Polka Dot Rock

Don't feel bad - I've done a couple of reviews before where no-one's replied It's not personal, and newbies sometimes find them later on and comment!

Is that his most recent? It sounds familiar...

I beg your pardon??! :D (Sorry, couldn't resist!) Judy's very fond of them too, which is why I know she won't mind me replying in her thread How's the Zola ticking along, Judy? I'm struggling with Two Cities, I'm afraid It's not as character driven as Dickens' other works I've read, I think that's the problem for me.

Hey Squawk The best thing to do, I reckon, is have a quick look at some (if not all!) the others' reading blogs on here and you can get some ideas of how you might like to lay your blog-thread out. The majority are for the current year, but you can do whatever you can possibly do - the choice is yours! You'll often see 'summaries' on the first post (usually lists) of what people have read so far (often with marks out of ten or a sentence on their thoughts), what they're currently reading, their To Be Read lists, any books they're interested in and want to make a note of etc etc... These posts are usually edited quite frequently as you add books to different lists. It's entirely up to you! Hope that helps and wasn't too confusing!

Ooh now I didn't know that! Learn something new everyday etc.

I think so! Especially confusing as Anna isn't the only principal character, despite being in the title... The translation I've got is wonderfully fluent tho' so I imagine that will help

Good idea, Andy! Yep, I'm one of those people. I'm not sure when I'll get around to reading it, but maybe this thread will help I feel re-inspired to read it again after seeing Newsnight Review last Friday: they were discussing those new (awful) abridged classics, and Anna Karenina was one of them.

Very jealous!! Did you prepare it yourself, or did you buy it all ready-to-eat?

Oh dear... Now 29... How did that happen?!

List Updated I've had some cheap books through the post (including a swap from Kell - cheers hun!), so have added The Island by Victoria Hislop, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (snazzy American edition too!) and An Instance of the Fingerpost - Iain Pears (hmm, not what I'd define as 'good' condition But hey ho, it's readable). Also remembered I've never got around to reading Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse so I've moved it to my TBR shelf Already planning my next read: think I may be in the mood for some more Daphne du Maurier so have also moved Jamaica Inn to my TBR shelf.

Were you having Zola withdrawal symptoms?

Thank Lowek That's very useful to know: much more encouragement to read it! I can already feel myself becoming more involved, now I'm past the 200+ pages mark.

Oh yes! Well, I do practice my evil-genius laugh at work: Bwa-ha-ha-ha-HA-ha-ha! To that effect Have you ever seen the episode of The Simpsons when the school is closed down, and Bart and Lisa have to stay at home for a week? Well, I think I'm like Lisa in that episode, in that she can't cope without some kind of task to achieve! "Grade me! Grraaade ME!!" And I think Evil Book Genuius will become my new member status quote thingy *tootles off to do so*

I think I remember hearing that The Summer Book is semi-autographical...? Or I may have misheard it... Hmm. As you've probably noticed, I'm on another French theme as I'm reading A Tale of Two Cities: who knew the French said "Thou" and other such Shakespearan-type-phrases a lot?! Erm, interesting idea, Mr Dickens!

Hello you! Ooh get to it quickly!! It's fantastic! I'm having lots of fun with genre fiction: One Good Turn as a crime story, and I've just finished The Tenderness of Wolves which is, basically, a Canadian 'Western'. One Good Turn really did make me laugh... Hilarious characters!

So, here I am, fresh new blog for the Spring/Summer months. This is when my reading normally hits full flow, so it's probably a good idea to open a new thread! The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney was an absolute joy to read: I throughly enjoyed it and it well deserves it's award winning status ("Boo!" to the Orange Prize for not shortlisting it: "Boo!" again, in fact). I will review it properly as I'd like more people to hear about it. Beautiful characterisation, wonderful plotting, AMAZING atmosphere (I can't think of anything I've read that captures a mood and landscape so completely)... A beautiful and compulsive novel, and I can scarcely believe it's only Penney's first! She is also a screenwriter, and although the dialogue is pitch-perfect, I can't imagine this particular story as anything other than a written narrative. It's one of the few books where I've got to the end and felt a huge need to read more. I demand a sequel! I can't be left without knowing more... I've now embarked on Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (which is part of my Classics Challenge). It's a novel that I've heard referenced to an awful lot throughout my life, so thought it was high time I read it. However, I am struggling a little bit with it, which makes me wonder if my Victorian reading sensibilities are a little rusty... I think I'm getting back into the swing of things: once I hit Dickens' dialogue, it's like a part of brain/imagination is instantly fired up. So as yet, I'm not finding it as immediately compulsive as Great Expectations, but I'm certainly sticking with it I like the sense of injustice and protest that Dickens is weaving throughout A Tale of Two Cities already. It's interesting that some elements of society that Dickens protested about can still be seen... Interesting, eh?

