Happy Wednesday everyone!
We are half way through the week! Sadly I have barely read a page so far, work and tiredness have taken their toll on the reading front.
The quote I have chosen today is by one of my all time favourite authors, J. R. R. Tolkien. He wrote the book I have read the most The Lord of the Rings.
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)
Happy reading!
The list so far:-
Good as gold:- The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling
The Book is better:- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Short and sweet:- The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
On the bandwagon:- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Attwood
Actually want to read:- Jaws by Peter Benchley
Not from around here:- Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
In a friend zone:- The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell
Wheel of format:- Twelfth Night
The next prompt is New Voices:- Read a debut novel.
I’m rather excited about this prompt as it hopefully means I discover a new author.
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She’s even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. ‘Jess and Jason’, she calls them. Their life – as she sees it – is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy. And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she’s only watched from afar. Now they’ll see; she’s much more than just the girl on the train…
This has been sat on my bookshelf for a very long time and it would be good to read.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Esther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. In her acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther’s breakdown with such intensity that her insanity becomes palpably real, even rational—as accessible an experience as going to the movies. A deep penetration into the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche, The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic.
Another book that has been on my TBR list for a very long time.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Compared favorably to the works of Faulkner and Dickens, Arundhati Roy’s debut novel is a modern classic that has been read and loved worldwide. Equal parts powerful family saga, forbidden love story, and piercing political drama, it is the story of an affluent Indian family forever changed by one fateful day in 1969. The seven-year-old twins Estha and Rahel see their world shaken irrevokably by the arrival of their beautiful young cousin, Sophie. It is an event that will lead to an illicit liaison and tragedies accidental and intentional, exposing “big things [that] lurk unsaid” in a country drifting dangerously toward unrest. Lush, lyrical, and unnerving, The God of Small Things is an award-winning landmark that started for its author an esteemed career of fiction and political commentary that continues unabated.
A completely new one for me that I do not own but would happily buy and read.
So those are my three options to choose from. I really want to read all three so it will be a hard choice. Any advice will be a big help.
Happy Reading
It is time for another book choice to add to the reading list!
I must admit I am rather worried about this prompt as it will take me out of my comfort zone. I know leaving your comfort zone is a good thing occasionally but it still worries me.
Wheel of format: Read a book in a format that you don’t normally read in (graphic novel, poetry, a play, an audiobook, etc)
So what shall I choose?
Firstly, I will discard the audiobook idea as I really do not get on with audiobooks. I am reading poetry weekly so that is off the list. So I think I will stick with graphic novels and plays as my choices.
Graphic novel options:-
‘The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.’ With those words, millions of readers were introduced to Stephen King’s Roland ‘ an implacable gunslinger in search of the enigmatic Dark Tower, powering his way through a dangerous land filled with ancient technology and deadly magic. Now, in a comic book personally overseen by King himself, Roland’s past is revealed! Sumptuously drawn by Jae Lee and Richard Isanove, adapted by long-time Stephen King expert, Robin Furth (author of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: A Concordance), and scripted by New York Times Bestseller Peter David, this series delves in depth into Roland’s origins ‘ the perfect introduction to this incredibly realized world; while long-time fans will thrill to adventures merely hinted at in the novels. Be there for the very beginning of a modern classic of fantasy literature!
I actually own this one so that would be an easy choice. I read graphic novels when I did Media Studies for A Level but I didn’t study this one so I’m not entirely sure why I own it.
Following the decimation of Mega-City One during Chaos Day, Judges from other ‘friendly’ Justice Departments have been brought in to strengthen the ranks and help maintain law and order on the streets. Amongst the newcomers is Fintan Joyce – son of a former Emerald Isle Judge, who teamed up with Judge Dredd in one of the most fondly remembered Dredd stories. Exploiting the Big Meg’s weakened state, several groups have risen up against the Judges, including the Goblin King’s Undercity army and a mutant group lead by the monstrous Thorn, who have been attacking Cursed Earth outposts. If things couldn’t get any worse, Dredd has fallen foul of Brit-Cit and they want him in prison or on a slab… Have the odds finally stacked up enough to spell the end of Mega-City One’s greatest lawman?
I have always been fan of Judge Dredd so this is very tempting.
Play options:-
I think I will consider all the plays by William Shakespeare other than the ones I have already read and they are not many.
The ones not on the list are:-
Macbeth
Romeo and Juliet
The Tempest
The Taming of the Shrew
Hamlet
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Lots of plays to choose from!
Lots of possible choices to mull over for this one. Any advice would be gratefully received.
Happy reading!
Happy Saturday!
It is time for another Summer Reading Challenge decision. This prompt is It takes two: read a coauthored book.
