Treated myself to a cheeky little Poirot. I love reading these books, they are short, easy to read and I can never figure the mystery out!

I got close this time, noticed a few clues but yet again the murderer's identity escaped me. Not Poirot though, he got it again.

This book is the first Poirot book in the series. It is told from the point of view of Hastings in a Watson-like narrative. He recounts his visit to stay with a friend during which his friend's elderly step-mother is murdered.

As usual there are red herrings and false turns, and as usual I was tricked by pretty much all of them.

So you beat me again Christie but I'll get it next time!

This is a collection of short stories about a party thrown by Mrs Dalloway. It is not necessarily the party, it doesn't even seem to be that important a party, but that doesn't matter.

Each story follows a different person as they prepare for and attend this party. You follow Mrs Dalloway herself as she prepares. You get to follow a woman unsure of the statement she is making with her new dress, you are privy to first meetings and first avoidings and through all these little encounters you find yourself at the heart of the party.

This collection of little snippets I think create a really good sense of the occasion as a whole. I challenge anyone to read it and not see a bit of themselves in the characters. Despite being very of the time, the experiences could apply to almost any party. We've all felt a bit out of place at a party, a bit overdressed, a bit out of our comfort zone and Woolf captures that brilliantly.

It's a tough read, I'll admit that. It's dense modernist prose that moves through time and space in a stream of consciousness that is sometimes hard to keep up with but if you can get to grips with it, it's worth reading.

A really nice little read.

So yes I saw the film last year and yes I am sort of jumping on the old Hunger Games bandwagon here but so what.

I was inspired by the film and friends' recommendations to go out and get the trilogy and it has been sat on my shelf for months because for some reason I thought if I read them too soon after seeing the film that wouldn't be cool (but also to give myself a chance to forget the plot a bit). But I finally got round to reading them and I loved them so much I munched through all three in less than a wee. As soon as I finished the first one I grabbed the second one and that had barely touched the ground before I had begun on the third one.

So yeah you could say I liked them.

I don't know what I was expecting going into this as I had liked the film but I was put off by all the hype surrounding the books in case they didn't live up to it. but they did. I was hooked all the way through. Even in the first book when I knew

I have previously read a collection of Richard Yates short stories Eleven Kinds of Loneliness  and I really enjoyed them so on the back of that and the recommendation of one of my favourite comics, Josie Long, I decided to read Revolutionary Road.

It's the story of Frank and April Wheeler as they try to escape the vapid suburban life they have found themselves living in.

The book really captures the feeling of post Second World War America that the American dream is dead. You really feel the boredom and desperation as young couples who thought they were going to change the world and become great

This was a Christmas present from my boyf because he really likes reading scifi and I said I would give it a go.

This book follows the story of Tanner Mirabel as he travels across the universe to get revenge on the man who killed his friends, obviously running into more and more trouble on the way, and ending up in Chasm City.

I'll be honest, it took me a while to get into this book and I did spend the first 50 pages just shouting "urg I hate space opera". But I stuck at it, got into it and actually really enjoyed it.

The story does take a while to get going and you start sort of half way through and then have to understand what happened through memories, conversations and some flashbacks. This sounds a bit melodramatic but is executed very well with 3 different timelines running simultaneously, the present hunt for revenge, the events that led up to needing revenge and (my favourite) the memories of the man who established Tanner's home planet hundred of years ago.

Sometimes they are a little hard to keep track of but these three stories

So if you don't know me in person, I'm 6 foot, loud and a bit awkward. So you can see why Miranda would appeal to me. It's not just the almost constant comparisons being made between the two of us, she's also very funny and perceptive about the world around us.

So I was delighted when I got this bad boy for Christmas. It's not your typical celeb bio, it's Miranda's guide to life for all of us slightly awkward ladies (and gents) out there.

And I loved it. I devoured this book in one day and I laughed my way all the way through. I mean there were depressing bits, like when I could just send my friend a page number of something embarrassing Miranda was talking about that I had done and she got it straight away.

But that aside, I will gladly accept Miranda as my like-minded, like-heighted guru. And you should too. It's not preachy life advice and it's not sickeningly life affirming. It just makes you laugh and feel good, and that is more than enough.

So when I was little I had the film of this book and I flipping loved it, so much so that I got the DVD for my 22nd birthday last year. But this Christmas I finally got round to actually reading the book.

And I loved it!

It's the story of a boy, Milo, who finds a surprise present in his room when he gets home from school. The present turns out to be a tollbooth that takes Milo into a magical world where he encounters a string of interesting friends on his trip through the lands beyond to the castle in the air.

It's silly and it's childishly funny while at the same time being somewhat educational. There is some really good wordplay, puns galore and some really nice illustrations.

If you want a break from everything and a quick read that will make you smile then please go read this book, and then tell me what happens on the page that is missing from my copy.

This book follows the story of Rosemary and Guy, a newly married couple who move into a new building but then encounter some very odd neighbours.

I loved this book but at the same time hated it. It's really well written and full of suspense but at the same time the plot is a bit harrowing. It's one of those books that I found myself screaming at the pages in an effort to save Rosemary from the conspiracy around her. But she just never listened - shocking I know - and so I had to just sit and read as things got worse and worse.

So yeah it's a thriller in every sense and I really enjoyed reading it, even if I did have to start another book before I went to bed because I was scared. One thing I will say is that this book might be a bit of a girl's book as although there is lots of drama and action, the plot does centre around a pregnancy and I think there are a few things that won't scare men but will make women tremble in their womb - if that's not too disturbing an image.

This book follows the story of Stephen Wraysford through his youth spent in France and then through the first World War with sections written from the point of view of his granddaughter in the 1970s.

It wasn't the most cheerful book to read over Christmas but it's a classic. It's also not for the faint hearted as the scenes during the war are often fittingly horrific and very visual. These scenes are really powerful and really express some of the horror of the situation to the point of being hard to read.

Another thing to look out for are the quite graphic sex scenes which I found on the day I decided to read on the bus. I know nobody else knew what I was reading but it made me a little uncomfortable on the number 8 at midday.

But overall this is a great book. It is truly moving both in the depictions of war but also the personal relationships that survived it. The only thing I would say about the book is that while the sections from before the war really stressed how much life had changed, the sections from the 70s, I felt, were a bit unnecessary and didn't add much to the book (although I know someone who only read those sections and would disagree).

But yeah, it's a really god book although not the most cheerful of stories. And as a little bonus I got my copy for £2 just because it had the TV series cover - score.