The first Wednesday of every month, you simply take a picture of the books that are currently on your nightstand, and write a post about them! (and link up with the others doing it)
You know me, I love talking about the books I'm reading... and this is the perfect opportunity to!
Without further ado... my nightstand:
Starting at the top, we have Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I'm reading this for literature class and really enjoying it so far! Technically we're still on Wuthering Heights (which I also enjoyed... review coming in the nearish future) but I really wanted to get Great Expectations finished before the middle of this month, for secretive reasons I shan't disclose at the present. (Mwahahaha.)
From what I heard about Dickens, I had great expectations for Great Expectations (see what I did there?). Alright, maybe not great expectations, per se... But from what I had gleaned from other readers, Dickens is really super tough to read and get through. That had me apprehensive, but I was happy to find that he's not so difficult to understand after all! His writing style is similar to Jane Austen's in that it's old fashioned, but not indiscernible.
Next there is Thank You, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. I discovered the world of Wodehouse in February and have fast fallen for his brilliant writing style and characters. His Jeeves books are definitely not to be taken too seriously and they make excellent brain candy reading. Thank You, Jeeves is the first Jeeves and Wooster novel (before it come several short story collections) and I'm enjoying it tremendously! My favorite episode of the TV series is based off of this story.
Third down is Jane Austen's Letters which is exactly like it sounds: a collection of Jane Austen's letters. Most of them are to her sister Cassandra and are, altogether, very interesting! I love reading people's letters or autobiographies, especially if the people lived in a historical time period. Textbooks and Wikipedia pages can only tell you so much about that time... but reading the everyday occurrences of someone who actually lived at the time can be so enlightening! It's like a peek into a different world.
Which brings me to... Agatha Christie's Autobiography. Everything I said about the above also applies to this book. Wow, what an interesting person Agatha Christie is! I recently finished a book of her letters to her mother when she traveled around the world with her husband in the 1920's (it was so so so good) and figured I'd just move right along into her autobiography. I haven't gotten too far into her life yet. She's only just entered the teen years. Did you know she never really wrote much as a child? She loved to read, and she had many make believe worlds and friends (including several imaginary train tracks in her backyard), but she never wrote. Instead she played piano, acted, danced, swan, and learned French. She wasn't an outstanding child - actually, she was rather normal. Her childhood games reminds me of my own.
Underneath those four books are three or four notebooks, several pieces of paper, and a folder or two. All are filled with stories or story ideas. Aaaand up in the left hand corner, you can see Dori photobombing. I decided to have his make a cameo appearance instead of the other half of my nightstand, which is the top of my dresser. It's rather messy, filled with bits of paper and bookmarks. I didn't think you'd be interested in that.
So what are YOU reading?
Live long and prosper!
The Agatha C. biography and letters sound interesting. I've read an account of her life while in the Middle East with her archaeology husband. I think it is called "When the Camel Bells Sing??" Anyhow, it was really good!
ReplyDeleteOh cool! I will have to look that one up.
DeleteActually the Agatha Christie book is called, "Come Tell Me How You Live." It's an account of her adventures in Syria. The Camel Bell book was written by Margaret Laurence, a famous Canadian author, about her sojourn in Somalia before it disintegrated into war. A beautiful book about the nomads of Somalia, and their songs and poems. It's heartbreaking as well, knowing how bad life there has become with the nomadic culture likely destroyed.
DeleteVery cool. Haven't read any of those, actually. Partially because I think I'm the only English major in history not to think Dickens is absolutely marvelous. I don't think he's hard to understand, he's just far too wordy for my taste.
ReplyDeleteI love Jane Austen though, I will have to see if I can get my hands on her "Letters," that sounds very interesting.
Don't know much about Agatha Christie, but it sounds like we might have been "Kindred Spirits," as Anne would say. :)
Thanks so much for participating in Nightstand Books!!!!! It's fun to see what other people are reading/about to read (and nice to know I'm not the only person who reads more than one book at a time), and I think it'll be even more fun to see how people's reading lists change from month to month!
Dickens definitely is wordy. Some of his descriptions, though... so wonderfully rich. I wonder if I'll think differently by the end of the book. Tolkien's got some pretty long-winded descriptions as well that, though absolutely stunning, can get, well, long-winded at times. Like rich chocolate, you can only eat it in small quantities.
DeleteHer letters are quite interesting! There are several different collections, I think. This one is edited by Deirdre Le Faye. About half of it is notes on the letters, explaining who this is or who that is.
Nightstand Books was really fun! I agree, it will be great to see other people's book choices and how their lists change. I'm a really slow reader, so I expect some books will stay the same over the months (I'm just glad this wasn't started last year, when I took a year to finish The Two Towers!).
I have heard that some of Dickens' books are better than others. Great Expectations is the only one I've actually managed to make it all the way through (I actually really love his stories, and the older movies that they generated: the old Great Expectations with John Rhys Davies is wonderful, and so accurate to the book that my at-the-time-fiance (now husband) taking the same class as me in which we had to read the book, only watched the movie and only did one question worse than me on the final exam, and scored 100%s on all the quizzes).
DeleteYeah, I have a feeling some of the months I'll have repeat books up there, too. But it will be fun even to hear how people are enjoying the books they've been reading, as well.
Those sound interesting - very you, Abbey. =D
ReplyDeleteI've just recently finished two books. One was called Through to You, and the other was Princess of the Midnight Ball. They weren't really good, sadly. I'd give them 2/5 stars. Through to You had a better storyline (It was about alternate universes!), but it was really full of excessive swearing that honestly wasn't needed, which I wasn't very happy about. I wouldn't recommend it. Princess of the Midnight Ball was better - maybe I'd even give it 3/5 stars - it was a fairy-tale retelling, and wasn't all that bad. It was a little cliché, but not bad. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the authors who wrote these books... grr! xD
Well, now that I have your blog on my reading list you should be getting more comments from me. =D
Jen