(no subject)

[slemslempike]

For 2016 I decided to start using Goodreads to keep track of my reading, but I have to say I don't think it's for me. I don't really want any of the social bits with recommendations or leaving reviews, and so it doesn't actually add anything better than keeping a list in lj as I've been doing lo these many years (11 years!). I only really want to have a record of books read. What would be good is if I could look at it and say "tell me how many women I read last year", and "how many African writers have I read" to try and broaden my reading. Since I've just been using goodreads to add books read, and indeed things I've read in my life, I can't imagine other people are much enjoying my use of it as they'll have large dumps of books with no information in their feeds of me. Anyway. January books:

The Heir - Kiera Cass
Fifty Shades of Grey - EL James
The Prince - Kiera Cass
It's Not Me, It's You - Jon Richardson
How to be a Husband - Tim Dowling
The Very First Damned Thing - Jodi Taylor
Understood Betsy - Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Beguilement - Lois McMaster Bujold
Dead Girl Walking - Christopher Brookmyre
Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold
Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Woman Who Stole My Life - Marian Keyes
Mad About the Boy - Helen Fielding
Horizon - Lois McMaster Bujold
Joe Speedboat - Tommy Wieringa

The Kiera Cass books were ebooks from Edinburgh library, and I really rather enjoy them. They're like the Hunger Games but with etiquette competitions - reality TV from the inside, with an addition of political rebellion. The latest full novel, The Heir follows the daughter of the Prince who had the first selection of the books, and it's so interesting to see it gender-switched, how she's treated differently, how she's got more expectations in some areas, but maybe it's easier in others.

I was expecting to quite enjoy Fifty Shades of Grey, both expecting it to be quite hot in some sections, and risible in others. It did not really deliver in either case, and in fact I forgot I'd read it until coming to write this. The sex, for all the BDSM fanfare, is quite softly written, and I found myself quite liking Anastasia - she resisted things she didn't like, was funny, and while her inner goddess sctick was irritating beyond belief, it was not nearly as badly written as Twilight, and she was much better than Bella.

I really like Jon Richardson, like mild obsession for a good few years. It's not me, it's you is not a funny book, but it's not really meant to be. It hasn't really stuck with me much, partly because we have very different attitudes to life in many ways, and because I'd heard lots of the basis of the narrative in his stand-up and radio shows. How to Be a Husband I had far fewer expectations of, and enjoyed quite a lot - unlike some columns that get turned into books, it survives the jump, and his (brilliant) wife extends past caricature without losing her humour.

There are a whole bunch of threads online about people trying to find a book called Misunderstood Betsy because they mean
Understood Betsy but have misremembered the title from their childhood. I never read it as a child, but I was SO sure that I have a book at home called Misunderstood Betsy, even picturing the Virago spine. However - no sign of this at all. Anyway, this is a charming book, about Betsy who is coddled and told she's fragile and special with her town aunts. Then she has to go and stay with her country cousins for a while, who quietly expect her to get on with things, and she finds she's perfectly healthy, and rather clever.

I REALLY like the Sharing Knife series. I think partly it hits my romance buttons about someone else taking responsibility for a woman's sexual pleasure and awakening her enjoyment without being too ugh about it, and also that Dag loves Fern because she's so clever at thinking about things, and that she's brave as well.

I hadn't read any Brookmyre for ages, but Dead Girl Walking was one of the Kindle daily deals, so I dipped in again. It was really interesting seeing Parlabane hobbled by the Leveson inquiry, and shunned by papers now his techniques have had the spotlight shone on them so thoroughly. I liked reading the blog of the tour alongside the investigation, and seeing it all unravel again and again.

I do enjoy Marian Keyes, but like lots of her others I spent The Woman Who Stole My Life really frustrated with the idiocy of her heroine. Tell your son to shut up and get on with it! Tell your lover you love him! Tell everyone else to sod off! I wasn't expecting to enjoy Mad About the Boy very much based on reviews, and sure enough I didn't. Funny bits here and there, but the world of private schools, screenwriting and the like was such a jump from the last book that it felt like an entirely different world, without having matured noticeably.

Joe Speedboat was a book for my Cairo bookgroup. One of the members chose it because it's set where she grew up in the Netherlands, and she was interested to see how it worked in translation for us. In the event I was the only one who finished the book, so we didn't have much of a discussion. It's about a boy (Frankie) who, following an accident, is paralysed apart from one arm. Joe Speedboat (not his real name) arrives in the village and they become close friends. Joe helps Frankie to train to be an arm wrestling champion, and he goes pro, travelling around Europe with Joe, and PJ, Joe's girlfriend and Frankie's childhood crush. PJ is the weakest point of the story - a cipher for the men and boys around her, and mostly a sexual outlet for them. That aside, an interesting novel I'm glad I've read even if I wouldn't have chosen it myself.

Comments

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

I wish I had time to read that much! And didn't have to read so much for work. I've managed to get through two Poldark books so far this year and that's it. Well, that and eleventy billion reports on child trafficking.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

You should see how much TV I've watched too!

