Kylie's Reading List

[Kylie]

Great Expectations

Charles Dickens

 

Rating: 9/10

 

Published: 1860-1861

Number of pages: 556

ISBN: 0141023538

 

Summary (taken from blurb):

Pip doesn't expect much from life. His sister makes it clear that her orphaned little brother is nothing but a burden on her. But suddenly things begin to change. Pip's narrow existence is blown apart when he finds an escaped criminal, is summoned to visit a mysterious old woman and meets the icy beauty Estella. Most astoundingly of all, an anonymous person gives him money to begin a new life in London.

 

Are these events as random as they seem? Or does Pip's fate hang on a series of coincidences he could never have expected?

 

Comments:

A brilliant read and another tear-jerker! This is the second work of Dickens that I have read since beginning with A Tale of Two Cities last year. I found the style of writing much easier to get into this time, and I loved it from the start. The characters and scenery are beautifully painted and very haunting (Miss Havisham and the marshes come to mind). I love Dickens' descriptive writing and the humour he imbues in his writing.

 

I was expecting to love the character of Pip, but I mostly ended up disappointed by him again and again, until near the very end. Of course, this is no reflection on Dickens; he wrote an unlikable character extremely well. And I thought Pip's recollections made the transition between childhood and adulthood quite smoothly. Very highly recommended.

 

 

Started: 20 September 2007

Finished: 10 October 2007

 

Great Expectations (at librarything.com)

[Kylie]

Trixie Belden And The Marshland Mystery

Kathryn Kenny

 

Rating: 6/10

 

Published: 1962

Number of pages: 212

ISBN: 0307215784

 

Summary (taken from blurb):

Trixie gripped Honey's arm and held her back. "Look at the window!" she said in a strange voice. Honey looked and felt a little shiver go down her spine. A bony hand was gesturing from between the curtains of the window next to the door. And, quite unmistakably, the hand was warning them to go.

 

Comments:

First, a bit of background on the Trixie Belden series. Trixie Belden is a 13-year-old girl detective, and this series is much in the same vein as Nancy Drew, only aimed at a slightly younger readership (which, of course, doesn't discourage me from reading them!) There were 39 books published between 1948 and 1986, and while they're all attributed to Kathryn Kenny, this is actually a pseudonym. The first 6 books were written by Julie Campbell, and the rest were written by various other writers (some unknown).

 

I have almost the entire series (I'm missing #19 and #35-#39 - the last five are reasonably rare and very expensive to buy). I bought quite a few books to fill some gaps last year, so I decided to start re-reading the series and incorporate the new books along the way. I read the first 9 last year and I'll try to read a couple more before the end of this year.

 

The books are light and enjoyable reads, following the exploits of Trixie and her friends and siblings as they solve various mysteries. I have to say, though, that this one (#10) is the first Trixie Belden book I've been a little disappointed in. The humour seemed a little forced and 'try-hard' and, in actual fact, there was no real mystery to solve at all and very little concerning the marsh. It was more about the unhappiness of a child prodigy. There were quite a few references by characters to the myth that Captain Kidd hid treasure in the marsh, but it was always dismissed quickly and nothing came of it. I think treasure in the marshland would have made for a much better story here. Oh well, it was still a good read!

 

 

Started: 12 October 2007

Finished: 14 October 2007

 

Trixie Belden #10 (at librarything.com)

[Kylie]

A Spot Of Bother

Mark Haddon

 

Rating: 7/10

 

Published: 2006

Number of pages: 390

ISBN: 0224080466

 

Summary (taken from blurb):

George Hall doesn't understand the modern obsession with talking about everything. 'The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.' Some things in life, however, cannot be ignored. At fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz. Then Katie, his tempestuous daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her family is not pleased - as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has 'strangler's hands'. Katie can't decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by all the planning and arguing the wedding has occasioned, which get in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband's former colleagues. And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials. Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind. The way these damaged people fall apart - and come together - as a family is the true subject of Mark Haddon's disturbing yet very funny portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.

 

Comments:

This is not usually the type of book I would go for but I quite enjoyed it, even if some parts read as something I've seen a million times on a soapie (not very original ideas). I noticed that Mark Haddon has a penchant for similes, which I found slightly irritating at one stage when he wrote two in as many sentences, but I got used to them later on (well, either I got used to them or he stopped using so many!).

 

I found it hard to get to know the characters properly (and I had trouble keeping all their names straight for some reason!). It's written in a slightly dry manner: rather than actual dialogue, Haddon would write a conversation as 'he said this and then she said that', which I don't think helped with my character identification.

 

I felt quite sorry for George and I don't understand why Ray was the least popular character through most of the book when he was clearly the nicest, most normal one of the lot! I don't think the reader is given good enough reasons why George, Jean and Jamie would dislike Ray so much, and having him throw a bin in a one-off tantrum just didn't cut it!

 

I enjoyed Haddon's various observations on life and overall I found it a good read. I would like to read more by Mark Haddon. Recommended.

 

 

Started: 15 October 2007

Finished: 18 October 2007

 

A Spot Of Bother (at librarything.com)

[Kylie]

Bought four brand-new books cheaply yesterday.

