At my last update, I recapped the first section (Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing) and most of the second (Letters from Zedelghem). I have just finished section 3 (Half Lives: The First Louisa Rey Mystery)
Toward the end of Letters from Zedelghem, Frobisher continues to get visits from Jocasta. One night, while Jocasta is "visiting," Ayres comes in needing Frobisher's services because he has woken up during the night with a song in his head that he needs to write down immediately. He then warns Frobisher that his wife can be a flirt, and asks Frobisher if his wife has made any advances. Frobisher lies and says no. He then gets an offer from Ayres to stay for another year, which he is contemplating as the section ends.
The sections are getting better and better. While I did not enjoy the first section, I liked the second and was sad to see it end. However, the third section, which takes place in California in the 70's, was even better, and now I'm sad to see that one end as well.
Louisa Rey is the daughter of a now deceased famous reporter, who is now a reporter herself. She has recently been dumped, and lives in an apartment in a town near Los Angeles. She is friends with her 11 year old neighbor who has a rough home life, and who crosses the balconies of the complex to visit Louisa. One day, Louisa and Rufus Sixsmith (the recipient of Frobisher's letters), now in his 60's, become trapped in an elevator due to a brownout. Sixsmith is one of 12 scientists working on a nuclear power plant(?) or some kind of nuclear project called HYDRA. Sixsmith's research has led him to the conclusion that the reactor (or whatever it is) is not safe due to the possibility that it will fail and melt down, and he prints his findings in a report. However, the company he works for tries to cover this up, and tells the scientists to keep their mouths shut. Sixsmith is the only scientist of the 12 who is having a hard time with this, and he lets something slip to Louisa about his conflicted thoughts. Louisa then attends the opening of the reactor in an attempt to get a good story out of it for her magazine, and finds herself wandering the halls of the building looking for Sixsmith's office and report. When she finds it, she finds Isaac Sachs looking through Sixsmith's work as well, but then gets escorted back to the party by the PR rep, Fay Li.
At some point, Sixsmith gets a call from an anonymous source (Sachs?) that he is no longer safe in California and should return to England, his home country, immediately. Sixsmith is skeptical, but complies. He is unable to get a flight until the next day, and stays in a hotel in the meantime. During his stay, he is murdered by Bill Smoke, an employee of the reactor company that is sent to forever silence employees who speak out against the company. However, the press and police rule that his death was a suicide, something that Louisa refuses to believe. She then tries even harder to get a copy of the report and go public with it. Eventually, she runs into Isaac Sachs again, who gets drunk at another event at the plant and agrees to help Louisa find the report. He does, and leaves it in her car. However, the top executives, including Smoke, get wind of this and follow Louisa to the plant. When she gets there, Smoke hits her car and it ends up in the water.
End of section (DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN!!!!!)
That was definitely my favorite section so far, although it's really difficult to compare them since they are all so different. I hope the next section will be just as good. While this one was clearly a thriller (I haven't read a lot of thrillers, so I'm not sure if they are all like this, but I found it very similar to Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (side note: I just rented the Swedish version of the movie and have yet to see the American one) in the speed, the way the narrative jumped around between characters to show the actions of everyone, and how the main character is a journalist looking to expose information and solve a murder) the next is apparently more comedic in nature. And it looks like the one after that is completely written in interview form.
Here are the connections I've found so far:
-Louisa and Frobisher both have comet tattoos on their shoulderblades
-Frobisher finds the first half of Ewing's journal at Zedelghem
-Louisa orders Frobisher's "Cloud Atlas" sextet (gasp! I knew the title would reveal itself eventually)
-Frobisher and Sixsmith were friends
I'm sure there will be more, and I'm predicting it will really come together as we go backward through time in the second half of the book. But for now I'm more than halfway to the half, which is pretty good for only a couple of days (even if they were vacation days).
Monday, February 25, 2013
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Finally Started Cloud Atlas
I have finally started reading again. This time I am working my way (slowly) through Cloud Atlas, which I received as a gift this fall and had a hard time getting into. The format of the book is very interesting, and it has been compared to nesting dolls. It's as if Mitchell laid six stories on top of each other and then folded them into a book. Basically, the book is comprised of six stories, and all but five are interrupted about halfway through and finished later in the book in reverse order. The only uninterrupted story is the sixth story, which is in the middle of the book. It is sandwiched by the two halves of the fifth story, and so on, so that the story begins and ends with the first story.
