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
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This week I'm taking a look at recommendations and where we get them.
I'm not a great one for offering recommendations to anyone other than my dad! I know his reading tastes are the same as mine so I can easily hand him the books I've finished reading and know he'll pretty much like all of them. I'm less keen on recommending to online friends as I know less about your specific reading tastes even though I know the genres most of you like. I'd rather write the reviews and talk about what I like and why, and let those looking at the blog see for themselves what they like the sound of reading. That means it's not really my fault if you don't like it! (coughs*cop out*coughs)
Where do I get my recs from then? Basically, when I visit blogs I try to read as many reviews in the genres of apocalypse, horror, urban fantasy, as I can. I look at the occasional fantasy review or other things that catch my eye too. I never hold the blog owner responsible if I decide to buy a book based on their review or promotion aand don't like it as nobody forced me to try it! Let's face it, you never know what you're getting from any book you pick up!
I also get an email delivered to me daily from https://www.bookbub.com/. You sign up to them, choose the genres that interest you and they will email you with any bargain books in that genre they find that day. I've found a few interesting books I haven't heard of through this and it's simple to change the genres to increase or decrease the options sent to you.
Mainly though, I get my recs from Amazon. When I read my first prepper apocalypse books from Amazon, I started getting tons of recs for lots of Indie books in the genre. Through this, I have discovered some really great books and a good few duff ones as well, but I'm never short of new ones to try. I view my Amazon page once a week to see what else they are showing me, and then I research the books to decide which I want to sample or buy or delete from the page. The only frustration I get from Amazon is that even when I delete books 1-5 in a series, they STILL offer me book six when it comes out! I wish there was an option for deleting where you could choose 'I'm not interested in this author' instead of deleting 20 from an author you hate!
The one place I never use recs from is Goodreads because they always offer me crap and they aren't based on what I'm reading at all. If I read a Stephen King book, for example, they offer books from the shelves of other people who once shelved that same book so I end up offered a ton of romance, contemporary, erotica, crime etc which I just never read. I complained countless times to Goodreads about this but they just ignore me so I never even bother looking at what they offer now. At least Amazon try to tailor it to my tastes!
Do you recommend a lot of books to people? Where do you get your recommendations from? Do you use Goodreads or Amazon recommendations?
If you count my apocalypse and zombie books together, it was a great reading year but I feel that I just didn't read enough non-zombie apocalypse this year, something I intend to rectify next year! But now lets take a look at the best apocalypse books and series I read last year.
I've read all of the series by David Nelson and enjoyed this community based survivor saga. Playing God is a stand alone conspiracy virus thriller, EMP at the moment has only one book in the series and no sign of a follow up yet and Final Dawn is a completed series that you can now get in full omnibus version. Dark Days rough roads is a two book series which I intend to finish in 2018, while Curtain Fall, Downfall and Surviving the Fall are continuing series. Surviving the Fall will be released as an omnibus after the serial novel has been published in full so I'm waiting for that. The Dead Familiar is a great book, as is the follow up but I was a little disappointed with the third book. There is no sign of the next book in that series yet.
Here are a few more decent apocalypse books I read in 2017. EMP was a decent read about a community working together after the apocalypse, just not as good as the others I've read this year. Dust to Dust was a read and review book from the author and I feel this series has potential if the MC is less annoying! Still a decent read though.
Now to look at the books I was disappointed with in the genre.
Yes
that's me trying to wade through my room to get to the book I'm looking
for! I've been threatening for a while to show off how bad my shelves
are so now I'm going to do it. It might take a few posts! I hope by the
end of 2018 it will look better so this is a new challenge!
Bookshelf 4:
Red Ikea 6 shelf unit. You can only see part of the bookcase as it is hidden behind various bags of stuff I need to sort through! This photo shows the top two shelves. The back row of both shelves features videos. The front of the top shelf are some of my dvd boxsets including Buffy, Angel and history boxsets about wars US Presidents. The front of the lower shelf is my paperback mountain climbing books, along with the Cursed Child and Fantastic Beasts books. On the wall are the masks I bought in South Africa on my last visit. The mess on the left needs to be ignored thank you!
The next two shelves can hardly be seen behind that red sleeping bag-don't ask!-the back of these shelves have books on war, history and other non fiction things. The front of the first shelf are YA series by Suzy Turner, David Estes, DelSheree Gladden and mafia novels. The front of the lower shelf is mainly Indie and self published including John Hartness, Rhiannon Frater, Philip Henry and KA Stewart.
The bottom two shelves are encyclopedias and an Elvis magazine and dvd collection.
Bookshelf 5:
MFI Black 5 shelf unit. These are my main apocalypse and zombie books, and the back of these shelves are dvd docs and disaster videos, assorted horror books.
Here is a close up of the first two shelves. The top shelf is my Michael Stephen Fuchs and G Michael Hopf series. The second shelf is just my Darrell Maloney books!
The next shelf has my Dirk Patton and A American books.
The bottom two shelves are a bit hidden behind the plastic drawers I keep my clothes in so apologies for the quality! These are my ZA Recht, JL Bourne, Arthur T Bradley, Eli Constant, David Nelson, Bobby Adair, Rachel Aukes, Ben Reeder, and lots more! The bit of orange fur is my King Louie cuddly toy!
