#itiselizabeth

Well, I had to cram quite a bit of reading into the last few days of this year so that I could finish the reading challenge I was doing, this included reading the shortest book to ever win a Pulitzer Prize because I had completely missed that topic. I finished reading at about 8pm on NYE.

This year I finished 62 books, and I’m still intending to write up about my favourites etc. but who knows when I’ll find a good time to do it!

Not as good as last year but I’m still proud of what I managed to get through! 

Official bit of post:

Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (122)

The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (98)

Lady Chatterley’s Lover - D.H. Lawrence (404)

Feed - Mira Grant (599)

Another Life (Torchwood) - Peter Anghelides (253)

The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller (384)

The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway (132)

I read a little bit while I was on Holiday but a lot of my free time (every night last week!) has been spent watching a Star Wars film so I’m behind by quite a bit… The only book I’ve finished since my last post didn’t even help me complete my reason for reading it. I had heard that “Feed” was a book that would make me cry, but it didn’t. Maybe it was because I was looking for the reason for tears from the start or because deaths in books about Zombies are inevitable… whatever the case, it didn’t work! I know this isn’t a request you might expect at this jovial time of year, but if anyone has a suggestion for a book that will make me cry - my ask box is open!

Official bit of post:

Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (122)

The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (98)

Lady Chatterley’s Lover - D.H. Lawrence (163 - still reading)

Feed - Mira Grant (599)

Another Life (Torchwood) - Peter Anghelides (96 - still reading)

I’ve not made as much progress as I had hoped… and I’m about to have some holiday days away with friends so I might not get much read then either! So here’s a short book I finished (a re-read because it was the easiest option to do for the “book that was originally written in another language”) and the bits of the other two I’ve started…

Official bit of post:

Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (122)

The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (98)

Lady Chatterley’s Lover - D.H. Lawrence (78)

Feed - Mira Grant (138)

I’m still trying to finish off the book challenge I’ve been blogging about all year because I keep reading books that don’t fit the remaining categories… Well, with one month left I really need to focus and I’ve finally finished my “a book written by someone under 30” one because Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was written when she was 28! I started reading this 400+ page book in November so this is only a record of the end of it. It’s a powerful book that I picked to read because it won the “Best of the Best” Women’s Hour pick of the last ten winners of the Women’s Prize for fiction.  Set in the 1960’s in a fictional version of the real conflict between Nigeria and the state of Biafra, it follows the lives of a young boy Ugwu, two adult female twins Olanna and Kainene and a few others. It takes an interesting approach by not being as omniscient as most 3rd person narrations so you see still through the actions of the characters and not suddenly be told things that they couldn’t possibly know by a narrator.  Official bit of post:

Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (122)

I liked the 0.5th book of that series, though that world is SO bleak! 

Books Finished in October:

Lost Things (The Order of the Air #1) by Melissa Scott & Jo Graham (92-350) The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals: The Evil Monkey Dialogues by Ann VanderMeer (0-96) Clockwork Angels by Kevin J Anderson (0-305) The Hunted by Charlie Higson (0-440) Emma by Jane Austen (30-475) The Accord by Keith Brooke (0-448) The Maze Runner by James Dashner (0-374) The Scorch Trials by James Dashner (0-360) The Death Cure by James Dashner (0-325) The Kill Order by James Dashner (0-327)

Total Pages: 3378 

My favourite read this month was totally The Hunted because it was just a brilliantly written continuation of a series that I’ve been enjoying for years.

Books Finished in October:

Lost Things (The Order of the Air #1) by Melissa Scott & Jo Graham (92-350) The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals: The Evil Monkey Dialogues by Ann VanderMeer (0-96) Clockwork Angels by Kevin J Anderson (0-305) The Hunted by Charlie Higson (0-440) Emma by Jane Austen (30-475) The Accord by Keith Brooke (0-448) The Maze Runner by James Dashner (0-374) The Scorch Trials by James Dashner (0-360) The Death Cure by James Dashner (0-325)

Total Pages: 3051

I’m actually a bit amazed about how much I’ve read this month! :)

Books Finished in October:

Lost Things (The Order of the Air #1) by Melissa Scott & Jo Graham (92-350) The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals: The Evil Monkey Dialogues by Ann VanderMeer (0-96) Clockwork Angels by Kevin J Anderson (0-305) The Hunted by Charlie Higson (0-440) Emma by Jane Austen (30-475) The Accord by Keith Brooke (0-448) The Maze Runner by James Dashner (0-374)

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner (0-360)

Total Pages: 2726

I don’t have much to say about this without delving into spoiler realms. I hope the next two are more like the end of Uglies than the end of Divergent. 

We saw the film for Maze Runner without having read the book/books but I spent the majority of the film wishing I’d read it first and even thinking I’d rather be reading it just to get a few more inner character thoughts and background. 

Books Finished in October:

Lost Things (The Order of the Air #1) by Melissa Scott & Jo Graham (92-350) The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals: The Evil Monkey Dialogues by Ann VanderMeer (0-96) Clockwork Angels by Kevin J Anderson (0-305) The Hunted by Charlie Higson (0-440) Emma by Jane Austen (30-475) The Accord by Keith Brooke (0-448) The Maze Runner - James Dashner (0-374)

Total Pages: 2366

I’m really glad I read it after seeing the film now though, I thought the changes they made from the text were sensible but I liked the differences in the book too. I got it as a kindle version with all 4 books so I doubt I’ll finish more than some of those between now and the end of October.