Vestafan's possibly impossible aim in 2013

In the past few years I've usually just about achieved this aim, but have decided this year to attempt to read some of the books I feel everyone else has read but me, so I may struggle a bit. Also, I am visiting CrimeFest in May this year and have several books that I bought on my 2011 visit but haven't read yet, so a subsidiary aim is to read these before my next visit.

My first completed read for 2013 is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I bought this trilogy last year about the tie the film was released. I have become rather out of touch with young people's fiction and the author and the books were new to me. I appreciate that I am not the target audience for this book, but I found it rather uninvolving. I could imagine a computer game being made from it. The background is interesting - how will food and resource shortages affect the world view of the population? However the emphasis was on the central character and I couldn't empathise with her very much. However, being a completer-finisher as far as books are concerned, I aim to read the other two books in the series during this year.

Welcome back! Hope the next one works out a bit better for you.

I've just finished the second book of the year - Few Eggs and No Oranges by Vere Hodgson. This is a diary written during the war by a woman living and working in London. It made me appreciate like no other book of this type I had read before what it must have been like living through the Blitz, with nightly bombings. The matter of fact nature of the account makes me wonder how I would have coped under the same circumstances. Also, the food shortages and rationing had such an effect that every piece of fresh fruit or vegetable she eats seems to get a mention. A diary of this sort is very interesting to read because of the contemporaneous nature of the writing - not knowing how the war is going to end makes here responses seem genuine. A long book, but a worthwhile and interesting read for anyone interested in the WWII home front.

Few Eggs and No Oranges sounds interesting. I'll be on the lookout for it.

Just read three books in a row of the Bill Slider series by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles; Game Over, Body Line and Kill My Darling. This is an enjoyable series - not irredeemably cosy, but the characters are human enough to be affected by the crimes they investigate. The author loves puns and word play, but I don't find this overdone as I have done with other authors.

Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear is my first read of February. An enjoyable book in a series which I feel may be drawing to a natural close.

Only my second book this month! The Redeemed by M R Hall. An interesting addition to the Jenny Cooper series.

>7 vestafan:: Oh, I've just discovered this series and am enjoying them (it?) immensely!

I've just finished the most recent one, The Flight. I must confess I skipped some of the more technical details, but I enjoy the way in which the central character is developing.

So far in March, I've read Cut Short by Leigh Russell, and an omnibus volume of Simon Brett's Charles Paris novels, Dead Giveaway and What Bloody Man Is That?.

The first is a really straightforward police procedural, enjoyable to read without being particularly gripping. Rereading the Charles Paris novels many years after the first time, I was reminded how funny they are (the Bill Nighy portrayal on Radio 4 is excellent). Light but written by someone who know the subject area very well, and they don't seem to have dated.

Just finished another quick read: The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection by Alexander McCall Smith. here's a real gentleness and optimism about this whole series - a perfect read by the fire on a cold afternoon.

Latest read - Victims by Jonathan Kellerman. An average to good part of the Alex Delaware series.

I've just read the first of what proises to be a highly enjoyable series - The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill. The central character is Dr Siri Paiboun, a 72 year old doctor, hoping for a gentle retirement who finds himself appointed the only coroner in Laos in the aftermath of the communist takeover in the mid 1970s. I wondered if I would enjoy it, as Laos is a country I know nothing about, but the gentle humour and observation of human foibles no matter in what situation were very engaging.

Rather a busy time, so I'll just mention that I've recently read:

An Academic Question by Barbara Pym
Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym
How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
Tuesday's Gone by Nicci French
and
Sister by Rosamund Lupton

I've just read Skios by Michael Frayn; a light farcical novel which i enjoyed, but which ended rather abruptly and unsatisfactorily.

Well behind with postings this month - so far I've read:

Phantom by Jo Nesbo
11th Hour by James Patterson
Kill Alex Cross by james Patterson
Watching the Dark by Peter Robinson
and
Two for Sorrow by Nicola Upson

Just a couple so far this month:

I Am the Secret Footballer by The Secret Footballer
and
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths

The Secret Footballer is an interesting read which leaves me speculating about his identity. He write clearly and intelligently about his life, particularly about agents and his own problems with depression. Finally, though, the limitations placed upon him by remaining anonymous are too frustrating to make it a completely satisfying read.

The Crossing Places is the first in an ongoing series of crime novels featuring the central character of Ruth Galloway, an archaeologist who becomes involved in a police investigation. I enjoyed it very much: the central characters have recognisable human failings, and the sense of place is very well captured. I look forward to following these characters through the rest of the series.

Haven't been able to settle to much this month, but by June 30th I had read three more items:

Manage Your Day-to-Day by Glei
Road Closed by Leigh Russell
and
Midwinter Sacrifice by Mons Kallentoft

As July draws to a close, in between languishing in the heat, madly finishing items for a craft fair and celebrating two family birthdays I have read:

Fear in the Sunlight by Nicola Upson
Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn
The Winter Garden Mystery by Carola Dunn
and
Still Midnight by Denise Mina

Just remembered one more book I read in July:

The Last English Revolutionary by Purcell & Smith

and the first I've finished in August

The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina

My second August book finished:

Redemption by Jussi Adler-Olsen

One more book read:

Rush of Blood by Mark Billingham

Another couple of books I've read:

He's Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt
and
A Quiet Life by Beryl Bainbridge

A long absence but since my last post I've read:

Live Alone and Like It by Marjorie Hillis
A Necessary End by Hazel Holt
The Stonecutter by Camilla Lackberg
The Bat by Jo Nesbo
Criminal by Karin Slaughter
Never Go Back by Lee Child
Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night by James Runcie
Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death by James Runcie
Sweet Poison by David Roberts
Back Story by David Mitchell

Just back from a cruise, and I found a lot of time to read. The books I finished were:

Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson
The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J Stanley & William H Danko
Requiem for a Mezzo by Carola Dunn
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
and
Murder on the Flying Scotsman by Carola Dunn.

Since returning I have read
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
and
Damsel in Distress by Carola Dunn

Nice list!

Thanks! I'm trying to read some of the books I've had on my shelf for ages and never got round to. Suite Francaise is next on the list.

Just finished Standing In Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin.

Just read No Man's Nightingale by Ruth Rendell

I've just raced through Dead and Buried by Stephen Booth, one of the Cooper and Fry series. One of the better of the recent ones I thought, with evocative descriptions of moorland fires. However, one of my frequent complaints - the ending is very abrupt - almost as if as soon as the contracted word count had been reached, no more care was taken.

I've just finished The Stranger by Camilla Lackberg. I enjoyed it, but guessed the culprit fairly early on in the book.

My last read in November was The Hour of the Wolf by Hakan Nesser

Since then I've read Guilt by Jonathan Kellerman and Last to Die by Tess Gerritsen

Christmas tends to be very busy, so Gods and Beasts by Denise Mina may be my last read of the year.

So, I only read 67 books last year, and I don't even have the excuse that they were all weighty tomes that took a lot of understanding! Just having retired, I thought I'd have more time to read, but I think I'm still working out how to organise my time. Best of the year were probably The Suspicions of Mr Whicher and The Secret History. The worst? I really shouldn't waste any more time with James Patterson. On to 2014!