October 2013 Wrap Up - Late!

So- I realize it is not longer October and that this happened quite a few months ago. I found this post in my backlog of drafts that I didn't get to publish before my blogging sebbatical but it's good stuff so I wanted to share anyway! It's fun to look back at what I was thinking almost six months ago.

Enter the Stacks and Shelves time wrap back to 10/2013:

 I can't believe October is already winding down and my favorite time of the year is in full swing.  I experienced a slump in my normal reading habits in September (mostly because of my wedding!) but I bounced back in October and had a wonderful reading month.

I read a total of nine (!!!) books and I wrote posts for almost every book.    I also participated in The Historian readalong, the Doctor Sleep readalong and Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon.  (Click on the book title's name to link back to the original post).

• The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
• Doctor Sleep by Stephen Kind
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
• Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaiman
• The Selection and The Elite by Kiera Cass
• Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron by Jonathan Strahan
• Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor
• Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell

Unfortunately, There will not be a review for Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor.  This is a young adult high fantasy series that is definitely out of my comfort zone, and I am not completely comfortable with writing my thoughts about a book I don't fully understand.  Plus, it has been a long time since I read the first book in the series so it would be an unfair assessment on the progression of the story line.  With that being said, it is still an enjoyable series to read and I will definitely be buying the third book that comes out next year (March 2013 update: this book comes out in 2 weeks!).

In August I wrote out my Fall 2013 TBR and I am surprised to say that I actually read books from that list.  Four of the books I talked about were read (one in September, the other three this month) and I am still interested in the remaining books so I might actually read all of them!

Overall, I have read 73 books towards my goal of 80 books on Goodreads (bumped up from my original goal of 60) and I am considering bumping my goal up just a bit because I am going to start reading a lot of middle grade fiction for Middle Grade Mondays and those books take significantly less time to get through.

I also managed to acquire an obscene amount of new books throughout September and October so I am going to try my best and not buy anything new throughout the end of the year.  I recently discovered this new e-lending program at my library which will make my "buying ban" easier to manage.

Wuthering Heights - A RIPVIII Review

I finished reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte during Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon this past weekend.  I originally selected the book because it's a classic that I feel everyone else but me had read.  I had also never read any Victorian literature, or anything by the Bronte sisters.

In case you didn't know, Wuthering Heights is a multi-generational tale of a love-square involving Cathy, Heathcliffe, Edgar and Isabella who do not get what they want while they are alive.  They pass this terrible lifestyle on to their children who are also miserable for 95% of the book.  It is not until the final chapter that we see a couple genuinely happy together without extenuating circumstances that pull them apart.

The story is told partially through the perspective of Mr. Lockwood, who is renting Thrushcross Grange a few miles from Wuthering Heights.  The first few chapters of this book are the hilarious encounters of mis-manners between Mr. Lockwood and Heathcliffe, his landlord.  The rest of the story is told through stories that Nelly, Thrushcross Grange's caretaker, relates to Mr. Lockwood.  She grew up at Wuthering Heights with Cathy and Heathcliffe and had first hand experience at all of the horrible events that took place over their lifetimes.

The characters in this book are terrible for the most part.  It's not really their fault - they have a lot circumstances they are unable to overcome in the very beginning of their lives - but I think that's what makes the book work so well.  You feel terrible for the characters because they were molded into unpleasant people but at the same time they are so unpleasant you love to hate them.  The writing was difficult to read because I was not acclimated to the Victorian writing style, but once I was able to focus and sink into the rhythm of the words it made much more sense.  However, I think this is a book that needs to be read more than once to be fully understood.  I struggled through the book for a while so I don't think I will be reading it again any time soon, but I am willing to look into other people's reviews and discussions to learn more about it.

