Basically Books! discussion

Then i will make it back to everyone by commenting! :)

I am currently reading ;

Yay lol =D

Oooh, it's okay Chelsea, I'll tell you. Just above the comment box you'll see the 'add book/author' link if you click it and type the book you want to add, it'll either come up as a link to the book or the picture. You can change it at the bottom of the pop up menu thing. =D

It's okay. It took me ages to figure it out =D

I've read a few books since I last posted but right now I'm reading and will be starting once I've finished that.

Finally finished A Most Dangerous Woman. Took me ages to read! I think it was because the narrative style is a little detached and I often have problems with that.

Going to finish off Dora Bruder now then try to fit in another English language title before exam time!

Ok, so I was bad and read Murder on the Orient Express instead!!

Oooh... Agatha Christie! I think I've read that one, but if I did it was six years ago and so I don't remember what happened. XD

I'm reading and I'm also thinking of reading as there has been quite a bit of interest in book 1 on my blog.

Also Sara, I deleted your comment because it's in the wrong topic. If you want to recommend a book you need to go into the recommendations topic. =)

This is where we talk about what books we're reading and compare notes on the books.

(Okay, the last bit's just because I like to talk about what other people are reading XD)

How are the Kelley Armstrong books? I've only read her YA series (which I enjoyed). I've heard her adult ones are particularly steamy.

What's Diary of a Wimpy Vampire about?

Bought that one set in Lithuania btw! May try to read it this weekend, though I just got a bunch of books in, so I'm a bit spoilt for choice! Yey!

I liked the first two, they were a bit steamy but it makes a change from eternal love. I haven't read her YA series, I'm going to add them to my Christmas wishlist. (My mum had this genius idea to buy Christmas presents throughout the year so that when Christmas arrives, more can be spent on gas, electric, food. All the important stuff.)

Diary of a Wimpy Vampire is Adrian Mole and Twilight combined, it spoofs them both. It was so funny. I'm hoping book 2 is just as funny.

I am way too spoilt for choice. I saw another 4 in Smith's but I didn't buy them. I was so proud. Woo! lots of books. Lithuania? Wow, you go to lots of places. (The furthest I ever travelled is from Bolton to Betws-Y-Coed. I'm travel sick so it didn't go well.)

A friend of mine recommended Bitten, but he's a (homosexual) fury who likes to think he's a wolf so I wasn't sure whether or not to trust his judgement. I may give them a shot. The YA series started out slow but got better. The last book isn't really a last book, though. She's just started a second trilogy with the same antagonists and has stated that she plans to bring both threads of the story together in the future. The plot points from the first trilogy that she didn't wrap up are bugging me, though, and I don't like the idea that I have to wait at least three years to get answers (by which time I probably won't care anymore).

Spoof of Twilight? I couldn't stand Twilight... I've never read any of the parodies. So long as it isn't full of blatant spelling and grammar mistakes ("the air was falling greenly through the trees" - I mean, c'mon! How did she even get that published?!).

No I didn't buy it in Lithuania, it's the book set in Lithuania that you recommended to me last week. :p Furthest I've been in Europe is Hungary, where I bought The Russian Concubine (which I didn't really like) simply because it was next to a book I'd read earlier in the year and absolutely adored. I've also been out of Europe once or twice but was too young to be that interested in book buying. I certainly plan on visiting Lithuania, though!

Go you resisting the book temptation! I don't have to resist it that often anymore as I rarely go to A'dam or The Hague, which is where the American Book Center is. The English-language selection at the shop in the town where I live isn't that spectacular and they rarely change their stock.

I loved Bitten. I gave it 4 stars which is prett good for me. Oh I hate it when authors do that, so what I'll do is I'll add them then add the others and then when they're all finished I'll read them all. *marvels at my genius*

I couldn't stand Twilight either, but a spotty vampire that can't do anything amused me. It's set up like a diary though. Hey, don't knock her writing style, she gives me the hope of being published myself. XD

Haha, I didn't read that properly lol, see this is my concentration, it's awful. That's why my book isn't finished yet. What a reason to buy a book! I'm going to use that excuse when I next read a book that I don't like. I love book buying, I have issues when it comes to buying books. I want to travel the world one day. When they cure travel sickness. Aparently driving is a good cure for it.

Woo! I was so proud of myself. I hate it when the English selection is rubbish (1 of my old libraries had a large Welsh language section), it's one of the most commonly used languages. It's not the most common though, apparently that's Mandarin. =P

3 or 4 stars is the norm for me. I don't tend to give out 5 stars unless I really could not put the book down. Good plan to get them all then read them later! :p I would have done that, had I known. But the books restored my faith in YA, so I guess that's at least something. You watch, next YA book I read will destroy it again.

