SilverThistle

Well, well, well..I'm into Booklikes for the first time in many months  Quite excited by that, if I'm honest!  So far, so good, I'll just keep my fingers crossed that this works.  Nothing much to say about Zombie Fallout, apart from I love the series and I'm on to Book 8 now, just wanted to see if I could make a post...  Here goes nothing...

Well, I only just came back from the last hiatus due to BL issues to find that they're worse than ever. BL is unusable for me. My laptop died and when I finally get a new flashy desktop PC it takes me half an hour to find a browser that will actually get beyond the spinning disc on the login screen. Only to find the dashboard won't load, my notifications won't load and trying to write this post has been...well, it's been torture.  

 

Sorry I wasn't able to see any of your posts and you maybe are in the same boat and can't see this one... Oh well.

 

BL. Why you do this?!????

Don't know if anyone has posted about this here yet, but just in case not...

 

Smashwords have a promotion running until the 31st May and free books abound!   I used the code AG100 to get the book series I wanted and I think it's the same code for everything but double check on each book page, just in case.  There's a filter near the top to sort them by price - free, 99c,1.99, etc and the link below is for the freebies.

 

Have at it :D

https://www.smashwords.com/shelves/promos/1/free/any

 

 

 

Hello friends!  Haven't managed to get much reading done lately so updates for my Snakes and ladders are in short supply.  Hoping I'll free up some time soon to read but if I did manage to squeeze in some reading... I'd definitely be tempted by this book! :D

 

Urgh, BL just crashed and I lost my new post.  FML.  Oh well...

 

So, I'm a plonker who doesn't know how to play snakes and ladders, lol.  Thank you Tannat and Themis Athena for pointing out how it works.  I rolled a 5 with my dice which put me on #6 and because that square had a ladder on it I thought I could just run up it..  Nope, back up there a bit and hold your horses.... I need to read a book for #6 before I can run up the ladder to #27.  All good, this way I get more books read :)  Thank you ladies!

 

So, #6 is Title has a colour word in it so I'll be going with Country Gold by Heatherly Bell and I'll keep my #27 book choice for my next square at the top of the ladder. I can't find the book in the database and can't figure out how to add it but just imagine it on the slider header thing to show my S&L books :)

 

 

 

RULES OF THE GAME:

 

Everyone starts on 1. There are two alternative ways to move forward.

 

1. Read a book that fits the description on the space number as listed below and you can roll two dice to move forward more quickly.

 

2. However, if you can't find a book to fit the square, don't worry about it. You can read any book, and roll one dice on random.org.  This is to ensure that if a reader cannot find a book to fill the square, no one gets bogged down and can't move on.

 

All books must be at least 200 pages long. Short stories count, so long as you read enough of them from a collection to equal 200 pages. 

 

You do not need to hit space 100 with an exact roll. In order to win, you must complete space 100 as written.

 

Spaces:

 

