Kylie
-
Posts
12,677 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Books
Posts posted by Kylie
-
-
A Walk In The Woods
Bill Bryson
Rating: 8/10
Published: 1997
Number of pages: 350
ISBN: 0552997021
Summary (taken from blurb):
The longest continuous footpath in the world, the Appalachian Trail stretches along the East Coast of the United States, from Georgia to Maine, through some of the most arresting and celebrated landscapes in America.
At the age of forty-four, in the company of his friend Stephen Katz (last seen in the bestselling Neither Here Nor There, Bill Bryson sets off to hike through the vast tangled woods which have been frightening sensible people for three hundred years. Ahead lay almost 2,200 miles of remote mountain wilderness filled with bears, moose, bobcats, rattlesnakes, poisonous plants, disease-bearing ticks, the occasional chuckling murderer and - perhaps most alarming of all - people whose favourite pastime is discussing the relative merits of the external-frame backpack.
Facing savage weather, merciless insects, unreliable maps and a fickle companion whose profoundest wish was to go to a motel and watch The X-Files, Bryson gamely struggled through the wilderness to achieve a lifetime's ambition - not to die outdoors.
Comments:
I started this book a couple of weeks after finishing Jack Kerouac's The Town and the City. That book fired up in me a big desire to visit the US, and this book has made it even worse! Despite the dangers that Bryson gleefully points out, he paints an irresistible picture of the Appalachian Trail and surrounding countryside.
As someone who has done a bit of bushwalking, I could empathise with the difficulties faced by Bryson and Katz, particularly at the beginning of their trip. I couldn't resist reading a couple of passages out to my Dad to show him that we haven't been alone in our difficulties. The comparisons ended there though; whereas my bushwalking experiences have been limited to a couple of days, Bryson and Katz went on for weeks. How they did it I'll never know, but I know that I would love to give just a small section of this track a go. It sounds incredible.
Once again, Bill Bryson has written a hugely entertaining travel book and A Walk in the Woods is now one of my favourites of his. My only gripe is that I always seemed to reach the funniest sections of this book while reading on the train during my daily commute. When will I learn not to read Bryson in public? It's just too hard and embarrassing trying to contain the laughter.
Started: 30 November 2007
Finished: 6 December 2007
-
The Thirty-Nine Steps
John Buchan
Rating: 6/10
Published: 1915
Number of pages: 254
ISBN: 1600961940
Summary (taken from blurb):
The late Lord Tweedsmuir, Governor General of Canada, better known as John Buchan, needs no introduction. As a teller of adventure stories he has few rivals, in fact he may be regarded as the inventor of the modern thriller, a breathless story of exciting and mysterious happenings following close upon one another. One of the most famous of these stories is The Thirty-Nine Steps, which, written during the last World War, is a vivid tale of the tracking down of an ingenious band of German spies. The tale has been made even better known through the screen version of Alfred Hitchcock.
Comments:
This is an enjoyable read that requires the reader to somewhat suspend their disbelief because there are so many amazing coincidences and escapes that are so conveniently timed that it becomes a little distracting. However, because this is one of the original thrillers, I can forgive all that and enjoy it for the fun read that it was - not too heavy or taxing. Recommended.
Started: 27 November 2007
Finished: 30 November 2007
-
Atonement
Ian McEwan
Rating: 8/10
Published: 2001
Number of pages: 372
ISBN: 0099429799
Summary (taken from blurb):
On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecelia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecelia, has recently come down from Cambridge.
By the end of that day the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecelia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.
Comments:
This is the first novel of Ian McEwan's that I have read and it likely won't be the last. I found his writing style to be absolutely beautiful. And I've found that where wonderful writing is concerned, I'm much more amenable to forgiving plot holes and other irritating aspects of a novel, and this one certainly had a few of those.
I found the first part of the story very slow going. There was a lot of nice writing but not much actually happened until the very end. I thought that this section could have been made a lot shorter without actually taking anything away from the book. I enjoyed the second section a lot more. In the context of the rest of the story, it probably could also have been made shorter, but historically it was very interesting to me (not previously knowing much about this particular event).
Like others, I was a bit disappointed with the ending. I thought it was a bit of a cop-out.
I didn't like being tricked into thinking the story ended one way, only to find that it ended differently. I also think that if Briony was really trying to atone for her crime, then she should have told the story the way it really happened.
I recall there being an explanation of this at the end, but it wasn't to my satisfaction.
Started: 16 November 2007
Finished: 27 November 2007
-
The Town and the City
Jack Kerouac
Rating: 9/10
Published: 1950
Number of pages: 499
ISBN: 0141182237
Summary (taken from blurb):
The town is Galloway in Massachusetts, birthplace of the five sons and three daughters of the Martin family in the early 1900s. The city is New York, the vast and heaving melting pot which lures them all in search of futures and identity.
