I finally made it to the library for another batch of audio books. I picked up the second Ranger's Apprentice book, Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows (read by a full cast of narrators! ) and Lisa Unger's Ink and Bone. The last two are ones I've noticed a lot on Goodreads. Here's hoping they satisfy a bit more than Caraval did.

Somehow I've gotten away from my policy of reading 1-2 books at a time. I'm currently reading the original Beauty and the Beast by Villaneuve (the more common Beaumont version is an abridged adaptation), The Fact of a Body (a memoir/nonfiction novel about a murderer whose retrial the author was involved in and the strange connections to her own life), and The Collected Poetry of W.B. Yeats (because I was in the mood for poetry a week or two ago), and rereading Gene Wolfe's story collection Innocents Aboard and Tad Williams' Stone of Farewell.

I really need to finish some of these so I can get my currently reading stack back to manageable levels.

Ooooooh, I just read Six of Crows and its sequel, The Crooked Kingdom! I've been wanting to discuss it with someone... (It's not one I'd necessarily recommend, but it was enjoyable. There are some interesting twists on common fantasy tropes and stylistic choices and the setting is fun.)

Somehow I've gotten away from my policy of reading 1-2 books at a time.

Still can't read more than one book at a time to this day. I get a kick out of people who can.

So I saw you post about 'Uprooted' on FB the other day stwin. And I have to admit I'm very interested in that book. I wasn't a big fan of the Temeraire series by Naomi Novak (I'm in the minority, I know), but this one looked more up my alley and I fully admit Novak is a good writer.
So where is 'Uprooted' on your reading list? I want to hear your opinion of it, and anybody else's opinion that's read it.

Mel, I'll go ahead and make Six of Crows my first listen from this batch, then! I'm feeling in the mood for a good heist story.

fantasia, that's a tricky question, as my reading list is apt to change from day to day. I'm thinking that as soon as I finish one of the books I'm on now, I'll dive in, as I'm also really in the mood for a fairy tale story right now. I'll be sure to share my thoughts when I get to it.

I finished Thick as Thieves this morning.

daughter of the King, that was one of my favorite parts too!

I also read Thick as Thieves...

I think i like it more than A Conspiracy of Kings, but not as much as Queen or King. It felt a bit too rambly for me -- never really felt like i had a solid idea on where they were going or why -- but maybe that was because i was trying to get it read before i had to go to work.

Overall it was a good read, but probably not a favorite.

Arwenel, how/when you read something does have a huge impact on how you feel about a book (which may not be entirely fair to the book, but I think it can also say something about the book if it doesn't come through despite the reading setting); but I'll be curious to see if I think TaT is rambly when I read it.

Since I last posted, I've read My Lady Ludlow (by Elizabeth Gaskell), High Spirited Women of the West (by Anne Seagraves), and have started Pearls, Girls, and Monty Bodkin (by none other than P.G. Wodehouse).

I've a little uncertain about my thoughts on My Lady Ludlow. On one hand, there were some sweet bits and good quotes; on the other hand, the narrators got three or four levels deep at one point (and that recollection wasn't my favourite), which was confusing. But it was kind of fun to see where they picked certain bits from in the 2009 (I think?) Cranford miniseries.

High Spirited Women of the West was a non-fiction book I picked up offhand at the last library booksale. There were about nine or ten biographical accounts of various women in the western US while it was being settled - and some feminist (particularly, anti-men) sentiment in heaps at the beginning. The author had some points about the lack of rights for women in the mid- to late-1800s (such as suffrage and restrictions on owning property and businesses), but the way she handled it rubbed me all wrong. The rest of the stories, though, were pretty interesting, so there was that. I probably won't keep the book, though.

Pearls, Girls, and Monty Bodkin is hilarious and delightful so far. I think we may perhaps see the end of the long Monty-Gertrude saga, which will hopefully end in a wedding (one way or the other, whichever is the best); we shall see, though. I've had a soft spot for Monty ever since my first introduction to Wodehouse - the old adaptation of Heavy Weather, where Monty was played by Samuel West (and the detective by David Bamber).

I've stuck Words of Radiance in my bag and there's a long weekend...mayhaps I shall be able to fit in at least starting it. There are also two copies of Thick as Thieves floating around the family, but one was going to my brother-in-law next (and I've no idea if he's had time to get through it yet) and the other has gone to a friend (who has exerted her right as an adoptive sister to borrow a family copy (happily lent) ), and there are three of us still needing to read it so it may be a couple of weeks yet.

