In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 50/52

This is a little late because last Tuesday, I forgot it was a Tuesday.  Which is unfortunate and odd because I've only recently decided to carry on with this for my 27th year.  With a slight addition - I'm going to take a shot of my unread pile and update that with crosses and whatnot for books read, or given away - just to track why the damn thing isn't shrinking, despite how much I read.  It may or may not be because I keep buying more books.  Though, actually, I've only bought around fifty this year.

Anyway, 22nd July to 28th July.  Six more books.

Only one I'd read before; RedShirts, by John Scalzi.  It's an affectionate Star Trek parody from the point of view of the titular Red Shirts.  They come to realise that they are characters in a TV show and use the utterly broken narrative laws of physics to ask the writers to please stop killing them.  It's written with a lot of heart, as the best parodys are.  I cried.

This is the book my coworker recommended, which prompted me to go to a bookclub, where I later met Tom.  I have a soft spot for it.

Michael Palin's Around the World in 80 Days was given to me by a coworker.  Once my friend Paul tipped me off that Michael Palin was part of Monty Python and not an aging politician I was quite a bit more interested in it.

I quite like the original Around the World in 80 Days.  And this trip sounds amazing, an effect which is only added to by the photos.

Day Shift is by the same author as the Sookie Stackhouse novels and includes a few of the peripheral characters.  I listened to it as an audiobook; not a sensible choice, given how I struggle to concentrate on sound.

Americanah is one I got from our local library (Dudley).  It was excellent; the story of a young Nigerian couple, one of whom gets to study in America while the other falls into the more negative options of life in Nigera and ends up in Britain.  The main character write a blog on her observations of racial difference, and the posts were my favourite bit.

How Google Works is essentially a management guide, describing Google's flat (as opposed to linear) hierarchy.  I found it fascinating.  I think I'd quite like to work for Google.

Finally, Capital is one I've had on my unread pile for ages.  I liked it a lot more than I thought I would (which begs the question of why I bought it...).

Capital is the story of one street in London over the credit crunch.  It dips in and out of all their houses and lives in a way that's quite absorbing.  I guess it has the same strength as the Simpsons - it can go follow someone else when anyone character gets too stale.  It stayed lively over 500+ pages.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 49/52

Only two books last week - 14th July to 21st July.  Mirror Dance, which was new to me, and The Wee Free Men.

The Wee Free Men I have read before, though this was the first time I'd listened to the audiobook.  I quite enjoyed it.  I'd like to listen to the rest of the Tiffany books (all of which I've read before).  I'm not allowed to buy any more until I've finished the 5-6 I've not listened to, though.

Mirror Dance I read for a bookclub.  Which was on the 14th, two or three days before I actually finished the damn book.

It started a little slow, and I do feel like part of that was because it was the 9th in the series.  I liked it a lot more when it picked up and Mark really came into his own, though apparently he's not in many of the other books.

In Which We Discuss Thinner

Firstly, because there's been a bit of a gap, here's an update.

Carrie - 1974 -  June 15th 2013
'Salem's Lot - 1975 - June 30th 2013
The Shining - 1977 - July 28th 2013
Rage - 1977 - July 31st 2013
Night Shift - 1978 - August 28th 2013
The Stand - 1978 - March 20th 2014
The Long Walk - 1979 - March 23rd 2014
The Dead Zone - 1979 - June 2014
Firestarter - 1980 - August 16th 2014


- 06/13 to 17/8/14 - 9

Roadwork - 1981 - 23rd August 2014
Danse Macabre - 1981 - 7th September 2014
- BONUS: Small World (Tabitha King) - 10th September 2014
Cujo - 1981 - 20th September 2014
The Running Man - 1982- 22nd September 2014
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - 1982 - 30th September 2014
Creepshow - 1982 - 1st October 2014
Different Seasons - 1982  - 24th October 2014

- 17/8/14 to 25/10/14 - 7 (16)
 
