books | February Reads

February Reads

Posting a day early since I doubt I'll be getting anything fnished before the end of today. I'm feeling a little hyper at the moment, so hopefully I'll be able to sleep properly. February has been a bit of a blur and I started out this post convinced that I hadn't posted about January at all! (Turns out that I did.)

Real-life-wise, things should hopefully start to resume some form of calm and normalcy in March. At least for a while.

I kept my February's reading light for the most part and failed utterly in getting ahead with my course book reading. (I finished Nostromo by Joseph Conrad, though! I am still ahead of my classes! If only barely...)

My memory for which books I read when is just as abysmal as last month. It may even be worse. Have what I recall!

A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd
Merlin’s Harp by Anne Eliot Crompton
Lancelot and the Lord of the Distant Isles: Or The Book of Galehaut Retold by Patricia Terry & Samuel Rosenberg
The Last Unicorn (Graphic Novel adaptation) by Peter S. Beagle & Peter B. Gillis
Tehanu by Ursula Le Guin
Tales from Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

How about you? What's your reading been like the past month? Read anything you'd love to recommend to all and sundry? Something you'd warn against? Happy reading in March!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I feel you on the craziness of February!

In terms of "my own" reading, this month I've started and finished Sylvia Plath's The bell Jar, which was better than I remembered it but a bit too graphic in parts. I have also been reading Wuthering Heights although I a) don't remember when I started, and b) am only halfway.

In terms of my course readings: Penguin's collection of Borges stories called "Fictions" (a nice range of short stories, from utterly confusing and pointless ones to very interesting/cute/thought-provoking/otherwise good ones), Karel Capek's "R. U. R." (a play about robots, utopia vs. dystopia, technology vs. humanity, etc. from the early 1920s - I liked it!), Vaclav Havel's "The Garden Party" (um...no sense to me it made), a short German play (which also very little sense to me made, haha), and about half of Madame Bovary (in French; long-winded but not bad!) and two thirds of The Trial (in German; a lot better than I was expecting!). I'm pretty far behind on where I should be with reading right now, but February was one crazy month, what with essay writing and emotional issues. Only a month left of the semester/academic year...!

If you've been reading it in February it counts! How are you finding the book? It's been ages since I read it myself.

I hope that March will be better for you in terms of emotional issues and stress! And that you'll catch up on your reading! I'm glad your course books seem to be mostly on the enjoyable side of things! ^-^

The Heights? I actually don't know. I read it before I go to sleep so much of it is veiled in a sleepy haze, but I think it's less good than I was hoping/expecting. I kind of like the recent film a lot, and the book so far seems to just be a drier and more long-winded and less pretty rendition of the story (which...is far too complex as far as I'm concerned, haha). But it's interesting and I do love me some classics, if only for the quirky language and people's "you're reading WHAT for leisure?? you do know that English is not your native language, right?" reactions.

But yeah, March has far greater potential! The weather just turned so now sitting outside reading is actually *enjoyable* and not just something I do because I should. And the last few books of the year (four and two halves out of 37) seem pretty interesting. (I'm especially excited about The Unbearable Lightness of Being!)

We discussed it in class. I don't think it was what anyone in it was expecting. ^-^

Oooh, that reaction got me into so much trouble once... Now I just use it to scare my younger cousins who aren't readers. ^-~

Mmm, I envy you your weather and hope it'll be similar here soon! And I'm glad that your books are sounding more interesting!

i liked mistress of the vatican: the true story of olimpia maidalchini, The secret female pope by Eleanor Herman

*low whistle* I think that's the longest title I've seen for a book. It sounds interesting! I'm sad that it seems to be the only book you liked in the whole month, though. :( I hope March will be better for you!

My February list: http://quackaquacka.dreamwidth.org/19347.html

Your reading list never fails to astound me. I hope it was a good and enjoyable month of reading! ^-^

Mainly I've been reading 1000 Years of Annoying the French, which deals with the history between England (not quite the UK yet) and France. It's entertaining from an Anglo point of view but probably not so much from a French one. While it's well-researched it's not exactly big on objectivity - I suppose that's obvious from the title, though - and tends to focus more on debunking French perceptions of our shared history, along with a few sweeping statements about things that had my eyebrows rising quite a bit in places.