1. Author is a woman = Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin

2. Genre: mystery

3. Set in the twentieth century

4. Published in 2019

5. Published in 2018

6. Title has a color word in it = Country Gold by Heatherly Bell

7. Author's last name begins with the letters A, B, C, or D.

8. Author's last name begins with the letters E, F, G, or H.

9. Author's last name begins with the letters H, I, J, or K

10. Author's last name begins with the letters L, M, N or O

11. Author's last name begins with the letters P, Q, R, or S

12. Author's last name begins with the letters T, U, V, W, X, Y, or Z

13. Author is a man

14. Author is dead

15. Genre: romance

16. Genre: fantasy

17. Genre: horror

18. Set in a school

19. Set in the UK

20. Set in a country that is not your country of residence

21. Set in Europe

22. Set in Asia

23. Set in Australia/Oceania

24. Set in Africa

25. Snake - go back to 5

26. Part of a series that is more than 5 books long

27. Set during WWI or WWII

28. Written between 1900 and 1999

29. Someone travels by plane

30. Someone travels by train

31. Road trip

32. Genre: thriller

33. Set in North America

34. Snake - go back to 1

35. Has been adapted as a movie

36. Set in Central or South America

37. Has won an award

38. Newest release by a favorite author

39. A reread

40. Characters involved in the entertainment industry

41. Characters involved in politics

42. Characters involved in sports/sports industry

43. Characters involved in the law

44. Characters involved in cooking/baking

43. Characters involved in medicine

44. Characters involved in science/technology

45. A book that has been on your tbr for more than one year

46. A book that has been on your tbr for more than two years

47. Snake - go back to 19

48. A book you acquired in February, 2019.

49. Recommended by a friend

50. Has a domestic animal on the cover

51. Has a wild animal on the cover

52. Has a tree or flower on the cover

53. Has something that can be used as a weapon on the cover

54. Is more than 400 pages long

55. Is more than 500 pages long

56. Was published more than 100 years ago

57. Was published more than 50 years ago

58. Was published more than 25 years ago

59. Was published more than 10 years ago

60. Was published last year

61. Cover is more than 50% red

62. Cover is more than 50% green

63. Cover is more than 50% blue

64. Cover is more than 50% yellow

65. Snake - go back to 52

66. Part of a series that is more than 10 books long

67. Set in a city with a population of greater than 5 million people (link)

68. Something related to weddings on the cover

69. Something related to travel on the cover

70. Something related to fall/autumn on the cover

71. Involves the beach/ocean/lake 

72. Involves the mountains/forests 

73. Categorized as YA

74. Categorized as Middle Grade

75. Set in a fantasy world

76. Set in a world with magic

77. Has a "food" word in the title

78. Set in a small town (fictional or real)

79. Main character is a woman

80. Main character is a man

81. Ghost story

82. Genre: urban fantasy

83. Genre: cozy mystery

84. Genre: police procedural

85. Written by an author who has published more than 10 books

86. Author's debut book

87. Snake - go back to 57

88. Comic/graphic novel

89. Published between 2000 and 2017

90. A new-to-you author

91. Snake - go back to 61

92. Reread of a childhood favorite

93. Author's first/last initial same as yours (real or BL handle)

94. Non-fiction

95. Memoir

96. From your favorite genre

97. Title starts with any of the letters in SNAKE

98. Title starts with any of the letters in LADDERS

99. Snake - go back to 69

100. Let BL pick it for you: post 4 choices and read the one that gets the most votes

And I'm off!

First book finished and it was a great first one to get things started.  Review to follow once I collect my thoughts but I think it's a worthy 5 stars.

 

Finished Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin and rolled 5 with so I should be on to square #6 and spent a good hour going all over my audible, kindle and paper books about a half dozen times to find one that fit with Title has a colour word in it.  All good and I finally picked one I thought I'd enjoy, only to go to put my counter on the board and find that #6 has a ladder on it so up I go to #27!.  Back to the shelves.....Set during WWI or WWII.  I don't really have a lot to choose from to fill that square but I decided on One Summer at Deer's Leap by Elizabeth Elgin.  I think it's a a dual timeline story with perhaps a bit of time travel or ghosty going's on but the dude is from Wartime RAF in 1944 so that's okay, right?

.

 

 

RULES OF THE GAME:

 

Everyone starts on 1. There are two alternative ways to move forward.

 

1. Read a book that fits the description on the space number as listed below and you can roll two dice to move forward more quickly.

 

2. However, if you can't find a book to fit the square, don't worry about it. You can read any book, and roll one dice on random.org.  This is to ensure that if a reader cannot find a book to fill the square, no one gets bogged down and can't move on.

 

All books must be at least 200 pages long. Short stories count, so long as you read enough of them from a collection to equal 200 pages. 

 

You do not need to hit space 100 with an exact roll. In order to win, you must complete space 100 as written.

 

Spaces:

 

