The A-Z home page can be found here.
My theme this year is authors that I've read. More about the books I've read than the authors themselves.
I'm an avid reader. I'm a member of 2 in person reading groups through my local library. I'm gradually working my way through an old BBC reading list of 100 books (I'm about half way through) and I'm taking part in the online 52 Book Club Challenge for the third time this year where the challenge is to read 52 books over the year based on 52 different prompts. You can also find me on Goodreads here.
The T authors I've read are:
- Taylor C L
- Teague Paul J
- Tessaro Kathleen
- Thomas Jo
- Thompson James
- Tokarczuk Olga
- Tolkien J R R
- Toltz Steve
- Tomlin Jenny
- Toon Page
- Tope Rebecca
- Townsend Sue
- Tremain Rose
- Tremayne S K
- Trollope Joanna
- Truss Lynne
- Tsiolkas Christos
- Turley Jane
- Anne Tyler
Joanna Trollope is my most read T author with 6 books. A change from my usual crime thrillers, Trollope writes about the trials and tribulations of domestic life. And I think she's very good at it.
The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien tick the classics box. I loved the Hobbit. I've read it twice. But Lord of the Rings took me a while to get through. I do enjoy a bit of fantasy, now and again, and we had all the films on DVD so I had to get through the book. I always prefer to read then watch. And once I'd finished the book I binge watched the films.
One crime story on there that I would probably never have read if the book hadn't been gifted to me was Drive your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk. I didn't find this book an easy read - it took me quite a few days and it's not actually that long. The blurb on the cover sums up the book quite well and it is about the mystery surrounding several deaths in a community in Poland with an ending I hadn't predicted.
Why 5 stars? Because it is beautifully written. It's clever. It doesn't just tell the story. I wouldn't say I loved it but I can appreciate why the author is a Nobel prize winner.
There's also a 1 star book on this list, The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas.
At 485 pages this is quite a long book given it all relates to "The Slap" that takes place during an afternoon barbecue for friends and family. (Not a spoiler - that's quoted in the blurb.) What follows is the story of subsequent events as seen through the eyes of 8 of the people who witnessed the event. Time moves forward as we are given insights into the lives of each of these 8 people.
Clearly Tsiolkas has a good understanding of people but I found the style of interspersing actual speech with the thoughts of the person annoying. I had to check for quotation marks on many occasions to separate one from the other. And the characters were horrible. I nearly gave up after about a third of the book but I really hate to DNF and this was a book earmarked for a challenge choice so I made it to the end, just. I think it's fair to say that the idea of "the slap" being a catalyst for an interesting book did not deliver.
It also contains lots of swearing, sexual scenes and racism.
What makes you give a book 1 star?
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