In no particular order, I have a very long list of books which I will hopefully attempt to reduce in 2019. I’ve banned myself from buying new books as I have no room on my bookshelves. I need to read the books that I already have and decide which ones I will be keeping and which ones I will be giving away…
Turtles All The Way Down By John Green. I got this book for Christmas 2017 and it is still sitting patiently on my shelves. I have read all of John Green’s books and have enjoyed them so getting this book was a no brainer. I hope it lives up to the standards of his other novels.
The Sin Eater’s Daughter by Melinda Salisbury. I picked up this book in Waterstones in Newcastle last year. I loved the cover and the blurb. According to the cashier, it is a good book.
Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner. This was bought for me as a Christmas present last year. It isn’t my usual type of book as I don’t read much in the way of non-fiction, but I’m going to give it a go.
Super Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner. A follow up to the previous book and another Christmas present.
A Madness Of Angels by Kate Griffin. I’m not sure where I picked up this book, but I remember being intrigued by the title.
Spellslinger by Sebastien De Castell. I remember buying this book clearly. I was at Wigtown Book Festival 2018 and I met the author of this book. He read aloud the first chapter and I was hooked. It also intrigued me that one of his main characters happens to be a middle-aged woman.
Unknown Worlds Tales From Beyond. I bought this book after a man came into the bookshop where I work, asking if we had a copy in stock. Unfortunately we didn’t have a copy at the time but I was so intrigued by the book that I decided to get one for myself.
Fairyland by Paul J. McAuley. The cover of this book captured my attention. It is strange to see no title or author name on the front cover of a book. I bought this book from At The Sign Of The Dragon bookshop in Wigtown.
Pawn’s Dream by Eric S. Nylund. The title and the blurb of this book is what led me to buy it. The main character has two lives, one when he is awake and the other when he is asleep. I bought this book from At The Sign Of The Dragon bookshop in Wigtown too.
Tersias by G.P. Taylor. I snagged this book at the local charity shop when I went in to see if I could buy some second-hand bowls. This book is about magicians and if you know me, you know I love fantasy.
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. As I read more books I find myself trying to pick books that are different or are written from an unusual perspective. I hope by doing this it will broaden my knowledge and improve my writing. This book was recommended to me by my colleague as the first part of this novel is written from the perspective of a 33 year old, intellectually disabled man. Not a common character choice by any means.
The Life Assistance Agency by Thomas Hocknell. Again, I can’t remember exactly when I got this book, but I do remember the title catching my eye. The blurb sounds interesting and it reminded me a little bit of ‘The Adjustment Bureau’ film released in 2011.
The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. I’ve seen this book come in and out of the bookshop many times. The title has me wondering who and what is the God of small things? My employers recommended this book to me.
Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett. I love Terry Pratchett and have read a number of his discworld novels, but I haven’t read this one yet. I’m hopeful that it will be just as wacky and brilliant as his other novels.
Dreamchild by Hilary Hemingway and Jefry P. Lindsay. This was another book that I bought from At The Sign Of The Dragon in Wigtown. I am interested in this book because it appears that the main character is a young child and it is written from their perspective.
Blindness by Jose Saramago. I bought this book after reading Shaun Bythell’s Diary Of A Bookseller. In one of Bythell’s diary entries he mentions that he is reading this book and finds it enjoyable. The premise of the story is interesting as it is set in a world where humanity have gone blind.
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope. This book is another one which was recommended to me by a colleague when I expressed an interest in wanting to read more classics. The only problem is that classics can be hard to read so this one might take awhile to get through.
Kingdom Of The Grail by Judith Tarr. I picked this one up in my workplace after I realised that I hadn’t read any books based around Arthurian legends. It will be interesting to see how much this story deviates from the original King Arthur.
The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse. I picked this book up at The Old Bank Bookshop in Wigtown. I don’t tend to read many ghost stories so this should be a nice change.
Nobody Real by Steven Camden. I think I bought this book from Plackitt & Booth Ltd in Lytham a few months ago. It was the tagline which intrigued me ‘She’s real. He’s not’. The front cover suggests this book is aimed at teenagers but I get a psychological vibe from this one.
I’ve seen the Dalai Lama and I’ve read books about him before, so when this book arrived in my workplace I knew there was a good chance of me buying it. I’ve read a few pages already and it hasn’t disappointed me yet.
The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice. I’ve wanted to read this book along with Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat for quite some time now. Ever since I found out that Anne Rice chose to ignore her editors advice for The Queen of the Damned and every book after. I’ve been curious to see if there is any notable difference in the quality of writing between books 1, 2 and 3.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. This was another book recommended to me by my colleague. However, I do remember being in GCSE English reading Of Mice And Men whilst the other class were reading Frankenstein. I have always wondered what this book was like since then.
Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas. I picked this one up at my local bookshop. I liked the title enough to look at the blurb and decided I would give it a try.
Miss Mary’s Book of Dreams by Sophie Nicholls. I found this in my workplace and loved the blurb. It’s a story about a woman who runs a bookshop and hires a young woman to help her. It is very similar to my situation so I couldn’t help but be enthralled by this one.
The Silmarillion by Tolkien. The Silmarillion is a book I’ve been wanting to read because it’s Tolkien, and I love Tolkien. Unfortunately this seems to be just as difficult as the Lord Of The Rings was when I read it twelve years ago. I also picked up this one in my workplace too. I’m going to give this book another try, though I suspect it might take some time to get through.
The Graces by Laure Eve. I found this book in my local bookshop. It caught my interest because it appears to be a modern YA loosely based on The Three Graces. I will find out if this is true when I read it.
Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. I hunted this book down after I did some research on Kurt Vonnegut. This novel sounded like his best novel to me but I couldn’t find it anywhere so I had to order it online.
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. This was another classic novel recommended to me by my colleague.
How To Stop Time by Matt Haig. I can’t remember where I got this book but I do remember being curious enough about the title to pick it up.
Beowulf by Tolkien. It’s another Tolkien again, but this time I was more intrigued by the story, since Beowulf is supposedly the first real ‘story’ recorded in Britain, albeit it is a very long poem. I thought I would give Tolkien’s side-by-side translation a try.
Christmas Books by Charles Dickens. I was looking for A Christmas Carol but I found this book in my workplace which contains A Christmas Carol and other stories. Having watched many film adaptations of A Christmas Carol, I thought I would give the book a try too.
The Merlin Conspiracy by Diana Wynne Jones. Ever since Studio Ghibli did Howl’s Moving Castle, I have been a big fan of Diana Wynne Jones. I read both Howl’s Moving Castle and the House Of Many Ways. I spotted this book in my local bookshop and realised I had never seen or heard of it before. The author alone was enough to make me buy it but I found the blurb and title interesting too.
The Girl Before by J. P. Delaney. I didn’t actually buy this book, this book was given to me by my mother. My mother and I have quite different tastes in books but every once in a while I like to give her books a try.
Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake. I picked this one up from Curly Tale Books in Wigtown. The title and blurb intrigued me but I have heard both good and bad things about this book. I suspect it might end on a cliff-hanger, which will be really disappointing if it does.
The Lady In Blue by Javier Sierra. I bought this book from The Bookshop in Wigtown. I don’t know why but I was really struggling to find something I liked in The Bookshop, but then this book caught my attention and I thought, ‘oh it’s a ghost story?’ I don’t tend to read much horror/paranormal books so I decided I would give this one a try.
Nation by Terry Pratchett. I love Terry Pratchett but I’m not sure about this book. I started to read it but found I wasn’t really getting into it. It might be because this book is aimed at a younger audience, something I didn’t realise when I bought it. Thankfully I managed to pick it up cheaply at my workplace, but I am going to give this one another go.
The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson. I bought this book at my local bookshop because I found the blurb amusing. It is about a man who struggles with his faith and is rescued by someone who might be the devil.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Another book recommended to me by my colleague, but one I was interested in anyways after reading George Orwell’s 1984. I got this book at my workplace.
Red Winter by Annette Marie. I bought this book on Amazon, I know, shame on me. I got this after I was desperate to find something like The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo. This book has illustrations inside too.
The Monk Who Lived Again by B. H. Pearson. This book was an unusual find. There is no blurb on the back but I read a few pages and have discovered that some of the writing is beautiful. I found this book at The Old School Bookshop at Farfield Clothing in Sedbergh.
Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King. I became intrigued by this book when I did some research on Stephen King and discovered that this was the book he published when I was born. I couldn’t find this book anywhere though so I ordered it online from ABE.
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. Like The Queen of the Damned, I wanted this book as it is the first book in Rice’s book series. I still need to get the second book, The Vampire Lestat in order to compare the first three novels to one another.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I bought this book from my workplace for the same reason I bought Fahrenheit 451. I became interested in classic, dystopian fiction novels and want to read more like George Orwell’s 1984.
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. Another dystopian I have been interested in for a while. I’m curious to find out how a good a dystopian with deadly plant-life can be. I got this one from my workplace too.
The Great Prince Died by Bernard Wolfe. This is a novel based on the Assassination of Trotsky. This book was also recommended to me by my colleague.
Don’t tell me the truth about love by Dan Rhodes. I found this book at The Bookshop in Wigtown. I picked this one up because it is made up of seven short stories and I don’t read short stories very often.
The Ropemaker by Peter Dickinson. I bought this one from my local bookshop. The cover and title intrigued me and it is another fantasy novel which is right up my street.
The Burning World by Isaac Marion. Oh where do I begin with this book? I absolutely adored Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion, so when he announced a sequel I was excited. I bought this online, but I was a little confused to see that this book was double the size of Warm Bodies. I then read the first 60 pages and really struggled to get into it. I ended up putting this book down and not picking it back up again, but I want to give it another go. Hopefully I will like it more on the second try.
Alanna The song Of The Lioness by Tamora Pierce. I came across this book quite by chance. I read the blurb and was immediately intrigued. I left it for a couple of weeks but I couldn’t stop thinking about this book, so I bought a copy from my workplace.
Sketcher by Roland Watson-Grant. I was introduced to this book on Instagram. The author followed me and I decided to look at his work. I was drawn to this novel as it appears to be a fantasy set in a realistic world.
Beren And Luthien by Tolkien. Another Tolkien, I got this book as a Christmas present in 2017. I haven’t opened it yet but I’m looking forward to reading it.
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte. Since I’ve read books by both Anne and Emily, I want to see how the third sister compares to the other two.
Your Name by Makoto Shinkai. I discovered this book after a friend recommended the anime version to me. I decided that I would read the book first before watching the anime.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I have already read and enjoyed a novel by Jane Austen but this one by far is probably her most famous novel. It is also another classic recommendation to add to the other classics I want to read. I bought this one from my workplace.
In A Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu. Another book recommendation to fill my classic books quota. This book is a collection of five short stories written by Sheridan Le Fanu. They are horror, mystery and paranormal.
Forgotten by Cat Patrick. I vaguely remember picking up this book. The cover caught my attention and the tagline intrigued me. How can anyone remember their future but not their past?
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake. This one was recommended to me by my other colleague. It is a classic and the first novel in the Gormenghast series. My colleague raves about it and says this is the best one.
The Versions Of Us by Laura Barnett. I feel guilty about this one. This book was bought for me as a Christmas gift back in 2016. I remember being curious about the title and thinking that the story sounded like it was about alternative paths through life had you made different choices. It sounds good I just haven’t gotten around to reading it yet!