Bookshelf 6:
This is the 3 shelf bookcase beside my bed. The bottom shelf is hidden behind piles of books at the moment! The top shelf are my audio cds for Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, and my dvds of Harry Potter and Jurassic Park! The other two shelves are my prepper non fiction books, Harry Potter paperbacks and Coronation Street DVD box sets. The piles of books are a mixture of apocalypse, politics, horror...most of what I bought recently and have nowhere to put them! Note the handy baseball bat for defence right beside the bed!
So you can see the size of the task ahead of me for tidying up the shelves and getting everything looking nice and neat but I hope to get stuck into that this year! Wish me luck, I'll need it!
Yes that's me trying to wade through my room to get to the book I'm looking for! I've been threatening for a while to show off how bad my shelves are so now I'm going to do it. It might take a few posts! I hope by the end of 2018 it will look better so this is a new challenge! The pictures will show you how Chuckles Book Cave got its name!
Bookshelf 1:
Here is the bookcase at the foot of my bed, 2 shelves featuring big encyclopedias about sharks, American Civil War, dinosaurs, snakes, Elvis, Beatles, WW2, herbal medicine and JFK assasination on the top shelf and US and UK history on the bottom shelf. On the left of the photo you can see Dave the pumpkin wearing his Hufflepuff hat, sitting on my Egyptian lamp, and beside him are my Isis mirror (the goddess not the terrorists) and Anubis dagger sarcophagus. The books stacked behind Dave are Game of Thrones companion books, illustrated editions and books on nuclear war.
Bookshelf 2:
Blue Ikea 6 shelf unit situated on the same wall but on the other side of the TV unit. As you can see it is stuffed to capacity! It's a nightmare for sure. On my door you might just make out the wanted poster for Sirius Black and my Game of Thrones bag!
This photo is the first two shelves on this unit in clearer detail. On the top shelf the back row has my sport videos, and the books at the front are my political collection. On the second shelf the back row has my Wii and Playstation games and that mess at the front are some of my urban fantasy series still to be read like Carrie Vaughn, Rob Thurman, Kelly Meding, along with a few books set aside for the dog and other challenges coming up.
This photo of the next two shelves. The back of the first shelf has fiction I've read or still to read by the likes of Dan Brown, Michael Crichton, Jeffrey Deaver, John Nance, James Patterson and other thrillers and mysteries. The front of that shelf is more unread urban fantasy by Jennifer Estep, Lucy Snyder, the Artemis Fowl books, Hunter Shea, DD Barant and assorted stand-alone books.. The books turned the right way are apocalypse series by KW Callahan. The front of the second shelf has apocalypse books by Chris Pike, GR Carter, Grace Hamilton, David Nelson, Joseph Talluto, Kate Morris, Franklin Horton and Robert Brown.
And the final two on this bookshelf. In at the back are completed urban fantasy series by Kelley Armstrong, Jennifer Rardin, Charlaine Harris, Jeaniene Frost, James R Tuck etc and the front features apocalypse books by Robert Boren, Kenneth Cary and John Campbell. The final shelf at the back has Michael Palin, hardbacks by Stephen King and true crime. The front of that shelf isn't too clear but that is my Tudor fiction collection!
Bookshelf 3:
Grey Ikea 6 shelf unit. This is for trade paperbacks and heavier books. You can only see five shelves as the bottom one wouldn't focus!
This is a close up of the top two shelves. The back row of the top shelf has videos on it and the back of the second shelf has my Lord of the Rings and pretty copies of Game of Thrones and Harry Potter that are too nice to read! The front of the two shelves features A-K authors Patricia Briggs, Kelley Armstrong hardbacks,Rachel Caine, The Hunger Games, MR Carey, Kevin Hearne, Ryan Graudin, Benedict Jacka, Melanie Karsak, Elizabeth Briggs etc.
The next two shelves are filled at the back by books I read and decided to keep but won't read again for a while ie my favourite Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Richard Laymon books. The front two rows of the shelf continue the alphabetical M-Z including John Marsden, CE Murphy, Matthew Reilly, Nicholas Olivo, Rob Thurman, Carrie Vaughn, Jaye Wells. The books on the right side of the lower shelf are my Indie horrors by Hunter Shea, Rick Chesler, Viktor Zarkov, Jonah Buck etc.
The final two shelves of that unit are full of mountain climbing and political hardbacks and some books on Ancient Egypt and mythology. This is the mountain climbing shelf and you can just see a corner of the Knight Bus! The bottom shelf wouldn't focus right so it's a partial pic!
My other three bookshelves feature on part 2!
It seems that I read a lot more urban fantasy this year than I thought I had-though I DNFed a lot of it as well. I'm falling out of love with this genre a bit as there is too much emphasis now on stupid characters, dumb romances and tropes like love triangles. This is what stopped me reading YA so I hope that modern UF is not going to totally switch me off.
Here are the best of the urban fantasy I looked at.
Firstly, these are books I read in ongoing series that I enjoy. I completed the Morganville Vampires this year, got my hands on the short stories from the Deacon Chalk series,and finally got my hands on the start of Elena's story in graphic novel form!
These are the series I read for the first time and will continue with.
These are the series I'm probably going to try another book from.
These are series I liked what I read but not sure yet if I'd continue on with them. I'm still thinking about it!
Disappointing reads for this year that I did finish.
DNFs that I really didn't like!