Nearly a decade before the publication of On The Road, the story of the Martins' epic transformation in The Town and the City marked the first true literary impact of the founding father of the Beat Generation. Inspired by grief over his father's death, and his own determination to write the Great American Novel, The Town and the City is an essential prelude to Jack Kerouac's later classics.
Comments:
I thoroughly enjoyed this epic story of the Martin's lives over the decades. I don't think I've ever read a book that has so inspired in me the will to jump on the next plane to America so I can have these experiences myself. It truly is the Great American Novel. The descriptions of characters and places are vividly portrayed and the story has all you could hope for in a great novel: it's moving, irritating, amusing, heart-breaking.
I had a little trouble identifying with any of the characters. Kerouac spends a large part of the beginning of the novel describing all of the characters in detail - so much detail that the personality traits he describes in his characters start becoming contradictory. And despite there being three daughters and a mother in the story, comparatively little time was spent discussing them and their lives compared to the father and sons. This irked me a little ('typical 1950s sexism', I thought), until I realised that this is largely an autobiographical account of Kerouac's early life. Kerouac has, in effect, split his own self into three of the sons: Peter, Jim and Francis. Maybe this is why I had trouble identifying with them.
This was Kerouac's first novel, and as such is written in a much more conventional manner than his later works. However, you can start to see his own unique style coming out in this book. It's very interesting to see. Very highly recommended.
Started: 19 October 2007
Finished: 14 November 2007
-
Has anyone seen the mini-series adaptation of Hogfather? It's going to be TV here in the next couple of days and I was curious as to whether it's any good. I'll probably tape it but won't watch it until after I've read the book (possibly in about 5 years time
). -
Around the beginning of the year I remember I was feeling quite overwhelmed with my large TBR pile. Then, during the course of the year, I went and bought over 150 more books, and suddenly I'm no longer stressed about it. I think it's because my TBR pile has reached such ridiculous proportions that it's more funny than worrying. It currently stands at 284. At the rate I read, that lot should last me 6 years.
-
An Australian accent in such an English novel seems very wrong, doesn't it? Hopefully I'll be able to start on this one again early in the new year.
-
I was just having a look at my ever-expanding TBR pile and thought I would post a note to remind myself what I consider to be my 'essential' reading for the rest of the year, because obviously I'm not going to get through the entire pile!
Jane Austen: Emma
Ray Bradbury: The Small Assassin
Bill Bryson: A Walk In The Woods
Charles Dickens: Great Expectations
Thomas Hardy: Far From The Madding Crowd
Jack Kerouac: The Town And The City
Ken Kesey: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
JK Rowling: Harry Potter (Books 1-7)
John Wyndham: The Midwich Cuckoos
In July, I posted the above list as a goal to complete by the end of the year. I've read all but Far from the Madding Crowd, which I started but have since given up on. It looks like being an excellent book, but I've had a lot going on recently and am about to drop dead from exhaustion, so I've had to swap this for a lighter read to see out 2007. I'm happy with getting through the other books though.
I can't believe that I haven't read a single page of a book in about 12 days! That's disgraceful!
I oughta be kicked off the forum 
I've just done some revising of my ratings in the first post. I'd been looking back over my reads for the past 12 months, and sometimes I've rated several books an 8 (for example), when really I enjoyed one or two of the books less than the others. So I've done some comparisons and adjusted the ratings accordingly.
I'm also way behind in my reviews; I have 4 that I need to post by the end of the year. I hope I can remember enough of the books to post decent reviews!
-
I had an outstanding reading year this year, and I expect another bumper year in 2008! Here are my picks for the past 12 months:
Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange
Ken Kesey: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird
JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Bram Stoker: Dracula
Following closely on the heels of these books, I gave the following books 9/10:
Jane Austen: Emma (really deserves a 10/10, but I love Pride and Prejudice just a little bit more!)
Charles Dickens: Great Expectations
George Grossmith: Diary of a Nobody
Jack Kerouac: The Town and the City
Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita
John Steinbeck: Of Mice and Men
Hunter S Thompson: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (sooo close to being in the 10/10 category!)
Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse 5
My bombs for the year were:
Paulo Coelho: The Alchemist
DH Lawrence: Lady Chatterley's Lover
Anna Sewell: Black Beauty
Roll on 2008!
-
I look forward to hearing your opinion of the Kindle, Pilgrim! I LOVE Project Gutenberg. It's especially useful for me because I like reading classics, so they're nearly always available for free. But despite having downloaded hundreds of things from there, I only tend to read shorter stories in ebook format, and I usually end up buying the classics in book form anyway because they're easier to read (and then I have a pretty physical object to admire
).Actually, I'm about to start reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens again, which is one I got from Gutenberg.
-
I have one book both for commuting and at home. I don't read that much at home so it would take me forever to read a book that way!