 

Aldous Huxley: The Grey Eminence

Aldous Huxley: Those Barren Leaves

Donovan Leitch: The Hurdy Gurdy Man (Autobiography)

Geoff Tibballs: No-Balls and Googlies: A Cricket Companion

 

Saw a couple of others that I might go back and get too. One was another 'insider's account' of someone's time with The Beatles (can never have too many of those!). And the other was a big (huge!) book of maps. I adore looking at ancient maps, and this one has gorgeous full-page reproductions. I think it weighs about a ton (at a conservative estimate), so I might have to pick this one up on the way home from work one day - the book shop is near the train station so I won't have to lug it too far. Oh, and there were a handful of cheap Wordsworth editions of various classics, such as War and Peace, that looked mighty tempting

[Kylie]

Bought two books yesterday (the ones I mentioned in an earlier post):

 

Magical Mystery Tours: My Life With The Beatles by Tony Bramwell

Mapping The World by Michael Swift

[Kylie]

Some more books I've bought in the last week or two:

 

Jean M Auel: The Mammoth Hunters

Jean M Auel: The Valley of Horses

William Goldman: The Princess Bride

Kathryn Kenny: Trixie Belden and the Mystery of the Antique Doll #36

Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife

Terry Pratchett: Going Postal(Discworld #33)

Terry Pratchett: The Last Continent (Discworld #22)

Terry Pratchett: Thief of Time (Discworld #26)

Terry Pratchett: Thud! (Discworld #34)

Paullina Simons: Eleven Hours (this was a freebie!)

EB White: Charlotte's Web/Stuart Little/The Trumpet of the Swan

 

I'm hoping to get this updated with my recent reviews in the next few days. I've been getting a bit behind!

[Kylie]

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!

[Kell]

I'm currently listening to Far From the Madding Crowd myself, Kylie. I had a bit of a problem with it a few chaprters ago, as the woman reading it had a very nasal Australian accent and had no idea of intonnation or punctuation, which made for VERY difficult listening, but fortunately, she only did about 3 chapters in a row (I hope she does no more of them, as I was very close to giving up on it because of her!). I'll be starting chapter 15 today...

[Kylie]

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.

[Kell]

The thing is, ordinarily the accent doesn't bother me at all - in fact, I rather like it. It's just that this particular woman is so horribly bad at reading - she's skin-crawlingly bad! The subsequent chapters, by other readers, have all been fine, despite being read by a variety of different accents, both English and American (in fact, the American guy is particularly good and does very good English voices for all the characters!).

[Kylie]

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

 

The Town and the City (at librarything.com)

[Kylie]

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

 

Atonement (at librarything.com)

[Kylie]

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

 

The Thirty-Nine Steps (at librarything.com)

[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

 

A Walk in the Woods (at librarything.com)

[happyanddandy]

Thanks for this - I have this book in waiting to be read

[Kylie]

I'd forgotten to post about the books I have gotten since Christmas. The list is mostly books I got for Christmas and ones I bought with a voucher, but there are also a few second-hand books I bought on New Year's Eve.

 

Enid Blyton: The Magic Faraway Tree

Bill Bryson: Neither Here Nor There

Simon Callow: The Road to Xanadu (Orson Wells biography, volume 1)

Simon Callow: Hello Americans (Orson Welles biography, volume 2)

Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep/Farewell, My Lovely/The Long Goodbye

Charles Dickens: The Old Curiosity Shop

Louise Fitzhugh: Harriet the Spy

Elizabeth Gaskell: North and South

Stella Gibbons: Cold Comfort Farm

Jack Kerouac: The Dharma Bums

Stephen King: IT

Madeleine L'Engle: A Wrinkle in Time

Hunter S Thompson: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

Sue Townsend: The Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4

 

And two books called:

The Little Black Book of Music

The Little Black Book of Books

They're full of small articles regarding important events, characters etc in the music and literary worlds for the past 100 years. Very interesting stuff.

 

Also, five cookbooks called:

4 Ingredients

The Commonsense Cookery Book Volume 2

Fast Chicken

Fast Deserts

Fast Pasta

[Kylie]

Review of 2007 Reading

 

I've had a most wonderful year in 2007 in terms of reading. I've read many truly wonderful books and just a couple of stinkers.

 

Here's a wrap-up of my reading:

 

10/10

Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange

Ken Kesey: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Harper Lee: To Kill A Mockingbird (re-read)

K Rowling: Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows

Bram Stoker: Dracula

 

9/10

Jane Austen: Emma

Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol (re-read over 2006/7)

Charles Dickens: Great Expectations

George Grossmith: Diary Of A Nobody

Jack Kerouac: The Town And The City

Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita

JK Rowling: Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire (re-read)

John Steinbeck: Of Mice And Men

Hunter S Thompson: Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas

Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse 5

 

5/10 or less

Paulo Coelho: The Alchemist

DH Lawrence: Lady Chatterley's Lover

Anna Sewell: Black Beauty

 

In 2007, I read 52 books, which works out at 1 per week. I don't know how I managed that when Lolita and The Town and the City took up 2 months between them! I suspect it's also because I read quite a few short books. I'll aim to read 52 again in 2008.

 

I bought 170 books in 2007, 46 of which were brand-new (but often at discount book shops) and the rest were second-hand (bought from book shops, book fairs and off ebay). In 2008 I'm going to try to restrict my buying to less than 100 books. Surely this will be pretty easy; my wish list is getting pretty low now.