Books

These are the books I'm currently reading, and have read with my reviews on Goodreads.

Currently

The Stone Man

By Luke Smitherd

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)

By J.K. Rowling

Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business

By Paul Jarvis

Previously

Read Title Author
7-Sep '20
9 days		 The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)

📝My review
This is the first book, that I can remember, that has made me laugh (multiple times) out loud(!) _and_ cry. _The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet_ has firmly earned itself a place in my top favourite books of all time.

Becky Chambers 5 / 5
30-Aug '20
21 days		 Stardust

📝My review (includes spoilers)
A well told tale of magic and adventure. And more of a starting point for its movie counterpart

Neil Gaiman 4 / 5
10-Aug '20
7 days		 All the Rage

📝My review
The hate crimes make this for brutal reading, but, as always, incredible engaging.

Cara Hunter 4 / 5
4-Aug '20
9 days		 And Then There Were None

📝My review
My first Christie book, and it did not disappoint.

Agatha Christie 4 / 5
26-Jul '20
22 days		 The Bell Jar

📝My review (includes spoilers)
This is a hard book to read, partly for the confused start, but also the very real ending. A deep insight into clinical depression.

Sylvia Plath 3 / 5
16-Jul '20
1 month		 Spectrum Machine Language for the Absolute Beginner

📝My review

William Tang 3 / 5
4-Jul '20
1 month		 Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5)

📝My review
Fun stuff, as always, but requires prior knowledge

Martha Wells 4 / 5
3-Jun '20
1 month		 The Cuckoo's Calling (Cormoran Strike, #1)

📝My review
Pretty much middle of the road read.

Robert Galbraith 2 / 5
5-May '20
9 days		 Close to Home (DI Adam Fawley, #1)

📝My review
Solid reading, what I've come to expect from Hunter.

Cara Hunter 4 / 5
26-Apr '20
7 days		 The Little Prince

📝My review
Innocent and beautiful and left me wanting to take pause when looking around.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 4 / 5
19-Apr '20
10 days		 Speccy Nation

📝My review
Fun writing but does end up being a game by game review.

Dan Whitehead 3 / 5
10-Apr '20
14 days		 The Princess Diarist

📝My review
Good lord I miss this woman. I could read and listen to her stories all day.

Carrie Fisher 4 / 5
28-Mar '20
1 month		 Children of Time (Children of Time #1)

📝My review
Interesting, well written and some nice ideas, but for me, wow, a long read that seemingly never ended.

Adrian Tchaikovsky 3 / 5
3-Feb '20
5 days		 In the Dark (DI Adam Fawley, #2)

📝My review
Kept me guessing and an easy read.

Cara Hunter 4 / 5
29-Jan '20
5 days		 Flowers for Algernon

📝My review
Heartbreaking and thought provoking.

Daniel Keyes 4 / 5
24-Jan '20
15 days		 Exhalation

📝My review
Thought provoking, some interesting ideas, but a tough act to follow.

Ted Chiang 3 / 5
9-Jan '20
9 days		 The Testaments (The Handmaid's Tale, #2)

📝My review (includes spoilers)
Brutal.

Margaret Atwood 5 / 5
31-Dec '19
28 days		 We

📝My review
Beautiful prose but no idea what it was about!

Yevgeny Zamyatin 3 / 5
23-Dec '19
7 days		 Skipping Christmas

📝My review
Skip Skipping Christmas.

John Grisham 1 / 5
4-Dec '19
6 days		 My Name is Leon

📝My review
Sad. Heart breaking. Beautiful.

Kit de Waal 4 / 5
26-Nov '19
10 days		 The Book of M

📝My review
Engaging from the very first pages, brilliant writing and ideas with some sci-fi without the need to explain absolutely everything. Loved it.

Peng Shepherd 5 / 5
17-Nov '19
20 days		 Recursion

📝My review (includes spoilers)
Decent sci-fi read, not terribly challenging, perhaps a bit overly grim towards the end, but entertaining all round.

Blake Crouch 3 / 5
29-Oct '19
1 month		 Death's End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #3)

📝My review
If this were a technical rating, the book would get 5 stars. For me however, the book felt like a bit of a slog. It took me 2 months to read it and the story line, good gosh, feels like it is stretched across time.

Liu Cixin 3 / 5
1-Sep '19
8 days		 The Afterlife of Walter Augustus

📝My review (includes spoilers)
A bit obvious, uneventful and a miss for me.

Hannah M. Lynn 2 / 5
26-Aug '19
6 months		 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

📝My review (includes spoilers)
Unexpected scary bits!

J.K. Rowling 5 / 5
24-Aug '19
8 days		 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

📝My review
All throughout reading this book, I found myself smiling.

Winifred Watson 5 / 5
17-Aug '19
1 month		 The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2)

📝My review
A tough/hard science start, but gets picks up and good gosh, the ideas in this book are…wow, expansive!

Liu Cixin 4 / 5
18-Jul '19
12 days		 The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)

📝My review
My first "hard science" read, but had me immediately inspired to learn more about physics.

Liu Cixin 4 / 5
6-Jul '19
1 day		 The Humans

📝My review
My first read-twice book. A love letter to humanity.

Matt Haig 5 / 5
6-Jul '19
7 days		 I Am Legend

📝My review
I loved it; gripping, heart warming, shameful, despairing, brilliant and quite beautiful.

Richard Matheson 5 / 5
30-Jun '19
13 days		 No Way Out (DI Adam Fawley, #3)

📝My review
Well paced, well written and engaging crime thriller. Not my typical cup of tea, but really enjoyed it.

Cara Hunter 4 / 5
17-Jun '19
11 days		 Meeting Mungo Thunk

📝My review
There's a clever story in here, with some decent humour but for me, personally, the undertone of sexism and 1980s machismo was a turn off.

Keith A. Pearson 2 / 5
30-May '19
11 days		 The Passengers

📝My review
Certainly a page turner and an easy read. Interesting concepts on near-future issues, but I was left feeling a bit…unchallenged.

John Marrs 3 / 5
19-May '19
24 days		 The Sudden Appearance of Hope

📝My review
Great page turner, and I loved the concept of how an individual exits whilst always forgotten in the world.

Claire North 5 / 5
2-May '19
1 day		 I Had a Black Dog: His Name Was Depression

📝My review
Beautifully illustrated and communicated. Some particular pages rang more than true for me and it's useful and helps to see the way others articulate their own depression.

Matthew Johnstone 5 / 5
25-Apr '19
20 days		 Fahrenheit 451

📝My review (includes spoilers)
I loved the concept behind this story, but sadly the delivered story fell fairly flat for me.

Ray Bradbury 3 / 5
6-Apr '19
16 days		 Lord of the Flies

📝My review
Stressful, but solid, reading.

William Golding 3 / 5
22-Mar '19
26 days		 The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)

📝My review
Absolutely superb stuff. This book was recommended separately by three different friends, and it lived up to expectations.

Patrick Rothfuss 5 / 5
25-Feb '19
17 days		 Sleep: The Myth of 8 Hours, the Power of Naps... and the New Plan to Recharge Your Body and Mind

📝My review

Nick Littlehales 3 / 5
9-Feb '19
18 days		 Autonomous

📝My review

Annalee Newitz 4 / 5
22-Jan '19
13 days		 All the Birds in the Sky

📝My review (includes spoilers)

Charlie Jane Anders 3 / 5
10-Jan '19
5 days		 Clawthorn (Clement, #3)

📝My review

Keith A. Pearson 3 / 5
6-Jan '19
1 month		 A Brief History of Everyone who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes

📝My review

Adam Rutherford 5 / 5
2-Jan '19
3 months		 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter #3)

📝My review (includes spoilers)

J.K. Rowling 5 / 5
1-Jan '19
10 days		 The Chrysalids

📝My review (includes spoilers)

John Wyndham 4 / 5
29-Dec '18
13 days		 The Truth Pixie (Christmas Series, #3.5)

📝My review (includes spoilers)
Good to read aloud to the kids (took about 15-20 minutes), and a beautiful message in the story, whereby the adult reading...me...might have caught a frog in their throat!

Matt Haig 4 / 5
22-Dec '18
6 days		 Christmas Jars Collector's Edition

📝My review

Jason F. Wright 3 / 5
16-Dec '18
1 day		 The Gift of the Magi

📝My review (includes spoilers)

O. Henry 3 / 5
29-Nov '18
24 days		 Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries, #4)

📝My review

Martha Wells 5 / 5
4-Nov '18
18 days		 Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)

📝My review

Martha Wells 4 / 5
28-Oct '18
1 day		 Saga, Vol. 9 (Saga, #9)

📝My review

Brian K. Vaughan 5 / 5
16-Oct '18
7 days		 Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)

📝My review

Martha Wells 4 / 5
9-Oct '18
22 days		 The End Specialist

📝My review

Drew Magary 2 / 5
17-Sep '18
8 days		 Tin Man

📝My review

Sarah Winman 4 / 5
10-Sep '18
3 days		 The Brighton Mermaid

📝My review

Dorothy Koomson 4 / 5
7-Sep '18
19 days		 War with the Newts

📝My review

Karel Čapek 5 / 5
6-Sep '18
2 months		 Beetle Boy

📝My review (includes spoilers)

M.G. Leonard 5 / 5
20-Aug '18
6 days		 Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls

📝My review

Robert Rankin 4 / 5
11-Aug '18
10 days		 Dogs of War (Dogs of War #1)

📝My review

Adrian Tchaikovsky 5 / 5
1-Aug '18
2 days		 Past Mortem

📝My review

Ben Elton 4 / 5
30-Jul '18
13 days		 Neuromancer

📝My review

William Gibson 3 / 5
12-Jul '18
9 months		 The Obesity Code: unlocking the secrets of weight loss

📝My review

Jason Fung 5 / 5
9-Jul '18
6 days		 Good Omens

📝My review

Terry Pratchett 5 / 5
3-Jul '18
3 days		 The Dead Fathers Club

📝My review

Matt Haig 3 / 5
1-Jul '18
2 days		 All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)

📝My review

Martha Wells 5 / 5
30-Jun '18
8 days		 Brave New World

📝My review (includes spoilers)

Aldous Huxley 5 / 5
21-Jun '18
6 days		 Postcards From the Edge (Suzanne Vale, #1)

📝My review

Carrie Fisher 4 / 5
15-Jun '18
26 days		 Snow Crash

📝My review (includes spoilers)

Neal Stephenson 4 / 5
10-Jun '18
1 day		 Jessica Jones, Vol. 2: The Secrets of Maria Hill

📝My review

Brian Michael Bendis 4 / 5
9-Jun '18
2 months		 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)

📝My review

J.K. Rowling 4 / 5
20-May '18
15 days		 1984

📝My review (includes spoilers)

George Orwell 5 / 5
6-May '18
13 days		 Stories of Your Life and Others

📝My review

Ted Chiang 5 / 5
22-Apr '18
13 days		 The Catcher in the Rye

📝My review (includes spoilers)

J.D. Salinger 3 / 5
31-Mar '18
23 days		 Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (Adrian Mole, #8)

📝My review

Sue Townsend 3 / 5
3-Mar '18
8 days		 Silent Victim

📝My review

Caroline Mitchell 4 / 5
11-Feb '18
11 days		 Who Sent Clement? (Clement #1)

📝My review

Keith A. Pearson 4 / 5
31-Jan '18
10 days		 The Night Masquerade (Binti #3)

📝My review

Nnedi Okorafor 5 / 5
22-Jan '18
15 days		 The Lives of Tao

📝My review

Wesley Chu 2 / 5
7-Jan '18
3 days		 The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 1: Squirrel Power

📝My review

Ryan North 4 / 5
4-Jan '18
2 days		 Wishful Drinking

📝My review

Carrie Fisher 3 / 5
3-Jan '18
2 days		 Saga, Vol. 8

📝My review

Brian K. Vaughan 5 / 5
2-Jan '18
4 days		 The Power

📝My review

Naomi Alderman 5 / 5
29-Dec '17
21 days		 A Gentleman in Moscow

📝My review

Amor Towles 4 / 5
8-Oct '17
9 days		 Beyond Broadhall (The '86 Fix #2)

📝My review (includes spoilers)

Keith A. Pearson 5 / 5
26-Aug '17
4 days		 The Girl With All the Gifts

📝My review

M.R. Carey 5 / 5
1-Mar '17
16 days		 A Boy Made of Blocks

📝My review

Keith Stuart 5 / 5
1-Feb '17
8 days		 The Song From Somewhere Else

📝My review

A.F. Harrold 4 / 5