Recent Book Activity

Hello, I'm 32 and live with my boyfriend just outside Bury. I love reading; I think I read a pretty wide range of books (especially now I'm trying to complete the 1001 Books to Read before you Die list!) although I still love a good girly book (Sophie Kinsella and Jen Lancaster are my favourites)! At the moment I am a little obsessed by Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire series i.e. the books that True Blood are loosely based on!

As well as reading I'm also into music and interior design. I like watching various things on TV. This week I am loving Gilmore Girls, New Girl and Desperate Housewives!

My main passion is travelling. I think my life's ambition is to see as much of the world as possible and enjoy meeting as many new people as I can!

My boyfriend, Stubee,has been a member of Bookcrossing for ages and introduced me to it and it's brilliant. I generally like to keep the books I buy or get given as I will quite often read books more than once (although this is problematic as we now need yet another bookcase - we're just constructed a library in a cupboard but still don't have enough space!). This is why most of my books are marked as Permanent Collection. However, if there is something you would like to borrow please let me know and I am willing to lend out these books as long as they are returned!

Books I'm currently reading and next TBR:

Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall (Bookclub, December 2011)
Jim Crace - Quarantine

Bookrings/rays I've joined:

Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? hosted by Twinfather; not received yet
Henry James - What Maisie Knew hosted by cat207; not received yet
Will Self - Great Apes hosted by shnedwards; not received yet
Rob Sheffield - Love Is a Mixtape hosted by Megan2112; not received yet

Books I've read since joining BookCrossing:

2012 - current total 9

John Niven - The Second Coming (Bookclub, January)
Bateman - Mystery Man
Jennifer Egan - A Visit from the Goon Squad
Lisa Jewell - One-hit Wonder
Kim Newman - Anno Dracula (Bookclub, April)
Charles Dickens - The Pickwick Papers (Bookclub, March)
Clea Koff - The Bone Woman
Dayo Forster - Reading The Ceiling (Bookclub, May)
Anosh Irani - The Song of Kahunsha

2011 - current total 44

Bret Easton Ellis - American Psycho (Bookclub, February)
Barbara Demick - Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea
Janice Galloway - The Trick is to Keep Breathing
Sarah Waters - Tipping the Velvet (bookring hosted by perryfran)
Orhan Pamuk - My Name Is Red (Bookclub, December 2010 and January 2011)
James Frey - My Friend Leonard (bookring hosted by stubee)
Nicole Krauss - A Man Walks Into a Room
Sophie Kinsella - Twenties Girl
Giles Smith - Lost in Music (Bookclub, April)
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
Ahdaf Soueif - The Map of Love
Ian McEwan - Enduring Love
Khaled Hosseini - A Thousand Splendid Suns (Bookclub, May)
Henry James - The Turn of the Screw
G.L. Banks - The Manchester Man (Bookclub, June)
Mark Dunn - Ella Minnow Pea
Ray Bradbury - Farenheit 451
Trudy Canavan - The Magician's Apprentice
Alice Munro - The Love of a Good Woman
David Mitchell - Black Swan Green
Niall Griffiths - Runt
Tess Gerritsen - In Their Footsteps
Charlaine Harris - Dead Until Dark
J.G. Ballard - Empire of the Sun
H.G. Wells - The Island of Dr Moreau
Ben Mezrich - Bringing Down the House
Albert Camus - The Outsider
Flannery O'Connor - Wise Blood
Trudy Canavan - Priestess of the White
Trudy Canavan - Last of the Wilds
Trudy Canavan - Voice of the Gods
Tom Wolfe - The Right Stuff (Bookclub, October)
Justin Halpern - Sh*t My Dad Says
Judith Kerr - When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
Charlaine Harris - Living Dead in Dallas
Charlaine Harris - Club Dead
Charlaine Harris - Dead to the World
Charlaine Harris - Dead as a Doornail
Charlaine Harris - Definitely Dead
Charlaine Harris - All Together Dead
Charlaine Harris - From Dead to Worse
Charlaine Harris - Dead and Gone
Charlaine Harris - Dead in the Family
Charlaine Harris - Dead Reckoning
Doris Lessing - Memoirs of a Survivor

