Gilmore Girls Books

One of the most important reasons I loved Gilmore Girls was that I could relate to Rory's love for reading. The other day I came across a list of books mentioned in the show. I am not challenging myself to read all of them, but I thought it might be fun sharing which books I have read and which ones I am planning to.

• Bold – read
• Bold and italicised – probably read, but I am not sure
• Italicised and underlined – started but did not finish
• Italicised – definitely planning to read
  

1984 by George Orwell
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Babe by Dick King-Smith
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney (different version)
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller - Started, didn’t finish
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine by Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père
Cousin Bette by Honor’e de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Cujo by Stephen King
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Don Quijote by Cervantes
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Ethics by Spinoza
Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William Shakespeare
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
Howl by Allen Gingsburg
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer
I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Inferno by Dante
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Love Story by Erich Segal
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Night by Elie Wiesel
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Old School by Tobias Wolff
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Property by Valerie Martin
Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (read parts of it)
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Hotels of Europe
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
Sexus by Henry Miller
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining by Stephen King
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
Stuart Little by E. B. White
Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Unless by Carol Shields
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Read: 43 of 339 books. Not bad, I think. I am sure I will read more of them over the years.

What about you? Have you read any of these? Are you planning to?

Book Nook #24

Book Nooks

*Every weekend*

Founder: Sasha Soren (Random Magic)
Show us something pretty!

Commentary: A great solution for a hallway in a big house, especially one with windows like this one. I can imagine a nice little garden outside. There is plenty of light, and the window seats look comfortable. I could certainly spend some time reading in such a place. 

Details: Location and artist unknown, not given in the original post. 

Source.

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It's My 2-year Bloggoversary!

I can't believe I've been blogging for two years! Woo-hoo!

As much as this deserves a big celebration, my budget doesn't allow me to treat you with a giveaway, but hey, there's always hope to next year (or sooner).

But, at least we can afford a happy song to bring on some cheer:

Thanks so much to all my followers and fellow book bloggers for making blogging such a wonderful experience! And thank you for all your kind words, and help and support! Again, basically all the book blogging community just being there makes me feel better sometimes.

Here's to all of you and more good (at least I'll aim for good) blog posts!

Torment (Fallen #2) by Lauren Kate

SUMMARY (from Goodreads): Hell on earth. That's what it's like for Luce to be apart from her fallen angel boyfriend, Daniel. It took them an eternity to find one another, but now he has told her he must go away. Just long enough to hunt down the Outcasts - immortals who want to kill Luce. Daniel hides Luce at Shoreline, a school on the rocky California coast with unusually gifted students: Nephilim, the offspring of fallen angels and humans.

At Shoreline, Luce learns what the Shadows are, and how she can use them as windows to her previous lives. Yet the more Luce learns, the more she suspects that Daniel hasn't told her everything. He's hiding something - something dangerous.

What if Daniel's version of the past isn't actually true? What if Luce is really meant to be with someone else? 

MY OPINION:

I absolutely loved Fallen. I read it last year, so it took me awhile to get into Torment because I had trouble remembering some details from Fallen. However, after the first fifty pages or so, the book pulled me in, and I could not put it down because I needed to know what happened next.

Although Torment is an absorbing book, I did not enjoy it as much as Fallen. I had expected to learn some things hinted at in Fallen, but Torment opens more questions than it answers. Kate remains very vague about both Luce's and Daniel's story on a minor scale and the fight between various fractions of angels on the major scale.

I was annoyed by all the non-communication and teenage angst, especially when Luce is concerned. I loved her character in Fallen, but this time Luce really got on my nerves because of various reasons. Firstly, she acts stupidly and irresponsibly and does not do what other people tell her to do. I am all for breaking the rules, but not in the way Luce does. Considering she now knows a little bit about the dangerous world out there, she should think things over, learn, and try to obtain information about the things she hears about. Instead she acts like a reckless, stubborn child.

Another thing that bothers me with Luce is that she is still set to seeing the world in black and white. She shows a kind of narrow-mindedness there, not allowing for the possibility of grey areas, and again not educating herself about things, but just sticking to her simply defined views of good and evil.

Speaking of good and evil, Torment does not clarify the issues opened in Fallen. The history of fallen angels and their disputes, as well as their future prospects, are again only mentioned, but not examined further. Hence, I felt let down by Torment.

Despite the fact that Torment falls short in comparison to Fallen, I will definitely continue reading the series. I hope the following books do shed some light both on Luce's and Daniel's story and on things concerning the fallen angels.

RECOMMENDATION: Although Torment was a bit disappointing for me, I still recommend it to those who loved Fallen and want to know more about what happens next.

Top Ten Most Vivid Worlds/Settings In Books

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created hosted at The Broke and the Bookish.

In random order (linked to Goodreads or my review):

1. ALL the places from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Don't make me pick. Because. I. Can. Not.
2. The land of Geall from Circle trilogy by Nora Roberts.
3. The Dark Dimension from The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Shadow Souls by L. J. Smith.
4. The Wyndspelle house from Wyndspelle trilogy by Aola Vandergriff.
5. The French Pyrenees from The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse.
6. The caves from The Crystal Skull by Manda Scott.
7. Moonacre from The Little White Horse by Elisabeth Goudge
8. The islands from Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton.
9. The worlds from His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman.
10. Many settings from Immortals After Dark (for example #2, #5…) series by Kresley Cole.

…and many more vivid settings/worlds are worth mentioning, the above are only the first to come to mind.

