Like everyone else on Facebook, I recently came across the BBC list of top 100 books (in England, at least). I'd read about 40 of them, but most were the classics-- you know, Lord of the Rings, Pride and Prejudice, A Tale of Two Cities, etc. .. I decided to tackle the list and make myself a little more well read.
(Side note. Here's the funny thing. There are MANY copies of this list floating around-- none of which I could find on the actual BBC site. I can't even find the copy of the original list that I had on facebook, so I can't link you to it.)
Armed with my library card and a copy of the list, I headed to the public library. I checked out 4 of the books. I've read three so far and here's my review. (Because I'm sure that everyone gives a rip what I think.)
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. They recently made this one into a movie. It was rated R-- that should have given me a clue. I'm never quite sure what to do with books that cross the nasty line, you know? Do you just try to skip those parts-- be your own version of Clean Flicks? That's what I chose to do with this book-- and, quite honestly, that is pretty much my impression of it. I'm giving it a C.
The Life of Pi by Yann Martel I liked this one. It reminded me a lot of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Lord of the Flies by William Golding-- kind of that "battle the beast within" thing. I learned a lot about sloths and about Hindus. These two subjects take up about the first third of the book or so-- you kind of have to slog through them to get to the real story. It's a good read, though. I'll give it a B.
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon I liked this one a lot. This one flirted with the nasty line too, but not as badly as Cholera. However, Shadow has a much better story line. It is kind of a love story / mystery / adventure-- it's not one of those books that fits into a tight category. Everything and everyone in the book ends up connected to each other somehow-- that seemed annoying at first, but then you understand that is the point-- how things connect and stories happen time and time again. At least that's the point I got out of it. I could be blowing smoke. I gave it an A- and I'm sending it with Layne on his business trip this week.
It's been good for me to read books by authors of different nationalities. My literature experience, while probably more extensive than some, is still very heavy on the British / American side. Sometimes it's good to realize that there are many different perspectives in the world than the narrow one we hold ourselves.
The fourth book that I checked out was a second one by Marquez-- I haven't started it yet and, after the last one, I'm not sure that I'm going to. We'll see if there's anything better at the library. (And if I can talk Emalee into checking out something besides the Babysitter's Club. Seriously, did you know there's over 100 of them and she's read almost all of them? Talk about needing to expand some horizons!)
5 comments:
Thanks for the book reviews!!! I love that idea. I didn't make it all the way through Love in the Time of Cholera...I thought I had finished it in my memory, but I found it the other night buried under a bunch of other books...which is kind of odd since I normally won't start another book until the one I am reading is finished. Now I need to decide if it's worth finishing...since I didn't to begin with I am guessing I was bored with it the first round!
Great book reviews Kim. Cholera was an odd book. I finished reading it and it was one of the few books I wish I hadn't read. It got further and further over the line until I decided that I couldn't even donate it to the DI. The relationship with the young girl at the end was just too much. I'm usually not prudish, but wouldn't recommend it.
Life of Pi was good. I actually liked it quite a bit. It's a great book for a book club, as long as everyone has finished the book :o)
I agree with your review of Love in the Time of Cholera...I read it because I happened to watch an Oprah where it was a suggestion for her book club and she described it as the Ultimate Love story of all time...WHAT!um, not so much, I was quite disturbed and depressed by it all. :)I also read and loved Shadow of the Wind, I will have to give Life of Pi a read. It's always fun to read other peoples book reviews.
I'm glad that you won the contest :o) I'm off to Idaho this weekend, but my goal is to be home in the afternoon on Sunday. Do you want cards or cake? You must choose...
Yeah! I'm glad to see you on GoodReads - it's fun site and great to get ideas of what to read next. I won't bother with Cholera since I was going to read that one. Life of Pi is on my list, now it may jump up a few notches to actually being read. Thanks for the reviews.
Post a Comment