Rainy Day Reads

The Book   The book was supposedly written in just 3 weeks, influenced by Burgess’ experiences when he returned to England after being abroad in the 1950s. The book was published in 1962, but is set in the “future”. This future has strong connotations to the 1960s though, as this was the first time there was a definite youth culture with its own music, drugs and slang.  The book consists of 3 parts; before prison, prison and after prison. The last chapter where Alex has doubts about his violent lifestyle was omitted in the first American editions because the American editor thought it out-of-character and unrealistic. And I must confess I agree.  The author Anthony Burgess was born in 1917 and died in 1993. He was a writer and a composer, and while this book is the best known of his work, he was actually mostly a comic writer. He also wrote as a critic for several magazines and studied classical writers such as James Joyce, and he translated a numbe...

Another installment in my "Reading the Classics" series. This time I tackle "Tess of the d'Ubervilles" by Thomas Hardy, and change my opinion (somewhat) from a previous read. The book The book, like many of its time, was first published in a serialized version. It was published as such in 1891 in the British illustrated newspaper “The Graphic” and as a book in 1892. It is considered one of the major novels of 19th century England, and some think it is Hardy’s masterpiece. When it first came out, it had mixed reviews, because it challenged the sexual morals of the time.  The author Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 and wrote about Victorian society at the end of the 19th century. He was influenced by Charles Dickens, but focused more on rural society, rather than Dickens’ cityscapes. He wrote a lot of poetry, but was mainly know for his novels during his lifetime. He was in school until the age of 16, when he was apprenticed to a local architect....

I have always felt a great urge to read the books defined as classics. I mean, they’re classics, so they must be good, right? And who doesn’t love a good book? This urge to read the classics has wavered over the years, because often I find myself not liking (and sometimes even detesting) these books. So is it me or is it them? I mean, it’s probably me, let’s be real, but often I wonder why a certain book is considered a classic.   So I have decided to start up with the classics again. I took to Goodreads and found several lists with “classic” books. It is hard to pick a conclusive list as the term “classic” is rather subjective and not all books on various lists are universally thought of as classics. I will use a variety of the available lists to guide me in my choice of books.  At first glance the lists almost all have a lot of well known books listed, and I have actually read quite a few of them. Most of the ones I read I have given 1-3 stars, but some of my absolu...

I first got into Charles Dickens, because I watched some adaptations of his novels on TV. I believe the first one was Little Dorrit, which my friend and I watched a number of times during our 4 month Asia trip. She had bought the DVD set and a portable player and we utilized this during any down time. The series was so beautifully made that it was easily able to stand a re-watch (or many) and when we came to a bigger book store we hunted down copies of the book and started reading. And   I loved it! Charles Dickens is a bit of a hit-or-miss for me. I LOVE some of his books like “David Copperfield”, “Bleak House”, “Nicholas Nickleby" and “Little Dorrit", but some of his other most notable works I really don’t like, e.g. “A Tale of Two Cities”and “Great Expectations”.  Dickens was born in 1812, and at a young age he had to leave school to work in a factory, as his father was imprisoned for debt. Despite this lack of formal education he wrote and edited thousands of pag...