From April 22 to June 24 (Previous Blog can be found here and the Continuing Blog here ) Colour Key Classics Modern Classics Short Stories Recent/New Releases (2006/2007) Doorsteps (Chunky monsters of a novel, approx. 400 pages +) (occasionally, one book can also be classed as another so this noted by a corresponding asterix) Currently Reading The Fahrenheit Twins - Michel Faber January Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi (9/10) Vanity Fair - W.M Thackeray* (8/10) Wicked - Gregory Maguire (7/10) February The Night Watch - Sarah Waters (8/10) The Girls - Lori Lansens (9/10) March Restless - William Boyd (3/10) One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson (10/10) Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (6/10) The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon (8/10) April Poppy Shakespeare - Clare Allen (5/10) Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood (8/10) Disobedience - Naomi Alderman (9/10) The Tenderness of Wolves - Stef Penney* (9/10) A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (5/10) May Jamaica Inn - Daphne du Maurier (8/10) How Novels Work - John Mullan (9/10) Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons (9/10) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon (9/10) My Cousin Rachel - Daphne du Maurier (8/10) The Crimson Petal & The White - Michel Faber (10/10) June Arlington Park - Rachel Cusk (7/10) The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly (6/10) Small Island - Andrea Levy (8/10) Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (9/10) The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde (7½ /10) TBR Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis Money - Martin Amis Maps for Lost Lovers - Nadeem Aslam Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood* Mansfield Park - Jane Austen Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen Sense & Sensibility - Jane Austen Villette - Charlotte Bronte* The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop - Lewis Buzbee Love - Angela Carter Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes (trans. Edith Grossmann)* No Name - Wilkie Collins* The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai David Copperfield - Charles Dickens* The Woman Who Walked Into Doors - Roddy Doyle Julius - Daphne du Maurier The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot* Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons Chocolat - Joanne Harris The Island - Victoria Hislop The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini Goodbye to Berlin - Christopher Isherwood Finn Family Moomintroll - Tove Jansson Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones Man Walks Into A Room - Nicole Krauss The People's Act of Love - James Meek Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky (trans. Sanda Smith) An Instance of the Fingerpost - Iain Pears Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl* The Book of the City of Ladies - Christine de Pizan (trans. Rosalind Brown Grant) Franny & Zooey - J.D Salinger Kartography - Kamila Shamsie Anna Karenina - L.N. Tolstoy* To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf Want Nightwood - Djuna Barnes Possession - A.S Byatt Will & Me: How Shakespeare Took Over My Life - Dominic Dromgoole This Is Not a Love Song - Karen Duve The Apple: New Crimson Petal Stories - Michel Faber Then We Came to the End - Joshua Ferris Howards End - E.M Forster The Odd Women - George Gissing Carter Beats the Devil - Glen David Gold The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing Affluenza: How to be Successful and Stay Sane - Oliver James The Cement Garden - Ian McEwan Valley of the Dolls - Jacqueline Susann Last Orders - Graham Swift Re-Read Nights at the Circus - Angela Carter Wise Children - Angela Carter Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke Unless - Carol Shields On Beauty - Zadie Smith Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

List Updated As a few others have done, I'm going to 'close' this thread and begin a new one before all the posts get horribly tangled (said she with three blogs on the go...) Book Blog Part 2 (April 22 - June 24) Book Blog Part 3 (June 25 onwards)

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1857) The blurb: "Oh, why, dear God, did I marry him?" Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent devourer of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment, and when real life continues to fail to live up to her romantic expectations the consequences are devastating. Flaubert

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (1853) "Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?" The blurb: No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles

Plus, have you ever heard Margaret Atwood herself speak? I love her but OH DEAR. She has such a flat voice! But she is a lovely and witty person, so perhaps she gets away with it. Perhaps.

Who's doing the reading, Kell?

I always think I should read Irving, but never know where to start. I think it's because the film adaptations can be a quite hit-and-miss, so I'm never sure what the actual novel might be like. For example, I love the film of The Cider House Rules, but I've seen part of one with Robin Williams in, and that was, erm, interesting... (Is that The World According to Garp?). Is Owen Meany usually consdiered his best? Or can anyone recommend another Irving starting point?

Oh wow, nice finds Kitty!! If I may... Great Expectations, Vanity Fair and Wuthering Heights are three of my favourite books, and I'm reading A Tale of Two Cities at this very moment (well, not at this particluar moment as that would inolve the tricky feat of reading and typing at the same time, and... oh, nevermind! )

Excellent finds, h&d!! Quite jealous actually... Hanley's charity shops are rubbish for books Poor me