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Every book I read this year shall go here!

Running total of 115 books and 29321 pages.

My plan is to read a 100 decent sized  books (or 20,000 pages) this year (1 every 3 days, ish)

December

The Code of Romulus (55), The Twelve tasks of Flavia Gemina (203), The Enemies of Jupiter (202), The Gladiators From Capua (202), The Colossus of Rhodes (194), The Fugitive from Corinth (208), The Sirens of Surrentum (240), The Charioteer of Delphi (225), The Slave-Girl from Jerusalem (209), Trimalchio’s Feast and other Mini Mysteries (130)

December total of 10 books and 1868 pages

November

Stravaganza City of Flowers (478), Stravaganza City of Secrets (378), Stravaganza City of Ships (348), The Thieves of Ostia (190), The Secrets of Vesuvius (206), The Pirates of Pompeii (190), Even More Terrible Tudors (127), The Assassins of Rome (198), The Dolphins of Laurentum (207)

November total of 9 books and 2322 pages

October

Albert Einstein and His Inflatable Universe (192), Oliver Cromwell and His Warts (176), Seven Ancient Wonders (523), Stravaganza City of Masks (340), Stravaganza City of Stars (453),

October total of 5 books and 1684 pages

September

1984 (268), Fever Crumb (301), A hoard of Mathematical Treauseres (339), Dead Famous Isaac Newton and His Apple (192), Winston Churchill and His Great Wars (189), The Sign of Four (153), The Awesome Egyptions (128), A Study in Scarlet (162)

September total of 8 books and 1732 pages

August

Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox (430), Sherlock Holmes the Case Book (250), The Owl Service (224), Larklight (400), Richard Hammond on the Edge My Story (309), Richard Hammond As You Do (258), The Little World of Don Camillo (285), Operation Red Jericho (273), Operation Typhoon Shore (274), Operation Storm City (280), The Amulet of Samarkand (480), Cosmic (307), Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex (322), The Wave (107), Half Moon Investigation (311), Horrible Histories the Blitzed Brits (128), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (123), Quidditch Through the Ages (56), Aliens are we Alone (89), The Sleepwalker (312)

August total of 20 books and 5218 pages

July

Catch-22 (519), Horrible Histories the Groovy Greeks (128), Dead Famous Leonardo da Vinci and his super brain (176), Horrible Histories The Vile Victorians (128), Horrible Histories The Slimy Stuarts (127), Dead Famous Mary Queen of Scots and Her Helpless Husbands (208), Horrible Science Frightening Light (153), Horrible Histories The Cut Throat Celts (127), Map Addict (317), Horrible Science Microscopic Monsters (142), Artemis Fowl (278), Horrible Histories the Smashing Saxons (128), Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incedent (288), Artemis Fowl and the Eternity Code (329), Murderess Maths Numbers (192), What on Earth happened in brief (315), Artemis Fowl and the Opal Dececption (343), Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony (376)

July total of 18 books and 4274 pages

June

The Mystery of The Vanished Cat (232), The Mystery of The Burnt Cottage (216), The Red Pyramid (514), Dead Famour Queen Victoria (176), Horrible Histories York (96), Dead Famous Elizabeth I and Her Conquests (208)

June total of 6 books and 1442 pages

May

Sherlock Holmes His Last Bow (204), Tales of the Greek Heroes (270), The Mystery of the Vanished Prince (250), The Mystery of Banshee Towers (198)

May total of 4 books and 922 pages

April

Grand Prix 2010 (127), Sherlock Holmes The Adventures (317), Sherlock Holmes The Memoirs (256), The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (159), The Restuarant at the End of the Universe (187), Sherlock Holmes The Return (327)

April Total of 6 books and 1373 pages

March

An A-Z of Rugby (128), The Colour Of Magic (569), Stravaganza City of Ships (348), Silverfin (372),The Medusa Project The Thief (64), Walking The Walls (66), The Code Of Romulus (55), Three of Diamonds (237), The Falcons Malteser (218), Public Enemy Number 2 (219), South by South East (171), 30 Second Theories (152), The Flight of the Silver Turtle (245)

March total 14 book 2844 pages

Febuary:

