Title: The Undomestic Goddess
Author: Sophie Kinsella
Number of pages: 432
Genre: humor, romance
Book Number/Goal: 49/52
My Rating: 4/5

Review:
Samantha, a young talented workaholic lawyer, makes a grave mistake which means the end of her career. She panics, runs away, and accidentally accepts a job of housekeeper, even though she was raised to be a businesswoman and has zero practical skills in housework.

Samantha is a sympathetic character for her optimism and ingenuity. Apart from her initial blunder, she never gives up even when the failure is imminent, and is rewarded by lucky coincidences that get her out of sticky situations. There's a bit of romance but it's largely going on the background and does not become the main focus of the story. Funny, easy, relaxing reading.
Another 17 books added to the total count :) I decided to up the challenge to 200 books in 2011 rather than 111, and so far I am still ahead (by 10 books).

Read more... )

76 completed books, 26586 words as of 01/05/2011

Currently reading:
- Reginald Hill - Midnight Fugue (Dalziel & Pascoe) - 38/384
- Pat Willimott - The Chalet School Librarian - 39/200


I might abandon that last. It's sending me up the wall with misery spotting errors everywhere and I'm not even to page 40 yet, and the plot is not much better. The girls' school story fandom has weird ideas about fanfiction, and I'm really not all that comfortable paying for published fanfic if it's not for charity, having had more experience in the usual fandom model...
I'm doing pretty well at keeping track, now that I bought myself a little notebook and joined GoodReads.

I decided on 111 books in 2011. I may change that, as I'm already more than halfway there. List of read books/page count etc. so far under the cut - 59 finished so far. Not necessarily in order of reading - I only listed the month in my notebook until March 29th, not the exact date, so they sort randomly by month. A lot are re-reads, but I count those just the same. Page counts may be inaccurate, most were taken from GR and I know sometimes those editions are listed weirdly... I've sorted the list so far by author, since I don't know the exact dates I finished most of them.

59/111 )

Currently reading:
- Jean K. Baird - Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall - 95/180
- David Eddings - The Elder Gods (Dreamers) - 227/480
- Reginald Hill - Midnight Fugue (Dalziel & Pascoe) - 38/384
Title: I Am America (And So Can You!)
Author: Stephen Colbert
Number of Pages: 228 pages
Book Number/Goal: 2/50 for 2010
My Rating: 5/5

It's Stephen Colbert! In book form! This is totally hilarious and I especially loved his margin notes, which often answer questions in the main body of text or give a summary of a paragraph or just otherwise comment on stuff.
Title: Because I Said So
Author: Dawn Meehan
Number of Pages: 226 pages
Book Number/Goal: 69/75 for 2009
My Rating: 2/5

This book is based on the blog by the same name, which I started reading a couple years ago after seeing her humorous eBay auction for some Pokemon cards. So the blog is basically funny stories about her kids and it's amusing, though she irritates me occasionally and I every so often think of unsubscribing, but never seem to.

Anyway, I was given to understand that the book had a lot of new material, but it really, really didn't. Most was lifted directly from the blog, and the rest was also very familiar like maybe she'd mentioned it and then expanded a bit. So for me, it was totally not worth reading, though I did enjoy the stories the first time around, so for a reader not familiar with her blog, it would probably be more enjoyable.

I do recommend skipping the second-to-last chapter, though, which is all about her "seventh child", i.e. her husband. I cannot stand that sort of thing. She complains about her husband being a big kid, but puts up with and indulges his behaviour, and it's just not amusing. The whole "men are just big, stupid kids who can't ever be expected to do anything" meme needs to die now. The same chapter is also filled with a bunch of "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" crap, which also gives me the eye-twitch.
Title: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw
Author: Jeff Kinney
Number of Pages: 224
Genre: Fiction, Humor, YA
Book Number/Goal: 39/50 in 2009

Review: I LOVE this series. I find the humor to be just what I need on days when I need a laugh without having to exert much effort to get it. These are definitely books I'll be pulling back out once my son starts middle school. I'm looking forward to the 4th installment coming out later this year.
.

Profile

a_reader_is_me: (Default)
A Reader Is Me!

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Powered by Dreamwidth Studios

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags