I can’t read for hours at a time straight. It doesn’t matter how great the book is. I just don’t have that kind of attention span. I read for a little bit, glance at my phone, read some more, then make tea and watch a show, read again, etc lol
Also, the more I want to read a book the longer I’ll put it off. I know that probably makes no sense but I’m always waiting for “just the right time” to start it. And I’m also really afraid of being disappointed by it.
Yep I get that completely, and do the same! I’ve giit a few on my bedside table right now I can’t wait to read bu t am reluctant, one is Terry Pratchetts The Sheperds Crown, I liive the Tiffany Aching series, and not only is it the last in the series i beleive it was his last book! The longer I put it off means the series is still running and there’s still another unread book of his!
I read books that wasn’t appropriate for a young teen. Like for example: The mermaid chair (I thought it something to do with mermaids) and a tree grows in Brooklyn (which was in a middle school library)
I have a paperback of Lady Chatterly’s Lover on my shelf. Haven’t read it yet. That’s the mint green paperback that Blanche is always holding in The Golden Girls. ?
@Michele I still watch reruns. I always wondered what that book was. It was the same mint green paperback in several episodes over the years. So, last week I hit ‘record’ when I saw it again. I kept looking at it from different angles during the show, and, sure enough, it was Lady Chatterly’s Lover. ?
I used to lie to my Mom and tell her I was going to the park. I actually used to go to the cemetery alone to read. (I realize today how dangerous that could of been)
I used to read in the bathroom in work, my job was data entry & reading got me through the day, thankfully no one asked why I was in the bathroom so much?
@Michele you assume correctly (and it wasn’t the Torah either), I can’t remember what it was, I have a feeling it was the Ghosts of N-Space or possibly Invasion of the Cat People
I had a math teacher who kept stopping class to say my reading (in the back of the room) was disruptive to the learning environment. She was the only teacher I can point to as clearly, personally disliking me. One of my most cherished memories is handing her my Class Drop slip and telling her I didn’t need her class to graduate on time.
Tammy Woodbury most of my secondary school teachers had it in for me, my form tutor Mr O O’Neil made ME apologize to a couple of a students for bullying me !!!
Um well I can’t seem to quit buying books. Was at Barnes and Noble today and saw this beautiful Illustrated Edition of Jane Eyre. So went home and he ordered a copy from Amazon and save $3. And that was after I just bought 3 other books before that last week. LOL
As a child I would leave my friends playing and go inside and read. As an adult I once took a day’s holiday to continue reading a book I couldn’t wait to finish.
@Kristen we have a monthly book exchange in our neighborhood. Bring your books and however many you trade for, you pay a dollar each. The money goes to buying books for the chindren’s hospital, and every few months we clean out, donate to the women’s shelter and then start over!
In college while assisting an old professor as he moved (religion I believe) he let us take some books he had in appreciation for our help. We found a copy of a work by marques de sade.. we would periodically do unsolicited public readings in our dorm hallway..
I was almost kicked put of school because I passed around my copy of Judy Blume’s Forever. It had a sex scene in it and I was in the 7th grade. My mom came up to the school with an attorney. Haha! My mom was something!
I had a Regency romance by Georgette Heyer confiscated by a nun at my school because the hero went to gambling dens and was therefore “a bad influence”!!! Have never gambled (maybe thanks to her?!) ?
When I was about 11 years old I had to have weekly visits to the dentist as I was having teeth removed and being fitted with braces. Each week my mum would let me choose and buy one book as a treat for being so brave. There was only one condition. I mustn’t tell my father that she had done it and I had to dog ear the pages, bend the spines and rough them up to blend in with my older books or he would be cross as money was a tight and new books were not a necessity. I would sleep with my new book under my pillow for the 1st day or 2 so that he didn’t find it before having to scruff it up to go on my shelf. To this day I cannot bend a book spine and I still sleep with the book I am reading under my pillow ? I can’t sleep unless I do!
