So Many Books, So Little Time

I can't believe 2012 is almost over!  The year went by so fast!  I set a lot of goals for myself for this year and I met some of them but not all of them.  My original 2012 goals post can be found here . Goals for Reading:  I signed up for 5 challenges and completed 3 of them.  I really wanted to finish them all but I had a really hard time with reading towards the end of this year. Back to the Classics Challenge- 9/9 2012 TBR Pile Challenge- 9/10 2012 Support your Local Library Challenge- 24/24 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge- 20/20 2012 Eastern European Reading Challenge- 3/4 I didn't do too well on all of my other reading goals.  I didn't read very many books I owned (only 21 out of 86!) and I didn't read any books in Russian.  I did take a Russian language class in the fall so I think my goal to work on the language skills kind of got met.  My last reading goal was to read one non-fiction book a month.  I did read 14 non-...

I signed up for a lot of challenges this year but the one I was most excited about was the 'Back to the Classics' challenge.  I am so happy that I managed to finish it and I read some amazing books!  I think East of Eden was my favorite but The Fellowship of the Rings was a close second. Here is what I read: Any 19th Century Classic – The Scarlet Letter Any 20th Century Classic – East of Eden Reread a classic of your choice The Master and Margarita A Classic Play - Macbeth *Done Classic Mystery/Horror/Crime Fiction - Frankenstein Classic Romance The Scarlet Pimpernel Read a Classic that has been translated from its original language to your language                 Les Miserables      Classic Award Winner - The Age of Innocence       Read a Classic set in a Country that you (realistically speaking) will not visit during your lifetime...

Thoughts on previous sections:  Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3    I did it!! I actually finished Les Miserables!  Honestly, I am so glad I stuck with it.  Overall, this was a beautifully written story.  I struggled with some of the political and historical aspects but it was worth it to push through those parts.  I think it really helped that I broke the book into chunks.  If I had tried to read it all at once, I probably would have given up. I've decided that Jean Valjean is one of my new favorite literary characters.  Despite the fact that the was an escaped criminal, through his actions over the years he completely redeemed himself.  I also think Javert was a pretty interesting character.  Every thing was black or white to him; there was never any gray and I think that is what led to his downfall.  I really hated him in the beginning but as the story went on, I started to understand h...

Another 300 pages down!  I am now 3/4 of the way done with Les Miserables  and I must say that the last 300 pages were the best so far.  I loved that most of this section dealt with the characters and less of the historical events going on around them.  Cosette and Marius really come to the front of the story and there is a ton of excitment when Jean Valjean and Thenardier meet again.  I felt like I spent a lot of time on edge; there is always this fear that Javert is going to catch up with Jean Valjean and it is as though I'm holding my breath as I continue reading.  I have to say that before I started this section, I wasn't loving the book but now I have changed my mind.  It is such a deep, well-written story with so many characters that all have intertwining stories.  It's confusing at times but still an excellent story.  I can't wait to see how it will all wrap up! 

  Ugh.  I must say that I didn't enjoy the second part of Les Miserables as much as I did the first.  I read from pg 300-600 this month and it just was kind of painful.  There were like 20 pages that gave the history of a fictional convent.  It took a LONG time to get through this section because it was pretty boring at times.  The first 150 pages were pretty good.  I got to see more about Jean Valjean and Cosette and these sections were very interesting and kept me wanting more.  However, the story left these two characters and introduced Marius Pontmercy.  I am not sure what role he is going to play as the story continues but I didn' t like him much.  He seemed like the typical spoiled rich boy who wants to rebel against his strict upbringing.  I am hoping I will eventually like him but right now he is kind of a brat. I mentioned it in my last post but this book reminds me of War and Peace a lot....

Because Les Miserables is so long, I have decided to read and write about it in chunks.  So far, I have read through page 300 and I am enjoying it.  Most of what I have read so far has been about Fantine and Jean Valjean and I have to say that I really like Jean Valjean as a character.  He was not a very nice person at first but as the story progessed, he completely redeemed himself. I don't know much about Victor Hugo but it seems to me as though this book is a social commentary.  Hugo includes his opinions on poverty, the legal system and society in general.  He talks a lot about how poverty affects people and the lengths they will go to in order to stay alive and feed their families.  He also discusses the injustice of the legal system and condemns the harsh punishments inflicted on the poor by the legal system.  He definitely has some strong opinions regarding the society at that time and I am eager to see what he else he has to say....

From Goodreads:  In the year 1792, Sir Percy and Lady Marguerite Blakeney are the darlings of British society—he is known as one of the wealthiest men in England and a dimwit;she is French, a stunning former actress, and �the cleverest woman in Europe”—and they find themselves at the center of a deadly political intrigue. The Reign of Terror controls France, and every day aristocrats in Paris fall victim to Madame la Guillotine. Only one man can rescue them—the Scarlet Pimpernel—a master of disguises who leaves a calling card bearing only a signature red flower. As the fascinating connection between the Blakeneys and this mysterious hero is revealed, they are forced to choose between love and loyalty in order to avoid the French agent Chauvelin, who relentlessly hunts the Scarlet Pimpernel. My Thoughts:  This was a surprisingly good book.  I usually expect a 'classic' to be a little difficult to read but this wasn't the case at all.  The Scarl...

From Goodreads:   Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein. My Thoughts:  I didn't know what to expect when I picked up this book.  I have seen Frankenstein's monster portrayed on television and in movies but I had no real understanding of what the book would actually be about.  For the first few pages, I was a little bit confused and checked to make sure ...

From Goodreads:  Set in the harsh Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, this tale of an adulterous entanglement that results in an illegitimate birth reveals Nathaniel Hawthorne's concerns with the tension between the public and the private selves. Publicly disgraced and ostracized, Hester Prynne draws on her inner strength and certainty of spirit to emerge as the first true heroine of American fiction. Arthur Dimmesdale, trapped by the rules of society, stands as a classic study of a self divided. My Thoughts:   This is my first book finished for the  Classics Bribe .  Yay!   I feel like I should have read this book a LONG time ago but I was kind of afraid of it.  After reading it, I am kind of surprised at myself because it was not bad at all.  It was a nice change to read a book that is mostly told from an outside perspective; it felt like I was watching through someone else's eyes.  There is a narrator but we never fin...

From Goodreads:  One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find then, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them... In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit . In a sleeping village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with the immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose. My Thoughts:  I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed this book.  I am not really into high fantasy but I liked the Lord of the Rings movies...

From Goodreads:  Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton ’s masterful portrait of desire and betrayal during the sumptuous Golden Age of Old New York, a time when society people “dreaded scandal more than disease.” This is Newland Archer’s world as he prepares to marry the beautiful but conventional May Welland. But when the mysterious Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York after a disastrous marriage, Archer falls deeply in love with her. Torn between duty and passion, Archer struggles to make a decision that will either courageously define his life—or mercilessly destroy it. My Thoughts:  Hmmmm, I don’t really know what to say about this book.   I had to do a little bit of online research to see if I figure out what Edith Wharton’s point was when she wrote this book because I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a critique or not.   Evidently, it’s not supposed to be a critique but a description of the customs of the tim...

From Goodreads:  Dark and bloody drama of ambition, guilt, and revenge centers on an ambitious Scottish nobleman who murders the king in order to succeed to the throne. Tortured by his conscience and fearful of discovery, he becomes fatally enmeshed in a web of treachery and deceit that spells his doom. My Thoughts:   I don't have a lot to say about this play so I will keep it short and sweet.   I know that this is one of Shakespeare's most famous plays but I just couldn't get into it.  I normally like Shakespeare and was looking forward to finally reading Macbeth but I was just so disappointed.  Maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind for reading it but it just didn't work for me.  Macbeth seemed like a likeable character in the beginning and then it was all 'Hey, let's kill everyone so I can be king.  Woohoo!'  Lady Macbeth was kind of bad ass; crazy but still not afraid to get things done.  The witches were kind o...

From Goodreads:  The masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years--a vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis. In his journal, John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families--the Trasks and the Hamiltons--whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Here is a work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's abscence. My Thoughts:  This review might be a little gushy but East of Eden was a huge surprise to me.  I was expecting a really long, dry book and I could not have been more wrong.  Th...

From Goodreads:  One of the greatest novels ever to come out of the Soviet Union. A parable on power and its corruption, on good and evil and on human frailty and the strength of love. Equal parts fable, fantasy, political satire and slapstick.  My Thoughts:  Just a heads up, this is a really difficult book to review so I apologize if it's kind of vague.  It has been many years since I last read this and I didn't realize how much I had forgotten.  I had originally read it in a 20th Century Russian Lit course while I was in college and I absolutely loved it.  This is a satire that at times is funny and others kind of creepy.  I actually didn't remember being creepy but it kind of was.  It's definitely a dark story but there is an odd sense of hope at the end.  The premise is that the devil and his entourage visit Moscow during Stalin's reign and, while there, wreak havoc on most anyone they come into cont...

I am super excited for 2012!  2011 was kind of a sucky year so I am looking forward to good things this year.  I have lots of goals for the blog and for books I plan to read.  I also have some personal goals for the year that I hope I will be able to achieve. Goals for the Blog: - Comment more -I get lazy and don't always comment on reviews I read nor do I usually reply to comments on my blog.  I feel really bad about this and want to try to comment more. - Work on layout - Technical Stuff -I really need to figure out how to create a button!  I also need to get some working knowledge of html and need to learn how reconfigure things so that when GFC goes away there won't be too many issues. - Better Reviews -As I said on Friday, my reviews have been pretty crappy lately.  I plan to work on that this year. - Hosting a giveaway -I have great followers and I really want to host a giveaway to show my appreciation. - Get more comfortable with s...

  So I know it's a little early to be thinking about my reading goal for next year but I have decided to participate in the Back to the Classics Challenge 2012 hosted by Sarah Reads Too Much.   I am really excited for this challenge because I was already considering how I could incorporate some classics into my reading goals for next year.  Below are the categories and which books I plan to read for them. Any 19th Century Classic – The Three Musketeers Any 20th Century Classic – East of Eden Reread a classic of your choice The Master and Margarita A Classic Play - Macbeth Classic Mystery/Horror/Crime Fiction - Frankenstein Classic Romance The Scarlet Pimpernel Read a Classic that has been translated from its original language to your language               - Les Miserables Classic Award Winner  - The Age of Innocence Read a Classic set in a Country that you (realistically sp...