Happy New Year!

After my last post explaining the 2013 reading challenge, and now having completed the challenge, I thought I would write a few words about the thirty books which I completed this year. As you may know, yesterday morning I was still reading (or so I thought) book number 29 of 30... It was only upon waking up this morning and checking my list that I realised goodreads has messed up slightly somewhere along the line and not included all of my books in my list. Why? I have no idea. All it means is that I have actually read more than thirty books this year. There may still be some missing but I will try to make the following list as accurate as possible!

Here are the books I have read this year (vaguely in order of reading):

Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go
The Harvard Lampoon - The Hunger Pains
Peter Cole - Religious Experience
Bret Easton Ellis - American Psycho
J.G. Ballard - High Rise
Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata - Death Note Black Ed. Vol. II
Linwood Barclay - The Accident
John Steinbeck - The Pearl
Richard Appiganesi - Introducing Freud
Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
Jung Chang - Wild Swans
David Talbot Rice - Islamic Art
Walter M. Miller Jr. - A Canticle For Leibowitz
Paul French - Midnight in Peking
Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata - Death Note Black Ed. Vol. III
J.G. Ballard - Concrete Island
John Green - The Fault in our Stars
Koji Suzuki - Ring
Xinran - The Good Women of China
Gabrielle Zevin - Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
Ryu Murakami - In the Miso Soup
Alejandro Casona - La Dama del Alba (The Lady of the Dawn)
Haruki Murakami - The Elephant Vanishes
Tani E. Barlow - I Myself am a Woman: The Selected Writings of Ding Ling
Vercors - Le Silence de la Mer (The Silence of the Sea)
Adeline Yen Mah - Chinese Cinderella
Ted Hughes - The Iron Man
Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata - Death Note Black Ed. Vol. IV
Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata - Death Note Black Ed. Vol. V
Hubert Selby Jr. - Requiem For a Dream
Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club
John Steinbeck - The Wayward Bus

Italicized titles are my top ten books of the year. Looking back, there's quite a variety, even within the top ten! You can find a more detailed review of American Psycho here, not a book I would recommend to everyone but one that really drew me in as it got darker and darker, much like J.G. Ballard's 'High Rise', the story of a 40-floor apartment block which gradually degenerates into anarchy. 'A Clockwork Orange' was one I have been meaning to read for ages and it took me a while to get into it because of the language, however once I was used to it I couldn't put it down and loved it. I mostly read 'A Canticle For Leibowitz' on various aeroplanes this summer and would highly recommend it, though I think some understanding might be missed if you have no knowledge whatsoever of Latin (just my opinion, don't be too put off if you know no Latin but fancy it anyway). Xinran's 'The Good Women of China' is a collection of true-life stories, each telling the tale of a woman in China. Some of the stories are sad, some are quite harrowing, but they are all fascinating.

We are studying Casona's 'La Dama del Alba' this year at school and I am loving it. Casona's work is not well known in the English-speaking world but this play, which explores life, death, love and family, is well worth a read if you speak Spanish (I am yet to see a copy in English, unfortunately I don't think it has been translated). Murakami's collection of short stories in 'The Elephant Vanishes' range from strange to stranger, and I cannot wait to be able to read them in the original Japanese as I have learned some interesting things recently about his writing style in Japanese. We studied 'The Iron Man' in year three but I never remember going beyond the first chapter or so, so I read it this Christmas and am glad to say it's still one of my all-time favourites. Great for children, and adults too. 'Requiem For a Dream' exceeded all my expectations (I was looking forward to it, and had already seen the film), a book with a lasting impression and another one with fantastic language! Finally, John Steinbeck's 'The Wayward Bus', the final book I read in 2013, complete with Steinbeck's usual mix of characters, excellent descriptive language and Californian countryside, well worth a read.

All in all, I have read some fantastic books in the past year, and hope to read even more in 2014. I have quite a lot lined up, both fiction and non-fiction, so hopefully I will be posting plenty of reviews and recommendations!

2013

I started this blog in January, wrote about three things in the first month or so, and then totally neglected it. Thus begins a list of things I could regret about 2013, but hey ho, everyone has to prioritise sometimes, and it's been a very busy year, so I can forgive myself for not publishing a lot of book reviews and the such.

Anyway, here I am.

I don't really 'do' New Year's Resolutions (yes, I know, this entirely contradicts something I wrote here last January). They usually go one of two ways, as far as I can see: either we set relatively easy goals in order to feel good about achieving them, or we set difficult goals and feel guilty about it later. However, every year I do find myself resolving to read and write more, and I usually start the year with a list of 'target books': specific things I hope to read. This year, at the suggestion of goodreads, I set a target number of books to read, too. (By the way, if you love reading, I highly recommend goodreads. A nice way to keep track of what you've read and see others' recommendations.) 