A bit like Barry Trotter then? I wonder if they have the book in A'dam... hmm... And her writing style has opened up the door for numerous authors who should really have taken the time to improve their style before publishing. Plus, hopefully you are aware that you cannot make an adverb out of a colour... which SMeyer does more than once! And she's got a BA in English!

It's a good excuse! :p How do you tend to travel? I'm bad in cars and sometimes buses, and I get seasick very easily, but have no issues with trains or planes. My aim atm is to travel to each European country. I'm currently at 12, so plently to go!

I hate it when the English section is rubbish, too. My library only has books that are either a) bodice rippers or b) Stephen King or King-alikes. Not interested. Hence why I spend far too much on books. :(

Of course Mandarin is the most spoken language :P There's like a billion people in China alone. There are more people that speak English in China than there are in the USA!

It is for me too. I've given six 5 stars this year. Why thank you. I think everyone would have done it had they known. I like YA because it's simple to read.

I haven't read Barry Trotter but my brother loves them. I didn't but if it doesn't sound right in my head, then it doesn't go on the page. I do know now though. Seriously, why bother going to college if you aren't going to listen.

It's one of the best. =P I use my legs. I'm bad in cars and on buses, trains aren't exactly my thing either. I've not been on a plane and the one time I went on a boat I was okay.

Eww, I hate all the Mills and Boon stuff. Stephen King's alright but too much of one thing can get annoying.

China is huge! Wow, I never knew that fact =D

I just checked and I've given out four 5-star ratings so far this year. Two of them to Georgette Heyer. I don't tend to trust reviews by people who only ever give out 5-stars. YA being simple to read is sometimes my problem with it: I want more from the book, more depth to the characters and the plot.

I read the first two Barry Trotter then bought the third but my brother took it from me before I read it and never gave it back. The fact that it doesn't sound right in your head is already something. The fact that it does sound right to her says a lot about her. She also says "he suicides" instead of commit suicide, and I'm pretty sure she raped her thesaurus because there are times when the words used just do not make sense in the context! (I can rant about Stephenie Meyer for hours, sorry!)

I use my bike most often! I go everywhere on my bike. I could even go to uni on my bike if I really wanted, though it'd take at least an hour to cycle there (I take the train). Planes aren't that bad, though sometimes the change in air pressure makes my head feel tight, but sucking on boiled sweets usually helps. At one point I was flying so often that I trained my body to go to sleep in the plane: I'd get on, sit down, fall asleep before we took off and wake up when the jarring from the landing made my head bash against the window.

I don't either, if I just see 5 and 4 star reviews I just step away from the review. I'd rather have a critical but honest review. I know, but I like depth but I have a really short attention span so I find YA doesn't confuse my brain.

I tried to read them but I wasn't keen. Me and my brother never like the same books. I know, I read books, and my brain automatically changes things it doesn't like. "he suicides" that's pretty bad. Aww poor thesaurus. I heard it checked into rehab to get over the trauma. =P (Don't worry, so can I.

I can't ride a bike! I'm terrible, I don't travel much. This is why I want to attempt driving. I have a cunning plan to get onto TopGear. I would be fantastic. =D

I'm the same. Before I'll consider buying a title I've found on here I'll read both positive and negative reviews. If the book only has positive reviews, I generally don't trust it. I've fallen into that trap too many times. Unfortunately, some people don't bother to give detailed reviews as to why they did not like a certain book, they just claim it's stupid and don't back up the claim with examples from the text or the plot in general.

When I'm reading my attention span wavers. I have to consider what I feel like before I start reading. If I'm not feeling very focused then I'll usually pick up a romance novel. They're my easy-reads.

I usually like what my brothers read but they only like some of the stuff I read. They don't tend to like the more 'girly' stuff. There are five of us, though (parents, two brothers and me) and four of us will all read the same fantasy stuff. My dad prefers crime and thrillers, which he'll often pass on to me, but I don't always like them.

You can't ride a bike?! :O !! You'd never survive here. Everyone rides their bikes here. Hell, I go do the shopping on my bike! By being fantastic on Top Gear do you mean you're planning to put yourself in hospital in much the same way as Richard Hammond did? :P

I don't either. I also don't trust if a book only has negative reviews. I wonder if people have a bit of a vendetta against the author. I mainly talk about my feelings and back it up with a general idea of what I didn't like but I don't point out exactly what I disliked, when others point it out and then I see it, it frustrates me.

YA is my easy read, also Enid Blyton. You can't go wrong with Enid =D

My brother reads lots of weird books (or pretends to read), I just stay away from them. I mean he hasn't read Peter Pan! I love Peter Pan.

