January reading round-up and ramblings

I reviewed no books at all in January! Go me! I did read 8 books though, so yay for January!

I don't have that much to say about most of the books though, so mini reviews it is! Although at some point I will be writing a review of Tampa, so you can look forward (?) to that.



Be Awesome: Modern Life for Modern Ladies by Hadley Freeman

Hadley Freeman writes for the Guardian, and I have been reading occasionally reading her columns for years. I especially enjoy Ask Hadley, which is supposedly a fashion advice column, but is in general quite amusing. My dad likes it, and I don't think he cares at all about fashion, so it's entertaining even if you don't care about the subject. I am sort of weirdly interested in fashion. You would not know this to see how I dress. Haha.

Anyway, I picked up this guide to being a woman (it's basically a collection of little essays about feminism and.. other stuff) because I know I like the way she writes, and it was fine. Nothing particularly mind blowing though. There were some amusing bits, but maybe not as many as I would have liked. If you know you like her, you'll probably enjoy it. Otherwise, I'm not sure I would recommend it necessarily, but you should definitely Ask Hadley a go!



Bird Box by Josh Malerman

The story takes place in a world where there is some kind of creature that makes people go mad and kill themselves and maybe other people when they see it. This means that everyone blindfolds themselves when they go outside to avoid glimpsing it. The book has two different strands, one set in the present day where the main character, Malorie, has two very small children to protect, and has worked up the courage after years of not seeing anyone else to leave her house and try to reach a safe haven that she heard about. The other strand is about the events that led her to this situation, from when strange things started happening up to the present day. I found the book hard to put down while I was reading it, and raced through it. From what I had heard about it though I was expecting it to be terrifying, but I wasn't really scared at any point. This is probably a good thing, because me being scared by things = not sleeping well for a month or so. It was extremely creepy though.

In spite of the lack of scares, I did enjoy it! I'm not sure it'll make my list of best books for this year, but I don't really have anything negative to say about it. If the concept sounds interesting to you then I think it'll be an enjoyable read.



The Cuckoo's Calling by "Robert Galbraith"

Mystery/crime novels are not really my favourite genre, but I had to read this because J K Rowling! As always, I loved the characters, and I think the book had some interesting things to say about fame and its consequences. I am definitely going to be reading the next one (and any others that are released) at some point. Yay! I still don't really get the whole Robert Galbraith thing though. I understand why she started using a pseudonym, and I understand why she would carry on using it, but I don't understand why she is still half pretending that he is a completely different person! Maybe she just enjoys it?



Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

Okay I tried writing a mini review for this one but it got too long so I'm going to expand it into a proper post. Next!









Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach

It was Mary Roach. As always, she is very entertaining, and not at all afraid to jump in to whatever she's writing about. If you have read and enjoyed other books by her, or want to read some non-fiction about sex and the science behind it, then I think you'll probably enjoy it.

My favourite Mary Roach is still Stiff though. I think maybe part of me is still too British to enjoy this one as much as I could have, if that makes sense.



Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

I feel like I should have read this years ago. I read a LOT of discworld books when I was in my teens, and I have recently tried and liked Neil Gaiman, so I was pretty sure that I would like this, and I was right! I'm sure anybody who is interested in either of them knows what the book is about by now (and has probably read it already), but if you don't... go read a synopsis somewhere, because I can't think of a good way to summarise it.

If you like Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman and haven't read this then you really should. It was very entertaining, silly and made me want to read more Neil Gaiman and go back and revisit all of the discworld books.



Tampa by Alissa Nutting

I am writing a separate post about this. Overall, I liked it (not sure liked is the right word), but also ewww.









The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1) by Rick Riordan

I have been meaning to try the Percy Jackson books for a while (because sometimes you just want something quick, easy, entertaining, and sort of childish and innocent at the same time - or is that just me?), and I quite enjoyed the first one. I definitely needed to read something that was very light after reading Tampa, and it worked really well. It was a bit predictable, and there were some things that didn't make THAT much sense in it, but all in all it was good. I got a set with all of the books in, so I am probably going to read them when I need a break from War and Peace!

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Bye January! I mostly enjoyed you, although I could have done with having a few more work-free days (it's been almost a month now since I actually had a day when I didn't do any work at all. I'm REALLY HOPING that I'll be able to get enough done this week to take this weekend off. I know that some people work that much anyway, but I am definitely someone who needs to have regular time off otherwise I start to lose all motivation and go a bit crazy).

I think that the next few months will be revolving around War and Peace, which I am quite excited about as I am really enjoying it so far! Yay!

Mini reviews of October reads

I seem to have read a lot of books this month that I don't really have that much to say about.. so mini review time it is!


Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling

Obviously this was amazing (and a re-read). My husband has slowly been reading his way through the entire series, and I knew that if I started re-reading them as he was reading them I would end up irritating him, so I was waiting for him to finish to indulge in some proper comfort reading.

The last time I read Harry Potter (in English - I have read the first one at least in German and Japanese since then!!) was years ago, so I had forgotten how many little jokes and things there are scattered through the books that make me smile. I ended up reading this when I was in the middle of trying to read Five Days at Memorial, because my slightly cold-addled brain couldn't comprehend it any more, and it was just what I needed!

Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death by M. C. Beaton

This is another book that I read whilst trying to get through Five Days at Memorial, and again it was just what I needed! I'm sure British people will have heard of the Agatha Raisin series, but if you haven't, it's based around a woman who has retired and moves to the Cotswolds to a village where lots of murders seem to happen (I assume). This is the first book in the series, and is about her moving there, and trying to fit into the village by entering a quiche competition which ends in murder.

It's a bit daft, but the actual character of Agatha Raisin is unusual in that she's actually quite unlikeable, but pretty fun to read about. All in all, it's quite silly, but lots of fun and oh so very British, and seeing as Britain is so very far away, it's nice to read something like that once in a while. (Harry Potter is kind of similar in its Britishness... maybe being sick makes me slightly homesick?) I will definitely have to remember to keep the other Agatha Raisin books in mind when I want something light and entertaining. I only wish that there were charity shops near here where I had a chance of finding the books for cheap!

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

This is my second Asimov book. I read The Gods Themselves ages ago and really loved the middle section (and thought the beginning and end section were okay), and I was hoping that Foundation would have at least a section on the same level as the middle section of The Gods Themselves... and it didn't really. But seeing as I have since read reviews of The Gods Themselves saying that it might be the best thing that Asimov wrote, my expectations were almost definitely too high.

The book is about a group of people who travel to the far reaches of the universe to work on an encyclopedia... which is a pretty interesting idea! I was fascinated by the encyclopedia idea, but the story quickly changed into lots of important people having important conversations with each other and outfoxing each other. Which was fun, but towards the end I realised that in the whole book, which covers over a century of this new society being established there were TWO female characters (that I noticed!). One is a servant girl who gets excited by some pretty jewellery, and another is the nagging wife of one of the male characters. Not great. I get that this was probably a consequence of the time when it was written, but.. hmm. It doesn't particularly encourage me to read more!

I sort of want to read the next book, as this one was more a collection of short stories about the foundation (see what I did there?) of this new society, but... I'm not convinced that this will ever happen! It's not a bad book by any means (apart from the lack of female characters - because half of the population of the new society isn't worth mentioning?), but it just wasn't my thing.

Oh and in the book they say "Space!" and "Galaxy!" instead of swearing. Which is fun, and something I might try to incorporate into my everyday speech!

The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson

Fascinating look into slightly insane techniques that have been tried out in the American military. I found this when I read the psychopath test a few years ago too, but I always feel like I should like Jon Ronson books WAY more than I do. I'm not sure what it is about the books, but although I find the subject matter interesting, there's something that stops me from finding the whole book as enjoyable as I feel I should. Maybe I just don't like his writing style? I'm not entirely sure...

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo

My parents LOVE Jo Nesbo, and as almost all of the e-book versions were really cheap a while ago I thought I would give him a try. This is actually the third Harry Hole book, but it was the first published in the UK which is why I got it. I would have preferred to try the first book, but never mind. This is why I should do more research before I buy things!

There were certain parts of the book where I found it hard to put down (even when I really should have done as it was already late and I had work the next day). In general I thought that the story was good, and I learned a load of stuff that I didn't know about Norway and its role in World War II, but I don't think that I'll be reading any of the others. Yet again, I have reminded myself that I'm just not a massive fan of crime as a genre (when it comes to books, anyway). I told this to my parents when I skyped them earlier and they recommended me a different crime series that they thought I might like, so maybe I'll give that a try at some point! I do like the idea of having a series of books that I know I'll enjoy!

Screen Burn by Charlie Brooker

I have actually been reading this really slowly over the course of the last 5 or 6 months, reading one or two columns before sleeping. I have loved Charlie Brooker's columns for years now, and this is a collection of them. They're from between 2000 to 2004, and mostly diatribes about how rubbish TV is (with the occasional thing that he actually liked). He gets a bit obsessed by 24 which made me feel really nostalgic! He also talks about loads of programmes that I had completely forgotten about, and the early episodes of talent based TV competitions which are somehow still going. If you like the way he writes, enjoy his rage, and want to enjoy a nostalgic look back at TV from over 10 years ago, you will enjoy it!