1. Author is a woman - Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin

2. Genre: mystery

3. Set in the twentieth century

4. Published in 2019

5. Published in 2018

6. Title has a color word in it

7. Author's last name begins with the letters A, B, C, or D.

8. Author's last name begins with the letters E, F, G, or H.

9. Author's last name begins with the letters H, I, J, or K

10. Author's last name begins with the letters L, M, N or O

11. Author's last name begins with the letters P, Q, R, or S

12. Author's last name begins with the letters T, U, V, W, X, Y, or Z

13. Author is a man

14. Author is dead

15. Genre: romance

16. Genre: fantasy

17. Genre: horror

18. Set in a school

19. Set in the UK

20. Set in a country that is not your country of residence

21. Set in Europe

22. Set in Asia

23. Set in Australia/Oceania

24. Set in Africa

25. Snake - go back to 5

26. Part of a series that is more than 5 books long

27. Set during WWI or WWII - One Summer at Deer's Leap by Elizabeth Elgin

28. Written between 1900 and 1999

29. Someone travels by plane

30. Someone travels by train

31. Road trip

32. Genre: thriller

33. Set in North America

34. Snake - go back to 1

35. Has been adapted as a movie

36. Set in Central or South America

37. Has won an award

38. Newest release by a favorite author

39. A reread

40. Characters involved in the entertainment industry

41. Characters involved in politics

42. Characters involved in sports/sports industry

43. Characters involved in the law

44. Characters involved in cooking/baking

43. Characters involved in medicine

44. Characters involved in science/technology

45. A book that has been on your tbr for more than one year

46. A book that has been on your tbr for more than two years

47. Snake - go back to 19

48. A book you acquired in February, 2019.

49. Recommended by a friend

50. Has a domestic animal on the cover

51. Has a wild animal on the cover

52. Has a tree or flower on the cover

53. Has something that can be used as a weapon on the cover

54. Is more than 400 pages long

55. Is more than 500 pages long

56. Was published more than 100 years ago

57. Was published more than 50 years ago

58. Was published more than 25 years ago

59. Was published more than 10 years ago

60. Was published last year

61. Cover is more than 50% red

62. Cover is more than 50% green

63. Cover is more than 50% blue

64. Cover is more than 50% yellow

65. Snake - go back to 52

66. Part of a series that is more than 10 books long

67. Set in a city with a population of greater than 5 million people (link)

68. Something related to weddings on the cover

69. Something related to travel on the cover

70. Something related to fall/autumn on the cover

71. Involves the beach/ocean/lake 

72. Involves the mountains/forests 

73. Categorized as YA

74. Categorized as Middle Grade

75. Set in a fantasy world

76. Set in a world with magic

77. Has a "food" word in the title

78. Set in a small town (fictional or real)

79. Main character is a woman

80. Main character is a man

81. Ghost story

82. Genre: urban fantasy

83. Genre: cozy mystery

84. Genre: police procedural

85. Written by an author who has published more than 10 books

86. Author's debut book

87. Snake - go back to 57

88. Comic/graphic novel

89. Published between 2000 and 2017

90. A new-to-you author

91. Snake - go back to 61

92. Reread of a childhood favorite

93. Author's first/last initial same as yours (real or BL handle)

94. Non-fiction

95. Memoir

96. From your favorite genre

97. Title starts with any of the letters in SNAKE

98. Title starts with any of the letters in LADDERS

99. Snake - go back to 69

100. Let BL pick it for you: post 4 choices and read the one that gets the most votes

 

Late to the party, as usual, but it's better late than never.  Sounds like fun so it doesn't matter if I'm the only one still taking part, I'll still have fun with it.

Starting off with on square #1 with the prompt Author is a woman so it's going to be Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin which arrived in the mail yesterday. 

Off I go!

 

 

 

RULES OF THE GAME:

 

Everyone starts on 1. There are two alternative ways to move forward.

 

1. Read a book that fits the description on the space number as listed below and you can roll two dice to move forward more quickly.

 

2. However, if you can't find a book to fit the square, don't worry about it. You can read any book, and roll one dice on random.org.  This is to ensure that if a reader cannot find a book to fill the square, no one gets bogged down and can't move on.

 

All books must be at least 200 pages long. Short stories count, so long as you read enough of them from a collection to equal 200 pages. 

 

You do not need to hit space 100 with an exact roll. In order to win, you must complete space 100 as written.

 

Spaces:

 

