Tag: books

Daphne du Maurier was partially inspired by Jane Eyre when writing this book, so I could not help compare it to that book which I love. The characters are not exactly the same, but I enjoyed reading this book almost as much. It is very well written. I’m not someone who reads a lot gothic or mystery literature, but the atmosphere is almost perfect. Du Maurier is an excellent writer. The prose can be poetic. She’s good at dialogue especially with characterizations as well. Mrs. Danvers is incredibly creepy, de Winter is mysterious, and the nameless protagonist is relateable. While very naive at the beginning, it’s hard not to feel sympathetic for the character. She’s also been put in a very hard situation when they go back to Manderley. The use of the nameless protagonist device is something I encountered in Fight Club, so I was not put off by that. Though it did feel du Maurier was teasing the reader at the beginning with the fact we’d never find out. All in all, a very good read with lots of atmosphere, suspense, and just enough romance.

I did not read this book for awhile because I had seen the Alfred Hitchcock adaptation with Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. I did not have the time to rewatch the film, but I remember liking it very much as I do most Hitchcock films, and I also like Olivier. I recommend it as a companion to the book.

They are all the rage, and I love joining new challenges, but I also like a lot of time allowances and flexibility so I can’t join all of them.

Current Challenges

  • Something About Me (0 of ?) – When I picked out my books for this, I knew I was not going to be read all of them. I am currently one from this list, and a couple more before this ends in Dec 31.
  • Book Awards (5 of 12) – Progress is going well, and there is lots of time for me to complete this before July 1. I’ll read at least one from the list before the year is over.
  • Book to Movies (2 of 3) – Currently reading third book, and set to be finished by end of month.
  • Second Chances (0 of 3) – Most books will be read in the last month (December).
  • Seafaring Reading (0 of 2) – I have the second book in the series, not the first yet. Probably Christmas reading as well.
  • Pulitzer Project – No time limit, and each update will say if I’ve read a Pulitzer since the last one.

Pending Challenges

  • Decades 08 – Eight books from eight decades in 2008. Want to do 16 decades.
  • In their shoes – I picked six bios/memoirs to be read in the calendar year.
  • Russian Reading – Four Russian related books in one year.
  • What’s in a Name? – Six books in one year.
  • TBR 2008 – Twelve books in twelve months. Plan to sign up so list will be up next month.

Completed Challenges

  • Summer Reading Challenge, Round 2 – Completed my goals, and read all the books.

This challenge goes from January 1 to December 31, 2008. One title from each of the six categories. I only intend to read one book under each category, but I’ve given myself options and alternates as usual.

1. A book with a color in its title.
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
The Color Purple by Alice Walker

2. A book with an animal in its title.
Birdsong
by Sebastian Faulks
Wings of the Dove by Henry James

3. A book with a first name in its title.
Life and Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee
Anil‘s Ghost
by Michael Ondaatje
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

4. A book with a place in its title.
Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
The Known World by Thomas P. Jones

5. A book with a weather event in its title.
The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Gone with the Wind
by Margaret Mitchell

6. A book with a plant in its title.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco

Bookfair Books

There’s a great annual book fair in this town that I’ve been going to for the last couple of years. The selection was not as great as last year, and I ended up buying a bunch of books that I plan to read in the future, but not necessarily soon. All of thirteen of the books cost me $15. Unless otherwise said, I haven’t read any of these books.

Left column (from top down):
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
Selected Plays by Anton Chekhov – Great for my Russian Reading Challenge.
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes – Well, one day.
Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik – The most expensive book I bought at $3.50, but I’ve read this book and loved it.
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde – Someone priced this book at $0.25! How could I not buy such a fun book for a quarter?
William, an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton – It was a dollar, and I bought it for the nice edition and binding. I have never heard of the author or the book. It looks like a terrible read too.

Right Column (top down):
The Mill on the Floss by George Eilot – Seen the miniseries so buying the book is a type of masochism
Tess of the d’Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy
Summer by Edith Wharton
Bleakhouse
by Charles Dickens
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand – More masochism?
The Known World
by Thomas P. Jones – Pulitzer book that I haven’t really heard of, but I’m trying to read more Pulitzers.

