought it back again, but I can't get more than 100 pages in before it gives me awful nightmares and I have to put it away again. I didn't even get to the weird formatting bits. :/

The Rivers of London series are so good, did they have them all at 66 Books?

Do you recommend the Rivers of London series? I have the first book which I got for a few quid somewhere cheap, but I haven't got around to it yet.

Definitely recommend!

 

[HoGi]

I do not get the hype about that book, I thought it was dreadful. Was hoping maybe the ending would redeem it somewhat but no.

Someone at my book club talks about it as if it is the best book she has ever read!

 

[HoGi]

Just bought the new John Marrs book - £8.99 for the Kindle version!!! The paperback is cheaper I don’t think I’ve paid over £5 for a kindle book in years.

The paperback isn't out for a few months though is it? The hardback was only released in the week.

 

[Chocolategoggler]

Still Googling like mad from references made in the Brian Cox autobiography.
Didn't know Alan Bates was bisexual.
Was looking up the reference to the director Lindsay Anderson and Wham and came across this:

Dead dogs, capitalist critique and only four songs: when Wham! squashed Lindsay Anderson’s China film

The British pop stars hired the Palme d’Or winner to record their groundbreaking shows in east Asia. After it all ended in tears, the unseen film was locked up in a Scottish university

www.theguardian.com

I then Googled the Simon Napier Bell book "I'm coming to take you to lunch" which has rave reviews. Anyone read it?

 

[tp1986]

Would you guys recommend Magnolia Parks? I have heard people describe it like Made In Chelsea which I love, but read the back in the book shop today and it sounded like a romance, which is not my cup of tea.

I enjoyed the first few but it dragged a bit towards book 5, I'm not sure it needs as many books as there are!
---
I'm now onto Binding 13 which I saw recommended on here... bad influence you lot

 

[Tofino]

Do you lose audible credits if you cancel? We were gifted 12 month membership at Xmas but the credits are already accumulating. It’s unlikely we will keep the membership going.

 

[LaBlonde]

I've just finished 'Romantic Comedy' by Curtis Sittenfeld. A resounding disappointment, I thought the main character was pretty awful and a lot was set during Covid (I don't enjoy pandemic reading). Didn't think it was romantic or a comedy particularly.

my feelings too and i love curtis sittenfeld. the stuff about working on the saturday night live style show was interesting but i just thought the lead couple were not compatible in any way and that neverending description of her drive across state…. like you say, not romantic or funny really.

 

[JLXRD]

I really struggle with e-books. Same as audiobooks. It's like my brain doesn't translate it into reading, my mind wanders all the time and I retain so much less than I do with a physical book.

Hmm this is my worry too and I don’t wanna waste the money I shall have to work my way through my tbr stack and then see how I feel I spose

 

[CommentBelow]

I devoured Song of Achilles in a day. I hated Circe, finished it but found it very long winded. It never got better for me.

Went to my local The Works a couple of weeks ago specifically for The Boys of Tommen Books. They didn’t have any

I got the last copies of the first two books in my local branch a couple of weeks ago but noticed today they restocked them so you might be in luck now.

 

[Ginnyjo]

Just in case anyone missed it like me, Netgalley does audio too, athough not as if I can afford to look at them, I'm on book 4 of my 12 ARCs I was given this month

 

[chickhicks86]

My only thing putting me off kindle is not being able to read library books on them my library has a good selection but it would mean reading them on my phone which is a no for me. I follow a booktuber from America and they can read lib books on kindle so hopefully they'll do it soon.

If you are keen, get yourself an Android e-reader! I've the Borrowbox and Kindle apps on mine so I'm not just limited to Kindle. I think Libby works on Kobo too.

 

[CommentBelow]

I finished 'The Familiar' by Leigh Bardugo. Mixed feelings on it- I don't usually read historical fiction so it was a bit out of my comfort zone but I loved how she integrated the magical realism into the story, and her writing is always lovely to read. The pacing felt a little bit off- a bit of a lull in the middle for me, and then the last third picked right up again. Probably a 4* read all things considered.

Spoiler: Spoiler

The only thing I'd add is it took me a while to find Santangel a convincing love interest, because in my head I pictured him as quite ghost like and sickly!!

I’m about 30% through - ‘You are here’ sucked me in! - but I’ll come back to your spoiler in a couple of days!

 

[Tofino]

Yes if you cancel you lose all credits so use them up then cancel. Youl keep the books you bought with the credit.

Good to know. I’ll make sure to use them before the end of the year. Should try and spend some now rather than all in the final few days