Book of the Month: January

My book of the month for January is actually one of the first books I read this year. I'm pretty grateful that I managed to read an awesome book to start off my year too. :) The book I picked is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

I really enjoyed reading this book and managed to finish it within a couple of days. There were parts that I didn't like but of the trilogy this has to be my favourite book. Whilst I didn't particularly like Katniss or the following two books, the first book starts off really good. We're introduce to the country of Panem which is America of the future, where the districts (towns) outside of the Capitol city are forced intro submission through yearly "reapings". Reapings consist of a girl and boy between 12 and 18 chosen at random to go into The Hunger Games - a death match in which the last man (or woman) standing wins.

Whilst the idea isn't completely new to me (I am a Battle Royale fan after all!), The Hunger Games is able to distinguish itself through the romance aspects of the book. I absolutely love Peeta (one of Katniss' love interests), he's so lovely and caring. Katniss on the other hand is a lot more difficult to like. I was with her at the beginning of the book and I wanted her to survive, but the emotional connection I had with her was lost pretty quickly. Whilst reading the book, I was more interested in the romance than the aspects of battle and war, which I think is why I disliked Katniss: I wanted to see less calculation and more of her giving into her emotions. But I guess you need to be that person if you're trying to survive during battle.

My review on the whole trilogy is coming up soon, so I'll stop here. I've also decided to incorporate a rating system in my reviews based on my goodreads rating of a book!

Rating:    

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2012 Reading Challenge: February Progress Report

I've been slacking on my reading this month so I decided that a monthly progress report would help motivate me! (I'd also see have a visual of all the books I'd read over the year ^^)

Apparently I'm two books ahead at the moment. Which is probably from the fact that I read seven books in January just to get a head start.

Pathetically, I've only read one book so far during February. But I have books that I've start for uni (and haven't been able to finished) and I also have a life too. So as much as I'd like to, I can't spend all of my time reading.

I will try to fit in one other fiction (unrelated to University) book in this month though! Lots of small goals will lead me to greater success so I'll be making goals midway through the month just to make sure I achieve my final goal!

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Jane Austen Challenge

I've already stated that my book related new year's resolution (of sorts) for 2012 would be to read at least 50 books this year. Now that it's February, I'm back with an additional book related goal! I say goal, but I prefer the sound of challenge - who doesn't love a challenge?

My Romantics teacher actually inspired this one. I say inspired, but he pretty much challenged our class to read all of Jane Austen's books during our life time. I just uhh shortened the time frame! Haha :)

The challenge: to read all of (or as many of) Jane Austen's published novels by 2013 and watch as many of the movie and TV adaptations as possible!

All of Jane Austen's books by 2013 - sounds doable to me! (Especially since she didn't write many books! xD) Watching the adaptations also seems like it'll be fun too, especially with my siblings at Novel Nerds. So I decided to make this something for other people to also take part in and will be "hosting" it on both blogs! ^^ So if you have a blog and want to take part, put the banner up on your blog and link yourself in the comments of this post for a free link both here and on Novel Nerds!

The list of her completed books includes:

• Northanger Abbey
• Emma
• Persuasion
• Pride and Prejudice
• Sense and Sensability
• Mansfield Park
• I'm also adding Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sandition which are her short stories that I happen to also own

Of course, there's nothing stopping you from hunting down her novellas too. There are a TON of movie/tv adaptations so I'm not going to list them all here, however I will update with what I've seen and what I've thought of it :)

My progress so far:

• Northanger Abbey
• Emma
• Persuasion
• Pride and Prejudice
• Sense and Sensability
• Mansfield Park
• I'm also adding Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sandition which are her short stories that I happen to also own.

Key: read | unfinished

I doubt I'll be able to really finish more than one or two of the books before Summer, so let's just say I've got a lot of Austen to come this Summer! Haha :)

List of participants: Please use the above link to sign up too! :)

Side note: I'm aware that bookandyarn started a jan 2011 - dec 2011 version of this challenge. I had no idea until I googled "Jane Austen Challenge" after posting this so I'd still like to acknowledge that her challenge existed first ^^

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Writers Block

I've felt so blocked and restricted over the past few of months. Whilst writers block has existed in my creative writing for the past 3 years, it only recently started to seep it's way into my educational writing. (Educational writing.. is that even a term?) Even now whilst I write this blog post, I'm finding it difficult to express myself properly. I have spent numerous hours trying to write coherant sentences for my formal work but somehow my brain temporarily shuts down each time and I'm left frustrated, impatient and thoroughly behind in my work.

