In My Mailbox 28

In My Mailbox is hosted by Kristi over at The Story Siren.
Downside (or upside) of the central library in town being on my way to college: I go past the library at least four times a week, and normally I can't resist going inside and borrowing more books than I can realistically read before I have to return them.  This week, I suppose, was no different.  However, most of them are books that I've wanted to read for aeons and never quite gotten round to, so I'm pretty excited about reading them (and more determined to make an effort with them).

FOR REVIEW

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

FROM THE LIBRARY

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson

The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir

How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

The Monk by Matthew Lewis (also includes The Bravo of Venice)

BUtterfield 8 by John O'Hara

BOUGHT

The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

So, there you are.  What was in your mailbox this week?   

In My Mailbox 26 or The One with the Mighty Tomes

Dear Blog,
In My Mailbox is hosted by  Kristi over at The Story Siren.
I got a fair few books this week, which makes me happy.  A few of them are something of an epic length and will no doubt take me a little while to read, hence the title of this post.
 Note: Sorry the picture isn't very good, and has acquired something of a holga effect.  There's some sand or something stuck in the lens which means it doesn't open all the way anymore.  This will work well next time I want to take some black-and-white photographs, but alas not for actual proper pictures that I want to share with cyberspace.

FOR REVIEW

Eragon, Eldest and Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

BOUGHT

Underworld by Don DeLillo

FROM THE LIBRARY

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan- not pictured, because I had to return it to the library.  Review to come.
Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald- Because I'm partaking in the Vlogbrother read, and if John Green likes it then I should read it, because in my eyes he can do no wrong. 

Daisy Miller by Henry James

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell- because I love .  We and Anthem and the film Metropolis are
among some of my favourite books/films/ forms of recreational media, so I'm totally looking forward to reading this.

Well, there you go.  Did you get any good books this week? 

Also, in relation to the new blog design; what do you think?

How to Make a Packet of Minstrels Last the Length of a Novel

Dear blog,
Now for something completely different.
 To explain: The other day I was reading a list put together by the food company Innocent about how to make a bowl of popcorn last the whole length of a film.I was thinking about this, and how similar it is to those times you sit down with a novel and a packet of minstrels*, but then have devoured them all by the time you’re at page 50. 
I am going to remedy this for you, readers.  Here's a guideline; depending on what you're reading, certain events should indicate how many Minstrels you should eat and when.
Note: some packets of Minstrels are quite small.  Some novels are like 400 pages.  This is why I'm referring to the packets of Minstrels that you can get at the cinema, which are a little bigger.
Another note: Eating a packet of cinema-sized minstrels in one go is discouraged.  It will probably make you feel sick and therefore ruin the whole experience.  It takes me a few days to read most books, so this is a sufficient time to eat a packet of minstrels.
Anyway.

If I Stay- eat two every time the word “cello”, “guitar” or “band” comes up.

The Princess and the Captain- Eat two every time you wish Orpheus was real.

Forbidden- Save all the minstrels for the end, and then devour them all to comfort yourself.

This is All- Eat three every time you feel enlightened, learn something new or have gained new insight into something.

Looking for Alaska- three every time Alaska is drunk or two every time there’s a gorgeous profound quietly beautiful quote.

Becoming Bindy Mackenzie- have two every time you’re all, “Pure genius. Jaclyn Moriarty is one.”

The Broken Bridge- Eat three every time you’re like, “Why does Phillip Pullman need to write those sweeping epic trilogies when, fantastic as they are, he can write such an engaging, refreshing but simplistic YA book about a sixteen-year-old girl?”

Tokyo- Eat one every time the writing style, which tries so hard, too hard, to sound like the POV of an eighteen-year-old boy, makes you cringe.

Anything by Haruki Murakami- two minstrels every time you fangirl squee.

The Hunger Games or Catching Fire- Four every time someone dies or is brutally beaten.

Notre-Dame de Paris (okay it's not really a YA book, but I feel like it deserves a mention as one of my favourite books of all time)- Read the book first, saving all the minstrels until the end. When you’re done, melt them, pour them between the pages and then eat the book.

Anthem (again, not a YA book, but.) - Two every time there’s some mention of “self”, “identity”, or “ego”.

Twilight- two every time Edward says something along the lines of “But Bella, it’s not safe for us to be together!” or half a minstrel every time Bella describes his porcelain skin, smouldering eyes and the like.

Crank or Glass- Two every time Kristina/Bree smokes or abuses some sort of illegal substance.

Eunoia (again, not YA, but every poetry lover should read it)- three every time you’re like “Dayum, Christian Bök has a way with words.”

any of the Ichigo Mashimaro volumes- one every time you laugh, snort, or fall out of your chair in a fit of giggles.

*or Maltesers, crisps, smarties, a bar of chocolate or some of those Tesco mini brownies. 

In My Mailbox 25 or The One with the Armchair Travelling

Dear Blog,
IMM is hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren.
I got a lot of books this week, which is mostly the fault of the huge charity shop in the centre of town, which has shelves and shelves and shelves of secondhand novels. I've probably sung its praises before, and with reason.
A lot of the books I obtained are a sufficient transportation method to other corners of time and space; Japan, Korea, Greece, Russia, China and so on, which is entirely ideal because I've been wanting to read lots of books set abroad lately.

