Booking Though Thursday: The Brunt of Mount TBR

So, the question is this: “What tomes are waiting patiently on your shelves?"

My shelf has many books that have been sitting waiting for me for years, many of these are classics that I brought during university with the aim of having good knowledge, and never got around to, like Moll Flanders, War and Peace, North and South by Elizabeth Gaskel and The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy.
I also have:
The Robber Bride and Alias Grace by Maragaret Atwood, both of which I brought 10 years ago during my A' Levels, when I was just 17! I have no idea why these two haven't been read as I have enjoyed all of her stuff.

A few others with have been hanging out on my shelves for several years: A Suitable Boy, Arthur and George and Yellow Dog.

Maybe there should be a rescue challenge for those books that never quite make it to the top of the pile.

A Week of Reading Short Stories

I'm attempting to get 100 Shots of Short off to a good start by reading at least one short story everyday this week. Teaching has really helped (kinda cheating I know)

On Monday I reread Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl to the kids at school. The story stars off all peaceful and calm and then unexpectedly turns dark. Always a favorite

On Tuesday I read The Red Room (H.G Wells) twice, to 11 year olds then 16 year olds. This 19th century tale is a great read for haloween, the brave young man ventures off into the red room to face whatever it is that lurks up there.

I also read a story for pleasure, Country Lovers by Nadine Gordimer. This was an excellent read. Set in Africa, it talks of how black and white children start off as friends, almost equals in play and in development, but the private education and benefits of the white children brings seperation, the division into master and worker. But one pair of children continued their friendship, from their teens, with innocent gift giving and hanging out through to 18, when this had developed into a secret sexual relationship. As with all secret relationships the outcome isn't happy. Very well, and very simply told, making the ending even more heart wrenching.

My Thoughts: The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas (plus a mini challenge)

I brought this book ages ago, and to be honest I'm not sure if I ever read the blurb, the fantastic cover design (reminding me of the brilliant Glass Books of the Dream Eaters) and the black edged pages were screaming out for me to buy this. It finally found its way to the top as I thought it would fit into the RIP III challenge, and its darkness makes it a good choice although its subject matter may stop people from thinking it fits.
The End of Mr Y is about a cursed book of the same name, everyone who reads it dies. Well that's actually, surprisingly, fine as only one copy is known to exist and its locked inside a bank vault. Ariel is an overly intelligent (she knows about everything apart from religion and love) PHd student, studying Lumas, the author of The End of Mr Y, her lecturer disappears, her university sinks into the hill and she randomly comes across a copy of this book. Obviously this is a book in which you need to suspend your disbelief.
The book contains a recipe, which promises knowledge, and despite knowing all about the curse, Ariel seeks out the ingredients and takes the mixture. The recipe leads people into the troposphere a place where you exist within your own mind and can jump between other peoples minds. Now, some bad men also know about this recipe and want to stop anyone else discovering it, so they are after Ariel and any one else who's involved, and they are not so easy to escape as they can also travel through minds.
It all sounds very bubble-gum like from that description but in amongst this adventure there is a whole heap of philosophy, language theory and science. I could keep up with the Sartre and Baudrillard just about, but a lot of the science went over my head. Definitely a book that needs concentration.
Challenges:
Fall into Reading
R.I.P III

Reviews:
Barts
Bookling

Another Challenge!
I'm also going to participate in Dewey's Martel-Harper challenge. This challenge involves reading 3 books from the list of books that author Yann Martel has recommended for the Canadian Primeminister Stephen Harper. Dewey's sign up page is here . October - December 31st
Birthday Letters - Ted Hughes
Metamorphoses - Kafka
Anthem - Ayn Rand

The Sunday Salon: Short Story Sunday

I've had a busy week, but managed to read all of The Hours, and I'm halfway through The End of Mr Y, which I'm really enjoying and planning to spend a few hours on later once I've got all my jobs done. And England is bathed in gorgeous sunshine at the mo, so I'm off for a wander around town and into the library to make sure I enjoy it before it disappears again.

My first short story for 100 Shots of Short.

Gold Boy, Emerald Girl By Yiyun Li (can be found online here).

A very melancholy tale set in the busy Beijing but with that air of tranquility that you often fing in Chinese stories. He has been brought up along by his mother, and she alone by her father. Despite countless attempts to get them married, both had remained single. When he arrives back from the freedom of America his mother is quick to try and set up a meeting between him and one of her prized students.