Another confession came to mind … I am German and I read Hitler’s Mein Kampf. His ideas are so outrageous, it’s almost comedy, if it hadn’t been so serious. Sadly my family was in possession of this book as they had bought it when available, as you know it was last published in Germany in 1945, then not widely available till the 1970’s and as of 2016 it is read in schools with annotations with an educational value … my parents famously sold a Hitler statue from my great-grandfather’s private bank in Frankfurt to a shady collector in the 1960s. They had used it to hang hats before … he is such a ridiculous person to us, but at the same time he was a demagogue and responsible for genocide … we now fear we had better destroyed the statue … it might be worshipped now … I want all my kids to read Mein Kampf to learn and beware of any demagogue!
@Chirag it’s important to read it! I feel people don’t know fascism if they never truly studied its methods, I get this feeling from current politics. My grandmother is still alive and lived through Hitler, they didn’t take him seriously until it was too late, he was an angry little man, not very educated, but he liked the limelight and big arenas. He called the press fake news and started to attack intellectuals and science. I shudder at the thought of people not realizing it’s what he did that some do now.
@Kristen, best not to start a another discussion about the pros & cons of reading Mein Kampf (except that it’s your “book confession” I guess.) Many of us have read it, and it is important to understand history, but a few weeks ago, the group got into a pretty heated discussion about that book, and I think it was @Kathy (correct me if I’m wrong Kathy) who shut it down. It just got too political and too out of hand. I would really hate to see that happen again. No offense or judgment intended here, honestly.
@Kristen see what I was telling you! I was badly humiliated just for saying I’m reading Mein Kampf out of sheer curiosity. People expect political correctness everywhere!
I was in Germany with the US military, we had a licensed dealer who would come onto the US post and sell WWII artifacts, including copies of Mein Kampf. Your family’s statue may very well be in the US while somebody who has no clue tries to sell it off.
In order to keep me interested in some books, I read the last chapter to see what it is about. This now is mostly reserved for poorly written rubbish that shouldn’t be published, but there are some good books in this list.
In a book store, I touch a book that I want to buy, read the title and reference at the cover, smell, hug it then leave it, because I haven’t got enough money??
Sometimes i like to just stand in front of my bookshelf and stare at my books. Then I’ll grab one, pet it, smell it, read the synopsis, hold it for a little while longer then put it back on the self then do the same with a different book?
I never take the first book in a stack. I always dig down a little, and I’m really particular about the book being in near perfect, if not perfect condition.
In modern homes, appliances and electronics are the leading cause of fires and the house itself is the most combustible. There are so many synthetics used in houses these days that they burn hotter and faster than seventy years ago.
Ironically, paper books in wooden book cases tend to be among the least flammable items in a modern home.
When I was poor in college I would go sit on the floor in a bookstore and read books without buying them. Sometimes one chunk at a time over multiple days. It was usually new releases I couldn’t get at the libraries. Now I buy more books than a person should, so I think it evened out.
When I was little I would get all grumpy when my mum asked me to clean my room. So I’d start to clean and then find a book I forgot I had. I would then start to read. Mum would come up to see how I was getting on and find me on my bed reading and my room still looking like bomb had hit it
I so badly wanted my little sister to become a bookworm just as I am. So I tortured her with suggestions and book gifts etc etc that it put her off completely. Did not read a book until this day (she’s 21)
They’ve been mold damaged, contaminated, outdated technical manuals, notebooks, and the like, but I sometimes supervised the incineration of these books. For the record, books do no like burning. They do not burn quickly, even if you douse them in some kind of accelerant.
@Farah The Fault in our Stars by John Green ~ Synopsis: “I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once.”
Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green’s most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.
?
Beautiful Broken Things by Sara Barnard ~ Synopsis: Best friends Caddy and Rosie are inseparable. Their differences have brought them closer, but as she turns sixteen Caddy begins to wish she could be a bit more like Rosie – confident, funny and interesting. Then Suzanne comes into their lives: beautiful, damaged, exciting and mysterious, and things get a whole lot more complicated. As Suzanne’s past is revealed and her present begins to unravel, Caddy begins to see how much fun a little trouble can be. But the course of both friendship and recovery is rougher than either girl realizes, and Caddy is about to learn that downward spirals have a momentum of their own.
?
How Not to Disappear by Clare Furniss ~ Synopsis: Hattie’s summer isn’t going as planned. Her two best friends have abandoned her: Reuben has run off to Europe to ‘find himself’ and Kat is in Edinburgh with her new girlfriend. Meanwhile Hattie is stuck babysitting her twin siblings and dealing with endless drama around her mum’s wedding. Oh, and she’s also just discovered that she’s pregnant with Reuben’s baby…Then Gloria, Hattie’s great-aunt who no one even knew existed, comes crashing into her life. Gloria’s fiercely independent, rather too fond of a gin sling and is in the early stages of dementia. Together the two of them set out on a road trip of self-discovery – Gloria to finally confront the secrets of her past before they are erased from her memory forever and Hattie to face the hard choices that will determine her future…
?
The Year of The Rat by Clare Furniss ~ Synopsis: I always thought you’d know, somehow, if something terrible was going to happen. I thought you’d sense it, like when the air goes damp and heavy before a storm and you know you’d better hide yourself away somewhere safe until it all blows over. But it turns out it’s not like that at all. There’s no scary music playing in the background like in films. No warning signs. Not even a lonely magpie. One for sorrow, Mum used to say. Quick, look for another. The world can tip at any moment … a fact that fifteen-year-old Pearl is all too aware of when her mum dies after giving birth to her baby sister. Told across the year following her mother’s death, Pearl’s story is full of bittersweet humour and heartbreaking honesty about how you deal with grief that cuts you to the bone, as she tries not only to come to terms with losing her mum, but also the fact that her sister – The Rat – is a constant reminder of why her mum is no longer around…
From the author of How Not to Disappear comes a stunning novel about love and loss, and how to carry on when your whole world is turned upside down.?
@Paula, I hate to be an ingrate, but I don’t actually like romances, esp sad ones. I like books like Wolf Hollow and Bang. There can be a subplot but no romance as main theme. Maybe I need young not-quite-adult? ???
I refuse to lend any of the books I’ve read. I rather buy it for the person. I write little notes inside with dates and how the book made me feel. They are kept safe in my library, they have what I call, my reading DNA.
We are opposites in this regard, @Ana – I am a proselytising reader! The only books I don’t lend are my first edition George Bernard Shaw and the books I have had personally signed by authors
I don’t go to the library because if I like a book, I don’t want to return it so that is why I only buy them haha. I also don’t lend out any book because I fear that someone will not give it back or damage the book.
@Amy I meant to mention yesterday that I actually got to visit the Penguin Truck when it came to the Mark Twain House a couple years back…lemme find the pics and I’ll tag you x
I can actually get rid of books easilt
I can’t read for hours at a time straight. It doesn’t matter how great the book is. I just don’t have that kind of attention span. I read for a little bit, glance at my phone, read some more, then make tea and watch a show, read again, etc lol
Same!
Yup
On my way home from work.
I stop in a parking lot. And read my current book
Also, the more I want to read a book the longer I’ll put it off. I know that probably makes no sense but I’m always waiting for “just the right time” to start it. And I’m also really afraid of being disappointed by it.
Me too!!
Same!
I’m glad I’m not the only one lol
Me too.
Me too… I’m saving some tittles for the Summer reading when I can sit outside and enjoy the fresh air …. xxxx
Me too…
Yep I get that completely, and do the same! I’ve giit a few on my bedside table right now I can’t wait to read bu t am reluctant, one is Terry Pratchetts The Sheperds Crown, I liive the Tiffany Aching series, and not only is it the last in the series i beleive it was his last book! The longer I put it off means the series is still running and there’s still another unread book of his!