This should be interesting for me as I have only ever read one coauthored book before, hopefully I will find some I like.
Google has had to help me with todays suggestions.
Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King
In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep; they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze.
If they are awakened, and the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent; and while they sleep they go to another place.
The men of our world are abandoned, left to their increasingly primal devices. One woman, however, the mysterious Evie, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease.
Is Evie a medical anomaly to be studied, or is she a demon who must be slain?
I remember when this book first came out and I was intrigued by it. I had completely forgotten it was coauthored.
Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb
August 1914. England is at war. As Evie Elliott watches her brother, Will, and his best friend, Thomas Harding, depart for the front, she believes—as everyone does—that it will be over by Christmas, when the trio plan to celebrate the holiday among the romantic cafes of Paris.
But as history tells us, it all happened so differently…
Evie and Thomas experience a very different war. Frustrated by life as a privileged young lady, Evie longs to play a greater part in the conflict—but how?—and as Thomas struggles with the unimaginable realities of war he also faces personal battles back home where War Office regulations on press reporting cause trouble at his father’s newspaper business. Through their letters, Evie and Thomas share their greatest hopes and fears—and grow ever fonder from afar. Can love flourish amid the horror of the First World War, or will fate intervene?
Christmas 1968. With failing health, Thomas returns to Paris—a cherished packet of letters in hand—determined to lay to rest the ghosts of his past. But one final letter is waiting for him…
Looks like an intriguing read and it will be interesting to read a book set in Christmas in the summer.
These are the only books I could find that interested me. Perhaps I just do not like the idea of coauthored books.
The List so far:-
Good as gold:- The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling
The book is better:- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Short and sweet:- The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
On the bandwagon:- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Attwood
Actually want to read:- Jaws by Peter Benchley
Not from around here:- Memoirs of Geisha by Arthur Golden
In a friend zone:- The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell.
The list is growing and the first book I have started is The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Attwood.
Happy reading.
So tomorrow is meant to be the longest day of the year so I have chosen something suitable and also something close to my heart as I studied the play for my Drama A Level.
I’m not entirely sure whether this counts as a poem but I am going for it.
This chosen piece is from A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare and is the meditation that Duke Theseus delivers on what it means to dream.
More strange than true! I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold:
That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos’d a bear!
William Shakespeare
I am very behind on this list so far but tomorrow I will start reading the books I have already decided on.
The List so far:-
Good as Gold:- The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling
The Book is Better:- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Short and Sweet:- The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
On the Bandwagon:- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Attwood
Actually Want to Read:- Jaws by Peter Benchley
Not from around here:- Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
The next prompt for the list is In the friend zone: Read a book that a friend has recommended.
So as usual I have a few options to consider. The first contender is a book recommended to me by my husband.
The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell
When newly widowed Elsie is sent to see out her pregnancy at her late husband’s crumbling country estate, The Bridge, what greets her is far from the life of wealth and privilege she was expecting . . .
When Elsie married handsome young heir Rupert Bainbridge, she believed she was destined for a life of luxury. But with her husband dead just weeks after their marriage, her new servants resentful, and the local villagers actively hostile, Elsie has only her husband’s awkward cousin for company. Or so she thinks. Inside her new home lies a locked door, beyond which is a painted wooden figure–a silent companion–that bears a striking resemblance to Elsie herself. The residents of The Bridge are terrified of the figure, but Elsie tries to shrug this off as simple superstition–that is, until she notices the figure’s eyes following her.
A Victorian ghost story that evokes a most unsettling kind of fear, this is a tale that creeps its way through the consciousness in ways you least expect–much like the silent companions themselves.
The next book was recommended to me by my best friend Charlotte.
Tom Brown’s Schooldays by Thomas Hughes
One of the classics of English children’s literature, and one of the earliest books written specifically for boys, this novel’s steady popularity has given it an influence well beyond the upper middle-class world that it describes. It tells a story central to an understanding of Victorian life, but its freshness helps to distinguish it from the narrow schoolboy adventures that it later inspired. The book includes an introduction and notes by Andrew Sanders.
The final option was recommended to me by a friend and a student.
Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler
Pulitzer Prize winner and American master Anne Tyler brings us an inspired, witty and irresistible contemporary take on one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies.
Kate Battista feels stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric scientist father and uppity, pretty younger sister Bunny? Plus, she’s always in trouble at work – her pre-school charges adore her, but their parents don’t always appreciate her unusual opinions and forthright manner.
Dr. Battista has other problems. After years out in the academic wilderness, he is on the verge of a breakthrough. His research could help millions. There’s only one problem: his brilliant young lab assistant, Pyotr, is about to be deported. And without Pyotr, all would be lost.