Anyone know any good online stories to recommend? I'm going to try and do Short Story Sunday everyweek from an online story.

My Thoughts: The Hours by Micheal Cunningham

I wasn't overly impressed by the film for this, but it was on my challenge list for both the Pulitzer prize and the 1001 list so I thought I had better give the book a go, and it was so much better, much more rounded.

The book spans across the day in the life of three women, each at a different point in history.

Virginia Woolf, in London in 1927, trying to start writing Mrs Dallloway, but also struggling with the pressures of depression and a desire to just slip away from this world.

Mrs Brown, in America in 1949, a housewife with the perfect little family, but they just don't satisfy her. She wants to escape, to a different life, to the book Mrs Dalooway, and also contemplates commiting suicide.

And Clarrisa, nick named Mrs Dalloway, who is preparing a party for her dying friend in modern day New York.

All the women are feeling seperated from life in some way, and suicide comes up a lot. Not agood novel for if you are having a bad day!

Challenges:

20th century Reads: 1999

Pulitzer Prize Challenge

1001 Reading Challenge

Book Awards 2 2/10

Booking Through Thursday

What was the last book you bought?
I brought a few books in a charity shop, Unless by Carol Sheilds, The Dream Lover by William Boyd, All Quiet on the Wesren Front and the Count of Monte Cristo. I don't buy many books now because I get a lot through bookcrossing.

Name a book you have read MORE than once
The book I have read the most as an adult is The Time Traveller's Wife, as a kid I read all my books over and over again.
Has a book ever fundamentally changed the way you see life? If yes, what was it?
Not that I can think of

How do you choose a book? eg. by cover design and summary, recommendations or reviews
All of the above, in bookshops it is the cover that grabs me fist, the more boring looking books stay on my shelves for ages

Do you prefer Fiction or Non-Fiction?
I read nearly all fiction, I keep meaning to read more non-fiction but never quite make it.

What’s more important in a novel - beautiful writing or a gripping plot?
I appreciate both, but probably plot.
Most loved/memorable character (character/book)
Herny and Clare - Time Traveller's Wife

Jane Eyre and Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Which book or books can be found on your nightstand at the moment?
The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas and Fragile Leaves by Neil Gaiman, and The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carrol which is my next read.
What was the last book you’ve read, and when was it?
I finished The Hours last night
Have you ever given up on a book half way in?
If I'm not enjoying it I'm unlikely to get to half way, with Cloud Atlas I struggled through the first half, loving some sections and hating others, I gave up at the half way point when I realised that the second half was the follow up stories to the first half.

A Neil Gaiman Double Whammy!

So much for an afternoon marking, I devoured 2 Neil Gaiman books, both for the RIP III Challenge and both were great.

I've read Coraline before, but last time it just kind of passed me by, this time I was in the right mood and I loved it.

Coraline is a modern fairytale. She is a young girl living in a house, with two overly busy and unattentive parents. The holidays are dragging and Coraline's life as an explorer is starting to get a bit boring. In the back of their flat is a locked door which leads to a brick wall. Well, being a fairytale we know that doorways such as these only lead to danger, and that our heroine will have to go and explore.

Behind the locked door, is Coraline's other family, all scarily with buttons for eyes (despite being grown up, one of the pictures I had to cover as I read the page, her eyes were just too freaky!). This alternative world is created by the mother, who appears to steal children's souls. And that's the intention she has for our main character, but as this is a fairytale we watch Coraline in her war against this adult.

I want to get the graphic novel version of this in the near future.

Other Reviews:

Booknut

An Adventure in Reading

The second Gaiman book was a gorgeous graphic novel which I spotted in the library and had never even heard of. Creatures of the Night includes 2 stories, The Price and The Daughter of Owls.

In The Price the narrators home is basically a home for stray cats, all manner of cats turn up to stay in the house, and all settle in fine. Until the Black Cat arrives, he sleeps on the porch but every night he is covered in cuts and welts. Once brought into the house to protect him from whatever is harming him, everything goes wrong for the family, from losing work, to accidents and srguments. When he is returned back outside, his owner sets out to discover just what it is that is attacking him.

The Daughter of Owls is a strange little tale, about an abandoned child believed to be the daughter of an owl. She is feared by the villagers and banished to live in the old convent. As with all feared female children she grows up to be a beauty and her actions cause havoc for the village which rejected her.

The pictures in this book are stunning, not at all like cartoons. The picture I really want to show you I can't find on the net, and I have no digital camera or scanner to capture it with.