So, setting my target at 30 books seemed reasonable. I figured that meant two and a half books per month, on average, which should be very easily doable. Yet here we are, New Year's Eve, and my total stands at 29. I have less than 12 hours remaining, and one book still waiting to be read (it's John Steinbeck's 'The Wayward Bus', in case you were wondering). 

How did that happen? How have I managed to average less than 2.5 books per month? Probably because my reading is somewhat erratic. I can go weeks reading barely anything, then there can be a day such as yesterday, where I read my 2.5 books in less than 24 hours. Also, to be fair to myself, a couple of the books I have managed this year were either very long, very difficult, occasionally disturbing... Perhaps I am making excuses for myself but it is true, and besides, when I look at my '2013 reading challenge' page on goodreads, I am very pleased with the selection I have read this year. It has been varied, and very interesting. 

As for 2014, will I set my target any higher? Probably, because I'm just that sort of person. Aiming for the same number of books this year will not satisfy my need for 'achieving' more and more. Anyway, I could and should have finished more books this year. I have about ten on the go at the moment. 

Of course, the point of reading is not to finish these books and tick them off some sort of checklist. It doesn't really matter whether I read five books or fifty, as long as they were worthwhile. If I don't finish the thirtieth book today, does it really matter? Of course not. I can finish it tomorrow. I can finish it the next day after that and it doesn't make me a 'worse reader', or some kind of failure. But I have recently made a list of books that I really, I mean really want to read, and some that I have been meaning to read for a long time. Hopefully 2014 will be the year in which I read some of these. Having a number to focus on is just a bit of fun. After all, for the most part, reading is 'just a bit of fun' too, not some kind of chore, and that is just the way it should be. 

A trip to the library...

It had been a while since I'd managed to get to the library, but I finally made it yesterday. See, I have this thing with books, which involves having at least three books on the go at all times, a stack of books I haven't read yet, a lot more on my 'to-read' list, yet still I borrow books from the library like it's going out of fashion (And perhaps it is... But that isn't where I'm going with this post. Maybe another time).

Anyway, I thought, since I'm making slow progress with my 'currently reading' material, I'd write about my trip to the library, and I'll make it sound interesting, even though in reality it was fairly mundane.

I spent most of my time in the non-fiction section, because I really do have enough fiction on the go at the moment - and I was also looking for some books which would be useful for school, specifically books about the use of art in religion (results of this search: unsuccessful. I'll have to try a bigger library). Anyway, as usual, I soon drifted off task and had a general browse, picking up a couple of books on web design and one  on psychology. Realising I had lost focus, I returned to the Religion section, and although I didn't find any books on the topics I was hoping for, I did find a nice little book called 'What's so Amazing about Grace', which I had heard of before (although, this is not the original version, see below for details) but never read, and since I'm giving a talk at school next week on the topic of Amazing Grace, I thought it might be a good idea to borrow it!

When I visit the True Crime section I am always amused that half the books on that particular shelf are about climate change - oh to live somewhere with a library large enough to have separate shelves for separate topics!

I made my way around the rest of the non-fiction room, and was upset to find that 'Entertainment' - covering music, TV and film, has all been squeezed into a smaller space, allowing more room for 'Sport' - but after browsing the shelf I realised I have probably read most of the books in the Entertainment section at some point already - so perhaps it's a hint that I should branch out a bit and read a sporty book...

I finally had a quick zip round the fiction sections, before self-checking out my books (which resulted in an awfully long receipt - more about that in a moment) and leaving...

I would have spent longer at the library but I had an appointment to get to... And our library insist on having a radio on at all times, which is kind of annoying. Oh, and I knew that if I picked up any more books, they wouldn't fit in my backpack.

Anyway, on to the books I actually chose to borrow.

As mentioned, before, there's 'What's So Amazing About Grace?' , by Philip Yaney, although it is in fact the 'visual version', which suits me as I'm quite a visual learner, so it's full of photographs, mirrors, and nice fonts. Next up, 'The Rough Guide to Surviving the End of the World'. I'm quite interested in theories about the apocalypse, and I usually find 'The Rough Guide' books rather good, so hopefully this one will not disappoint.

I then picked up '50 Ideas you Really Need to Know about Psychology'... Psychology is one of my big interests, and besides, there's quite a lot of psychology in the Religious Studies A-Level course, so I'm often borrowing books from this section. Having read the first couple of chapters, I can say that it's not a very thorough book. It is literally 50 ideas, it isn't exploring them in any great depth... But I think it will be a good one to dip into thanks to the clearly divided chapters.

