52 books completed for 2014

I have reached my 52 books target for 2014 with a few weeks still to go. You can see all the books I have read so far on my Pinterest board.

I crossed the line with this fabulous book I got out of the library - if you love medieval settings, folklore, witchcraft and some religion all wrapped together then you will love this book!

I'm hopefully not ending my quest here - I'm up to 55 books already and I'm hoping to get to 60 by then end of the year. We'll see :)

What are you reading at the moment? Love it/hate it? Do tell me in the comments!

52 books, 52 weeks - part 6

Hey, look at this - it's the first of the month and I'm already up to date with my book list :) Go Lynsey!

This is the second time I have read The Scarlet Letter and I must admit it dragged a bit on second reading. I'm assuming it's because I knew what happened and I was just waiting for it to get to that point. I first came across this book when a customer in the pub I worked in in my home town (I was 18/19) was reading it at the bar one day and he encouraged me to have a read!

I got about 6 chapters into this book and realised I'd read it recently (maybe late last year) but I carried on reading anyway. I love one of the main characters in this book and the other I dislike immensely and she doesn't come across much better second time round! Good book though and very readable.

Another thriller and this one was a bit meh. There were likeable characters but it seemed to drag on quite a bit without revealing anything of interest and then suddenly bam, all the information came at once. I have a couple of other books by Tami Hoag so I will see how I go with those.

I got this out of the library (and it's actually a bit late back as I forgot to take it back with the others!) and it's a very good read. I was drawn to it because of my recent obsession with vegetable gardening and for a factual book it was very easy to read. There are quite a few numbers in there but it shows how  well war time efforts to grow your own food worked.

32/52

I hoard books but something snapped this weekend and we sorted out 120 books to go to the charity shop without really thinking about it/sorting properly. Oh and that's only off a few shelves in the study. Imagine what would happen if I went through each book, one by one! Maybe I should stop going to the library as much and read the books I've got!

Libraries :)

I haven't visited my local library for such a long time which seems silly when you consider it's only a 10 minute walk through the park to get there! I picked up my 20 World Book Night books from there and the girls came with me and got some books out. I returned today to take their books back, get them replacement cards and I had just enough time to pick out some books for me! We don't go to the library as our local Post Office sells books for charity and at 25p for kids paperbacks, 50p for kids hardbacks/adults paperbacks and £1 for adult hardbacks so can't really go wrong! However, we do have a lot of books in our house (into the thousands) so we could do with reigning in the number of books that come into the house (and no, I can't believe I've just typed that!) Here are the books I've borrowed.

Kirsties Handmade Home - I'm not a fan of Kirstie Allsop at all and haven't watched the TV programme but while the books are free to borrow I thought I may as well to see what all the fuss was about!

All Sewn Up by Chloe Owens - just a pretty looking book which deals mainly with applique.

Creative Walls by Geraldine James - it's a book about displaying your treasures and we have a lot of treasures to display so it might be a worthwhile read!

Seedbombs by Josie Jeffery - a book all about seedbombing which intrigues me to be honest! I might also take it to show my sister when we see her soon as I think it is something she would like!

Malkin Child by Livi Michael - a book about the Pendle Witches which I shamefully (living very near to Pendle Hill) know little about. Hopefully this book will help.

And the top two aren't for me but for the girls. To tide them over until we get a free timeslot to go back so they can choose their own books with their new cards!

Do you use your local library? Is it far from where you live?

52 books in 52 weeks - part one

I'm giving myself another challenge this year and it is to read 52 books in 52 weeks. I do read a lot so it is something I think I can achieve. I do have weeks where I don't read anything at all and weeks where I will read a book a day (I'm a fast reader!) March and April will be slow book reading months as I will be panicking about attending BCTF and hopefully the weeks afterwards I will be busy with orders :) I still think I can read 52 within the year though - fingers crossed!

I will probably end up at the start of each month listing the books I have read in the previous month but I may do this once a quarter instead - depends on how I am feeling! I do have a board set up on Pinterest that will be updated as soon as I have finished a book so you can see how I am getting on with the challenge on a book by book basis! I'm not very good at reviewing books (although I have to write a review of the book I'm reading at the moment for Waterstones!) so I will probably only say a few words about each book and leave it at that.

The first three books of 2013 are my favourite books ever. I first read them when I was in my first year at university (a friends dad was an English teacher and was reading them with his kids) and I have read them every year since* I love them and no matter how many times I read them I still find I love them. The first one can be hard to get into but read 100 pages and you will be hooked!

Again, 1984 is one of my favourite books although when I read it this time it didn't seem quite as harrowing as the first few times I read it. It could be that as I was reading it, our current government and it's leaders sprung to mind a few times! We are not quite at Big Brother ruling us yet but some things really struck a cord with what is going on now in the UK!

I saw this book when it first came out but didn't buy it until Matt saw it in a charity shop recently :) It's another young adults/older kids book and I loved it! Very well written with a good plot line that draws you in - the main character is fully believable too which sometimes doesn't happen in this kind of book.

I buy a lot of books from my local Post Office as they sell books for a local charity for 50p (paperbacks) or £1 (hardbacks) and it's great to browse the shelves as you are standing in the queue! I like thrillers and say that they make up about 50% of the books on our shelves. This one was good, easy to read and the plot was very twisty turny. When you thought you'd got a grip on the plot something would happen and you'd realise you'd got it wrong! It didn't happen enough though to put you off finding out what happens at the end as can happen in some thrillers.

So, they are the books I've read in January and I'm already halfway through my next book :) I found this challenge over on The Sewing Directory so if you too want to join in then leave a comment over there!

6/52 - only 46 more books to read! Do you have any book recommendations? I have thousands of books (literally!) but I am always looking for more!


*except for last year when I was only allowed to read books that I hadn't read before. I missed reading them though so that is why they were the first books of 2013!

Random bits and bobs

1. I'm still unwell but now I know what it is - pleurisy :) Lovely! Antibiotics should shift it although the pain might still be there for a good few weeks yet (ouch!)

2. It's my 6th year anniversary of being on Etsy! Whoot!

3. Despite being ill I managed to do some work yesterday - sorting through my stock boxes and Flickr photographs to check if things were still available for sale. I have things on 23 pages and there are more than one thing to list per page so expect some shop updates soon! One thing dated back until 2010 - ahem. Who says I make things and photograph them and then forget to list them.....

4. I'm getting well under way reading the books I wasn't allowed to read last year. Basically we have so many books, that in 2012 I was only allowed to read books I hadn't read before. That meant I couldn't have my annual read of the Harry Potter books or His Dark Materials. Since the start of the year though I have re-read His Dark Materials and I am 30 pages into another firm favourite, Nineteen Eighty-Four (read whilst waiting at the doctors this morning!)

5. I did have another thing to add to the bottom of this post but I stopped writing this post halfway through when I realised it was time to go and cook frittata for tea and I've completely forgotten what it was. Imagine it was good though eh?

Nearly Wordless Wednesday - reading

We like books in this house :)