Tuesday 10 July 2012

Six books Six months

Ever a sucker for a book meme, I saw that Jo at The Book Jotter has created a new one, and I simply couldn't resist nicking it. She says:





It occurred to me (whilst drying the dishes) and thinking about my June Roundup post of the fact that we are half way through 2012. In those six months what six books or authors have had an impact good or bad. So it got me thinking and then I decided to come up with this post – Six Books Six months. Broken down into the following Six categories;

1. Six new authors to me;

2. Six authors I have read before;

3. Six authors I am looking forward to reading more of;

4. Six books I have enjoyed the most;

5. Six books I was disappointed with;

6. Six series of books read or started. Here I mean books read that are part of a series e.g. M.C. Beaton and Agatha Raisin.



So anyway, here are my results. I'm going to tweak mine and do fiction and non-fiction for 'Books I've enjoyed the most'.


Six new authors to me:

1. Robert Barnard,
2. Steve Hockensmith
3. Katherine Langrish
4. Lavie Tidhar
5. John Connolly


Six authors I have read before

1. Miss Read
2. Tess Gerritsen
3. Alan Bradley
4. Phil Rickman
5. Anne McCaffrey


Six authors I am looking forward to reading more of

1. Carola Dunn
2. Katherine Langrish
3. Phil Rickman
4. Robert Silverberg
5. John Connolly


Six books I have enjoyed the most

Non-fiction:

1. Down Under - Bill Bryson (Funny, funny, funny)
2. The Political Animal - Jeremy Paxman (Informative and funny)
3. Wait For Me! - Deborah Devonshire (Wonderful autobiography)
4. Love and War in the Apennines - Eric Newby (Fantastic war memoirs)
5. Look Back With Love - Dodie Smith (Heart-warming)

Fiction:

1. Downward to the Earth - Robert Silverberg (Classic and brilliant sci fi)
2. Living Dangerously - Katie Fforde (Huge fun)
3. West of the Moon - Katherine Langrish (Wonderful YA fantasy)
4. Dark Hollow - John Connolly (Scary, scary, scary)
5. Styx and Stones - Carola Dunn (Joyous)


Six books I was disappointed with (Hmm, not easy...)

1. The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar (Actually not terrible...)
2. Stories - ed. by Neil Gaiman and Al Sorrantonio (Patchy)
3. Partnership - Anne McCaffrey (Not as good as I'd hoped)
4. A Cold Day for Murder - Dana Stabenow (Again, not quite as good as I'd hoped but not actually bad.)
5. Wild Designs - Katie Fforde. (Far from a bad book, but aspects of it were annoying.)


Six series of books read or started

1. Daisy Dalrymple - Carola Dunn (continued)
2. Charlie Parker - John Connolly (started)
3. Flavia de Luce - Alan Bradley (continued)
4. Merrily Watkins - Phil Rickman (continued)
5. Holmes on the Range - Steve Hockensmith (started)


So those are my choices for the first six months of 2012. What are yours? Please credit Jo if you decide to join in.

14 comments:

DesLily said...

goodness lol.. the only books we have in common are the Flavia de Luce - Alan Bradley books lol... "Kids books" I guess that tells you something about growing old and "reverting" back to childhood eh? lol

have you actually read the McCaffrey Pern books? or only the Crystal singer book???? I think after I finish this Herriot book I will reread the 3 Pern books.. it's looking like Carl may not get to reading it with his new passion for running and I think I am ready to go back to Pern and the dragons. (i think lol)

Nan said...

What fun to read. It must have taken a while to put this together. Wild Designs. The only KF I could read. The others I tried were just too much the misunderstanding between the woman and man. What I loved in WD, and why I read it twice, was the relationship between her and her children, and the gardens, her house, the description.

Jo said...

Cath, thanks for joining in. I like the split of non fiction and fiction.

I must get round to reading more Katie Fforde and Daisy Dalrymple too, I do love her spirit.

Yvonne @ Fiction Books Reviews said...

