My Book Year 2025 - Gifted Reads and More!

It's year FIFTEEN of my reading challenge blog, and this year I'm focusing on reading all those books that people have gifted to me that have always gone to the bottom of the pile of unread tomes. No longer will they languish in the gathering dust, but instead, they'll be given the priority they deserve! Oh, and I'm going to try and read more in general after a couple of years of struggling to muster up more than 5-10 minutes at the end of a day. Let's go!

Friday, 7 January 2011

Day 7 ... one week in!

So, the pressure has been on over the last couple of days - the end of the week was looming and I hadn't finished a book yet! Luckily, I've been off off work and was having a couple of days in London. So, what's lucky about that - well, train journeys are a GREAT excuse for reading an audio book, so that gave me a boost. Also, I've never been able to sleep in ... whereas, I'm married to someone who more than makes up for my lack of zeds. So, audiobooks are a boon in the early morning in the time between the pair of us becoming fully conscious. I just pop my earphones in and away I go - only adjusting the volume if the snoring gets too intrusive!

Okay, enough preamble - I'm pleased to report that I haven't fallen at the first (as feared), but have finished my first book of the year ... cue drumroll ... The Elephant to Hollywood, by Michael Caine (format AUDIO). This autobiography of one of our favourite actors is full of big films, big names and, perhaps surprisingly, big heart. We hear how Maurice Micklewhite, a boy from the Elephant and Castle in war torn London transformed into the massive movie star of Alfie, The Italian Job, and, very much to his own surprise, is still getting work in the movies some 50 years later in Harry Brown, and Inception.

Listening to the man himself take you through his life with it's loves, heartaches, successes and failures, felt very intimate. I laughed out loud quite a few times (getting some odd looks on the train in the process) - and when Michael makes himself laugh too and chuckles along with you, it's absolutely irrestible. Really enjoyed this, and I already know that I'll be reading this one again when I need to feel warm and fuzzy!

Onto the stats ...

Length - 10 hours, 20 minutes (or 416 pages in paper).
Price I paid - £7.99 (Audible download on a year's subscription option).
Other formats available - print, ebook, audio CD.

1 comment:

CCC10 January 2011 at 09:44
Well done Munchkin - sounds like a great start to the project with a cracking read/listen. Do you have to have the three formats at a time? I mean, will the new book have to be in audio as that's the format you've finished? How is Salander getting on and have you started Fup on the Kindle yet? Keep us posted on developments, Cx
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Star Ratings 2021

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Star Ratings 2020

5 STARS: To Kill A Mockingbird (p); The Mirror and the Light (a); Sweet Sorrow (a)
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The STARS list 2019

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2 STARS:
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The STARS list 2018

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The STARS list 2017

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2 stars: Allegiant (e)
1 star:

The STARS list 2016

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2 STARS: Gone Girl (e); Child of the Mist (e); The Dark Side of the Sun (p)
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3. Unseen Academicals, by Terry Pratchett (print)
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5. Sharpe's Company, by Bernard Cornwell (print).
6. Life on Air, by David Attenborough (audio)
7. How to save an hour every day, by Michael Heppell (audio)
8. The key to Rebecca, by Ken Follett (ebook)
9. Stonemouth, by Iain Banks (audio)
10. My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece, by Annabel Pitcher (audio)

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1 STAR: None to date.

The STARS list 2011

***** The Elephant to Hollywood (Audio); Dancing Backwards (Print); Restless (Audio); Sharpe's Fury (Print); Water for Elephants (Audio); The Graveyard Book (Audio); Chocolate Wars (Audio); Getting Sassy (Audio); The Help (Audio); Life and Laughing (Audio); Rivers of London (Audio)
**** One Day (Audio); The Zookeeper's War (Print); The Solitary Man (Ebook); Fup (Ebook); The Girl Who Played With Fire (Print); Tooth and Nail (Print); Mousetrapped (Ebook); Confessions of a GP (Ebook); Mr Toppit (Print); The Last Hero (Print); The Mayor of Casterbridge (Ebook); Sharpe's Battle (Print); Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes (Ebook); Mort (Audio); The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Print); I am Number Four (Audio); Wading Home (Ebook); The Information Officer (Print); A Fraction of the Whole (Audio); Good as Dead (Print); Mercy (Print); Hard Landing (Ebook); William Walker's First Year of Marriage (Ebook)
*** (and a half!) Airman (Audio); Devil May Care (Print); Labyrinth (Print); Switched (Ebook)
*** Painless (Ebook); Cranford (Ebook); Revelations of Divine Love (Ebook); The Secret Holocaust Diaries (Ebook); Moon Dance (Ebook); Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools (Ebook); Greenmantle (Audio); Ex Machina (Ebook); Little Women (Ebook); The Things We Cherished (Print); Agent Zigzag (Print); Life ... With No Breaks (Ebook)
** The Lady in the Tower (Print); Path of Daggers (Print); Beauty and the Beast (Ebook)
* She's never coming back (Print)