Christine - 1983
Pet Sematary - 1983
Cycle of the Werewolf - 1983
The Talisman - 1984
Thinner - 1984 

- 25/10/14/14 to 14/07/2015 - 7 (21)

Skeleton Crew - 1985
It - 1986
The Eyes of the Dragon - 1987

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three - 1987
Misery - 1987

The Tommyknockers - 1987
Nightmares in the Sky  - 1988
The Dark Half - 1989

Four Past Midnight - 1990
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands - 1991 

Needful Things - 1991
Gerald's Game - 1992
Dolores Claiborne - 1992

Nightmares & Dreamscapes - 1993
Insomnia - 1994

Rose Madder - 1995
The Green Mile - 1996
Desperation - 1996

The Regulators - 1996
Six Stories - 1997

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass - 1997
Bag of Bones - 1998
Storm of the Century - 1999 

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - 1999
The New Lieutenant's Rap - 1999  

Hearts in Atlantis - 1999
Blood and Smoke - 1999
"Riding the Bullet" - 2000  

On Writing - 2000
Secret Windows - 2000 

The Plant - 2000      
Dreamcatcher - 2001
Black House (with Peter Straub) -2001

Everything's Eventual - 2002
From a Buick 8 - 2002

The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla - 2003  
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah - 2004
The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower - 2004

Faithful - 2004
- BONUS: 20th Century Ghosts (Joe Hill) - Jan 2005
- BONUS: Josie & Jack (Kelly Braffet)  - Feb 2005
- BONUS: We're All in This Together (Owen King) - 2005
The Colorado Kid - 2005

Cell - 2006
Lisey's Story - 2006
Blaze - 2007

Duma Key - 2008  
Just After Sunset - 2008 

Stephen King Goes to the Movies - 2009
Ur - 2009     
Under the Dome - 2009

Blockade Billy - 2010
Full Dark, No Stars - 2010

Mile 81 - 2011    
11/22/63 - 2011
American Vampire (with Scott Snyder) - 2011

"Throttle" (with Joe Hill) - 2012
The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole - 2012 

A Face in the Crowd (with Stewart O'Nan) - 2012
"In the Tall Grass"  (with Joe Hill) - 2012
"GUNS" - 2013

Ghost Brothers of Darkland County - 2013
Joyland - 2013

The Dark Man: An Illustrated Poem - 2013
Doctor Sleep - 2013
Mr. Mercedes - 2014      

Revival - November 2014
Finders Keepers - 2015

 As before, bolded/red books are those I've read before while unbolded/blue books are those I haven't.  I'm quite pleased to see that the next one is Skeleton Crew.  I quite enjoy Stephen King's short stories.

At some point in the last few months I read N0S4R2, by Stephen King's eldest son, Joe Hill.  You can definitely tell it's related to King's work.

However, this post is focused on Thinner.  Thinner is a Bachman Book, the first one I ever read.

It's surprising how much of my life I've forgotten.  I remember Stephen King being the kind of author my mother liked, who seemed a bit mysterious to me.  I remember being confused by Dreamweaver when it was new and my mom had a copy and I attempted to read it.  I remember reading Carrie for the first time when I was sixteen, and getting along with it much better than my earlier attempts.  I feel like I must have gone through a bit of a Stephen King stage at some point, though that's the bit I really don't remember.

I wouldn't necessarily peg Stephen King as one of my favourite authors, which may seem a bit surprising considering how much time and effort I'm putting into reading his entire bibliography.  I have read a lot of his books, much more than I've read of other authors.  But then, as a percentage of his total novels it's not really a lot, is it?

Anyway, Thinner is about a man who is cursed by a gypsey after he accidentally kills the man's daughter.  It reminded me a lot of Drag Me to Hell which I watched at some point between reading the book the first time and the present.  While I do have an eating disorder, I didn't find Thinner particularly triggering.

