Currently...

Suffering...
... with a suspected UTI.

I think it started on Monday when we took our trip to the hospital to pick up a fresh supply of my meds. I was aware of the fact that I didn't want to be needing to pee all the way into Glasgow so I drank less than usual which seems to have had an adverse effect on me.

The problem is a sore lower back, needing to pee all the time, and feeling generally run down pretty much describes all my pregnancy symptoms so I sort of hesitated on whether or not it was worth going to the doctor. Yesterday I thought it was nothing to worry about, but this morning I asked Mr Click to make the call and he decided a trip to the doctor was worthwhile.

I'm glad he did.

To paint a wee picture (no pun intended), I filled up a sample bottle. Within ten minutes I needed to nip to the loo again. As well as ten minutes after that. About ten minutes after that we left to go to my appointment (five minutes up the road), by which point I abandoned the spousal unit to check me in so I could nip to the loo again. And then another ten minutes later (right when I was due to go in to see the doctor) I had to nip in again.

I've got a short dose of amoxicillin and we're waiting until Monday for my results to come back in case I need to take something stronger. I have a funny feeling this won't be the last time I'm getting a UTI during this pregnancy.

Reading...
... After the Crash by Michel Bussi.

It's this month's book club book and I'm finding it to be one of those 'one more chapter books'. It's told in both the 'present day' (late nineties) and through a journal which one of the characters is reading. This means that inevitably a chapter ends and you have to wait until halfway through the next one or the one after it to pick up the strand of the story you've been reading so you just have to keep going.

I managed to read about one hundred pages straight off at the weekend though I've slowed down a little since then.

I'm also reading a Mother & Baby magazine, because why not? Mr Click picked it up for me today (I think to cheer me up after the UTI and antibiotic stuff). Our baby doesn't even have feet yet, but I'm going to be hot on tips to help them learn to walk when they get here.

What's keeping you occupied this week?

Books 52 & 53 of 2016: Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and the First Christmas by Harriet Beecher Stowe & A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Yes, I'm still reviewing Christmas books. Look at it this way, you can use this to give you an idea of books to look out for in the run up to December this year.

First of today's books is a collection of stories by Harriet Beecher Stowe; Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and the First Christmas.

This is a trio of stories, all with a Christmas theme and to be honest, they're kind of depressing. The first has babies dying at Christmas to give people a sense of pity for suffering. The second has a guy giving up on his dreams of an education. And the third was about the Pilgrims and had people dying as well!

These stories are obviously intended to be religious and moral stories for the season though one of the biggest things I was aware of as I was reading them was how much has changed since this book was written.

It's a very short book, only about one hundred pages. All the same, it took me quite a while to get through. It was a nice glimpse into the past, but it's one that I'm unlikely to read again.

I followed this up with A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens because it was the second week of December and it needed to be done. This time I read it in ebook format.

I've reviewed this one so many times that I'll keep this fairly short. And I'm pretty confident that you know the gist of A Christmas Carol. If you don't, head over to Project Gutenberg and read it, then come back and read this review.

As always, I enjoyed my reread of this book. It took me a little longer than usual to read, though I've noticed in later years I've been slower to read it than in the past. For a while I used to be able to sail through it on Christmas Eve, but now I try and read it earlier in the month so it's done before Christmas Day.

I picked out all of my favourite quotes as I read. Some of them are favourites purely because of the various adaptations that we've seen and own, but lots of them are because of the way that Dickens writes. And some are a combination of both the writing and the way they're played in the adaptations.

Speaking of the adaptations, I couldn't help but imagine them as I was reading. In my head I've got the kind of perfect version with Scrooge taken from this film, and Marley taken from that one, and Bob Cratchit from this one. In my head it's also a musical with a mix of songs from three of the musical versions as well. It's a little distracting when you're trying to read.

Books 50 & 51 of 2016: The Jewels That Was Ours by Colin Dexter & The Spirit of Christmas by Henry Van Dyke

I decided to take a short break from the Christmas books at the very end of November last year and Mr Click was working on his Colin Dexter books so I decided to give the next one a go; The Jewel That Was Ours.

A group of American tourists are visiting Oxford when one of them dies suddenly and the priceless antique that they were bringing to a special presentation is stolen. Of course, once Inspector Morse is on the case, it's not long before things get very complicated as the case is solved.

I got through the first half of this book quite quickly but then as the case dragged on I found that I slowed down my reading as well. I wanted it to be solved but it seemed to take a long time for it to get figured out and I just found my attention wandering.

I don't know if part of the reason for my slowing down was because I could vaguely remember the TV adaptation . It's been quite a while since I saw it, but I think that the ending was different. I guess that's a good thing since you can enjoy the book and the adaptation without one spoiling the other.

This book definitely doesn't give you what you needed to know to solve the case. I suspected that this is also part of the reason why it took me so long to get through as well. If I can't help figure out the case myself, I end up feeling frustrated and I guess that translates to a lack of motivation to go on, since nothing I read will help me solve the crime.

Mr Click has very nearly finished reading all of these books, I think he's just got the one left, so I suspect that we'll be watching the TV series in the next few months. I'm quite looking forward to seeing the adaptation of this one again.

By the time I finished up The Jewel That Was Ours I was ready for something a little more Christmassy, so I went with an ebook version of The Spirit of Christmas written by Henry Van Dyke in 1905. This is a collection of essays and stories about Christmas.

This is a really short little book. I was able to read it all on the 8th of December in a couple of sittings, but it's short enough that it could be read all in one go.

The story at the beginning kind of reminded me of Pilgrim's Progress. It was the angels learning about the birth of Christ so I guess that it was the setting which put me in mind of Pilgrim's Progress. On the whole though, I preferred the essays. The very last one made me think of A Christmas Carol since the message was about carrying a Christmas spirit all through the year.

It's an interesting little read and I think I picked exactly the right time of year to read it.

Books 48 & 49 of 2016: Christmas Entertainments by Alice Maude Kellogg & A Cowboy For Christmas by Kristen James

It's nearly June so what better time to review the books that I was reading last Christmas?

Both of these were ebooks from my extensive Christmas ebook collection, the first of which was Christmas Entertainments by Alice Maude Kellogg. This is a collection of poetry and prose for school plays written by in 1897.

Before I even get to reviewing the contents of the book, I have a bit of a bone to pick with the formatting of this ebook. The poems ended up with a scroll arrow right at the bottom of the page, which I've never seen before. It was in exactly the right place to mean when you hit it you frequently brought up the progress bar instead of scrolling down to the next stanza of the poem.

On a couple of occasions I wasn't paying attention, hit the scroll arrow, brought up the progress bar and then tapped again so jumped forward in the book and had to try and backtrack to where I'd been moments before.

