In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 26/52

It's my half birthday!

I read nine books last week - 4th - 10th February.  Four audiobooks, three books on my kindle, and two library books.

The library books were Shopaholic to the Rescue and The Waste Lands, which I wrote a longer post about here.  Shopaholic to the Rescue wasn't quite as bad as the other books in the Shopaholic series.  I really liked the first three; I read them as a teenager and they were amazing.  But then they kept coming.  On and on and on and on and....

I did like Step by Wicked Step.  It's one of Anne Fine's children novels, and after listening to Charm School and Flour Babies last week I thought I'd give this one a go.

The Imperfectionists and Little Star are both books I've had on my kobo for years.  I finally felt it was time to get around to them.  They were both pretty good when I got going, although Little Star was far, far too gory for my taste.

I actually read Little Star because I used a random number generator to pick which book to read from my unread pile next.  I did that again when I finished and it picked Middlesex so I'll start that tomorrow.

I reread Matched because it seemed time to finish the series.  I first read it a couple of years ago.  I've borrowed the second and third parts of the trilogy from the library, so I'll soon know how it turned out.

Witch World is a book I've listened to before.  I love Christopher Pike.  He's like Stephen King  for teenagers and with slightly more of a sci-fi bent.

The Telling Error was another book I'd read before.  It's the latest book in the Spilling CID series until The Narrow Bed comes out...tomorrow!  I just went to check.  Didn't realise how close it was, thought it was ages away.  Yay!

Finally, The Ice Twins.  A weird little psychological thriller.  Pretty good, though I forget what made me choose it.

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.