Rainy Day Reads

Challenges:   Bingo: Read something by Jeanette Winterson Around the Year in 52 Books: A book with a long title (5+ words, excluding subtitle) I have been hearing great things about Jeanette Winterson from some of my favorite Booktubers, so I was really looking forwards to this. However, I could only find the Danish edition, instead of the original English one, and I try to read books in English if they are originally written in English, just because I feel like that is the author’s unadulterated voice, if that makes sense. If I’m struggling with a translation I don’t know whether to blame the author or the translator, so I prefer to read the original language, but that’s not always possible.  This book is an autobiographical novel about a young girl named Jeanette. Jeanette is an orphan who is taken in by a couple where the woman is very dominant. She is also very religious and she raises Jeanette in her faith. We hear about the church and its pretty inte...

I recently decided to start this challenge because I do want to ramp up my reading. I was just too lazy at the start of the year, to bugger down and do this. So I don’t plan on finishing the entire thing this year, I’ll just see how many I can cross off and maybe carry it over into next year.   Sorry about the blurry quality. There are links to the original at the end of the post This is the list of all the topics. The books listed below each challenge are either my options I’m considering reading or the ones I have actually read. The ones I have read will be bold and contain links to my reviews, and my options will be in cursive .  Now, as for the books I haven’t read yet, I obviously can’t tell you if they are good or if I think they fit the challenge. If I read a book that I don’t think fits, I will remove it and try to find another one that fits better. But if you see something completely off on this list, please feel free to let me know :)  Disc...

I forgot I had this book on my bingo chart for the year, and I wasn't planning on writing a review until I remembered, because I don't really have a lot to say about it. The book follows Janie, a young black woman in the American south in the 1920s. She wants more out of life than the marriage her grandmother strives to get for her. When she kisses a boy her grandmother quickly sets her up with an older man and they are married. Janie resents this life and when a happy-go-lucky fellow comes by her garden gate she takes up with him. He gives her a different life from what she had, but she still isn't happy with it. When she finally meets Tea Cake she is content. As I said I wasn't planning on writing a review, because I didn't really enjoy this book, but I didn't hate it either. I just don't think it was for me. Janie seems unsatisfied with her lot in life, and she is portrayed as someone with gumption and drive, but then she sits back and lets the me...

I picked this book as my “historical fiction book” for the Bingo Board Reading Challenge, because I’ve heard so many good things about it.   It is set in 17th century Delft in the Netherlands and is told from the perspective of a young girl named Griet, who goes to work as a maid in the house of Vermeer, the famous painter.  We learn early on that her father has had an accident at his work and can’t work any longer, so now the two children must support the family. The son is an apprentice tile maker and that is all well and good, but Griet must work as a maid and the parents are so ashamed of what this family has come to, and say things like “We lost you when you became a maid” etc. If it’s SO shameful to be a maid why are you letting her? And if it is so necessary for her to work as a maid to support YOU why are you being so bitchy about it?  Anyway, she goes to the house and gets stuck into work. And here she meets a bunch of people and the book is re...

I did a bingo board reading challenge this year for the first time and rather enjoyed it. I'll have a "review" of how well I did going up soon, so keep an eye on that. For now, I will be presenting my bingo board for next year, as I have decided to keep it up. It is a fun way of challenging yourself and reading a bit out of your comfort zone, or just taking a chance to check off some of the books that have been bumping around on your TBR for way too long. Below is the bingo board I have made for 2017. This year I have been a bit more specific, picking a number of specific authors or even books, as I found last year's rather vague list to be a bit of a hindrance sometimes. If I first had to find out what "modern translated fiction" entailed, I was more likely to just pick up whatever was lying around and read that instead. So I have tried being a bit ahead of the game this year and picking some specific things from the get go. Modern translated fictio...

I had been looking forward to re-reading this classic as I remember enjoying it quite a lot the last time I read it. But once I got started I was actually a little bit disappointed. But first things first. If you don’t know “The Lord of the Rings” it is an epic trilogy about a dangerous quest to destroy a powerful ring coveted by an evil entity out to take over the world. We meet hobbits, elves, dwarves, knights, wizards and living trees just to name some of the creatures that inhabit this world.   As I said I was a little disappointed, but that should by no means stop you from picking up the series. It is a great fantasy series with well-rounded characters, a cohesive world and an ever moving plot. I just seem to have forgotten that Tolkien does tend to wax poetic about the history of this world and its peoples. And I found myself to be a little bored when it came to those passages, I must confess. Like the whole Tom Bombadil bit seemed a bit unnecessary to me, and al...

