Monday, 6 August 2018

Around The Blog With Chuckles


We all enjoy snooping and lurking on other people's blogs right? Why not share those entertaining things you found with other readers and bloggers too! Welcome to Around the Blogs with Chuckles, where I take time out to show you some of my favourite blog posts from the previous seven days and link you up so you can check them out. 

This week! New way of doing things. Recently, I've found weekends so busy that I haven't had time to take the second look through the blogs I commented on all week to choose the best posts for this feature. I know I've missed a few really good ones that I liked due to a poor memory. So now as I read and leave comments on blogs each day, I'm taking a few minutes extra to get some onto this post, adding more each day and knowing I'm showcasing more posts each week. Better time management from Chuckles!

This week!

1) DNF & Y 
Lindsi shares with us the books she has recently DNFed.
https://www.doyoudog-ear.com/2018/07/dnf-7.html 

 2) The Rights Of The Reader
Nikki lists the rights we have to read or not read!
https://breathesbooks.com/2018/07/30/discussion-the-rights-of-the-reader/ 

 3) Challenges I Encounter With Discussion Posts
Danielle shares her concerns.
https://booksvertigoandtea.com/2018/07/31/blogging-life-the-challenges-i-encounter-with-discussion-posts/ 

 4) The Palmer House Hotel
Sarah shares her ghostly experiences from a real Haunted Hotel!
http://allthebookblognamesaretaken.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-palmer-house-hotel-part-i.html 

 5) Book Review-Contagion by Erin Bowman
Jenn looks at some YA SF/horror!
http://jennreneeread.blogspot.com/2018/08/review-contagion-by-erin-bowman.html 

 6) Book Review-Smoke And Iron by Rachel Caine (The Great Library #4)
Mogsy looks at a YA fantasy sequel.
https://bibliosanctum.com/2018/08/02/book-review-smoke-and-iron-by-rachel-caine/ 

 7) Book Review-A World Without Color by Bernard Jan
A man's story of his final days with his dying cat.
http://litflits.blogspot.com/2018/08/a-world-without-color-by-bernard-jan.html 

 8) Book Review-Scream All Night by Derek Milman
Jenn looks at YA coming of age.
http://jennreneeread.blogspot.com/2018/08/review-scream-all-night-by-derek-milman.html

9) Book Review-She Was The Quiet One by Michele Campbell 
YA thriller.
http://iwishilivedinalibrary.blogspot.com/2018/08/she-was-quiet-one-mystery-review.html 

 10) Honesty And Book Reviewing
Bookstooge does a brilliant post about why we must do negative reviews.
https://bookstooge.wordpress.com/2018/08/04/psa-honesty-and-book-reviewing/ 
Posted by at 12 comments:

Sunday, 5 August 2018

Chuckles Chuntering


Those of you who saw my Saturday post will know that the book loving friend of my neighbour has come through and given me a second pile of books to enjoy. He's also going to keep giving me his Jeffrey Deaver books when he finishes with each new one which is great! The down side is that my shiny new bookcase is just about full already! Mind you, I can think of worse problems to have! The bottom shelf where I keep my Indie horror/creature feature books is pretty much full. It might just take the last few I've ordered from Amazon this week. The upper two shelves for fantasy, SF and adventure-one is full and the other has a gap waiting for The Winds of Winter *sniggers* Winter will come and go before that book!

We're planning on getting new fencing in the back garden. My mother moved into this house as a child with her parents when it was first built. Our neighbour, who was also there from the start and died last year, built a hedge as a sort of land border. Over the years, shared cutting of that hedge has become a pain for me and my dad as it isn't even ours so while we wait to see if the house is going to be up for sale, I suggested getting a fence built on our side of the hedge so whoever moves in has full responsibility for dealing with the darn thing. My dad likes the idea so we're waiting for the guy to come and give us a quote. 

Reading is going to take a bit of a back seat as I forgot that the European Championships is on for the next ten days. If it was just athletics I wouldn't bother but some of my favourites like triathlon, swimming, diving, track cycling, rowing and gymnastics are on too and I want to see that. I need to catch up on the coverage so far with a binge watch tonight of the first three days! Until then, I'm avoiding all results! I'm still hoping to get some of my next three books read this week though as I don't want to fall too far behind and play catch up all month!

