Monday, August 29, 2011

Book 7: "Diary" by Chuck Palahniuk

My sister-in-law is a big fan of Mr. Palahniuk but I've never read any of his works.  I decided to include one of his books in my little project here and picked one fairly randomly from her shelves and now it's time to dive in.  It's not the one that my sister-in-law thinks is the best (Choke) or his most famous (Fight Club) so I think it might actually be more representative of his work than the others.

By reading the last couple books in 5 days instead of 7, I have completely caught up with my schedule and have a full week to finish this one.  At 272 pages I only need 39 page per day and, after two weeks of 100 pages per day, it should be a nice, leisurely read.

UPDATE: My first impression, after reading a lot of classic literature was, "My goodness, modern literature sure is vulgar."  But, after I got used to the changes in style this book really grew on me.  It went from that initial revolting to intriguing to very interesting.  I'm not sure that I was happy with the ending and this was one of the only times I can remember hoping for an unhappy ending... though it's difficult to figure out what that would actually mean with this book.  My favorite  line was, after spending an entire chapter describing what different paint colors are made of (crushed beetle shells, crawfish ink, charred bone), that: "The more you know about art, the more it sounds like witchcraft."  Very nice.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Book 6: "Emma" by Jane Austen

Only two days late now.  Made up quite a bit of time with Book 5.  So now, on to something girly!  Hahaha.  Seriously, I really like Jane Austen.  Her stories are not always brilliant; I found Mansfield Park to be particularly dull.  But, her mastery of the English language is amazing.  You rarely come across such well crafted prose.  So, with that prologue, I'm looking forward to some good Regency era reading.  462 pages means 66 pages per day.  I'll probably shoot for more to try and finish it in 5 days so that I'm completely caught up.

UPDATE (08/29/11) - Another enjoyable read... It must be getting rather tiresome to hear nothing but positive reviews, but I spent quite a bit of time choosing my first few books for this project to make it as enjoyable as possible, so it's really no surprise.  Pride and Prejudice is indisputably Jane Austen's master work, but Emma comes in a very close second, in my opinion.  What I enjoyed most was the growth of the title character, Emma. In the beginning, she is meddlesome, arrogant and headstrong but, through a series of bad judgments on her own part and the effects her actions have upon her friends, she gradually learns from her mistakes and becomes a better person for it.  Other than, perhaps, Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, it's a change unseen in most of her other characters.

So there it is, my new second-favorite Jane Austen novel.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Book 5: "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway

When I read The Old Man and the Sea a few years ago I became completely enthralled with Hemingway's writing.  Reading The Sun Also Rises soon afterward pretty well confirmed it.  Since then I've read all his books except this one.  I'm still behind since my vacation, but I'm not going to throw myself any more softballs.  495 pages means 71 pages... in order to catch up completely I'd have to read 165 pages a day... I think I might shoot for 100 and see how it goes.

Update: Finished the book on August 23rd taking 5 days at just about 100 pages per day.  Another great book!  This one is about a group of partisans fighting in the Spanish Civil War.  One of the most interesting aspects of this book was the was the way Hemingway wrote the dialogue.  You are reading the words in English, but the characters are speaking Spanish and the written words, while awkward in English are very good translations of what would actually be said in Spanish.  It makes for some interesting reading, in my opinion.  It's a very deep book, at it's core and the characters spend a lot of time figuring out what's important to them in wartime and how a country can be torn apart by civil war.  Sad, but very good.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Book 4: "Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe

I needed another "easy" book to help get back on schedule after vacation threw me so far off.  I was originally scheduled to finish this book on August 13th and I'm now 3 days overdue.  At 282 pages, I need to get through 40 pages a day to finish in a week.  More if I want to catch up a bit more.

Update: Finished on August 18th, still 4 days behind.  Great book though.  I was looking for something exactly like this: someone marooned has to recreate civilization from scratch.  The concept is interesting and the execution here is quite good.  You kinda forget that it's fiction and not an account of someone's life.  The other thing that I liked was that, being 300 years old, there were some parts that were a little uncomfortable, dealing with slavery and treatment of native peoples... and, surprisingly, Defoe also seemed uncomfortable with these issues.  Rather progressive for someone writing around 1700.  Anyway, the book holds up to its many years and I highly recommend it to anyone.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Book 3: "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien

Yes, I know, this one was cheating.  I've read this one before... multiple times, actually.  But, I was going on vacation and wanted something fun to read.  I brought a total of 3 books with me on vacation being wildly optimistic about how much time I'd have to read.  Turns out, I only read 36 pages.

It took a total of 10 days to finish this book.  Though, in all fairness, once I got back home I finished it in 4 days.  Put me way off schedule though... gonna have to work double-time to catch up.

The Hobbit is still an excellent book, I never would have finished so quickly otherwise.  I'm just waiting until my son is old enough to appreciate Tolkien.