Scarlet Reads

Comfort Food - Kate Jacobs

Comfort Food - Kate Jacobs 2/5

Blurb from Fantastic Fiction

"Shortly before turning the big 5-0, boisterous party planner and Cooking with Gusto! personality Augusta 'Gus' Simpson finds herself planning a birthday party she'd rather not - her own. She's getting tired of being the hostess, the mother hen, the woman who has to plan her own birthday party. What she needs is time on her own with enough distance to give her loved ones the ingredients to put together successful lives without her.

Assisted by a handsome up-and-coming chef, Oliver, Gus invites a select group to take an on-air cooking class. But instead of just preaching to the foodie masses, she will teach regular people how to make rich, sensuous meals - real people making real food. Gus decides to bring a vibrant cast of friends and family on the program: Sabrina, her fickle daughter; Troy, Sabrina's ex-boyfriend; Hannah, Gus's timid neighbor; and Carmen, Gus's pompous and beautiful competitor at the Cooking Channel. And when she begins to have more than collegial feelings for her sous-chef, Gus realizes that she might be able to rejuvenate not just her professional life, but her personal life as well. . . ."

This was a birthday present from someone who really should know what sort of books I like to read by now but as I didn't want to seem ungrateful I started (and finished) this today.

I've previously read The Friday Night Knitting Club by Jacobs which I thought was okay but I'm thinking I won't be rushing out to get any of her other books. I really struggled to enjoy this book, I didn't really "get" any of the characters and it all just seemed a bit too convenient - especially the ending where everything got tied up with a neat, pretty bow. It's a nice, light read but not my cup of tea and all too predictable in parts.

Birthday Spends

I was lucky enough to get a few gift certificates from Amazon for my birthday and i've spent the last 6 hours trying to decide what to get! In the end I went with the following titles -

Meridian - Amber Kizer

Midnight Never Come - Marie Brennan

In Ashes Lie - Marie Brennan

The Rapture - Liz Jansen

Eyes Like Stars - Lisa Mantchev

Nightfall - Stephen Leather

The Ladies Of Grace Adieu & Other Stories - Susanna Clarke

They've all been on my wish-list for a while and I went with pot luck, picking one title from the first 7 pages of said wish-list! I'm a bit hesitant about the Liz Jensen book now as it's going to be featured on the TV Book Club on More4 and I'm afraid not even the divine presence of Nathaniel Parker can make that show even half decent for me. I've sat through 2 shows now and quite frankly, I'm not sure why half the so-called presenters are actually there.

More Book Buys

It's a sickness I tell you! I am definitely addicted to books and I'm rapidly running out of room for any more

I got a nice big box this morning containing -

The Castle Omnibus by Steph Swainston
Powers by Ursula le Guin
Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick
Fallen by Lauren Kate
Ruined by Paula Morris
Fantasy In Death by J D Robb
Shades Of Grey by Jasper Fforde

Happy, happy happy!!! And very grateful for Christmas gift certificates

The Magicians - Lev Grossman

The Magicians - Lev Grossman 4/5

Blurb from Fantastic Fiction -

Quentin Coldwater's life is changed forever by an apparently chance encounter: when he turns up for his entrance interview to Princeton he finds his interviewer dead - but a strange envelope bearing Quentin's name leads him down a very different path to any he'd ever imagined. The envelope, and the mysterious manuscript it contains, leads to a secret world of obsession and privilege, a world of freedom and power and, for a while, it's a world that seems to answer all Quentin's desires. But the idyll cannot last - and when it's finally shattered, Quentin is drawn into something darker and far more dangerous than anything he could ever have expected...

I quite enjoyed this one, not the best written book in the world but it was a little bit different to all the other adult Potter-esque books available out there!

One minute Quentin - depressed, obsessed with his best friends girlfriend and the Fillory books by Christopher Plover - is on his way to an interview for Princeton and the next he's at Brakebills College of Magical Pedagogy wondering what on earth he's going to do in the real world after graduation. The first 2 parts of the book are fantastic, following his progress through college and the trials they all go through. I loved the special fourth year project where they all had to fly to Antarctica and the surly professor waiting for them at the other end (and yes, you find out why he's like that) It's once Quentin and his friends Eliot, Alice Janet, Josh and Penny are in the real world that things seem to start going spectacularly wrong and also where the book goes off the rails a bit. The group end up in Fillory on a quest but this section seemed rushed and there was sometimes too much detail crammed into certain sections. The ending was quite obvious really but still left things complete.