While reading I highlighted two passages from the book:

Cathy to Nelly regarding Heathcliffe - "It would degrade me to marry Heathcliffe now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am.  Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same;" (Chapter 9)

Heathcliffe to Nelly regarding Cathy - "If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day.  And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have: the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough as her whole affection be monopolised by him!" (Chatper 14)

Have you read Wuthering Heights? I've heard from some people that absolutely love it and others that hate it.  I would love to know what you think!

Fahrenheit 451 Review - Classics Club

I recently finished Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury as part of my Classics Club Commitment and for the Classics Spin #3.

Image Source: Amazon.com

This book is so popular and frequently assigned to high school students that I am not going to recap the events here.  After finishing the book I was left with a "huh?" feeling.  The first 130 or so pages demonstrate Guy Montag's struggle against himself and the society in which he lives; he finally finds a release through the discovery of literature.

However, immediately after the climax of the book Bradbury takes Montag into a path that I neither saw coming nor understood.  Once he meets up with the other literary scholars along the railroad tracks I have absolutely no idea what Bradbury was saying. All of a sudden the focus became on the limits of human society in comparison with nature as a whole and I did not understand how that related to the previous societal conflict.  Overall this was just an average book for me.  I may have to read it again to put the puzzle pieces together on what Bradbury was trying to do at the end; I don't think I fully grasped his message (the same thing happened with The Great Gatsby, I read the book three times before I could connect with the plot, let alone the meaning behind it).


Have you read Fahrenheit 451 and understood it, or did you also have difficulty understanding Bradbury's message? Let me know (or help explain) in the comments!


Fahrenheit 451 was originally published in 1953 by Ballantine Books.

The Classics Spin #3

Here we go! I made a commitment to the Classics Club in this post and now I'm going to let them select which book I will read first by participating in the Classics Spin #3.

Here is my list of 20 books:

1. Emma - Jane Austen
2. Island - Aldous Huxley
3. Life of Pi - Yann Martell
4. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
5. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
6. Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates
7. House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski
8. Mythology - Edith Hamilton
9. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
10. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
11. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
12. The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
13. If I Die in a Combat Zone - Tim O'Brien
14. The Collected Stories - Edgar Allen Poe
15. Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare
16. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
17. Beloved - Toni Morrison
18. Sula - Toni Morrison
19. 1984 - George Orwell
20. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

Now here's the thing: I own all of these books.  Some have been sitting on my shelf for YEARS and I've been dreading them or putting them off for too long.  It will be quite interesting to see what number gets chosen.  Check back on Monday to see what book I will be reading by Oct. 1!

Classics Club Commitment

Did anyone else skip out on all of the required reading for high school? I sure did, and I missed a lot of the literature that made up a core reference point for a lot of readers.  Even for my AP English course I only read one book, Native Son by Richard Wright, and it was so good that I decided I didn't need to continue with anything else on the list.  I've made up some ground through college and the past two years post-grad but I'm still missing out on a lot of good literature. I am remedying this by joining the Classics Club.  Below are the 36 books that I will read before October 7, 2014 (my 27th birthday).  I've separated them into a few categories:

Books I've Previously Read/Attempted to Read and Didn't Understand:

• Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
• Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
• Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Caroll
• Invisble Man - Ralph Ellison
• Slaughterhouse Five- Kurt Vonnegut
• Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
• Beloved - Toni Morrison
• Sula - Toni Morrison
• 1984 - George Orwell

Books I Own:

• Emma - Jane Austen
• Island - Aldous Huxley
• Life of Pi - Yann Martell
• Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
• Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
• Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates
• House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski
• Mythology - Edith Hamilton
• A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
• One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

• Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
• The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
• If I Die in a Combat Zone - Tim O'Brien
• The Collected Stories - Edgar Allen Poe
• Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare
• The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

Other Classics:

• Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
• Peter Pan - JM Barrie
• This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Easter Parade - Richard Yates
• The Turn of the Screw - Henry James
• A View from the Bridge - Arthur Miller
• Lolita - Vladimir Nabakov
• A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennessee Williams
• The Glass Menagerie - Tennessee Williams
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglass Adams