Pick-a-Shelf discussion

Shelf 1 - Paranormal
Book 1 - Dracula
4 stars

Shelf 2 - to-read
Book 2 - The Thirteenth Tale

Sarah - your title is TOO CUTE.

Finished The Thirteenth Tale 4 to 4.5 stars

Shelf 3 - currently-reading
Book 3 - Peter Pan

Finished Peter Pan - quite a dark story, loved it but would not recommend for young children. 4 stars

Shelf 4 - classics
Book 4 - Lost Horizon
3 stars

Shelf 5 - fiction
Book 5 - The Good Earth
3.5 stars

Shelf 6 - historical-fiction
Book 6 - A Study in Scarlet

Sarah, I loved A Study in Scarlet!

Me too! I haven't read a lot of mystery in the past so I'm catching up with Holmes and loving it.

Finished A Study in Scarlet
4 stars

Shelf 7 - mystery
Book 7 - The Sign of Four
4 stars

Shelf 8 - sherlock-holmes
Book 8 - The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Hound of the Baskervilles - 4.5 stars

Shelf 9 - classic
Book 9 - The Valley of Fear
4.5 stars

Shelf 10 - crime
Book 10 - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
4 stars

Shelf 11 - short-stories
Book 11 - The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
4 stars - I think I preferred the novel length mysteries but I'm still enjoying the series.

Shelf 12 - detective
Book 12 - The Return of Sherlock Holmes

Sarah, you really are on a Sherlock Holmes ride. I think I read all of them except Valley of Fear. I agree with you about enjoying the novel-length stories more. I'll be interested to see what you think of The Return of SH

The Return of Sherlock Holmes - 4.5 stars
A suitably impressive return from the dead for Holmes and another nice collection of short mysteries.

Shelf 13 - kindle
Book 13 - His Last Bow
4.5 stars - another impressive collection and I'm finally starting to guess some of the solutions.
The final story also called "His Last Bow" has one of the most beautifully descriptive opening paragraphs I have ever read.

Shelf 14 - ebooks
Book 14 - The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
4 stars - I'm finally at the end of my collection! This last set of mysteries had a different feel to the earlier works - some were quite gothic in nature.
Still enjoyable even if dear Watson is missing on a couple of occasions.

Shelf 15 will be "own" but I haven't decided on a book yet.

Shelf 15 - own
Book 15 - First Among Sequels
5 stars, I love Fforde's books and you get more out of them each time you read them. This one finishes on a cliff-hanger and it looks like it will be a while before we get the next Next.

Shelf 16 - fantasy
Book 16 - Mostly Harmless

Way to go Sarah - I think you are winning the battle!

Thanks Leonie but is the battle ever won? :)

Mostly Harmless is definitely the weakest of the Hitchhiker's series so only 3 stars. It was ok but not up to Adams' normal standard.

Shelf 17 - sci-fi
Book 17 - Trading in Danger
3.5 stars
I downloaded this for free from Suvudo a while back and was pleasantly surprised. Don't know if I'll bother with the rest of the series but this one was mostly self contained.

Shelf 18 - science-fiction
Book 18 - The Big Over Easy

Didn't manage to get The Big Over Easy back off my brother so book 18 was changed to Eragon.

Shelf 19 - young-adult
book 19 - Eldest

Shelf 20 - dragons
Book 20 - Brisingr

I forgot I'd sworn not to read this series when I fell over a beautiful boxed set of hard covers at a bargain price.
Now that I have read it I'm not sure how to rate this series... I think I'll have to go with a middle of the line 3 stars.
On one hand they were pretty bad, the main character is a blatant example of self-insertion and the author is way too attached to his thesaurus (I'm pretty well educated and I had to stop and look things up once or twice).
On the other hand the books are readable especially if you only take a few chapters at a time.

Maybe it's a case of it's so bad it's good. Also pretty amusing if you play 'spot the fantasy best seller'. I will probably read the fourth when it comes out.


Shelf 21 (if I have time) - series

Sarah wrote: ". . . the author is way too attached to his thesaurus. . ."

That's exactly how I felt when I read them, Sarah! Eldest seemed to be especially bad. Here's a quote from my review of Eldest: "It felt like he went through his manuscript with an open thesaurus and included every fancy word he could find. Or maybe I should say he included every extravagant, flamboyant, frilly, grandiose, or ostentatious word he could find. Don't get me wrong, I like a fancy word here and there, but it has to fit in with the sentence and not call attention to itself."