Journey Of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives by Michael Newton

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
An awesome book, it gave me many 'ah ha' moments and lots to think about. So much of it answers those difficult questions and in a very common sense way.


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The Architecture of All Abundance: Seven Foundations to Prosperity by Lenedra J. Carroll

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
An inspiring and engaging read. Full of advice interwoven with bits of her life which demonstrate how she puts what she advocates into action. I particularly like the uplifting quotes peppered throughout the book. I got a lot from reading this.


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The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams by Deepak Chopra

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a fantastic little book, it only takes a couple of hours to read but it's the sort of book you will want to read again and again. It could come with a money back guarantee because I would be willing to bet money that if you practiced all seven steps faithfully then your life will change in wonderful and joyful ways.


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The Grave Tattoo by Val McDermid

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I've not read any of McDermid's work before but apparently this is a change in direction from her usual contemporary crime fiction. The murder victim in this book is a bog body and may even be that of Fletcher Christian. This leads Jane (a William Wordsworth expert) on a search for a possible missing Wordsworth poem linking Christian and Wordsworth as friends and proving that Christian secretly returned to England rather than dying on Pitcairn. Of course the poem, if found, is priceless and so other less scrupulous people get in on the search with the result that people start to die...



This was a fast-paced and absorbing read.


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The Water's Lovely by Ruth Rendell


Amazon Synopsis
The legacy of a violent death 12 years ago has even creepier resonances for a misfit London family.Guy Rolland's drowning in his bathtub left his womenfolk shattered. His wife Beatrix descended into madness. Her sister Pamela lost her fiance, Guy's friend Michael Fenster. His stepdaughter Ismay Sealand, a 15-year-old who'd encouraged his sexual advances, sank into guilt. And heaven only knows the effect on Ismay's younger sister Heather, who everyone assumed without asking had killed Guy. Now love has found both Ismay, attached to rising barrister Andrew Campbell-Sedge, and Heather, courted by hospice nurse Edmund Litton. The results of these amours are even more devastating than the original trauma. Ismay's unwisely taped reminiscences of her stepfather's death entangle the sisters with a crew ranging from a retired police inspector to an ingratiatingly murderous companion to the West End Werewolf
The legacy of a violent death 12 years ago has even creepier resonances for a misfit London family.Guy Rolland's drowning in his bathtub left his womenfolk shattered. His wife Beatrix descended into madness. Her sister Pamela lost her fiance, Guy's friend Michael Fenster. His stepdaughter Ismay Sealand, a 15-year-old who'd encouraged his sexual advances, sank into guilt. And heaven only knows the effect on Ismay's younger sister Heather, who everyone assumed without asking had killed Guy. Now love has found both Ismay, attached to rising barrister Andrew Campbell-Sedge, and Heather, courted by hospice nurse Edmund Litton. The results of these amours are even more devastating than the original trauma. Ismay's unwisely taped reminiscences of her stepfather's death entangle the sisters with a crew ranging from a retired police inspector to an ingratiatingly murderous companion to the West End Werewolf

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Another gripping tale from Ms Rendell. She is master of the human character, especially its flaws and weaknessess. I read this until 3am last night I found it so compelling.

The Water's Lovely by Ruth Rendell

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Another gripping tale from Ms Rendell. She is master of the human character, especially its flaws and weaknessess. I read this until 3am last night I found it so compelling.


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Friday's Girl by Charlotte Bingham

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I was afraid this was going to be a bit too Catherine-Cookson-like, a bit 'Women's Fiction-y' and although Bingham does have a slight whiff of the Barbara Cartland about her writing style I managed to enjoy the book. I think what held my attention despite the plethora of beautiful women and handsome men was the art theme running through the book. I like books that feature art and artists so this is what kept me reading.


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McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery In Ireland by Pete McCarthy

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
This has been on my shelf gathering dust for yonks so I thought I'd finally give it a go.

It is ok, it's amusing and in places laugh-out-loud funny. McCarthy takes us with him on a seemingly random journey around bits of Ireland in the early 'noughties' (the year 2000 to be exact), his main objective is to drink in all the bars named McCarthy. He meets some eccentric characters who are the mainstay of the book, it is the nosy, blunt speaking B&B landladies and the guiless wanna-be-Irish Americans that kept me reading (an American lady asks in all seriousness if County Mayo is named after the sauce!).

My interest lagged towards the end of the book, I found myself looking forward to the end of the pub crawl - but at least I now have a space on my bookshelf.


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Pharaoh by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
As I'm interested in Archaeology, ancient history and the politics of the Middle East I thought I'd probably enjoy this book. It is fast paced and exciting and I will make a point of reading more by this (new to me) author.


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Books Read in 2008

Reading List 2008

January
1.Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris
2.One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
3.The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice
4.The Seventh Unicorn by Kelly Jones
5. To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolfe
6. Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson
7. One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
8. The Geographer's Library by Jon Fasman
9. Sleep Pale Sister by Joanne Harris
10. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

February
11. Desperation by Steven King
12. Atonement by Ian McEwan
13. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
14 Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
15. The Loving Spirit by Daphne du Maurier
16. The Warden by Anthony Trollope
17. Blake by Peter Ackroyd
18. Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel
19. Is He Popinjay be Anthony Trollope
20. The Poison That Fascinates by Jennifer Clement

March 2007
42 21.The Lurker on the Threshold by H.P. Lovecraft.
22.The Borgia Chalice by Derek Wilson
23 Second Honeymoon by Joanna Trollope
24 Notes From an Exhibition by Patrick Gale
25 Kim by Rudyard Kipling
26. Nosferatu by Paul Monette
27. The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason
28. Skating to Antartica by Jenny Diski
29.Vanilla Beans & Brodo by Isabella Dusi
30 Summer Lightening by P.G Wodehous
31 The Whirlpool by Jane Urqhart

