Wednesday New Read Roundup 31 August 2011

A weekly post to highlight new books added to my To Read list thanks to all those other great book bloggers out there. See my full To-Read list at goodreads.com.

It's my Sister's birthday today. Happy Birthday big sis! As for my weekly new reads I only found one this week and I managed to cross off two (The Help and Bossypants) so my list count actually went down!

1. Five stars for a book is always a good sign and so says Rundpinee on The Last Brother (Nathacha Appanha) about two young boys living in Mauritius during the second world war.

If you want to create your own new read roundup post feel free to do so and post the link to your blog in the comments below. Happy reading everyone!

It's Monday. What are you reading? 29 August 2011

It's Monday. What are you Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Book Journey to outline what you have been reading and what you plan to read this week.

 Last week I finished the audio for Tina Fey's Bosspants and you can read my full review here. I really enjoyed it and am so glad I chose the audio version as it was brilliant.








I'm just about finished Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) for my 100 book challenge and although it's taken me a little while I'm so glad I slowed down to really enjoy this book. Hopefully should have a review up in a couple of days.

Hmm so what next? I think next I'll pick up something from my book club borrowings and since I just finished quite an in depth read I'm thinking I'll pick up one of the smaller books; either The Road (Cormac McCarthy) or tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albem). Feel free to cast your vote!

Bossypants (Tina Fey)

Title: Bossypants
Author: Tina Fey
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Publication Date: 2011
Type: Audio Book
Read by: Tina Fey 
Source: Library
Genre: Autobiography
Goodreads | Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk



This has been my first ever audio book so I wasn't sure whether I would like the format. However thanks to Tina Fey providing the reading for this fabulous audio version there really is no way not to love it. Bossypants provides an insight into the life and career of Tina Fey who, to be honest, I knew very little about. Well of course I knew who she was and her shows but didn't have much knowledge beyond that. In fact I have only ever seen one or two episodes of 30 Rock and only see the odd skit of SNL on youtube. So you can imagine I probably wasn't the original target audience for this book but you know what? I really enjoyed it!

I think having Tina Fey read the audio book was ingenious. I honestly don't think I would have liked this as much if it was anyone else and I'm actually pretty sure I wouldn't have liked reading the book as much either. Why? Well Tina injects a smattering of sarcasm that you simply would not be able to interpret through anyone else. I could actually imagine myself misinterpreting the tone of the book if I had read it because I wouldn't be able to hear the inflections in her voice. Also Tina throws in the odd voice impersonation of people she quotes and although she believes she is a terrible impressionist in comparison to others from SNL it really puts another level to this audio book.

In regards to the content I found some of it highly interesting and other parts down right funny. I'm sure I must have looked a little strange grinning to myself on the bus every morning. I'm simply thankful I didn't crack up laughing in such a public arena, I simply had to restrain myself a little bit. Tina couldn't help but include a few feminist analogies, obviously a discussion close to her heart and although she kept most of the book about her work and career she did throw in the odd deeply personal element such as the pressure and condescension she received from others when she decided to only have one child. You could tell she had a huge amount of respect for the variety of highly talented people she has had the pleasure of working with and often doesn't think herself in the same league. Yet I believe she thinks herself lucky to have the career that she has had. You really can tell she does this job because she loves it.

The only part I struggled a little with was the more detailed parts of SNL and 30 Rock skits as I haven't seen many of them but overall this was only a small part of the entire storyline. I also thought it was a brilliant idea to include the full audio of the SNL skit between Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler as Hilary Clinton as it really brought context to that part of the audio book.

Overall I found this a funny, interesting and enjoyable insight into Tina Fey's career and would highly recommend this audio book to everyone.

Listen To It

Bossypants by  Tina Fey

Order from Amazon.com| Amazon.co.uk

Wednesday New Read Roundup 24 August 2011

I was out of town yesterday for work so I'm a day late posting my Wednesday roundup but I'm pleased to say it's nice and short this week as I was starting to get a little worried at how quickly my list was growing.

