In January I have been reading...

Oh, how I loved this book. I have read a few spy books recently, but they have tended to be quiet different in pace to this! Once I had appreciated the level of action that was going to take place in this story, I couldn't put it down. It's rare for my husband and I to share books because we have quite different interests, but I have been recommending this one to him non-stop since about page 30. I am still quite bereft at having finished it!

***** 

Following I Am Pilgrim was a tall order, but Us did a pretty good job of it, frankly. I have to confess that I am one of probably a handful of people in the world who didn't love One Day. I'm sorry. I really enjoyed the cultural references to an era that I was growing up in, but I really didn't like Dexter, or the ending, and I could go on, but I know I'm going against the grain here. But that's what's great about books, it would be dull if we all had the same opinion of everything we read. ANYWAY, Us made me much happier. I liked the characters and could empathise with their emotions and their journeys (both physical and metaphorical). I enjoyed the Grand Tour Of Europe because it reminded me of my inter-railing days, and I just 'got' Us in a way that I never managed to get One Day. A heart-warming read.

*****

You know where you are with a Marian Keyes book. I think that perhaps I loved her earlier work more (although it's a while since I read them); there were some parts of the plot of this that I thought were rather weak. But I still laughed and laughed at points in the story, and I thought that Stella was a very sympathetic character. This is a lovely warm read.

*****

So I mentioned this in my last post (and it is still free if you have Kindle Prime membership). But I read it, and I didn't love it as much as I had hoped. It's a bit too predictable (I know it's a romantic comedy, so you can't expect too many surprises), a bit too cliched (particularly in terms of Sarah's Americanisms), and the 'flouncing off in a strop' plot device is used an awful lot. But there were parts of the story that I did enjoy, and if romantic comedies are your thing it's still worth a try. Maybe this is another One Day and I'm going against the grain...

*****

This is a collection of short stories, and I read the Christmas Pudding story not long after Christmas, and then put the book to one side until later this month. I love Hercule Poirot, and there is the bonus of a Miss Marple story at the end here too. Some of the stories are more ingenious and pleasing than others, but all in all it was an entertaining read.

***** 

Here's another book that I mentioned in my last post, and fortunately it lived up to my expectations, although the plot did not pan out as I had anticipated. I previously read and loved the Lewis trilogy and Entry Island, which all combined crime with fascinating social history, and whilst Runaway follows a similar formula, the social history is very much to the fore. The story takes place in two timeframes- 1965 and 2015, and both are equally well-written. In 1965 we read a coming of age story about a group of boys seeking fame and fortune. In 2015 we see the repercussions of their 1965 lives. Their story is beautifully crafted and full of contextual background, particularly of the 1960s. If I am being picky, I felt that the ending was a little rushed, but the book was very much a journey, so I can forgive that. 

I kind of need a half star here, because I feel that it is worth more than 4 stars, but I didn't quite love the ending enough to give it 5. But you get the picture.

*****

I've set myself a target of reading 50 books in 2015, and I'm off to a pretty good start! Goodreads tells me that I read 36 books in 2014 (although I'm not convinced that I recorded everything that I read last year on there), so time will tell whether I am successful!

I hope you are spending at least some of your weekend tucked up in the warm with a good book. Let me know what you're reading if so!

x

Let's try again

Time to actually try and get into some kind of blogging habit, Even my mum has told me that I should be doing it! I am so far behind with sharing what I was reading towards the end of 2014 (and let's face it, 2014 seems like aaaaages ago now), that it makes more sense to start afresh and then revisit those reads at some point. So, I thought I'd do a really easy post of what I have been buying in 2015. This has the added benefit of being a confessional. My name is Sarah, and I am addicted to tracking the price of e-books and swooping when the price drops. I know, I'm the sort of person who is destroying the future of bookshops. But to counter this I am also unable to walk past a bookshop without making a purchase, so I'm not all bad.

This is the state of the problem two weeks into 2015. Don't laugh.

I can't wait to get cracking on this. I loved Peter May's Lewis trilogy and gave his latest, Entry Island, 5 out of 5 stars in the autumn. Runaway was published this week and sounds every bit as good.

Total contrast, but I love a good family saga, Joanna Trollope or Maeve Binchy stylee, and I have read great things about A Place For Us, also published in the last week. And Harriet Evans is lovely on twitter, so do give her a follow if you read this and enjoy it.

The House of Silk isn't newly published, but the price of it dropped below my threshold this week, and it has been on my list for a while. Sorry again, publishers and bookshops.

Ditto this. I have a few gaps in my Lacey Flint collection, as I started with book 4 and then went back to the beginning.

Matt Dunn is a great writer. If you enjoyed the Lucy Robinson or Mhairi Macfarlane books that I recommended last year, you'll like his work. AND, if you have Amazon Prime, it's FREE here! What more can you ask?

And finally,I bought the Complete Mapp & Lucia for the princely sum of 77p. This week I finally watched the series that was on television over Christmas, and it had me in hysterics, so I am really looking forward to this.

Well, that doesn't look too bad really, does it? We'll gloss over the books that I bought at the end of December for now, because looking at my account at a certain online retailer, there were quite a few. Ditto the books that are currently on my purchasing wish-list. There's a whole extra blog post right there, and I'll try and write it in the very near future.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what books you have been buying so far in 2015, and make me feel better about my habit!

Sarah x

P.S. I've got some weird formatting things going on, because I tried writing this on my iPad and it didn't really work out. So sorry, I will try and get rid of them and/or not do that again!