I just signed up for the Read-a-thon which is being held again this weekend. You can read all about it over on Dewey’s blog, and the sign-up page is here (and if you click on the image, you will get to the Read-a-thon FAQ, just in case you don’t know what it’s all about).

I really enjoyed this last time, so I’m looking forward to it a lot, especially since I haven’t really been reading a lot lately. Maybe this will get me back in the saddle, so to speak. Because I haven’t read much lately, I am going to set my goals a lot lower this time around.

Last weekend I visited my grandfather’s house with the rest of my family and ended up coming back home with a bunch of old murder mysteries, mainly British ones. You see, my greatgrandmother was a great reader in general, and of murder mysteries in particular, so there were a bunch of those old books in my grandfather’s bookshelf. He’s moving from a big house to a small apartment, so he really wanted to get rid of stuff. Me? I was only too happy to oblige. ;D

Those murder mysteries are going to be my chief Read-a-thon fare, I feel relatively sure about.

I am kind of late with this. I blame internetlessness. I might not have time to post my list today (I’m blogging from work and I have limited time. Very limited). I will attempt to come in early tomorrow before work and post the rest then.

1. Did you discover a new author?
Libba Bray

2. Where was the most unusual place you found yourself reading?
I read where I usually read — in bed, on the balcony or the sofa.

3. Did you read more than usual?
Yes and no. More than the average month, but about the same as the last few months.

4. Did you give up anything in order to read more?
I spent a little less time on the internet.

5. If you won the Amazon voucher what would you spend it on?
Probably the sequel to A Great and Terrible Beauty.

6. Would you like to see a 2009 Book Blowout?
Definitely!

My goal was to read 20 books during July and I ended up reading 31.

• Doctor Who: The Nightmare of Black Island – Mike Tucker
• Doctor Who: The Art of Destruction – Stephen Cole
• Doctor Who: The Price of Paradise – Colin Brake
• The Underdog – Markus Zusak
• Tro, hopp och burnout – Johan Unenge
• Torchwood: Something in the Water – Trevor Baxendale
• VadÃ¥ feminist – Lisa GÃ¥lmark
• Torchwood: Trace Memory – David Llewellyn
• Homofamiljer – Sara Stenholm och Cecilia Strömberg
• Making Money – Terry Pratchett
• Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth
• Moab is My Washpot – Stephen Fry
• Torchwood: The Twilight Streets – Gary Russell
• Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World – Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero
• Betong, fjäril, betong – Ingrid Olsson
• Torchwood: Border Princes – Dan Abnett
• Torchwood: Another Life – Peter Anghelides
• Torchwood: Slow Decay – Andy Lane
• Vegan Freak – Bob Torres & Jenna Torres
• Skinny Bitch – Rory Freedman & Kim Barnouin
• Vegan Virgin Valentine – Carolyn Mackler
• Emily of New Moon – LM Montgomery
• Emily Climbs – LM Montgomery
• Emily’s Quest – LM Montgomery
• The Blue Castle – LM Montgomery
• A Great and Terrible Beauty – Libba Bray
• From the Inside Out – Morty Diamond (ed.)
• The History Boys – Alan Bennett
• Life on the Refrigerator Door – Alice Kuipers
• The Commitments – Roddy Doyle
• Historier om ett brott – Lena Lennerhed

My internet has broken down and I haven’t had a chance to get it fixed yet, thus the lack of updates.

I just thought you might want to know.

Since I can’t really do much else right now (I’m logging in, very briefly, from work to type this. Internetlessness has freed up lots of time for reading, though. Twenty-two books this month so far and still going at it!), I had an idea that I would ask the same question that I asked back in November:

Who reads this blog?

Even if you never, ever comment and plan on never, ever commenting again, won’t you make an exception just this once, so I get a little picture of who reads this. I’m curious sometimes, y’know.

 

Since I’m sick* and way behind on reviews, I’ve realised the only way to catch up is to make them speed reviews and post a whole batch at once.

The Age of Napoleon; Alistair Horne, eng, 235
Interesting, but a little choppily written, and also the author assumes you know certain things and never explains them, while others he explains over and over again.
C

Cold Comfort Farm; Stella Gibbons, eng, 253
Funny, though I accidentally didn’t read the preface, so I wasn’t 100 % how much of it was intentional (all of it, as it turns out, and as I suspected). Flora Poste is kind of annoying, but all right all the same.
For the TBR reading challenge and as part of the BBC Big Read.
B

Rebecca; Daphne du Maurier, eng, 410
A re-read, not as good as I remembered it, but still lovely. Maxim is both wonderful and creepy.
C

Med uppenbar känsla för stil; Stephan Mendel-Enk, swe, 128
Interestingly written about men and what’s considered masculine. References Morrissey at some points, mostly in connection with a man who went berserk and killed people. Lovely… not!
C

Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East; Brian Whitaker, swe, 230
Interesting, scary and occasionally a little bit hopeful.
C

Ingen behöver veta; Christina Wahldén, swe, 139
About male rape and how it does exist, but people find it hard to believe. Kind of a non-ending, but then I suppose that’s sadly the case in most instances of actual male rape also.
C

Ingen grekisk gud, precis; Katarian Kieri, swe, 217
Kind of brilliant tale of a young girl who falls for a teacher. Kind of brilliant mostly because the main character is into Morrissey, but for other reasons also. I was a bit worried where it was going to end, but it’s kind of perfect, really.
B

Sandman: The Kindly Ones; Neil Gaiman et al., eng, 335
I wouldn’t say Sandman is Gaiman at his best, but I do like the stories and so also in this volume. Not my favourite, though.
For the TBR reading challenge.
C

Doctor Who: The Nightmare of Black Island; Mike Tucker, eng, 255
Scary monsters and kiddies with nightmares. I liked it, but not as much as other DW books.
C

Doctor Who: The Art of Destruction; Stephen Cole, eng, 256
Farming in Africa, golden statues and creepy aliens. Good, but not great. Doctor’s always nice, though.
C

Doctor Who: The Price of Paradise; Colin Brake, eng, 255
References Franz Ferdinand and other pop culture a time or two. Not the best of the DW books I’ve read—I don’t much care for Colin Brake’s style of writing it, though I can’t put my finger on the exact reason.
C

Tro, hopp och burnout; Johan Unenge, swe, 228
YA story about a guy who’s really into cars and death metal, who ends up going on a confirmation camp. It’s a decent story, and I was happy to see it didn’t end up quite where I expected it would, but the writing style is very, very choppy and not at all my cup of tea.
For the A-Z reading challenge.
C

Vadå feminist; Lisa Gålmark, swe, 188
Basic guide to feminism. I wasn’t too keen on the writing and didn’t like the book all that much. Mostly it made me a little annoyed with the author, though it did contain sections worth thinking about. It bothers me that there is no question mark in the title.
For the A-Z reading challenge.
D

Homofamiljer; Sara Stenholm & Cecilia Strömberg, swe, 312
About rainbow families and different ways to get one. Interesting, especially the personal stories, but not fab.
C

*Just a cold, but a bad one. I hate colds. And I’ve run out of Kleenex, which means my nose is very, very sore from regular paper towels. Woe.

Torchwood: Something in the Water
by Trevor Baxendale

English
255 pages
BBC Books
ISBN: 978-1-846-07437-0

First line: The Late Bob Strong.

Back cover blurb:
Dr Bob Strong’s GP surgery has been treating a lot of coughs and colds recently, far more than is normal for the time of year. Bob thinks there’s something up but he can’t think what. He seems to have caught it himself, whatever it is—he’s starting to cough badly and there are flecks of blood in his hanky.

Saskia Harden has been found on a number of occasions submerged in ponds or canals but alive and seemingly none the worse for wear. Saskia is not on any files, except in the medical records at Dr Strong’s GP practice.
But Torchwood’s priorities lie elsewhere: investigating ghostly apparitions in South Wales, they have found a dead body. It’s old and in an advanced state of decay. And it is still able to talk.

And what it is saying is ‘Water hag’…

Thoughts: This isn’t the first of the Torchwood books, but it is the first one I’ve read. I liked it well enough, even if I was freaking out a bit due to the fact that I’ve caught a cold (stupid crowded plane cabins) and was consequently hacking up my lungs as I read it. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I’m reading a book wherein the majority of the characters are suffering from a strange affliction which starts with a tickle in the throat and leads to massive coughing fits, complete with blood and great quantities of green phlegm being expelled, I don’t particularly want to be suffering from a bad cough myself. Not that there are times I would want to be suffering from a bad cough, but y’know, there are degrees of “do not want.”

Apart from the cough coincidence, it was pretty all right. Darker in tone than the Doctor Who books (just like the series is darker and more ‘grown-up’ than DW), but I think I actually prefer the Who books. At least some of them, and possibly not to all of the Torchwood books (time will tell).

My one biggest complaint is that there was much too little of Ianto in this. Ianto Jones is effin’ brilliant, so he deserves more page time than he got here, but what little he did get was pretty snarky, which was nice. I love snarky!Ianto. I also love Jack/Ianto, which there wasn’t much of in this particular book. I am told that there’s more of it in some of the others in the series, though, so I’m not giving up on that yet.

I’m giving this a C rating. Had it had more Jack/Ianto, or just more Ianto, I would have given it a higher rating, most likely, but as it is, a C is just the right one.