challenge – Bibliophile Book Club

Hello January 2016…

Hi everyone!

It’s my first post of 2016 and it’s essentially my Goodreads Challenge plan and my reading for the month of January!

This year, I’ve decided to set myself a reading challenge of 75 books!

Should be attainable right?! 😉

Last year, I set my target low because I had just had my little girl in December 2014 and I really didn’t know if I was going to pick up a book or have time! Thankfully I did, and I managed to read 86 books in 2015, with just over 31,000 pages read.

I have a number of books on my TBR shelves that have publication days coming up this month so I’m planning on reading them first! Here’s what my list looks like at the moment, along with some others thrown in:

While this is not set in stone, I would still really like to get them read!

I’m hoping to try some more blog challenges too so I have to keep an eye out for some good ones to do! 😊

I can’t wait to take down the Christmas tree (terrible I know! 🙈) because it has taken up all my TBR shelf space and all my books are in a heap! I’m getting some new shelves to put them on though so I’m super excited to get organising! 😊

Happy reading in 2016

😊📖 xx

30 Day Challenge- Day 27

Book that has been on your to read list the longest…

I have quite a few books on my shelves that have been there for quite some time, but I could be here all day listing them. I’ve gone with one that I’ve had on my shelves since before we moved house (4 years ago) and another that was bought in or around the same time!

A Voice For The Dead by James E.Starrs

In the midst of his distinguished law school career, James Starrs made an extraordinary leap into the politically fraught, physically arduous business of actually exhuming bodies to solve cold cases that have defied answers for years. Helped by cutting-edge technology as well as the forensic science he had been teaching for decades, he has made important discoveries. These fascinating revelations are dramatically chronicled in A Voice for the Dead.

Starrs’s passionate intention is to set the record straight, to right the wrongs done by tall tales and cover-ups, by even the most cherished historical legends. Among the high-profile cases he writes about are Jesse James-are the remains buried in his purported grave really Jesse’s? Mary Sullivan-was she, as supposed, a victim of Albert DeSalvo, who confessed, perhaps falsely, to being the Boston Strangler? And the Cold War government scientist who fell to his death from a high floor of a New York hotel-did he jump or was he pushed?

Blind Fury by Lynda La Plante

A motorway service station on the M1: dimly lit, run down, poorly supervised, flickering lights, dark corners; a favourite stopover for long-distance lorry drivers on their way up north from London. Behind it, a body is found in a ditch, that of a girl barely out of her teens. She appears to have no family, no friends, no connections anywhere. Other girls have gone missing in the vicinity and no one has stepped forward to claim them. Anna Travis is assigned to the case. Her blood runs cold when she receives a letter from a lifer — someone she was responsible for arresting in the past — who writes to her from prison, asking her to visit him urgently. For he claims he knows who the killer is…

So, there you have it, two of my longtime TBR shelf warmers! I will get to them eventually! 😉

30 Day Challenge- Day 24

Book you’re most embarrassed to say you like/liked…

Right, this one is not one of my most favourite picks for this challenge.

Why should I admit to be embarrassed about the books I’ve read? Is there a reason why some books could be deemed embarrassing?

In researching this post, i checked some lists and some of the books listed under this category included

Twilight
The Da Vinci Code
Fifty Shades of Grey

No surprises there as I’ve heard them mentioned frequently, my question is should we place less value on those books because they aren’t great literary sagas that tax the mind at every opportunity?

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Note Dr. Seuss didn’t say ‘except for book X and book Y’!

I am not embarrassed to say I have read all of the aforementioned books, and enjoyed them!

Twilight was my saviour, as I read them 6 years ago after having my son, and i NEEDED to read to keep my brain working! Meyer’s books did just that!

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I couldn’t agree more, and no matter what the book, reading is reading and you shouldn’t be embarrassed about your choices! 🙂

30 Day Challenge- Day 22

Least favourite plot device employed by way too many books you actually enjoyed otherwise…

I’ll be honest, I had to Google plot devices as i had no idea what they were. I know what irritates me when I’m reading a book now though 🙂

I am not really a romantic person, I’m sure it’s there somewhere, but mainly it just makes me go

So I have to say my least favorite plot device is romantic interludes for what of a better phrase. I read a lot of “manly” books, so the last thing I want to read is that the main character and a female sub-character magically fall into bed in a moment of weakness or whatever!

I was reading a book lately, and the male lead and female lead spent the first 200 pages gazing longingly, thinking about what it would be like to be together, yada yada yada, and it just took from the main story. The main story was a serious theme, trafficking i believe, and reading the book it just felt like it wasn’t being addressed. Thanks to one of my friends, it has now become known as #sexytension 🙂

Lee Child is another author who is fairly predictable with his main character’s dalliances with women. Jack Reacher fairly gets around bless him. Even though I’ve read all the JR books, and i know it’s coming, it still annoys me!

Any plot devices you don’t like?!

30 Day Challenge- Day 18

A book you wish you could live in…

The wizarding world of Harry Potter! Simples! 🙂

No question! Didn’t even have to think about it! I’ve loved those books since I first read them and I always will.

I’m so jealous of anyone who gets to visit the sets at Leavesden or the actual Wizarding World Of Harry Potter theme park! I’d give my left arm to go and see them.

Books for me are a form of escape and out of all the books I’ve read, the Harry Potter series are the ones who let me escape into a completely different world and let my imagine run riot.

30 Day Blog Challenge- Day 16

Most thought provoking book…

Yet another one I’m stumped on.

What constitutes a thought provoking book?

Is it one with a moral lesson to be learned?

Is it a book that made you think philosophically or is it a book that you felt spoke to you and your circumstances?

Due to the fact that I don’t read many non-crime books, today’s post is all the more difficult.

I’ve read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, both of which feature on many ‘Thought Provoking Books’ lists so they’ll have to do 🙂

Both of these are wonderful books, with very different lessons to be learned, and I enjoyed them both immensely. It’s been a while since I’ve read them but they are both worthwhile reads.

What would your choice be for most thought provoking book?

30 Day Blog Challenge- Day 15

A character who you can relate to the most…

This one is a bit more difficult than usual. The majority of books that I read are crime fiction so (thankfully!!!!) I can’t really relate to sociopathic killers.

The only character I can think of, purely for bookishness, is none other than Hermione Granger.

Hermione is a brilliant character in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Her love of books was infectious.

Her character saved many by having the knowledge gleaned from hours of reading. In my eyes, she can do no wrong.

I can most certainly relate to this in that sometimes, on bad days, reading is my salvation, my escape.