I'm adding more detail to my reading list:
(c) - I have completed the book - a cause for celebration still
(2) - A book I have previously failed to finish, but am trying again
(r) - I have read this book before (perhaps more than once)
(f) - I've given up
23 September, 2008
13 September, 2008
Reading List Continuations
Since my last post, I have now added Angela Carter's The Magic Toyshop. I have loved Carter's writing for many years, but have failed at least three times to finish this one - probably because I had just seen the film, or still had memories of it. A new volume was recently published (one in a series of 10) to celebrate Virago Modern Classics' 30 years which I bought for myself as a birthday present. Beautiful, though Nights at the Circus is still my faviurite.
I must re-read The Passion of New Eve.
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx was next. One of those books you try to read slowly because you don't want it to end. One of those books where a character will say tell you there life story rather than just say hello or 'I'm fine, how are you'. One of those books you really wish had never been filmed.
I've mostly stopped watching adaptations - films or TV - as I always wonder what compromises had to be made to squeeze into the smaller medium and The Shipping News was badly squeezed. Thankfully I had left it a couple of years after seing the film before reading the book. I have vague memories of Judi Dench and Kevin Spacey, anyone else is a blur.
Next was a failure, purely because I couldn't be bothered. The Unfortunates by Laurie Graham. I got to page forty something, read a short story by Annie Proulx (The Sagebrush Kid) which blew away the rapidly-spun cobwebs of enui I was accumulating - and wondered at the sense of carrying on when I had better books in my to-read pile deserving of my attention.
Onwards and upwards. If you look to the right, you will see my current book - contrast and compare! One of the first proper books I ever read was a collection of Greek legends and I fell in love very heavily. I have always intended to read Homer, but somehow never got round to it. So here we are. And yes, The Iliad will be read soon.
As I read, titles will be added to the pile on the right - successes and failures. I may even work up a review or two as I go along. Who cares if no-one comes here to read them, right?
Who cares!
I must re-read The Passion of New Eve.
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx was next. One of those books you try to read slowly because you don't want it to end. One of those books where a character will say tell you there life story rather than just say hello or 'I'm fine, how are you'. One of those books you really wish had never been filmed.
I've mostly stopped watching adaptations - films or TV - as I always wonder what compromises had to be made to squeeze into the smaller medium and The Shipping News was badly squeezed. Thankfully I had left it a couple of years after seing the film before reading the book. I have vague memories of Judi Dench and Kevin Spacey, anyone else is a blur.
Next was a failure, purely because I couldn't be bothered. The Unfortunates by Laurie Graham. I got to page forty something, read a short story by Annie Proulx (The Sagebrush Kid) which blew away the rapidly-spun cobwebs of enui I was accumulating - and wondered at the sense of carrying on when I had better books in my to-read pile deserving of my attention.
Onwards and upwards. If you look to the right, you will see my current book - contrast and compare! One of the first proper books I ever read was a collection of Greek legends and I fell in love very heavily. I have always intended to read Homer, but somehow never got round to it. So here we are. And yes, The Iliad will be read soon.
As I read, titles will be added to the pile on the right - successes and failures. I may even work up a review or two as I go along. Who cares if no-one comes here to read them, right?
Who cares!
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