Rogues Gold (215), Titanic 2020 Cannibal City (306), Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief (375), Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters (265), Percy Jackson and the Titans Curse (294), Percy Jackson and the Battle for the Labyrinth (342), Framed (312), Millions (250), Top Gear Motor Mania (189)

Febuary total of 9 book and 2548 pages

January:

The Bloodline Cipher (326 pages), Percy Jackson The Demigod Files (171), Diary of a Wimpy Kid (217), Once Upon A Time In The North (96), Lyra’s Oxford (49), Gone (560), The Knife of never letting go (479), The Medusa Project The Set Up (279), The Medusa Project The Hostage (226), The Great Pyramid Robbery (289)

January total of 10 books and 2692 pages

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Seven Ancient Wonders

by Matthew Reilly

One of the best books I’ve read for a long time, with probably the best plot I’ve ever read. Sadly some parts of the book are really unrealistic and trhe quality of the writing is quite poor. But when there are well written parts the book just seems amazing.

It’s about Caption Jack West Jr. and his team of multi national special ops men (and woman) from around the world. The book takes them from the Swamps of Sudan to Cuba to Iraq and finally to the Great Pyramid of Giza in an epic struggle to locate the missing parts of the capstone (located on each of the seven ancient wonders of the world) and then to stop the greatest natural disaster which occurs every 4500 years. As the squad of 9 are extremly talented it would be a doddle if it were’t for there to be competion from America and Europe both trying to complete the capstone for a different reason, to rule the world.

This book is the best action book I’ve read in a while despite being long it never gets boring and the way they beat the traps guarding the capstones are fantastic.

**** Great book but the writing isn’t good and the plot gets very unrealistic at places.

523 pages.

Age Range 14-18

Contains violent words.

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Fever Crumb by Phillip Reeve

The 5th and 1st book in the Mortal Engines series, tells of the start of traction cities. The story follows Fever Crumb on her quest to find out who she is, whilst she tries to stay alive. This book also tells of the beginnings of Shrike and features quite a bit about Godshawks life.

This book hasn’t got as good a storyline as the rest of the series, and isn’t as long but it’s still a good book, and manages to keep the secrets – which Fever discovers – well hidden until the point where Reeve wants you to find it out. In this book you see a transformation in Fever Crumb at the start she’s a lonely engineer who knows nothing about her beginnings, to at the end of the book she has a responsibility to look after some friends knows all about her beginnings  and it’s arguable if she’s a engineer or not.

In my opinion this is a good book which people who have and haven’t read the rest of the series will enjoy reading.

**** Good

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By Eoin Colfer

The 6th book in the Artemis Fowl series is like the other books amazing, starting in Iceland. This book marks the return to the series for Juliet after missing some of the last books, other characters including Turnball Root and Vishby are also back in the book, after a small parts in other books. In this book Artemis Fowl has Atlantis Complex, a disease similar to OCD, which starts off with lucky and unlucky numbers before turning into split personalities. This causes a lot of problems for Artemis, Holly and Foaly, in their quest to save Atlantis the second most important city to the fairys. Which would be okay for Artemis if he had Butler, who is saving his sister.

This book is written differently to the other books, as you don’t see Artemis’ genius anywhere near as often as in the other books, other major differences are the lack of Opal Kaboi and none of it is set in Fowl Manor, as well as the lack of Artemis’ family, and don’t worry I think there will be at least one more as the ending of this book doesn’t stop the chance of more.

**** Very Good

Before reading this book I got myself into a challenge in which I had to read the book in less than 12 hours. I managed to finish it in 2 hours 47 minutes and 8 seconds (I used a stopwatch).

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Half Moon Investigations

by Eoin Colfer

A few years ago there was a series on television (CBBC) called Half Moon Investigations, it was fantastic and from the first episode I was hooked. Last year while reading one of the Artemis Fowl books (also by Eoin Colfer and thoroughly recommended) I noticed there was a book by Colfer called Half Moon Investigations, and I have ever since had it on a to buy list (though not particularly high up it). Then last year at the lower school rewards assembly  I won the excellence at maths award, and the reward was a £6 WHSmiths token. Recently when I went to a WHSmiths I noticed this book and got it.