The last non-fiction I picked up (except for a couple of web design books - I've read most of the web design books from the library and I don't intend to stop until I've read them all) is called 'Crime Scenes: Revealing the Science Behind the Evidence'. I was tempted to pick up a fairly long book called (as I recall) 'Cult Killers', but I resisted as I have far too many long reads going on at the moment to start another. The one I did borrow is a bit more of a fact-file style book than a thorough analysis, so it probably won't take very long to read.

From the 'teen fiction' area, I chose 'Me Against You', by Jenny Downham, on the recommendation of a friend. I've read Downham's critically acclaimed debut 'Before I Die' before, and really didn't enjoy it, and I have to say, I started 'Me Against You' last night and after a few chapters, I couldn't be bothered with it any more. It's just not my thing. I don't want to be too critical, since I know a few people who thought it was really good, but it's not often I actually stop reading a book, even if I'm not enjoying it.

Finally, I found Linwood Barclay's 'The Accident'. Having enjoyed Barclay's other books immensely, I am sure I will like this one too.

Anyway, I'll let you know how they go when I start reading them all. Meanwhile I'm still reading the books which you can see in the sidebar over on the right.

Review: American Psycho

Title: American Psycho
Author: Bret Easton Ellis
Picador

Well, where do I start?

The problem with a book like this is that on the one hand, it is absolutely brilliant. You might even say a stroke of genius. On the other hand, it's twisted, it's graphic, and in a way, I hated reading it. I'm 99.9% sure I won't read it again. Ever.

It's twisted, it's horrific, the character of Patrick Bateman is dark, masochistic, and the descriptions are graphic and leave nothing to the imagination. The book (and its characters) get darker and more disturbing as it unfolds, and the shorter chapters really sped up the pace towards the end.

The blurb describes the book as 'a bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognise but do not wish to confront' ... I think this sums up the novel well, and, having finished the book and having read the more gruesome second half of it, it is easy to almost forget that the beginning of the book was much more light-hearted, actually quite funny.

For me, it was only when I realised exactly how much darker the end of the book was compared to the beginning that I really began to appreciate this book. The most brilliant thing about it is that when it starts, as a reader, you know what you're about to read. It's a book about a psychopath. At the start, it's black comedy, but it's not disturbing in any way. Then gradually, the idea of compassion, sympathy, all sense of personality, is stripped away from the characters and the story descends into... Well, to quote the blurb of the book once again 'America's greatest dream... and its worst nightmare'.

Would I recommend it? Not necessarily. That's not a criticism of the book in any way. I just think that this book is not for everyone. If, when you pick up a book, you want to read a nice story with a resolved ending and a cast of nice characters, then this book is not for you. But if you're prepared to see this through to the end, if you're prepared to read graphic sadomasochism... You can't read 'American Psycho' and expect to enjoy it. It's not a book to be enjoyed. But it is possible to appreciate it, if you're prepared to give it a little thought.

Introductions...

As this is my first post on this new blog venture of mine, I am simply going to introduce myself and the blog.

My name is Claire, I am 16 years old, and I love reading, watching TV and films, listening to music, writing, drawing, and learning languages. I'm not new to the whole blogging thing, I have had Ears To The Ground going for nearly two years, just rambling about music, and although I sometimes (ahem... at the moment) go for a long time without posting, I still love writing about music...

However, recently I've been moved to write more about other interests of mine... Namely, books (oh, also films, but we'll talk about that on another occasion). I've loved reading since... Well, ever since I learned to read, and reading has also inspired me to write a lot.

There's more to it than just a love of reading, though. I do think that sometimes it is easy to let reading fall by the wayside, especially if (like me, and a lot of other bookworms I know) you're a very busy person. Reading 'a few chapters a day' turns into reading 'a chapter or so a week' and before you know it, you're barely reading a thing.

What with exams, music lessons, good TV and sleep to catch up on, I found that my rate of reading slowed up a hell of a lot last year. And so, I present to you one of my 2013 New Year Resolutions: to read more. It's pretty simple, really, but there's another part to it for me. This year I aim to read a few of those books that I've been meaning to read, books that make '# books everyone should read' lists, maybe a couple of classic novels. I have a (fairly extensive) 'to-read' list, which I've had going for quite a while, and this year I'm making a real effort to knock a few titles off that list.

What with this resolution to stand by, and so many good books to read, I thought 'why not blog about it as well?'. So here I am.

I'll probably post a few book reviews as I finish books, but I'll also post periodically with an update of what I've been reading lately (and what I think of it so far), what I'm planning to read soon, and so on. Between these updates, you can see a list of all the books I'm currently reading over on the right hand side of the page.

Well, that's my introduction over. Hopefully, before long this post will be buried under a treasure trove of book reviews and recommendations.