Tag: sunday summary

Sunday Summary – 17th September 2017

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Good afternoon everybody! I hope you are all having a pleasant day!!
Today has been a reasonably busy one for me and that’s why this post is coming to you a little later than usual today. Sorry about that!!
 

Books Read


This week has been pretty good, which surprises me in a way. A few nights this week I came home and after doing all the necessary stuff, I just couldn’t get into reading all that much. I did manage to read a little every day, but not as much as I could have done! Thankfully I made up for it yesterday. Monday night was a good one as I was determined to finish American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and I did. The next book on my TBR list was Bad City by Matt Mayr. It was this book I spent most of the week reading (or not reading very much as the case was), but thankfully I managed to read the second half of this book yesterday and finished it with enough time to start reading The Maze Runner by James Dashner. I haven’t read much of this – I’m in chapter 3 at the moment, but it is a solid start.
 

Books Discovered

I always dread logging on to my Amazon account to find out how many books I’ve bought. It’s one of those situations where you want to both look and shut the laptop screen down in a panic simultaneously. I think the trouble is that it is so easy to spend money nowadays – that however is another topic and I’ll go wildly off tangent if I carry on that thought.
In the Blood
Thankfully I was able to sigh in relief when I checked Amazon this week. Admittedly, this week I bought three. I don’t feel guilty though. Two were books on my TBR for this month that I hadn’t bought in advance, being the Maze Runner (my current read) and Making History by Stephen Fry, which is the last book on the list for this month. The other book I bought is In the Blood by Steve Robinson. I actually saw an advert for book three in this series and I thought it sounded really interesting. It said you could read that as a standalone story, but I know what I’m like. I went back and bought this one, which is the first of the series.
 

Coming Up…

So this next week coming up I am actually having a short break away, so I might be a little less active on reading other people’s blog etc. I have a special blog post I am preparing for you to fill the void I am away.
On Tuesday I will be reviewing my recent read of American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I like to try and give everyone a vibe as to what my review is going to be like at this point, but I genuinely couldn’t say. Admittedly I need to sit and have a think on it – I don’t think I’ve entirely made my mind up yet.
Now my special post on Friday is going to cover two books:-

  • My favourite book so far this year
  • My favourite book of all time

Now for this post I am going to tease you by keeping my cards close to my chest. You’ll have to check out my post on Friday.
Last but certainly not least I’ll be giving you a round up of the week, and I might even tell you a little bit about the spoils I bring back from my shopping trip!
The last little thing I want to tell you all about refers to my post on Friday, The Diary. If anyone looked closely enough, you’ll see I had an entry in on Friday to have a draft ready for a fairytale short story I am submitting for a competition. The good news is that I was actually ahead of schedule and I have now made my submission into the competition!! It’s the first real competition I have entered, so it’s exciting for me. For that reason I am also not expecting much from it, but I plan on writing more and entering more competitions in the future so if nothing else, it is all good practice.
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Sunday Summary – 10 September 2017

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Good afternoon!! Here’s wishing you a great weekend here from our not-so-sunny little Island today.
Without any further preamble, here is how I have been getting on so far this week:-

Books I Have Read


I haven’t gotten as far as I would have liked on the reading front this week. I finished Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett on Tuesday night, which I thoroughly enjoyed. This was the first book on my TBR for September. I then started American Gods by Neil Gaiman on Wednesday. In order for me to keep on track with my reading goal I need to finish a book, on average, every six days. Today is day five of reading American Gods and so far I’m only at 57%.
When I started this book I was advised that it is the kind of book you probably need to read again to be able to understand/appreciate it a bit more. If anyone ever tries to tell you this book isn’t peculiar and easy to follow.. they are lying to you. It’s perfectly readable, don’t get me wrong. I personally find it’s one of those books where you read a bit, then make yourself a cup of tea. Read a bit, sort out some washing. Read a bit more. You get the picture. I need to take breaks to digest what is going on in order to continue, and that’s taking time. I’m actually a couple of books ahead of schedule at the moment so no need to panic about taking a bit more time, but it’s a little frustrating.
Up until the beginning of this month I was under the impression I was about four books ahead of schedule – it was only when I was going through the books I have read this year I found GoodReads had chucked in a couple of duplicates for good measure. Oops. Better to find out now than on the 31st December I suppose!!
 