I don't know if this was just my old Kindle being, well, old, or if this is something screwy in the way this ebook was set up. I've never seen it before and there didn't seem to be any way to turn it off. Perhaps at some point I'll try downloading it onto my new Kindle to see if this still has the scroll button, but I'm probably not that invested in this book to bother doing that.

This book was very dated which meant that it came across as kind of offensive. A lot of the little plays/rhymes for children to recite would need reworking to make them less racist or sexist. Plus a lot of them call for the songs to be sung to the tune of songs which aren't widely known any more.

It's a nice little snippet of history but I think it would be pretty redundant for what it was originally intended as.

Still in the mood for something festive, I followed this up with A Cowboy for Christmas by Kristen James.

When the brother she barely knew passes away, Missy inherits his share of the Stables he was running with Brent and decides that she won't let her lack of knowledge of horses put her off trying to make a go of it. Brent's not convinced she's got the staying power the business needs and, of course, sparks begin to fly.

This is a really short read, just 176 pages. I read it in a few sittings over the course of the day on the 27th of November. You pretty much know what to expect from a book like this and this book pretty much delivers.

It was fairly obvious that Missy and Brent were going to get together, you can kind of tell that from the title and the cover. It's kind of like when you watch a romantic comedy, it's not about the ending since you already know what will happen, it's about the route they take to get there.

I did like the writing style. It wasn't trying to be anything fancy but I enjoyed the descriptions of the scenery. There was also a sample of another book at the end which sounded pretty good as well.

A nice little read if you're looking for something vaguely festive and totally fluffy.

Currently...

Making use of...
... the local library at last!

The library is open late on a Tuesday so I took advantage of this to pop in on the way home from work and pick up the May Book Club book.

Of course, this means that I'm now frantically trying to finish the ebook I'm reading at the moment. It's taking a little while since I'm falling into the habit of nodding off while I'm reading it. The night before last I woke up to find Mr Click blissfully snoring away on top of my Kindle. Luckily there was no harm done.

Preparing...
... for tomorrow! Embryo Transfer Day!

I wrote out a massive list of things I needed to get done this evening. We've got a very early start tomorrow and I've got the complication of meds to take before I go so I need to get as much done as possible tonight.

As I'm writing this, I'm charging my Kindle, Fitbit and powerbank. Next up on the list is organising the clothes I'm planning on wearing (my lucky outfit which I've worn to every appointment on this round, the nurses must think I'm a real skank with only one set of clothes). That's to be followed by doing a stock take of the meds I have in the cupboard (and scattered elsewhere around the house) so I can request extras to see me through to the Official Test Date.

Off...
... for an early night.

We do have an early start after all. And it's kind of an important day for us.

Keep everything crossed for a successful thaw and transfer.

Books 46 & 47 of 2016: The Plains of Passage by Jean M. Auel & Dear Almost a poem by Matthew Thorburn

Yesterday I shared The Hogwarts Tag which included a picture of my Halloween costume for last year. I very carefully hand-lettered a book cover for a Muggle Studies textbook. That 'textbook' was actually the 46th book that I read last year, The Plains of Passage by Jean M. Auel, the fourth book in the Earth's Children series.

When it's not dressed up as a Hogwarts school book, it looks like this:

This book follows Ayla and Jondalar's journey back across all the land that Jondalar spent the last two books travelling through. Their journey is pretty time sensitive as the last bit of the journey requires them to cross a glacier and warmer weather is rapidly approaching. They meet up with a lot of other people and have a lot of hot prehistoric sex!

This is a massive book; it clocks in at 724 pages! This was the main reason I picked it to become a Hogwarts textbook because it looked suitably massive enough to be a magical book. Sadly I don't have Hermione's beaded bag so it took me nearly a month to read as it had to stay at home rather than come out in my bag; if I'd taken it with me there was very little room for anything else!

I think it would have been better as at least two, if not three books. Ayla and Jondalar spend time with several different tribes and since Auel goes into so much detail on everything that even more detail could've been given to the cultures and the book wouldn't have been so huge. There was SO MUCH of this book dedicated to the scenery and the flora and fauna that I couldn't help but skim read those bits.

And then there's the sex. There's so much sex. Ayla and Jondalar regularly stop to 'share Pleasures', which isn't bad in and of itself but the book could have been about two hundred pages shorter if they'd not stopped to bonk quite so often!

When I finished this on the 24th of November I was initially at a bit of loss for what to read next and just planned to select a Christmas read from my Kindle when I arrived home from work to find a package from Stacy @ Stacy's Books. It contained a copy of Dear Almost a poem by Matthew Thorburn.

This is a book length poem, written after the author and his wife experienced a miscarriage. It's addressed to the child who they never got to meet.

It arrived on exactly the right day, the one year anniversary of losing our twins and it was just what I needed to read. I'm not sure I can even formulate the words to explain just how beautiful this book is. I had a physical ache in my chest as I read it. I stopped up late and cried.

You can actually feel the love and grief in the words on the page, but in a way it was also nice to read. Pregnancy loss is one of those things which is so rarely spoken about, it was strangely validating to read a book written by someone who experienced it and had gone through all those emotions you had felt and were feeling.

I don't normally share quotes on my book review posts anymore, but this one had so many quotes I wanted to save in my book journal that I can't help but share the top five I selected to copy out in the the end, because this will explain my feelings for this book far better than any words I can use.

Pages 25 & 26
I want to show you
what life is like
here where you ought to be
with us, but aren't:
a not-uncommon story
though few people will tell you

it's their story too. They choose
not to relive it, relieved
not to revisit what happened
or didn't. What should have.
What went wrong
for no other reason, finally,
than that it didn't go right.
Ours is the story of how
is became was and was became
wasn't, became no,
became not. The story of
our almost girl, our might've been.

Page 41
This is the story of
what's missing, a space
one can see only
because we've filled in
everything around it:
keyhole I peer through
to what I can't hold,
little hole in my heart
where the air leaks out,
little no more, no luck or way
or how.

Page 44
I think of you still,
so still, and not there anymore
in that dark room,
though I ought to know
better, though I feel
the tiny light I cup
deep inside me gutter
and go out. "It's strange,"
Lily says when
I come home, "and unsatisfying, isn't it?
To hurt like this for someone

we never met?"

Pages 53 & 54
There's
a piece of me that's
missing. I almost didn't
know she was there
but she was there and now
she's gone.

Pages 71 & 72
It scares me
I can no longer
picture your face,
which was only ever
my imagining of
how your face
might look someday -
not enough
to hold onto.
I've had to learn to live
with this: we
didn't see you, didn't
meet you, only
knew you
were there a little while
and then you weren't.

There are lots of little repeated motifs through the book as the seasons change and the author seems to come to terms with the loss they experienced. The sense of loving someone you never got to meet and really knew nothing about, but who you loved completely unconditionally.