The first story is called The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing. Adam is on a journey on a boat headed toward California and at some point he discovers someone on the boat who is not supposed to be there (I think). To be honest, I found this section kind of dry and uninteresting, and I had a hard time following the action since there was not much of it at first. By the time anything happened, I was so lost that I was unsure of what was going on, but not lost enough to want to reread. I figured if I moved on maybe it would become clear later. (I advise my students against this, and I would tell them that not knowing what is going on is a red flag and to go back and reread or choose an easier book....I guess this is an instance of "do as I say not as I do"). Actually, I thought something was wrong with my book at first, as this section cuts off mid-sentence, only to resume over 400 pages later. I had to look it up online to see if that was indeed correct or if somehow there was a printing error. Luckily, that section only lasted about 40 pages, but nevertheless it took me months to get through.
The next section, Letters From Zedelghem, which I am in the middle of now, is much less dry. It's written in epistolary form, from Robert Frobisher, a broke and disowned musician, to his friend Sixsmith. So far, Frobisher has run out of money and jumped out of a hotel window to avoid paying his bill. He took a train to the Netherlands and borrowed a bike from a police officer to ride to the chateau of a famous composer, Vyvyan Ayres. Ayres is going blind and slowly dying of syphilis, so Frobisher convinces him he needs someone to help him write down his musical compositions. So far they have written a short piece that is the talk of the town. Vyvyan and his wife Jocasta have a bitchy daughter named Eva who is amusing to read about. She is skeptical of Frobisher, and often brings up his family and money, and wonders aloud to all present why he never receives letters or things from home. Frobisher has Sixsmith write him a few letters just to cover up the fact that he has been disowned by his family. Recently, Frobisher and Jocasta have started an affair, which Eva is starting to pick up on, but no one has figured out yet. (It was mentioned that Jocasta has not slept with Ayres since he contracted syphilis, just to clear that up since I was wondering about it as well). I have about 15 more pages of this section to go until reaching section 3, which is entitled Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery. Hopefully that section will be good as well, but I am going to miss Frobisher.
I will leave you with some quotes that I enjoyed. A few made me laugh out loud as I was reading. Good thing I was home.
"A half-read book is a half-finished love affair." (p. 64) (If that is true I have many love affairs to finish)
[Eva is mad that her father likes Frobisher so well and has offered him a better room, and sarcastically exclaims that he should be added to the will and given part of the estate. Ayres exclaims that it's the first good idea she's had in her entire life and tells her that at least he earns his keep]
"My hosts wouldn't hear my apologies, they said Eva should be apologizing to me, that she has to lose her pre-Copernican view of a universe revolving around herself. Music to my ears. Also re: Eva, she and twenty classmates are bound for Switzerland v. soon to study at a sister school for a couple of months. More music! It'll be like having a rotten tooth fall out." (p. 66)
"The meadow is turning yellow, the gardener is anxious about fires, farmers are worried about the harvest, but show me a placid farmer and I'll show you a sane conductor." (p. 71)
The first story is called The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing. Adam is on a journey on a boat headed toward California and at some point he discovers someone on the boat who is not supposed to be there (I think). To be honest, I found this section kind of dry and uninteresting, and I had a hard time following the action since there was not much of it at first. By the time anything happened, I was so lost that I was unsure of what was going on, but not lost enough to want to reread. I figured if I moved on maybe it would become clear later. (I advise my students against this, and I would tell them that not knowing what is going on is a red flag and to go back and reread or choose an easier book....I guess this is an instance of "do as I say not as I do"). Actually, I thought something was wrong with my book at first, as this section cuts off mid-sentence, only to resume over 400 pages later. I had to look it up online to see if that was indeed correct or if somehow there was a printing error. Luckily, that section only lasted about 40 pages, but nevertheless it took me months to get through.
The next section, Letters From Zedelghem, which I am in the middle of now, is much less dry. It's written in epistolary form, from Robert Frobisher, a broke and disowned musician, to his friend Sixsmith. So far, Frobisher has run out of money and jumped out of a hotel window to avoid paying his bill. He took a train to the Netherlands and borrowed a bike from a police officer to ride to the chateau of a famous composer, Vyvyan Ayres. Ayres is going blind and slowly dying of syphilis, so Frobisher convinces him he needs someone to help him write down his musical compositions. So far they have written a short piece that is the talk of the town. Vyvyan and his wife Jocasta have a bitchy daughter named Eva who is amusing to read about. She is skeptical of Frobisher, and often brings up his family and money, and wonders aloud to all present why he never receives letters or things from home. Frobisher has Sixsmith write him a few letters just to cover up the fact that he has been disowned by his family. Recently, Frobisher and Jocasta have started an affair, which Eva is starting to pick up on, but no one has figured out yet. (It was mentioned that Jocasta has not slept with Ayres since he contracted syphilis, just to clear that up since I was wondering about it as well). I have about 15 more pages of this section to go until reaching section 3, which is entitled Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery. Hopefully that section will be good as well, but I am going to miss Frobisher.
