Tag: Mount TBR

Updates

December (and 2013) Recap

Geoff W

First, HAPPY NEW YEARS EVE! Not that you’re reading this on NYE, but I’m scheduling it to post on New Years Eve 😀 So YAY! I hope you’ve all had fun holidays and time spent with friends and family! I know I have and am exhausted but so glad to have the time with my family.

My Aunt had twins in September and I met them in Oct, but got to spend more time with them over the holidays!
I flew two hours just to drive five more hours, but at least the drive was beautiful.
As was the image I woke up to. Spending Christmas in the mountains is definitely worth the ridiculous travelling.

Second, as with last year I just want to thank all of you that read and interact with me on my little spot of the internet. Those of you that blog with me are amazing and make life difficult by talking about all of these amazing books that I want to read. I can’t believe I’ve stuck with this blog as long as I have, but you all definitely make it worth it for me! I can’t wait to see what 2014 brings!

Click here to see my Challenge Wrap-Ups and Top Books of 2013

2013 Challenges, Books, The Classics Club

Book 248: War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

Geoff W

And with this book I completed ALL of my reading challenges this year! I will do a wrap up post (year, challenge and month) on either the 31st or 1st, but for the record this was the 11th book of the Back to the Classics Challenge, the 6th book (but 8th counted – two were double) for the Tea and Books Reading Challenge and the 25th Mount TBR book!

But what is MOST shocking is how much I enjoyed this novel. There were portions I hated that I think were decisions of the translator and there were definitely parts that were beyond boring (the war parts, obviously), but overall I actually am glad I read this book and the investment of just over three weeks was definitely worth it. I’m not going to lie and say that I was excited about this novel and I won’t even say that it was easy, but I was a bit confused after reading this in the forward:

“The first readers of War and Peace were certainly surprised, but often also bewildered and even dismayed by the book. They found it hard to identify the main characters, to discover anything like a plot, to see any connection between episodes, to understand the sudden leaps from fiction to history, from narration to philosophizing. There seemed to be no focus, no artistic unity to the work, no real beginning, and no resolution. It was as if the sheer mass of detail overwhelmed any design Tolstoy might have tried to impose on it.” (loc. 140)

I didn’t think that the novel was that confusing. I can definitely see where the characters names are confusing! The introduction discusses the multitude of ways a character’s name can be modified and that did cause me to stop a few times but if I kept reading the context clues almost immediately told me who Tolstoy referred to.

Click here to continue reading.

2013 Challenges, Books, Quotes, The Classics Club

Book 236: No Name – Wilkie Collins

Geoff W

Unlike Dickens, I could read Wilkie Collins ALL DAY. There are those of you out there that will find this shocking, but it’s the truth. This is the first novel I’ve read by Collins and I am VERY glad I added it to my Classics Club list! In addition it counted as a bonus book for my Tea & Books reading challenge coming in at just over 750 pages (according to Goodreads).

If you’ve followed this blog for a while you are aware, and often horrified, of my intense dislike of Dickens’ works (or at least the few I read). It’s not even that I don’t like his stories, characters or style, it’s that I don’t like the lengths of his ‘novels.’ As Dickens works were serialized I think he dragged out too many things and didn’t make them as action packed or as concise as they could’ve been. Whereas Dickens really could have used an editor, Collins took advantage of the serialization (IN DICKENS’ MAGAZINE!) and created an amazing work of fiction.

Click here to continue reading.

2013 Challenges, Books, The Classics Club

Book 218: Les Mis̩rables РVictor Hugo

Geoff W

If Les Misérables is one thing, it is too damn long. I’m sure there are people who will disagree with me and I partially disagree with myself, but 1,729 pages is just outrageous. My advice to you if you want to read this novel, unless you are seriously interested or enthralled by French history, is to read an abridged version.

Don’t get me wrong, the story is amazingly, heartrendingly beautiful, but there was a lot of history that, yes, adds to the story, but is a long hard slough to get through. I’m talking upwards of 900 pages is just history and setting and had very little consequence on the story other than to set the scene. By time I got to volume five of the book it was a struggle to get through. I mean there were fascinating facts like how much sewer there is below Paris, but I did not need to know who put it there and who mapped and cleaned it!

Click here to continue reading.

2013 Challenges, Books

Book 214: To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee

Geoff W

What a great re-read. This was required reading in high school and I remember reading it, but I had little-to-no recollection of the story other than the major plot points. This re-read counts for my Back to the Classics, a bonus for my Mount TBR and The Classics Club reading challenges.

Before you read my review, try to find the To Kill A Mockingbird review in the list of 19 Depressing One Star Reviews of Classic Literature on Buzzfeed and then once the shock has fully settled in you can come back and read my review.

As bad as the review is, it’s not necessarily wrong in many aspects; this novel is a very specific and very short novel, but I would not go anywhere near so far as the person who wrote the review. I can easily see where someone would not be impressed with the book for its slow pace, but that’s what I love about it. Lee sets the setting, and thus the book, up perfectly:

“People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything. A Day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County.” (5)

So you can’t say you weren’t warned, I mean come on its page FIVE. However, where I disagree is the characters and their one dimension-ness according to the reviewer.

Click here to continue reading.