It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

 
It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. For this meme, bloggers post what they finished last week, what they're currently reading, and what they plan to start this week. 
You might also like to check out my Friday Finds highlighting new reads I discovered during last week that got added to my TBR (to be read) list over at Goodreads. 

I also posted about the Irish Book Awards shortlist and 2012 Book Pilgrimage a challenge is to read a book, or books, and then visit (make a pilgrimage!) to either the location where the book is set or to the author's home (or grave). 

FINISHED THIS WEEK:

Synopsis here.

 I enjoyed it perhaps not as much as I have enjoyed Steve Berry previously. It's pretty fast paced and action
packed. I like the way that history becomes an integreal part of the story. But I must admit to glazing over
some of the Napoleon background included.

STARTED THIS WEEK:

From the book jacket:

Out of the rich culture of India and the brutal drama of the 1947 Partition comes this lush and eloquent 

debut novel about two women married to the same man.
Roop is a young girl whose mother has died and whose father is deep in debt. So she is elated to learn 

she is to become the second wife of a wealthy Sikh landowner in a union beneficial to both. For Sardaji’s first wife, Satya, has failed to bear him children. Roop believes that she and Satya, still very much in 

residence, will be friends. But the relationship between the older and younger woman is far more 

complex. And, as India lurches toward independence, Sardarji struggles to find his place amidst the 

drastic changes. 

Well, I did stick with this mainly because we drove to Montreal for the weekend so I forced myself to finish in 
the car.
But it was a painful read. I especially skimmed over the many, many pages of Indian politics in the 1930s and 40s. 
Most of the reviews are excellent so it must only be me that ended up being exasperated with these women, I need
to remember the times and location to generate any sympathy for them. I do think being the second wife at 16 to a
in his forty's  cannot be easy. The first wife is a very smart woman, though and her husband might have been wise 
to listen to her!

I will be on vacation for the next couple of weeks so I'll catch up with everyone when I return.

2012 books read (34 to date):

The Coast Road - John Brady
Still Midnight - Denise Mina
The Bulgari Connection - Fay Weldon
Good Bait - John Harvey
The Heretic's Treasure - Scott Mariani
Dead I Well May Be - Adrian McKinty
The Devil's Elixir - Raymond Khoury
A Darker Domain - Val McDermid
The Impossible Dead - Ian Rankin
GB84 - David Peace
The Emperor's Tomb - Steve Berry
Stonehenge Legacy - Sam Christer
Inquisition - Alfredo Colitto ABANDONED!
The Troubled Man - Henning Mankell
Nineteen Seventy-Four - David Peace
Faithful Place - Tana French
Dead Like You - Peter James
Brother and Sister - Joanna Trollope
The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton ABANDONED!
A Beginner's Guide to Acting English -Shappi Khorsandi
The Snowman - Jo Nesbo
The Leopard - Jo Nesbo
The Stone Cutter - Camilla Lackberg
Miramar - Naguib Mahfouz
The Gallow's Bird - Camilla Lackberg
Nineteen Seventy- Seven - David Peace
Timeline - Michael Crichton
Millennium People - JG Ballard
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins 
Birdman - Mo Hayder
Clara Callan - Richard B. Wright

The Paris Vendetta - Steve Berry

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

 
It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. For this meme, bloggers post what they finished last week, what they're currently reading, and what they plan to start this week. 
You might also like to check out my  Friday Finds highlighting new reads I discovered during last week that got added to my TBR (to be read) list over at Goodreads. 

I also posted about the Irish Book Awards shortlist and 2012 Book Pilgrimage a challenge is to read a book, or books, and then visit (make a pilgrimage!) to either the location where the book is set or to the author's home (or grave). 

I also bought a bunch of books for our vacation which I will post this Friday.

FINISHED THIS WEEK:
Nothing!! It's been a busy week with other stuff getting in the way!

Still reading:

Synopsis here.

2012 books read (33 to date):
The Coast Road - John Brady
Still Midnight - Denise Mina
The Bulgari Connection - Fay Weldon
Good Bait - John Harvey
The Heretic's Treasure - Scott Mariani
Dead I Well May Be - Adrian McKinty
The Devil's Elixir - Raymond Khoury
A Darker Domain - Val McDermid
The Impossible Dead - Ian Rankin
GB84 - David Peace
The Emperor's Tomb - Steve Berry
Stonehenge Legacy - Sam Christer
Inquisition - Alfredo Colitto ABANDONED!
The Troubled Man - Henning Mankell
Nineteen Seventy-Four - David Peace
Faithful Place - Tana French
Dead Like You - Peter James
Brother and Sister - Joanna Trollope
The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton ABANDONED!
A Beginner's Guide to Acting English -Shappi Khorsandi
The Snowman - Jo Nesbo
The Leopard - Jo Nesbo
The Stone Cutter - Camilla Lackberg
Miramar - Naguib Mahfouz
The Gallow's Bird - Camilla Lackberg
Nineteen Seventy- Seven - David Peace
Timeline - Michael Crichton
Millennium People - JG Ballard
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins 
Birdman - Mo Hayder
Clara Callan - Richard B. Wright

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. For this meme, bloggers post what they finished last week, what they're currently reading, and what they plan to start this week. 
You might also like to check out my  Friday Finds highlighting new reads I discovered during last week that got added to my TBR (to be read) list over at Goodreads. 
FINISHED THIS WEEK:

Synopsis here.
This is Mo Hayder's  debut novel, and she introduces Jack Caffery, a detective who will feature in some of her subsequent novels. "Birdman" is the nickname given by the police to a serial killer who has buried five of his victims - five butchered women - in an empty field in London's Greenwich area. 
It's a little creepy and not for the weak of stomach. I really enjoyed it and look forward to reading more of her books.
Jack was not a favourite of mine though, he has really bad taste in women!! Especially the whiny one we meet at the beginning, I mean who could put up with a woman like that?



From the book jacket:
A finely detailed depiction of the Depression era, Clara Callan is told entirely in the letters and journal entries of two adult sisters, Clara and Nora Callan, and their older lesbian friend, Evelyn. The novel, Wright's ninth, made a surprising sweep of Canada's major awards for best novel--the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award--in 2001. Wright has the gift of making the reader care deeply about these characters and their worlds, which include small town Ontario, where Clara is a sensitive schoolteacher, and New York City, where the younger Nora has moved to become a radio soap opera star. Since both sisters are still "on the shelf," their roller-coaster love lives--Nora's in worldly Manhattan and Clara's in the more restrictive atmosphere of small-town spinsterhood--are a primary subject of their letters and Clara's journal.


This was one of the books I find in my bookcase while looking for a good read. It is not my usual style as I do not really enjoy books in this time period. 
That said, this is a quiet book, studied and well researched, but thoroughly engaging and readable. It is the first book in a while that I have actually had to look up the meanings of some Numerous references to Toronto in the 30s, the pending war gave me a real feeling for that period. Add to that the daily life of two unmarried sisters, one living as a teacher in a small town outside Toronto the other living and working in Manhattan.  It was interesting how confined the small town sister is and how nosy her neighbours are. These women were fiercely independent, and strong. I found them resilient and brave as they faced a range of challenges and disappointments. This is an intimate story -- just three real characters writing to each other and you feel that you know them and would like to sit and have coffee especially with Clara.


STARTED THIS WEEK:

I had a hard time finding a book I wanted to read this week. I went through my bookcase of unread books left from my previous purge, and picked up several to put them down again. A few went to a friend who's workplace is running a book sale. Several went to another friend as I think she will enjoy them.
I've read Steve Berry's series featuring Cotton Malone before and I am enjoying this as it is set in Copenhagen which we will be visiting in May prior to our Danube River cruise.


From the book jacket:
When Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile in 1821, he took to the grave a powerful secret. As general and emperor, he had stolen immeasurable riches from palaces, national treasuries, and even the Knights of Malta and the Vatican. In his final days, his British captors hoped to learn where the loot lay hidden. But he told them nothing, and in his will he made no mention of the treasure. Or did he?

