41
entries
for 2020:
39 completed
plus 2 abandoned
A short and fun read.
Since 2010
Shaun Bythell
★★★★☆
A short and fun read.
Lisa Regan
★★★☆☆
It was only now when I looked up the author of this one that I saw it’s book seven in an ongoing series. Might keep an eye out for others. Didn’t blow my socks off but had some good twists and held my attention.
Stuart MacBride
★★★★☆
Yep, another MacBride. Enjoyed this one. Good humour as well. By my count I’ve now read the first seven Logan MacRae books from the series (not in order though).
Stuart MacBride
★★☆☆☆
Just two stars for this Logan McRae. I think that’s on me though: I just wasn’t able to hold the names of the main players in my head, so I was constantly moderately lost.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
★★★★☆
This one gets better the further you read - the first couple of chapters are proper astrophysics and completely beyond me. Crams a lot of information into a little book.
Bridget Collins
★★★★☆
Big fan of Collins’ “The Binding”, so I was looking forward to the release of this one. Didn’t quite get the full 5-stars from me, but boy do I enjoy her writing. She manages to play with time and narrators in a way that leaves you curious, but never confused. The story got a bit too luvvy-duvvy towards the end for me, but as with “The Binding” I suspect there are nuances and layers that only a second read will reveal.
Michael Connelly
★★☆☆☆
Took me ages to get through this one and I almost gave up about 20% of the way through, but it just managed to keep a hold of me. I dunno, it sort of felt like the story was constantly setting up for something that never happened.
Taylor Jenkins Reid
★★★★☆
I really enjoyed the style of this one, jumping between the present and the past. I didn’t think I’d care for the general subject that much, but the way the story was told made up for it. And a lumpy-throat ending too! I’ll keep an eye on this author.
Bill Bryson
★★★★☆
Bryson never fails to crack me up. This was a good fun read. A little dense in places perhaps, but boy the amount of research that must have gone into this one is staggering.
Tim Harford
★★★☆☆
Ach it was fine. Difficult to take a book that preaches the scrutiny of statistics seriously when the book itself is full of statistics. See also this post.
Stuart MacBride
★★★☆☆
Another Logan McRae, another three stars. Very graphical, pretty confronting, but a disappointing ending that lacked a solid conclusion.
Stuart MacBride
★★★☆☆
Number 3 in the Logan McRae series. I’ve said it before about these novels, but I really do enjoy the Scottish-ness of them. This one was pretty easy to follow, and had a good amount of humour as well.
Eliot Peper
★☆☆☆☆
I have got to stop buying books from the Kindle Daily Deal. Exciting premise, flat execution. And bloody hell does the bloke enjoy long fancy sentences. Thesaurus much?
Molly Bloom
★★★★☆
I didn’t think I was one for autobiographies, but this was a pretty exciting read. Parts of the story are so unbelievable they have to be true.
Bridget Collins
★★★★★
My first re-read of this one, and it keeps all five of it’s stars. As I suspected I would, I picked up on lots of little threads second time through that went largely unnoticed on my first read. Hits me in the feels.
Hanna Jameson
★★☆☆☆
Was immediately hooked on the premise, and the first half of the book unravelled very nicely, but then it started to become clear that we weren’t going to get any answers or satisfying conclusions. Sure enough, it just… ended.
Derek Kunsken
Abandoned
Nope. Persevered with this for way longer than I should have because I really wanted to like it. The basic plot was intriguing, but it was dense reading. Felt like the author had spent years building a massive, complicated world, and then a long-weekend cramming the whole bloody thing into one average sized novel.
Stuart MacBride
★★★★☆
I’ve been jumping around the Logan McRae series a bit, but they do all manage to stand up by themselves. This is number 2 in the series, and I read number 1 back in May, and have given both 4 stars. A special shout-out to the self-deprecating humour about crime novels in this one!
Douglas Adams
★★★☆☆
Hm. Weird, but I knew that going in. It got a couple of chuckles out of me, but not as many as I hoped for. I suppose I was expecting greater things because this is one of those cult everyone-knows-a-line-from-it classics that’s hyped up. I bought the whole series, so I’ll certainly continue with it.
Stuart MacBride
★★☆☆☆
Another from the Logan McRae series. Didn’t enjoy this one. Couldn’t get into it, and there were way too many characters and disconnected stories for me to keep a track of.
Andy Weir
★★★★☆
As I promised myself, Weir’s other big novel. Not as good as “The Martian”, but I still really liked this. Hope he writes more!