2010 - current total 39

Banana Yoshimoto - Kitchen (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
William Trevor - Felicia's Journey (bookring hosted by lucy-lemon)
Margaret Atwood - Surfacing
Paul Theroux - The Great Railway Bazaar (Bookclub, February)
Alexander Solzhenitsyn - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch
Margaret Atwood - The Edible Woman (Bookclub, March)
Matthew Gregory Lewis - The Monk
Alexander McCall Smith - The Careful Use of Compliments
Alexander McCall Smith - The Comfort of Saturdays
DBC Pierre - Vernon God Little
H. G. Wells - The Time Machine (Bookclub, April)
Don DeLillo - The Body Artist
Philip Roth - American Pastoral (bookring hosted by starflash)
Tim O'Brien - If I Die in a Combat Zone (Bookclub, May)
Terry Pratchett - The Carpet People
Edith Wharton - Ethan Frome (bookring hosted by tqd)
D.H. Lawrence - The Plumed Serpent
Nick Hornby - Juliet, Naked (Bookclub, June)
Daniel Kehlmann - Measuring the World (bookring hosted by davemurray101)
Jonathan Coe - What a Carve Up! (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Norman Mailer - The Fight (Book Club, July)
Kingsley Amis - Lucky Jim (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Djuna Barnes - Nightwood
Salman Rushdie - Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Book club, August)
Yevgeny Zamyatin - We (bookring hosted by davemurray101)
Abby Lee - Girl With a One Track Mind
Paul Magrs - Never the Bride (Bookclub, September)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Of Love and Other Demons
Henry James - The Portrait of a Lady (bookring hosted by angela861)
Stieg Larsson - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Played with Fire
Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest
James Frey - A Million Little Pieces
Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (Bookclub, October)
Trudi Canavan - The Magician's Guild
Trudi Canavan - The Novice
Jonathan Kemp - London Triptych (Bookclub, November)
Trudi Canavan - The High Lord
Trudi Canavan - The Ambassador's Mission

2009 - total 47

Toni Morrison - Beloved
Alaa Al Aswany - The Yacoubian Building (Bookclub, February)
Maya Angelou - I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (bookring hosted by Caroley)
John Buchan - The Thirty Nine Steps
Jose Saramago - Death at Intervals (Bookclub, March)
Alasdair Gray - Lanark (bookring hosted by davemurray101)
Margaret Atwood - Alias Grace (bookring hosted by lauraloo29)
Peter Ackroyd - The Lambs of London (bookring hosted by jubby)
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mark Skelton - The Monkey Pirates
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - God Bless You, Mr Rosewater (bookring hosted by davemurray101) (Bookclub, April)
Sandor Marai - Embers (bookring hosted by teuffi)
Jeanette Winterson - Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Alan Moore - Watchmen
Miguel De Cervantes - Adventures of Don Quixote (bookring hosted by christina82)
Haruki Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart (Bookclub, May)
Niccolò Ammaniti - I'm Not Scared (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Elfriede Jelinek – The Piano Teacher (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
James Thurber - The 13 Clocks (bookring hosted by davemurray101)
Frank Schätzing - The Swarm (bookring hosted by davemurray101)
Hanif Kureishi - The Buddha of Suburbia (Bookclub, June)
Salman Rushdie - Grimus (bookring hosted by davemurray101)
Ronan O'Brien - Confessions of a Fallen Angel
Ernest Hemingway - The Old Man and the Sea (bookring hosted by lauraloo29)
Nikolai Gogol - The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Julia Gregson - East of the Sun
Louis de Bernieres - Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord
Lionel Shriver - We Need to Talk about Kevin
Jonathan Safran Foer - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Carol Shields - Unless (bookring hosted by hetku77)
Iain M. Banks - The Player of Games
Jeanette Winterson - Written on the Body (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Alan Sillitoe - Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Alexander McCall Smith - The Miracle at Speedy Motors
Evelyn Waugh - Vile Bodies (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Dave Gorman - Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure (Bookclub, September)
Allan Hollinghurst - The Swimming Pool Library (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
F. Scott Fitzgerald - Tender Is the Night (bookring hosted by davemurray101)
Amy Hempel - Reasons to Live
Susan Hill - The Woman in Black (Bookclub, October)
Aldous Huxley - Antic Hay (bookring hosted by davemurray101)
Sebastian Barry - The Secret Scripture (Bookclub, November)
Ian Rankin - Fleshmarket Close (Bookclub, December)
Jen Lancaster - Such a Pretty Fat
Kathy Acker - Blood and Guts in High School (bookring hosted by perryfran)
H.P. Lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels of Terror No. 1 (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Alan Bennett - Four Stories (Bookclub, January 2010)

