zaterdag 21 juli 2018

Bookhaul

Hi everyone

Just a quick post to share my newest additions.

As gifts from my parents, my brother and my husband:
Emma Newman – Planetfall
Max Brooks – World War Z
José Saramago – Death at Intervals
The Poetry of Emily Dickinson
Shirley Jackson – The Sundial
Ted Chiang – Stories of Your Life and Others
Chris Wooding – Retribution Falls
Richard Yates – Young Hearts Crying
Robin Hobb – Ship of Magic
Robin Hobb – The Mad Ship

From Bol.com:
Robin Hobb – Assassin’s Apprentice
Robin Hobb – Royal Assassin
Robin Hobb – Assassin’s Quest
J. V. Jones – A Fortress of Grey Ice
Stephen King – Carrie
Bradley P. Beaulieu – With Blood Upon the Sand
Marie Brennan – The Tropic of Serpents

From Book Depository:
Alfred Bester – The Demolished Man
Joanna Russ – The Female Man

From Fnac:
Christopher Priest – The Prestige

Happy reading!
Helena










woensdag 4 januari 2017

My Favorite Books of 2016

Hi everyone

Last year, I got asked about my favorite books of 2015 so I wanted to come up with a list of my most loved books in 2016 too.
I made it easier on myself by adding star ratings to my reviews and that’s why I made two lists for you.

Here are my all 5-star books I read in 2016.

And here is my top 10 of 2016 (without the rereads) in alphabetical order.

What were your favorite books of 2016?

Happy reading!
Helena

maandag 2 januari 2017

Wrap Up: 2016

Hi everyone

Happy New Year!
I hope 2017 will bring you as much or even more reading pleasure as 2016 did.

Here is the list (with links to the reviews) of all the books I read in 2016.
I had a lot of fun taking the pictures at the end of this post and it was the perfect time to give my shelves a good, thorough clean too. Great way to end the year! Rearranging books and then spending a lovely evening with friends.

In the end, I read a total of 50.433 pages in 126 books last year.
That’s exactly 400 pages per book and 138 pages per day.
I think I can safely say I surpassed my own expectations and I crushed my 2015 Wrap Up.

Here’s some information about the series I read in 2016.

I started reading:

I continued reading:

I finished:

I started and finished:

I’m still waiting on the next one to come out:

I won’t continue reading:

Here are the books I read in 2016 in the order I read them. If you click on the title of the book you will automatically open the review.


Happy reading in 2017!
Helena



zondag 1 januari 2017

Wrap Up: December 2016

Hi everyone

Time for another Wrap Up!
December has gone by so incredibly fast I can’t believe it. And January will be even worse with both my husband’s and my birthday.
Enough with the chatter, here are the books I read last month.

I read a total of 3921 pages. That’s 381 pages per book or 160 pages per day.
But I did cheat a bit there. The poetry book was read over the last 6 months.


How was your reading last month? Anything you’d like to recommend?

Happy reading!
Helena

zaterdag 31 december 2016

Randall Munroe: XKCD volume 0

Hi everyone

A couple of years ago my husband (then boyfriend) became of big fan of Randall Munroe’s webcomic XKCD so I gave him the book for his next birthday. It has 120 pages but the only reason I know that is because of Goodreads as the pages skip numbers.

My husband is an engineer so he understands all the sciencejokes and references. I don’t.
The ones I do understand are very clever, sweet and funny.
However, I would recommend this only if you are interested in science and engineering in particular because the comics are targeted towards those of you who are.
I can only rate this as I read and understood this.

Happy reading!
Helena

vrijdag 30 december 2016

Neil Gaiman: Fragile Things

Hi everyone

The last novel I read in 2016 is Neil Gaiman’s short stories collection Fragile Things.
I got it as a gift from my husband and it has 433 pages.
You can find all my Neil Gaiman reviews here.

I enjoyed this collection but I can’t say I loved it.

Some of the stories are different and interesting enough and Gaiman does write imaginative stories but there were a few I just didn’t get or I couldn’t understand what’s so special about them.
The writing is lovely and I enjoy his style but I had a hard time reading more then a few stories a day. That wasn’t a problem because life was very busy but it’s not something I’m used to; I tend to read an hour or two hours at a time in the evening.
Some stories felt like Gaiman was trying too hard to make them different by adding sexual elements, gratuitous violence or gore and those stories felt a bit wrong to me. He just added and added those elements and they made the stories less about the plot and more about those aspects.

All in all I had a mixed experience. I liked quite a few of the stories but I was disappointed one way or another with the majority of them.

Happy reading!
Helena