Andy Weir
★★★★★
Ploughed through this one in a couple of days, which says it all. The movie has become one of my favourites, and I don’t usually like reading books after having seen the movie, but there were no disappointments here. Fantastic humour, well considered and plausible science, and a caught-me-by-surprise wave of emotions towards the end. Really want to read “Artemis”, Weir’s other big novel now.
Pat Cunnane
★★★☆☆
My last couple of reads were Kindle daily deals and I didn’t rate them very highly, so time to read something from my list. West Winging It never got deep into politics, keeping things more about office shenanigans, which was fine by me! A little haphazard perhaps. The author has unique stories to tell, but was never boastful. A real fast and fun read.
Matthew FitzSimmons
★★☆☆☆
There was nothing wrong with this, and it wasn’t a struggle to finish, but at the same time I was never excited about reading the next chapter. Was half-way through before I realised this is part of a series - whether that had an impact on my enjoyment or not, I don’t know.
Stephen King
★★☆☆☆
I don’t think I’ve read a King novel before. I knew going in that I’m not a fan of supernatural stuff, and this book hasn’t changed that. Nice mystery, likeable characters, lots of visuals, but nah not for me.
Stuart MacBride
★★★★☆
After reading “The Blood Road” last week (which I got on the cheap in one of Amazon’s Kindle daily deals) I decided to check out the first book in the McRae series. Was not disappointed. Gritty, extremely gory, but with great humour as well. I’ll be reading more of these.
Stuart MacBride
★★★★☆
I was not prepared for the Scottish-ness of the setting and language used by the characters! It took me straight back there. I might pick up a few more MacBride novels just to have in stock.
Neal Stephenson
★★★★☆
Took me a while to get through this one. I can’t decide whether reading things on Kindle, and therefore having no physical sense of progress through a book, is good or bad. Anyway, the first two thirds of Seveneves had me absolutely bloody hooked. Apparently “hard science fiction” is a genre, and one which I will certainly be reading more of. Fantastic blend of actual science with science fiction.
Simon Winchester
★★★★☆
I enjoyed the progression through this one. Author has an old fashioned style of writing and loves enormously long sentences. Last chapter about Japanese watchmakers didn’t fit in either. Everything else was delightfully engineering-ey though.
Kevin Sullivan
★★★☆☆
First half was suitably technical and rather exciting. There was a big chunk of self-pity and the guy blaming inanimate objects in the middle, but it picked up towards the end with nerdy details and Air Force stories.
Shaun Bythell
★★★★☆
Recommendation from a friend. Ripped through it in a couple of evenings. Good fun, slightly repetitive, and the bloke got grumpier towards the end. Lots of laughs though. Kept finding myself reminiscing about life in Scotland as I was reading it as well.
Suzanne Collins
★★★☆☆
Mm. Thought the start of this one halted the pace of the second half of “Catching Fire”. Picked up again after a few chapters though. Lacked the climactic finish I was hoping for. Still, I’m looking forward to watching the movies now.
Suzanne Collins
★★★★☆
Did not go where I thought it was going to go, and that’s a good thing! On to the final in the trilogy next.
Suzanne Collins
★★★★☆
Easy to read, and left lots of interesting possibilities. Looking forward to reading the next couple of books in the trilogy.
Dan Lyons
★★☆☆☆
Started off pretty interesting, but the last third was just the guy moaning about the way he was treated. Relatable, but I’ve got my own problems, thanks.
J. K. Rowling
★★★★☆
Finished the series! I’m definitely going to re-read the whole lot in a few months as I just know there are lots of clever little threads that I’ll have missed on this read. I got a bit lost with Deathly Hallows - who had what wand and which horcruxes had already been found and and… A very satisfying conclusion though.
J. K. Rowling
★★★★★
My favourite book in the Harry Potter series so far. Tied together a whole bunch of stuff from the previous books, and answered lots of questions. The magical universe felt pretty tight in this one as well - there wasn’t just magic for the sake of it, and the consequences of potions and spells were explained a little more. I suspect a full re-read of the series would uncover lots of layers I’ve missed.
J. K. Rowling
★★★★☆
No review.
J. K. Rowling
★★★★☆
No review.
J. K. Rowling
★★★☆☆
I could feel my brain starting to loose track of all the characters and magical stuff in this one. Kindle X-Ray saved me a few times when a character cropped up that I was obviously supposed to have remembered from one of the previous four books.
Caroline Criado Perez
Abandoned
Enlightening and thoughtful, but became repetitive after a few chapters. Gave up about ¾ of the way through this one.