I will leave you with some quotes that I enjoyed. A few made me laugh out loud as I was reading. Good thing I was home.
"A half-read book is a half-finished love affair." (p. 64) (If that is true I have many love affairs to finish)
[Eva is mad that her father likes Frobisher so well and has offered him a better room, and sarcastically exclaims that he should be added to the will and given part of the estate. Ayres exclaims that it's the first good idea she's had in her entire life and tells her that at least he earns his keep]
"My hosts wouldn't hear my apologies, they said Eva should be apologizing to me, that she has to lose her pre-Copernican view of a universe revolving around herself. Music to my ears. Also re: Eva, she and twenty classmates are bound for Switzerland v. soon to study at a sister school for a couple of months. More music! It'll be like having a rotten tooth fall out." (p. 66)
"The meadow is turning yellow, the gardener is anxious about fires, farmers are worried about the harvest, but show me a placid farmer and I'll show you a sane conductor." (p. 71)
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Anna Karenina: check! (again)
I finished Anna Karenina for the third time, and am now ready for the movie to come out next month. I've already written papers and journal entries on this book for school twice, so I don't want to rehash it here, but I will leave you with a couple of my favorite quotes from the book before I move onto Sherlock Holmes.
The first comes early on in the book, where Anna is surrounded by society people who are talking about someone who had recently had an affair.
"What I think is," said Anna, toying with the glove she had pulled off, "that there are as many minds as there are heads, so there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts." (p. 163 )
The next one comes from a visit between Dolly and Anna after she has been shunned from society.
"No, no, tell me what you really think of my position. What is your opinion of it?" she (Anna) asked.
...
"I don't think anything," she (Dolly) said. "I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be." (p. 709)
The third comes from Dolly's visit to Anna's house toward the end of the book, when she feels uncomfortable with the company and wishes to go home.
"Dolly did not feel particularly cheerful while they were playing. She did not like the flirting Veslovsky carried on with Anna and the general unnaturalness of grown-up people carrying on a children's game in the absence of children. But not to disconcert the others and to while away the time in some way or other, she joined the players and pretended to be enjoying herself. All that day she had the strange feeling that she was taking part in a theatrical performance with better actors than herself and that her own bad performance was spoiling the whole show" (p. 733)
I could definitely relate to the third one especially. Next time I update it will probably be about Sherlock Holmes (or Cloud Atlas, which I recently received as a random gift). Ciao!
The first comes early on in the book, where Anna is surrounded by society people who are talking about someone who had recently had an affair.
"What I think is," said Anna, toying with the glove she had pulled off, "that there are as many minds as there are heads, so there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts." (p. 163 )
The next one comes from a visit between Dolly and Anna after she has been shunned from society.
"No, no, tell me what you really think of my position. What is your opinion of it?" she (Anna) asked.
...
"I don't think anything," she (Dolly) said. "I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be." (p. 709)
The third comes from Dolly's visit to Anna's house toward the end of the book, when she feels uncomfortable with the company and wishes to go home.
"Dolly did not feel particularly cheerful while they were playing. She did not like the flirting Veslovsky carried on with Anna and the general unnaturalness of grown-up people carrying on a children's game in the absence of children. But not to disconcert the others and to while away the time in some way or other, she joined the players and pretended to be enjoying herself. All that day she had the strange feeling that she was taking part in a theatrical performance with better actors than herself and that her own bad performance was spoiling the whole show" (p. 733)
I could definitely relate to the third one especially. Next time I update it will probably be about Sherlock Holmes (or Cloud Atlas, which I recently received as a random gift). Ciao!
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Anna Karenina
So rather than read another book off the list, why not read one I've already completed...twice? Apparently Anna Karenina is coming out on film (again) this November, and since it's one of my favorites (besides Gone With The Wind, Because of Winn Dixie, and Charlotte's Web) I decided to reread it and prepare for its upcoming film (re)debut. (There were a lot of parentheses in that paragraph, my apologies).