I was a little apprehensive about if it would be anything like the the TV series. It turned out to be like the TV series, amazing. It’s about a schoolboy detective called Fletcher Moon (but called Half Moon) who goes on the case that will change his life. The book flows easily and easy to keep track of what’s happening (so much so that I think I may be over the age range) I’d recommend it for 10-12s. My only criticism is that in chapter 10 the plot gets very far fetched and unrealistic and manages to leave a bit of an upset in a otherwise very good book.

***good      would be a 4 star if it weren’t for the disappointing chapter 10.

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Gone by Michael Grant

A truly amazing book. Set in a small town in the south of the state of Carolina the FAYZ comes. First everyone over 15 disappears, then the survivors start developing mutant powers and they’re not the only ones, so are the animals. Sam Temple is someone who people look up to in time of need and he needs to step up to the plate. But sadly for him it doesn’t go as smoothly as he’d want.

In my opinion this is an amazing book, which everyone should read, young and old, and although on the back it says that it contains scenes of cruelty and violence I didn’t find it too bad. Although this book is 560 pages long it feels a lot shorter and I read it in about 6 days and if I’d had the time I could have read it in a day due to the way it’s well written and has very good cliffhangers at the end of chapters (which made it a lot harder to go to sleep at night). It’s a book that you know Michael Grant has thought hard about every one one of the main characters  as they all have amazing personalities and you could think you’ve known them all the time.

This is not the first book of its kind, which started with Lord of the Flies but if all of them are like this then I’d like to read the others.

***** Truly Stunning.

The second book in the series, Hunger is now on sale.

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1. Operation Red Jerico

2. Operation Typhoon Shore

3. Operation Storm City

by Joshua Mowll

An amazing series abour Becca Doug the HGS and Julius Pembleton Crozier on their search to uncover the power of the gyralabes and find the legendary city of Ur-Can in the Sinkyang desert. The books concentrate on the invented element zoridium or daughter of the sun ands set in the year 1920 this book is amzingly realistic as the book incorporates pictures about the characters as well as background infomation the only way you can know it isn’t real is the plot of the story as somthings which happen in the book didn’t happen in history. If you find this story hard to keep up with I really recommend looking at the appendixes when it recommends it as that has maps and other useful info in.  

I’ve just read this series again and found it breathtakingly good and full of surprises every time I read this.

**** Very Good

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Rick Riordans new series about 3 new demigods is set to be released soon everyone who loved the Percy Jackson series like me should find it amazing news as the series is set to be 3 books

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After 75 books I’ve read 20,000 pages fulfilling half of my target for the year. I’ve finished the pages 25 books and 4 months and 8 days ahead of schedule. With that done I’m now going to change the target to 30,000 pages, and if I keep up the form of the last 2 months that should be beatable.

Thank you to the people I’ve borrowed books from as I wouldn’t have passed this target otherwise. I’d also like to say thank you to all the readers who’ve offered their support and encouragment.

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Map Addict by Mike Parker

For it being probably the third biography I’ve ever read the style was a bit of a surprise. (Due to the fact it’s not written in the same style as Richard Hammond). I’d like to say it was a book that kept me reading and hooked. Sadly it wasn’t, as it took me a whole two weeks to read and I had to force myself to read any more than 10 pages at a time (partly due to the pages taking longer than normal to read). Part of the problem might be that I don’t have the passion for maps that he has.  Yes, I usually enjoyed the book but I never thought this is the book for me, one major problem I found was the number of chapters. With 30 pages a chapter (on average) they weren’t  really long, but Mike Parker didn’t seem to be able to write 30 pages  on a single subject, he could write 15 but the second half lost the interest and twice as many chapters would have really improved the book.

Enough nagging if you have a passion for maps or are used to only reading about 10 pages every evening this is a good book. It has some comedy, and manages to get his life story into the book. The best bits are top and bottom five maps, although if you’re on one of the bottom five maps it won’t be your favourite part. This book manages to bring a smile on to your face when it mentions places that you know for example at one point it talks about a farm in-between the carrigeways on the M62 and Mike pursuading his relations to drive him there so he can have a look I drive past this about 5 times a year and is about half an hour away from house.

***/5 Not my cup of tea.