See my full To-Read list at goodreads.com.

1. My first one for this week isn't actually from a blogger. I received an update from goodreads to let me know that a new book from one of my favourite authors is being released! Yay. Barbara Ewing is a UK based author but was born in New Zealand (go NZ!). I have read The Mesmerist and The Fraud and absolutely loved both of them. I hope to make my way through all of her novels and now the follow up to The Mesmerist called Circus of Ghosts is out. Definitely need to get my hands on this one.
2. Suite Francaise (Irène Némirovsky) is two pieces of work from an unfinished work that unfortunately was never completed as the author died in Auschwitz in 1942. Reviewed by Thinking About Loud I was skim reading this review thinking it wasn't for me and by the end of it I was entranced so onto my list it goes.

A nice quiet week.

If you want to create your own new read roundup post feel free to do so and post the link to your blog in the comments below. Happy reading everyone!

It's Monday. What are you reading? 22 August 2011

It's Monday. What are you Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Book Journey to outline what you have been reading and what you plan to read this week.










Hmm. What am I reading?! Well actually pretty much what I was reading last week. Shocking aye?! Well there is a reason for that really. I am in the middle of reading Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) for my 100 book challenge and lets be honest you really can't rush Jane Eyre. I can't help but find myself re-reading passages and flipping to and from the notes section of the book (which I am very thankful for as there is quite a lot of French in this book and I'm very pleased there are translations for me). But so far I am loving it!

Also I'm almost finished Bossypants which I'm listening to as an audio book on the bus on my way into work in the mornings so I'll have a review up for that one within the next couple of days.

Wednesday New Read Roundup 17/08

A weekly post to highlight new books added to my To Read list thanks to all those other great book bloggers out there.

See my full To-Read list at goodreads.com.

1. An historical fiction about The Great Starvation in Ireland and a family's migration to America, Galway Bay (Mary Pat Kelly) was reviewed at Tell Me a Story.
2. The Language of Flowers (Vanessa Diffenbaugh) reviewed at No Page Left Behind sounds like a beautiful novel about a woman who communicates feelings and emotions through flowers.
3. I love the sound of Ragnarok (A.S Byatt) reviewed at Curiosity Killed the Bookworm about the Nordic myths. I love myths and legends so this should be great. I have his other book 'The Children's Book' sitting on my shelf but I haven't read it yet. I better get started!

Yay finally a more quiet week. I was starting to get scared that my TBR list might keep growing exponentially larger until it was so big it burst out of the screen and attacked me for failing to read fast enough! Thankfully I think I'm safe.

If you want to create your own new read roundup post feel free to do so and post the link to your blog in the comments below. Happy reading everyone!

It's Monday. What are you reading? 15 August 2011

It's Monday. What are you Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Book Journey to outline what you have been reading and what you plan to read this week.










Last week I finished The Help (Kathryn Stockett) which was a great read as most of you probably know since I'm sure I was one of the last to read it! But you can check out my review here. Now I'm reading Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) from my 100 book challenge and I'm really enjoying it so far. I'm always a little nervous with classics because I need to be in the right frame of mind to get into the older style language but I haven't had any difficulty with Jane Eyre and have found myself happily immersed in the story.


I am also listening to Bossypants (Tina Fey) as an audio book. I have never listened to an audio book before but I needed something to keep me occupied on the bus into work in the mornings. And I knew that Jane Eyre would be a bit much for bus journeys so I needed something a little lighter. I've never been good at reading more than one book at a time so I thought maybe an audio book would be the way to go. And thanks to some great reviews out there that love the audio version of this book because Tina reads it herself, I thought it was the perfect one to choose as my first audio book to try. And so far it's working really well. I definitely couldn't multi-task with an audio book like others can but sitting on the bus and listening to it works really well.