BOUGHT

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières

This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

The Last Day of a Condemned Man by Victor Hugo (read, review here)

Ten Thousand Sorrows by Elizabeth Kim

We The Living by Ayn Rand

Beijing Doll by Chun Sue

Stolen, er, BORROWED FROM MY MOTHER

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (she's reading this with her book club at the moment, and though I'm quite the Murakami fan I haven't read this one yet.)

FROM THE LIBRARY

The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery (currently reading. Entirely fascinating, but pretty heavy going)

So, there you go.  I'm off now to push on with The Teahouse Fire and write poetry.  Over and out.

Foreign Language Friday: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Dear Blog,

note: This review is going to have to be way too short and undeserving of such an awesome book. Sorry.

Original Title:  It was originally published in English, then in Czech, but the Russian is Мы/Miy.

Original Language: ^^

Translated by: Natasha Randall
Summary (from Amazon UK): In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful ‘Benefactor’, the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives devoid of passion and creativity – until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, We is the classic dystopian novel and was the inspiration for George Orwell’s 1984. It was suppressed for many years in Russia and remains a resounding cry for individual freedom, yet is also a powerful, exciting and vivid work of science fiction.

Review: So unless you have been hiding in a cave, or the nonfiction section of your library, you are probably away that dystopian fiction in young adult literature is like the new paranormal vampire-werewolf-fallen-angel thing.  With reason.  We fear the unknown, but at the same time it's something entirely, morbidly fascinating.  But recently I've been kind of tired of that, and all these apocalypses have blended into one.  However, the one dystopian novel I've still wanted to read for a long time is We.

  We is like the grandfather of the dystopic, but totally gets the short end of the stick because so many people have read Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World, and seem to believe that's where things got started.  I haven't read either of those yet, so I shouldn't say that We is the most influential book in the genre or anything, because I wouldn't really know. 

It's both at the same time fantastically forward-thinking from something of its time and gloriously kitsch.  It reminds me a lot of the film Metropolis in that respect.  You've got to admire Zamyatin for constructing what was then such a groundbreaking world, which was apparently supposed to be relevant to the political regime in Russia at the time, so it was pretty controversial too.  There's some interesting foresight- id est, Zamyatin foresaw electric toothbrushes.  Yes, ELECTRIC TOOTHBRUSHES.  Therefore Zamyatin wins. 
The book is only about 200 pages or so, but it's surprisingly hard to get through.  The writing style is very, very strange.  It's almost dream-like in a way, and in some parts it seems almost hysterical, and then because of that kind of vagueness, the perception of things feels kind of skewed and unclear.   It's pretty fragmented, as well, and seems to jump around a lot.  This can be kind of irritating if there's some particularly interesting scene, or thought,  and then suddenly the subject changes. 

D-503 was, in a word...a strange character.  The emotional journey he went through in the book was pretty similar to that of the characters in other dystopic novels I've read; at the beginning of the book his belief in his society is totally unwavering and almost darkly amusing, but then he falls and love with someone who doesn't buy into the society, and is then entirely confused.  But I think the way that confusion of feeling love, that emotion which D-503 had never really encountered before, was fantastically portrayed. 

I-330 was a pretty interesting character; I wish there had been more to her, or that there had been a better picture of her personality, if such a thing exists in the One State.  I knew she was supposed to be mysterious and beautiful and intelligent; that was it.  There was so much focus on the emotion, and the scenario, and the confusion when the two collided, that things like descriptions seemed almost disregarded.    I quite liked O, too, bit in a pitying sort of way. I think she meant well, but in the entirely unindividual manner of the One State, and hence when D-503 was presented with the Exciting World Outside the state, he had to kind of abandon her.  Their relationship was pretty interesting, too; were they in love? Weren't they?  They would get together for the designated hour in which they could lower the blinds in their glass houses and...you know... anyway, good on her for appearing now and again to try and get D-503 back, even though it was pretty futile.

So, I'm glad I read it.  Though it isn't entirely flawless, you have to admit it is pretty damn awesome for being so subtly influential.

In three words: under-rated, clever, convincing.
Recommended for: all fans of science fiction. 
Rating: 3.5. 

In My Mailbox 21 or Some More Classics

Dear blog,
hosted as  ever by Kristi of The Story Siren fame.

This week was another in which I found myself in the classics section of my local library, which has been happening increasingly of late (probably because I've read almost all the YA books I want to read there.  Oh the joys of having a pitifully tiny village library).

BOUGHT

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

FROM THE LIBRARY

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [currently reading]

Cathedral by Raymond Carver

A Dead Man's Memoir by Mikhail Bulgakov

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

So, there you go. That was my bookish week.  What was yours like? 

In My Mailbox, or, The Week of Interesting Books

Dear Blog,
hosted as ever by Kristi over at The Story Siren.
This was an interesting week, in which I strayed from my normal comfort zone of teenage fiction in search of other things, including plays, Chinese journalism, and Ukrainian classics. 

BOUGHT:
Knife Edge by Malorie Blackman (I read Noughts  & Crosses about a year ago and haven't gotten round to getting hold of the sequel until now)
Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
The Good Women of China by Xinran
The Importance of being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (I need it for coursework and such)

LIBRARY
Once was Lost by Sara Zarr
Guantanamo Boy by Anna Perera (review here)
Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov
How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff (Currently reading, it reminds me a lot of Bonjour Tristesse for reasons I cannot yet explain )

Well, that was my bookish week.  How about yours?