Monday Memes

It’s Monday, What are you reading?

Hosted by Sheila at One Person’s Journey through a World of Books.

KEY:
E– E-book Challenge
G – 2012 Genre Challenge
BFF – Bookie Friends’ Favourites Challenge
BL – Bucket List Challenge
S – Off The Shelf Challenge
AZ – A-Z Challenge
C – Classics Challenge
R – Review for author or publisher
K – Reading for Kindle Klub Book Group

Charles Dickens – Great Expectations (E/BL/C)
Till now, I’ve only ever read A Christmas Carol, as I confess I was a little afraid of reading Dickens. However, I am finding this a surprisingly humourous read and am enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. Let’s just say I now have great expectations of this novel. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t resist the pun! *shame* I’ll be reading this for quite some time as it’s a long one…

Terry Pratchett – Snuff (Discworld 39) (S)
I’ve been a massive fan of the Discworld novels since the early 90s when I discovered them whilst on holiday in the Lake District. I’m only a short way into this latest book, but I already love it. For a start, it’s a Vimes novel, so you just know it’s going to be good; and he’s out of his comfort zone, so you know it’s going to be pretty great actually!

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Cover Crazy

Hosted by The Book Worms

What I Love:
The stark clarity of the pink and white on black. The melding of the two images to be come one, so you can’t see one without the other. The sheer cleverness of the optical illusion caused by the back of the nude woman becoming the face of a man in profile. I also love that the title and author’s name are unobtrusively located in an upper corner where they will not detract from the design (although I’d prefer if the title were larger than the name).

Synopsis:

For thirty years, since the publication of his first novel AMERICANA Don DeLillo has lived in the skin of our times. He has found a voice for the forgotten souls who haunt the fringes of our culture and for its larger-than-life, real-life figures. Thrice-married film director Rey Robles informs Lauren, his much younger wife, that he’s going for a drive — and proceeds to travel all the way from the New England coast to the Manhattan apartment of his first wife, where he shoots himself. Now Lauren is left alone…or perhaps not, as she welcomes a stranger into the house — an eerie, gifted individual she calls “Mr. Tuttle”. This odd man, who often speaks in Rey’s voice or Lauren’s, and who knows both intimate moments of their past life and things that haven’t yet happened, seems to defy time and to deepen the mystery of human perception. This is Don DeLillo’s stunning exploration of the idiosyncrasies that simultaneously isolate and bind us, as he enters the essential space of human encounter.

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Musing Mondays

Hosted by Should Be Reading

1. Do you read books that are part of a series?
2. Do you collect all the books in the series before starting?
3. What if the series is brand new, and the only book that’s been published so far is Book one?
4. As subsequent books in the series are published, do you go back and re-read the preceding books?

1. Yes, I am an avid reader of several series, all of which reside in my “permanent collection”. The main bulk of that collection is taken up by:

• The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
• The Women of the Otherworld series by Keeley Armstrong
• The Logan McRae series by Stuart MacBride
• The Romans series by Simon Scarrow
• The Cousins’ War series by Philippa Gregory

2. No, I tend to read them as they are published. In the case of the Discworld and Romans novels, I came to the series part way through, so I started at the beginning and caught up with them.

3. I’m quite often unaware that a first book in a series is the start of a series until afterwards. For example, I recently read Sisters Red and Cinder, both of which are first in their respective series, but did not realise it until I reached the end. I am no more or less likely to continue reading a series after reading the first. Even in the cases where I know a book is from a series, I do not buy them all at once in case I find I do not enjoy one of them and I waste my hard-earned money. I’d rather take things one step at a time and be sure I like the books before committing to the sequels, then I can stop if I get bored with them and not feel like I’ve been ripped off too much.

4. No, I don’t tend to. I don’t reread many books any more. I used to reread books all the time, but now most of my books are passed on to others when I’m done (apart from the aforementioned permanent collection). However, I only keep those books I feel I may want to reread at some point in the future.