The 100 Book Tag

I have shamelessly stolen this tag from FictionFan’s Book Reviews, one of the earliest connections I made when I started book blogging and a someone whose blog never fails to entertain me. If you haven’t visited you should really do so!

FictionFan came up with the idea to celebrate her 100th post for TBR Thursday and even though this isn’t my 100th post of any description, I decided to do it anyway – and then I realised I am currently standing at 99,907 views to my blog so maybe this will be the post that takes me to 100,000 views which would be kind of neat!

So onto the questions:

What is the 100th book on your TBR list? (In the unlikely event that you don’t have 100 books on your TBR, what book’s been on there longest?)

The Room Beyond

Stephanie Elmas

18-Oct-13

Blurb

When Serena begins a new life working for the Hartreve family at 36 Marguerite Avenue she falls in love, not just with its eccentric and alluring inhabitants and their world, but with the house itself. Number 36 is a beautiful Victorian London mansion that has remained in the family for generations. Serena feels that by being here she has escaped the ghosts of her own sad childhood and found a true home, but she soon discovers that behind its gleaming surfaces Marguerite Avenue is plagued by secrets and mystery. Why does such a beautiful tranquil street seem sometimes to shimmer with menace? Is everyone in the family quite who they appear to be? And just what is it that the family is trying to hide from her?

It is 1892. On a hot summer night scented with jasmine, Miranda Whitestone hosts a dinner party at 34 Marguerite Avenue. Watching helplessly as her husband is seduced by her glamorous neighbour Lucinda Eden, she can have no idea of the consequences the evening will have.

For the history of Marguerite Avenue is more chilling than Serena could have imagined, and the fates of two women – the beautiful renegade Lucinda and the ‘good wife’ Miranda – will reach out from the past to cast a shadow over Serena’s own future.

The Room Beyond is a thriller that delves beneath the romance and grandeur of a London house and finds a family haunted by the legacy of past wrongdoings. As the suspense grows and the fog thickens, will Serena be able to give up all that she has come to love? Will she ever escape? Amazon

Open your current book to page 100 (or randomly, if you don’t have page numbers on your e-reader) and quote a few sentences that you like.

From My Sister’s Bones by Nuala Ellwood the synopsis is available here

‘Ha. As close as you can get to a feisty teenage girl.’ He laughs hollowly. ‘She was thirteen when I got together with Sal. Do you remember they were living with your mum?’
‘Yes,’ I say, smiling. ‘I remember Sally called me and said she’d met this gorgeous guy over the garden fence and I thought she’d lost her mind because the only guy I remember living next door was this bloke called Mr Matthews and he was about ninety’

When you are 100, what author(s) do you know you will still be re-reading regularly? (This should be an easy one for those of you who are already over 100…)

I’m hoping to have retired by the time I’m 100 and will spend all day reading all those books I keep saying I want to re-read but at the rate they keep putting up the pensionable age I’m not sure… In the spirit of optimism I think I’ll be reading Reginald Hill, and Agatha Christie for sure, and I will have enough time to seriously enjoy Charles Dickens again. As you can probably tell, I am collecting books already on the TBR for a time, a necessary precaution in light of this week’s close call when I declared that I definitely hadn’t requested one book that had arrived on the doormat. Shock horror –  I found it put back in its envelope with a big message stating Cleo doesn’t want any more books!! Disaster was fortunately averted, but you can see how easy it could be to get a telegram from the Queen (or probably King) and not have any books left on the TBR.

Link to your 100th post (if you’re a new blogger then link to your tenth post, or any one you like). Do you still agree with what you said back then?

My 100th post was a review of  The Stranger You Know by Jane Casey which I thoroughly enjoyed – and yes I still agree with the review although it is an awful lot briefer than the ones I do now, although it also possesses a very long sentence or two!

This is a solid good read, the plot holds together well with Jane Casey weaving the story with wry humour and clever observations through a number of characters, both suspects and witnesses, time periods and across London boroughs.

Name a book you love that has less than 100 pages. Why do you love it?

A book with less than 100 pages?!? Isn’t that called a pamphlet?

If someone gave you £100, what would be the five books you would rush to buy? (Should there be any change, please consider contributing it to the FictionFan Home for Unwanted Chocolate…)

This is my choice (today) which has had me considering all 204 items on my wishlist and deciding that none of them could be removed – Dear Reader, this is how hours of my life disappear in pleasant anticipation!

American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin looks like a spectacular true crime read but it is ridiculously expensive, even in paperback so that magic £100 would come in helpful here.

After the sheer brilliance of Burial Rites by Hannah Kent I’m so looking forward to reading The Good People next year.

I’ve heard brilliant things about Magpie Murders by Andrew Horowitz and I don’t have many red books on my bookshelves!

The Two Family House by Lynda Loigman Cohen  sounds very appealing and different to my regular reads but is also very expensive.

The Ripper of Waterloo Road: The Murder of Eliza Grimwood in 1838 by Jan Bondeson isn’t out until January 2017 but I will be getting a copy of this by a seasoned true crime writer.

What book do you expect to be reading 100 days from now?

My spreadsheet for February currently contains just four titles and out of those I think I will be settling down to read one of my favourite authors latest books He Said/She Said by Erin Kelly.

Blurb

He said it was consensual.
The woman said nothing.
But Laura saw it…
… didn’t she?
In the hushed aftermath of a total eclipse, Laura and Kit interrupt something awful.
Laura is sure about what happened. Later, in a panic, she tells a little white lie – and four lives are changed irreparably.
When the victim turns up on their doorstep, her gratitude spills into dangerous obsession. Laura and Kit decide to run – but Beth knows they have pledged to see every eclipse together. They will never be able to entirely escape her.
As the next eclipse draws near, Laura must confront the fallout from what she saw in the darkness. Confessing will cost her marriage; keeping the secret might prove fatal.
But all secrets, sooner or later, will come to light. Amazon

 

Looking at The Guardian’s list of “The 100 greatest novels of all time”, how many have you read? Of the ones you haven’t, which ones would you most like to read? And which will you never read?

Well I’ve only read about 3o of these books but I already have two on my TBR:

The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge

The Quiet American by Graham Green

I’m was tempted to add The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer until I saw that it topped 1,000 pages so maybe that’s another book to read when I am 100!

I will never, ever read Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Free Question

Which book do you think 100 children (all children) should have read to them?

Peepo by Alan and Janet Ahlberg

This delightful story told in rhyme is full of equally exquisite illustrations and having just ‘looked inside’ the book on Amazon, I’m fairly sure I can recite the whole book. If you know someone with a small child, you really can’t go wrong with this book – in fact I reckon by the time I am 100, I will have bought 100 copies of this book!

So that’s my answers for the 100 Book Tag and I want to say a huge thank you to FictionFan for making me review my books in such a fun way.

Like the creator I tag the first 100 people to read this post…

That means YOU!