I tend to buy books everywhere i go
My husband actually thinks I get rid of the books I read. They are actually downstairs in bins…
My husband says i cant buy anymore books but that hasnt stopped me
Bless me Father, I have sinned. The people I babysat for had Lady Chatterly’s Lover, and I read it after the kids went to bed. I was only 12! ??
I read it for the first time a few years ago ??
Now I am curious what it’s abkut
Amanda Mocny ooohhh, it was pretty juicy for a 12 year old!?
I read books that wasn’t appropriate for a young teen. Like for example: The mermaid chair (I thought it something to do with mermaids) and a tree grows in Brooklyn (which was in a middle school library)
I have a paperback of Lady Chatterly’s Lover on my shelf. Haven’t read it yet. That’s the mint green paperback that Blanche is always holding in The Golden Girls. ?
@Linda ? I only know that because it was my Grammie’s favorite show!?
@Michele I still watch reruns. I always wondered what that book was. It was the same mint green paperback in several episodes over the years. So, last week I hit ‘record’ when I saw it again. I kept looking at it from different angles during the show, and, sure enough, it was Lady Chatterly’s Lover. ?
Hahaha Best Story so far!!!!
@Michelle A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is appropriate for teens, arguably it was one of the first for teen girls.
Me too why is that also same with last book in a series!
I once won $25 in a short story contest
What was it called?
Way to go hen x
I actually get mad if I have a day with no time to read
You might be an addict. Whatever you do, don’t go to Basic Training! The withdrawal does not stop!
I work part, part time at my local library and probably read more hours a week than I work.
I used to lie to my Mom and tell her I was going to the park. I actually used to go to the cemetery alone to read. (I realize today how dangerous that could of been)
Maybe that explains your obsession with creepy books….?
I love that, Paula. How cool.
I used to read in the bathroom in work, my job was data entry & reading got me through the day, thankfully no one asked why I was in the bathroom so much?
I lied that I bought something else when I actually bought books.
I got chucked out of Mass at school because I was horrendously disruptive by quietly reading a book in the corner of the church
Heathen!
@Nick, Can we assume it wasn’t the Bible??
@Michele you assume correctly (and it wasn’t the Torah either), I can’t remember what it was, I have a feeling it was the Ghosts of N-Space or possibly Invasion of the Cat People
I had a math teacher who kept stopping class to say my reading (in the back of the room) was disruptive to the learning environment.
She was the only teacher I can point to as clearly, personally disliking me. One of my most cherished memories is handing her my Class Drop slip and telling her I didn’t need her class to graduate on time.
@Tammy ???
Tammy Woodbury most of my secondary school teachers had it in for me, my form tutor Mr O O’Neil made ME apologize to a couple of a students for bullying me !!!
@Nick Heck no, that ain’t happening.
These are all great by the way!
I took a book to a bar
Um well I can’t seem to quit buying books. Was at Barnes and Noble today and saw this beautiful Illustrated Edition of Jane Eyre. So went home and he ordered a copy from Amazon and save $3. And that was after I just bought 3 other books before that last week. LOL
What a fab edition Janie x
Thanks Paula, I am really excited to get it.
I forged notes from my Mom to check out books from school library (they had ‘adult’ situations, like rape scene etc)
That’s impressive! Our school library didn’t have any of those–convent school in Bangladesh, if you can believe it *eyeroll*
I’m appalled!?
Anything to do with Danielle Steele. !!!!!!! ?
I can do anything to get my favourite novels and yes, it’s hard to put down a book once I entered into the story.
I used to read the last sentence of a book before starting it.
I still do, sometimes, lol!
As a child I would leave my friends playing and go inside and read. As an adult I once took a day’s holiday to continue reading a book I couldn’t wait to finish.
Me too ?
I buy books on amazon … I try to support my local dealer but I also love bargains
i buy wherever is cheaper
I rarely buy any books. Maybe 1 a year.
@Paula yep, as a book junky I do too. Our church also holds book flea markets which is nice and they have an awesome library.
