Showing posts with label classics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classics. Show all posts

Saturday, March 9, 2013

The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge

If you know me at all, you'll know that Gilmore Girls is one of my favourite shows EVER. Rory and I were alike in so many ways, I knew we'd be best friends if she were a real person, and I love her as if she were real. One of the things that appealed most to me about her is that she's smart and loves to read. While I've seen this challenge around (it originated on It's Time to Read!) I didn't think I'd join in because I was afraid there would be too many books I wasn't interested in reading. When I saw my blog buddy Kristilyn was doing the challenge, I finally decided to give it a go. If you're doing this challenge, be sure to let me know, and we can cheer each other on!

I don't really have a goal for this challenge. I won't lie - I don't intend to read all 341 books. There are a lot that I have no interest in whatsoever, but I'm going to read as many as I can, and I'll even step out of my comfort zone and read a few I wouldn't normally consider.

Why yes, reading IS sexy, Rory Gilmore!
  1. 1984 by George Orwel
  2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  3. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  4. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
  5. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
  6. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
  7. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
  8. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
  9. Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
  10. The Art of Fiction by Henry James
  11. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
  12. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
  13. Atonement by Ian McEwan
  14. Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
  15. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
  16. Babe by Dick King-Smith
  17. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
  18. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
  19. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
  20. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
  21. Beloved by Toni Morrison
  22. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heane
  23. The Bhagava Gita
  24. The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
  25. Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
  26. A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
  27. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  28. Brick Lane by Monica Ali
  29. Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
  30. Candide by Voltaire
  31. The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
  32. Carrie by Stephen King
  33. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  34. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
  35. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
  36. The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
  37. Christine by Stephen King
  38. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
  39. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
  40. The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
  41. The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
  42. The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
  43. A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
  44. Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
  45. The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
  46. Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
  47. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
  48. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
  49. Cousin Bette by Honor’e de Balzac
  50. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  51. The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
  52. The Crucible by Arthur Miller
  53. Cujo by Stephen King
  54. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
  55. Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
  56. David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
  57. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  58. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
  59. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
  60. Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  61. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
  62. Deenie by Judy Blume
  63. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
  64. The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
  65. The Divine Comedy by Dante
  66. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
  67. Don Quijote by Cervantes
  68. Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
  69. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
  70. Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
  71. Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
  72. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
  73. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
  74. Eloise by Kay Thompson
  75. Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
  76. Emma by Jane Austen
  77. Empire Falls by Richard Russo
  78. Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
  79. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
  80. Ethics by Spinoza
  81. Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
  82. Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
  83. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
  84. Extravagance by Gary Krist
  85. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  86. Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
  87. The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
  88. Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
  89. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
  90. The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
  91. Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
  92. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
  93. Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
  94. Fletch by Gregory McDonald
  95. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
  96. The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
  97. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
  98. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  99. Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
  100. Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
  101. Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
  102. Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
  103. George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
  104. Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
  105. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
  106. The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
  107. The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
  108. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
  109. Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
  110. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
  111. The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
  112. The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
  113. The Graduate by Charles Webb
  114. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
  115. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  116. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  117. The Group by Mary McCarthy
  118. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
  119. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
  120. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
  121. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
  122. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
  123. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
  124. Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
  125. Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
  126. Henry V by William Shakespeare
  127. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
  128. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
  129. Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
  130. The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
  131. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III (Lpr)
  132. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
  133. How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
  134. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
  135. How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
  136. Howl by Allen Gingsburg
  137. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
  138. The Iliad by Homer
  139. I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
  140. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
  141. Inferno by Dante
  142. Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
  143. Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
  144. It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
  145. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
  146. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
  147. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
  148. The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
  149. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
  150. Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
  151. The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
  152. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
  153. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
  154. Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence
  155. The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
  156. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
  157. The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
  158. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
  159. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
  160. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
  161. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
  162. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
  163. The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
  164. The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
  165. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
  166. Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
  167. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  168. The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
  169. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
  170. The Love Story by Erich Segal
  171. Macbeth by William Shakespeare
  172. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
  173. The Manticore by Robertson Davies
  174. Marathon Man by William Goldman
  175. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
  176. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
  177. Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
  178. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
  179. The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
  180. Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
  181. The Merry Wives of Windsro by William Shakespeare
  182. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
  183. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
  184. The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
  185. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
  186. The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
  187. Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
  188. A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
  189. Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
  190. A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
  191. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
  192. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
  193. Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
  194. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
  195. My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
  196. My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
  197. Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
  198. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
  199. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
  200. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
  201. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
  202. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
  203. Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
  204. New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
  205. The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
  206. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
  207. Night by Elie Wiesel
  208. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
  209. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
  210. Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
  211. Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
  212. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
  213. Old School by Tobias Wolff
  214. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
  215. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
  216. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  217. The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
  218. Oracle Night by Paul Auster
  219. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
  220. Othello by Shakespeare
  221. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
  222. The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
  223. Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
  224. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
  225. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
  226. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
  227. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
  228. Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
  229. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
  230. Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
  231. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
  232. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
  233. The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
  234. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
  235. The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
  236. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
  237. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  238. Property by Valerie Martin
  239. Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
  240. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
  241. Quattrocento by James Mckean
  242. A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
  243. Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
  244. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
  245. The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
  246. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
  247. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
  248. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
  249. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
  250. Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
  251. The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
  252. R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
  253. Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
  254. Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
  255. Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton
  256. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
  257. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
  258. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
  259. Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
  260. The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
  261. Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
  262. Sanctuary by William Faulkner
  263. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
  264. Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
  265. The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
  266. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne $
  267. Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
  268. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
  269. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
  270. Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
  271. Selected Hotels of Europe
  272. Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
  273. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
  274. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
  275. Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
  276. Sexus by Henry Miller
  277. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  278. Shane by Jack Shaefer
  279. The Shining by Stephen King
  280. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
  281. S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
  282. Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  283. Small Island by Andrea Levy
  284. Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
  285. Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
  286. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
  287. The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
  288. Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
  289. The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
  290. Songbook by Nick Hornby
  291. The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
  292. Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
  293. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
  294. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
  295. Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
  296. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
  297. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
  298. A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
  299. Stuart Little by E. B. White
  300. Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
  301. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
  302. Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
  303. Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
  304. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  305. Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  306. Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
  307. Time and Again by Jack Finney
  308. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
  309. To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
  310. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  311. The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
  312. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
  313. The Trial by Franz Kafka
  314. The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
  315. Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
  316. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
  317. Ulysses by James Joyce
  318. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
  319. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
  320. Unless by Carol Shields
  321. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
  322. The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
  323. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
  324. Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
  325. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
  326. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
  327. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
  328. Bambi by Felix Salten
  329. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  330. We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
  331. What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
  332. What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
  333. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
  334. Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
  335. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
  336. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
  337. The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
  338. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
  339. The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
  340. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
  341. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Progress: 18/341

