Jiraiya (from a Naruto character) [real name Maanav]'s 2021 Reads

Welcome to Club Read!

Glad to hear that you now have access to the books you want! I will be interested to see what you read :)

>2 AnnieMod:

Thank you AnnieMod!! I'm sure I will learn a lot from this club.

Hello Maanav! Welcome to LibraryThing an Club Read.

>4 Dilara86:

Hiya Dilara86! I do feel welcomed. Good to be here.

Hello Maanav,

Welcome to the group. I’m a long time reader of ebooks too. I started in 2000 with Project Gutenberg, then switched to a handheld PDA in 2002 - this was before cell phones became ubiquitous - and it drew a few stares in public at that time. I got a Kindle in 2008. But I still have a wall of print books - nine bookcases full - and I still like reading them along with ebooks and audiobooks.

I look forward to seeing what you read.

>6 gsm235:

Hello gsm235. Thank you for the welcome. My location in an oligarchy in terms of bookstores, a backwards thinking business, means that I can't really choose equally between paper books and e-books. I mean, I once tried to order The Way of Kings from a small bookstore, and they said it was too costly to risk buying it overseas.

I get most of my public domain books from mobileread.com, but sometimes Gutenberg betters their layout. I glanced at some of our commonly read books, and it seems we share the author Sam Harris's books. Maybe we share some common values as well. Happy Reading!

Hello Maanav, and welcome. I'm looking forward to following your reading journal here.

>8 raton-liseur: Thank you raton-liseur. Good pun on your nickname :)

Your books are very interesting. I'm glad you don't find Joseph Conrad racist. Many people believe that Heart of Darkness is just that. Incredible. Anyway thanks for showing kindness to a newcomer.

Welcome! I read a lot of e-books as well. I ran out of room for physical books so the switch was necessary. :)

You might want to see if you can download the app Serial Reader (I have no idea how country boundaries work with apps but I'm in Canada and it works here). I find it great for longer classics as you get a chapter or two sent to you each day and can take your time. There is a small fee if you want to read ahead, but free for the basic version. I've read a lot of classics this way.

>10 Yells: Thank you, Yells. What I do is shop from amazon and sideload the e-book on my Kindle, and Bob's your uncle. The kindle I have is of the e ink kind so it's soothing on the eyes.

If you have bookish recs they are needed.

Welcome Jiraiya!

I look forward to finding out what reading you find interesting.

I read mostly fiction, most heavily mystery, science fiction, fantasy, but also a smattering of "everything else."

You can find my thread here if you want to stop by.

>12 markon: Thank you, markon! I am reading 2 very large books and been reading them for so many months that I've forgotten what my favorite genre is. It used to be cozy mystery. I don't usually like Fantasy, but what's funny is that I have a lot of very popular Fantasy books in my top 10 books ever.

I'll definitely stop by your thread.

Warm welcome to CR, Maanav.

>14 dchaikin: Thank you, Daniel.

This book was so primal, it ought to have been narrated as an audiobook by a screaming Kurt Cobain. Yes, Cobain was still alive when this book came out. It was so shocking. You know there cannot be a lot of red herrings, but the author did not let that bother him.

Is Kellerman really inferior in writing to his wife Faye? That's what someone told me. Faye better than even Jonathan? Pretty Scary.

I read book 34 first. Reason for that simply was the title, 'The Wedding Guest'. I thought I was going to be treated with a cozy like experience. But I can no longer convey my impressions. I've forgotten about book 34.

Maybe that's Kellerman's sins. His books don't stick in the mind. I never see his name in the bestsellers list. He ought to out dough James Patterson. Patterson's books too are forgettable. But will the latter get 5 stars from me? No.

Welcome! Glad you've got a thread going.

>17 AlisonY: Will add books again soon. Thanks for the welcome!

This series, despite this dip in form, still holds the promise of riches to come. I do get the impression however, that just like Pyramid schemes weren't invented in Egypt, these accents of the Scottish characters sound dreadfully not on the nose.

The Glutton in question was not offensive enough, and only a madman/woman could have taken measures against her alive status. But this manageable book was a treat. Sweetened with honey, sweet nothings, and greed.

M.C. Beaton has good plotting capabilities. But any writer can do that. What sets her apart is the colour she brings to her main and minor characters. I'm sure from now on until the last 5 or so books, that she will 'deliver', God rest her soul.

4 star review of Murder in Aspen Notch (The Aspen Notch Mystery Series Book 1) by Kathleen McKee:-

A book about a retired couple looking to settle down for the duration of their twilight years was always going to be a bit faded, or bland. But in the end, the book won me over.

There are exciting things that do happen in the story. There is a murder, as mentioned in the title, and an explosion. That's it. It was enough. I thought this particular discovery - a new to me author - deserved 4 stars.

There are weaknesses in the plot armor. One of them is why did the culprit consider the MC a threat? The answers supplied doesn't pass muster. However, the way the book avoided a direct confrontation between the MC and the murderer made for a great resolution.

Once more Beaton blunders by making her villain not horrible enough. But obviously many fans of the series are satisfied with the writing.

Kafka this was never intended as. I would have been happy with less padding of the story. There were entire Chapters dedicated to so called investigation.

I'm beginning to think that Hamish spoils the mechanism of any of his stories. He should appear sparingly. But notice how better the book gets when he is not the first person narrator.

Well. This was a disaster. Kellerman is not immortal after all. I admit not to reading all of the book. Else I would be depressed. I get depressed when I read a bad book, and this was like a black hole that sucks the fun out of reading.

The book started innocently upbeat. And I got strung along. I thought, the mysteries are worth rooting for. What a misconception. Kellerman thought he had a printable book on his hands. I wonder if he was satisfied with his efforts. But this is the post-death of the author age.

I really disliked this book. Let's forget that it existed. This is the type of book that if it were sexed up differently, would pass off as a curriculum book. Then it would disenchant thousands. The more the merrier. Final thoughts are that Kellerman can commit more atrocities. I'll have to learn to recognize the early symptoms so that I don't waste my days using baby eyedrops to nurture reading one of these monsters. What do the Irish call them? Changelings. Freaking time waster of a book.

>22 Jiraiya: Yep, sometimes you've just got to let a book go mid way through. There's no prizes for reading something you don't enjoy, and far too many other amazing books out there to get to. Still, enjoyed your venting!

>23 AlisonY: I live to serve. I did give the book a chance, but it proved to be irredeemable. I'm tempted to crawl back to my beloved rereads, but I need to read new books. Else I'd have wasted the sparse free time I've got.

This book was not uniformly good, and its sluggish start was quite gloomy. I thought of putting down the book and looking for alternatives while my expectations levels adjusted themselves to the lacklustre beginnings.

The one new word that I definitely learned in this middle grade book - peopled as it was with a bunch of gifted children - was pulchritude. You'll thank me for underlying this point after you've checked its meaning.

The clues in the book are concrete clues. They are hints left by the grown up de factor chief of the gifted (gifted seems a bit unspecific here so I'll use the French word surdoués) clan. Where was I? Yes, the clues left by the ringleader were sometimes unfairly difficult, but more often than not, they were within the reach of the children.

I am very glad to have concluded that unlike Enid Blyton's books, where the latter author just had to elect a leader of the various groups, here among the 4 children, power is distributed democratically. Everyone gets their time to shine, and though the boy Reynie was the most resourceful one, the others had real talent different from him, to offer.

I think the author bided his time to use a joke that he must have been itching to use. You see, one of the children's surname was Contraire, and when the chief of the baddies prattled on : 'Au contraire...', well you can guess what misunderstanding happens. It was a pity that 'No ****, Sherlock,' wasn't in canon Sherlock lore. Too ahead of its time I guess.

This was a good book. I do recommend it to all people who love to read. The author, Trenton Lee Stewart, kind of got writer's block at the end and didn't know how to finish his book and as a result the book ended abruptly. It's an interesting ending, but its setting was just as rambunctious as the ending in all Asterix books, at least all that I've read.

Pulchritude is a word that definitely does not seem befitting to its meaning!

>26 AlisonY: The Sleeping Pulchritude doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Kellerman lost my faith in him massively in this book. He is not a thriller writer of the traditional ilk. He is a keen observer and a great describer. He is at his best when he reveals the details of people and their habitats.

But the things he is good at are bad for the thriller genre. This bulky collection could have been a wonderful showcase of his talents and in a way they are. But Kellerman cannot make his victims count.

He can show violence brilliantly, but cannot reveal the tragedy behind the violence. Whenever he succeeds at this though, it is at the expense of interest, suspense, pacing, and development.

I began reading this book in January the 10th 0f 2021 and finished reading it on the 13th of April of the same year. This means that I blitzed my way through this book. For you see, this book was enormous, both in its physicality and its scope.

There is only one book above 1000 pages of my knowledge that has FUN stamped all over it in each page, and that book, is not LoTR. LoTR doesn't count because it is not a genuinely single work.

Back to The Age of Faith. The words in it are meant to be absorbed over a longer time than it took me. I hurried my way through it, but if it worked for The Way of Kings, it ought to be good enough for any chunky book. By the way The Way of Kings is that book that is perfect in each of its page. Until a reread dethrones it that is. Been having awful rereads recently.

I was most interested in England, France, Ireland, Italy and the Middle East mainly. I kind of got my answer to the age old question as to why the Italians are so refined in their culture but also are so Mesozoic in some of their ways. By the way, I've followed a few recipes from top chefs based in Italy and I came away with the feeling that I was being punked. Italian cooking is marginally inferior to English cooking. Just my opinion.

What I take from the Age of Faith is that history is different from popular culture. I was always bummed by the adage of calling our worldview theory... postmodernism. In fact we're proud of this word. This book made me realise how myopic so many current theologians, tech gurus, sociologists, historians and journalists are. News Flash people! we are never going to be postmodernists. That will happen when and only when people are enlightened enough when they expect a G7 summit gathering dress up their leaders in what I wear around the house. Boxer shorts and wife beater.