By Tom Perrotta. I am not a mother, have never lived in the suburbs (let alone an American one), and I’m currently not in a romantic relationship. Also, all these characters are older than me by at least a decade. So I would say I am not at a point in my life to be able to relate to any of this book’s characters and their problems. I did end up relating to some of them because I found the narrative inviting. The back of the hardcover edition has Newsweek calling Tom Perrotta “an American Nick Hornby: companionable and humane, light hearted and surprisingly touching.” That’s funny because Hornby is the reason I picked up this book in the first place. He warmly reviewed the book in Housekeeping vs. The Dirt, his second book of literary essays. Kate Winslet being in the film adaptation sealed the deal. I think the comparison is actually rather apt. I found that Todd’s early scenes in the book reminded me right away of Hornby’s style. I would say that Perrotta is slightly more melancholic and darker than Hornby. The description still stands more or less, as I was able to emphasize and feel for most of the characters in this book.

Perrotta uses third person omniscient narrator on many characters. I like that you can get an idea of so many people, and he pulls it off. Many characters can also take away from the main adultery plot because novels about affairs can be tiresome so instead of being exasperated by Todd and Sarah, I found I was very curious between chapters about what they were up to.

Early on though, the affair reminded me slightly of Kar Wai Wong’s film In the Mood for Love. It was the sort of ephemeral, earnest and slightly sad nature of the two people connecting. Though Perrotta is not as pensive as Wong. The novel’s suspense seemed to indicate a sensational ending which I dreaded, but the ending was fine in the end, more or less. For the most part, the book kept my attention through out, and I found the characterizations well thought out. There is nothing excessively flowery or postmodernist about his prose, and it moved the story and characters along with relative ease. I’m not interested in reading his new novel The Abstinence Teacher any time soon (maybe for the film adaptation?), but this was a fine read.

It took me two days to finish this movie which made the film feel slow for me, but that’s my fault. It was a fine adaptation that was true to the book because Tom Perrotta co-wrote the screenplay. A few changes in the story. They changed Todd’s name to Brad because the director and co screenwriter is Todd Field. Patrick Wilson could be a Todd. Also, I was wondering if the movie’s ending would add on to the one in the book, and it didn’t really. The ending was more lurid than the book, which is appropriate for a film I guess. The pedophile casting and plot was more sympathetic than in the book.

Sarah in the novel is described as frumpy, plain, and not conventionally pretty. I had already seen clips of the movie before reading the book so I couldn’t help putting Winslet’s face in my mind as Sarah when reading the book. The passages about Sarah’s beauty didn’t connect as well in this cases because I adore Kate Winslet and thinks she’s beautiful as a film star and as a real woman. I find her more attractive than Jennifr Connelly who played Brad’s wife Kathy in the film. Though, makeup did a good job of making Winslet frazzled and plain.

They added a narrator, voiced by Will Lyman, into the film. It would seem like an unnecessary, somewhat cheap tool to use in a film adaptation because it becomes that third omniscient narrator, but I liked it. It made it feel a bit like a documentary. Not like Discovery channel animal documentary, but more like a PBS anthropological one.

There were a few humorous touches, but not enough for this film to move faster. If I hadn’t read the book, I don’t know if I would have appreciated the characters or the ending as much as I do. In these cases, I recommend to read the book and watch the movie together rather than go the movie alone. You just get a better sense of everything in the story that way.

I would enjoy reading a meme about people’s abandoned books. The books that you start but don’t finish say as much about you as the ones you actually read, sometimes because of the books themselves or because of the circumstances that prevent you from finishing. So . . . what books have you abandoned and why? – BTT

Sometimes, I’ve had to abandon books due to time which is why I put The Two Towers on hold; I haven’t finished LOTR for that reason. Some books require more attention over time.  Usually, it’s circumstances. Very rarely do I abandon a book because I’ve disliked it so much. I usually pick books I have an idea I’d like, and a book can’t be all that bad. The one memorable book I’ve abandoned is Mists of Avalon. I’ve mentioned that before, but I’ve tried to finish that at least three times. Life is too short to read books I don’t enjoy at the time. I tried reading Jane Eyre when I was 15, but didn’t try again and love it until years later.

By Augusten Burroughs. On my allconsuming.net account, I ask for recommendations of nonfiction books. This was the book that most people “thought I might enjoy”. It’s a very popular memoirs, and I can see why. Many people think the book is funny, and I found some moments amusing, but most of the time, it was just strange. I think Burroughs’s prose is simple, direct, and effective as it is. Burroughs childhood and the people around him were quite messed up, but the more I read, the less perturbed I became. He also seemed to grow into the weirdness and unsettling nature of his life as he seemed to just accept what it was. Objectively speaking, a lot of the details were disturbing and sad.

I probably wouldn’t have read this book had not so many people recommended it for me as I really don’t read many memoirs of this type. I have read a lot about travel, food, and of famous people, but not on “normal” people. Not that Augusten Burroughs childhood was in any way normal. It’s a bit refreshing, and I did relate to some aspects of this. Due to the lack of boundaries placed on the characters and their disregard of societal norms and values, some of the stuff described was seemed genuinely fun and liberating to me. Often weird, but still neat. There was a spontaneity that I could see the appeal of in the stories of the mini adventures.