The football season has kicked off and St Mirren won their first game of the season! We've had a few tough seasons since we were relegated in summer 2015. Two years running we nearly got relegated from THAT league which would have been a disaster. Last year we won the Championship and our manager was talking about his love for the club, his excitement for the new season and his unfinished business. Then he spent the summer talking to three English teams instead of getting us ready for the new season then he buggered off to manage Sunderland and admitted he did it for the money. I hate the guy now. We had to scramble to get a new manager who is still trying to construct his own team and we had mixed results in the pre-season games. Winning yesterday on our return to the top league was such a relief. Now all I want is for us to stay up and Jack Ross to get sacked by Sunderland so I can laugh at him! No, I'm not bitter at all...
Posted by at 16 comments:

Chuckles Chat #76 Scenarios We Love And Hate About Mystery/Thriller

Welcome to Chuckles Chat where great blogging minds unite to discuss the topics of the day mainly in the book and blogging world. I'll be sharing my thoughts on a topic and then inviting you all to share your thoughts. It's ok to disagree but PLEASE be respectful of each other's views! All of the comments on my blog are moderated and offensive posts ie racist, bigoted will not be published! 

NB: I don't follow or leave comments on blogs run by Google Plus, or DISQUS as I refuse to join something just to leave comments, and I won't allow them to follow new people, update my profile or post tweets 'on my behalf'. I won't comment on any blog that makes me sign in using another account.   

Over the weeks I've been looking at our book buying life. By this what I mean is, what are the scenarios in a book blurb that make us really want to pick up that book and start reading? What do we love about the genre and what puts us off?

I used to read a lot of different genres and this was one that I tried a lot of books in over the years. The problem I found was that with my love of horror, I found myself waiting for action or gore, and getting a bit bored by waiting for something to happen. Some of the books were atmospheric and slow burning but I wanted more out of them, which started leading to disappointments and DNFs when they didn't live up to the promise of the blurb. For a while I didn't go near them, sticking to the monsters and gory side of horror instead. In fact, the creature feature side of horror was so fast paced and exciting that those slow burn thrillers became a distant memory.

However, recently I have started looking at the mystery and thriller reviews on your blogs and thought that some of them actually sound quite interesting and might be more to my taste. I've started downloading a few that I've seen on blogs and browsing a bit more through Amazon to see if any others appeal. I know I have been missing out on some good reads over the years but I might be making up for it. Yes I'm sure some will disappoint but that is true of the books we read in our favourite genres too. I now have a lot on my wishlist that I'm considering and will check out the Goodreads reviews before I decide on whether or not to read them.

I like the idea of reading about being stranded. This can be a storm or blizzard trapping people out in the wilds, floods in caverns they are exploring, getting lost in caves, up mountains in extreme conditions, trying to outrun a fire on a hike, that kind of thing. This gives that element of danger to what had been a regular trip, a sort of when a fun time goes bad, trying to escape a kidnapper or survive a killer or stalker. It is classic thriller territory. If it adds an element of the people in the group being killed by a serial killer or unfriendly locals or escaped psychopaths, yes I like that too, or wild animals stalking them through the woods. There can be a bit of a horror crossover with some of these scenarios and that does appeal to me. I like a book that ramps up the tension with every page without being slow and dull, leading to scary near misses or deaths.

I like reading about being stuck miles away for help in Arctic, Antarctic research stations with something or someone trying to kill everyone ie Icebound by Dean Koontz. The sheer isolation makes these books tense along with the prospect of having to save yourself. I like the idea of a plane or ship crashing, stranding them on an island with dangerous times ahead. Lost in the jungle with limited supplies. I also like reading about some kinds of revenge-the killer locked up coming back to get revenge on those who put him away, the person who leaves a violent partner only for them to come after everyone they care about, or trips that are planned in order for revenge to be taken. I like urban myths wrapped up in a tense thriller that keeps me reading, and disaster at sea or in the air.

I don't really like thrillers that focus too much on the relationship angst ie a rowing couple who snipe constantly during the trip or a love triangle within the group. I don't want sex scenes shoved in for the sake of it. I want to read about the actual events, not dumb arguments or tropes. I generally avoid the YA thrillers because romance seems to come into it nearly every time and I find that frustrating. I don't like the book being too slow to get into the story and have nothing happen for 100 pages, or for it to become all tell and no show. I'm not a fan of thrillers that focus on the police trying to solve them as they tend to go too much into police procedure and interviewing witnesses and turn into more of a crime novel. i prefer the crime victims being the focus with little or no police involved.

I've very much enjoyed things like Jeffery Deaver's Praying For Sleep, The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf, Unstolen by Wendy Jean, John J Nance's Blackout and Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. On my tbr is No Exit (Taylor Adams), Stillhouse Lake (Rachel Caine), A Thousand Yesteryears (Mae Clair), The River At Night (Erica Ferencik), Zodiac Station (Tom Harper), Sara's Game (Ernie Lindsey), Fierce Kingdom (Gin Phillips), To Kill The President (Sam Bourne), One Was Lost (Natalie D Richards), The Never List (Koethi Zan). I also have a pile of books by Matthew Reilly and more by John J Nance in my bookcases. I do have my eye on more but these are the ones I can remember. 

