2014 Challenges, Books

Book 250: Blindness (Blindess #1) – José Saramago

Saramago, José - BlindnessMy friend Dominic recommended this book ages ago and I’m so glad he did! After thoroughly enjoying The Velvet Rage I knew his reference would be worth it and I’d put it off long enough so bumped it up on my list.

First response to this book: what a way to start 2014!  I can’t wait to hear what It definitely makes me wonder if this will remain one of the top books of 2014. I read 1Q84 in January of 2013 and it was one of my top five books. Finishing this book inspired me to immediately go out (and brave the sub-freezing temperatures) to pick up Seeing, the sequel.

The book starts out pretty slow, and considering the lack of action and movement throughout the world, moves surprisingly rapid after that. The basic premise is similar to any plague-type novel starts with patient zero (we assume) and slowly expand out, the difference is rather than a traditional plague people go blind for no reason and with no physical manifestations other than blindness. If you want a longer description of the novel check out this 1998 NYTimes summary.

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Books, Quotes

Book 159: By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept (And On the Seventh Day #1) – Paulo Coelho

Coelho, Paulo - By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and WeptThis is Coelho’s second book I’ve read and although it wasn’t as good as The Alchemist, it was still incredibly well written and moving. I do have a couple more of his books on my shelf and plan on saving them for when I need a break from other books. However, I might need to read the other two books in the ‘trilogy’ (according to Wikipedia) Veronika Decides to Die and The Devil and Miss Prim sooner rather than later.

Deepika, over at Purplebooky reviewed this book and there’s really not much more to add. It’s a deceptively simple love story with religion interwoven and provides a lot of lessons on love, life and faith. Compared to The Alchemist, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept lacked some impact (the love was definitely there, it just wasn’t as powerful) and the story is a bit less monumental. This is definitely not a bad thing because the simpleness of this story is part of what makes it so beautiful.

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Books

Book 45: The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho

You can always tell the books I enjoyed more based on the length of the blog and my voice in the blog. I would probably skip posts of the books I don’t really like, but it would defeat the purpose of this blog, so instead you get somewhat whinny posts about a book that I don’t understand or just didn’t like, like The Prince.

Whereas when I read a book I truly enjoy you get a true feel for the book and why I’ve enjoyed reading it. Thankfully The Alchemist is of the latter category. Again this is a book I bought ages ago (recognize a pattern) that I never got around to reading. This book was so good I read it in an afternoon (it’s only 170 pages). What I enjoyed most about this novel was the spirituality without the religion. An interesting fact according to Wikipedia (with a legitimate siting) is that the book holds the record for the most translations into another language by a living author.

Click here to read the rest of the review and for a few moving quotes.