It's times to admit that I'm not going to hit my 12 book target this year. It kind of sucks, but I seriously am the slowest reader and knew that giving myself a target would be a struggle. I'm definitely going to give it another go in 2015. This is numbers 6, 7 & 8:
My second batch of 2014 books:
My second batch of 2014 books:
After The Quake by Haruki Murakami
The Sailor who Fell from Grave with the Sea by Yukio Mishima
The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter
The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter
I'm going to start with my absolute favourite from this set; The Magic Toyshop. This book is my Dads, it somehow made it onto my bookshelf so I decided to give it a read. The story is through the eyes of a 15 year old girl and Angela Carter gets the perfect level of innocent & naivety of someone on the brink of adulthood. Its super sad at some points, but equally as lovely in others. I fell in love with (almost) every single character the characters in this book (Francie & Finn are definite favourites though ♥). I highly recommend you giving this a read if you haven't before.
Next, After the Quake; I didn’t realise that it was a collection of short stories! (Which, after reading Smut, I love.) It’s the first book I have read which has been translated from its original language. I’m not sure how I feel about this; I kept thinking ‘is that how he really wanted that sentence to sound?’ 'has the meaning being lost in translation?'. Anyway, each of the 6 stores are based after a huge earthquake in Japan. A couple of the stories are so surreal, I felt kind of dumb reading them at first (“Superfrog Saves Tokyo”, for example, ha) but I ended up loving each one. Short stories are so fun to read!
By complete coincidence, my next book was by another Japanese writer, Yukio Mishima. It took me a while to get into The Sailor who Fell From Grace with the Sea, I actually considered giving it up but I really want to hit this 12 books goal so kept at it, and it was worth it. The writing is really beautiful and poetic, which is huge change from the gritty stuff I usually read. But, the overall atmosphere of the book is pretty dark, and some parts are pretty gruesome (like, animal torture gruesome). Towards the end I couldn’t put the book down and it does end quite suddenly... it really leaves you thinking.
Next, After the Quake; I didn’t realise that it was a collection of short stories! (Which, after reading Smut, I love.) It’s the first book I have read which has been translated from its original language. I’m not sure how I feel about this; I kept thinking ‘is that how he really wanted that sentence to sound?’ 'has the meaning being lost in translation?'. Anyway, each of the 6 stores are based after a huge earthquake in Japan. A couple of the stories are so surreal, I felt kind of dumb reading them at first (“Superfrog Saves Tokyo”, for example, ha) but I ended up loving each one. Short stories are so fun to read!
By complete coincidence, my next book was by another Japanese writer, Yukio Mishima. It took me a while to get into The Sailor who Fell From Grace with the Sea, I actually considered giving it up but I really want to hit this 12 books goal so kept at it, and it was worth it. The writing is really beautiful and poetic, which is huge change from the gritty stuff I usually read. But, the overall atmosphere of the book is pretty dark, and some parts are pretty gruesome (like, animal torture gruesome). Towards the end I couldn’t put the book down and it does end quite suddenly... it really leaves you thinking.
You can read about the first 5 books I read this year right here.
__________________
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you so much for leaving your thoughts. I love to hear what you all think and I do read every single one soooo if you have a question, feel free to ask!
chloe x