Old school style suspenseful romance

This felt a bit like an Agatha Christie - a novel that harkens from a different time.  Perhaps a little simpler, little less over the top drama, and definitely for entertainment.

Who would want to read Shakespeare's Tempest and visit Corfu after reading a book like this?  It felt like I should be on my beach blanket, sun bathing, watching the kids and reading this book.

This is a decent suspense, sprinkled with a bit of romance.  It feels a bit far fetched, however it is well crafted ... maybe a little like a modern day Janet Evankovitch?

I don't really think that I am going to wax poetic about this read.

Exceeded reading goal for 2015

#51!!! With almost two weeks to go!!

This was a solid, good book and reminded me of the books I used to read when I was younger (historical romances).  Granted, it was far better written than most of what I used to read.

I can see a familiar pattern after reading a few books, however, Kearsley delivers a satisfying read that gives you a hint of romance with historical details.  I like how a bit of earth magic is woven in to weave together the past and the present.  It seems to match my overall impression that life is not always what it seems to be and that there can be unexplained connections between people.

I want to travel to Scotland and Ireland again.  It may take a long time, but it is a place I would like to return to.  I enjoy reading books about the ancient spaces of both countries, and including England.  I do feel a connection to coastal areas, including our own. I think the one thing I could say about Kearsley's books is that sometimes the historical storyline dominates the overall stories, and I would almost like more of the  modern thread than what is given. Both stories pull me along and one seems to get less attention than the other.

Far more interesting than zombies...

The year of reading differently continues.  This was another one that the fabulous Jen recommended an eon ago.  Another great read. The premise behind this novel is definitely unsettling. So what happens if robots are completely integrated in to human lives, and artificial intelligence gets smart, and decides that humans need to go?  This is a teaser of what this novel is about.

It is smart, it is told through a series of vignettes by a group of characters over the span of about three years.  Event leading up to a war between humans and robots, and the events leading up to a climatic battle between the lead machine and surviving humans.  It is well told, and very provocative.  As a result of the structure, I wouldn't say that the book is most amazing literary novel I have ever read, however, it is a great book to read for the fact it isn't truly to be a lofty piece of literature and what it is... it is compelling, and it leaves you with a few different thoughts about AI and human spirit by the end of it all.

I think the more we can teach our kids to think on their own and not always need to be connected to an electronic device the better.  The flip side of that is that they will still need to know how to navigate through the machines...

Science Fiction meets a bit of the X-Files...

This has been a year of some great reads.  Also some truly unexpected reads as well.  I can't remember the last time that I read so much science fiction.. and frankly.. I am enjoying it!

After the last book, this was a breath of fresh air and I devoured it in four days tops.  How to tell when you are engaged with a book.

This was great.  Some really interesting characters, some unexpected twists, it goes a bit Lee Child towards the end, and then provides a strangely satisfying, almost X-files type ending.

I enjoyed it.  More so because it was a book I found purely because it was listed under recommendations for those that liked The Martian...

A great and terrible......

I am struggling to not be harsh and say "a waste of my time".  There are some moments of brilliance in this book.. but they were fleeting.  I really struggled with this one.  It is considered to be YA.. and this one felt like a YA novel.  Although it deals with fantasy/magical themes... it didn't capture my imagination and it was all I could do to finish it. Alas, this will not be a trilogy I complete.

Now my big decision is whether or not to read The Fold by Peter Clines or Robopocalyse by Daniel H Wilson.  Actually I think I will go Fold and then Robots... and that will be 50 books this year!! This will be an ongoing goal for me each year to hit the 50 book reading milestone.  It is achievable and rewarding.

I have already starting thinking what are realistic goals to set for 2016... the last few years the goals I have actually achieved or come close to ... well... that is a mighty slim list!

Great book. This is a movie I look forward to watching.

This one surprised me.

I loved it.  This was fun, just about the right length.  Just about technical enough.  The narrator is great.  He isn't perfect.  He isn't arrogant.  He has pity parties, and then movies on.

This is book about resilience,  hope, and how humanity will strive to help humanity.

I have read some great different genres this year.  I look forward to compiling my top five books for the year when we get closer to the end of December.  This was a book where it lived up to it's hype.  I will read more books by Weir as they come out.

That being said, I have waited a while to watch San Andreas.  Not as much of a waste of time as Spy... but truly, a disaster flick, with the layer of cheese spread out really thick. This was a movie that didn't live up to my expectations.

Decent thriller...

For some reason, it is never truly easy starting a new series, and trying to figure out if you actually like the writing style, and the main characters.

As I may have mentioned in reviews, Gillian Flynn is a good writer, however, I think she has a pretty dim view of humanity overall. I will admit to my rose coloured glasses, and I guess I like my stories realistic, but my view of humanity is a little more hopeful. In a nutshell, I am happy to report that the writing combination of Nicci French is not nearly so dark.

Enter this novel - this is a solid, good read.  It took me a while to warm up to the main character, but as the plot started to thicken, I enjoyed it more.  I was a bit worried about how the ends would get tied up.  There are some  great twists, and the end is satisfying.  I would read more from this series.  Reminded me a little bit of the Alex Delaware novels by Johnathon Kellerman that I used to read eons ago because of the psychotherapist elements to the story.

Things are starting to get even more interesting...

I am enjoying this series. Definitely fantasy, definitely intriguing.

Outside of fiction, how do people really and truly learn about things esoteric? It seems that I have learned what I have through conversations with like minded people, and through reading.  However, to delve in to some of these topics,  you really have to wonder about what are the most reliable sources and how to find them.

It is amazing how many words are written, and how it can be to find the ones that are meaningful.  I could ramble on in this vein for a while, and wax poetic, but it is something that niggles at my thoughts at times.  I think there is more out there than meets the eye, and I do believe in 'mysteries' and that we can't explain everything logically away, and I do believe in leaps of faith.

This is book 2 in a series of 4.. and with the 4th book not due out until February 2016, I was half hoping to not really want to order book 3 right away so there is less time to wait before the next book comes out. Alas. I am really enjoying this series, so the book has been ordered and will likely arrive at the library way too quickly.  If I was lumbering through some books there for a while, I have been setting a blistering pace lately. I see that 50 books this is a reasonable goal.  It is interesting how the four main characters play out - and the characteristics they all seem to be embody. As a reader, to also see who are the more appealing characters, at what time.  This is an entertaining series if you enjoy paranormal fantasy.  There is a bit of this book that is a bit farfetched, in the sense that there are two characters (almost the good/evil split of one quality) that can bring items out of dreams, the 'greywaren' ... but in this world, it works.

Look up, way up, can you see Magonian ships?

I love surprises like this.  Then again, when J recommends a book highly, I tend to take notice.

What a lovely, fantasy novel that embraced me for a few days.  As I started getting to within 50 pages of the end, I really starting hoping that this is not a stand alone novel, and it appears that it should be the start of a new series.

What a huge leap - from the romance novels of my youth, to literature as a degree, to not really reading anything all that interesting, to reconnecting with an old, dear friend and calling it book club to take some literary risks, and crime thrillers, and now to be a in a full-fledged fantasy kick, some YA to boot.  I love books.
This is one of those books that captures your imagination right away.  I love that there are elements of this book that you could actually research.  I love that in life, when you have the luxury of time to think and reflect, there are so many more things that we don't know, that it is truly an adventure that never ends if you remain curious, and open, and questing for something more.

I am pondering how much to gush, summarize and type out here.  I like books like this because they are more than just an escape. You can't really be sure of where you are going to end up.  This is the story of a girl, Aza Ray, who doesn't really seem all that suited to life on earth.  Her life seems to be a miracle, and every day is a fight to stay alive since her lungs don't really seem to work and no one knows why.  This is the story of her core unit, and her best friend, Jason, and of her untimely end, which isn't an ending, but rather a beginning or a remembering as she is brought back to her homeland, Magonia, a land in the sky which we humans barely get to glimpse.

Isn't it amazing to be filled with a sense of wonder at the miracles and complexity of life?  Books like this are a true joy, and in pushing your own boundaries and thinking new thoughts, you don't know what new doors are going to open.

Yes. Dammit. I do like my rose coloured glasses. They have kept me sane and grounded on more than one occasion.

A classic for a reason

Is this the point in the year where I actually start to feel like I will fully, completely, with no scrolling through the list of books that I have posted about reach 50 books read in a year? It tickles the cockles of my heart that this is a possibility.  I told B tonight I will likely read 50 books this year.  His response.  "When have you read all those books???!!"  I told him every night before bed.  I feel proud being able to read about a book a week.  Actually using my library makes it easier.   I know this is something that I return to frequently, however, I am so grateful to have made this connection again.  I like having access to so many different books, and to new DVDs.  I miss having DVD rental shops... strolling through the titles, browsing for whatever catches your attention.  Sitting on your couch and live streaming anything is not the same.

In a way, you can say it is only fair since I have challenged both kids to reading 50 books for B and 100 books for C by the end of their school year.  B is blitzing a path through books, and will have no issues at all making it.  In fact, I have to pull him back a bit since he half cheat and includes Geronimo Stilton books which he chews up and spits out for dessert,  For C, it is such a bigger deal because this is the year he is truly making the inroads to reading.  Reading for C is B's learning how to walk. Slow progression, but moving in the right direction.

For me, it is all about their letters and their numbers.  To have numeracy and literacy... and the rest will fall in to place.

I start with a picture of the book, and then I go on a tangent. However disparate, I think these different trains of thought are somewhat linked.  If I think all teens should have to read Frey's book A Million Little Pieces and hopefully scare them off of drugs (or take your kids on a road trip down to the Vancouver East Side for a dose of the dark side of drugs)... this is a book about humanity. It is truly timeless, and a classic, and I was entranced. What a book.  Thank you, Cher for recommending this one for us to read. I loved it.  I may even be a better person having read this book.  Well, that may be a stretch, but this book deserves it's title of being a classic and it too should also be required reading for teens for an entirely different reasons - this is a book about the human condition and it doesn't get old.

Moody, period piece

If I was rating this one... I would have hovered between a 3 and a 4.

I think I am very stingy with my 5 out of 5 stars.. a 4 is really rock solid entertaining read, and a 3 is a good read.  2s are very average, and 1 I likely flung across the room and refused to finish.

Another different take on WWI.  Life is about stories, and the more you read, the more you appreciate how many different sides there, especially when you think about sweeping historical movements.

This has a bit of a gothic feel in the sense it is very well written, and there are unhappy ghosts.  It feels a bit like a Kate Morton book, however, the pages do turn a bit more quickly. I enjoyed it, but I can't say that I thoroughly loved it.  This is a glimpse in to the lives of the broken men after the war(s) and the people who made a business out of taking care of them.  It raises interesting thoughts about what society was like after each war, and how the men that survived were changed a result.  We all know our grandparents didn't want to talk about those years, however, books like this help you appreciate the horrors a little more, even if this book isn't about the war per say.  This also describes a time of flux - where the rules were changing, just before the depression, and during a time where good help was truly hard to find, and not everyone could deal with the realities of caring for people how had seen truly the depths of human depravity.  Interesting.

YA kick

I had to ask one of my fabulous local librarians, what makes a book "young adult".  It seems that many of the so called YA books that I have read, really and truly aren't about young kids.  In fact, some of them tackle some pretty big issues.  The answer I got is that books are YA because they deal with teenagers (for the most part) and have to deal with young adult issues - like high school, reaching maturity, etc. Put this way, it does make some sense. Ready Player One, although the main character is 18, isn't a YA novel because it does not deal with young adult themes.

This is an easy reading, fantasy novel with a bit of the mystical thrown in for good measure.  A good read for around Hallowe'en.  I enjoyed it.  I liked getting to know the characters, and I like the idea of exploring the "ley lines".  It is amazing that with so many words out there written, that it can be pretty hard to read about energy paths, different kinds of power, ghosts, and the occult.  It is much like religion - it comes down to a leap of faith, and what feels right in your overall set of beliefs.

Yup. I am a fan...

No hesitation. I loved this.  What a sweet, coming of age novel. Although as I learned, there is an alternate universe of fanfiction out there in which the fictional worlds we love carry on, and that this is not truly a novel about fanfiction, rather about finding ourselves.

Left me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, and trying to remember a younger version of myself when I first started at university.  It is nice to try to remember a younger, more carefree version of me.  Although I think about 18 or 19 year old self.. working 28-32 hours a week, commuting hours a day, going to classes, playing hockey, going out to the bar too many days a week, putting hundreds of kilometers on my car every weekend.  It was awesome.  It also felt like a delayed high school experience for the first few years.  It was exciting meeting new people, and thinking different thoughts, shedding some of my younger self. I am not sure if I was running away from myself as much as I was running towards myself.

This was a great book to read in a quick sprint. Not quite light and fluffy, but really engaging and very hopeful.  I think more of what I needed in this moment than Wool.  I am not sure if I woke up on the right side of the bed this morning, and it has been a quiet day at work.  It has felt like what I needed today.

I was all geared up to write this post, and I will admit to a certain reluctance to summarizing the plot. I enjoyed this book because it felt raw, and vulnerable, and the characters weren't perfect.  Well maybe our lead male character was a bit idealized, but truly, it felt accessible in the sense that people weren't too idealized, and their problems cliched. It is about moving out when you are 18 to university, and having your world shaken up.  Sometimes I wonder how things may have been different if I would have been able to afford to live on campus, how I would be different.  I think thoughts like that and  my inner voice is thankful I lived at home (no matter if you pay a different price) and had a car so I could get around.  I loved the freedom that my car represented.  I still do.  I still prefer trucks to cars.  Thanks, Dad.  It was hard the few years I didn't have a car.  It was something that bothered me but I didn't think about it because it wasn't a possibility at the time to have two, nor did we need two cars.  I think I prefer this blend of bits about the book I just read and the path that my mind goes on as a result. Isn't that what it is all about? Experience, how we shift as a result, what we remember, what we think is worth remembering, what floats up from our unconscious mind.

Then I think about time.  How fleeting it is.  How unexpected some moments can be.  How you need to hold on to time, and  how it can slip through your fingers.  I still love the poem by Frost, "and miles to go before I sleep".. totally about time. Now how is that for a spoken circle that wandered through the woods?

I didn't know it was another trilogy....

I learned that this is part of a trilogy when I looked up pictures to include with this post.  I am not sure how I feel about this in the sense I don't know if I would continue to read the books... but for no real reason other than I kind of moved on by the end of the book...

This is a well crafted, futuristic science fiction novel.  I enjoyed most of it, and I found that towards the end, I was ready to move on.  You could blame this on Ready Player One because it was such a great read IMHO... this one just didn't catch me the same and I found that although I cared about what was happening, I found the end of the book almost less engaging than the beginning of the book.

It  is good book, if I was rating it, I would give a solid 4 stars... however, I don't think I care enough to read the next two books.  This could also be my head space, and this could change at any given time. It is really cool that this started off as a self-published serial that gathered speed and became a self-published success story.  There are some big themes and ideas at play here.  This is set in a distant future, after humanity has all but destroyed itself, and has attempted to provide the "seeds" for the future in silos built in to the earth where people could survive until the earth's atmosphere is no longer toxic.  Of course questions can arise about how toxic the folks in the silo(s) become, as people slowly begin to grasp that their silos are not the only ones. It would be cool to sit down and discuss this with someone, but as I think you may have come to understand, I enjoy blogging about what I have read and whether or not it really grabbed me, but I am not all that in to providing a summary of the novel worthy of plastering on a book sellers website.  Frankly, I enjoy more putting my opinion out there, if it left an impression, and helping track my own mindset as it is influenced by what I read.

Interesting tale of survival

This is a completely different survival story.  It feels contemporary, and it does recognize previous similar experiences (Alive, the story of the Uruguayan rugby team who were involved in the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which crashed into the Andes mountains on October 13, 1972 in which survivors had to resort to consuming some of their dead) although this survival story does not devolve to this point.

There are several poignant moments, and the characters are portrayed in all their flawed glory.  I like this - definitely not my normal book - but worth a foray nonetheless.  

The story of the protagonist's experiences on a mountain in the desert near Palm Springs with three women speaks to the resilience of the human spirit, and also to the mistakes we may make along the way.  Again, there is a thread of redemption, making errors in judgement, and of choosing different paths.  There is also an element of the spiritual, and there were some passages that really struck home.  If you are looking for a different kind of read, this is a fairly quick, well written choice.  You are told pretty early on that not everyone makes it, and there is a real twist at the end of the book.  I found it was just "long enough" that by the time I was finishing the story, it was time (if that makes sense).

Reminded me of the books I used to read...

This is a nice read.  It reminded me of the romance novels that I read when I was younger with better prose.  I think just what I needed this September.

Caught me off guard, great read.

I totally loved this book and couldn't read it fast enough.

If you like science fiction/fantasy/quests... this is a great choice.

LOVED THIS, especially because I didn't expect to. I was hooked from the first chapter.

And all the popularity for this one... not quite as right... IMHO

Another novel about WWII.. considering how many five star reviews this book has received, I expected more.  It was definitely a good book, but isn't one that I will rave from the roof tops about.

A truly different kind of book...

Obviously I am trying to catch up on at least blogging the books that I have read over the last few months.

This one I kind of had to struggle to recall whether or not I had truly read it.  It did, and really didn't leave a huge impression on me.

I think there are other Hoffman novels that I have enjoyed more.

Some interesting interwoven tales around a garden in which only red things grow and about a small town in the woods, that just kind of happens, and how lives intersect.

All the reviews for this one are right...

This was an enchanting novel (can you say that about a book about WWII???).  Lots of truly significant things happen in this novel, but it doesn't really reach huge climaxes.

Well written, well crafted, and an overall very satisfying read.