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Goodreads

Goodreads

Goodreads – books I have read in the past year

I was recently looking on Goodreads at the books I had read in the past year. And I had read more than I had thought. In 2021 I read 29 books, an average of around 2.5 books a month give or take a few decimal points.

What I like about Goodreads is that it tells you the shortest and the longest book you read. For example, the shortest book I read in 2021 was 192 pages. The longest book I read was 425. Not exactly ‘War and Peace’ but it kept me entertained.

I don’t know about you, but I seem to be stuck in a genre when it comes to books. I enjoy science fiction books. Books about ‘Time Travel’, books about rogue AI (artificial intelligence) and books about invasions from outer space.

Goodreads is a place to find books you will love

f like me you are often stuck to finding a book that you would enjoy Goodreads.com is a great place to look for books that you will love.

Goodreads is set out so you can search for books by genre. For example, when you search on Goodreads you will see 6 sections called Classics, Romance, Fantasy, Fiction, Non-Fiction and Young Adults.

Clicking on Non-Fiction will then give you a list of books, or you can select sub-genres such as history, philosophy or biography to mention a few.

If you select ‘Explore all Genres’ you will a very big list from A to Y, or from Art to Young-Adult. From there you can look for a book you might like, select the book title and read a short synopsis of the book.

Goodreads is a great tool for book lovers and readers of all kinds of genres.

Never Judge a book by its cover

I am going, to be honest, and confess I always judge a book by its cover. I don’t mean I am judgemental about people; I mean when I read the dust cover or if I am buying an e-book then I will read the synopsis on the cover to see what it is about and that would normally influence me to buy or not buy the book.

I love my e-book reader, it is probably the thing that gets the most use than anything else I have ever bought, other than my phone of course. What I love about my Kindle is that I can download a sample of a book, which normally comes with a few chapters and if I enjoy the sample I can purchase the book and continue reading from where I left off from the sample.

Unless you are a member of a local library you can’t do that. You have to purchase the book first and if you don’t like it you can donate it to your local charity shop or give it to a friend.

Book I read in 2021

Book TitleAuthor
Killing AdamEarik Bean
RecursionBlake Crouch
The HumansMatt Haig
The Midnight LibraryMatt Haig
The Time-Travelling TouristNick James
Fractured LightNick Cook
Fading LightNick Cook
Death of LightNick Cook
YestertimeAndrew Cunningham
The Psychology of Time TravelKate Macarenhas
Here and NowMike Chen
InterfaceTony Batton
ResurfaceTony Batton
The Quantum WorldNew Scientist
Lost ContactNathan Hystad
AnomalyPeter Cawdron
XenophobiaPeter Cawdron
Déjà vuPeter Cawdron
The FossilJoshua T Calvert
Jury DutyPeter Cawdron
Lost TimeNathan Hystad
Lost HopeNathan Hystad
MelodyDavid Hoffer
TimeMark Sheldon-Jones
Electric MidnightNathan Van Coops
The CoordinateMarc Jacobs
Time Lord Victorious – All Flesh is GrassUna McCormack
Time Lord Victorious – The Knight, The Fool and The DeadSteve Cole
The Accidental Time MachineJoe Haldeman

The Memorable and the Unmemorable

To read 29 books in a year is massive for me but to be honest, some of them were memorable and a lot were unmemorable. If I hadn’t made notes on Goodreads then I couldn’t tell you honestly what they are about.

I don’t intend to review every single book on my list, but I will share a few thoughts.

Electric Midnight – Nathan Van Coops

Electric Midnight

I really enjoyed Electric Midnight. I was familiar with the main character, Greyson Travers, who is a time-travelling private detective. I also liked the two other characters in the book, Wilder and Heaven. Heaven is the landlady (or bar person) in the time-travelling tavern called the Rose n Bridge. There is a time travel joke there for those familiar with time travel in Star Trek, Interstellar or knows about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which I don’t and won’t pretend I do.

One thing that didn’t surprise me was that a character called Charles King would play a major role in this time-travelling novel. I don’t want to give out any spoilers for this book. 

This book was really an entertaining read and would recommend this to everyone who enjoys time travel and science fiction books.

One thing I would suggest before reading Electric Midnight is to read Time of Death first as this really introduces the character of Greyson Travers. Once you have read Electric Midnight then read The Clockwise Game. This is a part of a trilogy, so far, there may be more in the future but I don’t have a time machine so I can’t comment on that. These 3 books are a part of a series called Paradox P.I.

Other time travel books by Nathan Van Coops I would recommend are:

In Time likes These (In Times Like These #1)

The Chronothon (In Times Like These #2)

Agent of Time (In Times Like These #1.5)

The Day After Never (In Times Like These #3)

The Warp Clock (In Times Like These #4)

Clockwise & Gone (In Times Like These #0.5)

And I would read them in that order.

You can also Follow Nathan Van Coops on Facebook and get to know the author.

Time – Mark Sheldon-Jones

Time

I enjoyed the premise of this book about time travel. I liked the character of Greg and how he enjoyed his new job. On how he became quite wealthy and was able to take his wife on expensive holidays. I also felt his frustration in his marriage. I was expecting some kind of double-cross by the company he worked for TX3. The company had employed Greg to travel in time. There was a double-cross in this book, but not on Greg but on a man who was sent back in time to shoot a very famous person and then was abandoned there by his wife Anne, Greg’s boss.

What I didn’t like about the book was that the story was told from two perspectives, It begins with Greg’s perspective for the first two-thirds of the book and the last third from Anne’s perspective.  For me, it would have been better if the stories had been intertwined throughout the book. Anne’s story was to show why she was ‘justified’ in leaving her husband in the situation he was in back in the 1980s

I also felt that there was no real conclusion to the book and was left hanging. I was hoping that there might have been a sequel, but so far I haven’t been able to find one. If you want to read this book by Mark Sheldon-Jones called time you will find a copy on Amazon

Xenophobia – by Peter Cawdron

Xenophobia

Xenophobia was a really enjoyable and interesting read. Much of this book takes place in Africa where War Lords takes a Soldier and a Doctor prisoner and lock them in a building with an alien. The description of the alien is very alien and to be honest I would not want to be locked up anywhere with this creature. The creature is a killer and not in a nice, clean way. The reason they are put in the building with the alien is so that it would kill both the soldier and the Doctor.

The Soldier and doctor who have been taken captive by the War Lord have to find a way to communicate with the alien. They have to find a way to escape the War Lord and his men and understand what the alien is doing on Earth in the first place.

I really enjoyed this book, though it took a lot of imagination, which I am not short of, to grasp some of the concepts. It was a very enjoyable read. That is Xenophobia by Peter Cawdron (Link)

Midnight Library – Matt Haig

Midnight Library

I have only read two books by Matt Haig, and they are The Humans and Midnight Library. The protagonist is Nora Seed, who felt her life was not what it should be. Nora is in a twilight stage where she enters the Midnight Library. Here she finds lots of books whose pages were filled with lives that she could have lived. In each book, Nora has an opportunity to live that life. It doesn’t work out the way she thought each life would be

This book is really entertaining, it makes you think and challenges you to appreciate the life you have. I recommend this as a great read.

Killing Adam – Earik Bean

killing adam

Do you enjoy books about Artificial Intelligence? This is a great book with a warning of what could happen if AI became sentient and started to take over.

I have written a review on this book in a little depth, you can read it here

More posts on books

In future blogs, I will review a few more on my list. If you don’t want to wait until then why not pick a title from the 29 nooks I read in 2021 and give it a go? Also, you can leave a review on it in the comments on this page.

Happy hunting and happy reading.

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