Even if you've never suffered that kind of loss yourself, read this book. It might just give you a glimpse into what other people have suffered and you might come close to getting a tiny sense of understanding.

Just read it.

Books 44 & 45 of 2016: Death Du Jour by Kathy Reichs & Songs of the Road by Arthur Conan Doyle

I feel like all I seem to be doing at the moment is writing book reviews. Since I got my new Kindle I've rediscovered my love of the Goodreads site, so I've been working back through my book journals for the last couple of years and adding all the reviews to the site. I'm all up to date again now, but I've still got a few books to add from some of my older book journals.

But here and now, I'm looking at two of the books I was reading in October last year. The first of these is Death Du Jour by Kathy Reichs.

Tempe Brennan is excavating some remains in an old convent when the call comes in that there's been a fire and she's needed to help identify the bodies. Soon the bodies start to mount up, including murdered twin boys, and it appears that there's a strange cult behind it. As if that's not enough, her sister Harry has come to town and is acting oddly too.

I've read this one several times but it's been a while since my last reread and I'd forgotten just how much was packed into this book. For some reason I thought that some of the dead bodies that crop up in this story were actually from a later book in the series.

That said, once I started reading it, I started to remember what happened at the end, so that made me read slower. I can't help it, if there's no urgency to get through the book to find out who did it, I can't help but slow down. I like trying to solve the crime which obviously, I don't need to do if I already know who the bad guys are.

I think I also found it difficult to get through this book because the deaths of the babies really bothered me. I found that hard to read and so that made it harder to pick up the book.

This book is notable for being the one where Tempe and Andrew Ryan kiss for the first time. In fact, they almost do a lot more than just kiss! Whenever I read that now I can't help but be taken back to the moment I read it, sitting on a train heading into Glasgow on my way to Uni. We were almost into Glasgow Central and I didn't want to stop reading to get off the train!

I followed this up with an ebook, picking one which had been on my Kindle for ages without having been read. It just happened to be an Arthur Conan Doyle book, Songs of the Road. This is a poetry collection.

I didn't actually realise that Arthur Conan Doyle had written poetry so it was a bit of a surprise when I opened it and discovered this was a poetry book! On the whole I did enjoy it.

The poems all seemed to follow a similar sort of rhythm. Without getting too OU-ish about it, I thought the metre of the poems was good. There's also lots of references to places in Scotland which were fun to look out for.

Some of the poems also used different accents in them which were a fun little touch. I felt like it followed on quite nicely from the Merry Men ebook which I'd read a few weeks before.

I think that there's another couple of Arthur Conan Doyle books that I've not yet read. I might have to bump them up my reading list.

The Lost Library Card

I recently joined a book club because the one thing I need more of is excuses to read books. I've been involved in book clubs before, mostly online and I always enjoy finding new authors and books that way; it was how I came to fall in love with To Kill A Mockingbird and Neil Gaiman.

Once the first book was selected I planned to buy my own copy for a little while but I'm trying to get fewer books at the moment since I don't really have space for the ones I've already got. Then it was time to consider the ebook version but by that time I'd alighted on a better idea.

Check it out of the library!

It's been quite a while since I'd been there, which I've always felt kind of guilty about since I used to be in and out of the place. So many places are losing their libraries and I'd hate for something to happen to ours, all the more reason to actually use it!

Armed with a plan, I went onto the library catalogue website and ran a little search. Sure enough they had the book, but it was out on loan until next week. No fear, I thought, I'll just reserve it for myself afterwards.

Now, our library system uses your library card as your login. I pulled out my purse to retrieve the card, but it wasn't there. Other places it wasn't included the bottom of my bag, the top of my bookcase and the cupboards beside my chair.

And that was when it dawned on me. I knew exactly where my library card would be.

You see, the last time I actually planned to go to the library was a good couple of years ago. I decided I would nip to the library on the way home from work, since I was walking by it anyway. Wanting to keep my library card close at hand, I stuck the card between the pages of my book as a bookmark.

Well, one thing lead to another and I didn't go to the library. I finished the book and set it aside, but never actually removed the 'bookmark' from it.

This means that somewhere in one of the boxes of books upstairs, sandwiched between the pages, is my poor old abandoned library card.

Luckily I finished work early this afternoon so was able to stop into the library and I'm not the proud owner of a shiny new book passport:

And I won't be using this one as a bookmark!

Currently...

Back to...
... colouring in!

I finished up the picture I'd been working on in Johanna Basford's Secret Garden earlier in the week and went straight on to this one from Lost Ocean. I've been feeling a tad wound up recently, I'm guessing it's the hormones, and struggling to focus on anything too demanding so colouring in seemed like the perfect thing to do.

I'm very much a fan of picking a few colours and then limiting myself to a particular palette in these pictures. I've managed to move away from the 'proper' colours of things (since colouring in a picture with blue and purple trees) so this time I used a random colour generator to give me an idea of two colours. It threw up green and black so that's what I've gone with, mixing it up a little with black plants and green sealife. I'm planning on adding some pink to the mix soon as well.

Reading...
... Andrew Lang's The Yellow Fairy Book.

It seemed like a nice easy choice back at the beginning of the month but oh boy! Here we are a week later and I'm still reading it.

Part of the problem is, I'm sure, the fact that my meds are making me feel wiped out (and the aforementioned lack of concentration) plus work is insanely busy at the moment. And I've been spending my time colouring in rather than reading, and a hundred and one other excuses. It's just taking forever.

And I am enjoying it. Some of the stories are a little bit repetitive, but on the whole it's good fun. But right now I'm still 20% from the end and it's probably going to take me until at least Sunday to get there.

Preparing...
... to start snorting Buserelin.

I've got two more nights where I can turn the light off at 10:30pm and happily roll over to sleep. Friday morning is going to begin with a snort at 7am, followed by one at 12pm, one at 6pm and the final one of the day at 11pm.

These are crucial timings and I am not to miss one at all. I suspect that there probably is a little bit of leeway with these, after all, the drug will build up in your system. But all the same, the nurses and the paperwork drum it into you that it absolutely has to be done at those times. And with all these things, I always think, 'if it didn't work would you wonder what if I'd taken my meds at the right time?' if the answer is yes, you should probably take them when you're told.

On the other hand, this might work out in my favour, since I'll need to do something to keep me awake (I don't trust myself to set an alarm and actually wake up since my latest trick is rolling over, switching off the alarm after its gone off and then having a sleepy Mr Click mumble 'was that the alarm?' to cause me to bolt out of bed). I might get a lot of reading done, sitting up in bed, that's assuming I don't get distracted by something shiny or which I could colour in!

What are your favourite methods to keep yourself awake when you need to stay up?

Books 42 & 43 of 2016: The Painted Bridge by Wendy Wallace & Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson

When I visit my Nan in Wales, she always makes a point of making sure I'm well set for reading material and The Painted Bridge by Wendy Wallace was one that she passed on to me when I went down last year.

It is set during the Victorian era and features a woman named Anna who has been sent away by her husband to an institution. At first it seems as though she was sent there with just cause, but gradually Anna's story comes out which makes you wonder if perhaps her husband's motives might have been ever so slightly sinister. Alongside this is the story of a young doctor who is exploring the possibility of using photography to help diagnose the women he treats.

I felt like I had a bit of a slow start to this one. I guess part of that was because in the beginning I wasn't sure what to expect from it and even when I started I didn't know what sort of a story it was going to be. As I progressed through the book and I learned more about Anna and how she came to be where she was, I couldn't help but get hooked and really drawn in.

It was written in such a way that my opinion of Anna changed as I read. At the start of the book I believed that there was something wrong with Anna because she didn't seem to be doing much to prove her sanity, but gradually I came to realise that there was nothing wrong with her and that there were bigger factors at play in the story.

There's also the subplot featuring the family who run the institution she has been sent away to, and the realisation that they're all kind of in need of help themselves. I found their story almost as interesting as Anna's, particularly trying to figure out what Catherine was going through.

At the end of this book is a preview of the next book, however this one follows Louisa and Harriet; Anna's sister and niece. I love it when you get books which share characters, however this one is set many years after the events of Anna's story. I wonder if Anna will crop up in that one.

I followed this up with a collection of Robert Louis Stevenson stories on the Kindle, Merry Men.

I was already familiar with one of the stories in this collection, Olalla, which I have in the Penguin Little Black Classics edition. I think that I enjoyed it a little more for the second reading though.

This collection had a very 'Scottish' feel to it, particularly 'The Merry Men' and 'Thrawn Janet'. 'The Merry Men' was set on a Scottish island so I especially enjoyed the references to island life in that one. The latter was written in Scots dialect; sometimes I think in Scots dialect (even though when I speak there is no hiding my Englishness), so I didn't have any trouble understanding the story. It was pretty creepy.

'The Treasure of Franchard' seemed to go on for a really long time, but I did enjoy the ending. I think I appreciated it more when I finished it than I did when I was reading it because I liked the way that it ended up developing.

I do have to admit that I'm a bit of a Stevenson fan so I doubt that this will be the last book I read by him.

Currently...

Getting...
... back into the swing of regular blogging.

I had a great time taking part in the A to Z Challenge this year and unlike previous years when I tried to stick to my regular posts alongside the A to Z ones, this time I just focused on the A to Z ones. Now it feels a little weird going back to posting about stuff like book reviews and my knitting, but also kind of nice as well, like when you get back to a routine after some time off.

Catching up...
on the comments on my A to Z blog posts.

I'll probably be doing this until the end of May because I'm trying to visit each blog as I go. It means that when you've got five comments on your blog that ends up taking about an hour to get through them because I like to read the comment, reply to it, visit their blog, read a post, and then leave a comment on it.

I've also had a pretty busy April and it's shaping up to be a pretty busy May (in the space of eight days I'll have been off the island three times!) it's kind of crazy.

Reading...
... All. Of. The. Things!

I feel like I've been missing my reading mojo a little for part of the year. Reading anything seemed to be kind of slow going, but in the last few weeks I've been reading anything and everything and powering through it all.

I don't know what kickstarted it, rearranging my bookcases or getting my new Kindle or whether it was something else, but I'm really enjoying being able to get lost in my books again. Just as well because I acquired another seven paperbacks over the weekend!

Watching...
... The Two Ronnies and The Dukes of Hazzard.

We finished watching 24 this week and I've requested light-hearted, funny TV viewing while we do the frozen embryo transfer. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that women who were entertained by a comedian (or was it a clown?) for fifteen minutes after transfer had a higher rate of success than the woman who didn't, so I want fewer explosions and dead bodies on my screen while we have this go.

The Dukes of Hazzard is our pre-bed viewing. It's funny, you know what's going to happen and you can tune in and out of it without missing too much. And then I picked The Two Ronnies this evening for much the same reason. Sure, we've seen them before, but that's part of what makes them feel comforting and safe.

Are you recovering after the A to Z Challenge? Are you getting back into something you've not done for a while?

Books 40 & 41 of 2016: Farmer Giles of Ham and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J.R.R. Tolkien & Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling

With the end of the A to Z Challenge we can return to your normally scheduled blog posts, which means that for the first time in over a month, it's time for a book review post.

Way back in September last year I picked up a book which I'd actually been given some time previously and it had sat on my bookshelf waiting for me to get around to it.

Image from Tolkien Library

That was a single volume edition of Farmer Giles of Ham and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J.R.R. Tolkien. The latter is a collection of poetry which I've read before, the former is a short story about the titular Farmer Giles and his adventure which involves a dragon.

I've read The Adventures of Tom Bombadil many times before but Farmer Giles of Ham was entirely new to me. It's actually one which I'd been hoping to get my hands on for a while but I hadn't yet found a copy of it. Until a friend saw it in a charity shop and knowing me as well as she does, bought it without even asking whether I needed it.

I actually feel like I need to reread the first half of this book. I don't know if it was because I was just reading it in dribs and drabs every now and again so I didn't get a continuous run at it, or if it was just because the story was brand new to me, but I found it a little tricky to follow at times. I think I'd do better taking the time to sit and read it for a while, rather than the odd page here and there as I did.

I love Pauline Bayne's illustrations. Her illustrated poster of 'Bilbo's Last Song' hangs at the bottom of my staircase and I look at it each time I come down those stairs. I thought her illustrations for Farmer Giles were like the pictures you get on tapestries.

As always, my absolute favourite part of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil is 'The Mewlips'. It's dark and creepy but conjures up such vivid imagery for me.

I still think the poems sound best when they're read aloud. You get a better sense of the rhythm of them than just read silently.

I followed this up with a Rudyard Kipling ebook which has been hanging around on my Kindle since virtually the time that I figure got one, Rewards and Fairies.

This is a collection of stories and poems. The stories follow a couple of children who meet a fairy called Puck who introduces them to a number of historical characters. These are interspersed with little poems.

I found this a tricky read. The children would meet 'people of the past days' who would then tell them stories, so you've got a story within a story going on. At times I found it a little confusing about who was speaking and whether they were telling a story of the present day or the past.

Although the stories were quite nice, I actually preferred the poetry in this book over the prose. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the stories. To begin with it reminded me of a sort of cross between Enid Blyton (specifically The Faraway Tree, since they were meeting new people each time they met Puck) and Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

I would have liked to know a little more about the historical people the children were meeting and the eras they were from. I got the impression that I should have known who a couple of them were but I just didn't have a clue. Perhaps I would have enjoyed their stories more if I'd understood their backstory.