No I can't! I'm really bad. I just won't go there. I mean that I think I could bring to the show my sparkling wit and sarcasm (that would please Jeremy Clarkson), my height would amuse Richard Hammond (I'm 5 foot) and even walking I move faster than James May. I would also be a massive disaster, but the Stig could teach me how to drive! XD That would be the best. =D

I've never found one with only negative reviews. Though some of the self-published ones can be pretty bad. When I write a bad review, I try to give examples of what I didn't like. Sometimes it turns into a bit of a rant, though, and takes on a life of its own. One author contacted me and said she was sorry I didn't like the spelling of the name of her main character but didn't feel this merited a 1-star review. I had to wonder whether she'd even bothered to read the rest of the review: the info dumps, the climax 100 pages before the end, the dense heroine, the complete butchering of the French language...

Enid Blyton - Famous Five? I read a few as a kid but never read any others after I left England. I don't even know which ones I did read. I have a Secret Seven book in Dutch but I haven't read it yet.

I'm not sure my brothers have read Peter Pan either! But then again, my family's not a normal case as I suspect neither of my brothers has read any English classics, as we left the UK before they got to that age, but they have both read numerous French ones.

I'd die without my bike here. It's never too late to learn, though! Just get a bike with a small enough frame so that you can easily put your feet down firmly on the ground to keep yourself from falling if you lose your balance. That's what I do in winter here when bike skating becomes a necessity.

Lol, good luck with your plans of getting yourself on Top Gear as well, then! I haven't seen much of it, and of the ones I've seen only Oliver has stuck with me. Oliver!

I've seen some where if one person writes a negative review then the rest of their group follow suit. I try to keep it nice and tidy but I will admit that I did have a rant on one review, so I linked it to my blog where the review wasn't as ranty. Authors can be touchy, maybe she just couldn't bear the idea that someone saw right through her attempts.

Yes, Famous Five =D I guess it's just different people read different things but I think she's awesome.

Haha, well they have an excuse, my brother doesn't.

I tried but I couldn't find a bike that worked with my shortness.

Thank you. Lol, I love the Oliver episode.

Sara, I have deleted your comment... again. As I pointed out before there is a recommendations topic for books you want to recommend.

I haven't seen that, thankfully. Then again, I don't know how I go about finding the books I find... I suppose I don't often click on ones that have lower than a 3.5 average rating.

It's so easy to rant when you get going on something like really riled you. Have you read Graceling? That one annoyed me so much that I kept stopping what I was doing to rant about it in my daily life for about a week! I didn't write a review about it on here, though. :p

I used to really like Famous Five. I watched it all when they were showing the reruns (on CITV I think?). She was a very good author. Did she write anything for an older audience too or only for children? I also like E. Nesbit for children's authors from another era.

Get a children's frame :p I have an old woman's frame for my winter bike. The bike is like 10 years older than I am and weighs a ton but if things start to go wrong I can be off it in the blink of an eye. And, trust me, when cycling on ice / through heavy snow drifts, things can go wrong when you least expect it!

I also loved the Oliver ep! I loved it when the other two were ripping their cars apart and Hammond looks at his car like he really can't stand the idea of doing it any harm!

The books don't have that low an average rating.

I haven't read Graceling. The one a ranted about was Shadows: A Dark Touch novel. I wanted to do the main character physical harm, with the book.

I didn't watch it but I read them all, and I have them in a nice matching set. E. Nesbit is amazing. I also loved The Secret Garden.

I should try biking sometime, when the world ends. =P Oooh, what a bike! Nah it gets really icy here when it snows, and it doesn't melt for an eternity.

Hahaha, me and my brother were just laughing like idiots by that point, and Oliver was still way better than the other two!

How you felt about the main character in Shadows? That's how I felt about Katsa in Graceling. And loads of people go on about how she's a great role model for girls because she doesn't want to fall in love because she doesn't want to be dependant on a man. Yeah, ok, that's a good lesson but the author goes *too far* with it. And it doesn't stop our Katsa from indulging in a bit of animal cruelty at the end to get back to her guy. Grr.

Secret Garden is one of my childhood ones, too. I have it in huge paperback with lovely pictures. :) I haven't reread it in a while but I was talking about it with my mum the other day. She said that the first time she read it she was a bit worried about the view of women that it gives. But, it's from another era, what'd she expect?
I also loved Treasure Island, Black Beauty, and another one whose name I had just a sec ago but it's gone. >.< Hate it when that happens.

That's my winter bike. :p I actually have four bikes. Two are heavy city bikes and two are mountain bikes. Well, actually one of them is mountain and the other is hybrid. It gets really icy and the snow sticks here, too. Last Christmas, when I was still a postie, I was out biking on the snow every single day and every single day the snow was either slush (and impossible to cycle through so I had to push the bike) or ice (which meant I had to get goddamn good at bike skating very fast). We got one snow fall. The snow took over a month to melt.