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Throwback Thursday #1 - Anne of Green Gables

Throwback Thursday is hosted by Never Too Fond of Books and The Housework Can Wait. The idea is to shine the spotlight on old favourites (books that were released 5+ years ago) so that they get a little love since new/recent releases tend to get all the attention. To find out all the details and join in, visit the hosts' blogs.

*For those of you who are used to my Update Thursday posts, when I saw this new meme, I decided to switch from Update Thursday to a weekly recap that will be posted on Thursday or Friday each week, depending on whether I have time and whether I participate in this meme every week. Be sure to come back tomorrow to see what's been going on in the last week!*

Read my review
Synopsis: As soon as Anne Shirley arrived at the snug, white farmhouse called Green Gables, she knew she wanted to stay forever...but would the Cuthberts send her back to the orphanage? Anne knows she's not what they expected--a skinny girl with decidedly red hair and a temper to match. If only she could convince them to let her stay, she'd try very hard not to keep rushing headlong into scrapes or blurt out the very first thing she had to say. Anne was not like anybody else, everyone at Green Gables agreed; she was special--a girl with an enormous imagination. This orphan girl dreamed of the day when she could call herself Anne of Green Gables.

  


When I discovered this meme earlier this week, the first book I thought of was Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. I can't remember when I first read it, but I was pretty young, and I grew up watching the movies along with the spin-off TV series Road to Avonlea.

There's nothing I don't love about Anne of Green Gables, particularly Anne herself. She's free spirited, uninhibited, imaginative, and perfectly, believably flawed. She's vain and impulsive, but she's also loyal and caring and would do anything for the people she loves. I just reread the book last July, and fell in love with the story all over again. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me want to go on grand adventures and learn to be as free spirited as Anne.  

This book and its author (and even the movies, which I adore, and which showcase amazingly talented Canadians) make me proud to be Canadian.


I think everyone should read Anne of Green Gables. I'm actually surprised it's not part of school curriculum, especially here in Canada. I plan to reread Anne of Avonlea this year and then finally carry on with the series and hopefully get through the entire series this year.

Have you read Anne of Green Gables or seen the movies?