I rarely put my book in my bag though, unless it's secondhand; I always carry it in my hand when I'm walking. Once I tripped up the stairs at the train station and I was far more concerned about any damage I'd done to my book than damage I'd done to myself
I'm happy to report that, despite me landing on my book, it came out of that scrape pretty well! -
Are you glad you persevered with it, WillowFae? I read it a few years ago, and I think I struggled a little with some parts but overall I thoroughly enjoyed it. I love Susannah Clarke's writing style. I remember there were certain little phrases/descriptions that I thought were just brilliant.
-
In the last two years, I've read 90% fiction to 10% non-fiction.
-
I know for a fact that I'm getting 3 cookbooks. They're from a range of different ones by the same people, and I'm getting Chicken, Pasta and Dessert. They look pretty good - one recipe per page with a picture on opposite page. Gotta have pictures in cookbooks
I also asked for:
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Commonsense Cookbook Vol 1
The Little Black Book of Books (here's a description from Dymocks' website):
From the most explosive lyrics and chart-busting albums and singles to the greatest compositions and pivotal performances this is an overview of each moment's impact on modern music, on popular culture, and on rock evolution.The Little Black Book of Music (or Movies, I can't remember which now but I'm pretty sure it was Music!)
Here is the world of literature in a nutshell, each vital and intriguing moment placed in it's historic and cultural context creating an intelligent, accessible guide to the writings of the world.I think that's about it. I usually get a book voucher too so I can buy quite a few at the post-Christmas sales.
-
Ooh, I'd love to read Sylvia Plath's diaries, Deirdre. Let me know what you think!
I dug Anne Frank's diary out of my TBR pile recently and I was hoping to get to it by the end of the year but there's a very slim chance of that happening. I'm pretty sure I read some Adrian Mole when I was younger too. And I also have Bridget Jones waiting to be read.
I have a terrific book called These Is My Words by Nancy Turner. It's a fictional (although based on true events) account of a young woman's life in Arizona during the late 1800s.
I don't think I've ever read any factual diaries though.
-
What? You've only read 4 books in the last 3 weeks? Slow coach!
Just kidding of course. I am, as ever, in awe of your ability to read quickly. I have all 4 of those books on my TBR pile or wish list. I'm especially looking forward to getting into Woman in White next year.I adore A Christmas Carol. It's written so beautifully and I've made myself a nice little tradition of reading it every year. This will be my third time, I think. I believe I have the Muppet version of the book on tape somewhere and I plan on watching it as well.
-
There's also a Lego Bible called the Brick Testament. It's very well done.
-
Did someone say Charlton Heston? Mmm, must keep an eye out for that movie!
Sounds like an interesting read too...*wanders off to add it to the mounting wish list* -
Thanks Finrod! Player Piano sounds right up my alley. I'll let you know how I go when I finally get around to reading them!
-
Welcome Finrod and Tim! Nice to see more men joining up.
Finrod, the only Vonnegut I've read so far is Slaughterhouse-Five. What would you recommend that I read next?Tim, I've been wracking my brain trying to think of something but haven't had any success yet! Eternal Sunshine was certainly one of a kind. I hope someone else can help you more.
-
Welcome to the forum Dan! Nice to have you here.
I have an Excel spreadsheet that I try to keep updated, but mostly I prefer to use LibraryThing. There are quite a few members here who use it. One useful feature is that you can tag your books any way you like. One quick glance at my tags tells me I have read 284 books on my 'TBR' pile and 221 on my 'read' pile. Slightly skewed figures there and I'm hoping to tip the scales the other way next year
I also keep some simple text files on my iPod of books and authors that I'm interested in. I often go blank on author's names in bookshops so I can just turn on my iPod and look up the relevant note to remind me what I'm searching for. Very handy!
-
I don't have much to add except to say how impressed I am with this thread. We have managed to discuss a potentially explosive issue (religion) without arguing, despite our differing beliefs. Boy I love this forum.
If only the rest of the world were so tolerant towards each other's beliefs... -
Oh no! I hope you didn't have anything spoiled for you!
Both The Stand and Northanger Abbey are on my TBR pile for next year so I'll be interested to hear what you think.
-
I mentioned in an earlier post that you can transfer your own ebooks to the Kindle, which is a big plus for me (but the price tag still lets it down). Here's what Amazon has to say about it:
Eliminating the need to print, Kindle makes it easy to take your personal documents with you. Each Kindle has a unique and customizable e-mail address. You can set your unique email address on your Manage Your Kindle page. This allows you and your contacts to e-mail Word documents and pictures wirelessly to your Kindle for only $.10. Kindle supports wireless delivery of unprotected Microsoft Word, HTML, TXT, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PRC and MOBI files.PDF conversion is experimental. The experimental category represents the features we are working on to enhance the Kindle experience even further. You can email your PDFs wirelessly to your Kindle. Due to PDF
Are you pleased with what you've read in 2007?
in General Book Discussions
Posted
I've read 53 books this year, 2 up on last year. I'm pretty happy with my efforts and I've read some brilliant books this year, which I've posted about on other threads