Yet despite my consistant frustrations,  there have been some moments of joy. Last week I was able to write a short close reading piece on The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson. Then earlier this week I was randomly inspired to write a couple paragraphs of complete fiction. The piece I wrote was just an idea that built up as I went along. I actually haven't looked back on it since so I'm unsure about what to expect.

It all seemed like progress to me, but I quickly realised that wasn't exactly the case. As soon as I opened up an essay I'd half finished, I started to return to my slump. I need to figure out what to do with myself but it's getting harder to stay motivated.

To end on an uplifting note, here's a cute cat:

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January Book Haul 2012

And perhaps my first ever major book haul (44 books!!).The majority of these are for uni which is a bit deflating, but hey this blog was supposed to be a record of my growth (literary growth that is) and here's an excellent example of it. I've never bought more than 3 books at a time (for fun) before so this is a major improvement!

Starting with my Uni books and eBooks at that! Pictures are in the form of screenshots from my Kindle - who is named Augustus ^^

Emma and Persuasion by Jane Austen. I’ve read just over 10% of Emma but I haven’t started Persuasion yet.

 

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, Three Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens, Silas Marner by George Eliot, Wessex Tales by Thomas Hardy, Dracula by Bram Stoker. I’ve read about 20% of The Woman in White but it’s so ridiculously long… I’ve also read “The Haunted House” from Three Ghost Stories.

The Europeans; The Bostonians; Washington Square (not shown) by Henry James, Those Extraordinary Twins; The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Call of the Wild; White Fang by Jack London, House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, The Awakening & Other Short Stories by Kate Chopin, The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, My Antonia by Willa Cather, The Virginian by Owen Wister and McTeague by Frank Norris. And all of these are for one class T___T Luckily I have no exams in this class..

Oxford Latin Course: Part II by Maurice Balme & James Morwood and Decadent Poetry from Wilde to Naidu by Various Poets.

On to my books for bought for entertainment purposes!

The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. Probably the prettiest book I own haha. It completes my Lord of the Rings set and is the only book I’ve read from it. x__x

The Summoning; The Awakening; The Reckoning by Kelley Armstrong. I’m not sure how much I’ll like these so I decided to get eBooks instead.

Darkfever; Bloodfever; Faefever; Dreamfever; Shadowfever by Karen Marie Moning. Goodreads recommended the series to me, so I thought they might be good to read (but again didn't want hard copies in case it's crap).

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami, The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins and Blood Witch; Dark Magic and Awakening all from Wicca by Cate Tiernan.

I bought Battle Royale from an Oxfam charity shop selling on Amazon (yeah, I didn't know they did that either until it arrived) for a pretty reasonable price. I'm looking forward to reading the similarities and differences between Battle Royale and The Hunger Games and will be writing a post on my thoughts about it all.  I bought the The Hunger Games box set from Waterstones in store with £10 off - all three books plus the box/cover thing cost me less than £14!! Suffice to say, I was over the moon about that bargain!

As for the Wicca books... At less than 200 pages a piece, I've already finished reading them!

I'm so excited about my purchases!

Crossed by Ally Condie (sequel to Matched) [left], Pure by Andrew Miller [middle] and Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan [right].

I've been meaning to buy Crossed ever since it was released back in November. I'll probably re-read Matched to freshen up on the story line before reading this one. It'll also probably read it after Mocking Jay (the final Hunger Games book) since I'm currently more invested in that storyline!

I actually only discovered Pure after it won the 2011 Costa Book of the Year. I read the synopsis and considering I'm studying The French Revolution I felt it was an appropriate buy. Plus, I wanted a change from young adult fiction.

Lastly, I bought Immortal Beloved simply because it was another series by Cate Tiernan. I love her Wicca series and and I'd love to see her growth as a writer. I don't particularly remember the storyline though...

And that's about it! I'm not sure when I'll get the chance to read these (they're all a lot longer than the Wicca books which can be finished in an hour or two) considering uni has been beyond stressful so far. But even so, I'm looking forward to finding solace in all of these new and unknown (some known) worlds!

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