I read this book because it was Emma Watson’s pick for the “Our Shared Shelf” book club for one of the past months (I’m behind, I know) and I thought it would do well for my “read a feminist book” part of my reading challenge this year.   I must confess I didn’t really know too much about Caitlin Moran before I read this book, but I think she is wonderful and I will definitely be checking out more of her work.  This book is a memoir/debate book about Moran’s experiences growing up as a female and working in media. She speaks openly about her experiences with boys, sex, pregnancy, drugs, bad and good relationships, the pressures of being a woman, sexism and getting tangled up in expectations and how she untangled herself again.  I really enjoyed this book. I could relate to a whole lot of her experiences and thoughts, although there were some that I couldn’t really relate directly to. But I think that most of her experiences are almost universal for ...

As part of my reading challenge for this year I decided to read a book of poems, as it is a genre I haven’t really explored all that much. I picked this particular collection because it came highly recommended by Jean Bookishthoughts on Youtube.  For the most part I enjoyed reading this. But I have to say that, as with short stories, I just don’t think poems are my jam. I like small nuggets of wisdom or insights, but as for the longer “story-telling” poems I must say I prefer “regular” fiction.  The collection is divided into four parts; childhood, manhood, womanhood and blind profit. It sort of has a protagonist in Tiresias, but he doesn’t feature in all the poems, as far as I could tell. A lot of them also deal with Tempest’s own experiences growing up and becoming an adult. I thought most of the poems were fine, but there were only a few that I really liked, including “Waking Up With You This Morning” and “Ballad of a Hero”. As for the rest I just wasn’t too...

I read this book as part of my Bingo Chart Reading Challenge. With this I can cross out “Read a collection of short stories”. I picked this because it came highly recommended by Jean BookishThoughts on Youtube.  This is a collection of short stories, seemingly all based on fairy tales. I say seemingly because there is one or two where I can’t recognize the fairy tale, but that is probably just me being dimwitted. Most of the other stories are recognizably based on Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast and Puss-in-Boots to name some.  I really liked the writing of these stories. They are all beautifully written and Carter can conjure up an eerie feeling with just a few words. But, as I have recently discovered, short stories just aren’t for me. I just can’t seem to get into the story, when it’s that short. And if I can’t get into it and connect with the characters I find myself pretty much uninterested. I will say that I really enjoyed one or two of the lo...

As part of my bingo chart reading challenge for 2016 I decided to pick up a crime novel. It’s not really my genre, as I for some reason just don’t enjoy crime novels that much. But I decided to step out of my comfort zone and give the genre another go. I picked this particular book because Robert Galbraith is a pen name for J.K. Rowling, and if nothing else, then at least the writing would be good.  This book is about a private detective who is having a bit of a hard time lately. His business is not going too well, and neither is his private life. An old acquaintance contacts him in order to have his sister’s suicide investigated, as he believes it wasn’t a suicide at all. The detective, Cormoran Strike, accepts the case and works it with the help of his resourceful and intelligent assistant/secretary Robin.  I liked the story well enough and it was well-written, as I knew it would be. But I found that I wasn’t really all that interested in the mystery of it. Th...

I decided to read this because everyone seems to love Murakami, and I vaguely remembered having read something of his years and years ago and not really liked it. So I wanted to give it another go and see what the fuss was about.  I should have stuck to my memories, because the fuss was about nothing! Murakami writes magical realism, and I HATE magical realism! I’m just like “Pick a genre! Is it realism or is it magical??!” I just can’t deal with talking cats and supernatural beings in a supposedly “real world” setting. But anyway, on with the review! “Kafka on the Shore" is about a 15-year-old boy from Tokyo who runs away from home. He lives with his father and apparently doesn’t feel like he can stay there. It is not really explained all that well, I feel. He runs away and meets a young woman, whom he randomly believes to be his long-lost sister, who left the family with his mother when he was a kid. That doesn’t stop him from having sexual fantasies about her, th...