Vicky ([info]invocations) wrote,
@ 2008-04-15 19:39:00
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Current mood: mellow
Current music:Afro Celt Sound System- House of Ancestors
Entry tags:books, herding cats reading challenge

342, 745 Ways To Herd Cats: Reading challenge!


Uni (postgrad!) is now taking over my life. I do have sketches, I swears, but haven't scanned them in yet. In the meantime:




I love reading, so I just had to get onto this challenge that Renay started! I thought I'd post it here, rather than my largely friends-only personal LJ.

So! The rules:
-- Make a list of ten books you love.
-- Share the list with Renay (and whoever else is participating).
-- Read three books from other people's lists by November 30th. And write reviews!

The more books the better, so do join and recommend some good books. ^^

Ten books that I love

1) Les Miserables, Victor Hugo.

2) The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy.

3) Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier.

4) Battle Royale [novel], Takami Koushun, translated by Oniki Yuji.

5) The "Gormenghast" Trilogy: Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Titus Alone, Mervyn Peake.
I'm probably cheating a bit by listing three! The first two books are my true recommendations; they flow onto one another and I've only read the first two in their entirety. I've listed Titus Alone for the sake of completeness, but since it is so tangential to the rest of the trilogy, I believe the first two can stand alone.

6) Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen.

7) The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, Oliver Sacks. [Non-fiction]

8) Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes.

9) Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury.

10) Cloudstreet, Tim Winton.

When I have more time, I hope to edit this post to include a short bit about each book.

The three (or more) books that I'm going to read: TBA.

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[info]thornsmoke
2008-04-15 12:07 pm UTC (link)
!!!

If you love the Gormenghast series, then I think I love you.

Also, the reading challenge looks fun. -puts on to-do list-

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[info]invocations
2008-04-15 12:16 pm UTC (link)
<3! I love it so much that I was crying when I thought my copy (a secondhand omnibus) was lost in the post, the time I mailed books to myself from London because I had too much luggage. It arrived, 3 months later! Now I can finish Titus Alone.

YAY! I look forward to seeing your list and your later reviews.

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[info]thornsmoke
2008-04-15 12:26 pm UTC (link)
I actually lent my omnibus to a boy who proceeded to lose it and claim that he hadn't. So now I don't actually own one. I fear buying a new copy because whenever I buy books to replace books that I've lost, the old copies instantly turn up. But -- to be brief -- I sympathise.

Oh, Titus Alone. That book makes me sad. It's the one where Peake finally started to dissolve, and it shows. (The series was originally set to be a bildungsroman, too, so we had so many more books to go..!)

Have you seen the miniseries?

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[info]invocations
2008-04-16 06:21 pm UTC (link)
Sorry about the double notification, Thorn, I get mixed up between my accounts. ;_;

Bah to boy-who's-effectively-lost-your-book! The Murphy's Law of buying books; this has happened to me just once, luckily, I gave the spare book to a friend. ^^

Love the Calvin and Hobbes icons you've got, btw!

Oh, that does make me sad. I would have loved to have read the series as a bildungsroman; I think that would have helped the cohesiveness of the series, too. Have you read any more of Peake's writing?

No, I haven't seen the miniseries! I would like to, though I don't know where I can get hold of it. (Torrenting, probably.) I'm most interested to see how the characters would be portrayed, particularly Steerpike.

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[info]thornsmoke
2008-04-16 08:11 pm UTC (link)
It's fiiine. That used to happen to me all of the time. I'd log into one email account and go, "Whurr? Where's my stuff?" Then I'd email people in rages -- and remember that I was on the wrong account.

Thank you! I love them. I'd make more, but basic accounts only have use for six and I don't feel like giving LJ adspace. >__>

(It's at times like these that I wistfully recall Dream's library of books that were never written.) And no, I haven't, although I have one of his short stories floating around somewhere. Have you?

It's available on torrent, yeah. Aside from the usual adaptation quibbles, the miniseries takes a different tone - more "the fall of Steerpike" than "the rise of Titus". Which is understandable, I suppose, since Steerpike is played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, whom everybody adores.

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[info]invocations
2008-04-19 04:56 pm UTC (link)
To have Dream's library and a librarian who knows exactly where to find things in it! I haven't read any more of Peake's writing either. A friend once mentioned he had a book of his collected short stories (I think?) and that sounded interesting.

Oh good, I'm going to check that out! >.> I suppose I dislike JRM because of his morally ambiguous character in the only film I've seen him in- Match Point- but then, I suppose he has done his job. Damnit.

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