The book was shorter than I thought it would be, and I didn’t feel dragged down by it as a result. I don’t love this book nor do I dislike it. I think it conveys how crazy people are, but then again, maybe we have that in our every day lives. You can tell I’m not easily surprised by a lot of things that I read. Like I said, I was able to relate to it in some way showing you how we all want to be let out of our cages sometime.

So I don’t read movie reviews, but I’m fairly abreast of what films are liked and well received. I don’t remember hearing anything about this movie which usually doesn’t mean well for the film. Two of my friends did not like. One of them said the movie dragged on way too long. I’m inclined to agree. It wasn’t that bad of a movie, but it felt a bit aimless. I don’t think it did a good job of making you feel attached to any of the characters. It was slow, and took a bunch of amusing things from the book, but it wasn’t quite enjoyable or even sad enough. It felt a bit disjointed. I think the script might have looked okay on paper, but was just difficult to be cohesive on screen. I thought the acting was pretty decent since there was Annette Benning, Alec Baldwin, Gwyneth Paltrow (she had such few lines that she did not irk me at all in this film), Joseph Fiennes, and Joseph Cross as Augusten. The soundtrack wasn’t bad either, and there were some nice moments attributed to the director and the actors. All in all, not the worse movie I have seen, but not a great adaptation either.

This is the fifth book in the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde, but it marks the second part of the series and is the first part of the next four books. For maximum enjoyment of this book, I recommend you start with the first four books. It’s been so long that I don’t remember how good those books are individually, but I love this series as a whole. It’s fun, unique, different, hilarious, and well written. I forgot how many plots Mr Fforde can balance in these books. This may turn some people off because he does have so many plot lines set up, but most of them are closed without much fanfare in the last couple of chapters. The other ones are set ups for the next books. For a more in depth review with slight spoilers from the previous books and this one (nothing major), click below. Continue reading →

Alright my dear friends, I must call it a night. I have much to do tomorrow. I read two books, one play, but I really only completed one book. It was fun and worth it though, and the book was particularly apt I thought.

I won one of the challenges over at Dewey‘s blog. Yay! She reads some great books too so I’m sure I’ll have some lovely choices in the future. I also would like to take the time to deserve credit to Dewey for being a fantastic organiser and host of this event. She’s made this great fun for all of us.

Here’s my last challenge from Booklogged: Choose one of the books you are reading for the challenge. Pretend you are going to host a book group at your house this month to discuss that book. What will you serve for refreshments? The refreshments have to tie-in to the book somehow.

Since I’ve actually finished First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde, I’ll have a Thursday Next themed party.

People who have read the books will understand why I will choose Battenburg cake and Cheese (with crackers) as the food with coffee and tea as refreshments. Not any Cheese, but illegal cheese that I probably had to smuggle across the border.

Thanks for everything today. Good night and good luck.

Shoes

A memoirs / biography reading challenge running through the whole of 2008. As with most of my lists, this is tentative and subject to change.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson
William Shakespeare or Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson
Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832 by Stella Tillyard
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

From our lovely organiser Dewey:

1. What are you reading right now? Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

2. How many books have you read so far? 1, and a few scenes from Cyrano.

3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? I guess the one I’m reading now.
4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day? Other than not doing homework, no, not really.

5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? Well someone called long distance, but it was nice to hear from them. My Saturdays — okay my life — in general, not too exciting or dramatic.

6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? I’m surprised that I’ve been able to post this often and participate in challenges. I do like this wing it sort of blogging because I plan a lot of my posts.

7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? No, I’m having a great time and people have been really nice with their comments.

8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year? Maybe I’ll try to do it for 24 hours for real next time, but it does depend on when that will be. It’s a shame I have to sleep tonight.

9. Are you getting tired yet? A bit. A book a day is enough for me.

10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered? I’m really laid back and not forcing anything. So I think it’s a matter of going with the reading, the breaks, and the interruptions with ease.

Dear Edmond Rostand,

Please write in English — I kid. I kid. You 19th century French writers slay me good. I have enjoyed your Cyrano de Bergerac. Well the first few scenes, but I must stop and find a more substantial work in which I can understand more than half of what is going on. I love your rhyming couplets and your 12 syllable verses, but another day, my good sir?

Amicalement,
Athena

I’ve taken a couple of lengthy breaks because I am unsure of what to read but I think I’ll start Running With Scissors.