Full refresh with added flavour

As you can no doubt see there have been some rather big changes here at the50bookchallenge.com with a full refresh of the site I've added some little extras like the book shop's.

You may notice there is more than 1 shop. The main one is at the top and it's where you can go to buy or pre-order from Amazon.co.uk some or all of the books from the reviews. The other shops are specific shops with specific books like the top10 books of 2009, you get the drift.

you can have a look through the book store in this post but if you look to the left you'll see the link's so you can access them anytime without needing to find this post

by all means if you think there's something I've missed or something you'd like to see more of please email me at the50bookchallenge@gmail.com or send me a tweet at twitter.com/50bookchallenge or @50bookchallenge.

Just the same before if you want to write reviews of the books you've read as part of your 50 book challenge you can just send it via email and it'll be posted along with credit to the reviewer.

What am I reading?

I just got an email from a reader who asked what I'm reading right now as its been a while since I last posted what I was reading.

So, at the moment as normal I'm reading a few books, The first is Too Close to Home by Linwood Barclay. I wont spoil it for you but if you enjoyed No Time for Goodbye you will really enjoy this although its a completely different story its got the same sense of tautness and the feeling of there being more going on than you currently know


The second book that I'm reading at the moment is The lost symbol by Dan Brown, OK, OK I admit it I like Dan Brown's books I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, Deception Point and all the rest and this is no exception its fast paced enjoyable and more than anything its immersive just like I've found his other books to be.

The third and final book that I've got on the go at the moment is Apathy and other small victories by Paul Neilan. I'll be honest I bought this book after reading the reviews on amazon. when it was delivered I opened it read the first page and haven't put it down since, its not a huge book, its about 230 pages but there's something about it that reminds me of The end of Mr Y, The Raw Shark Texts, The Book With No Name and The Eye of the Moon, its witty, funny and decidedly random in an odd but easy to read kind of way

library of the dead

Book number 25 is Library of the dead by Glenn Cooper and is available from Amazon and Play.com

By now you probably know I have a habit of buying books on a whim and hoping for the best, not that this is a bad thing, I read a lot of books on various topics and I try to enjoy them all in one way or another. (even if the enjoyment is putting it back on the shelf after reading the literary equivilent of toffee and weetabix.)

When I bought Library of the Dead by Glenn Cooper for once I read the bumpf on the back of the book, saw the sticker Asda had added claiming it wa better than The Da Vinci Code and was impressed. I held out hope that it was as good a story and till about half way through it was. Following the 3 different stories within which all come together at the end was a nice touch... But (and you knew that was coming did'nt you) from about half way maybe a bit further it floundered, the premise of the book was lost within its own pages and the story fell apart before being pushed on to life support at the end and pushed off into the happily ever after world.

It was a shame really as up until the 3/4 way through it was a pretty decent story with a couple of nice twists, the ending though was more than a little contrived, not to mention the story seemed to stutter to a halt a couple of times.

Ive got to say i did enjoy the forst 3/4's but the last bit seemed to have been wrote by someone other than the author, it was like someone else had finished the book as quickly as possible rather than letting the story and the characters play out.

I cant say I didnt enjoy it, but I also cant say I did. It's not better than the da vinci code as was touted on the cover because its completly different both in context and style.

Would I buy it again if the dog ate it, probably not. Would I read it again or give it to a friend to read? yeah probably.

EDIT- I know in my last post I mentioned that there would be a post in which I labled my top ten books of the year. Due to a family emergency I've not been able to get around to it, although now everything is getting back to normal I hope to have it posted soon. sorry for the wait