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!

Monday, 29 August 2011

Week 36: No new books, but have discovered croquet!

I've got two books on the go at the moment - Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, and A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz. I feel like I've been reading the latter, on audio, for ages, as it's a bit of a chunky beast of a story about a father and son relationship, set in Australia. Sometimes it's hard reading and at others it's laugh out loud funny. An odd mixture of a book but I think it's going to be worth the effort. Little Women, on the other hand is a classic novel that I'd heard was a must read, but I was feeling a bit ambivalent and a tad disappointed for a good few chapters until quite unexpectedly, I have been sucked in and am both interested in, and rooting for, the four sisters and their mother. Two completely different books - one very modern in tone and language, and the other, using language that wouldn't upset a nun - but their central themes are similar in that it's all about family and relationships! Who would have thought!

My weekends are usually big reading opportunities, but this last one has been different. My big sister is 50 and we had a "bit of a do" at her house! The clan gathered and had a loud and giggly and please no more food time. Excellent times and a great set of photo's have been taken by my brother-in-law that will help keep a record of our daft family for the younger generation to be able to look at in years ahead when mine is even more decrepit! Anyhow - one of the highlights was having my first ever game of croquet. This was unexpectedly difficult but excellent fun. Whilst I'm sure more experienced players would have been appalled at our loose interpretation of the rules, let alone the rather bumpy pitch, we became hooked - especially my youngest niece who turned out to be a bit of a star player. Just might have to find out if there is a local club. Who would have believed that whacking a ball around with a mallet through hoops could be so much fun! Thanks sis for thinking of hiring the croquet set for the weekend and thanks for everything else too - but boy have you set a high standard for 50th birthday celebrations ... but then you always have been a hard act to follow.

1 comment:

Mary4 September 2011 at 22:50
Glad you had a good time - maybe your next book should be Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson! But I guess you may already have read that. How about Alice in Wonderland or the rules of croquet so you can trounce us all. Hope you get more time to read next weekend.
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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)
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*** (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)