Ooooooh, I just read Six of Crows and its sequel, The Crooked Kingdom! I've been wanting to discuss it with someone... (It's not one I'd necessarily recommend, but it was enjoyable. There are some interesting twists on common fantasy tropes and stylistic choices and the setting is fun.)

I just finished listening to Six of Crows, and I enjoyed it a lot! The multiple narrators were a little odd in audio form because I really, really didn't like Inej's narrator at first and Kaz's narrator is also the reader for Sam's chapters in Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver books (and those two characters couldn't be more different!). It also took me a while to get into the main storyline after the prologue. Again, the perils of using audio for your first time with a book.

I think my favorite characters were Nina and Matthias because of their individual and joint arcs. I also really liked Kaz as a character (though I'd not want him over for supper) and I really hope

in the next book, which I'll be looking for soon. I was pleased that I guessed some of the smaller twists with character arcs, but I was still interested in what was going to happen on a larger scale.

How are you liking the Nikki Boyd Files?
I'm glad you're enjoying Death by Living! And you're welcome. Though I should take my own advice and actually read it too.
Haha! Yes, letting your parents see how many books you own, and how many books you own you really don't want/need can be a bit nerve-wracking. Both my parents are bibliophiles, though my mom is much better at clearing out books than my dad; still, my dad has been unimpressed at how many books are still in my room after moving two bookshelves worth out. I didn't show him how many I bought at the booksale either...

Looks I am a little behind in this thread.

The Nikki Boyd Files ended up being okay, but not a keeper series.

Oh, I just might have been cleaning and put Death By Living back my shelf, I really need to get it back out. VA, you haven't read it yet? That's funny.

I currently have a book box full of books to giveaway or maybe trade at the bookstore downtown. Plus a rather large TBR for the first time stack, most of which I probably won't keep.

I haven't read as much lately as I would like to. I just finished writing a review for Behind The Scenes by Jen Turano.

And now I am reading Threads of Suspicion by Dee Henderson. It's the second book in the Evie Blackwell Cold Case series. Although I really liked the first book in the series, Traces of Guilt, and was really looking forward starting book 2, it took me longer to get into Threads of Suspicion than I was expecting. After starting Threads of Suspicion, I feel like Traces of Guilt was more of a prequel book than a true book one. About 4 characters are in both books, there were a bunch of the interesting supporting characters from book one aren't even mention in book two. Aside from that, the mysteries are quite interesting.

I went shopping with my mom this week and made a stop at the library to pickup my library holds including the latest N.D. Wilson book, The Song of Glory and Ghost. I can't wait to start this one!

SnowAngel

I picked up The Thief while on holiday in the US back in 2012 after it was recommended to me by this very thread. I loved it, and managed to source the others (mainly by living in Canada for a year), but the books are STILL not published in the UK! It's actually quite tricky to get them here ... so I will need to wait a bit until I can read Thick as Thieves.

Another book not published here (and not in print at all?) is The Last Unicorn, which a friend recommended. I thought it odd and yet completely beautiful.

I just finished Beyond the Wall by Tanya Landman. It has a beautiful cover which first attracted me to it, and then then fact it was a Roman Britain-set piece meant I had to buy it. I've enjoyed reading some of Rosemary Sutcliff's books recently and this had some of that feel. I liked the characters and the twists in the story, and I'll be looking out for the author's other books.

A recent non-fiction read that I highly recommend is Fallen Glory: The Lives and Deaths of Twenty Lost Buildings from the Tower of Babel to the Twin Towers by James Crawford. It's a fascinating account documenting thousands of years of history and mythology. The author really delved into all sorts of interesting stories about each building and the people who built them, lived and worked in them. My only frustration with the book is that though he was happy to rely on mythology to explain things about certain buildings, he wasn't happy to use the Old Testament in the same way. However, if you have an interest in history (not specifically architecture) it's a must-read.

It took me a bit to get into the main storyline in Six of Crows after the prologue/cold open as well, so I'm not sure it's just the audio format... I kept expecting the events to play into the main storyline in different ways than it did.

Also, yay, you seem to have had similar reactions to the characters as I did, so I am really looking forward to seeing what you think of the resolution of the next book.

I went on a bit of a mystery kick last week. I picked up Patricia Wentworth's first Miss Silver novel, Grey Mask. It's a light thriller, in a similar vein to Margery Allingham or John Buchan, and I'm looking forward to reading others. Miss Silver was more of a side character, but a very competent detective.