Thumbs up for The Magicians, as long as you're not expecting anything highbrow and a big improvement on his last book

Nightlife by Rob Thurman

Nightlife - Rob Thurman 4/5

Blurb from Fantastic Fiction

In New York, there's a troll under the Brooklyn Bridge, a boggle in Central Park, and a beautiful vampire in a penthouse on the Upper East Side. Of course, most humans are oblivious to this, but Cal Leandros is only half-human. His father's dark lineage is the stuff of nightmares - and he and his entire otherworldly race are after Cal.

He and his half-brother Niko have managed to stay a step ahead for three years, but now Cal's dad has found them again. And Cal is about to learn why they want him, why they've always wanted him...

This has been on my wishlist for a while so I'm glad that it didn't turn out to be a disappointment. Mention boggles, trolls & vampires all in one book and I'm usually sold so this book was a bit of a hidden gem. It started off a bit slow and I almost put it down for something else however I didn't, which turned out to be a good decision. Lots of fairly original ideas which can be hard to achieve these days and one of the starring characters is Robin Goodfellow. What's not to like about this book? Actually all the characters were likeable in good & bad ways and I enjoyed how they developed over the course of the book. Can't really say much more without giving major spoilers as to what Cal's big secret is!

Despite being on a book diet I've bought books 2, 3 & 4 and pre-ordered no. 5 - oops I've also ordered his standalone (so far) novel, Trick Of The Light

Book Buys In January 2010

The Castle Omnibus - Steph Swainston
Moonshine - Rob Thurman
Madhouse - Rob Thurman
Deathwish - Rob Thurman
Trick Of The Light - Rob Thurman

Rory Book Challenge M - Y

Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Mencken's Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
The Merry Wives of Windsro by William Shakespeare
Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It's Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
Myra Waldo's Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Night by Elie Wiesel
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Of Mice & Men - John Steinbeck
Old School by Tobias Wolff
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
The Outsiders - S E Hinton
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill by Ron Suskind
Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
Property by Valerie Martin
Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth - Stephen King
Robert's Rules of Order by Henry Robert
Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room With A view - E M Forster
Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Hotels of Europe
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
Sense & Sensibility - Jane Austen
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
Sexus by Henry Miller
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruis Zafon
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining - Stephen King
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story Of My Life - Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
Stuart Little by E. B. White
Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Trial - Franz Kafka
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays With Morrie - Mitch Albom
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Unless - Carol Shields
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walt Disney's Bambi by Felix Salten
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
The Wizard Of Oz - L Frank Baum
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Rory Book Challenge A - L

Bold = Read
Pink = Read but will read again
Blue = On Mount TBR
Anything else = Not read

1984 by George Orwell
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
Anne Frank's Diary - Anne Frank
Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Babe by Dick King-Smith
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie - Stephen King
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Catcher In The Rye - J D Salinger
Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine - Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
A Confederacy Of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Cousin Bette by Honor'e de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Cujo - Stephen King
The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time - Mark Haddon
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Don Quijote by Cervantes
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma - Jane Austen
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Ethics by Spinoza
Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Grapes Of Wrath - John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire - J K Rowling
Harry Potter & The philosopher's Stone - J K Rowling
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William Shakespeare
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
Howl by Allen Gingsburg
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer
I'm with the Band by Pamela des Barres
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Inferno by Dante
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Lady Chatterley's Lover - D H Lawrence
The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord Of The Flies - William Golding
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Love Story by Erich Segal

Read In January

The Confessions Of Max Tivoli - Andrew Sean Greer 4/5
Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders - Gyles Brandreth 4/5
Light Of The Moon - Luanne Rice 2/5
Blood Engines - T A Pratt 4/5
Poison Sleep - T A Pratt 3/5
Unshapely Things - Mark del Franco 3/5
Nightlife - Rob Thurman 4/5

January Book Stack

Right, my reading took a nosedive at the end of last year for various reasons so I'm going to use this to give me the proverbial kick

These are some of the books I have lined up for January - have read a few already which I'll stick in a separate post. Bear in mind my reading is so eccentric in taste it might make your head spin, I make no excuses for the alarming discovery that half my reading seems to be of the "trashy" genre recently

To Read In January

Winter's Tale - Mark Helprin (re-read)
Immortal - P C Cast
The Swan Maiden - Jules Watson
Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd
The Lost - J D Robb Currently reading
Salamander - Thomas Wharton
Bitten - Kelley Armstrong (re-read)
Camelot's Sword - Sarah Zettel
A Pound Of Paper - John Baxter
Wideacre - Philippa Gregory (re-read)
The Favoured Child - Philippa Gregory
Nightlife - Rob Thurman Finished
Dead Reign - T A Pratt
Spell Games - T A Pratt
The Boar Stone - Jules Watson
The House On The Strand - Daphne du Maurier
Dark Lady's Chosen - Gail Z Martin
The Master And Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest - Stieg Larsson
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel