Katrina Starting Again

So way back in December I created a set of categories and completely ignored them, its now 7 (nearly 8 months into the year and I'm going to start again. Clearly I'm not going to read as many books so I'm going to half the number of categories to 7 and then stagger my reads from 7 down to 1, which if I can add up means I need to read 28 books.

Category 1 - 7 books
Bookcrossing books
1. Reading in the Dark, Seamus Deane
2. Tsotsi, Athol Fugard
3. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, P.D James
4. The Ballad of Peckham Rye, Muriel Spark
5. The Visible World, Mark Slouka
6. Santa comes to Camberley
7.

Category 2 - 6 books
1001 books
1. The Summer Book, Tove Jansson
2. The Wild Boys, William Burroughs
3. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
4. The Bluest Eyes, Toni Morrison
5. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
6.

Category 3 - 5 books
The Eastern World
1. Death of a Red Heroine, Xiaolong Qui
2. Strangers, Taichi Yamada
3. Ode to Kirihito, Osamu Tezuka
4. The Lives of Others, Neel Mukherjee
5. Kokoro, Natsume Soseki

Category 4 - 4 books
Released since 2010
1. Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell
2. Divergent, Veronica Roth
3. Night Film, Marisha Pessl
4. The Somnambulist, Essie Fox

Category 3 - 3 books
Bucket List books
1. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, Carson McCUllers
2. The Pearl, John Steinbeck
3. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Category 2 - 2 books
Non-fiction
1.
2.

Category 1 - 1 book
Author Autobiography
1.

Welcome back!

28 is a great goal - welcome back!!

Welcome back and good luck with challenge 2.0! :)

The first one off of the list, Death of a Red Heroine, a Chinese crime novel set in China in the early 1990s. This book has a lot packed into it, the traditional crime novel, Chinese culture (especially the eating of different types of food), politics, sex and of course corruption. I thought this would be a fairly quick read despite being 480 pages in length but actually I had to battle through it for a week. A good read though especially as crime really isn't a genre I would read normally.

Thanks for the welcomes back, I'm hoping this time is more successful.

3 to tick off today. The Pearl from my bucket list, this was a boom recommended by my English teacher when I was about 15/16 so I've certainly been waiting a ling time for that one. Whereas, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe was a newer addition to the list as I've been wanting to read more Southern Literature. And finally, The Summer Book, this was a 1001 read which I ordered to read as part of the 1001 librarything's monthly read-a-long.
You at notice these are all short books, that's because I'm taking part in the #7in7readalong, 7 books/plays/short stories in 7 days - a great way to shift a bunch of books which have been gathering dust.

I read Eleanor and Park for my third category, I loved this YA novel, I resorted to reading it in a room with children playing, adults chatting, people drinking I just needed to finish it to see how everything worked out. This is definitely a book I will be recommending to some of the kids I teach, Rainbow Rowell doesn't seem to have been discovered in our part of Essex yet as far as I've seen.
This was a great contrast to the 1001 book I'm currently reading and hope to finish today.

Another 1001 book ticked off, The Wild Boys this was full of drugs and just lists of homosexual sex, when there was a story or description it was good and engaging but these moments were sparse.

And another 1001 book ticked off The Things They Carried

>14 katrinasreads: Love Eleanor and Park! You should definitely check out Rowell's other work if you haven't already.

I've downloaded Fangirl I just need to finish a few others before I get to it.

Divergent The kids at school kept telling me I had to read this so I finally picked it up. Yes it's predictable, yes there is a cheesy love story, yes I enjoyed it. A good filler between some hard-core 1001 reading. Off to tackle The Odessey now.

The Bluest Eye I read this back when I was about 18/9 but had little memory of the book so gave it a re-read. A haunting account of the effects of racism and poverty on children's lives.

Reading in the Dark a bookcrossing book I've been hoarding since 2009, a great read about an Irish family tangled up in the IRA, police informers, religion and expectation.

>20 katrinasreads: In college, this was my intro to Toni Morrison's writing. I was so moved and horrified by it. I've read a few of her other books now and would like to get to them all.

Wow, it's been a while. I think I had a book hangover when I first got back off holiday, then I had all the back to work malarke - marking, early mornings etc. - and then Ofsted arrived. Now that's over I'm hoping to get some reading in. Last weekend I finally finished Night Film which I started when I was on holiday. Everybody raved about this book, I thought it was okay but it had its faults - it was over written with the cheesiest descriptions, it was way too long, and involved too many sub-plots. I did however like the format with all the little newspaper extracts, web pages etc.
I'm presently in the middle of three Japanese books: a graphic novel, a novel and a collection of short stories, so I should be able to tick of the majority of the Eastern World category in the next few weeks.