April
32 The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
33 A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor
34 There are no Tigers in Africa by Norman Silver
35 The Land of Laughs by Jonathon Carroll
36 Saturday by Ian McEwan
37 The Du Mauriers by Daphne Du Maurier
38 City of the Beasts by Isabelle Allende
39 The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
40 The Crystal Skulls by Manda Scott

May 2008
41 The Shakespeare Secret by J.L Carrall
42 Ladies of the Grand Tour by Brian Dolan
43 Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon
44 Marrying the Mistress by Joanna Trollope
45 The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
46 Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier
47 Coven of One by Kate Bousfield
48 A Place Called Freedom by Ken Follett
49 The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
50 The Savage Garden by Mark Mills

June
51 A Dark Enchantment by Roland Vernon
52 The Rossetti Letter by Christi Phillips
53 Sepulchre by Kate Mosse

July
54 Winter in Madrid by C.J Sansom
55 From Science to God by Peter Russell
56 The Invention of Dr Cake by Andrew Motion
57 The Cure for Death is Lightening by Gail Andersen-Dargatz

August 2008
58 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
59 When we Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
60 A Thousand Days in Tuscany by Marlena de Blasi
61 Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
62 Lady's Maid by Margaret Forster
63 The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

September 2008
64 Darkhenge by Catherine Fisher
65 The Magic of Provence by Yvone Lenard
66 Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
67 Kind Solomon's Carpet by Barbara Vine
68 The Triskellion by Will Peterson

October
67 Inkheart by Cornelia Funk
68 The Outcast by Sadie Jones
69 What the Bleep Do I Know? by William Arntz
70 The Mozart Conspiracy by Scott Mariani
71 Virgina Woolfe by Nigel Nicholson
72 The Six Sacred Stones by Mathew Reilly
73 The Alchemist by Scott Mariani

November 2008
74. Atlantis by David Gibbins
75 Temple by Mathew Reilly
76 The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T Anderson
77. Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann
78. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

December 2008
79. The Haid of God by Keith Laidler
80. The Exodus Quest by Will Adam
81. The Medici Secret by Michael White
82. The Gaudi Key by Esteban Martin and Andreu Carranza
83. The Judas Strain by James Rollins

Books Read in 2008

Reading List 2008

January
1.Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris
2.One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
3.The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice
4.The Seventh Unicorn by Kelly Jones
5. To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolfe
6. Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson
7. One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
8. The Geographer's Library by Jon Fasman
9. Sleep Pale Sister by Joanne Harris
10. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

February
11. Desperation by Steven King
12. Atonement by Ian McEwan
13. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
14 Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
15. The Loving Spirit by Daphne du Maurier
16. The Warden by Anthony Trollope
17. Blake by Peter Ackroyd
18. Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel
19. Is He Popinjay be Anthony Trollope
20. The Poison That Fascinates by Jennifer Clement

March 2007
42 21.The Lurker on the Threshold by H.P. Lovecraft.
22.The Borgia Chalice by Derek Wilson
23 Second Honeymoon by Joanna Trollope
24 Notes From an Exhibition by Patrick Gale
25 Kim by Rudyard Kipling
26. Nosferatu by Paul Monette
27. The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason
28. Skating to Antartica by Jenny Diski
29.Vanilla Beans & Brodo by Isabella Dusi
30 Summer Lightening by P.G Wodehous
31 The Whirlpool by Jane Urqhart

April
32 The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
33 A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor
34 There are no Tigers in Africa by Norman Silver
35 The Land of Laughs by Jonathon Carroll
36 Saturday by Ian McEwan
37 The Du Mauriers by Daphne Du Maurier
38 City of the Beasts by Isabelle Allende
39 The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
40 The Crystal Skulls by Manda Scott

May 2008
41 The Shakespeare Secret by J.L Carrall
42 Ladies of the Grand Tour by Brian Dolan
43 Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon
44 Marrying the Mistress by Joanna Trollope
45 The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
46 Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier
47 Coven of One by Kate Bousfield
48 A Place Called Freedom by Ken Follett
49 The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
50 The Savage Garden by Mark Mills

June
51 A Dark Enchantment by Roland Vernon
52 The Rossetti Letter by Christi Phillips
53 Sepulchre by Kate Mosse

July
54 Winter in Madrid by C.J Sansom
55 From Science to God by Peter Russell
56 The Invention of Dr Cake by Andrew Motion
57 The Cure for Death is Lightening by Gail Andersen-Dargatz

August 2008
58 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
59 When we Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
60 A Thousand Days in Tuscany by Marlena de Blasi
61 Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
62 Lady's Maid by Margaret Forster
63 The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

September 2008
64 Darkhenge by Catherine Fisher
65 The Magic of Provence by Yvone Lenard
66 Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
67 Kind Solomon's Carpet by Barbara Vine
68 The Triskellion by Will Peterson

October
67 Inkheart by Cornelia Funk
68 The Outcast by Sadie Jones
69 What the Bleep Do I Know? by William Arntz
70 The Mozart Conspiracy by Scott Mariani
71 Virgina Woolfe by Nigel Nicholson
72 The Six Sacred Stones by Mathew Reilly
73 The Alchemist by Scott Mariani

November 2008
74. Atlantis by David Gibbins
75 Temple by Mathew Reilly
76 The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T Anderson
77. Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann
78. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

December 2008
79. The Haid of God by Keith Laidler
80. The Exodus Quest by Will Adam
81. The Medici Secret by Michael White
82. The Gaudi Key by Esteban Martin and Andreu Carranza
83. The Judas Strain by James Rollins