 

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The Classics Reading Challenge 2013

The Classics Reading Challenge is hosted by one of my best online friends, Jessica from Thoughts at One in the Morning. I signed up for this challenge for 2012 and only ended up reading one classic - Peter Pan by JM Barrie (although I'm going to try to squeeze in another short one before January 1st!). For 2013, Jess is eliminating 'levels' to make the challenge a bit more laid-back and to encourage people to read classics and take pride in reading them, whether it's one book or a ton of books.

Some of the classics I'd like to read:
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Princess Bride by William Goldman 
Anne of Avonlea by LM Montgomery (re-read)
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte    
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt (re-read)

What are some of your favourite classics? Are you going to sign up for this challenge?

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Classic Book Review: Peter Pan by JM Barrie


Peter Pan by JM Barrie
Series: Standalone
Published: First published 1911, published by Puffin Classics January 1st, 2002
Publisher: Puffin Classics
242 pages pages (paperback)
Genre: Children’s classics
Acquired this book: Gift
Warning: May contain spoilers
{GoodReads || Purchase this book: Book Depository || Amazon}

Synopsis: Peter Pan, the book based on J.M. Barrie's famous play, is filled with unforgettable characters: Peter Pan, the boy who would not grow up; the fairy, Tinker Bell; the evil pirate, Captain Hook; and the three children--Wendy, John, and Michael--who fly off with Peter Pan to Neverland, where they meet Indians and pirates and a crocodile that ticks. 


Unlike many people, I never read Peter Pan as a child. I grew up watching the Disney version and Hook. The reason I decided to read Peter Pan now is because I wanted to familiarize myself with the 'real' story before reading Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson.

I think this book has a brilliant, imaginative concept - how many children (and perhaps adults) dream of finding their way to Neverland, joining the Lost Boys, and never growing old? On the surface it’s a lighthearted adventure, but it’s actually quite heartbreaking. My heart ached for Peter, the original Lost Boy. He seems like this happy-go-lucky kid who loves his life, but his behavior is so worrisome - his forgetfulness, the way he needs Wendy without realizing it, the odd things he says and does. It was interesting how the story would go from lighthearted - kind of ridiculous in a funny way - to giving me this feeling of unease, like I just wanted to step into Wendy’s shoes and mother Peter myself, and heal all those emotional scars he doesn't even know he has.

I found it hard to believe that this is a ‘children’s book’ - the writing itself (which I found hard to follow - it had my eyes crossing at times because it was kind of nonsensical and everything was dramatically overstated), the violence, Tink telling Peter he was a ‘silly ass’ several times, and the way the parents spoke and behaved. I know for a fact I wouldn’t have enjoyed the book as a child, so I’m glad I didn’t read it until now! And I know this may be considered blasphemy to many people - and it's something I very rarely say - but I enjoyed the Disney version (and even Hook) far more than the book.

Overall, this was an amusing adventure with serious, emotional undertones that left me with mixed feelings. However, Neverland will always have a special place in my heart, as will the characters. 

"...when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies" ~ Peter Pan

Have you read Peter Pan? What did you think? What's your favourite adaptation?
 

Monday, December 19, 2011

The Classics Reading Challenge 2012



The Classics Reading Challenge 2012 is hosted by another of my favorite bloggers, Jessica from Thoughts at One in the Morning. I have tons of classics on my shelves that my mum and Grama bought me, and I've only read a couple of them, so this is the perfect push I need to get more of them read!

Here's the details:

1. This challenge starts January 1st 2012 and ends December 31st 2012.
2. All books read for this challenge can be counted toward all other reading challenges.
3. All books chosen for this challenge must be books you have NEVER read or NEVER finished that were written prior to 1980.
4. Choose a level or number of books you would like to read.
5. Create a sign up post for your blog including the Classics Reading Challenge picture above and the books you would like to read (you can change your mind at any time).


As of right now, I'm committing to Level Two: 4-6 classics. I'm hoping to read more, but because I'm participating in more than a dozen other challenges, I'm not going to aim too high! lol

Some of the books I hope to read (and that I already own):
1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
3. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
4. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
5. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
6. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas


Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Top 10 Tuesday: Dust collectors on my bookshelf

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. It was created because of their love of lists and books, and since I love those things too, I thought it'd be a fun meme to participate in!


Top Ten Books That Have Been On My Shelf For The Longest But I've Never Read

I hate to admit this, but the majority of the books on my bookshelves that have gone unread are classics. Probably at least 3/4 of my unread books, in fact. That was part of why I joined the 2012 Bucket List Reading Challenge – so I can finally get some of these books read!

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

4. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

5. Peter Pan by JM Barrie

6. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

7. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

8. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

9. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

10. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

What are some of the books that are collecting dust on your shelves? 

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