2008 - total 60

Stuart Maconie - Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North
Emile Zola - Germinal (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar (bookring hosted by wyldetwo)
William Trevor - The Story of Lucy Gault (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Adele Parks - Young Wives' Tales
Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front (bookring hosted by lauraloo29)
Khaled Hosseini - A Thousand Splendid Suns
Margaret Drabble - The Red Queen (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Alexander McCall Smith - Blue Shoes and Happiness
Bill Bryson - African Diary
John Updike - A Month of Sundays (bookring hosted by Isabel-Batteria)
Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Philip Pullman - Northern Lights
Michel Houellebecq - Atomised (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Mervyn Peake - Titus Groan (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Giles Foden - The Last King of Scotland (bookring hosted by Smurphie)
Karin Alvtegen – Missing (bookring hosted by platypussj)
Mark Z. Danielewski - House of Leaves (bookring hosted by afraberg)
Samuel Beckett - Worstward Ho (bookring hosted by stubee)
Sophie Kinsella - Shopaholic and Baby
Victoria Hislop - The Island
Kazuo Ishiguro - When We Were Orphans
Joanne Harris - The Lollipop Shoes
Yann Martel - Life of Pi
Ian McEwan - On Chesil Beach
Muriel Spark - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Alexander McCall Smith - Friends, Lovers, Chocolate
Sarah Waters - Fingersmith (bookring hosted by perryfran)
Alexander McCall Smith - The Right Attitude to Rain
Zadie Smith - White Teeth
Andrea Camilleri - The Shape of Water
Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner
Bill Bryson - The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid
Isaac Asimov - I, Robot (bookring hosted by lauraloo29)
Jules Verne - Journey to the Centre of the Earth (bookring hosted by stubee)
Paul Auster - The Book of Illusions (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
George and Weedon Grossmith - The Diary of a Nobody (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Salman Rushdie - Fury (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Giuseppe di Lampedusa - The Leopard (bookring hosted by perryfran)
E.M. Forster - Howards End (bookring hosted by perryfran)
Emile Zola - Nana (bookring hosted by perryfran)
Tony Ross - Oscar Got the Blame
Colm Toibin - The Master (bookring hosted by perryfran)
Antoine de Saint-Exupery - The Little Prince (bookring hosted by Tuttasb)
Jonathan Safran Foer - Everything Is Illuminated (bookring hosted by cat207)
Andre Gide - The Immoralist (bookring hosted by cat207)
Tim O'Brien - The Things They Carried (bookring hosted by Squeakychu)
Joanne Harris - Gentlemen and Players
Alexander McCall Smith - Love Over Scotland
Alexander McCall Smith - The World According to Bertie
Philip Roth - The Breast
Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness
Alexander McCall Smith - The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
J.G. Ballard - The Drowned World
John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meany
John Fowles - The Collector (bookring hosted by Heaven-Ali)
Jeanette Winterson - The Passion (bookring hosted by perfect-circle)
Michel Faber - Under the Skin (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Horace McCoy - They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Toni Jordan - Addition

2007 - total 46

Peter Kay - The Sound of Laughter
Jen Lancaster - Bitter is the New Black (bookray hosted by book-man-8)
Jill Mansell - Making Your Mind Up
Laura Sayers - Laura's Diary
Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day (bookring hosted by le7)
Ernesto "Che" Guavara - The Motorcycle Diaries
Alexander McCall Smith - The 21/2 Pillars of Wisdom
Chris Moyles - The Gospel According to Chris Moyles: The Story of a Man and his Mouth
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
Guillermo Martinez - The Oxford Murders
Francoise Sagan - Bonjour Tristesse
Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Ian McEwan - Atonement (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Doris Pilkington - Rabbit-Proof Fence (bookring hosted by YowlYY)
Francois Bizot - The Gate
David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Trezza Azzopardi – Remember Me (bookring hosted by lellie)
Margaret Atwood – The Edible Woman (bookring hosted by platypussj)
Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones (bookring hosted by nawoo82)
Ian McEwan – Saturday (bookray hosted by book-man-8)
Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land (bookring hosted by lauraloo29)
Francis Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby (bookring hosted by tabby-cat-owner)
Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Joanne Harris - Jigs & Reels
Jen Lancaster - Bright Lights, Big Ass (bookring hosted by book-man-8)
John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men (bookring hosted by lauraloo29)
J. K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Nevil Shute - A Town Like Alice (bookring hosted by dutch-flybabe)
James Ellroy - The Black Dahlia (bookring hosted by greeneyemoony)
Philip Roth - Portnoy's Complaint (bookring hosted by perryfran)
Lewis Grassic Gibbon - Sunset Song (bookring hosted by perfect-circle)
John Banville - The Sea (bookring hosted by samutsari)
John Irving - The Cider House Rules (bookring hosted by tabby-cat-owner)
Alessandra Baricco - Silk (bookring hosted by OCcinderella)
A. S. Byatt - Possession: A Romance (bookring hosted by chich)
E.M. Forster - A Passage to India (bookring hosted by lauraloo29)
James M. Cain - The Postman Always Rings Twice (bookring hosted by Earthdance)
Toni Maguire - Don't Tell Mummy: A True Story of the Ultimate Betrayal (bookring hosted by book-man-8)
Alice Sebold - Lucky (bookring hosted by PussInBooks)
Paulo Coelho - Veronika Decides To Die (bookring hosted by NICNIC2)
Jean P. Sasson - Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia (bookring hosted by macewoman)
Tom Holt - You Don't Have to Be Evil to Work Here, But It Helps (bookring hosted by chich)
Mark Haddon - A Spot of Bother
Graham Swift – The Light of Day (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Alan Garner - Thursbitch (bookring hosted by shnedwards)
Joanne Harris - Coastliners

2006 (Aug - Dec) - total 13

Louis De Bernieres - Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Chuck Palahniuk - Choke
Haruki Murakami - Dance Dance Dance
Cecelia Ahern - PS, I Love You
Sue Townsend - Number Ten
Ian McEwan – Amsterdam (bookring hosted by lellie)
Haruki Murakami - South Of The Border, West Of The Sun
J.M. Coetzee - Disgrace
J.M. Coetzee - Life & Times Of Michael K
Cecelia Ahern - Mrs. Whippy
Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex (bookring hosted by Squeakychu)
Jeffrey Eugenides - The Virgin Suicides (bookring hosted by rubyjules)
Donna Tartt - The Secret History (bookring hosted by Squeakychu)