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

I am so glad you like the Sharing Knife series - I've seen a lot of negativity towards it. I, too, love the fact that Fawn is one who thinks about her world and makes the connections that drive the changes, even if she can't manifest the changes herself when those relate to the Lakewalkers' magic. It hits my buttons about how people make a relationship work (what happens in that so-called happy-ever-after), rather than the "will-they-won't-they" of much romance.

ETA: Re 50SG, I rather enjoyed the way Anastasia said no all the time. No, I will not give up my friends to have a relationship with you; no, I am not signing your stupid contract; no, I am not going to spend all the time I am not with you working out with a personal trainer you've supplied; no, you're not coming to see me this weekend; no, I do not like it when you hit me with a paddle so no more of this, etc., etc. The inner goddess thing was exceedingly annoying, though. I also found it a remarkably un-sensual book, too. (I also complained about what on earth James meant by "European" lingerie to bextera and anglaisepaon. The former suggested it meant crotchless, or ouvert if you want to be even more European, less Ann Summers and more Coco De Mer, about it. I'd have probably enjoyed more detail about the lingerie and less about the helicopter, not least because isn't it so much easier and cheaper to research lingerie than helicopters?)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I saw some negativity too, I was surprised. It's not the same sort of heroine as the Chalion books, but it's still very interesting.

Yes, it was entirely unsensual! And Anastaisia saying no and getting her way was great - though I haven't read any of the others so maybe it stops or changes later on.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

Yes, and it's a very deliberate exploration of a specific romance trope.

I haven't read the other two books in the 50SG trilogy either, but I hope Ana keeps on putting her foot down very firmly. I also really liked her demanding the money for her battered old car.

[jinty]

You can use tags on Goodreads, so you could tag your books with eg 'female author', or whatever. I moved from Goodreads to LibraryThing when GR was bought by Amazon: LT is quite good at searching by tags and I haven't been troubled by the social element of it, people seem to leave me alone to about the level I want (ie there are some friends of mine on there that I occasionally look at but mostly it's a list for me). Obv you might not want to be bothered moving site - there was a slick macro for doing it when I moved over, not sure if that function is still available but I assume so.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I think what I want is just driven by laziness, I just want to say what I've read, and then the tool to do it for me. But I think I'm going to try out LibraryThing.

[jinty]

It's easy to load books to your account on LT - just type in an ISBN - but that is pretty similar to Goodreads. I can't remember how the tagging worked on GR; on LT it's fairly easy and it does suggest auto-complete tags from your previous selections but you have to start typing to do so. This does mean that if you are trying to remember whether you tagged something as YA or Young Adult you might need to try a couple of different ways to see what comes up.

[jinty]

On LT you can see what other people have tagged things as being, which might suit you. You can't just copy the tags over, but other than that it could be a way to go.

[nwhyte]

For the book cataloguing, I find LibraryThing much better - you can tag your own books as "by women" or "African writer" and then it's easy enough to tally. Goodreads has this option too but it is less gracefully implemented.

I'm a big fan of the Sharing Knife books also!

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Then maybe I shall have LibraryThing in February instead - I could keep trying different options every month to see what I like.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

You'd need to create shelves for 'books by women' and other categories, then you could do that kind of sorting. It is a minor hassle to set up, but quite nice when it's done. (One of my shelves is 'kindle' so I can track how many paper books versus ebooks I read. I'm quite dull.)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I think I am too lazy - so I want the demographics to be pre-listed somewhere. And for it to be easy to copy/paste.

I'm suspecting I need to do an excel sheet instead, or maybe googledocs, with pre-existing categories.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I read the first Selection book a while ago but was completely bumped out of it by the king being called Clarkson. Maybe I should give them another go.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I wonder if you could download and do find and replace to call him something more kingly. Because Clarkson was utterly ridiculous, and Maxon not much better. You can get those kids' books with replaceable names, it would be a good service to offer for adults, only more for "change the name of the hero not to have my ex-partner's middle name".

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

It would also work where the author has made the mistake of naming a demi-god Kevin, as that's Just Plain Wrong.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

There really should be some sort of 'track my reading' app where you can just enter books and do basic analysis on them, as you describe. I can't be bothered with Goodreads because I don't want to do a review of every book I read, I just want to note down that I've read it. Surely an app like this exists? At the moment I just keep track in a Word doc.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I was discussing this with msbracken, and we agreed we wanted something essentially non-social, with pre-existing info.

[ms-bracken.livejournal.com]

I am still considering doing this, as a data science/coding project, when I get a new computer! Several other people I've discussed it with want that too, and it would be a really interesting challenge/thing for a CV (plus a new language to learn).

[cellardor.livejournal.com]

I use GR just for tracking. I used to do reviews, and every now and then if I'm moved to I'll add something, but mostly it's just to keep note of them in an easy way. I'd lose a list. I also like to see what other people are reading so I can add them to my wish list.

[joyeuce]

I use Goodreads in an almost completely non-social way (i.e., if my friends comment on something of mine I will reply, but I don't originate comments). I like the option to search all my books read to see if I have in fact read something. Then I use LibraryThing to catalogue the books I own, and also the books my daughter owns so that her godparents can avoid buying her books she already has. But again, I don't use any of the social features.