Cat Diary (21): A Short Half-way through Summer Recap

This is an occasional Sunday feature where my cat, pardon, Her Majesty the Cat, offers her more or less gracious insight into my (and her) life.

---

Zzzz….

Yes, that short.

Uneventful.

The sleep is good, the grass outside is green and tasty, and the birds are captivating.

Hope you're having a pleasant and relaxing summer!

Till next time,

Follow Friday #7

Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.

Today’s question is: “Christmas in July! Someone gives you a gift card for two books (whatever that costs). What two books will you buy?”

MY ANSWER:

The most obvious choice would be completing my IAD series by Kresley Cole, so Pleasure of a Dark Prince and Demon from the Dark (books 9 and 10). On the other hand, I've got around 20 books on my wishlist, so it'd probably take me a week to decide which ones to buy. However, at the moment I'd go for Farewell, My Queen by Chantal Thomas and Archangel of Mercy by Christina Ashcroft.

    

Thanks for stopping by! Feel free to look around my blog, and if you like what you see, don't hesitate to follow me via GFC or Twitter (@StrangeNewWords), or subscribe to my posts via RSS or email. And, please, let me know if you decide for any of the above options, so I can return the favour.

Fast Women by Jennifer Crusie

SUMMARY (from Goodreads): When a down-on-her-luck divorcee meets a determined-to-dominate detective, they find out that falling in love can be murder...

Nell Dysart's in trouble. Weighed down by an inexplicable divorce and a loss of appetite for everything, Nell is sleepwalking through life until her best friend finagles a job for her with a shabby little detective agency that has lots of potential and a boss who looks easy to manage.

Gabe McKenna isn't doing too well, either. His detective agency is wasting time on a blackmail case, his partner has decided he hates watching cheating spouses for money, and his ex-wife has just dumped him...again. The only thing that's going his way is that his new secretary looks efficient, boring, and biddable.

But looks can be deceiving and soon Nell and Gabe are squaring off over embezzlement, business cards, vandalism, dog-napping, blackmail, Chinese food, unprofessional sex, and really ugly office furniture, all of which turn out to be the least of their problems. Because soon, somebody starts killing people. And shortly after that, they start falling in love...

MY OPINION:

This is actually a fun read. It has a bit of a snarky tone, and I laughed a lot during reading it. Additionally, some suspenseful elements kept my attention throughout the book.

Unfortunately, the writing is somewhat messy, so I had to pause occasionally and go back to figure out who was talking to whom and the like. There are also some things that do not add up, which furthermore contributes to the confusion.

The strongest point of the book is the portrayal the relationship between Nell and her friends. I liked it how they stick together through thick and thin, supporting each other and having fun together.

Overall, Fast Women is a quick and easy, but captivating, book. A somewhat confusing writing, which disturbs the smoothness of the reading process, is the reason for me rating it three instead of four stars.

RECOMMENDATION: Fast Women is a light and funny contemporary romance with a dash of suspense.

Teaser Tuesday #18

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

MY TEASERS:

"This was all so strange and uncanny that a dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move. The time seemed interminable as we swept on our way, now in almost complete darkness, for the rolling clouds obscured the moon."

Dracula by Bram Stoker, p. 20

Book Nook #23

Book Nooks

*Every weekend*

Founder: Sasha Soren (Random Magic)
Show us something pretty!

Commentary: A very pleasant spot for summer, like a oasis from the sun and the hit. The colours are very lively, I love lots of plants around. 

Details: Location and artist unknown, not given in the original post. 

Source.

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The Collector by John Fowles

SUMMARY (from Goodreads):  Withdrawn, uneducated and unloved, Frederick collects butterflies and takes photographs. A lottery win enables him to capture art student Miranda and keep her in the cellar of the Sussex house he has bought with the windfall.

MY OPINION:

I was surprised by how captivating and fast read The Collector is. I always expect a classic to be somewhat tedious, but this novel is so intriguing I could not put it down because I had to know what happened.

Fowles tells the story from both sides, Frederick's and Miranda's. The first part of the story is told from Frederick's P.O.V. and it made me sympathise with him despite his wrongful actions, because his reasoning is sensible and, in a way, innocent.

The events are then retold by Miranda and are, in spite of repetition, fresh, because her experience is new to the reader. Miranda thinks very highly of herself and feels only contempt towards Frederick. She thinks she is better than other people – especially working-class, uneducated people such as Frederick – because she is an artist. She feels superior to them due to her way of thinking. These traits made me dislike her. On the other hand, her fear, feeling of suffocation, longing for freedom, and inability to understand Frederick are perfectly understandable, and I did feel sorry for her and I hoped she would be fine in the end.

The last part of the novel is again told by Frederick, who finally turns out to be a monster. However, the reasons for him becoming a psychopath he is are clear. I could not help but wonder if his life would have taken a different path had people around him, Miranda especially, acted differently and understood him. So, I felt sorry for him, in spite of everything.

All in all, The Collector is an insightful take on human psychology. It is suspenseful and tragic and makes the reader think about social and philosophical issues.

RECOMMENDATION: The Collector is a gripping, thought-provoking novel for everyone who wants to take a look into the psychology of both the captor and the captive.

Book Nook #22

Book Nooks

*Every weekend*

Founder: Sasha Soren (Random Magic)
Show us something pretty!

Commentary: A lot of comfortable, cheery pillows, plenty of books at hand, and natural light. What's there not to like about this spot?

Details: Location and artist unknown, not given in the original post. 

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