Hi Cath,

I can't believe that we are half way through the year, let alone anything else.

I have 'A Cold Day For Murder' scheduled into my reading list now and should be getting to that very soon. I did start working on it, but got a little side-tracked!

I also have some Tess Gerritsen on my TBR shelves, I always love her books.

As for the rest, just getting on top of my review list and blog posts, would be good.

Yvonne

Cathy said...

How wonderful! I'm going to work on this a bit tonight. I'll make sure you get the link when I post mine. Thanks!

Susan said...

I like this post, and nicely put together, Cath! I really enjoyed reading it. I'm of course thrilled to see Phil Rickman there, one of my favourites.

This just reminds me of everything I have to catch up on in reading! I have started looking for Katie Fforde's book as you enjoyed it SO much :-) though it's not available over here, I can get it online.

I like this idea for a 6 month review. of course, I've been sadly behind in reviewing my books too. I need to catch up there also.

Cath said...

Pat: Tell the truth I've stopped thinking of books as kid's books or adult books... they're just *books* to me. Thus when I rec a book to Peter I have to stop and think if it's YA or not because he doesn't read YA books if he can help it. (His loss.)

I've read Pern up to er... All the Weyrs of Pern. I need to read on at some stage. I think I may have read one of the Crystal Singer books. I've read a couple of the Freedom's Landing ones and liked those very much... and two of the Ship Who Sang series.

Nan: Yes, that was why I continued with WD as it was lovely with her children, the garden, the Chelsea Flower Show and so on. I'll review it soon and say what I didn't like about it.

Jo: My pleasure. Thank *you* for starting a new book meme. I hope lots of others will give it a try.

I seem to be completely hooked on Daisy... just finishing another one and put 3 more on my Kindle so I can carry on.

Yvonne: I know, it's scary how quickly this year is flying by. I can't decide if this is because I'm getting older or what, but it's alarming.

I'll be interested to hear what you think of Cold Day for Murder, I need to get the next book in the series at some stage as I suspect like many series, they get better.

Cathy: Excellent... look forward to seeing your post.

Susan: Yes, I need to get back to Phil Rickman and Merrily, have only read the first two but loved them both. So complicated and atmospheric.

Annoying about that Katie Fforde book, and odd. These days I'm used to Canadian and American books being readily available and vice versa. Wasn't always so. *Years* ago I got hooked on Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Compte de St. Germain books. Found the first 3 here in secondhand bookshops and then had a heck of a job finding more! Now, when I don't like them quite so much I would have no trouble getting them all. LOL.

I like this idea of Jo's too. Huge fun. I haven't been reading a lot so am not behind with reviews, but will be doing a two book post later today to keep up, *once* I finish my latest Daisy book. Must force myself to read something else...

Margaret @ BooksPlease said...

Phil Rickman is in my list too as an author to read more. Actually I've only read one of his, so there are plenty to read!

I read a Cold Day for Murder and thought it was OK, especially for a first book, but actually nothing special.

I read Wild Designs years ago and have since given the book away. I wasn't very keen.

Apart from these and the Miss Read books (which I read years ago and loved) I haven't read any of the others.

lifeonthecutoff said...

Wonderful! Quite a few books and authors to add to my TBR, which I will surely never complete and will follow me to my grave. tee hee

Cath said...

Margaret: Yes, Phil Rickman is a real 'must' for me to read more of. I've really enjoyed the first two Merrily Watkins books.

'Okay', about describes A Cold day for Murder but I suspect the series improves.

Yes, I can see why you gave Wild Designs away. Mine was a library book and I took it back happily.

Penny: Yes... I can see my tbr pile and list following me to my grave too. LOL.

Cathy said...

Here's my contribution:

http://www.kittlingbooks.com/2012/07/six-books-six-months.html

Cath said...

Cathy: Thanks for leaving a link. I wonder if we should all do this again in December.

Kailana said...

This is a fun meme! I enjoyed reading your answers. :)

Cath said...

Thanks, Kelly. Hope you'll do it too. :-)