@Kristen we have a monthly book exchange in our neighborhood. Bring your books and however many you trade for, you pay a dollar each. The money goes to buying books for the chindren’s hospital, and every few months we clean out, donate to the women’s shelter and then start over!
Don’t like real life while reading a book ?
In college while assisting an old professor as he moved (religion I believe) he let us take some books he had in appreciation for our help. We found a copy of a work by marques de sade.. we would periodically do unsolicited public readings in our dorm hallway..
Thank god you were in college That’s got some creepy stuff in it!??
I was almost kicked put of school because I passed around my copy of Judy Blume’s Forever. It had a sex scene in it and I was in the 7th grade.
My mom came up to the school with an attorney. Haha! My mom was something!
I read this as a young teen too! I’ve since reread it as an adult and I still love it ?
Me and my daughter read it when she was 14. Still love it to.
My dad had to go to our school in his police uniform a few times. I hate to think what life was like for kids whose parents didn’t lay down the law.
I have over 2000 books and over 12 boxes of books that have not been put away. Guess my OCD does not apply to books.
I had a Regency romance by Georgette Heyer confiscated by a nun at my school because the hero went to gambling dens and was therefore “a bad influence”!!! Have never gambled (maybe thanks to her?!) ?
When I was about 11 years old I had to have weekly visits to the dentist as I was having teeth removed and being fitted with braces. Each week my mum would let me choose and buy one book as a treat for being so brave. There was only one condition. I mustn’t tell my father that she had done it and I had to dog ear the pages, bend the spines and rough them up to blend in with my older books or he would be cross as money was a tight and new books were not a necessity. I would sleep with my new book under my pillow for the 1st day or 2 so that he didn’t find it before having to scruff it up to go on my shelf. To this day I cannot bend a book spine and I still sleep with the book I am reading under my pillow ? I can’t sleep unless I do!
I hope they still had a happy marriage … brave mum!
?
Very brave mum who is very happily divorced and I couldn’t be prouder of her ??
@Sandie no man should ever dare to come between a lady and her books!
And God help the man who gets between a woman, her child and her books! ?
This is a great memory.
Another confession came to mind … I am German and I read Hitler’s Mein Kampf. His ideas are so outrageous, it’s almost comedy, if it hadn’t been so serious. Sadly my family was in possession of this book as they had bought it when available, as you know it was last published in Germany in 1945, then not widely available till the 1970’s and as of 2016 it is read in schools with annotations with an educational value … my parents famously sold a Hitler statue from my great-grandfather’s private bank in Frankfurt to a shady collector in the 1960s. They had used it to hang hats before … he is such a ridiculous person to us, but at the same time he was a demagogue and responsible for genocide … we now fear we had better destroyed the statue … it might be worshipped now … I want all my kids to read Mein Kampf to learn and beware of any demagogue!
@Chirag it’s important to read it! I feel people don’t know fascism if they never truly studied its methods, I get this feeling from current politics. My grandmother is still alive and lived through Hitler, they didn’t take him seriously until it was too late, he was an angry little man, not very educated, but he liked the limelight and big arenas. He called the press fake news and started to attack intellectuals and science. I shudder at the thought of people not realizing it’s what he did that some do now.
Knowledge is power
@Kristen, agreed wholeheartedly.
@Kristen, best not to start a another discussion about the pros & cons of reading Mein Kampf (except that it’s your “book confession” I guess.) Many of us have read it, and it is important to understand history, but a few weeks ago, the group got into a pretty heated discussion about that book, and I think it was @Kathy (correct me if I’m wrong Kathy) who shut it down. It just got too political and too out of hand. I would really hate to see that happen again. No offense or judgment intended here, honestly.
@Kristen see what I was telling you! I was badly humiliated just for saying I’m reading Mein Kampf out of sheer curiosity. People expect political correctness everywhere!
@Chirag I think they expect harmony. I personally was never interested in harmony ? that’s why I read, to explore, think and reflect
One American lady told me to use ‘workers’ instead of ‘slaves’ cause it sounds more correct. People are deliberately altering the history!
There was an argument about Mein Kampf? Wonder where I was? Didn’t read that thread.
@Jennifer It wasn’t an argument – it was a discussion. It just went kind off topic and got pretty heated.
Ah I see.
@Kristen no we don’t always harmony, that’s pretty impossible
I was in Germany with the US military, we had a licensed dealer who would come onto the US post and sell WWII artifacts, including copies of Mein Kampf. Your family’s statue may very well be in the US while somebody who has no clue tries to sell it off.
I can’t go anywhere without a book. I feel anxious.
In order to keep me interested in some books, I read the last chapter to see what it is about. This now is mostly reserved for poorly written rubbish that shouldn’t be published, but there are some good books in this list.
In a book store, I touch a book that I want to buy, read the title and reference at the cover, smell, hug it then leave it, because I haven’t got enough money??
Sometimes i like to just stand in front of my bookshelf and stare at my books. Then I’ll grab one, pet it, smell it, read the synopsis, hold it for a little while longer then put it back on the self then do the same with a different book?
Same here
Hehe, yep…
Guilty
I never take the first book in a stack. I always dig down a little, and I’m really particular about the book being in near perfect, if not perfect condition.
Me too hen!?
I do too, and so does my sister! We browse the first one, put in back and then search for the most perfect one on the shelf and purchase that one! ?
Oooh I’m not alone!
I bought plenty of books but I didn’t finished reading any of them. HAHAHAHA.
Lol
I finished reading my book at a wedding, while hiding out in the powder room, the chairs were really comfortable x
Did this!!
I think you just won the thread, @Paula!
She did indeed
Thanks Farah xx
This is a relief that I’m not the only one that loves to smell books at bookstores!!
I judge a book by its cover
I do as well at times lol
I prefer ebooks over paper books because I am afraid to have a house full of books. I see them as a fire hazard.
In modern homes, appliances and electronics are the leading cause of fires and the house itself is the most combustible. There are so many synthetics used in houses these days that they burn hotter and faster than seventy years ago.
Ironically, paper books in wooden book cases tend to be among the least flammable items in a modern home.
When I was poor in college I would go sit on the floor in a bookstore and read books without buying them. Sometimes one chunk at a time over multiple days. It was usually new releases I couldn’t get at the libraries. Now I buy more books than a person should, so I think it evened out.
When I was little I would get all grumpy when my mum asked me to clean my room. So I’d start to clean and then find a book I forgot I had. I would then start to read. Mum would come up to see how I was getting on and find me on my bed reading and my room still looking like bomb had hit it
Yes, this sounds familiar…!
I so badly wanted my little sister to become a bookworm just as I am. So I tortured her with suggestions and book gifts etc etc that it put her off completely. Did not read a book until this day (she’s 21)
I’ve burned books.
They’ve been mold damaged, contaminated, outdated technical manuals, notebooks, and the like, but I sometimes supervised the incineration of these books.
For the record, books do no like burning. They do not burn quickly, even if you douse them in some kind of accelerant.
I enjoyed the Twilight books
Co-workers: hey Ernie let’s go to lunch
Me: I can’t have to run an errand for my wife.
Me also: sits in the parking lot reading at my lunch hour
I taught my brother to read by reading a Clive Barker to him, it was ‘The Thief of Always’ which is kind of a kid’s book?
i read mostly young adult books and im not a young adult
Me too Tia?
Not mostly, but frequently, in my case
Me too
Some of the best books I’ve ever read were young adult. I read a lot of adult books too but I LOVE my young adult!! Lol
@Arielle
I’ve said this before (apologies everyone) YA books nowadays are so much better than the YA books that were available when I was a teenager?
Any particular recommendations (prefer without standard teen romance or high school drama…)?
@Farah The Fault in our Stars by John Green ~ Synopsis: “I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once.”
Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green’s most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.
?