He totally was! Didn't he win in the end, too? He deserved it at least!

I mean she was a spoilt brat (Shadows) it annoys me when people think that they can get something for nothing. It's a good lesson, [in Graceling] I suppose. I don't condone animal cruelty in books, I actually refused to finish one book because of some of the actions towards this poor cat.

Mine's just a little paperback but I do so love it. I love Black Beauty. Haven't gotten around to Treasure Island but I did love The Railway Children.

4 bikes! I can't even ride one. Sweet, it's got to be good exercise, does biking. (I'm not sure if that made sense but hey ho lol)

I think he did. I'm going to watch it in a bit so I'll let you know.

I cannot believe you thought she was a spoilt brat, well she was, but other than that, it was a really good book (shadows)

It really wasn't a good book. The only reason I finished it was because it was so slow. The only part I liked was the end. (Shadows)

Did you read the other 2 (shadows)

No I didn't. To be honest book one didn't make me want to waste my money. (Shadows)

I did , and it gets better! can't wait till 4th one! (shadows)

To be honest, I don't think I'll bother with the rest of the series. It just isn't my thing. (Shadows)

alright!! but its was good!! :) (shadows)

TBH I really didn't get that impression from book one and if you want to be the author of a good series book one has to hook the reader and Shadows just didn't do that.

well!! ok!

Well, I just finished Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley. I wasn't overly impressed with it, though it was enjoyable enough for what it was, I suppose.

Anyone read anything else by McKinley? Able to tell me if it's worth me looking into some of her other titles?

Now going to go alternate reading chapters of Vicious Grace by M.L.N. Hanover with reading the last nine chapters of Les Chercheurs d'os by Tahar Djaout. I wanted to sit outside to read but it's too windy. :(

Oooh I tried reading Tess. Didn't get far. Had too much else to do. It might be making its way to me tomorrow, though. I'll find out when I unpack my books. What do you think of Hardy's style? I found it quite hard to get into.

I agree with that, sometimes it's hard to adapt to a writer's style. I was reading a writer today that doesn't use fullstops. Really difficult to read. He's talking about "I lie down and drink frogs' heads pop up" and you're like huh?!

Hardy is the master of tragic heros / heroines. Have you seen the BBC version of it that the filmed two or three years ago? With Gemma Arterton or whatever her name is. I enjoyed that a lot. I think the BBC does excellent period dramas.

I agree with that, too. And certain styles from certain eras. I find Balzac harder to read than Voltaire. I have difficulties with Algerian literature, too, though I can't put my finger on exactly why.

It was annoying. It was a whole literary movement trying to emulate the stream of thought. The author figured that we have no full stops when we're thinking, so he wouldn't use any in his text. To read it, you have to put all the punctuation back in yourself or it doesn't make sense.

Colin Firth will forever be Mr Darcy for me. I think they did an absolutely fabulous job of Pride and Prejudice. It sticks very close to the plot and the acting is fantastic.

Oh yes. It takes ages to read. Not sure I could ever be bothered to tackle 500+ pages of that.

I highly recommend it! It's their best period drama in mu opinion.

I'm currently reading Marked. It's very different, and in a good way. I've got to check out Storm Born. Didn't know about it.

I havent read in ages! coz of exams, and that, and being 16 lol!

I am gonna try, after the prom, aka, next saturday, to start reading again!

We don't have prom in Britain. Must be awesome. Have a fabulous time, Tara!!!

i am in britain! england! its coz, im at end of year 11

thanks !

We didn't have prom. All we had were bangers and mash with a pint at the local pub. Have a brilliant time!

In recent years, Britain seems to be playing copy cat with American society. My "prom" in France was spending the night in a club that we'd rented out just for the school. This was at 18, mind, not 16.

Good luck with your GCSEs. You planning on going on to do your A Levels?

I'm currently reading The Story of the Cannibal Woman: A Novel by Maryse Condé. I'm only a few pages in, but I've read Condé before and really liked her... though this book is in English and the other one I read was in French, so I'm at the translator's mercy.

Yeah, i am, im planning on goign to college, and do somit to do with ict! :)

Thanks! i have 3 more exams!! cnt wait till its over!

ICT? Any idea what you wanna do with ICT?

I have little knowledge about the ICT sector but I'm correcting the thesises of masters students studying... computers.

3 more? Good luck! :) I've got 4 exams and two papers in June. :p

Good luck aswell then


No not really, thats why im doing a course, with, everything, and then, before the end, i will know what i like best

Thanks. :)

Everyone around me seems to do ICT! I'm the only one that does languages. :P