Sunday, January 03, 2016

The Goodreads Book Challenge 2015......

....the challenge in which I set a goal to read 52 books in as many weeks. I noticed after searching here for the last lot of books I shared with you that I was on book 41/52 and three books ahead of schedule. Well it continued like that for a while then somewhere along the way I fell behind and literally (no pun intended) ended up having to read 6 books in the last two weeks. Admittedly they were short stories but they were still books. I won't go into such detail as I usually do here, I'll just list the books with a short review and a link to the Goodreads pages. So, here goes............

Book Number 42 
(incidentally 42 is also the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything as revealed in book number 44)
 I gave it 3/5, a pretty amazing New Zealander who made such a difference to so many peoples lives, this was October's Book Sharing Scheme selection

Book Number 43
I gave it 4/5, I wasn't sure whether I would like it as one of our previous book scheme choices was Life After Life by her and it didn't go down too well. This was another Book Scheme choice, for November, I'm not sure the others liked this one much either. It was hard to tell really as November's meeting was in a restaurant (not the one at the End of The Universe), for our last meet of the year and also our Christmas get together and there was sparkling wine being passed around and quite frankly no-one looked like they give a sh*t about the book at all! ;-D We've watched a few TV episodes of adaptations of the books about Private Detective Jackson Brodie and we enjoyed them as I did this book.

 Book Number 44
I gave it 4/5, I really liked it, it's not the first time I've read this book nor will it be the last. I was a huge fan of the BBC series, the film not so much.

Book number 46
I gave it a 2/5 and I was being generous, Oh.My.God! This drove me insane, I was determined to read it because yes I know it is a Classic yadda yadda yadda...but oh boy I hated the characters, what a bunch of miserable, whining psychopaths they were. I was hoping they would all get lost on the moors never to be seen again! There were two words I particularly liked in it however and they were The End!
 
Book number 47
I gave it 4/5, much the same as Hitchikers Guide review, loved it. I can't ever recall having read the 5 books in the trilogy though. I must remedy that ;-D
 
Book Number 48
 
I gave it 3/5, it was okay but the ending was a bit of a let down really.

Book Number 49
 
 I gave it a 4/5, it's been a while since I read a Stephen King novel and I hadn't realised just how much I'd missed his books. This is the first book in The Dark Tower Series, now I shall be on the hunt for the sequels. 

Book Number 50
Another 4/5 for this, you may have noticed that the last few have been shorter stories, a necessity by this time in the challenge as I had fallen woefully behind. I must have read this at school, it's pretty brutal and savage stuff, but a good read all the same.

Book Number 51
  4/5, How can anyone not love this book? Just lovely and it took me back to my childhood.

Book number 52
 
 4/5, It made sense to just carry on with Alice's adventures and you know what I can't remember reading it before at all, which is most bizarre as I've had my copy for years.

NB: Some of the covers above are not the edition I read, for ease and speed I just used the pictures off the linked pages 

And that was 2015's Goodread's Book Challenge
You can see my Year in Books by clicking here


The Goodreads Book reading challenge for 2016 kicked off for me yesterday. This year I have set a lower number of books, I was aiming for quality rather than quantity. My aim is to read EPIC books or books in a series, there will be of course at least 10 that will be Book Sharing Scheme choices.
Then to add to that a friend in the UK who is a big reader sent me another challenge yesterday

I think I could manage that too, if it looks like I'm going to exceed my challenge quota, I can always change it. 
Oh and what did I start yesterday???

 There are nearly 1500 pages in this novel!! 1500!!
I can safely say that this is an EPIC book and I shall be ticking the box for 'a book that intimidates you'

Now for today's photo from the garden
Life in miniature
 *shudder*
Perhaps I should look out for The Fly by George Langelaan!!

See you tomorrow

 
 

9 comments:

  1. Awesome close up photo!!! Which lens did you use?

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  2. I'll be interested to read what you think of ,A Suitable Boy'. I'm not familiar with this book but I love getting stuck into really thick books, although they get really heavy reading them in bed!!

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    1. I'll let you know when I finish it in about a years time! lol ;-D

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  3. I agree with both the above comments.
    I want to know what books you have read that you gave 5/5 to?
    Happy reading. Happy New Year.

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    1. Goodreads rating system isn't very good really. 4 stars is really liked it, 5 is it was amazing. My list here
      https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/21408769?shelf=read has quite a few I thought amazing :D

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  4. Great close up shot!

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  5. I just read your review of Wuthering Heights to my daughter and she feels the same way. I have it on my list of books to read this year, but now I am thinking I don't want to. Hmm....

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