It seemed to take me ages to get through what was otherwise a pretty short book. Insomnia helpfully got me to the end of it.

Kindling

Way back in 2012 I got a £100 bonus for completing a course and I decided to put the money towards one of those newfangled Kindle eReaders.

I'd been staunchly against the things because there was no way they could ever compare to the satisfying feeling of holding a real life book in your hands. But by 2012 we were living in our little cottage, there was an island-wide shortage of bookshelves, and most of my books were living in boxes in cupboards or the spare bedroom.

Digital copies of books seemed like a good way to save our space issues and allow me to keep on reading in the way I liked to.

So I got a Kindle Touch.

I loved that thing. I loved the sluggish way it 'turned' the pages, the way that the 'experimental' web browser was set up on it (experimental was apparently another word for rubbish), I loved the look and feel of the thing. I loved that it was the size of a paperback, weight just a little more, and that I could organise all my books on it just like I did on my bookshelves at home.

But it had its limitations. So around a year later Mr Click suggested that I upgrade. Mrs Click Senior (his mum) became the proud recipient of my hand-me-down Kindle Touch (it's still going, if not strong, then at least still going). And I got the Kindle Fire HD. I think it's the one which is now known as the 1st Gen Kindle Fire.

It was brilliant.

Suddenly everything was in colour. I could actually load webpages and go online with it. Books with pictures in them actually showed the full range of colours. I could watch films and YouTube and all sorts on it.

After a little while I even got a special case with a bluetooth keyboard for it and realised I could use it like a mini laptop when I was out and about. Since we didn't have internet access at home, I'd take it with me when I knew I'd have internet access and connect wherever we happened to be with free wifi. It went to England and Wales with me. When I went on a trip with work, I used it to write a report on the way home.

Unlike the Touch, it has an illuminated screen. Whereas before, if I wanted to read in bed I'd have to have the light turned on, or use a little bookmark torch, this was no longer an issue. I could turn the lamp off and read to my heart's content. In fact, sometimes (if I was feeling especially charitable) I'd even switch the background colour to black with white text to further reduce the amount of light it was throwing out into the room (not very often, admittedly, because this tended to send me to sleep!).

It's been wonderful and has served me well.

But in recent months, it's been doing some strange things.

It's been getting slower and the touch screen isn't as responsive as it used to be. Sometimes when I 'type' on it, it'll jump back and delete the word I was typing. This was frustrating but didn't render it unusable.

What did make it slightly unusable was the far that it seemed to have developed a touch of digital Alzheimer's. I wasn't actually aware of it at first but thinking back now I think it's been going on since before Christmas because there have been a few times I've got a weird sense of deja vu as I've been reading where I've wondered whether I'm rereading a book I've read before, even though I know I'm not.

I suspect that this little quirk may be part of the reason why it's taken me so long to get through some ebooks recently. I finally caught it one day when I made an effort to read to 75% of the Zen Culture ebook, only to fire it up the next day and find I was back to 70%. I knew I wasn't wrong. Just like I knew I was right when I read to 50% of the way through the next ebook, only to power it up and be back to 0%.

It was at that point that I realised that perhaps the time had come to retire the old thing. And Mr Click suggested I get a Kindle like his.

Which is how I became the proud owner of a 7" Magenta Kindle Fire (5th Gen) in a very pretty case (which I treated myself to because I wanted something pretty which would stand out as mine amongst all the other 7" Kindles in the house).

And would you believe, I'm yet to actually read anything on it yet. That's not because I've been downloading apps, surfing the web and listening to music. No, those are all things I did on my old Kindle and I've dabbled a little with some of them on the new one but mostly I've been organising my reading material on it.

You see the Kindle Fire HD didn't give me the option to sort my books into Collections. They were all just on there, jumbled up together. I could sort by title, author name or how recently I'd downloaded them. It's a little bit frustrating when you're feeling in the mood for, say, a thriller, but can't really track down a book which falls into that genre from all the other books on the device.

They did away with Collections on the Fire HD and then brought it back in an update for later models of the device. Mine was just a little too old for it. There are apps you can download, but they have their limitations. So I coped without it.

But now I've got it back. And I'm so happy.

I literally spent the whole of Monday evening sorting out the books I've bought (or got for free) over the last five years. I really enjoy sorting my book-books so as you can imagine, this was a thrilling evening for me. Every so often I'll come across a book which I've not got a genre for, so I'm making them up as I go along.

What's also impressive is that it also remembered the Collections I had on my old, old Kindle (the Touch). That saved me a lot of time with copying over nearly 300 books designated as 'Christmas'. There are some which are no longer needed, like 'OU Books', so I trashed those, others have been renamed and shuffled around. It's so useful.

So am I happy with my new Kindle?

You bet!

It's just different enough from my old one that I'm still finding my way round it, learning where everything is hidden and how to get it to do what I want.

And now I'm whizzing through The Way Through The Woods by Colin Dexter, so I can get on with reading an ebook on my new toy!

Books 37 - 39 of 2016: Short Stories from Hogwarts & Hogwarts: An Incomplete & Unreliable Guide

I forget when I first heard about these 'Pottermore Presents' ebooks. I know I got rather excited about them and then promptly forgot all about them until a fellow Harry Potter geek at work reminded me.

Thankfully by that point we had internet access at home so I was able to get them bought and downloaded that night (they were £1.99 each), though it then took me a little while to get them to open as they were in a format which seemed to default to a graphics programme on my Kindle. I had to download an alternative eReader app onto my Kindle before I could actually open and read them.

I'm reviewing these three books in  collective because they just go together. They're relatively short, 58 pages for the shortest (Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies) and 73 pages for the longest (Hogwarts: An Incomplete & Unreliable Guide); Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists clocks in at 60 pages, in case you were wondering. They contain a mix of unseen material from J.K. Rowling and curated pieces previously published on Pottermore.

The three books are all short enough that you can read them in one sitting. I began Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies on the 9th of September but had to stop part way through because I was falling asleep. I finished it and Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists the following day, then started the final book which was finished the day after that. If you were going on a long journey and or had nothing else to do but read, you could easily get through all three in one go.

Of the three, the second one I read was probably my favourite. This one had more that was brand new to me. I'm not sure if this was because I missed those articles on the Pottermore site originally, or if it did actually contain more brand new material.

The highlights of these three books were definitely the bits which were all new. In the first one that I read it was the information about how one becomes an Animagus (which I'm sure introduces whole new realms of possibility to writers of Marauders Era fan fiction). In the second I enjoyed the lengthy section on past Ministers for Magic, for one thing you could spot surnames which later crop up in the series as belonging to significant characters, for another, you can pretend you're reading an actual Hogwarts text book and channel your inner Hermione.

The last one of the three, Hogwarts: An Incomplete & Unreliable Guide, I just wish it had been longer. I almost wish that this could have been expanded out into a slightly longer book under the heading 'Hogwarts, A History' like the Fantastic Beasts and Quidditch Through the Ages books for Comic Relief. I especially liked the glimpse into the Hufflepuff common room, since that's somewhere we never go during the original book series, but I wanted to know more about the Room of Requirement and what happened to it after the Battle of Hogwarts.

Following the texts on each subject in the books are notes from J.K. Rowling herself. I love these. They're like little DVD extras where you get a nosy into the way she thinks and what some of the alternative ideas she was working on for certain characters in the stories. My favourites in these bits were always the parts where she explained the meanings behind character names and what influenced them. I just wish these, like the ebooks themselves, were longer.

Books 35 & 36 of 2016: His Other Lover by Lucy Dawson & A Child's History of England by Charles Dickens

After reading some relatively highbrow collections of essays I moved on to some lighter material (and almost instantly regretted it).

His Other Lover by Lucy Dawson came to me in a big bag of books given to me by a family member and I figured it looked like just the right sort of fluff to follow up the heavier stuff I'd been reading. Also it was next on my bookshelf to read, and I like to follow the order of the books on my shelf, so it was an easy choice.

Things seem to be pretty good for Mia and Pete. They live together with their dog Gloria and everything is good. Except Mia begins to suspect that her boyfriend is having an affair after seeing a text on his phone. Faced with this shocking news, she decides to track down the other woman and exact revenge.

The book is written in first person point of view, from Mia's perspective, and I didn't really like her. Honestly, I felt bad that her boyfriend was cheating on her but her response was so crazy that I couldn't help but root for Pete and Liz. She would have been so much better just to call Pete on the text and his behaviour and then just leave him, since as the book went on I just got the impression that she pretty much wanted Pete so that Liz (and anyone else) couldn't have him and didn't actually care about him all that much.

It took me a ridiculously long time to read this book (given the fact it's only 262 pages long). It was over a week. I think some of this was because I was just so annoyed by Mia! It took me a while to get a grip on the story as well because in the beginning it felt as though it jumped around a bit and then I kept on stopping and not feeling like going on because Mia just wound me up so much.

And don't get me started on the ending. It just made the whole thing feel sort of pointless. Nothing changes. I'd have liked to have seen Mia decide to leave and realise she can be happy without Pete, or Pete reveal that he's definitely not been seeing Liz and Mia was being totally paranoid. Neither of these things happened and it disappointed me.

After this I decided I needed something completely different so turned to my Kindle and pulled up the most different book I could find: A Child's History of England by Charles Dickens.

This is exactly what it says on the tin. A complete history of England, written for English schoolchildren, by Charles Dickens.

I found this to be really interesting, if somewhat slow at times. I started it towards the end of August and I finished it on my work awards trip when I read over 30% of the book. Because what better way to spent your time travelling across Scotland?

It was admittedly written in a way was blatantly biased towards some historical figures and very much in favour of others. Other writings that I've read have suggested different viewpoints for certain monarchs so it was interesting to see a different perspective.

I also felt like it went into loads of details for some eras or royals, but then less for others. Presumably this was to do with what information was available for Dickens himself but that didn't make it any less frustrating. The fact he was able to go into such detail in those areas made me expect that level of detail for everything.

I really liked the fact that it quite literally covered everything. It went right back to the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, then worked forwards to Queen Victoria. Even though that's where it stops, I still found it a really interesting history book and I'd recommend it to anyone, but especially those who might have a slightly shaky grasp on English history.

Currently...

Planning...
... posts for the A to Z Challenge.

After my post on Monday I decided I would go ahead with the challenge. I figure it's a good way to get ahead of myself on my blog posts, and since Sundays are free I can still do my Silent Sunday posts. That might just mean skipping out on a few book review posts along the way but I don't mind missing those.

I drew up a double page spread in my bullet journal, and I've got a spreadsheet on my computer as well, which I'm using to plan out the words I'll base my posts around. I'll admit that X is becoming a bit of a sticking point (alarmingly enough, this hasn't really been a problem in the past), but I'm sure I'll get there, even if I have to get a little bit creative with it.

Check back next Monday to see what I'm planning to blog about during April.

Reading...
... Zen Culture by Thomas Hoover.

It's a free ebook which I picked up about five years ago (when I first got my Kindle) mainly because it mentioned the influence of Zen culture in Japan on literature and poetry. I thought that sounded interesting. And it has been, though it's taking me a while to get through because there are a lot of Japanese names and terms which I'm muddling through.

It's an interesting read though and I'm definitely learning a lot from it. It is making me feel like writing haiku again which I've not done since my OU Creative Writing course.

Watching...
... the very last episode of 24, series 5. We'll be moving on to series 6 tomorrow.

Sadly we're also coming to the end of The Muppet Show episodes that we have on DVD. Getting towards time to pick what we'll watch next. I'm really going to miss The Muppet Show, it's perfect bedtime viewing.

What entertainments are occupying you this week?

Books 33 & 34 of 2016: Traffic by John Ruskin & Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson

Tuesday means it's time to revisit some of the books I read last year and sadly at the beginning of August 2016, my reading material was slightly disappointing.

First up is Traffic by John Ruskin. This is a book from the Penguin Little Black Classics collection and features two essays; the first, the titular 'Traffic', the second 'The Roots of Honour'.

I struggled to follow both of these essays at times. The first essay begins with Ruskin being invited to speak about the new Exchange being built in Yorkshire, and he opens his speech by telling the people assembled that he doesn't actually care about their Exchange and launches off into his own speech about... well, something, it was a little tricky to keep up with the gist of it.

'The Roots of Honour' felt like it had more that I could relate to. There was stuff in there about paying people a fair wage which was interesting given all the talk about the Living Wage at the time.

On the whole, this was a fairly short read (only 58 pages) but it took me two days to get through because it was a tough read. I didn't really enjoy it but it was an interesting read nonetheless. And I would've liked to have seen the audience's reaction to Ruskin when he announced that he wasn't in fact there to talk about the Exchange.

I followed Traffic with a Robert Louis Stevenson ebook, Memories and Portraits as I discovered I enjoyed Stevenson's writing style some time ago and felt this would be a good follow up.

This is another collection of essays, this time on a whole host of topics from everything from books, to dogs and his own contributions to College Magazine.

Despite being a far longer book than Traffic, I got through it very quickly. The topics in the book don't really follow on from one another so it feels a bit higgledy piggledy. You don't know what to expect between one ending and the next one beginning.