Beautiful Broken Things by Sara Barnard ~ Synopsis: Best friends Caddy and Rosie are inseparable. Their differences have brought them closer, but as she turns sixteen Caddy begins to wish she could be a bit more like Rosie – confident, funny and interesting. Then Suzanne comes into their lives: beautiful, damaged, exciting and mysterious, and things get a whole lot more complicated. As Suzanne’s past is revealed and her present begins to unravel, Caddy begins to see how much fun a little trouble can be. But the course of both friendship and recovery is rougher than either girl realizes, and Caddy is about to learn that downward spirals have a momentum of their own.
?
How Not to Disappear by Clare Furniss ~ Synopsis: Hattie’s summer isn’t going as planned. Her two best friends have abandoned her: Reuben has run off to Europe to ‘find himself’ and Kat is in Edinburgh with her new girlfriend. Meanwhile Hattie is stuck babysitting her twin siblings and dealing with endless drama around her mum’s wedding. Oh, and she’s also just discovered that she’s pregnant with Reuben’s baby…Then Gloria, Hattie’s great-aunt who no one even knew existed, comes crashing into her life. Gloria’s fiercely independent, rather too fond of a gin sling and is in the early stages of dementia. Together the two of them set out on a road trip of self-discovery – Gloria to finally confront the secrets of her past before they are erased from her memory forever and Hattie to face the hard choices that will determine her future…
?
The Year of The Rat by Clare Furniss ~ Synopsis: I always thought you’d know, somehow, if something terrible was going to happen. I thought you’d sense it, like when the air goes damp and heavy before a storm and you know you’d better hide yourself away somewhere safe until it all blows over.
But it turns out it’s not like that at all. There’s no scary music playing in the background like in films. No warning signs. Not even a lonely magpie. One for sorrow, Mum used to say. Quick, look for another.
The world can tip at any moment … a fact that fifteen-year-old Pearl is all too aware of when her mum dies after giving birth to her baby sister. Told across the year following her mother’s death, Pearl’s story is full of bittersweet humour and heartbreaking honesty about how you deal with grief that cuts you to the bone, as she tries not only to come to terms with losing her mum, but also the fact that her sister – The Rat – is a constant reminder of why her mum is no longer around…
From the author of How Not to Disappear comes a stunning novel about love and loss, and how to carry on when your whole world is turned upside down.?
@Paula that’s what I’ve heard! I’m 28, but I follow Peterlikesbooks on YouTube and he has mentioned that ya is way better than it used to be!
@Arielle I’m 44
& YA is so much better now?
@Paula, I hate to be an ingrate, but I don’t actually like romances, esp sad ones. I like books like Wolf Hollow and Bang. There can be a subplot but no romance as main theme. Maybe I need young not-quite-adult? ???
Esp diversity themes, but hopeful not sad, even if the theme is serious…
I refuse to lend any of the books I’ve read. I rather buy it for the person. I write little notes inside with dates and how the book made me feel. They are kept safe in my library, they have what I call, my reading DNA.
That’s so lovely Ana xx
I love this
Thank you, my grown up kids love to find them. It’s my biography puzzle lol
We are opposites in this regard, @Ana – I am a proselytising reader! The only books I don’t lend are my first edition George Bernard Shaw and the books I have had personally signed by authors
But I buy them for them!!! Lol
I don’t go to the library because if I like a book, I don’t want to return it so that is why I only buy them haha. I also don’t lend out any book because I fear that someone will not give it back or damage the book.
If I get one from the library I really love, then I buy myself a new one to keep!
Me too! & I work in a library!
I’m a librarian and I buy books. And I’m not ashamed!?
I have a weakness for penguin publishing house covers!
@Amy, I love the different Penguin covers! I have some books in several of their covers.
Me too! x
@Amy I meant to mention yesterday that I actually got to visit the Penguin Truck when it came to the Mark Twain House a couple years back…lemme find the pics and I’ll tag you x
Me three ?
I would rather read the books in english than in german (books from german authors excluded)