Former Justice Department operative Cotton Malone isn't looking for trouble when it comes knocking at his Copenhagen bookshop. Actually, it breaks and enters in the form of an American Secret Service agent with a pair of assassins on his heels. Malone has his doubts about the anxious young man, but narrowly surviving a ferocious firefight convinces him to follow his unexpected new ally.

Their first stop is the secluded estate of Malone's good friend, Henrik Thorvaldsen. The wily Danish tycoon has uncovered the insidious plans of the Paris Club, a cabal of multimillionaires bent on manipulating the global economy. Only by matching wits with a terrorist-for-hire, foiling a catastrophic attack, and plunging into a desperate hunt for Napoleon's legendary lost treasure can Malone hope to avert international financial anarchy.

But Thorvaldsen's real objective is much more personal: to avenge the murder of his son by the larcenous aristocrat at the heart of the conspiracy. Thorvaldsen's vendetta places Malone in an impossible quandary—one that forces him to choose between friend and country, past and present. Starting in Denmark, moving to England, and ending up in the storied streets and cathedrals of Paris, Malone plays a breathless game of duplicity and death, all to claim a prize of untold value. But at what cost?


2012 books read (33 to date):
The Coast Road - John Brady
Still Midnight - Denise Mina
The Bulgari Connection - Fay Weldon
Good Bait - John Harvey
The Heretic's Treasure - Scott Mariani
Dead I Well May Be - Adrian McKinty
The Devil's Elixir - Raymond Khoury
A Darker Domain - Val McDermid
The Impossible Dead - Ian Rankin
GB84 - David Peace
The Emperor's Tomb - Steve Berry
Stonehenge Legacy - Sam Christer
Inquisition - Alfredo Colitto ABANDONED!
The Troubled Man - Henning Mankell
Nineteen Seventy-Four - David Peace
Faithful Place - Tana French
Dead Like You - Peter James
Brother and Sister - Joanna Trollope
The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton ABANDONED!
A Beginner's Guide to Acting English -Shappi Khorsandi
The Snowman - Jo Nesbo
The Leopard - Jo Nesbo
The Stone Cutter - Camilla Lackberg
Miramar - Naguib Mahfouz
The Gallow's Bird - Camilla Lackberg
Nineteen Seventy- Seven - David Peace
Timeline - Michael Crichton
Millennium People - JG Ballard
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
Birdman - Mo Hayder
Clara Callan - Richard B. Wright

It's Monday! What Are you Reading?

It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. For this meme, bloggers post what they finished last week, what they're currently reading, and what they plan to start this week. 
You might also like to check out my Friday Finds highlighting new reads I discovered during last week that got added to my TBR (to be read) list over at Goodreads.


Finished this week:
 
Synopsis here.

I absolutely loved it. I think it was even better than The Hunger Games. I now have my husband addicted to the series and he is on this one at the moment.
I'm glad I saw the movie The Hunger Games as I can now put faces to the characters especially Haymitch!!
I think this was jaw-dropping good, but *darn* a cliffhanger!!
I am not a huge fan of Katniss, I think she is selfish, but then she does admit to that. After all, she is only sixteen and teens are pretty self-centered at that age.
Gale is further developed in this book but I am still a huge fan of Peeta.

Also finished this week:

I'm not going to put the synopsis here because it has spoilers in it in my opinion. 

Loved it also and could not have guessed the outcome. There was one sentence near the end that did get me wondering however. I don't want to give anything away here.

There were some tears shed as some favourite characters are sacrificed and some cheers when others were killed.

I devoured this book on the heels of Catching Fire and was not so disappointed, what am I going to read now???

A good reading friend has suggested Blood Red Road and I have seen ads for it on the subway.

Started this week, but it was a hard choice so I decided to go with a new author (to me) as I happened to find a hard copy of her first book in my bookcase and wanted to read it so I could clear it out of the house.

From the book jacket:


Greenwich, south-east London. The Met's crack murder squad, AMIP, is called out by nervous CID detectives to a grim discovery. Five bodies, all young women, all ritualistically murdered and dumped on wasteland near the Dome. As each post-mortem reveals a singular, horrific signature linking the victims, officers realize that they are on the trail of that most dangerous offender: a sexual serial killer.

Detective Inspector Jack Caffery - young, driven, unshockable - finds himself facing both hostility within the force and echoes of his past in this, his first case with AMIP. Haunted by the memory of a death long ago, he employs every weapon forensic science can offer for he knows it is only a matter of time before this chaotic, sadistic killer strikes again.

So far I am enjoying it.


2012 books read (31 to date):
The Coast Road - John Brady
Still Midnight - Denise Mina
The Bulgari Connection - Fay Weldon
Good Bait - John Harvey
The Heretic's Treasure - Scott Mariani
Dead I Well May Be - Adrian McKinty
The Devil's Elixir - Raymond Khoury
A Darker Domain - Val McDermid
The Impossible Dead - Ian Rankin
GB84 - David Peace
The Emperor's Tomb - Steve Berry
Stonehenge Legacy - Sam Christer
Inquisition - Alfredo Colitto ABANDONED!
The Troubled Man - Henning Mankell
Nineteen Seventy-Four - David Peace
Faithful Place - Tana French
Dead Like You - Peter James
Brother and Sister - Joanna Trollope
The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton ABANDONED!
A Beginner's Guide to Acting English -Shappi Khorsandi
The Snowman - Jo Nesbo
The Leopard - Jo Nesbo
The Stone Cutter - Camilla Lackberg
Miramar - Naguib Mahfouz
The Gallow's Bird - Camilla Lackberg
Nineteen Seventy- Seven - David Peace
Timeline - Michael Crichton
Millennium People - JG Ballard
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. For this meme, bloggers post what they finished last week, what they're currently reading, and what they plan to start this week.
You might also like to check out my Friday Finds highlighting new reads I discovered during last week that got added to my TBR (to be read) list over at Goodreads.

Finished this week:

Synopsis over here.

So I persevered with this choice.  I was tempted to give up at one point especially when he goes on and on about physics and other scientific jargon. I stayed with it, albeit skimming certain sections and am glad I finished it. The parts I really enjoyed were the history of the French castles and then researching which castles still exist to add to my Bucket List along with Carcassonne  which I discovered when I read Labyrinth by Kate Mosse several years ago.

I thought the characters were flat, I wasn't drawn to any of them.  Knights, castles, fighting and suspense should have drawn me in but alas...

Also finished this week:

Synopsis here.

This was my first JG Ballard book and I liked it. I do think a Nick Horby  book is much more fun to read on this type of topic.

I know Ballard's point is the shallowness of middle class society but I just couldn't get into any of the characters especially the film lecturer who despises Hollywood cinema so much she organizes the burning  down of the NFT.

I did enjoy the geographical references to London and could relate to all the places that the protests were held in.

Also finished this week:

From the book jacket:

Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone out to make sure you don't live to see the morning?
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival.


I realize I'm late jumping onto the band-wagon, I had bought this for my 17 year old nephew at Christmas and assumed it was a YA book. As well I am not usually a big fan of dystopian novels (see Timeline above). I bought it because Kobo where I buy my e-reader books had a special for the trilogy.
Boy, was I wrong. From the first page I couldn't put it down!!!
There were times I could have cried, there were I gasped as the plot turned and twisted. 
We will be going to see the movie very soon as I am curious to see how it is done. 


Started this week:

From the book jacket:
Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol - a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.
Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

I am still captivated!

Plan to start reading this week:

I'm not going to include the synopsis here as I don't want to know!!!