Discovered Books


I was reasonably well behaved again this week and only bought one book, on offer for £1.99! I subscribe to daily emails to notify me of discounted books and I came across Killing Floor by Lee Child, the first of the Jack Reacher novels. Lee Child is one of those authors for whom I have seen loads of books around but never really known much about him or his work. My mum, being one of the fonts of all knowledge in my life mentioned that her dad, my grandad used to read the Jack Reacher novels. At the time I thought about adding this first one to the list but I’ll admit I forgot. When I read the email telling me it was discounted, I figured even if I didn’t like it I may as well find out and get to know what my grandad used to like reading.
I also added a couple of books to the TBR without actually buying them yet, being After the Fire, by Will Hill, The Bone Collector by Jeffery Deaver, Carrie by Stephen King and Sleeping Beauties, a collaboration between Stephen King and his son Owen.
Also, following on from my post on Friday, Down the TBR Hole #4, I have added the books I decided to keep to my list. The five books I featured this time were mostly books I was interested in keeping – in fact I only discarded one.

One of the simple facts of life is that a reader is always going to have a stack of books they want to read. There is no such thing as the “end of the pile” unless you are physically picking it up to put another book on the bottom. There is no end of the tunnel – that light you can really see is just for maintenance purposes. As much as this is the case, that is exactly how we want things. Much like that tub of ice cream hidden from everybody else in the freezer, you continue to eat it but really you don’t want to have to be scraping out the sides at the end of the tub.
One of my favourite things about blogging is getting to see what everybody else is reading. At least fifty percent of the books I add to my list are as a result of looking at other people’s reading lists or reviews, so thank you to everybody for sharing. I am proud to be a part of this community and I hope I can inspire other people to read the books I am too.
 

Coming Up…

As I mentioned above I finished reading Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett on Tuesday and I will be publishing my review of the book on Tuesday next week. My next post will be on Friday and I am doing something a little different. You may have noticed that I am beginning to post on a regular basis now. Equally, you probably haven’t. That’s fine – you’ll just have to take my assurance that I am. My post on Friday will be explaining how I am managing my reading and my blog, as well as any other reading/writing projects I am doing. On Sunday (it will creep around again far too quickly) I will be giving you another summary of my week.
Just one final note from me before I sign off – whilst I haven’t had an overly productive reading week, yesterday I managed to finish my first draft of a short story I am looking to enter into a competition! That’s one little victory for me. I’m exploring a re-write with a different (and I think better ending), so that’s my next little project. I have until the 15th October to submit the story, but I’m not sure if the re-write will be ready in time. I have some time off work this month, so I can only try.
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Sunday Summary

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This week has been a productive week. Not only did I finish my reading list for August, I also had a few days spare to work on an additional project – a short story I am looking to enter into a competition.
That is currently in the editing stage. I had some trouble drafting it initially – once I had gotten the first 500 words or so on paper I lost the spark a bit. I am a linear thinking person so naturally I was trying to write it all chronologically. I knew how the story would end but I couldn’t get there because I didn’t know what was going to happen in the middle.
Having been given the great advice in these circumstances to drop my way of thinking and to write the end, working backwards, I managed to get the first draft completed. I have until mid October to submit the entry so until then I’ll be working to improve it as best I can.
 

Books I have Read

Pet Sematary
On Tuesday I finished Stephen King’s Pet Sematary and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Up until now I have never read any horror books because I really dislike horror films. I like thriller and suspense, but I have no respect for films that take cheap shots at scaring people by having something jump at the camera. Anyone can do that. Give me a thriller with an exciting plot and themes that play on your mind and I’m all up for that.
I’ll admit I wrongly tarnished horror books with the same attitude that I have towards the films. My full review of this book will be published on Tuesday, but I can happily say that my expectations were more than surpassed.
 

Discovered Books

I’ve been well behaved this week when it comes to buying books compared to the five I acquired last week.
I only bought one – that’s very restrained for me. I also tend to read a lot of pure fiction as opposed to non-fiction, so this will be an interesting read:

Acclaimed master of psychological suspense, Emmanuel Carrère, whose fiction John Updike described as “stunning” (The New Yorker) explores the double life of a respectable doctor, eighteen years of lies, five murders, and the extremes to which ordinary people can go.
GoodReads – The Adversary

The Adversary
 
As well as actually buying this book I added a number of other books to my TBR to buy at a later date:-

  • Executed – R R Haywood
  • Soul Identity – Dennis Batchelder
  • The Shining – Stephen King
  • 12 Years a Slave – Solomon Northup
  • The Miniaturist – Jessie Burton
  • Go Set a Watchman – Harper Lee
  • Bad Girls from History – Dee Gordon


 

Coming Up…

As mentioned above I will be publishing my review of Pet Sematary on Tuesday next week, so I hope you look forward to that. I know I do!
On Friday I will also be having a look at my TBR list to weed out some of the books I added that I no longer want to read. It’s actually quite interesting to see how my book interests have changed over the past few years. If anything, I am reading a far wider scope of books than I ever have before… which is in part what I wanted to achieve with this challenge.
Last but not least on Sunday I’ll be rounding up the week with a summary.
I hope to see you then!