Currently I'm about halfway through, and I just realized that I hadn't updated since what was technically still spring. That means I spent the summer doing.......ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! My plan was to finish LOTR (success rate over the past 2 years for that plan, 0%, or maybe even negative. It's a pretty poor plan since it never works), but like all past attempts, it failed. Then a friend alerted me to the new Anna Karenina movie, and here I am. On page 450 of 940, so almost half. Yes, I am that person who not only reads a Russian novel on summer vacation, but REreads a Russian novel on summer vacation.
So far we have rejected Levin, in-debt Oblonsky, oblivious on purpose Dolly, cheating Anna, wimpy Karenin, and annoying Vronsky. Also frail Kitty, almost forgot about her. They are all at a dinner party (except Anna and Vronsky) and Levin is about to propose to Kitty again. Hopefully everything works out this time.
I don't often reread books, mostly because there are so many I want to read for the first time, but I do love picking up a book I've enjoyed in the past. It's like visiting old friends and reminiscing about old times. I had a kid tell me once, when I asked if she wouldn't mind rereading a book for class that she had read on her own, "a favorite book is like an old friend." How true she was! Other books I've reread include Harry Potter and.....I'm not sure what else. Any of my favorites I guess. I plan to reread Gone with the Wind at some point. Maybe next summer.
Reading Anna Karenina has made me very curious about War and Peace. I love Tolstoy's writing style, and as long as I keep a character list, I should find it just as enjoyable (except for it's obvious length, which in my copy is 1256 with a 102 page epilogue....so 1358). That will be quite a project!
After I finish AK, I have a couple books in mind to tackle next. I normally would say Return of the King, and if I get in a mood where I just want to get it over with, I may just go for it. Another option is Les Miserables, since the movie for that is coming out in December, although that's another long one that I'll definitely have to commit to. I also still have Middlemarch sitting here, as well as Midnight's Children, and a couple others that are not on the list. Other options include finishing up the Narnia series. We'll see what happens with them. But anyway, here it is September 1st, and I've still only read 2 books from the list. This one doesn't count either since I've already read it. So I'm pretty confident that I won't be meeting my goal, but if all goes well I'll maybe get to 5.
Currently I'm about halfway through, and I just realized that I hadn't updated since what was technically still spring. That means I spent the summer doing.......ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! My plan was to finish LOTR (success rate over the past 2 years for that plan, 0%, or maybe even negative. It's a pretty poor plan since it never works), but like all past attempts, it failed. Then a friend alerted me to the new Anna Karenina movie, and here I am. On page 450 of 940, so almost half. Yes, I am that person who not only reads a Russian novel on summer vacation, but REreads a Russian novel on summer vacation.
So far we have rejected Levin, in-debt Oblonsky, oblivious on purpose Dolly, cheating Anna, wimpy Karenin, and annoying Vronsky. Also frail Kitty, almost forgot about her. They are all at a dinner party (except Anna and Vronsky) and Levin is about to propose to Kitty again. Hopefully everything works out this time.
I don't often reread books, mostly because there are so many I want to read for the first time, but I do love picking up a book I've enjoyed in the past. It's like visiting old friends and reminiscing about old times. I had a kid tell me once, when I asked if she wouldn't mind rereading a book for class that she had read on her own, "a favorite book is like an old friend." How true she was! Other books I've reread include Harry Potter and.....I'm not sure what else. Any of my favorites I guess. I plan to reread Gone with the Wind at some point. Maybe next summer.
Reading Anna Karenina has made me very curious about War and Peace. I love Tolstoy's writing style, and as long as I keep a character list, I should find it just as enjoyable (except for it's obvious length, which in my copy is 1256 with a 102 page epilogue....so 1358). That will be quite a project!
After I finish AK, I have a couple books in mind to tackle next. I normally would say Return of the King, and if I get in a mood where I just want to get it over with, I may just go for it. Another option is Les Miserables, since the movie for that is coming out in December, although that's another long one that I'll definitely have to commit to. I also still have Middlemarch sitting here, as well as Midnight's Children, and a couple others that are not on the list. Other options include finishing up the Narnia series. We'll see what happens with them. But anyway, here it is September 1st, and I've still only read 2 books from the list. This one doesn't count either since I've already read it. So I'm pretty confident that I won't be meeting my goal, but if all goes well I'll maybe get to 5.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
The Girl Who Played With Fire
So, not a classic, but good nonetheless.
Also not a classic, but amazing. I finished this a few months back on audiobook, but never put the picture in.
I've definitely been slacking on LOTR, and that is definitely next because it's been at least 2 years that I've been working on that series and am anxious to cross #2 off my list for good! I did watch the movie recently so I'm ready to go, but just can't bring myself to start it.
It also doesn't help that I have been caught up in the adventures of Lisbeth Salander. I just finished The Girl Who Played With Fire on Friday, and have already started The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. It's one of those books where I'm glad that I wasn't into the series while it was still being released because at the end of book 2, I ABSOLUTELY had to get my hands on book 3. I didn't think book 2 was as good as 1, so I'm glad I didn't buy it, but it was still good once it got going and now I definitely have to find out how everything turns out in the third one. Hopefully it won't take me over a month to read like the second one.
As we've already established, my next book after Hornet's Nest will be The Return of the King. After that, I have no idea. I have many on the shelf still that need to be read (at least 4 from the list, and 3 others that are classics also but not on the list.) However, I've been feeling a little spontaneous lately, and am thinking that once LOTR is done, I may just start generating random numbers and reading whatever pops up. I'll leave it to the fates at random.org. If I were going to start one today, it would be...#71 Oliver Twist
(blah)
We'll see how that works out. I'll redo it when I'm choosing for real, though. As in, after I finish LOTR, which realistically may be in November.
Speaking of months, It is now June, and while it is not quite halfway through the year, it's close enough where I can do a count of the books I've read in 2012 so far and see where I stand. So far I've read:
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Pride and Prejudice
(Prince Caspian--only partly counts because I haven't finished the series yet)
So, I guess my number so far is 2. Let's hope I read more by the end of the year because that is pretty pathetic so far. Oh well.
Another task I have ahead of me is choosing a book for a car trip I'll be taking in a few weeks. Hopefully it will be something that the library will have on CD unabridged. Looking at the list, I'm thinking that His Dark Materials, Narnia, or any other of the random ones that I don't know may be good choices. We'll have to see. Last time I went I think I had The Great Gatsby with me, which was OK but not the best choice for a car trip because there was a lot of description that I would have normally glossed over, like the chapter that only named who was at a party. I'll have to pick something with a little less symbolism and more action. It will probably be The Golden Compass, but I'll decide closer to when I will be traveling.
Anyway, the plan is to read more than 4 books this year. Hopefully around 10. But we know how that goes...
Also not a classic, but amazing. I finished this a few months back on audiobook, but never put the picture in.
I've definitely been slacking on LOTR, and that is definitely next because it's been at least 2 years that I've been working on that series and am anxious to cross #2 off my list for good! I did watch the movie recently so I'm ready to go, but just can't bring myself to start it.
It also doesn't help that I have been caught up in the adventures of Lisbeth Salander. I just finished The Girl Who Played With Fire on Friday, and have already started The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. It's one of those books where I'm glad that I wasn't into the series while it was still being released because at the end of book 2, I ABSOLUTELY had to get my hands on book 3. I didn't think book 2 was as good as 1, so I'm glad I didn't buy it, but it was still good once it got going and now I definitely have to find out how everything turns out in the third one. Hopefully it won't take me over a month to read like the second one.
As we've already established, my next book after Hornet's Nest will be The Return of the King. After that, I have no idea. I have many on the shelf still that need to be read (at least 4 from the list, and 3 others that are classics also but not on the list.) However, I've been feeling a little spontaneous lately, and am thinking that once LOTR is done, I may just start generating random numbers and reading whatever pops up. I'll leave it to the fates at random.org. If I were going to start one today, it would be...#71 Oliver Twist
(blah)
We'll see how that works out. I'll redo it when I'm choosing for real, though. As in, after I finish LOTR, which realistically may be in November.
Speaking of months, It is now June, and while it is not quite halfway through the year, it's close enough where I can do a count of the books I've read in 2012 so far and see where I stand. So far I've read:
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Pride and Prejudice
(Prince Caspian--only partly counts because I haven't finished the series yet)
So, I guess my number so far is 2. Let's hope I read more by the end of the year because that is pretty pathetic so far. Oh well.
