Wednesday 9 Feb - too tired to read!

Some days, work is so intense and wearing that I can't face picking up a book. Having been sat in front of a computer screen all day, my eyes are just too tired to read anymore. Aha you might think - ideal opportunity to read using audio. Yes indeedie - and that would normally be the case, but tonight, I'm tired to my very bones, not just the goggles, so weary that I know if I put my book into my ears, I'm likely to nod off very quickly indeed. Frustrating. Maybe I should just give in and go to bed - but not before the end of a TV programme I'm watching on the good old BBC about Madagascar. I do love those lemurs! But I might have found a new animal gem - the tenrec!  They had filmed a mother tenrec - which are kind of like a hedgehog - and her massive brood of babies (she can have over 30 at a time ... mad!) and they were so cute rooting around the forest floor that I instantly fell for them. Okay - definitely too tired now to type anymore - off to Snoozetown.

Week 5 - At last, something is happening in The Path of Daggers

Well thank goodness for that! I can now report that not only has the central character (Rand Al'Thor) appeared on page 248, but we now have a bit of action in what I feared was going to be a very disappointing read of book 8 of The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I'm glad I persisted with this epic, as we now have action, tension and anticipation as to when the big confrontation is going to happen. Will keep you posted.

Progress on the other books is that I'm about halfway through The Solitary Man, by Stephen Leather (lots of action, but a bit on the grim side ... but what can you expect from a story centred around the drug trade!). Meanwhile, in the more genteel surroundings of Cranford - it's early days, but at least there haven't been any murders as yet!

Feb 3rd - Another book started!

No, this doesn't mean I've finished another book - but I thought I'd better get going with one of the "classics" I've downloaded for free onto my Kindle. I've chosen Cranford, by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskill (1810-1865).

(Cleghorn, really? - far too like "Foghorn Leghorn" for me to take that middle name seriously) I was a big fan of the TV series, which starred the indomitable Dame Judi Dench, so, I thought I'd try out the source material. Cranford is based on the experiences of Elizabeth Gaskell's childhood upbringing in Knutsford, Cheshire, UK - which I didn't know until now. One of my sisters lived very close to there for a few years and I can't remember if the conversation ever came up. Anyhow, am just getting into the book and the Kindle has come into its own, because I was very tired when I started to read the book and I was struggling with the print - so I decided to try out the feature that allows you to increase the size of the font! Excellent. The text gets larger and easier to read, with the text rescrolling itself so that the words at the end of a line don't disappear  ... you may think that it would be daft if it didn't rescroll ... I agree ... but I have seen Ebook readers where this does happen, and you have to keep moving the screen view right and left as you go down a page - ridiculous! Maybe they were first generation readers and that's all been sorted - hope so.

February 2nd - Path of Daggers doing my head in!

I don't know what it is about this book, but I am finding The Path of Daggers, by Robert Jordan really hard going. This is odd as, until now, I've been enjoying the Wheel of Time Series. This is book 8, and I'm over 200 pages in and it still feels like NOTHING HAS HAPPENED! Come on everyone, get a grip and DO SOMETHING ... ANYTHING! You've got people with magical powers, half-men half-wolves, baddies who are REAL baddies and an evil that could quite easily bring the world to an end ... surely you could get a bit of action going instead of all this swanning about, inwardly bemoaning your situation, pining over loved ones ... ENOUGH ALREADY! I wouldn't mind all of this if it was building tension to what you know will be a big clash of good and evil - but it's not - I'm about as tense as a limp dishcloth, which as been soaked for 24 hours in clothes softener. Oh, and buy the way, the central character around which all the action (when there is any) revolves STILL hasn't made an appearance. Maybe it's because I've recently read the whole of the Mallorean books by David Eddings that I feel a bit disappointed by the Path of Daggers. Mr Eddings books have all the same themes (well, most fantasy books do), but are jam-packed with action. Maybe this book was a bit of a struggle for the author too. I will persevere in the hope that things will perk up.

I'm also in the middle of A Solitary Man, by Stephen Leather - which is fairly bowling along after a bit of a confusing start where a whole host of different characters are introduced in very short order, which was a tad confusing. But I'm right there now. Am reading this in audio, and enjoying this thriller about the drug trade - with much of the action taking place in Thailand. This is racing along, in stark contrast to Path of Daggers.

Week 4 - 6 books down, 46 to go!

It's been a bit of an odd week - really busy both at work and in the evenings. This has cut severely into my reading time - grabbing 10 or 15 mins over breakfast or before bed. However, have managed to finish another book. It's Confessions of a GP, by Benjamin Daniels (a pseudonym), which I have read as an Ebook on my Kindle. This has turned out to be a great book for my hectic week as it has really short chapters, each giving an incite into the daily routine of a GP and his thoughts on everything and anything that he comes across from the many hundreds of patients that he has seen in his time as a doctor (from medical school through to GP-dom), as well as thoughts on how to improve things within the NHS! We flit from care in the community, to a woman obsessed with Tom Jones, to STD's and sore knees - with the odd smattering of people who are just lonely and need a bit of a chat. Bringing to light the random, unexpected, and sometimes dangerous nature of being on the frontline for people who GP's only tends to see when they are not at their best! A very interesting read - funny, tragic, thought-provoking ... it's all there. If nothing else, it serves to remind you that GPs are human beings with their own lives, loves, likes and dislikes. I'll certainly remember that the next time I visit my local surgery.

The stats bit:
Length - 560 kbs (Ebook); 336 pages (standard print).
Price I paid - £2.99 (Amazon Kindle Shop).
Other formats available in - print; audio cassette; audio CD; audio download.

Week 3: 5 books down, 47 to go!

Yes indeedie, another book tucked under my belt this morning. The 5th book to be completed is Restless, by William Boyd (on audio). This is a gripping tale of a young Franco-Russian women, who is sucked into the life of a wartime secret agent, but who can never really leave the "spy" behind her. The past and present come together when she reveals this other life to her grown up daughter - who then has to question everything she ever thought she knew about her mother. This was a great read - in audio form the narration by Rosamund Pike is pitch-perfect - and gathered pace the further into the book you went, sucking you in so that you just wanted to keep on reading. From the very opening quote from Marcel Proust, your brain starts ticking over and wondering where this book is going to take you. Well worth the journey ... I might have to read more by Mr Boyd!

As a special treat - here's the opening quote from Marcel Proust to get your head round ...

"We may indeed say that the hour of death is uncertain, but when we say this we think of that hour as situated in a vague and remote expanse of time. It does not occur to us that it can have any connection with the day that has already dawned, and can mean that death may occur this very afternoon. So far from uncertain. This afternoon, whose timetable, hour by hour, has been settled in advance. One insists on one's daily outing ,so that in a months time one will have had one's daily ration of fresh air. One has hesitated over which coat to take, which cab man to call. One is in the cab, the whole day lies before one. Short, because one must be back home early as a friend is coming to see one. One hopes it will be as fine again tomorrow, and one has no suspicion that death, which has been advancing within one on another plain, has chosen precisely this particular day to make its appearance in a few minutes time."

The stats bit:

Length - 10 hours 15 mins (Audio); 336 pages (standard print).
Price I paid - £0.00 (free from Audible via a newspaper offer).
Other formats available in - print; audio CD; Ebook (Kindle).

Day 20 - slowly but surely

Restless, by William Boyd (audio) is fairly bowling along now - loving the intrigue of the "mother as spy" part ... really getting into the characters and trying to imagine my own mum dropping such a bombshell on me! Maybe not such a far-fetched idea, as she has admitted to smuggling a few pounds of butter over the border (can't tell you where) on her bicycle in her youth (can't tell you when ... don't know what the statute of limitations might be for such a heady crime).

Meanwhile, The Path of Daggers, by Robert Jordan (print) is taking a little while to get going. I'm hoping that it's just because it's quite a while since I read the previous book in this Wheel of Time series, as opposed to the book itself - I will persist - though I'm, already on page 68 and our hero(?) Rand Al'Thor - or the "Dragon Reborn" to Wheel of Time fans - hasn't made an appearance yet! I think I just need a good run at it - some books are like that. Here's hoping.