One of the ways I deal with my depression is by reading. I've tried to increase the number of books I read every year and one way I do this is through Goodreads annual reading challenge. This year I've pledged to read 20 books (lets see how this goes). I've been using this site for a few years and I use it to find new recommendations and reviews on books. They have an app so you can download it on your phone or tablet.
The reason I love reading is because its very soothing and you lose yourself in the book, with the characters. With exam season, I didn't have much time to read but I'm hoping to start reading daily again (I tell myself this all the time). The following are some of the books I would like to read over the summer with the blurbs:
Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz I've been reading this book for a while and the reason I keep stopping is because its one of those books I'm really enjoying so I don't want it to finish and also because I don't have the second book to the series (sigh). If you like thriller, secret agents and the like, then this is a great book! So basically, as an orphan he gets taken to be trained to become a hitman or the like for a secret government programme. He uses his experience to help others who are in some terrible situations with terrible people. Does the blurb just not draw you in?! Blurb: 'Do you need my help?' It was the first question he asked. They called him when they had nowhere else to turn. As a boy, Evan Smoak was taken from an orphanage. Raised and trained in a top-secret programme, he was sent to bad places to do things the government denied ever happened. Then he broke with the programme, using what he'd learned to vanish. Now he helps the desperate and deserving. But someone's on his tail. Someone who knows his past and believes that the boy once known as Orphan X must die.....
The Kill Order by James Dashner (prequel to The Maze Runner) I've read The Maze Runner trilogy and I loved it! I'm excited to watch the movies over the summer. If you have enjoyed the Hunger Games, the Divergent series, and similar books, give this a read as well! It might be your new favourite! Blurb: Sun flares have unleashed devastation on the Earth. Mark and Trina were there when it happened, and against the odds, they survived. But now a violent and highly contagious disease is spreading like wildfire. Worse still, its mutating, and people are going crazy. Mark and Trina will do anything to save their friends - if only they can avoid madness and stay alive...
Nocturnal Animals by Austin Wright I don't know anything about this book but the blurb intrigued me! Blurb: Many years after their divorce, Susan Morrow receives a strange gift from her ex-husband. A manuscript that tells the story of a terrible crime: an ambush on the highway, a secluded cabin in the woods. It is a terrifying chiller of death and corruption. How could such a harrowing story be told by the man she once loved? And why, after so long, has he sent her such a disturbing and personal message...?
Nomad by James Swallow I don't know anything about this book but the blurb intrigued me! Blurb: A devastating terrorist attack in central Barcelona. An elite unit fatally ambushed in northern France. A sinister orphanage in the heart of the desert. A traitor buried in the British Security Services. Only one man can unmask the conspiracy - if he survives long enough.....
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown This story follows Robert Langdon who is the main character. Blurb: When a world renowned scientist is found brutally murdered, a Harvard professor, Robert Langdon, is summoned to identify the mysterious symbol seared onto the dead man's chest. His conclusion: it is the work of the Illuminati, a secret brotherhood presumed extinct for nearly four hundred years - now reborn to continue their bitter vendetta against their sworn enemy, the Catholic church. In Rome, the college of cardinals assembles to elect a new pop. Yet somewhere within the walls of the Vatican, an unstoppable bomb of terrifying power relentlessly counts down to oblivion. While the minutes tick away, Langdon joins forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to decipher the labyrinthine trail of ancient symbols that snake across Rome to the long-forgotten Illuminati lair - a secret refuge wherein lies the only hope for the Vatican. But, with each revelation comes another twist, another turn in the plot, which leaves Langdon and Vetra reeling and at the mercy of a seemingly invincible enemy.
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown This story follows Robert Langdon who is the main character. Blurb: Harvard professor Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call while on business in Paris: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been brutally murdered inside the museum. Alongside the body, police have found a series of baffling codes. As Langdon and a gifted cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, begin to sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to find a trail that leads to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci - and suggests the answer to a mystery that stretches deep into he vaults of history. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the pieces of the puzzle, a stunning historical truth will be lost forever….
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown This story follows Robert Langdon who is the main character. Blurb: What was lost will be found. The Capitol Building, Washington DC: Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon believes he is here to give a lecture. He is wrong. Within minutes of his arrival, a shocking object is discovered. It is a gruesome invitation into an ancient world of hidden wisdom. When Langdon's mentor, Peter Solomon - prominent mason and philanthropist - is kidnapped, Langdon realises that his only hope of saving his friend's life is to accept the mysterious summons. It is to take him on a breathless chase through Washington's dark history. All that was familiar is changed into a shadowy, mythical world in which Masonic secrets and never-before-seen revelations seem to be leading him to a single impossible and inconceivable truth....
Inferno by Dan Brown This story follows Robert Langdon who is the main character. Blurb: Florence: Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon awakes in a hospital bed with no recollection of where he is or how he got there. Nor can he explain the origin of the macabre object that is found hidden in his belongings. A threat to his life will propel him and a young doctor, Sienna Brooks, into a breakneck chase across the city. Only Langdon's knowledge of the hidden passageways and ancient secrets that lie behind its secret façade can save them from the clutches of their unknown pursuers. With only a few lines from Dante's Inferno to guide them, they must decipher a sequence of codes buried deep within some of the Renaissance's most celebrated artworks to find the answers to a puzzle which may, or may not, help them save the world from a terrifying threat...
Cradle and All by James Patterson I don't know anything about this book but the blurb intrigued me! Blurb: In Boston, a young woman finds herself pregnant - even though she is still a virgin. In Ireland, another young woman discovers she is in the same impossible condition. And in cities around the world, medical authorities are overwhelmed by epidemics, droughts, famines, floods, and worse. It all feels like a sign that something awful is coming. Anne Fitzgerald, a former nun turned private investigator, is hired by the Archdiocese of Boston to investigate the immaculate conceptions. Even as she comes to care about and trust the young woman, she realises that both are in great danger. Terrifying forces of light and darkness are gathering. Stepping into uncharted territory where the unknown is just the beginning, Anne must discover the truth - to save the young woman, to save herself and to protect the future of all mankind.
Crisis by Frank Gardner I don't know anything about this book but the blurb intrigued me! Blurb: In the Columbian jungle, a body is found. A man in his forties. He's been stabbed and his right ear removed. In his pockets are a blood-stained notebook and a British passport. That much the local police know. What they don't know is that Jeremy Benton worked for the British Secret Intelligence. And his murder is going to trigger a crisis. M16 need someone on the scene, and fast. Luke Carlton - ex-SBS commando, now under short-term contract to SIS - steps off the plane in Bogota and into a world of trouble. Because one of South America's most powerful and ruthless drug barons is bent on destroying everything - and everyone - Luke holds dear. And unless Luke gets to him first, all Hell is going to break loose..
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