Katrina's Reads

Sunday, 26 October 2008

My Thoughts: The Gargoyle - Andrew Davidson

Ultimately going to become my favorite book of the year!

I sat down this morning to read some of this book, and read for 7 hours, only stopping to nip to the supermarket and to eat tea. Its amazing, really powerful.

The book is about a burns victim, he is in a car crash, his own coke-induced fault, which leads to immense burning of his hole body - the descriptions of the burns on the first 10 pages is horrific, and nearly made me put the book down. He goes from being a pornographic cassonova, with his own company and party lifestyle, to a guy completely dependent on others for his every need.

Into the ward, and into his life walk Marianne Engel calmly announcing that she has been looking for him for the last 700 years, since they were last lovers.

Marianne is Schizophrenic/manic depressive/ genius/ fantastic story-teller. She recounts their life together, plus telling him tales of various other connected figures, and folk tales while helping him with his treatment and taking him into her own care. She is a compulsive sculptor, working into a frenzy when God talks to her and tells her what to create.

The book is full of knowledge, of burns, religion, myth, Dante's Inferno (which I so want to read now!), and schizophrenia but everything is delivered so you can understand. It felt like a cross between The Time Traveller's Wife (my fav book) and The End of Mr Y.

Read for the RIP III challenge (book 9/4)

Sunday Salon: A week of reading planned

This last week has been really busy, the last week before half term is always jammed packed, so my reading has been limited. The only things I did seem to do, was create 2 new challenges; The Rescue Challenge and Exploration: Latin American Reading Challenge (see here for info), and join a new challenge for 2009, The Pub Challenge - a challenge to read books published in 2009.

As I have a week off I'm planning to attack my reading piles and especially my reading challenges. I have to finish The Gargoyle and Out, both of which are extras for Carl's RIP III challenge. Out is also my second read for the Japanese challenge, hopefully I'm going to find another Japanese book this week and get this challenge bagged. I'm also trying to read at least one short story a day from a collection of Nineteenth Century short stories, then I'll only need to read one more collection of stories before the end of the yet.

Anyone else tackling their challenges st the moment? How is it going?

Saturday, 25 October 2008

Decades Challenge 2009

3M is hosting this challenge again

Did you participate in the By the Decade Challenge last year? Would you like to
again? Or, if you didn’t take part in 2008, are you interested in doing so in
2009? We’d love to have you join us!
Decades ‘09 Rules:
1. Read a minimum
of 9 books in 9 consecutive decades in ‘08.
2. Books published in the 2000’s
do not count.
3. Titles may be cross-posted with any other challenge.
4.
You may change your list at any time.
5. Peruse the eligible book lists and
reviews from 2008 or 2007. Any book from that decade is eligible; it doesn’t
have to be on the list to qualify. A good source to find out when books were
published is wikipedia. For example if you follow this link, you will
see how easy it is to search books by a particular decade. Another resource is fantasticfiction.co.uk.
7. Sign up through Mr. Linky below.
Please use the url of your specific post for this challenge rather than just
your blog url.
8. 6. After about January 12, come back and post the links to
your reviews into Mr. Linky for the appropriate decade. Please don’t post
‘09 reviews in the Mr. Linky before January 12. I’ll need some time to
switch over the ‘08 reviews and set up the new ‘09 Linkys. You don’t have to,
but you are encouraged to post all the books you’ve read for that decade if
you’re participating in Decades ‘09.
9. Have fun reading your Decades ‘09
books, and have a great year!

Here is my potential list, I've picked 2 for each year so I have more freedom to chose according to my mood.

1990: A Suitable Boy, Seth or Alias Grace, Atwood

1980: Love in a Time of Cholera,Marquez or The House of Spirits, Allende

1970: The Sea, The Sea, Murdoch or In A Free State, Naipaul

1960: Big Sur, Kerouac or The Arrow of God, Achebe

1950: Naked Lunch, Burroughs or The Go Between, Hartley

1940: Canary Row, Steinbeck or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Smith

1930: Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald or The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck

1920: The Sound and The Fury, Faulkner or The Trial, Kafka

1910: Of Human Bondage, William Somerset Maugham or The Secret Garden, Burnett

Thursday, 23 October 2008

The Rescue Challenge: Participants Lists

Shana

Jenny

Exploration: Latin American Fiction - Participants

Shana

Eva

Intergalactic Bookworm

Wednesday, 22 October 2008

The 2009 Pub Challenge

The 2009 Pub Challenge held by 3M

Here are the 2009 rules:
Read a minimum of 9 books first published in 2009. You don’t have to buy these. Library books, unabridged audios, or ARCs are all acceptable. To qualify as being first published in 2009, it must be the first time that the book is published in your own country. For example, if a book was published in Australia, England, or Canada in 2008, and then published in the USA in 2009, it counts. Newly published trade paperbacks and mass market paperbacks do not count if there has been a hardcover/trade published before 2009. Any questions on what qualifies? Just leave a comment here, and I’ll respond with the answer.
No children’s/YA titles allowed, since we’re at the ‘pub.’
At least 5 titles must be fiction.
Crossovers with other challenges are allowed.
You can add your titles as you go, and they may be changed at any time.
Sign up HERE using Mr. Linky.
Have fun reading your 2009 books!

I haven't decided on a list books yet, I'll probably decide when I read reviews.

Here are a few I am aware of:

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro, 2009

Sarah Waters of Fingersmith fame is releasing a book in June, I'll definately be grabbing it as I love all her books so far.

Sunday, 19 October 2008

Two Completed Short Story Collections

The Little Black Book of Stories - Byatt

Way, way back in April I picked up and started this collection of short stories on a bus journey, the book then got put down and forgotten about till I rediscovered it for the RIP III challenge, and now its finally finished.

I love A.S Byatt's Possession but have never got around to reading any of her other stuff, well if this collection is anything to go by I should dig some more out. With the exception of one story, 'Body Art' I enjoyed all the tales, most I would say are relevent to the RIP challenge, while one 'A Stone Woman' was just very strange and mysterious. My favorite has to be 'Raw Material' a story about a creative writing teachers dismal class, with one shining light. The story was so soft and gentle that the ending came as a sharp surprise.

Fragile Things - Gaiman

This was a great collection of short stories, as expected by Gaiman. A few were abandoned but most were loved, in particular The Day the Saucers Came and Octobers Chair. A random selection of these stories I have reviewed as I read them:

Goliath, Keepsakes and Treasures & Bitter Grounds, Closing Time, October's Chair

Challenges: RIP III, Short Story Challenge, 100 Shots of Short