I’ve finished another reading challenge! This time the 45 book Countdown Challenge.
Here were the rules:

The goal of this challenge is to read the number of books first published in a given year that corresponds to the last digit of each year in the 2000s — 9 books from 2009, 8 books from 2008, etc. [...]

Let me tell you of the worlds I’ve left behind.
The third book in John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War universe follows John Perry, Jane Sagan and their adopted daughter, Zoe.
Retired from the Colonial Defense Force, John and his family are enjoying life in an agricultural village on the planet Huckleberry working as village ombudsman and constable. [...]

After a year of hunting, I finally caught up with Sarah.

The blurb on the back of this book does not do it justice, which basically makes it look like it’s all about a teenager in New York, chasing down ex-girlfriends, that could be infected with an STD.
Okay, an STD (read parasite) that turns you in [...]

There are places where kids like me go.

This was one of those bookshop finds that appeared to have everything going for it, great cover, intriguing plot, and it was nominated for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize 2009.
Since her mother’s death (from a drugs overdose) when she was seven, 15 year-old Jem has kept a secret. [...]

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.
Last year when I was really starting to find my feet in the book blogosphere, this book was starting to get some serious coverage, and very complimentary comments, and these only gained momentum, for it’s US release date last October.
Well here in the UK, [...]

No one noticed the rock.
So, begins The Ghost Brigades, the excellent sequel to, John Scalzi’s, Old Man’s War, and there’s no gentle start to this one, we are launched straight into the action, with little or no exposition (at least at the start  – although it does come in spades later, and its for [...]

Us, Engineering A Josh**

Considering how much I enjoyed Looking for Alaska I can’t explain why it took me five months to pick, this, his second book of of my shelves.
But, this week encouraged by Dewey’s Book Reading Challenge I finally slipped it off the shelves, and settled down to read it.
Colin Singleton, a washed-up child [...]

I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife’s grave. Then I joined the army.

It’s Sci-Fi Experience time and the first book too make it to the top of the reading pile, is one I’d seen warmly received and commented on all over the place since I joined the book blog-o-sphere, enough [...]

The snow came down so thickly, it formed fragile snowballs in the air that tumbled and melted as soon as they landed on the horses lined up along the dock.

This one was my Christmas present to myself, and I’m so glad I snapped up the limited edition version, as I feel it captures the ‘mood’ [...]

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Grass blades were tickling Thorn’s nose. This was always how it was when you were crawling on your belly. And often on it was when your were standing up too…

When 15-year-old Jewel Ranson’s father, a travelling trader, is murdered at a fair, she sets out to avenge him. Accompanied by Rainy Gill, a juggler, she [...]