WEEK SIXTEEN - 'THE BOOK THIEF'

'The Book Thief' by Markus Zusak
April 12 - 16, 554 pages

I read 'The Messenger',  also by Zusak, a few years ago and really enjoyed it so I was excited to see this book in the bookstore. This novel is quite different to 'The Messenger' but is still very good. I really enjoyed the little facts and information scattered through the book. Very clever. I think in that way - with brief interludes to explain and reflect.

I also loved the section of the book which is hand-drawn and written. The illustrations are delightful. I read that part as I was walking down the street and I was beaming at the page. Embarrassing, but I could not help it.

A lovely, sad, clever read. The story is very well told. 'Max and Liesel were held together by the quiet gathering of words.'

Yes. I liked it. Quite beautiful.

WEEK FIFTEEN - 'LOLITA' & 'JULIUS CAESAR'

'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov
April 5 - 6, 352 pages

Wow. I absolutely loved this book. It is so well written. I just did not want to put it down. Well, I did sometimes, when the subject matter got a bit much. Somehow Nabokov made this story beautiful. Straight from the opening line (which I love but unfortunately don't have the space for here), this novel is lyrical even while it is distressing. 'Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita. Repeat until page is full, printer.'

'Julius Caesar' by William Shakespeare.
April 7 - 9, 114 pages
I have always liked Shakespeare (fitting that he is my first repeat author) but partway through reading this I 'found' him. I am addicted. I want to read all of his plays. So good. 'How many ages hence / Shall this our lofty scene be acted over, / In states unborn and accents yet unknown!'
 
What an amazing week's reading. Both of these were brilliantly written. I couldn't get enough.

The first lines of 'Lolita' are: 
'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
'She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing at four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she ws always Lolita.' Perfect.

Shakespeare really is incredible. Unfortunately I can't rewrite the whole play, so here are just a few more quotes that I enjoyed from 'Julius Caesar':

'And since you know you cannot see yourself
So well as by reflection, I, your glass,
Will modestly discover to yourself
That of yourself which you yet know not of.'

'it was Greek to me'

'not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.'

'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.'
 
'O setting sun,
As in thy red rays thou dost sink tonight,
So in his red blood Cassius' day is set.'

WEEK FOURTEEN - 'A FAREWELL TO ARMS'

'A Farewell to Arms' by Ernest Hemingway
March 30 - April 3, 293 pages

First of all, let's take a moment to appreciate how brilliant the name 'Ernest Hemingway' is. Good.

This was the first Hemingway I have read and it was quite different to what I expected. That's not to say it wasn't great. I really enjoyed reading it. The passages when Henry is drunk are just perfect and the conversation about luge and toboggans is particularly amazing. 'You see he has never even heard of luge-ing!' Hilarious. Also a commentary on WWI and war itself - 'War is not won by victory' - and a beautiful love story - 'I want you so much I want to be you too' -, this novel is an experience. I really enjoyed it. It was like a perfect scoop of those ice cream flavours that you never want to choose between. Did that make sense? Probably not.

I will most definitely be reading more by Hemingway.

Here are some other quotes that I enjoyed:

'We never get anything. We are born with all we have and we never learn. We never get anything new. We all start complete.' I like this because it is an interesting idea. I never even considered entertaining such a thought. I can't decide whether I agree with it. I must ponder it some more.

'Let's go to sleep at exactly the same moment.'

'I've always wanted to have a tail like that. Wouldn't it be fun if we had brushes like a fox?'
'It might be very difficult dressing.'

Yeah, the conversation in this novel is brilliant. Especially between Henry and Catherine. I just love it. I wish I hadn't read some of it just so that I could discover it for the first time again.

WEEK THIRTEEN - 'ANIMAL FARM'

'Animal Farm' by George Orwell
March 22 - 24, 95 pages

Yes, I am one of those people who has not read 'Animal Farm.' Well, I was. Now I am a changed person. I now feel like there is not something fundamental missing from my 'books I've read' list.

An excellent book, as you probably know because you have most likely read it already. Very clever. His concept and execution is so simple and done so well. We need books like these. Books that say something; commentaries on society; powerful, and yet so accessible. A book that makes you believe and makes you see.

'Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers.'

A nice, quick read. My favourite quote from this novel is 'All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.'

I also found it quite entertaining picturing pigs walking only on their hind legs.

WEEK TWELVE - 'A CLOCKWORK ORANGE'

'A Clockwork Orange' by Anthony Burgess
March 15 - 20, 149 pages

'What's it going to be then, eh?' I like the way that each of the three parts of this novel begin with that line. I generally like things like that.

Anyway, moving along. What an interesting novel. I don't really know what to think, but it definitely made me think. It's an interesting question that Burgess asks, is it better to be bad at your free will, or to be forced to be good? It's a tricky one.

Although somewhat confusing at first, I enjoyed the 'nadsat' slang that Burgess created. It was very clever, especially the way that the reader can understand what Alex is saying, despite being unfamiliar with many of the words he uses. I think I might start using 'gulliver', 'vecks' and 'malenky'. 

Yeah. I'm glad I read this. It has got me thinking. And the slang is awesome.

WEEK ELEVEN - 'CLOUDSTREET'

'Cloudstreet' by Tim Winton
March 8 - 13, 431 pages

I've been wanting to read a book by Winton for a while and, I'll be honest, I probably wouldn't have gotten around to it yet if it wasn't for this book's extremely awesome cover. Love it. Anyway, after reading a few pages of this I was kicking myself for not reading it earlier. I love the way it is written. So... refreshing. It was great reading something Australian. I haven't read anything Australian for a while and I forgot about that warm, fuzzy, comfortable feeling you get from 'our' literature.
'It was like they were electric with all knowledge, all places, all people.'
I love the way this book just happens; no quotation marks, written just how the words are said. 
Beautiful. Here's one book that you can definitely judge by its cover.

I'm so disappointed that I have finished this book. I just want it to keep on going. Here are some other quotes that I liked:

'After a time the shop was Cloud Street, the people said it, Cloudstreet, in one word. Bought the cauli at Cloudstreet. Slip over to Cloudstreet, willya love, and buy us a tin of Bushells and a few slices of ham. Cloudstreet.'

'You didn't always know what they meant, but you did know how they felt.'

'You shouldn't break a place.'

WEEK TEN - 'HAMLET'

'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare

March 1 - 6, 174 pages

Shakespeare is one of those people who fascinates me. I love reading biographies and looking up lists of words and phrases that he coined. I mean, he's a genius, and reading this play just confirmed that to me once again. He does so much with his words; there are so many double meaning, play on words that go on in his plays that it is very hard to keep up. I'll be honest, reading lines like, 'To be or not to be: that is the question' and 'to thine own self be true' gave me shivers. Imagine being in the audience in 1601 listening to those words for the first time! I really want to read more Shakespeare. I didn't find it too hard - reading the notes at the bottom of each page certainly helped. All in all a wonderful play 'Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts, / Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters, / Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause, / And, in this upshot, purposes mistook / fall'n on th' inventors' heads.'

You know what else got me really excited? Milton Glaser illustrated the cover of this edition. How extremely awesome. I was just reading an article about how he was the first ever graphic designer to win the National Medal of Arts. And the sticker on the front of this book (it's a 'Signet Classic' from 1963) says it costs 75c. Seventy-five cents for one of the best plays of all time with a cover illustration by one of the biggest design icons of all time?! Outrageous.