Another task I have ahead of me is choosing a book for a car trip I'll be taking in a few weeks. Hopefully it will be something that the library will have on CD unabridged. Looking at the list, I'm thinking that His Dark Materials, Narnia, or any other of the random ones that I don't know may be good choices. We'll have to see. Last time I went I think I had The Great Gatsby with me, which was OK but not the best choice for a car trip because there was a lot of description that I would have normally glossed over, like the chapter that only named who was at a party. I'll have to pick something with a little less symbolism and more action. It will probably be The Golden Compass, but I'll decide closer to when I will be traveling.
Anyway, the plan is to read more than 4 books this year. Hopefully around 10. But we know how that goes...
Monday, April 9, 2012
Prince Casipan: Check!
Book 4 of The Chronicles of Narnia is now complete. I'm still not able to check a number off my list, but I'm making progress.
I'm really tiring of this series. The first two books were pretty good. The third was terrible. This one was mediocre, so I'm hoping for something better from the remaining three. Actually the copy I finished had the first chapter of book 5 in it, and that seemed pretty good so far, so I do have hope. However, I'm just not sure. There's only so many Narnian battles that I can read about.
I'm also about halfway through the audiobook of The Help. I know it's not on the list, but it's pretty excellent so far, and I'm hoping I can finish that up by the end of the week.
I also watched The Return of the King a few days ago when I was not feeling well, and am feeling a little more ambitious on the Lord of the Rings front, too. Now that I know what is going to happen and it has been refreshed in my mind, I'm almost ready to start. I just have to commit to reading it, and will have to refrain from reading the first two chapters and then letting it sit for several months, only to forget what has happened so far. My only wish is that the stories were integrated like in the movie, because the task of reading a few hundred pages of what happens to Gandalf and company seems daunting because what I really only care about is Frodo and Sam (and Gollum). Oh well. Hopefully it won't be as bad as what I'm anticipating.
So, hopefully up next is Return of the King and Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Hopefully I'll finish both of these series up this spring and move on to better things, like Jane Austen (kidding!). But seriously, I'm excited to move on from all the ones I've been trying to finish for the last year, and on to new and/or random ones that I haven't explored yet. It's always fun to find out what each story is about, since titles can be mysterious or misleading.
Off to the library! Toodles!
I'm really tiring of this series. The first two books were pretty good. The third was terrible. This one was mediocre, so I'm hoping for something better from the remaining three. Actually the copy I finished had the first chapter of book 5 in it, and that seemed pretty good so far, so I do have hope. However, I'm just not sure. There's only so many Narnian battles that I can read about.
I'm also about halfway through the audiobook of The Help. I know it's not on the list, but it's pretty excellent so far, and I'm hoping I can finish that up by the end of the week.
I also watched The Return of the King a few days ago when I was not feeling well, and am feeling a little more ambitious on the Lord of the Rings front, too. Now that I know what is going to happen and it has been refreshed in my mind, I'm almost ready to start. I just have to commit to reading it, and will have to refrain from reading the first two chapters and then letting it sit for several months, only to forget what has happened so far. My only wish is that the stories were integrated like in the movie, because the task of reading a few hundred pages of what happens to Gandalf and company seems daunting because what I really only care about is Frodo and Sam (and Gollum). Oh well. Hopefully it won't be as bad as what I'm anticipating.
So, hopefully up next is Return of the King and Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Hopefully I'll finish both of these series up this spring and move on to better things, like Jane Austen (kidding!). But seriously, I'm excited to move on from all the ones I've been trying to finish for the last year, and on to new and/or random ones that I haven't explored yet. It's always fun to find out what each story is about, since titles can be mysterious or misleading.
Off to the library! Toodles!
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Pride and Prejudice: Check!
Finished Pride and Prejudice. My overall impression: meh. Definitely way overrated and overly popular for what it is. But it was pretty good I guess, and not as difficult to get through as I thought it would be. (It wasn't a walk in the park either, though).
I'm currently also in the middle (and by middle I mean 30 pages in) of Prince Caspian, book 4 in the Narnia series. I'm hoping to finish that pretty quickly a) because it's a children's book, and b) so that I can get on with the rest of the series (although to be honest I was never super interested in that series anyway. Oh well).
Other options include Return of the King and a few others. Mainly those two, though.
I'm currently also in the middle (and by middle I mean 30 pages in) of Prince Caspian, book 4 in the Narnia series. I'm hoping to finish that pretty quickly a) because it's a children's book, and b) so that I can get on with the rest of the series (although to be honest I was never super interested in that series anyway. Oh well).
Other options include Return of the King and a few others. Mainly those two, though.
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