Category: 30 Day Book Challenge

Day 12 – A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t.

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I have actually been quite good at hoovering up some of the long-standing members of my bookshelf. Over the last couple of years I have tried to make sure I read some things that have been shelf residents for a while. So, for example recently I have read Schindler’s Ark, Day of the Triffids, Ark Baby, The Pianist, Half a Yellow Sun, all of which had been hanging around for a while.

However, it really is a list that never ends. I almost never buy books in just ones. (Especially as the kind people at Waterstones often seem to have offers such as buy one get one half price or three for two and it would be rude not to indulge them.) So inevitably there are always books that wait along time to be read.

Here is a list of the long standing ones that I hope to read this year:

  1. The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
  2. The City and the Pillar – Gore Vidal
  3. Girl Interrupted – Susanna Kaysen
  4. The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
  5. The Player of Games – Iain M Banks
  6. Something Wicked This Way Comes – Ray Bradbury
  7. Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
  8. Rentboy – Gary Indiana

No doubt their places will be taken by other books that I have bought or have been bought for me and are even now waiting eagerly to be read, only to be bitterly disappointed.

Day 11 – Favourite classic book – Great Expectations, The Catcher in the Rye, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

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This is a bit of a grey area for me, I must admit. I don’t do much in the way of reading classics and a lot of the ones I have read I don’t like very much. Tess of the D’urberville’s, for example. Really didn’t like that. Not a big fan of Jane Austen either. Some Dickens I have loved, some I have hated – A Tale of Two Cities is a good example of a book not enjoyed. For a relatively short book, it took a long time to read because I could hardly bare to pick it up. I have tried to read Middlemarch three or four times. (This is another area that I fall out with my father in law about. Hardy is his favourite author. Middlemarch is one of his favourite novels. It is definitely a case of what I love he hates and vice versa.)

My first choice is a book I first read when I was at school and have since read and taught myself. Great Expectations is a great story and

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I think as a teenager, it was the pace and the plotting that I appreciated. That is why there have been so many adaptations of this novel. Even when you know how it all works out in the end, the run up is tense and exciting.
Then there are the great characters – the ones that everyone knows even if they have never read it – Miss Havisham in her wedding finery, Magwitch the archetypal convict and Estella, so very cold and proud. Even the minor characters are well written and convincing.

As a teacher, what I appreciate are the descriptions and the atmosphere that Dickens creates. The descriptions of the graveyard at the beginning are haunting as is the decay and despair of Miss Havisham’s quarters.

The Catcher in The Rye by J D Salinger starts with a reference to Dickens with the narrator, Holden Caulfield, saying I suppose that you want to hear about my childhood and all ‘that David Copperfield kind of crap’ but

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he refuses to go into it because ‘that stuff bores me.’ This is a good indication for the reader of what the novel is going to be about and also the nature of Holden’s character. He spends the a lot of the novel avoiding issues and his own emotions.

This is a novel about grief, alienation and the pain of growing up. Holden finds it hard to deal with his peers and has equal amounts of trouble dealing with the adults in his life. He feels that everyone else is phoney and so leaves his expensive school. However, he is unable to settle anywhere else. Whilst this novel could be described as a bildungsroman, it seems to me that Holden does not really learn anything throughout the novel. His psychological journey does not lead him to any new understanding. Whilst this may be a little depressing, it seems to me that this is apt. It would be unlikely for Holden to suddenly be able to see clearly. After all, he is still young at the end of the novel and is likely in a mental hospital. His psychiatrist asks him if he is going to apply himself when he goes back to school. Holden is still unwilling to play the game and give the answer that is expected of him. Instead he says it is a stupid question because he couldn’t possibly know. It seems unlikely to me that he will be any more able to cope.

Finally, I have chosen The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a masterpiece of horror. This is another story that has been adapted many times but unlike Great Expectations, I do not think that any of the films really live up to the horror of the original story.

The structure of the story describes events to the reader, suggesting and hinting at the horrors that have occurred and although there can

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be few who come to this book unaware of the relationship between Jekyll and Hyde, it is still a masterful set-up which leaves the full truth until the very end of the novel when Dr Jekyll finally getting to describe events from his point of view.

Jekyll’s story is truly horrific as he starts to lose control of the baser side of his nature. His horror at what he has done is unbearable, for him as well as the reader. Hyde represents the childlike, socially unreconstructed side of human nature which grows stronger as soon as it is given some free reign. The tale is a powerful metaphor about the nature of respectability and the binary opposition of good and evil. It suggests that we should look closely for what is hidden.

 

Day 10. – A book you thought you would hate but ended up loving – The Memory Keeper’s Daughter and The Book of Lost Things.

On By kepagewriterIn 30 Day Book Challenge3 Comments

I always feel a bit suspicious when someone says that they’ve just read something and think I will really like it. For a start, it says something about what they think of me and if I don’t like it, might suggest that they don’t know me as well as they thought. No pressure then.

Both of the the books I am going to talk about today were recommended in such a way. Both times, I was not immediately convinced that I would like them but because the two friends were avid readers and generally had good taste. I gave it a go.

The first book is The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards. I was not looking forward to starting to read this book for a couple of reasons. It is about a girl with Down’s Syndrome and having lived with a brother who, although he didn’t have Down’s, was physically and mentally disabled, I was worried what emotions the book might bring up for me. My brother had died not long before I read this book and there were a lot of feelings that I didn’t want to examine too closely.

The second reason I didn’t want to read it was more mundane. I

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was worried it would be like some dreadful American movie that gets shown on daytime TV in order to make housewives cry. I am not good with sentiment or melodrama (unless of course, it is me being melodramatic. Obviously, that is different.)

Of course, the book is nothing like this. It is emotional, definitely, and it did make me think about my own feelings towards my brother. That was a good thing, in the end, and helped me understand the way I was feeling. The ending of this book is truly hopeful and life-affirming. I would never have picked this book for myself and was immensely grateful to the person who suggested it to me.

I’m not sure why I was so positive that I would not like The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly. I think I thought it sounded a little clichéd  In fact, it is a magical tale about grief, anger and the power of myths and fairy tales. Connolly successfully gets inside of the head of the main character David, a little boy who has just lost his mother and the point of view is consistent and convincing. He shows clearly David’s lack of understanding of his situation.

As the story continues, David becomes less and less attached to reality. He has blackouts and hallucinations where he is in another land; a land of woodsmen and wolfs, trolls, enchantresses and The Crooked Man. As David’s attacks grow worse, he hears his mother’s voice asking him to rescue her and his adventure truly begins.

book of lost things

Like all fairy tales, this story is instructive and also moral. It is a story of the difficult transition out of childhood when you start to learn life’s lessons. It’s also a book that is about the importance of reading and

how much books can help you when life becomes difficult. This is a view that I wholeheartedly support.

Day 9 – Most Overrated Book – David Nicholls and Ian McEwan

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The words don’t get me started spring to mind. Narrowing this post down to just a few books was not easy, believe me. For this reason, I decided not to have another swing at 50 Shades of Grey when I have already blogged about it once. I don’t really feel that it is worthy of more of my blog space. So let’s just take it as a given that I think that 50 Shades, Twilight and their ilk are overrated and I’ll have a rant about some other books instead.

My first choice is One Day by David Nichols. This book went round my co-workers like a particularly virulent dose of the flu. Everybody loved it. Everybody thought it was tragic when… I was one of the last to succumb as I already knew it was probably not the sort of thing that I would like (due to my anti-romantic nature). Nevertheless, I gave in and bought a copy. Perhaps my expectations were too high.

It is quite a neat idea – the same day year after year but it quickly seemed that the days were not that different from each other, particularly at the beginning. Then there was the fact that both characters were unappealing but particularly Dexter. If the novel was building towards a romantic end

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for these two, I felt that it seemed more than a little unfair on Emma, who although annoying was nowhere near as obnoxious as Dexter. So the romance was already alluding me.

Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t badly written and I have read another David Nicholls book which I did like better, I just thought it was a little forced and the characters seemed more like types than people. I wasn’t bothered really even though the events could be described as tragic. There was no emotional resonance. I felt like I should be saying please try harder.

My second choice is Solar by Ian McEwan but it could be any of his more recent novels. I used to quite like Ian McEwan and was happy studying him for my MPhil. I don’t know if my tastes have changed or if his writing

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style has become more pretentious but I find it harder and harder to read his work. It seems, more and more, that he writes like a man in love with his own prose. The sentences scream off the page ‘look at me, look at how clever I am’. This is more than a little off putting.

His characters are also becoming more and more obnoxious. Michael Beard, the protagonist of Solar is a womaniser, he steals another’s ideas and claims an enormous amount of fame and money afterwards. I’m quite fond of unreliable narrators who are difficult to like but there was little that was appealing or even worthy of empathy. Again, I was left not caring about his inevitable downfall. It is disappointing that McEwan seems to have almost become a parody of himself.

Day 8 – Books that are underrated – A Disaffection and The People’s Act of Love.

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I have to confess that I don’t really follow fashion or know what is underrated. So the books I am going to mention are ones that I have read but not many people I know have read and I feel that they would enjoy.