2012 books read:

The Coast Road - John Brady
Still Midnight - Denise Mina
The Bulgari Connection - Fay Weldon
Good Bait - John Harvey
The Heretic's Treasure - Scott Mariani 
Dead I Well May Be - Adrian McKinty
The Devil's Elixir - Raymond Khoury 
A Darker Domain - Val McDermid
The Impossible Dead - Ian Rankin 
GB84 - David Peace 
The Emperor's Tomb - Steve Berry
Stonehenge Legacy - Sam Christer
Inquisition - Alfredo Colitto ABANDONED!

The Troubled Man - Henning Mankell

Nineteen Seventy-Four - David Peace

Faithful Place - Tana French

Dead Like You - Peter James

Brother and Sister - Joanna Trollope

The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton ABANDONED!

A Beginner's Guide to Acting English -Shappi Khorsandi

The Snowman - Jo Nesbo

The Leopard - Jo Nesbo

The Stone Cutter - Camilla Lackberg

Miramar - Naguib Mahfouz
The Gallow's Bird - Camilla Lackberg
Nineteen Seventy- Seven - David Peace

Timeline - Michael Crichton

Millennium People - JG Ballard

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins 

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. For this meme, bloggers post what they finished last week, what they're currently reading, and what they plan to start this week. 

Finished this week:

 

Synopsis here

I really liked this book, but if reading  about violence and racism will bother you then I don't suggest it for you. This is a continuation of the Red Riding quartet , I read 1974 a couple of weeks ago. The same two characters narrate the story, a copper and a jaded journalist, at times it is hard to distinguish who is speaking.


This is a gritty look into a very bleak world that is corrupt and violent.
I am looking forward to the next book, Nineteen Eighty .

Also finished this week:

 

From the book jacket:

The new psychological thriller from No 1 bestselling Swedish crime sensation Camilla 
Lackberg. A woman is found dead, apparently the victim of a tragic car crash. It's the 
first in a spate of seemingly inexplicable accidents in Tanumshede and marks the end of 
a quiet winter for detective Patrik Hedstrom and his colleagues. At the same time a 
reality TV show is being shot in the town. As cameras shadow the stars' every move,
 relations with the locals are strained to breaking point. When a drunken party ends 
with a particularly unpopular contestant's murder, the cast and crew are obvious 
suspects. Could there be a killer in their midst? As the country tunes in, the bodies 
mount up. Under the intense glare of the media spotlight, Patrik faces his toughest 
investigation yet!

Having read Lackberg's previous three books in this series I feel like I am visiting old friends. I did feel that this plot was a little tighter than The Stone Cutter.
The story is built around a reality TV show which is being filmed in the area. I felt these characters could have been a bit more developed, rather than having them hanging on the sidelines.
I will continue reading her as I really enjoy the setting in Sweden to the point that I had to look at a map to figure out where the various towns are located. Also as I said, I feel like Patrik and Erica are old friends, I was pleased they enjoyed their wedding. I am happy that Anna is back and as always love reading about the crazy stuff the chief of police Mellberg gets himself into.

Started this week:
 

From the book jacket;

When you step into a time machine, fax yourself through a "quantum foam wormhole" and step out in feudal France circa 1357, be very, very afraid. If you aren't strapped back in precisely 37 hours after your visit begins, you'll miss the quantum bus back to 1999 and be stranded in a civil war, caught between crafty abbots, mad lords and peasant bandits all eager to cut your throat. You'll also have to dodge catapults that hurl sizzling pitch over castle battlements. On the social front, you should avoid provoking "the butcher of Crecy" or Sir Oliver may lop your head off with a swoosh of his broadsword or cage and immerse you in "Milady's Bath", a brackish dungeon pit into which live rats are tossed now and then for prisoners to eat.