*snrk* That is an awesome title. Even if the book isn't as big on objectivity as it could've been. Looks like a brick, though. Is it fast/easy reading or does it manage to be quite dry?

It's a great title, definitely catches the attention. :) To be fair, I don't think the author is trying to be objective - aside from a small statement in the foreword about being a Brit living in France he's in the perfect position for this and so on - as the blurb on the back is pretty much about debunking French versions of events.

Heh, it's not quite a brick, although if it was in hardback I might struggle with it more. It's a pretty easy read, though, when I actually get around to picking it up. :)

Heh. Reminds me a tiny bit of The Undutchables. Only there it's Dutch ex-pats poking fun at the Dutch.
Doesn't sound like objectivity is the goal, no. Hopefully it'll catch people's attention enough to make them look up more on the things that catch their interest!

That's good. ^-^ I'm glad you're enjoying it. ^-^

Heh, objectivity not so much, no. It does make me want to brush up on the Napoleonic Wars beyond the Sharpe and Hornblower films/books though. :D

February has been a slightly crazy month. I hope March is more relaxing for everyone!

My reading this month has been pretty mixed. Some really great stuff and some things that I never even want to look at again.

Away Down South by James C. Cobb - An exploration of Southern history, culture and identity. Really interesting and engaging, and written by a Southerner so didn't make me completely insane with criticisms.

U.S. Foreign Policy: The Paradox of World Power by Steven W. Hook - Really interesting overview of American foreign policy, comprehensive, entertaining, eye-opening and led to some interesting questions for me.

The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President by Taylor Branch - I love both Bill and Hillary, so this was an awesome book for me. It's really compelling and based on tapes of 79 unfiltered conversations Branch had with Clinton between 1993 and 2001. It's a fantastic look at what the job of being President is really like by an objective observer with unprecedented access. Absolutely brilliant.

Quicksand by Nella Larsen - I really wanted to like this one, but I just couldn't connect with the protagonist at all. It's well-written though, and has some fascinating insights into what it may have been like to be a mixed-race woman in the early 1900s. Plenty of people really like it, but I found that the pacing felt strange, and that lack of connection with the characters really bothered me in the end.

Winter Dreams by F. Scott Fitzgerald - I quite enjoyed it as I remember, but I can't really remember what it was about, so maybe that says more than anything I could.

Babylon Revisited by F. Scott Fitzgerald - I really liked this one. It's set in what had been "American Paris" before the Wall Street Crash, but looking back at it from the perspective of a man who lost everything and has been rebuilding his life. It's really quite deserving of being a classic.

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner - I know this is generally considered a classic and it might not be a great thing to say, but I really, really didn't like this one. I don't know if it was the 15 different POVs or something else, but I found it really disjointed.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway - Easily the best short story I've ever read. A great look at regretting not having done things in life, and surprisingly enjoyable for something so bleak.

The Collected Poems by Langston Hughes - I'm not big on poetry, but I really loved these. Absolutely amazing poems.

The Tattooed Girl by Joyce Carol Oates - I usually quite like Joyce Carol Oates, but this book specifically is one that I have absolutely no interest in ever seeing again. The casual anti-Semitism of many of the characters nearly made me put the book down, none of the characters are remotely likable and it reads like Oates felt the same way about them, which is never a good thing. Just not an enjoyable read on any level.

And I think that was everything.

I know this is generally considered a classic and it might not be a great thing to say, but I really, really didn't like this one.

I... say this about classics all the time, if it helps. If a book doesn't work for you, it doesn't.

It sounds like you had a decent month, though. ^-^ Some interesting books on your list! ^-^

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

February Reads

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

of what i've read in feb.

Re: of what i've read in feb.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject