Category: Memes

Classics Club August Meme – A Favourite Classic

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The Classics Club are now hosting a new monthly meme and this month we are asked to write about our favourite classic. Like most of the other Classics Club members who have been participating in this meme I find it difficult to pick just one book. There are so many that I love and on a different day and in a different mood I might have chosen to write about Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Woman in White, Gone with the Wind or even a children’s classic, like my beloved Watership Down. But if I have to name one classic as my all-time favourite, it would have to be The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

I’ll admit that other classics might offer deeper insights into life, more beautifully-written descriptive passages and more fully-developed characters, but this is the one I enjoy reading the most and that’s why it’s my favourite. It has such an exciting, entertaining plot (and lots of fascinating subplots), so much action and adventure – and one of my favourite fictional characters, Edmond Dantes.

I’m sure most of us have experienced some form of injustice at some point in our lives and can remember how it made us feel. The hero/anti-hero of The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmond Dantes, is the victim of an injustice so great that it completely destroys his life. Determined to punish his enemies for what they have done, he transforms himself into the Count of Monte Cristo and sets into motion an intricate plan for revenge.

I read The Count of Monte Cristo for the first time in 2006 and knew from the very first chapter that I was going to enjoy it. It’s a very long book – over 1,000 pages in the edition I read – but if you’ve never read it, please don’t let the length put you off. The story moves along at such a fast pace I remember being surprised to find it was a much quicker read than I’d expected. Don’t be tempted to read an abridged edition either because you would be missing out on so much. The plot is so complex I can’t imagine how anything could successfully be left out without spoiling the whole structure of the story.

I’ve also read two other Dumas novels – The Black Tulip and The Three Musketeers – and I loved them both, but not quite as much as I love this one. I’ve now read it twice and it’s on my list to re-read again soon for The Classics Club!

What is your favourite classic?

Six sixes from the first six months

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When I saw that Jo of The Book Jotter had posted a summary of the first six months of the year by putting six books into six different categories, I thought it was a great idea and the perfect way to look back on our reading so far in 2012.

You can see my own ‘Six Sixes’ below. I’ve changed a few of the categories slightly to suit my own reading and although some of the books I’ve read would fit into more than one category I’ve only listed each book once.

Six books I loved:

Here are some of my favourite books from the first half of the year. I loved Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles so much it was very tempting to include all six of them here, but I wanted to give other books a mention too!

1. The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
2. Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini
3. Here Be Dragons by Sharon Penman
4. The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye
5. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
6. Mariana by Susanna Kearsley

Six books by authors who were new to me:

I hadn’t read anything by any of these authors until this year and would be happy to read more books by all six of them.

1. The Last Summer by Judith Kinghorn
2. The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
3. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
4. Wonder Girls by Catherine Jones
5. Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay
6. The Hunger Trace by Edward Hogan

Six books with a mystery to solve:

I haven’t read many mysteries or crime novels this year but I enjoyed all six of these – especially my first two choices.

1. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King
2. Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters
3. Towards Zero by Agatha Christie
4. The Bull of Mithros by Anne Zouroudi
5. Every Secret Thing by Susanna Kearsley
6. Now You See Me by S.J. Bolton

Six books that took me back in time:

Historical fiction novels appear in most of my other categories too, but as it’s my favourite genre I decided to give it a category of its own.

1. The Crown by Nancy Bilyeau
2. The Secret Life of William Shakespeare by Jude Morgan
3. The Midwife of Venice by Roberta Rich
4. The Sultan’s Wife by Jane Johnson
5. The Adventures of Alianore Audley by Brian Wainwright
6. Treason by Meredith Whitford

Six classics I’ve read this year:

So far in 2012 I haven’t read as many classics as I was hoping to. Here are six of them – I’m sure I’ll be reading more over the final six months of the year.

1. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
2. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
3. Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome
4. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
5. Sylvia’s Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell
6. A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

Six books that I had one or two problems with but am still glad I tried:

I found these books slightly disappointing but there were still some aspects of them that I liked.

1. Sacrilege by S.J. Parris
2. The Map of Lost Memories by Kim Fay
3. A Small Circus by Hans Fallada
4. The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen
5. The Glovemaker by Stacia Brown
6. The Professor by Charlotte Bronte

~*~

So those are my sixes – will you be posting your own?

One Book, Two Book, Three Book, Four…and Five

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This is the second time Simon at Stuck in a Book has hosted this meme about past, present and future reads. I didn’t take part in the previous one, although I enjoyed reading everyone else’s posts, but this time I’ve decided to join in the fun myself!