My favourite essays were the ones about reading and books. I felt like he said things that I could relate to. The essay about dogs was pretty good too. He also mentioned places in Edinburgh which I'm familiar with so that was interesting too.

Of the two, Memories and Portraits is probably the book I'm most likely to reread again in the future.

Books 30 & 32 of 2016: Serpent Tide by K.L. Fogg & Saucerers and Gondoliers by Dominic Green

The books I'm reviewing today were both ones which I grabbed from my Kindle. Both came to me as free Kindle downloads on Amazon (I regularly scout out the freebies and download them while I can but don't often get around to reading them very quickly). They'd been on my Kindle probably since I got my first one way back in 2012 so last year I decided that the time had come to give them a go.

In Serpent Tide by K.L. Fogg, a young rich boy named Wesley Vandergrift lives with his highly protective mother in a mansion. Everything is provided for him but he is deeply unhappy, especially as his mother won't allow him the pets he desires. It's his greatest wish to be like his TV hero Jack Mackey, a sort of Steve Urwin character.

When Wesley meets someone who knows Jack everything starts to unravel and Wesley learns that he might not be who he was raised to be.

I'll wholeheartedly admit that I picked this book up because of the cover. It was in the Children's & Young Adult's section of Amazon and the cover image reminded me of the illustrations from A Series of Unfortunate Events. I'm a big fan of those books, and Brett Helquist's illustrations in general, so I added this to my virtual bookshelf.

I was kind of expecting a fantasy book with a cover like this. It is not a fantasy book. It's set in a thoroughly non-fantasy setting, but I felt like it required an equal measure of belief suspension as a fantasy book because everything was just so convenient. Imogene's money got her EVERYTHING! There were a very high number of contrived coincidences. I suspect that it wouldn't bother a younger reader but it frustrated me no end.

I also don't feel like the religious stuff really added anything to the story. There was a character who I think had been raised Catholic but had converted to Mormonism and she occasionally made comments but I don't see why that needed to be there. She could have been Jewish or an Atheist for all the difference it made to the story. It felt like a convenient way to explain why her family didn't get on with her but it wasn't necessary.

I read afterwards that the character was added in to help get the story published (with a Mormon publisher, I suspect) and that this is the author's religion also. I think if that was the angle they wanted to go down then they should've committed to it fully and made it an actual key part of the story, or just left it out all together, rather than the way it was done where it came across as an afterthought.

I'm sure that younger kids will lap up this series, but I don't feel the need to read on to the next book.

I followed this up by Dominic Green's Saucerers and Gondoliers. A little while ago I read another book by Dominic Green called Smallworld which was an interesting look at the sci-fi genre, with a hint of Terry Pratchett to his style.

This is the first in the Ant and Cleo book series. The two main characters happen to stumble across a flying saucer in the middle of an English park. And so it transpires that there's actually been a top secret space colony out in, well, space, for many years. The kids end up there embroiled in an intergalactic war between America, Britain and the United States of the Zodiac.

I couldn't help but be reminded of Terry Pratchett's foray into sci-fi writing in The Dark Side of the Sun and Strata. I did enjoy the start of Saucerers and Gondoliers but (not unlike my attempts at reading Sir Pterry's sci-fi offerings) I struggled to keep my focus when I was reading as the book went on.

I don't think this was just me though. The book began very strong but it seemed to wander a bit in the middle and I couldn't help but struggle to follow what was going on after that. The general idea was a good one though and I enjoyed the premise.

I did also like that fact that the hidden British space colony was called Gondolin. I felt like that was a little nod to Tolkien fans.

It has a fairly open-ended resolution which I guess allows it to follow on into the next book in the series. I think there are at least four of them in the Ant and Cleo series. But it's unlikely that I'll be picking any of those up. I have to admit that I kept falling asleep reading this one which was probably a combination of trying to read too late at night and also struggling to follow the story.

That said, Dominic Green's books are fun for a bit of lighthearted sci-fi escapism, so are probably worth picking up if that's your kind of thing.

Books 23 - 29 of 2016: The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

In preparation for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child being released I decided that I needed to go back and reread all of the original Harry Potter books. This also helped me get ready for the little mini ebooks which were released later in the year as well.

Now, I reviewed all the Harry Potter books before, so I'm reviewing them all in the one blog post because I like to review the books that I read, but reviewing each book individually (or as part of a pair) in a blog post is probably overkill at this point!

I'm sure you know the story by now, even if you've not read the books or seen the movies. Boy wizard. Evil Lord Voldemort. Magic school. Ron and Hermione. Zany old Dumbledore. Dragons. Hippogriffs. Horcruxes. Always. All was well.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
I can get through this book in a day at my best (e.g. not at work and have nothing else to do on my day off). That wasn't quite the case when I read it last year. I started it on a Sunday and read quite a chunk at my in-laws' house, then didn't get as much read the following two days thanks to being busy at work (and tired when I got home). I was also gearing up for a frozen embryo transfer at the time and I think that didn't help with my mood for reading.

This book is so familiar now that I can't help but look out for my favourite lines. It's like visiting a favourite haunt.

I wrote in my book journal that I was aware in the change of writing style between this book and the later books, and also 'Can't wait to see what The Cursed Child will be like'.

One of my favourite pastimes when rereading these books is to look out for the characters, places and objects which then crop up later in the series.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
I felt like on this reread I picked up on things I've missed before, or perhaps that I'd just forgotten that I have picked up on. Like Harry and Ron bumping into Percy's girlfriend at Christmas when they're trying to find the Slytherin common room.

Again I was suffering from tiredness while I was reading this one (thank you Progesterone). I wound up two chapters from the end and unable to keep my eyes open so had to stop for the night, despite my desire to continue.

This one still isn't my favourite Harry Potter book, but I think I can appreciate how it ties in to Half-blood Prince and Deathly Hallows a lot more now. So while it'll never be my absolute favourite, I think I enjoy it more now.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
This one is probably my favourite book but it took me AGES to read. I was about halfway through it when our frozen embryo transfer failed quite spectacularly and I just didn't have the heart to read so I was on this book for a lot longer than I'd usually take.

I feel like so much of what comes in the later books starts in this book. It's got the relationship between Harry and Sirius. It sets up the stuff that happened with James and Snape. We begin to see just how proficient a wizard Harry can be. I feel like this this the book where the story really truly gets off the ground.

I also like that Voldemort doesn't actually crop up in this book. It's like the calm before the storm where things really go downhill and evil is properly reawakened. Plus it's cool to get a glimpse into the wider wizarding world. I love that we get to spend time in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade; as much as I love Hogwarts, now that I'm no longer at school, I like to see the type of Magical world that I would interact with at my present age (who am I kidding? I'd be back at Hogwarts teaching Charms).

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
I was reading this at the beginning of June and it was another one which I ended up reading for an extra day due to my inability to keep my eyes open. I'm beginning to notice a pattern with my reading and I think it simply boils down to the fact that in my old age I need more sleep and less time up until midnight with a book propped against my nose!

This book is so big that it's one of the reasons I'm thinking I need to invest in the ebook versions. If nothing else, it would make it a lot more portable when I'm out and about and want to take a book with me. My copy of Goblet of Fire is very battered already and I'm almost afraid to take it out in case I ruin it further (I obviously can't get a new copy because then it won't be my copy, as in, the one I read at 14 before I started my new school when I was a shy and geeky teenager and it felt like I was at home).

This one is so much darker than the others before it. After reading about Voldemort's rebirth I was really creeped out walking Tara on my own. I was walking Tara early in the morning and I couldn't help but feel like Voldie was just going to pop up on the estate while I was out.

I wrote a little note in my book journal about this one 'Not looking forward to the next book with Umbridge!' hehe.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
I found this one a harder read than in the past. I guess it's because I knew what was coming at the end, and the longer I put off reading the end, the more time I had before it would happen. That's logical, right?

It's funny how reading a book can help you time travel back to when you first read it. I can remember this one came out the year my friend was stopping with me. We had her copy delivered to our house and we were reading it virtually at the same time. It was the summer I started writing Behind the Scenes and rereading it this time made me want to dig it out to start working on it again (which I did).

I also forgot how late in the book it was before the Weasley Twins left. I kept on reading the chapter title and thinking 'this is where they go' and then they didn't. It's one of my favourite bits in the book. I think there's a few teachers we can all think of who we'd have liked to have pulled a Weasley on!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Once again, on this reread I was reminded of the first time I'd read it. I'd been promised the day off work and then ended up not getting it, so I sat there reading it all through the day.

I remember starting to read it on the drive home from the midnight opening, reading a sentence each time we passed under a streetlight, then having to wait for the next one. I remember reading until 2am before having to stop because of going to the aforementioned work the following morning. I remember feeling frustrated at my friend who didn't have to work and who texted me that she'd finished it when I was only about halfway through the book. I remember the sound a of bagpipe player on the Square playing as Dumbledore died and it being the saddest moment I'd ever read and hating the fact that I was at work instead of at home in my room where I could've had a little weep.

It's also kind of frustrating to reread it now because I know Draco is going to bring Death Eaters to the castle and that Dumbledore will die, but I don't want it to happen. I want to reach into the book and yell at the characters to listen to Harry because for once he's actually got his suspicions correct. And every time I read it I kind of hope that the previous hundred times I got it wrong and that actually, this time they'll stop Draco and Dumbledore will be alive. That hasn't happened yet, but maybe next time...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Do you ever get to the end of a book or a series and you don't want it to end, so you read it really slowly?

Yeah, that's what I did with Deathly Hallows. Part of me wanted to draw it out to last until right before I went to pick up The Cursed Child and part of me just wanted to get it over and done with like ripping off a plaster. The slow bit of me won and I wound up taking over two weeks to get through, reading a little bit at a time so I could really savour it.

I can't help but think that the start of this book feels pretty slow, but then the last third is really fast-paced. The first part always goes on a lot longer than I expect, what with Harry going to the Burrow, the wedding, the escape, the stuff at Grimmauld Place and the Ministry before they get to the camping (which, let's face it, takes up an awful lot of the book). And then there's the Battle of Hogwarts and there's loads happening in there!

Once again, I loved all the little mentions of past characters, places and things. I think I probably noticed them all for having read the books back to back this time around (rather than with bigger gaps in between). It kind of reminded me of the end of E.R. where they brought back almost all the characters from the original series. Everyone gets a mention. It's just a nice way to remember them all.

Do you find you notice different things when you reread a book? Has your favourite book in a series changed over time or once it your favourite, is it your favourite for life?

Books 21 & 22 of 2016: Comic Tales and Fantasies by Wayne Gathman & The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (Trilogy of Four) by Douglas Adams

Do you ever pick up a free book and find it completely surpasses your expectations? I guess I'm kind of used to grabbing a free book on Amazon and finding that it has the potential to be a good book but that it needs a lot of work to make it a great one.

Comic Tales and Fantasies by Wayne Gathman is not one of those books. It was already great. It's a collection of short stories which are set in our world but with a hint of the fantastic about them. Several of the stories deal with the same character, a private eye in New York in the 1930s, but there's a real mix in here including fairy tale type stories and sci-fi types too.

I think this could really do with a more appealing cover because this one doesn't do it justice. Perhaps something a bit quirky or cartoony to give a better hint as to what's contained within it. Honestly, I wasn't expecting it to be much good but it was really funny and I couldn't help but be reminded of Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams as I read.

Although there are a number of different stories in this collection, four of them feature the character of Dan Kelly, a private detective. I was expecting this to be a standard detective story so when there were suddenly ogres in it came as a bit of a surprise. But the way it was done made it feel totally natural in the setting.

I also liked that there were different stories about Dan and Kate interspersed with the standalone short stories as well. It was a nice way to break up the collection. Although I did enjoy the Dan and Kate stories, which upon reflection kind of put me in mind of the wizarding world of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film, my favourite was probably one about a guy who invented a time travelling device. It was really funny and with a great punchline.

I'd definitely recommend this book.

Comic Tales and Fantasies led me on quite nicely to the next book-book on my shelf, Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (Trilogy of Four). I own a copy which has four books in a single volume. It was one of my bargain purchases which I used my Waterstones points to get a few years ago and so I pretty much got four books for less than £2. I do love a good bargain.

This volume contains the first four books (in the Trilogy of Five); The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy; The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe; Life, The Universe And Everything; and So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish. The collection tells the story of Arthur Dent who ends up travelling the galaxy with a merry band of misfits after Earth is demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, from there they end up at the Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, and eventually Arthur finds himself living in a cave on a prehistoric planet, but it all ends pretty well in the final volume when Arthur meets the girl of his dreams.

It'd been a while since I last read this because the last time it took me quite a while to get through so I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I was able to read all four books in this volume in less than a fortnight.

The general writing style makes me think of a mix of Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman and Doctor Who. The latter is obvious because Adams was involved in writing for Doctor Who, as for Pratchett and Gaiman, I think they just have similar ways of looking at the world which comes across in their writing.

Without a doubt, the first book will always be my favourite. I love the way that Arthur Dent is taken out of his familiar world and whisked across the galaxy and we get to travel along with him and learn about the beings and worlds there. It sets up everything that follows.

I enjoy The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe as well and this time around I felt like I enjoyed So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish more than the last time I read it. I don't really recall what I didn't like about it the last couple of times I read it, just that it wasn't one of my favourites. My least favourite will always be Life, The Universe And Everything. I just struggle to follow what's going on in it.