1. Author is a woman - Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin

2. Genre: mystery

3. Set in the twentieth century

4. Published in 2019

5. Published in 2018

6. Title has a color word in it

7. Author's last name begins with the letters A, B, C, or D.

8. Author's last name begins with the letters E, F, G, or H.

9. Author's last name begins with the letters H, I, J, or K

10. Author's last name begins with the letters L, M, N or O

11. Author's last name begins with the letters P, Q, R, or S

12. Author's last name begins with the letters T, U, V, W, X, Y, or Z

13. Author is a man

14. Author is dead

15. Genre: romance

16. Genre: fantasy

17. Genre: horror

18. Set in a school

19. Set in the UK

20. Set in a country that is not your country of residence

21. Set in Europe

22. Set in Asia

23. Set in Australia/Oceania

24. Set in Africa

25. Snake - go back to 5

26. Part of a series that is more than 5 books long

27. Set during WWI or WWII

28. Written between 1900 and 1999

29. Someone travels by plane

30. Someone travels by train

31. Road trip

32. Genre: thriller

33. Set in North America

34. Snake - go back to 1

35. Has been adapted as a movie

36. Set in Central or South America

37. Has won an award

38. Newest release by a favorite author

39. A reread

40. Characters involved in the entertainment industry

41. Characters involved in politics

42. Characters involved in sports/sports industry

43. Characters involved in the law

44. Characters involved in cooking/baking

43. Characters involved in medicine

44. Characters involved in science/technology

45. A book that has been on your tbr for more than one year

46. A book that has been on your tbr for more than two years

47. Snake - go back to 19

48. A book you acquired in February, 2019.

49. Recommended by a friend

50. Has a domestic animal on the cover

51. Has a wild animal on the cover

52. Has a tree or flower on the cover

53. Has something that can be used as a weapon on the cover

54. Is more than 400 pages long

55. Is more than 500 pages long

56. Was published more than 100 years ago

57. Was published more than 50 years ago

58. Was published more than 25 years ago

59. Was published more than 10 years ago

60. Was published last year

61. Cover is more than 50% red

62. Cover is more than 50% green

63. Cover is more than 50% blue

64. Cover is more than 50% yellow

65. Snake - go back to 52

66. Part of a series that is more than 10 books long

67. Set in a city with a population of greater than 5 million people (link)

68. Something related to weddings on the cover

69. Something related to travel on the cover

70. Something related to fall/autumn on the cover

71. Involves the beach/ocean/lake 

72. Involves the mountains/forests 

73. Categorized as YA

74. Categorized as Middle Grade

75. Set in a fantasy world

76. Set in a world with magic

77. Has a "food" word in the title

78. Set in a small town (fictional or real)

79. Main character is a woman

80. Main character is a man

81. Ghost story

82. Genre: urban fantasy

83. Genre: cozy mystery

84. Genre: police procedural

85. Written by an author who has published more than 10 books

86. Author's debut book

87. Snake - go back to 57

88. Comic/graphic novel

89. Published between 2000 and 2017

90. A new-to-you author

91. Snake - go back to 61

92. Reread of a childhood favorite

93. Author's first/last initial same as yours (real or BL handle)

94. Non-fiction

95. Memoir

96. From your favorite genre

97. Title starts with any of the letters in SNAKE

98. Title starts with any of the letters in LADDERS

99. Snake - go back to 69

100. Let BL pick it for you: post 4 choices and read the one that gets the most votes

 

Couple of not so good things about this tough.

1) I don't know how it happened and can't seem to re-create it despite trying soooo many times since..

2) 7 reads isn't actually what my challenge was set at, I just changed it to 7 afterwards to match the 7 books that were added with read dates.

3) The 7 books are not actually books I've read this year, and one of them is on the list twice. lol.

 

This next bit is a bit waffle-y as I'm not sure how it happened but just in case anyone is interested and/or cares...here's teh waffle.

 

Last week I was wondering how to get my dates to update for my read books and thought maybe I could add some dates on GR and then import the file into BL.  So far, so good but I didn't have many actual read books on my GR either so I picked some that I was planning to read this year (about 30) and added read dates to them and added them to a shelf called 2020 so that it might be easier to spot them if the import worked. The first time I tried I got a Cloudflare 504 error on upload that said it was BL fault (oh rly?!) and it didn't go through. I tried again (and again) and got the same issue. I thought maybe the file was too big so I tried just picking the 30 books that were 2020 and edited the excel file to just those and tried again.  Cloudfare error again but I checked the upload page and I was showing as about 4000+ books waiting to upload (yikes) and a wait time of 7 hours  with 0 added to my shelves.

 

  

 

None of them showing on my challenge though but small steps.  .....Fast forward to 2 days later and it was still sitting at the same stage with the same  7 hour prediction and numbers and nothing uploaded.

 

Then I thought maybe I could upload from LibraryThing.  I had to upload my GR books to LT and then export from there to BL.  Made the file the extension BL needed it to be and got an error message and it didn't import.  *sigh*. However,  now my books had updated to about 6000+ books waiting to upload and still the '7 hour' timeline.

 

Gave up at this point.  About 4 or 5 days worth of imports, errors on the imports and challenge still not updated....

 

2 days later I checked the import page again and nothing was changed on the import page and it was still a 7 our completion time given.  Yea right!  But this time my challenge banner at the top of the dashboard was showing that 7 books had been read in 2020!!.  Wooohooo!! Almost lost my shit at that point!

 

I'll take my wins where I find them and updated my challenge page to say I was planning to read 7 books this year and like magic I've now got the 'Congrats! message.

 

I can't re-create it and have no clue what I did to make it work but somewhere along the line the import (or at least 7 of the books) went through.

 

I'm sorry I can't be more positive, I don't know how it happened or how to make it happen again or how to include all of the books. I just wanted to let everyone know that if the challenge thing bothers anyone, just import thousands of book a few times from GR and maybe an update form LT too and a few will maybe update.  Maybe.  :D  My OCD can't stand that my challenge badges on my blog page were going to be missing the 2020 completed challenge.  It's not the right number or the right books but at least now it's showing as completed for when the time comes.

