14 - 16

Miss Read's Farther Afield brilliant as always.

James Rollins added me as a friend on Facebook. Because I joined his fan page. So I have nothing but good to say about Black Order. Of course it helps that it was a Sigma Force book and I LOVE that series...

Miss Read's Over the Fence is a mishmash of stories, some of which I've heard before. It seems as though she's confused some timelines in a few of them, but maybe I'm the one who is confused. There's only one more Fairacre book left, then I start on the Thrush Green ones.

And luckily James Rollins has four books coming out this year so I won't run out of his books yet...

12 & 13

Another of the reasons I love the Miss Read books so much is that I can identify with the main character, Miss Read. She's a spinster school teacher who is a little bit frumpy, a little bit untidy and a whole lot of fiesty. Me if the world had turned out differently. And she loves that she's a spinster! Rejects all attempts to marry her off, and revels in her solitude. If only I'd read these 15 years ago! (I kid, I kid...)

Obviously I loved Miss Read's Tyler's Row.

I wish I could say the same for Dan Brown's Digital Fortress. People have been recommending this book to me for ages and it's been on my radar at least that long. When I finally broke down and read The DaVinci Code, I quite enjoyed it.

It didn't help that the first few chapters of Digital Fortress were so excruciatingly painful. People who can't write romance shouldn't try. And if it's not necessary (it really wasn't), leave it out! Then there was the glaring spelling error straight off the bat. And I don't like being patronized. The story's key characters are cryptographers. How come I figured out one of the biggest clues the first time I looked at it, and it took the whole book for the scientists to figure it out? And then the kill code? The thing the characters were laboring through the whole book to find? I saw the clue and knew the answer. The cryptographers took another six or so chapters to figure it out. Totally shot the author/characters credibility for me.

*sigh*

Maybe this whole spy/thriller genre is just getting too predictable.

Ten and Eleven

Have you noticed a pattern to my frenzied reading yet? I could be plowing through these Miss Read books, but I'd feel guilty for reading so many so quickly. So that I don't feel quite so guilty, I'm trying to read one by her, then one by someone else. It still feels like cheating when I'm reading James Rollins...

This time around, the Miss Read book was Mrs. Pringle. This book was delightful. Have I mentioned yet that it's all set in the English countryside? My mum says nothing changed from the time these stories were set until she was a girl growing up in Eastbourne. So really, reading the Miss Read books is almost like reading about my mum's life. I love it!

Then I read Ice Hunt by James Rollins. This is like his crossover book. It still follows the basic formula I was complaining about in my previous posting, but he's starting to move towards the type of story he tells in his Sigma Force books. You know, I complain about how he follows a formula, but the stories are riveting. Action packed. CRAZY imaginative. And scary in a Michael Crichtonesque sort of way. This one didn't disappoint.

9: Excavation by James Rollins

Last summer I discovered James Rollins. Fell madly in love with his books, which reminded me so much of a cross between Michael Crichton and Dan Brown. But the first books I read by him were from the Sigma Force series. Lately I've been reading his older books. And boy oh boy do they follow a formula:

• Archaeological team/scientific team/military team sent off to remote region to discover/investigate something.
• Unknown to them, there is a team of bad guys who are after the same information.
• Doubly unknown to them, the bad guys have paid off a member of their team.
• Triply unknown, there is some scary element of surprise awaiting them in the remote area (usually weird, albino, monster creatures).
• They become trapped. Usually underground.
• The bad guys are waiting for them above ground.
• The monsters are closing in on them underground.
• Someone dies, and is resurrected.
  
• Cheesy love story. With gross/unrealistic smoochy bits near end.
• Bad guys ALL die.
• Good guys lose one (usually heroic military type) guy and everyone else lives happily ever after.

Change the scenery around and everyone's hair/eye colour/and accent and you have a new book.

The stories themselves are interesting, if only they weren't so predictable.

7 & 8

I've been wanting to read PD James' The Private Patient for a while. I was hoping to get a copy of the book for Christmas, and when that didn't happen, I thought I'd get it at Costco. Of course the book was sold out and as the paper back is due out next month, the hardcover is nowhere to be seen.

That is until a copy of it mysteriously showed up at my place of work. I waited ten days, but when no one claimed the book, I borrowed - and devoured - it.

And it was marvellous. I love the Adam Dalgliesh mysteries. In fact, my only complaint was that it felt like goodbye. By the end it felt as if all the major character's lives had been tidily fixed. Which I suppose, as PD James is in her 89 year, might be appropriate.

The 8th book I've read this month is A Peaceful Retirement by Miss Read. Another lovely book. In fact, this might be my favorite so far. Good thing mum has more on order as I think I'm quite addicited...

1-6

Well, I only managed to read 50 books in 2008. My minimum goal is 50 books a year, so I just squeaked in. But in 2007 I read 54 so I've fallen behind. Luckily, I've already read 6 books this year (started book 7 this morning) so I might be able to beat my goal this year.

Books 1-3 were part of another trilogy called The Chronicles of Fairacre by Miss Read. The individual books are Village School, Village Diary, and Storm in the Village. My mum got me onto these books and they are such a refreshing change. A little like Bollywood movies...they're sappy sweet, full of old fashioned morals, and guaranteed not to have anything untoward.

Books 5 & 6 were also Miss Read books, Miss Clare Remembers and Emily Davis. I have 8 or more of these in my book cupboard and I'm highly looking forward to them.

Book 4 was Remember Me by Sophie Kinsella. She definitely follows a pattern in her books, but that doesn't make them any less loveable, just a little familiar.

47, 48. 49, 50

No time to comment, but here are some books I've read lately...

• Sandstorm by James Rollins
• The Summer that Never Was by Peter Robinson
  
• Christmas at Fairacres by Miss Read
  
• The Caxley Chronicles (which was three books in a collection, but I can't remember their individual names). Also by Miss Read