When Dr. Battista cooks up an outrageous plan that will enable Pyotr to stay in the country, he’s relying – as usual – on Kate to help him. Kate is furious: this time he’s really asking too much. But will she be able to resist the two men’s touchingly ludicrous campaign to bring her around?
So these are the options, if you have any thoughts or recommendations please drop me a comment.
Happy reading!
WWW Wednesday is a meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.
The rules are answer the questions below and a share a link to your blog in the comments section of Sam’s blog.
No One is too Small to Make A Difference by Greta Thunberg
Literally just started reading this and only one chapter down. So far so good.
Awakens the Darkness by Dianne Duvall
Have been meaning to read this for ages as I do love all of Dianne Duvall’s books. Just started it this morning, fingers crossed I like it.
The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
Literally finished this last night and I could not put it down. A really thrilling read with a lot of twists.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
I finished this on Monday and I really enjoyed it, although I wasn’t so keen on the short stories at the end.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
This is my first planned read on my Goodreads Summer Reading Challenge, I plan on starting it on Friday.
I would love to hear if anybody else is taking part in this meme, please drop me a comment with your blog link below.
Happy reading.
Charity Begins at Home by Jeffrey Archer
About the author
Jeffrey Archer was born in England in 1940, he is a former politician and author. Archer was a member of parliament from 1969-1974 but did not seek re-election due to a financial scandal that almost bankrupt him. Facing bankruptcy Archer began to write and in so doing revived his fortunes. Archer’s political career has been filled with scandal and in 2001 he was sent to jail for perjury and perverting the course of justice, in 2003 he was released. All his life experiences influence his writing and make for interesting reading.
Blurb
By all estimates Henry Preston lives an uneventful existence – an accountant with no prospect of making partner and single with a sedate home life. That is until he meets Angela Forster, a fundraiser who specializes in charity events. As he begins overseeing Angela’s accounts, Henry spots an opportunity to live a life he previously thought impossible. With everything at stake, does Henry have the nerve to gamble with their futures for the chance of a better life . . .
Review
Another little short story that I read last week during a gap I had between teaching piano. People who read my blog will know by now that I am a massive fan of Jeffrey Archer’s short stories.
This short story was a nice little read but not spectacular, it just filled some time and kept me amused for twenty minutes, but I could have easily not bothered with the story as well. Basically it did not have me riveted to the story.
I really liked the character of Henry and felt rather sorry for him, he has always been Mr Average and does not expect anything spectacular with his life. However, he may have finally found an opportunity to correct his life from average to good. The problem is can he get away with it?
The character of Angela Forster is of a hard working woman who has not had the best of lives so far, her husband leaving her and she having to start her own business to make ends meet. Otherwise she comes across as a hard working average woman with a good business. Not Archer’s usual striking women who turn all men’s heads.
I’m not sure I entirely agree with this story line as it does seem to push the line of crime pays and if you want a better life crime is the way forward. Overall I could take it or leave it as a story and so have only given the story 3 out of 5 Dragons. A good little read to fill a spare twenty minutes.
Another instalment of the Summer Reading Challenge. I am slowly getting a list assembled and I am really looking forward to reading all these new books over the summer.
The List so far:-
Good as Gold:- The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling
The Book is Better:- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Short and Sweet:- The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
On the Bandwagon:- The handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Attwood
Actually Want to Read:- Jaws by Peter Benchley
The next prompt is Not from around here:- Read a book set in a different culture from your own. This one I must admit I am rather struggling with but I have tried to come up with a few ideas.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism.
A strong contender as I do enjoy the work of Khaled Hosseini.
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel presents with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan’s most celebrated geisha.
In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl’s virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction – at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful – and completely unforgettable.
A returner to the line up as this has already been on the list of possibles. Maybe it is a sign to definitely read the book.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it — from garden seeds to Scripture — is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
This has been highly recommended to me by several family members so I do believe I should give it a read.
I’m sticking with just the three options. If anybody has any recommendations please drop me a message.
Happy reading.
Happy Friday my wonderful Book Dragons!
I hope you all have an amazing weekend planned.
My chosen poem this week is by Tony Mitton. Mitton is a children’s author and poet.
Days
Old day, gold day,
where did you go?
Over the skyline,
sinking low.
Into the arms
of the waiting night
to nestle myself
in its dark delight.
New day, blue day,
what will you bring?
Light in the sky
and a song to sing.
Sun bobs brightly
up with the dawn,
spreading warmth
as the day is born.
Tony Mitton
Have a good day everyone.
Happy reading.
Lady Book Dragon 