 

It's probably just me that cares, but I just wanted to share :)

 

I ended up quite liking this but it could have gone either way right up until the last few chapters.  This isn't so much a review as a random collection of my thoughts about the book.  All over the place, but then so was the book...

 

It's a time travel book written in 1957 about a man living in 1975 and he travels forward in time to 2001 via cryogenics then back again to 1975 via a time machine...basically he jumps about more than once (and takes his cat Pete with him) and my mind gave up wondering about paradoxes after a while.  It's not without it's issues and is dated in many ways and at times the author sounds a bit sexist and racist.  It was written in the 50's, I get it, times were different but reading it in 2020 makes the differences stand out a bit.  All the way through there's a running dialogue between the main character and his business partner's 11 year old daughter which was weird and I'm still giving him the side-eye about that, now that I know how it ends.

 

Technological and scientific advancements would probably been a bit of a stab in the dark to try and predict between 1957 1975 and even harder to envisage for 2001 but he had a stab at it.

The newspapers were still made of paper but they were sort of laminated and looked like one big shiny sheet, but he got the 'page curl' thing right where a tap on the sheet corner made the old page just curl away to nothing and revealed the page underneath.  No computers though.

 

Clothes were not much different to what he knew in his own time, just a bit more colourful and mis-matched with the addition of 'stiktite' instead of zips.  I still have no idea what stiktite is but some ladies wore nothing but stitktite on the beach and were quite 'inventive' with it, or so I'm told. My mind boggles.  Nurses wore all white and still wore those little stiff cap things.

 

New words made up to sound like gibberish, ie - Going to the movies = going to the grabbies to see the grabbie stars.  Taking the 'Lays' to get around town.   'Kink' was a word that almost got him his lights punched out when he said it to a woman.

 

He made a show of having wired telephones in homes if you could afford them which was probably far fetched in the 50's and when outside of the home people still had to use payphones on street corners.  He had to send a postal order to the patents office in 2001 as they didn't accept cheques.  He wanted to get a message to an acquaintence while in 2001 and had to send him a card in the post as the quickest way.

 

The common cold was eliminated and cigarettes had been made harmless and you just waved it about in the air a bit to get them lit and Dr's were smoking them in the hospital...in 2001.

 

Money was a hard one for him to predict I think.  He thought that a handyman would be charging an extortionate $5 an hour to repair his robot and that a hospital room would cost him about $100 a night.  Going out to dinner would cost $10

 

All things considered though he did okay and in the end I got an almost 5 star read to kick off my month and I managed to finish one of my very overdue library books.

 

 

Daniel Davis - "Maybe that shot in the fanny had been nothing more than B1; if so, it was jet-propelled"

 

 

If I was in any doubt that the author was American (and I wasn't), that line would have confirmed it.  No UK bloke would be so cavalier about a shot of B1 in his vagina...

Hopefully my Mojo is properly back and I can work through my stack of library books that are still here.  Seven books with the first to be started today.  I can't find or seem to add the 7th book which is Shelter by Dave Hutchinson but I'm ot sure it matters as I am the worlds slowest reader and even on a good month I'd struggle with more than 4 or 5 books anyway.  Looking forward to these!

* Edit, thank you BrokenTune for adding Shelter by Dave Hutchinson!*

Finally getting round to starting one of my very overdue library books.

Last Summer, back when we were still mingling freely, I bought a couple of mystery boxes at a nearly Car Boot Sale.  I knew they were all Mills & Boon but didn't bother to check them all as the seller only wanted £5 a box.  I'll have 2 please and thank you!   Almost 200 books for a tenner...yeah, go on then!

 

How many of those books have I read so far?  Zero. Count them.  NONE! 

 

Fast forward several months and I see a post here from Portable Magic about this book and it got me itching to see what was in my boxes.  Turns out it's a lot of cringe but I'll work through them and am looking forward to it.  I've barely lifted a book for months, whether it be print, kindle or audible, so I'm looking forward to whatever the box gives me. 

 

Have only found one of the boxes so far and can't remember where I stashed the other one but this one is enough to be getting on with as there are 75 books in it.

 

Bring on the cringe!!

 

Gorgeous Scottish afternoon in the garden with a glass TUMBLER of G&T in hand and I've picked the top one to be starting with.  I'm going in! 

 

 

The Playboy Firefighter's Proposal by Emily Forbes