Thinner was written - or at least published - in 1984, four years before I was born.  At this point, Stephen King and his family were living in Maine, and I think King was teaching English.  His daughter would have been fourteen, and whenever he writes a character with a daughter I wonder if he had her in mind.  I wonder the same thing when he writes characters with sons.  Firestarter and Thinner are the ones where I recall the main character was a man with one daughter.

James Smythe's excellent post on the novel points out that this is King's 19th novel over a ten year career.  One of King's stated reasons for using a pseudonym was because he wrote faster than publishers published (the other reason being that he wanted to find out if his success was a fluke or repeatable).  I count it as my 21st entry because I included King's first book of short stories, Night Shift and his first screenplay, Creepshow.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 48/52

Five books last week!  That would be 7th July to 14th July.

Two books I had been working on for a while.  Atlas Shrugged, which I've read before and Poor Economics which has been on my kindle for quite a while now.

Atlas Shrugged is a brick.  As an audiobook it was 63 hours long, and John Galt's speech was 3 hours of that.  I listened to it on three times speed and that was still over an hour of real time.

I feel kind of guilty for liking this book.  I don't agree with the entirety of the philosophy, but I like some bits - like the focus on passion and taking responsibility.  I feel very positive about this review.

Poor Economics is non-fiction.  It discusses finance and economics amongst the world's poorest people.

Soul Fire and Soul Storm are the second and third parts of the Soul Beach Trilogy by Kate Harrison.  I really could not put these books down; I finished Soul Storm at 1am this morning.  It's a great series.

Finally, Awaken is the final part of Meg Cabot's Abandon Trilogy.  It's a modern retelling of  Hades and Persephone.  It was okay.  Not as un-put-downable as Soul Beach especially since I read the first book ages ago.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 47/52

From 30th June to July - the most recent week!

Another seven books.  That commute does wild things to my reading time.

Boys Don't Cry was sweet.  It's about a young man who suddenly finds out that he accidentally conceived a child and suddenly has to take care of it.  I particularly liked the toddler.  She seemed a lot more real and vibrant than lots of kids in novels.

I kind of liked The Bad Sister too.  It's about a selfish little girl who falls in love with her brother in law on the night of his wedding.  So she decides to run away.  She decides it's obviously more than just a teenage crush which begs the question of how the fuck she would know.  She then proceeds to be a lot luckier than she deserves.

Once Upon a Tower is a 'regency romance' which is not a genre I'm overly familiar with.  I read it because the cover looked silly.  It was fun.

Far Far Away was terrifying.  Like Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids meets Poison.

I liked Soul Beach and immediately purchased the sequel after finishing it.  It's been sitting on my kindle for an embarassingly long time.  Soul Beach is about a girl who's sister is murdered.  Shortly afterwards, she receives an invitation to a social networking site which is basically a beach where lots of dead kids hang out.  The beach is typically described as being about as realistic as the .//hack levels are in-universe, despite the main character only viewing them through a screen and not via any kind of immersion headgear.


I hated The Third Wife.  I was quite enjoying the mystery...and then you find out exactly who wrote vile, venomous emails which drove a woman to her death.  And every other character decides to forgive her because "she feels bad enough".  And - spoiler alert - the 'grieving widower' decides actually his second wife was the love of his life and he's free to declare that now that his poisonous little daughter has done him the favour of driving his third wife away.  What an awful family.  And no one ever called them out on how utterly shitty they were.

Finally, Underworld is the second part of Meg Cabot's Abandon series.  To be honest, they all blurred together.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 46/52

June 23rd to June 30th. Another 7 books this week.

After the Party I listened to as an audiobook.  Ralph's Party, which this is a sequel to, wasn't my favourite of Jewell's novels though it is the first one I read (and the first she wrote).  I guess I'm glad to have found out what happened to Ralph and Jem, but actually I don't like them very much.

The Secret Shopper Affair and The Secret Shopper Unwrapped are both sequels to The Secret Shopper's Revenge.  It surprises me very much that I didn't reread The Secret Shopper's Revenge before the two sequels, which I have admittedly read before.  It's only recently that I've gotten out of the habit of reading an entire series before reading the latest book.

The Paying Guests is the first Sarah Water's book I've read.  It came highly recommended, and I quite enjoyed it.

I liked Nobody's Girl better than I thought I would.  It's about a teenage girl struggling to find her place in the world and cope with the fact her father hasn't been around since she was conceived.  I particularly like that she stands up for herself where other characters would have perhaps cried a bit more and come round to a slow, subtle sort of revenge.

Half-Assed is, as it says, a weight-loss memoir.  I liked the author, and following her journey, and I think she made some very sensible points.

I liked Fly in the Ointment even though I did just have to look up exactly which novel it was.  I read so many Anne Fine's over the last month.  It's from the point of view of a doting grandmother dealing with a harridan of a daughter in law.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 45/52

16th to 23rd June.  6 books this week!

On thing I found out over the last fortnight; I live between Sandwell and Dudley, which are seperate library zones.  One lets me take out twenty books at a time, the other thirty.  I still work in Solihull, which is yet another library zone, on the other side of Birmingham.  So that's four library cards and a total of 66 books at a time that I can have.  That plus the longer commute - a whole hour a day to sit and do nothing but read - is probably why I've been reading more.

Shopaholic Abroad or Shopaholic Takes Manhattan in the US is the second in the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella.  I don't think I'll reread the rest right now.  The third book is okay but it goes rapidly downhill after that.

Thinner was the first Bachman book I ever read.  I listened to it as an audiobook this time, on three times speed.  I need to write a longer post about it soon; I read it as part of my Stephen King project.

The Mumpreneur diaries wasn't that good.  I read it because I wanted to read something like Save Karyn or In the Red or How I Lived on a Pound a Day, which is, incidentally, the same reason I read Happy Money.  It's the semi-true story of a woman who set up a business after having her second child.

I didn't think much of What's Wrong with Eating People? either.  It' a book of philosophical questions which adopts some lazy thinking.

Falling I loved and, again, listened to over a day or so.  I think I've definitely broken through the barrier of listening to books I've not read previously.  It's another of Christopher Pike's adult novels and packs at least three novels worth of plot into one fairly short volume.

Finally, I'm not quite sure how to feel about The Woman Who Stole My Life.  It's mostly about a woman who was temporarily paralysed everywhere apart from her eyes, which is my personal worst nightmare.  She accidentally dictates a book by blinking which becomes a best-seller, something which is resented by her husband because he's supposed to be the creative one.  And then it's about a manipulative little shrew who decides to take advantage of the success.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 44/52

The week of 9th June to 16th June.  Nine books!

Two were audiobooks - The Day I Died and Witch World.  Witch World is one of Christopher Pike's adult novels and it is amazing.  I listened to it over one day, which, considering I still struggle with focusing on audio books, was pretty good for me.  I didn't even take it up past two times speed.

The Day I Died was a bit of a let down.  It's been on my pinterest of desired books for a while but I only got around to getting it recently.  Very short.  A bunch of teenage ghosts talking about how they died.  Terrible parodies of the hitchiking ghost and the monkey paw.

Save Karyn is a book I've read several times before.  True story of a woman who got herself into loads of debt and then created a website asking people to donate money to pay it off (she has since earned enough to donate an equal amount to charity).  I got this book second-hand several years ago, which I was pleased about because I wasn't sure how I felt about paying her for her story.  I've now donated that copy again because I've decided I'm okay with buying it on kindle.  I've read the book four or five times over the past few years and that's easily worth the £3-4 it costs.

Happy Money is a non-fiction book about the ways to buy the most happiness.  Typically, spending money on other people and on experiences gives you the most value.  Things like owning an expensive car are surprisingly unimportant because it very quickly becomes the thing you drive to work in.

Fifth Elephant was the third Discworld book I ever read, after The Colour of Magic and Jingo.  That would have been just under fifteen years ago.  I was listened to it in the car with Tom.  I forgot that that's an audiobook too.  We started it when we went to Cornwall in March.

