The last one of these I did was in December when I was 58% of the way through. I hadn’t realised I’d left it so long!

36.81 / 50kg (74%)

Doctor Who: Catastrophea by Terrence Dicks
A Jo book courtesy of Bookmooch. I really liked it, it felt a lot like an episode.

Doctor Who: Millennium Shock by Justin Richards
I looked something up in this for hhertzof for her Sarah Jane Smith timeline and since I was ill decided I could justify re-reading it.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard
I never intended to read this but there were so many copies on Bookmooch that I thought I might as well. It’s alright, but nothing special. I could have quite happily lived without it.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Part of my quest to read some Neil Gaiman. I only vaguely remember seeing it on video years ago, but I did know that the book’s quite different. Except my memory of it is so vague I have no idea to what extent this is true, though. But I liked them both.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
I liked this one too, which worried me slightly because surely at some point Neil Gaiman is going to write something I dislike.

The vet books by James Herriot (If Only They Could Talk, It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet, Let Sleeping Vets Lie, Vet in Harness, Vets Might Fly, Vet in a Spin, The Lord God Made Them All, Every Living Thing)
Since I’d watched a lot of All Creatures Great and Small I wanted to re-read the books to see how they were different. I’ve read them enough times that I recognised a lot of the things in the TV series, but it was interesting to see what they changed. I nearly read them all over Easter but now somehow they’ve become mine instead of mum’s…

The Blood Detective by Dan Waddell
This is a combination of a crime book with genealogy. I loved it, it was great. I didn’t think they could be combined, but it was really well done how the murders related to the past and how the genealogist went about finding that information out. Dan Waddell has a second book out in August, which I will definitely be reading.

Timeline by Michael Crichton
This was recommend (and lent) to me by someone on the basis it had time travel in it and I’m a sucker for that sort of thing. I liked how he made the time travel fit with how we know it could happen, although I could skip quite a few pages of the physics explanation. I also liked how the characters dealt with being in the past. But he did miss out one really important point in his time travel explanation and I spent the whole book waiting for it to be explained and that he didn’t means the whole thing falls down, in my opinion, much as I enjoyed the story (once it got going – it took a while).

A Place Beyond Courage by Elizabeth Chadwick
This is a fictionalised story of someone who was involved with the Steven & Matilda civil war. It’s interesting to see how it affected people, but other than that the story seemed to mostly revolve around John’s wives and I wasn’t really interested in that.

Bible and Talmud Stories by Hyman E Goldin
This is my shortcut to never having read the bible – read the stories for children. Which made it nice and short. If it was marketed as fiction it would clearly be fantasy. Most of the stories I didn’t know, or only knew bits of, so it was quite interesting to see how all these people fit in.

The Sharing Knife: Legacy and Passage by Lois McMaster Bujold
It’s amazing how little happens in these stories yet they’re long and I enjoy them anyway. I can see how they’re leading up to the final book, I’m just waiting for it to come out in paperback because I am cheap like that.

Horrible Science: Deadly Diseases and Horrible Histories: Cruel Kings and Mean Queens
My sister recommended the Horrible Histories and then I discovered there are Horrible other subjects too. Deadly Diseases did have some things I didn’t know in it, but not much. The Kings and Queens one was mostly just a reminder, since it’s been ages since I read anything on them. They’re alright, but I can’t say I feel the need to read any more.

Does Anything Eat Wasps and Why Don’t Penguins Feet Freeze?
Two New Scientist books where people ask questions such as in the titles and people give answers. Some of the questions I have no interest in, but there are lots of questions that give an interesting way of looking at science. Such as what you could make a surfboard out of to surf a lava flow and what would happen if aliens stole the moon (everyone agreed it would be a catastrophe but I was particularly amused by the editor’s note pointing out that they don’t know of any such alien plot).

Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster
Apparently this is a well known children’s book in America. It’s an interesting format because it’s entirely letters than a girl writes while she’s at university in the early 1900s. I enjoyed it up until the reveal at the end of her mysterious benefactor when I just felt a bit cheated.

Dancing Shoes and Theatre Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
Similar plots to the rest of the Shoes books and definitely easy reading, but I like them all the same. There’s something to be said for reading something that doesn’t require too much effort now and again.

Doctor Who: Winner Takes All and Doctor Who: The Stone Rose by Jacqueline Rayner
Jacqueline Rayner writes all the best Doctor Who books (and audios) as far as I can tell. I found a load of New Who books in the second hand bookshop and limited myself to these two because I thought a load of crap books will make me hate the series. But I really liked these two – the stories are interesting and the relationships between the characters feels really real and a reflection of how it is in the series. I ended up feeling more excited about Doctor Who after reading these.

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