1.) The book I’m currently reading:

I’m reading two books at the moment. The first one (in honour of Halloween) is a short story collection, Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell. I’ve only read the first story in the book so far and didn’t find it particularly ‘gothic’ but I’m sure the others will be better.

I’m also reading A Red Herring Without Mustard, which is the third book in Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce mystery series. I loved the first two and although I’m only halfway through this one, I’m enjoying it as much as the others.

2.) The last book I finished:

This is the second Winifred Holtby book I’ve read: the first was South Riding, which I read earlier in the year and loved. The Land of Green Ginger was not as good, which was probably to be expected, as South Riding is considered to be her masterpiece, but I still enjoyed it and should be posting my thoughts on it soon.

3.) The next book I want to read:

The Ghost of Lily Painter by Caitlin Davies. This is a library book and will probably be the next book I read after I’ve finished the Alan Bradley one.

4.) The last book I bought:

I love historical fiction set during the medieval period and this trilogy about the Percy family was recommended to me. Unfortunately the books are now out of print but I managed to get a used copy of the first one, Lion of Alnwick, in good condition from Amazon. Now I’m trying to decide if I should buy the other two while I know they’re still available or if I should wait to see what I think of this one first!

5.) The last book I was given:

It’s not often that I’m given books by friends and family, but I have received a few review copies this month. This is the most recent one: The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. It sounds like a beautiful story and I’m looking forward to starting it soon.

If you’ve read any of these books, what did you think of them?

Musing Mondays: Keeping Books

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Today’s Musing Mondays post from Just One More Page is about keeping books.
 
Do you keep all the books you ever buy? Just the ones you love? Just collectibles? What do you do with the ones you don’t want to keep?

I keep almost all of them. I usually only buy books that I’m fairly sure I’m going to enjoy (based on the synopsis, reviews, recommendations or because they’re written by an author whose work I’ve previously enjoyed) and I’m lucky in that I like – or even love – most of the books I buy. I know I’ll probably want to read them again one day, so I keep them on my bookshelves.

I don’t have any particular method for disposing of the books I don’t want to keep. A few examples: I used to have a beautiful 26-volume set of encyclopedias, but with Google and Wikipedia taking over everything, it had been years since I used them so I gave them all to charity. I also sold all my Sweet Valley High books on eBay, and gave away my Babysitter’s Club books to someone whose daughter wanted them, but there are a lot of other books from my childhood and teens that I can’t bear to part with even if I never open them again.

I really don’t like having to get rid of books just because I don’t have space for them – I know if I ever have a house with a spare room I’ll regret not keeping them all!

What about you?

Teaser Tuesday: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The rules:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page (avoiding spoilers)

I’m currently reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte and probably won’t be finished until the weekend – so in the meantime, enjoy this teaser!

“The next minute saw me hurrying with rapid strides in the direction of Wildfell Hall – to what intent or purpose I could scarcely tell, but I must be moving somewhere, and no other goal would do – I must see her too, and speak to her – that was certain; but what to say, or how to act, I had no definite idea. Such stormy thoughts – so many different resolutions crowded in upon me, that my mind was little better than a chaos of conflicting passions.”

p.78 “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” by Anne Bronte

Booking Through Thursday: History

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Here’s this week’s question from Booking Through Thursday.

Given the choice, which do you prefer? Real history? Or historical fiction? (Assume, for the purposes of this discussion that they are equally well-written and engaging.)

Historical fiction is my favourite genre of book. If I’m reading real, factual history (even when it’s well-written) I sometimes find it boring, whereas historical fiction helps to bring the past to life in an entertaining, enjoyable way. I often find I learn a lot about historical events through reading fiction. However, it’s important to remember that it is fiction and not necessarily 100% accurate.

I very rarely read non-fiction, so if anyone would like to recommend some well-written and engaging history books it would be very much appreciated.

What about you? Do you prefer real history or historical fiction?

Booking Through Thursday: But What About Me?

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Here’s this week’s question from Booking Through Thursday.

What’s your favorite part of Booking Through Thursday? Why do you participate (or not)?

Booking Through Thursday was the first weekly meme I discovered when I first started my blog in October and I have tried to participate as often as possible. The questions are always thought-provoking and make me think about the books I’m reading and my reading habits etc. It also gives me something interesting to write about on a Thursday!

I enjoy reading other people’s answers, even if I don’t have time to comment on them all. It’s a good way to find great blogs that I might not have found otherwise.