Pruning Trees, Shrubs and Climbers focused more on ornamental plants than vegetables.  And I'm still not totally sure what pruning fruit shrubs into a bowl shape is supposed to look like.

I went through a bit of an Anne Fine phase at this point.  Both Taking the Devil's Advice and Raking the Ashes are adult novels, and they're the kind of small social group drama that she does really well.

Five Children on the Western Front is a sequel to E. Nesbitt's Psammead trilogy, focusing on what happens when the children are young adults in the midst of world war 1.  

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 43/52

From 2 June to 9 June.  Seven books this week!  The 'no image available' is Anne Fine's Our Precious Lulu.  Apparently, I've read this before though I certainly didn't remember it while reading.

Pretty Little Things had some semi-incestuous, slightly abusive sex.  And by 'some' I mean on every page.

All Bones and Lies was interesting.  Anne Fine's adult novels are all about interpersonal drama.

Confessions of a Shopaholic is the first book in the Shopaholic series and is actually called Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic.  I first read it when I was about thirteen.  I did read the sequel a week later but I'm not planning on reading the next few books in the series.

Fruit and Vegetables in Pots is another gardening book.

I'm not sure why I read The Good Father.  I didn't particularly enjoy the last Diane Chamberlaid novel that I read, although at least this one had a satisfying ending.

NPCS I really enjoyed.  It's about a game of Dungeons and Dragons where in non-player-characters have to take over the plot.  Difficult to describe, but very good in the same vein as Ready Player One and Redshirts.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 42/52

26th May to 2nd June.  Four books this week!

The Virgin Gardener is a fabulous and silly guide to growing various plants in tiny spaces.  Mostly focused on flowers and presentation rather than crops.

Sleeping Beauty is the 5th novel in the 500 Kingdoms series.

Harvest Moon is a collection of three novellas set in the world of established series.  The only one I was familiar with before was 500 kingdoms.  I'm not planning on looking up the others.

Something Untoward is a collection of six short stories by Sophie Hannah.  Very short, very creepy.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 41/52

From 19th May to 26th May - 8 books this week.  A longer commute and no internet will do that.

Fortune's Fool is the 3rd book in the 500 Kingdoms series.  It mixes the little mermaid with some traditional Japanese fairytales.

The Undomestic Goddess I listened to as an audiobook while putting my new bed together.  It's like all Sophie Kinsella's - funny, slightly scatty heroines who come through when necessary.

The Outskirter's Secret is the second in Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman series.  It's the kind of eighties fantasy-but-really-sci-fi that I adore.

Growing Veg & Fruit  is a very nice little guide.

The Heir is Kiera Cass's fourth Selection novel.  As a series it's something of a cross between Cinderella and The Bachelorette.  This wasn't as strong as the earlier novels.

The Last Enchantment is the final part of Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy.  I'm pretty sure I first read it fifteen years ago; I've certainly owned it for that long.

Ready Player One is a book I first read almost a year ago.  It's somewhat excellent.  It's also the book I read at the bookclub where I met the guy I now live with.

Finally, The Snow Queen.  The fourth part of the 500 Kingdom's series.  Not my favourite, but a passably entry.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 40/52

The week from 12th to 19th May.  Only two!

A Fire Upon the Deep was pretty good.  It was one of the bookclub books.

Patio Produce is a great little guide to growing things in pots.  Which is useful to me because our lawn is gravel.

So far, I have cucamelons, tomatoes, lettuce and courgettes growing.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 39/52

So, I moved house.  And EE repeatedly screwed up setting up internet.  But now I have internet.  And here is week 39, the 5th to the 12th of May.

I borrowed NOS4R2 from a coworker and tried very hard to finish it before we moved so I wouldn't risk damaging it or losing it, as well as having one less damn thing to carry.  It took me a while to get started but I quite enjoyed it once I did.

The Reboot with Joe Juice Diet is another book recommended by a coworker.  My manager swears by juicing.

Finally, The Help is a book I've read before.  I've listened to it before too.  It's a nice performance.