Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

A long and sometimes seemingly endless family epic, Middlesex is actually a very enjoyable novel. If you ever have doubts as to whether you should wed your brother or sister and procreate, this book may help shed some light on the matter. Cal, the protagonist, is a very loveable character and the confusion and trials that she/he injures is quite moving. Middlesex tries successfully to normalise an otherwise abnormal condition. It makes you empathise with Cal and reveals that human is human regardless of gender or sex, and how nature and nurture shape an individual. A little confronting at times, but if you want your notions of what is socially normal challenged, and why social normality really shouldn't matter, then read this novel.

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

Beautiful. Never have I read a murder mystery with subplots and counterplots that are as enriching and supportive, interesting, or more interesting, than the actual plot as Guterson has offered here. Guterson has interwoven a magical story that will keep you in suspence and offer you an insight into the history of Japanese-Americans, into human relations under strain in a mixed society, and the potential dangers of an unrequited love. If you are going to read only one thing this year make it this novel.

The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller

If a Children's author and a Mills and Boons author were to have a love child it would be Robert James Waller. A fairly simple writer that tries unconvincingly to weave a romantic tale. The Bridges of Madison County is a nice and short read (especially when it is missing the middle 33 pages) that is mildly entertaining. The characters are likable, albeit a little cliche, and the plot is pretty straightforward. How this novel made it to movie I have no idea. However if you want a light read on a lazy Sunday afternoon, by all means indulge yourself in this wondrous piece of tripe.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

McCarthy certainly knows how to construct a plot! He is a very gifted storyteller that requires you as the reader to use your imagination and active perception to fill in the blanks. The Road is not only the title of the novel but also the mysterious and underlying major character of the book. The one thing that is slightly annoying in this novel is McCarthy's narrative, although it is clearly a style that he is trying to portray as uniquely his (this is also displayed in No Country for Old Men). I mean since when was it acceptable practice to omit quotation marks, inverted commas, or even apostrophes from contractions? If you have the opportunity, read this book before the movie is released and ruins the experience for you.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

I L.O.V.E.D this book! Anyone that has read this story will know why, and if you have not read it... DO SO IMMEDIATELY! Slaughterhouse-Five is a relatively short novel that contains more than any other novel you will ever read. This book is a journey that must be experienced.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

One word: *yawn*. Okay, not technically a word, more of an action. But this book was severely lacking in characters of any substance. The structure of the Blind Assassin was beautiful, and Atwood knows how to string a sentence and how to use her words (the one thing I loved about the novel). When I read a piece of fiction I want decent characters. They don't necessarily have to be likable, but they have to be more than an empty shell.

The Books

FANTASY
1. Slaughterhouse Five- Kurt Vonnegut

TRAVEL
1.Down Under- Bill Bryson
2.Me, Myself and Prague- Rachael Weiss

SCIENCE
1. Radical Evolution- Joel Garreau
2. The Elegant Universe- Briane Greene
3. The Blind Watchmaker...- Richard Dawkins

BOOKS I DIDN’T FINISH
1. Anna Karinina- Leo Tolstoy
2. Sophie’s World- Jostein Gaarder
3. East of Eden- John Steinbeck
4. David Copperfield- Charles Dickens

HISTORY/POLTICS/WAR
1. Arthur’s Britain- Leslie Alcock
2. The Black Death- Philip Ziegler
3. The History of the Devil- Gerald Messadie
4. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon- David Grann
5. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West- Dee Brown


BOOKS FROM ‘1001 BOOKS TO READ BEFORE YOU DIE’
1. Fingersmith- Sarah Waters
2. Atonement- Ian McEwan
3. Austerlitz- W. G. Sebald
4. A Prayer for Owen Meany- John Irving
5. The Cider House Rules- John Irving
6. Delta of Venus- Anais Nin

CLASSICS
1. Lolita- Vladimir Nabokov
2. Lady Chatterly’s Lover- D. H. Lawrence
3. Frankenstein- Mary Shelly
4. The Castle of Otranto- Horace Walpole
5. The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde
6. The Time Machine- H. G. Wells
7. A Clockwork Orange- Anthony Burgess

POPULAR AUTHORS I HAVEN’T READ
1. Watership Down- Richard Adams
2. Vox- Nicholas Baker
3. So This is Depravity- Russel Baker
4. The Blind Assassin- Margaret Atwood
5. Dead Until Dark- Charlaine Harris
6. The Name of the Rose- Umberto Eco
7. The Color of Magic- Terry Pratchet
8. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle- Haruki Murakami

PRIZE WINNERS
1. The Bridges of Madison County- Robert James Waller
2. Snow Falling on Cedars- David Guterson
3. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood- Rebecca Wells
4. The Colour Purple- Alice Walker
5. Beloved- Toni Morrison
6. The Sea, The Sea- Iris Murdoch
7. Midnight’s Children- Salmon Rushdie
8. Old Devils- Kingsley Amis
9. Life of Pi- Yann Martel

BOOK CLUB BOOKS
1. Grapes of Wrath- John Steinbeck
2. Middlesex- Jeffrey Eugenides
3. The God Delusion- Richard Dawkins
4. The Rachel Papers- Martin Amis
5. Handle With Care- Jodi Picoult
6. A Farewell to Arms- Ernest Hemingway
7. A Thousand Splendid Suns- Khaled Hosseini
8. The Road- Cormac McCarthy
9. American Psycho- Bret Easton Ellis
10. The Secret Life of Bees- Sue Monk Kidd

And the Categories Are...

As an avid reader and book lover I don't read nearly as much as I should, nor do I read as versatile as I should. One of the primary reasons for this is that I simply don't know what to read next. I put it down to too much choice. Therefore when I stumbled across the '1010 Category Challenge' on LibraryThing I jumped on it.

One of the main issues for this challenge was coming up with 10 different categories and the books to be classified in them. Instead of reaching for the wholly unattainable 10 books from 10 categories I have chosen instead to read 1 book from the first category, 2 from the second, 3 from the third, and so on.

The categories are:

1) Fantasy
2) Travel
3) Science
4) Books I Didn't Finish
5) History/Politics/War
6) Books From '1001 Books to Read Before You Die'
7) Classics
8) Popular Authors I Have Not Read
9) Prize Winners
10) Book Club Books


I will post the book contents of each category at later dates.