The first book I have chosen is A Disaffection by James Kelman. It has one of my favourite opening lines – “Patrick Doyle was a teacher. Gradually he had become sickened by it.” It sums up very neatly exactly what happens in the novel as Patrick becomes more and more disaffected with his life in gen9780330307369 (1)eral and his career choice in particular. Gradually, his behaviour becomes more erratic and the narrative voice- although third person – becomes increasingly rambling along with it. It becomes difficult to tell where the third person narrator ends and Patrick’s thoughts begin. This could show just how removed Patrick is from his own life, unable even to grasp a first person narration of his own life.

This is a very down to earth novel and was one of the first books  I read that used dialect words and to have the rhythm of working class language. This appealed to me and also influences me as a writer as I am from a working class background myself. It was also the first time I had read a book that played around with the rules of grammar and punctuation – for example not using apostrophes in words such as shouldnt or question marks at the end of questions. Sentences break off without warning into new paragraphs. Others are left unfinished. This cleverly shows the fragmented nature of Patrick’s thoughts. After all, few people’s thought processes are as clear cut as they appear in most novels. Inside your own head, you don’t have to make complete sense as you are the only one who needs to understand.

This novel is an examination of the human state reminiscent of Kafka and just as surreal at times even though it is grounded in realism. The end of the novel is one of the most poignant I have read. The reader knows that the future is not looking good for Patrick as his final thoughts in the novel are about suicide. The final words are “Ah fuck off, fuck off.” This shows that Patrick is no closer to being able to deal with the world now then he was at the beginning, in fact things are an awful lot worse and likely to continue in that fashion. There is no need to continue the novel as the rest of Patrick’s life is summed up in those five words.

The second book I have picked is The People’s Act of Love by James Meek. It is set in Siberia in 1919, a time and a place I knew nothing about. It begins with the appearance of a mysterious stranger who has escaped from an Arctic prison and who claims he is being chased by a cannibal. This is an exciting narrative that is full of twists and turns and containing some of the

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most interesting characters I have come across.

For me, the main success of the book was making interested in a time in history that I had previously not even considered and the author is clearly knowledgeable about the era, including things such as the Russian sect of Castrates called Skoptsky and also about The Czechoslovak Legion fighting in the Russian Civil War which i don’t think are common knowledge. When I finished this book, I had an urge to find out more, surely the sign of an excellent book.

Day 7 A book that is a guilty pleasure

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I’m not sure that I really believe in the concept of a guilty pleasure when it comes to reading. I like what I like and I am not ashamed of any of it. Nobody else should be either. I tend to assume that because I like it, it must be of a quality. I know, that’s a particularly circular argument but I genuinely believe it. And it’s quite an easy thing to say when you don’t read anything that might be considered particularly trashy.

Of course, it is only my opinion. For example, my father in law cannot understand why I read any of the fantasy books I like. In fact, he says he wouldn’t even call them literature. I know that he means Terry Pratchett when he says that. So maybe I should view them as a guilty pleasure but to me, they just are a straightforward pleasure. They make me laugh and they make me think. Surely, you can’t get better than that.

Day 6 – Book I have read the most number of times – Steinbeck, Ellis, Bulgakov

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I am going to look at three different books for today’s blog. This is because there are different reasons for having read these books a number of times.

My first choice is Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. While I think this is a fantastic book, I would not have read it the number of times that I have if  I did not have to teach it every year. I first read it for my own GCSE, back in the mists of time. I have taught it in every school that I have worked in. I think that it is such

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a popular choice because it is simple enough for readers of every ability to get something from it but also complex enough for A graders to look at deeply. I still find the ending devastating even though I know what is coming. Partly this is due to the fact that it is so effecting and even the most disaffected pupils become drawn into it. I certainly do not mind reading this book again and again.

My second choice is one of the novels I read for my MPhil. In order to study

 something closely you need to read it a number of times. My MPhil was on masculinity and violence and while I could have chosen a number of books for this (London Fields, A Child in Time, Frisk, Dirty Weekend, Trainspotting) I have decided to go with American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. This

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is undeniably a difficult book to read. The violence is gruesome and senseless. I wasn’t looking  forward to reading it once, never mind studying it. However, I soon realised that the novel is actually about a desperate search for identity.

Reading this book over and over confirmed that this was not simply a misogynistic glorification of violence towards women as some critics seemed to think. Bateman was possibly a fantasist, certainly his status as a wall street broker suggests a link between psychopathology and success in certain fields that these days seems to be taken as a given.