What kind of mystery thrillers do you enjoy? What kind do you not like or try to avoid? Have you read any of the books I've mentioned? What are you planning to read in the genre? Do you know of any others that might fit the kind of thrillers I like?
Posted by at 16 comments:

Chuckles Cover Love #86 DK Erikson


If there is one thing that makes a great book even better, it is when it has a cover that we love! The cover design is what catches the eye as we browse through a bookstore shelf or check out the Amazon or Goodreads recommendations. The right cover makes me look closer at a book, to read the blurb and maybe make a purchase. A poor cover might mean I never look at the blurb at all.

NB: I don't follow or leave comments on blogs run by Google Plus, or DISQUS as I refuse to join something just to leave comments, and I won't allow them to follow new people, update my profile or post tweets 'on my behalf'. I won't comment on any blog that makes me sign in using another account.   

 This Week! 

I like the concentrated use of colour on each cover.






















Posted by at 10 comments:

Friday, 3 August 2018

Chuckles Weekend Roundup


Welcome to my feature Chuckles Weekend Roundup where I will be looking at what books I've received, anything interesting I've done or bought or watched and other random stuff. I'll be taking a look back at what happened in my blogging world too, sort of like The Sunday Post that some of you do! 

Please note that I'll be visiting your STS/SP as normal, but I don't follow or leave comments on blogs run by Google Plus, or DISQUS as I refuse to join something just to leave comments, and I won't allow DISQUS to follow new people, update my profile or post tweets 'on my behalf'. I am the only one who does that on my social media! I won't comment on any blog that makes me sign in using another account. Sometimes, I have problems leaving messages on blogs hosted by Wordpress-they try to block me because I deleted my account with them but I will persevere as it only happens the odd time!
****************
Another week has gone by and overall it hasn't been bad. There has been enough of a breeze here to stop the really hot weather in the UK affecting us which is good, my bedroom is finished and looking neater than it has in years and I've got some quality reading done! I got all three of last week's picks read though I did go into the start of this month with one of them but that's ok, and I've already read two books this month! Go Chuckles! I hope I can keep that up over the whole month and can cram in lots of good reads! I'm hoping that a spell of insomnia that hit over the last few days doesn't end up wrecking this month's reading as I get this on and off and have done since I was 15. Still you just have to get on with stuff don't you!

On the booky side of thing, Amazon is annoying me this week. I don't appreciate using the one day delivery service on Thursday to get a notice that the item is coming on Sunday. They'll be refunding THAT payment, I can tell you. Plus I've had two different emails sent 5 minutes apart saying my other package will arrive today and my package will arrive tomorrow, and one sent before that saying it might take up to a week. Talk about confusing! And they wonder why I won't pay a yearly fee for Prime? Service has been getting worse all year but it's the only place I can get all the books I want so I'm stuck with it. *deep breath, focus on the books*

But on a bright note I got to pick more books from the piles that my neighbour's friend is giving away, all FREE! He found two other boxes and I had fun checking them out. So here they are! So pleased to get a few more Matthew Reilly and a few Stephen King, Jeffrey Deaver and Philippa Gregory that I didn't have or had on ebook, same with the Dinosaur Planet books!

GIFTED!













BOUGHT!



Chuckles Blogging World 
 It was a decent week of blogging all round, staying pretty much caught up on everything and working out possible reads for September and October. I'm feeling pretty organised at the moment! My next task might be going through all my book reviews on Goodreads and my blog and checking if I'm happy with the star ratings and changing those I'm not happy with. I dread to think how long that will take. I swear, I seem to want to invent more work for myself!!!

Book Reviews
Russell James-Monsters In The Clouds

Everette Morgan-The Hunt (Tomorrow's Past #1)

Dave Jeffery-Bad Vision

Regular Posts 
I went Around The Blogs as always with an extended version of 12 posts! Cover Love featured DN Erikson, Top Ten Tuesday was about books that lived up to recommendations, Can't Wait Wednesday was Follow You and Books From The Backlog was Demon With A Comb-Over.

Chuckles Cover Love

Around The Blogs With Chuckles

Top Ten Tuesday

Can't Wait Wednesday

Books From The Backlog

Discussion Posts 
Chuckles Chat looks at Scenarios We Love And Hate In Kid's Books and Chuckles Chuntering was all about reading plans and my new bookcase getting nicely filled.

Chuckles Chat

Chuckles Chuntering

Film Reviews
 none this week

Special Posts

July Reading Final Update

August Authorfest!

Book Tags/Blog Awards

Cake Flavoured Book Tag

Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Tag

The All About Reading Tag 

Currently Reading/Up Next
It was a great reading week! I read Salechii, The Great Zoo Of China and Endurance as planned, along with review copy of Bad Vision. I then started my August reads and have already read Wolf By Wolf and Final Destination 3! These are going to be my next three to start off a new week of reading!

Posted by at 30 comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)