Literature: 42 Books within 5 months!

I had decided a few months ago that I was going to write a book review for every book that I read but since May I have been busy and not had the chance to do a book review for every book that I have because between the months of May to September I have read 40 books – which would be a lot of book reviews! Yes, I have been busy reading! But have been busy doing other things too – work gets in the way of doing other things!

It would take me a while to write a review for each individual book so I have decided just to condense it and give a review of which genres, authors and books I read within those 5 months.

So what have I read?  There has been a mix including:

• Christian books - there have been 12 of these read in total including authors such as Max Lucado, Vaughan Roberts, and Rico Tice as well as others.
• A collection of Short Stories called ‘Nocturnes’ by Kazuo Ishiguro
• A book about how the brain works called ‘Sane New World’ by Ruby Wax
• Three Children’s books – ‘Brain Freeze’ by Tom Fletcher and ‘The World Worst Children’ and ‘Awful Auntie’ by David Walliams
• Two true stories – “The Tumor’ by John Grisham and ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ by Mitch Albom
• A historical mystery book called “The Watchmaker’s Daughter” by C.J Archer which is part of a series called ‘Glass and Steel’
• Two Thrillers - ‘Gone Girl’ by Gillian Flynn and ‘The Retreat’ by Mark Edwards
• And four books which I would class under Contemporary Fiction which are:
• Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult
• Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
• The Things We Wish Were True by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen
• The Godforsaken Daughter by Christine McKenna

But mostly I have been reading Crime Fiction (16 in total). A couple of years ago I never really liked crime fiction and the only ones I really read where Jack Reacher Books by Lee Child – but some would argue they aren’t true crime fiction but the definition of crime fiction is that it is a literary genre that fictionalises crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives – and crime definitely happens in the Jack Reacher series.

However a couple of years ago my friend introduced me to other crime writers and now I seem to be reading them all the time. And the locations where these crimes happen include America, Sweden, Northern Ireland, and England!

In the Northern Ireland Crime Fiction, two writers whom I have recently got into are Adrian McKinty and Brian McGilloway whose novels are both set in their home country with McKinty’s Detective Sean Duffy’s series (currently seven in the series) being set in Carrickfergus and McGilloway’s DI Lucy Black series (currently four in the series) set in Derry.

Both writers are great and their books are really good and reading them as a Northern Irish person makes them more interesting as I can picture some of the places where the stories and crimes take place. In May I read ‘In the Morning I’ll be Gone’ by Adrian McKinty (no. 3 in the series) and in September I read ‘Bad Blood’ by Brian McGilloway (no. 4 in the series – and currently the last, so am hoping more in this series will be written).

In the Swedish Crime Fiction, I recently read ‘Still Waters’ by Viveca Sten which follows the work of Detective Thomas Anderasson. I really enjoyed this book and there are more in the series which I am looking forward to reading. And reading this made me want to go and visit Sweden, a place I have never been before.

In the English Crime Fiction, I have been reading Damien Boyd who sets his DCI Nixon series (currently eight in the series) in Avon and Somerset and LJ Ross who sets her DCI Ryan series (currently eight in the series) in Northumberland.

I must confess in August I read three of Damien Boyd’s books: ‘Swansong’, ‘Kickback’ and ‘Dead Level’ all within three days.  I just couldn’t put them down and after reading one I had to continue to read the next one in order to find out what was going to happen next. But before that in June, I had already read the first two books: ‘Head in the Sand’ and ‘As the Crow Flies’

This is the same with LJ Ross as in September within three days I read ‘Angel’, ‘Highforce’ and ‘Cragside’. I read ‘Angel’ over 24 hours and then after reading the last chapter of it, where DI McKenzie was kidnapped, I needed to read ‘Highforce’, the next one in the series to find out what happened to her – and I stayed up to 2am reading half the book and finished it the next day. And if that wasn’t enough I then started on ‘Cragside’ – book 6 in the series. But before all that in June I had already read ‘Sycamore Gap’, the first in the series and then in August, I read ‘Heavenfield’, the second in the series.

They are excellent books – all of them in both series. And now I feel like DCI Nixon and DCI Ryan are friends as I have read so much about them!

And in American Fiction I have read ‘Alert’ by James Patterson which is part of the Detective Michael Bennett series (there are eight in the series so far) and they are set in New York. Then there was ‘No Middle Name’ which is a collection of short stories all about Jack Reacher by Lee Child who is an ex-Military Policeman but now a Nomad, travelling around America – but wherever he goes trouble seems to find him!!. And the last book was ‘Shakedown’ by Joel Goldman which is part of the Special Agent Jack Davis series (there are four in the series so far).

I do seem to read a diverse mix of books and here is to doing some more reading! It is great to read and get lost in another world and escape from real life for a moment or two!