Tag: Social Criticism

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

2012 Challenges, Books, The Classics Club

Book 131: A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

Geoff W

I knew very little about Charles Dickens going into reading A Tale of Two Cities. Seriously, the most I know I’ve got from either The Muppets version of A Christmas Carol or the Doctor Who episode from a few years ago. (Yay Gwen!) I am glad, however, that I’m reading two of Dickens’ greatest most well-known novels this year as it is his 200th birthday! What better year to read it than on such an occasion?

I picked up this version of the book almost exactly a year ago helping my sister move to New Hampshire for grad school, mentioned in my very first Lunchbreak Interlude! I really only picked it up because I’d never read Dickens, it was incredibly cheap and is staggeringly beautiful I think – both the black and the red are actually imprinted so the cover has texture; and the pages are uneven cut. This novel counts as part of my Mount TBR Challenge (book 19 of 25 – 76%) and The Classics Club (book 10 of 100 – 10%).

Click here to continue reading.

Book Group, Books

Book 95: The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett

Geoff W

To be completely honest this book was sort of “meh”. (Imagine a teenager with a blank look on their face and shrugging their shoulders as they make this sound and that is my reaction to the novel.)

As you’ll see in the rest of the review, I’m banking on the film being amazing because the idea is rich and the time period provides ample opportunities for costume and drama. I did try to think of a word to describe the novel and both mediocre and uninspiring didn’t fit. I can see where others would love this novel, but I didn’t really have a reaction to it. If I didn’t 1) refuse to leave a book unread; and 2) have to read this for my Books into Movies book group I probably would have abandoned it about half way through. Perhaps it’s just not my cup of tea, but that being said it was easy to read and relatively interesting considering my lack of enjoyment in the novel.

Click here to continue reading.

Books

Book 61: Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

Geoff W

First I have to apologize for the length of the post, it definitely got away from me. I planned on discussing the condition of the book when I bought it used (covered in ink writing, highlights, penciled notes, underlines, etc.) but will save that for another post.

If you’re interested in the points I found most interesting click here.

If you’re interested in quotes click here.

If you want to know whether I think you should read it click here.

As pertinent today as when first written in 1931. The question though is when you read the novel whether you read it as a utopic or dystopic (anti-utopic novel). Having written a paper on these type of novels (A Handmaid’s Tale and Woman on the Edge of Time) I determined, and supported by many reference works that you can’t have one without the other.

Click here to continue reading the review.

Books

Book 44: The Prince – Niccolo Machiavelli

Geoff W

I think this was required reading in High School for one of my classes, or I may have switched out of that class, but long story short I never read it. I bought the book and ended up packing the book up in one of my random boxes of books and only found it this past winter when I was looking for another book and I took it home to Boston and finally got around to reading it.

I’m not going to pretend I understood most of the novel, but I realize the further I get away from reading it that I understood more than I thought I did. The last half was a lot easier to understand as it had less to do with the people and princes of the time. Without an intimate knowledge of the princes and people it was a bit difficult to follow things.

The forward by Christian Gauss was perhaps the most interesting bit of the book to me as it was a who’s who of world leaders from dictators to presidents. Gauss did a great job of breaking down the book and explaining how it’s still as viable today as it was then.

Perhaps because I’ve read a lot of fantasy/fiction novels about power struggles often including monarchies a lot of what Machiavelli said made perfect sense and came across as common sense, but clearly when he was writing it was a time of turmoil and change.