My final choice is a book that I have read a number of times for pleasure. This is The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. This is a book

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 I first read when I was 19 and have read 2 or 3 times since then. Every tiem I re-read this book, I find new delights and new things spring to the front. It is novel with a lot to take in as it dots around in space and time between Moscow at the start of the twentieth century and biblical times. It was one of the first books I read that played around with the ideas of time and space something that has fascinated me ever since. Writing about it now makes me feel that I want to read it again but my to-read list is so long I really can’t justify it at the minute.

Day 5 – Comfort book – Pratchett and Rankin

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When I am feeling a bit low, I tend to look for reading that is either going to make me laugh or that is going to be nicely tied up at the end. There are two things that I periodically turn when I am in this mood – one of the many Discworld books, guaranteed  to lift your spirits or detective fiction of some description which would give me a puzzle to solve and hopefully leave me with the correct answer.

 

The next task for me was to decide which Discworld book to talk about. This was stupidly difficult. As far as I am concerned, they are all good so it wasn’t even a question of eliminating the ones that were bad. Eventually, it came down to favourite characters – and that came down to Death. Of the

reaper-man-1books which feature Death as a main character, Reaper Man is my favourite. In this, Death goes miss and lives as a human called Bill Door. Appropriately, he becomes a reaper of corn. There is a wonderful scene where he becomes aware of the nature of time, something he has never had to worry about before. He cannot imagine how humans manage to live with clocks in their houses, quietly ticking off the seconds of their all too brief (from the point of view of an immortal) lives. As Death is no longer doing his job, life force starts to build up and Ankh-Morpork becomes home to a number of undead – vampires, zombies and old wizards who fail to die when they are supposed to – all of which add to the humour.

This is a novel that manages to be both comic and profound. It tackles big ideas without them seeming big or pretentious. It makes you think about life and death without being the least bit depressing.

 

The other type of novel I like when I feel a bit under the weather is detective fiction. Although I have read Rendell, Kellerman, Patterson and others, I find that Ian Rankin’s Rebus just resonates the most with me. My favourite

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Rebus Novel is A Question of Blood. The murder takes place in a school; a shooting by a loner who then kills himself. I like this because it appears an open and shut case but, of course, it isn’t. As ever, Rebus’ personal life gets him into trouble and is as much a concern as the case he is working on when it seems he may have committed a crime in order to help DS Siobhan Clarke.

I try not to read books that I have read before especially when there are so many books waiting patiently on my to-read list but there are times when it is comforting to know exactly what you are going to get. And both Pratchett and Rankin never let you down.

Day 4 – Book turned into a movie and completely desecrated.

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It took me quite a while to think of an answer for this one. As I have mentioned before, I think that the book is generally better than the film. Having said that, it was still difficult to think of a film that had completely ruined the book.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been things that have annoyed me about adaptations. For example, the chase scene at the end of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas annoyed me immensely. The ending in the book is much more subtle and therefore more poignant. The rest of the film was, I thought, quite well handled though. The word desecrated seemed to suggest a bit more than mere irritation.

Eventually, I remembered my disappointment after watching the film

boleyn girlof The Other Boleyn Girl. I had been quite excited to watch it as it was an excellent read so expectations were high when I sat down to watch it with my mam who had also read the book.

I’m not sure how it is possible to take a book that is so packed with action and intrigue and make it limp and insipid but they managed it. Events were missing, the characters didn’t sparkle, there was no tension at all. Normally, I would have stopped watching but because I knew that the book was so good, I persevered. I kept thinking surely it must get better. I was wrong. This was a real damp squib of a film even when considered on its own merits and not compared to the book.


Day 3 – the longest book I’ve read

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adwdAfter saying yesterday that I would probably always choose 2 or 3 books for each blog, there can be only one answer to this question so, for once, I was easily able to make
a decision. I will at least say that A Dance with Dragons is the longest book that still resides on my book shelf at 959 pages. If I have read a longer one than I can’t remember.
I’m a bit of a recent convert to the series, I have to admit. I read the first book ages ago but for whatever reason didn’t carry on with the series. However, the TV series reminded me how good it was so I decided to read all the books. This happened to coincide with the release of A Dance with Dragons earlier this year so I was able to continue reading without a break.
As the series is filled with action and surprises, I did not feel aware of reading a really long book. I could not put it down, in fact and read it far quicker than I expected. The only bad thing about finishing this book was the knowledge that I’d have to wait for the next one to be published.
This was made all the more difficult by the fact that Martin had created a series of cliffhangers; not just one but many. The novels are divided into chapters giving the life events of a particular character. By the end of
the novel, it became apparent that a number of characters were going to be left in great danger. I cannot wait for the next instalment.