Pages

Tuesday 23 August 2011

A Summer in Books

With September around the corner, the inevitable end of summer is nigh. I can measure my summer in a growing baby bump, a fabulous - if all too brief - holiday in Bangalore... and books. As busy as I've been, I've read tons of great stuff. So here are a few of my favourites. Get 'em if you can, they're worth it!

Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey
This book is so much fun! It's a YA Victorian romp with fraudulent mediums, ghosts and romance - what's not to like?

Confessions of a GP by Dr Benjamin Daniels
This is non-fiction, hilarious and incredibly illuminating - especially if you live in the UK and are all too familiar with the NHS. I had fits of giggles reading it. Highlight: 'Dr Daniels's' list of the weirdest complaints he's ever heard from patients. I think this one is my absolute favourite summer read. And right now it's only 99p on Kindle too!

The Donor by Helen FitzGerald
Will has teenage twin daughters and two perfect kidneys. His daughters' kidneys are failing. He has to choose which one to save... unless he can find a way to save both. I'll admit there were moments all the characters annoyed me, but that's a small gripe compared to how good this was.

Fallen by Lauren Kate
I'd been hearing about this one for ages before finally picking it up; it seems to be something of a YA paranormal classic in the US. The story of a doomed love story between a girl and a fallen angel, it does have its fair share of cliches: slightly unconvincing love triangle, the sassy best friend, the distant-yet-sexy love interest. But in spite of all this I found myself reading it compulsively until I'd finished the book so it gets points for that!

I think I'll leave it there for now. What have you read this summer? Anything amazing?

20 comments:

  1. You have a fabulous blog! Congrats on your book deal! Your book sounds awesome! :D Nice to meet you as well. Yay for campaigners! :D

    And do you have a follow button? Just curious. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, Chantele! Thank you, that's so sweet of you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yay for the Campaign!! Great blog and glad to be starting the campaign with you:)

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Instructions by Adam Levin. At 1050 pages I don't need anything else.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm in your campaign group! love the blog :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hello my fellow campaigner! Love the book recommendations. I'm always looking for something new to read. Thanks for stopping by my blog!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi Sangu! I'm in your YA campaign group. Looking forward to getting to know you. Congratulations on your debut novel! How exciting!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks for stopping by my blog! Nice to meet you. Congrats on getting published!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I've been seeing Fallen and its sequels all over the place . . . I think I've read enough Paranormal this summer to last me a bit, though. LOL.

    Thanks for the recommendations!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I shall keep my eyes peeled for these.
    Lovely to have you back. xxx

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi Sangu! I'm in your YA group and am popping by to introduce myself. It's nice to meet you!

    Some of these covers are so haunting I find myself wanting to buy the books for that reason alone. And congrats on Torrent of Light, how very exciting!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi there - just stopping by to say hi. I'm in your YA group!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Stopping by to say hi. I'm in your YA group, too! Thanks for the great book recommendations!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hey, I'm in your Ya group too. Congrats on your book coming out next year. And I read Fallen and also couldn't put it down. There's just something about that book...

    ReplyDelete
  15. Just popped on over to say hello - we're in the same YA group and I'm looking forward to getting to know you better!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Haven't read any of those, but the latest C.S. Friedman and Scott Lynch books were really good.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I love book recommendations! I'm in your YA group. It's great to meet you!

    ReplyDelete
  18. I wasn't a big fan of 'Confessions'. It was an okay read... A few of the others here are on my TBR list!

    Hope you had a great trip!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Those look like great books! I read Gardens of the Moon by Stephen Erikson and loved it, but I also recently picked up a Princess of Landover by Terry Brooks. They were both great!

    ReplyDelete
  20. So nice to have you back! I've been enjoying a bit more YA stuff than usual. I really liked Entangled and both of Lauren Oliver's books too.

    ReplyDelete