I followed that with the first Phryne Fisher mystery by Kerry Greenwood. The 1920s fashions were vividly and lovingly described but a story is not carried on wardrobe and willfullness alone. The narrative style reminded me of Nancy Drew though the content was much grimmer than anything faced by the girl detective which ended up working against the story as it ended up treating the serious problems encountered by the characters in a casual fashion. Following so closely on the heels of a much-tighter plotted mystery-adventure, I was not exactly impressed.

I had an order of books arrive today, all by N.D. Wilson -- the 3 100 Cupboard books and the Ashtown Burials. So far, i've only read the first 100 Cupboards book.

On the whole, this wasn't a terrible book. I was invested enough to keep reading, and i'm interested enough to read the sequels. That said ...

The first part of the book was slow, which is unfortunate because the last few chapters had a ton of stuff crammed into them and i didn't feel like i fully understood what was going on. I really don't get why it took more than half the book to get to the traveling to other worlds promised in the back description -- imagine if the Pevensies didn't get to Narnia until 2/3rds of the way through The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe!

The characters were moderately interesting, but none were particularly relatable. Henry comes off as super blasé about his parents a) having been kidnapped and b)

, Henrietta displays a lack of common sense without any accompanying character traits to explain it, the villain was creepy but i don't know who she was in this world or what she wanted, and the near-end reactions of Penelope and Anastasia both struck me as weird. There were a lot of minor characters that i imagine become important later on, and i certainly hope so because all they did was make the ending more of a pile-up.

On a more quibbly note, it irritated me that Henry and Henrietta have such similar names and living in a town called Henry. I can forgive Henry if

, but that doesn't make Henrietta any better. Doesn't help that i don't like the name Henrietta.

I might re-read this later, provided the next two books don't put me off the series entirely.

I've begun reading a long historical novel series by Bodie & Brock Theone, so far following the events in the late 1930s through the eyes of Jewish residents of Austria while Hitler's Nazi power is slowly affecting them.
I'm staying with someone who has the whole set; I have read "Vienna Prelude" and am partway into number 2, "Prague Counterpoint".

I had an order of books arrive today, all by N.D. Wilson -- the 3 100 Cupboard books and the Ashtown Burials. So far, i've only read the first 100 Cupboards book.

100 Cupboards is my least favorite of N.D. Wilson's books, but I did enjoy reading the whole series. I read The Ashtown Burials before reading 100 Cupboards and I kind of wish I had read 100 Cupboards first since I absolutely loved The Ashtown Burials and the whole gang of characters in it. Cyrus, Antigone, Dan, Rupert, and the rest of TAB gang are just awesome.

One of my teen sisters is reading The Ashtown Burials for the first time. She got them from the library this week, if I get my library books done before she returns TAB I am hoping to reread them. It has after all been almost eight months since the first time I read them.

I am almost done reading The Song Of Glory And Ghost. There has been a lot happening in my life, busy distracting things, so it has taken me a lot most a week to read The Song Of Glory And Ghost and just because of the crazy things. I am really enjoying the new book.

I have read a few of Bodie & Brock Thoene's books, but I don't think I have ever read the Zion Covenant series. I have read a couple of the Zion Chronicles which are connected to the Shiloh Legacy series and I read the Shiloh Legacy series several times as a teen. coracle, I would love to know what you think of the Zion Covenant series.

SnowAngel

SA, nope, haven't read Death by Living; just have enjoyed other works by the author and have heard lots of good recommendations for it.
I'm glad the Nikki Boyd books were tolerable at least, though it's too bad they're not keepers (though, maybe not too bad for your bookshelf space ).
Hurrah for the book box to give away or resell! Yay also for your sister reading Ashtown! I hope she's enjoying it! And glad to hear you're enjoying Wilson's new one!

Too bad that MWT isn't available in the UK, AJ! That's very odd. ...are you needing a NW express delivery of Thick as Thieves then? (Hope you can find it somehow!)

Enjoy the mysteries, Mel! The literary association of John Buchan to the Miss Silver mysteries interests me.

Please keep us appraised of your thoughts on the N.D. Wilson books, Arwenel! I agree that 100 Cupboards has its issues, especially with pacing (and a lack of common sense from some (admittedly young) characters). Frank and Dotty are probably my favourite characters from that book. And the Henry-Henry-Henrietta naming convention is kinda repetitive and a bit odd. Only thing I can think of is

I am currently reading (at last!) Words of Radiance and am about 2/3 of the way through. I was loving it, but then things happened and I'm on my toes a bit to see if they resolve well. XD