This is the plight of the heroes of Timeline, Michael Crichton's thriller. They're historians in 1999 employed by a tech billionaire-genius with more than a few of Bill Gates' most unlovable quirks. Like the entrepreneur in Crichton's Jurassic Park, Doniger plans a theme park featuring artefacts from a lost world revived via cutting-edge science. When the project's chief historian sends a distress call to 1999 from 1357, the boss man doesn't tell the younger historians the risks they'll face trying to save him. At first, the interplay between eras is clever but Timeline swiftly becomes a swashbuckling old-fashioned adventure, with just a dash of science and time paradox in the mix. Most of the cool facts are about the Middle Ages and Crichton marvellously brings the past to life without ever letting the pulse-pounding action slow down. At one point, a time-tripper tries to enter the Chapel of Green Death. Unfortunately, its custodian, a crazed giant with terrible teeth and a bad case of lice, soon has her head on a block. "She saw a shadow move across the grass as he raised his axe into the air." Try not to turn the page!

I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with this one...I'm not a huge fan of futuristic sci-fi types of stories.

Also started this week:

From the book jacket:
The peasants, goes a tedious old joke about Wat Tyler's mob, are revolting. In JG Ballard's unnerving, prophetic novel Millennium People, however, it's the middle classes that are staging the revolution: blowing up the NFT, burning their books and defaulting on their maintenance charges. Rejecting, in short, everything that they've worked so hard for--The Bonfire of the Volvos, as one rather droll chapter heading has it.

At the forefront of this petit bourgeois insurrection are the occupants of Fulham's Chelsea Marina, (as ever with Ballard) an exclusive housing community. Led by the charismatic Dr Richard Gould, a disgraced paediatrician turned "Doctor Moreau of the Chelsea set", Marina residents Kay Churchill, a former film lecturer; civil servant Vera Britain and Stephen Dexter, the parish vicar and an injured airman (another Ballard perennial) have unleashed an arson campaign against targets deemed suitably middle class.

David Markham, a psychiatrist and the book's steely narrator, is drawn into the Marina's inner circle after his ex-wife Laura is killed in an apparently meaningless bomb attack at Heathrow airport, (prime Ballard territory, of course). Meaningless is the insistent motif: Markham's current wife Sally was crippled in a freak accident and the murder of a banal if inoffensive television presenter (loosely modelled on Jill Dando) is one of the seemingly random violent acts unleashed by Gould, precisely because of their apparent randomness. "The absence of rational motive", as he says, "carries a significance of its own".

This is my first novel by this author and the last he wrote. So far, so good.
While researching the author at Goodreads, I came across the following:
The literary distinctiveness of his work has given rise to the adjective Ballardian,defined by the Collins English Dictionary asresembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard’s novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments.  

2012 books read:

The Coast Road - John Brady
Still Midnight - Denise Mina
The Bulgari Connection - Fay Weldon
Good Bait - John Harvey
The Heretic's Treasure - Scott Mariani 
Dead I Well May Be - Adrian McKinty
The Devil's Elixir - Raymond Khoury 
A Darker Domain - Val McDermid
The Impossible Dead - Ian Rankin 
GB84 - David Peace 
The Emperor's Tomb - Steve Berry
Stonehenge Legacy - Sam Christer
Inquisition - Alfredo Colitto ABANDONED!

The Troubled Man - Henning Mankell

Nineteen Seventy-Four - David Peace

Faithful Place - Tana French

Dead Like You - Peter James

Brother and Sister - Joanna Trollope

The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton ABANDONED!

A Beginner's Guide to Acting English -Shappi Khorsandi

The Snowman - Jo Nesbo

The Leopard - Jo Nesbo

The Stone Cutter - Camilla Lackberg

Miramar - Naguib Mahfouz
The Gallow's Bird - Camilla Lackberg
Nineteen Seventy- Seven - David Peace

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. For this meme, bloggers post what they finished last week, what they're currently reading, and what they plan to start this week.


FINISHED THIS WEEK:

 

Synopsis here.

I actually preferred this to The Snowman.  It is much more violent than The Snowman, but much more
 intriguing. I can't say I'm a big fan of the main character Harry Hole, a handsome, rugged, opium-addicted, brilliant crime fighter.
There is so much going on in this book that at times it is like a three ring circus: settings in Oslo, the Congo, the mountain tops of Norway, and a cast of thousands.  There is in-fighting among the cops, treachery, and a fantastic scene in the snow-covered mountaintops involving the cops skiing in. I won't give anything away here.

Also finished this week:

From the book jacket:
The third psychological thriller from No 1 bestselling Swedish crime sensation Camilla Lackberg. 
The remote resort of Fjallbacka has seen its share of tragedy, though perhaps none worse than that of the little girl found in a fisherman's net. But the post-mortem reveals that this is no case of accidental drowning! 
Local detective Patrik Hedstrom has just become a father. It is his grim task to discover who could be behind the methodical murder of a child both he and his partner, Erica, knew well. He knows the real question - and answer - lies with why. What he does not know is how this case will reach into the dark heart of Fjallbacka and the town's past, and tear aside its idyllic facade, perhaps forever. 


I read this quickly and found that the plot was not as tight as her previous two books, in most cases I had figured out the storyline before we got to its conclusion.
I did enjoy the flipping back and forth through several generations as you try to guess the connection between the story of the daughter of a stone quarry owner beginning in the 1920s and the death of a child in the early years of the 21st century.
I have her next one to read when DH finishes it, all part of our plan to complete the "hard" copy books in the house to declutter them in a garage sale.

Also finished this week:

A highly charged, tightly written tale of intersecting lives that provides us with both an engaging and powerful story as well as a vivid portrait of life in Egypt in the late 1960's.

I have read and enjoyed his books before, he is a former Nobel Literature winner. This one, however, I had to force myself to finish, generally skimming the writing.

He tells a story from four perspectives, and from those perspectives emerges a second story, a depressing look at a country whose political deterioration had by the late 1960's ruined an entire generation. It's a decent read, but requires some familiarity with Egypt's modern history for non-Egyptians to get the most out of it.

Started this week:

 From the book jacket:

David Peace's acclaimed Red Riding Quartet continues with this exhilarating follow-up to Nineteen Seventy-Four. It's summer in Leeds and the city is anxiously awaiting the Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Detective Bob Fraser and Jack Whitehead, a reporter at the Post, however, have other things on their minds-mainly the fact that someone is murdering prostitutes. The killer is quickly dubbed the “Yorkshire Ripper” and each man, on their own, works tirelessly to catch him. But their investigations turn grisly as they each engage in affairs with the prostitutes they are supposedly protecting. As the summer progresses, the killings accelerate and it seems as if Fraser and Whitehead are the only men who suspect or care that there may be more than one killer at large. 

This is the second book in the quartet, following Nineteen Seventy-Four. So far I am thoroughly enjoying it, even though it is extremely violent, racist and sexist, David Peace writes it like it was in the 70s.

I had read GB84 earlier this year as well.

2012 books read:
The Coast Road - John Brady
Still Midnight - Denise Mina
The Bulgari Connection - Fay Weldon
Good Bait - John Harvey
The Heretic's Treasure - Scott Mariani 
Dead I Well May Be - Adrian McKinty
The Devil's Elixir - Raymond Khoury 
A Darker Domain - Val McDermid
The Impossible Dead - Ian Rankin 
GB84 - David Peace 
The Emperor's Tomb - Steve Berry
Stonehenge Legacy - Sam Christer
Inquisition - Alfredo Colitto ABANDONED!

The Troubled Man - Henning Mankell

Nineteen Seventy-Four - David Peace

Faithful Place - Tana French

Dead Like You - Peter James

Brother and Sister - Joanna Trollope

The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton ABANDONED!

A Beginner's Guide to Acting English -Shappi Khorsandi

The Snowman - Jo Nesbo

The Leopard - Jo Nesbo

The Stone Cutter - Camilla Lackberg

Miramar - Naguib Mahfouz

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at  Book Journey. For this meme, bloggers post what they finished last week, what they're currently reading, and what they plan to start this week. 

FINISHED THIS WEEK:

Synopsis here.

Blah, did not enjoy this book at all, I skimmed through it so I could finish it. There wasn't a single character that I liked. Other than the twelve year old Ellen and the office manager Meera no one else had any common sense. They were all a bunch of whiny grownups expecting life to be a bed of roses. Just too much like a soap opera to me, an American one at that!


Not a good week so far, I abandoned the next book on page 121.

I tried, I really did to like this book. I enjoyed the trips back and forth between the generations but the main characters were the most insipid women that I had to give up. I seriously couldn't have cared less what the mystery was surrounding family.

She finds out on her 21st birthday (her father felt he had to tell her, why??) that her loving, adoring family is not her biological family. Her father had found her as a very small child and raised her in a wonderful home with great parents and adoring little sisters.
So she breaks up with her perfect fiancee who also adores her, settles for an idiot of a husband, has a  daughter, who turns into a horrible mother who in turn raises another dysfuntional child and so on.

Synopsis here.

I didn't love this book, it was ok (a really bad reading week for me). The title doesn't really reflect the story as it is more about family relationships than about learning to "fit in" in England in the 1970s. 

It is written from a small girl's view so things are explained from her point of view in very simple language. I did love all the food references. 

I also enjoyed learning more about life in Iran under the Shah and then what happened when the extremists took over. 

From the book jacket:

The night the first snow falls, a young boy wakes to find his mother gone. He walks through the silent house, but finds only wet footprints on the stairs. In the garden looms a solitary figure: a snowman bathed in cold moonlight, its black eyes glaring up at the bedroom windows. Round its neck is his mother's pink scarf.

Inspector Harry Hole is convinced there is a link between the disappearance and a menacing letter he received some months earlier. As Harry and his team delve into unsolved case files, they discover that an alarming number of wives and mothers have gone missing over the years. When a second woman disappears, Harry's suspicions are confirmed: he is a pawn in a deadly game.

For the first time in his career Harry finds himself confronted with a serial killer operating on his turf, a killer who will drive him to the brink of insanity.

I have started this book several times and gotten sidetracked. As a result of my dismal attempts to read something good this week I decided to finish this. I want to reduce the number of hard books in the house as we both use e-readers for a lot of our reading especially when we travel.

So I finished it, liked it but wasn't blown away by the author being touted as "the next Stieg Larsson". 

It was hard going at the beginning and Harry reminded me of Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallender and the murder mystery plot was fairly typical of the genre. However I did get quite involved and didn't want to put it down until I knew the outcome. There are quite a few twists and turns to the plot which keep you interested.  I  do think it was too long and there are some pretty obvious false turns that were not necessary.

STARTED THIS WEEK:

As I mentioned above I am working my way through the books in the house in hard copy.

From the book jacket:

In the depths of winter, a killer stalks the city streets. His victims are two young women, both found with twenty-four inexplicable puncture wounds, both drowned in their own blood. The crime scenes offer no clues, the media is reaching fever pitch, and the police are running out of options. There is only one man who can help them, and he doesn't want to be found. 
Deeply traumatised by The Snowman investigation, which threatened the lives of those he holds most dear, Inspector Harry Hole has lost himself in the squalor of Hong Kong's opium dens. But with his father seriously ill in hospital, Harry reluctantly agrees to return to Oslo. He has no intention of working on the case, but his instinct takes over when a third victim is found brutally murdered in a city park. 

2012 books read:
The Coast Road - John Brady
Still Midnight - Denise Mina
The Bulgari Connection - Fay Weldon
Good Bait - John Harvey
The Heretic's Treasure - Scott Mariani 
Dead I Well May Be - Adrian McKinty
The Devil's Elixir - Raymond Khoury 
A Darker Domain - Val McDermid
The Impossible Dead - Ian Rankin 
GB84 - David Peace 
The Emperor's Tomb - Steve Berry
Stonehenge Legacy - Sam Christer
Inquisition - Alfredo Colitto ABANDONED!

The Troubled Man - Henning Mankell

Nineteen Seventy-Four - David Peace

Faithful Place - Tana French

Dead Like You - Peter James

Brother and Sister - Joanna Trollope

The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton ABANDONED

A Beginner's Guide to Acting English -Shappi Khorsandi

The Snowman - Jo Nesbo