Again another long time between posting, although I actually finished the book days ago I'm just now sitting down and finding the time to post. I read the Japanese ghost story Strangers, by Taichi Yamada, for a faily small book I found that it was quite a slow read. It did have a twist at the end but I was never gripped by this book. This has sat on my shelves for ages so it will be good to move it on to a new home.

Always nice to give one a new home (and get space for a new one in your own shelves...). :)

2 more books down for the Eastern category, they were both very different but both beasts which is why it has taken me a while to post again. Ode to Kirihito is a graphic novel around 800 pages in length about the search for an illness which turns its victim's facial features into that of a dog, this is mainly set in China, but Japan and Africa are also ventured into. Whilst The Lives of Others was a long rambling family saga set in India.

I have a pile of shorter books stacked up now so hopefully I'll be able to tick a few more books off categories in the next few weeks.

I finished a category with my last book published after 2010, The Somnambulist by Essie Fox a Victorian gothic tale which was full of twists and turns, the only problem being you could guess what was going to happen before the twist unravelled.

I will add The SOmnambulist to my "Maybe later" list. Sounds like something I would enjoy, even if it is possible to guess what is going to happen next.

>27 katrinasreads:
It's on my Mt. TBR, so I'm glad for the warning about the ending.

I hope you both enjoy it.

I'm in the process of trying to read a bunch of bookcrossing books which started off life with other people. Firstly I tackled, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, I not really a reader of crime but I rescued this book for a second hand bookshop and thought I would give it a try before I released it. I actually enjoyed the story more than I imagined I would, it had a few grisly parts which I wasn't expecting. I then went onto read Tsotsi: A Novel which is based in the projects of South Africa, this I was expecting to be grisly and dark and it certainly was. I'm not sure about the claims that this book shows compassion and humanity bit it was a good story with an unexpected ending.
I'm now mid way through my third book of the week - I love half term!

And another one down! The Ballad of Peckham Rye, another bookcrossing book, this only arrived with me this week but my new philosophy with bookcrossing books is to read them within the month that they arrive in the house so that i don't end up with the stacks of unread books which I currently have.
The other people who had read this previously really didn't like this book but I enjoyed the read, the characters were a bit ridiculous, but it was fun and quick perfect for my day on and off the tube and then a late evening read.
The next book is also a bookcrossing book, but I've had it a lot longer.
Full reviews can be found on my blog: http://booksunderthebed888.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/the-ballad-of-peckham-rye-by...

You can tell I am back at work because my reading has slowed down again, 9 more books needed to complete this task and I have to say yay for the Christmas holidays as that is when I will get the most read.

I finally finished Crime and Punishment this evening, I have loved this book and have discovered an author I would like to explore further.

This is a highly readable novel focusing on the psychological reaction of a murderer after his crime. As I've said before I was shocked that the murder was so graphic in a classic, but the murder itself was such a small part of the novel. Like in 'The Red Room' the guilt and suffering is overwhelming, and we are drawn into Raskolnikov's private turmoil.

The supporting characters are all well developed and hold their own stories alongside the main story of the novel. I particularly Sonia, she reminded me of a character from a Dickens' novel, someone of a low position who is given a voice, but like Dickens Dostoevsky felt the need to make her into a kind-hearted tart.

I've read and loved a few other Russian classics, such as War and Peace, but have struggled with the various names used for each of the characters, this I didn't find such an issue in this novel as there isn't too much variety in the names used for each character and also the smaller number of characters featured in this novel.

I think this might be my favourite read of the year.

I'm so excited that you liked Crime and Punishment! Since you're interested in reading more Dostoevsky, I highly recommend The Brothers Karamazov. It's a huge book, but well worth the read!

Crime and Punishment is just amazing.

I've just finished Wuthering Heights, this is a second read of this book for me, the first time I have a love hate relationship with this book and my emotions were so strong, I loved the Cathy and Heathcliff section with a passion but then hated the younger Catherine and Linton section. This time however I enjoyed the whole book. The Cathy and Heathcliff section didn't feel as dramatic, and he certainly seemed a lot less attractive than he did when I read it as a teenager. And this time I enjoyed the younger Catherine and Linton section more, more I think than the first section of the book.

I find that I too have different reactions reading these classics as an adult. I loved Crime and Punishment as a teenager and have been meaning to reread it. It's also been a long time since I've read Wuthering Heights. One book I enjoyed recently, much more than I did as a teenager, is Jane Eyre.

Well I haven't completed all of these and I know I won't get to do so now, it is the non fiction books where I let myself down