Category: 2012 Challenges

2012 Challenges, Books, The Classics Club

Book 153: 1984 – George Orwell

Geoff W

I started to read this a few months ago, but I just couldn’t get into it in the first few pages. Setting it aside was apparently the right thing to do because when I read it this time I enjoyed everything about it (with the exception of the ending). 1984 counts for both my 2012 Back to the Classics Challenge (20th Century Classic) and The Classics Club.

Once again, as it seems happens more and more frequently, I’m at a loss of how to respond to a novel. I both loved and hated 1984. I thought the ending was a bit tough to get through, but once you got through it the middle of the novel was amazing and kept me wanting to know what happened, but then the ending was let down, even though I get it.

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2012 Challenges, Books, Quotes, Reading Events

Book 147: Other Voices, Other Rooms – Truman Capote

Geoff W

After putting this book off for more than a month so that it would fit within The Literary Others reading event and after it sat on my shelf since I purchased it from the 2011 Boston Book Festival I’ve finally gotten around to reading it. I’m not really sure if it was worth the build up to keep putting it off, but it was an interesting read. In addition to being a part of The Literary Others Event it also counts towards my Mount TBR Reading Challenge (23/25)!

This is only the second Capote work I’ve read and it was very different compared to In Cold Blood, which I read before I started this blog. Other Voices, Other Rooms is Capote’s first published novel and is semi-autobiographical. You can definitely see the personal influence from the effeminate young boy to the faded rich southern decadence you catch glimpses of throughout.

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2012 Challenges, Books, Quotes

Book 140: Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami

Geoff W

You’ll have to excuse the language, but this book was a mind f*ck. Now, don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean it was bad, it is actually one of the best written books I’ve read this year, but my brain hurts trying to process the novel.

A friend in the UK recommended this book to me and I only just now got around to reading it and thus it counts for my Mount TBR Challenge (22 of 25).

I did a brief cursory search to see if I should save this novel for the Literary Others event in September and I should have with the amazing character Oshima, but I’m glad I didn’t. At one point he says this and it boggled my mind at how awesome he is. I mean there were a lot more awesome things, especially as to the reveal which happens pretty late in the book, but still definitely a great character. Click here to continue reading.

2012 Challenges

Tea & Books Reading Challenge 2012 – COMPLETE!

Geoff W

The Tea & Books Reading Challenge, hosted by Birgit at The Book Garden, was a great idea and an awesome experience.  You can find out more about the challenge by clicking any of the above links, or reading my original sign up post here.

I originally signed up for the Earl grey Aficionado level (six books) but upgraded to the Sencha Connoisseur after I quickly plowed through George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. For my upgrade I originally planned on adding Anna Karenina and Ulysses.  I did end up reading Anna Karenina, but decided to wait on Ulysses and instead substituted Doctor Zhivago which I planned on reading for another challenge.

If I have one piece of advice for this challenge in the future.  Definitely break up the books! And make sure to see if your books come with convenient stopping points.  Martin’s series was emotionally demanding and exhausting. I read the first three back-to-back and then took a break.  The two Russian novels were also demanding and incredibly tedious (and totally worth the read), but they came with convenient stopping points in ‘books’ within the novels.

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2012 Challenges, Books, Quotes, The Classics Club

Book 134: Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

Geoff W

I want to like Dickens—I really do. The only problem is that I’m convinced if he had a better editor these books would have been BEYOND amazing. The same thing happened while reading Great Expectations to me while reading A Tale of Two Cities. There were probably 200(+) pages in the middle of the book that just felt waffly and I could’ve done without. The openings were both great, once I got used to the language, and the endings were PHENOMENAL!

Great Expectaions counts for both my Mount TBR Challenge (20/25) and The Classics Club (11/100)!

I don’t want to boil this down to a love story, because it is so much more, but we all know my responses generally focus on one theme that really strikes me and the love of Pip for Estella definitely overwhelmed everything else (with the exception of his learning to love Magwitch). But seriously, how can you not be bowled over by the following quote? Click here to continue reading