The Terror of Knowing

The final update post for the Bout of Books 11 Read-a-thon, it’s day 7, aka the final day, the end, the home stretch etc. etc. I’m not sure how I feel about the progress I’ve made but I will say this has helped show me how I can blog about books and join a community of fellow book lovers on the internet. To anyone who has commented on my blog, liked my posts, or popped by even just to read, hi and thank you for the interaction – I hope to continue to talk to you once the read-a-thon is over!

Now… my updates for the day, you know the drill by this point…

Updates:

6pm – thanks to a 2-hour train journey I managed to make some progress with Notes from an Exhibition, 93 pages to be precise, which isn’t as much as I hoped but considering I was surrounded by distractions, namely drunk people whose voices are about 10 times as loud when you’re trying to read a novel about an artist and Cornwall. I hope to read some more tonight before the deadline but I’m not sure if I’ll manage to finish this novel before then. Fingers crossed though!

11pm – once it became clear I was too distracted by the sounds of my dad watching NCIS and CSI: Miami on the living room tv, I decided to end on a positive note which is participating in a wonderful read-a-thon that was perfect for what I needed for my first time participating in such an event. The challenges have made it super fun and it’s reminded me of my love for books and for reading so no matter how much I did (or didn’t!) stick to my proposed TBR/goals for this week, I think the important thing to take away from it is that I did participate and enjoyed myself doing it, despite the tricky week for reading that it turned out to be – c’est la vie!

Wrap Up:

My (admittedly tentative) TBR read as follows:

1. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
2. Notes from an Exhibition – Patrick Gale
3. ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore – John Ford
4. King Lear – William Shakespeare

What I actually ended up reading was as follows:

1. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro ( 4/5)
2. The Shock of the Fall – Nathan Filer (3/5)
3. Notes from an Exhibition – Patrick Gale (incomplete)

Total read:
Finished 2 novels, started 1 more.
258 pages + 314 pages + 93 pages = 665 pages

All in all, when you break it down to the bare statistics, it’s not bad for a disrupted week’s reading, in my opinion of course!

Challenges:

Five Book Challenge @ Falling Down The Book Hole

“It is 11:00 PM on a Sunday night. You are laying in bed thinking about all of the things you must do the next day. Tasks of the coming days consume your thoughts and while your mind is somewhere else you are caught off guard by a flash in the sky that is followed by a large wailing screech that pierces the air and shatters your bedroom window. Slowly you move to the window and what you see catches your breathe and causes you to stumble back a few steps. The aliens (at least you think they are aliens) have began to enter the city and destroy everything that is in their path. Through the window your view is consumed with destruction, screaming people and large flames that are dancing across the city at a fast pace. You notice that the creatures are heading in your direction and you realize you probably have about fifteen minutes before they reach your home. That means you have only about ten minutes to gather your belongings and escape before you are caught in the attack from the aliens invading the city.

Given the short amount of time you are only able to take 5 books with you. What books would you pick to take with you as you escape and prepare for the end of the world. Would you choose books that would help you survive in the post-apocalyptic world ,books for pleasure that would make you happy and take you to a fantasy reality or books that you can’t live without?“

I’d like to think any post-apocalyptic or dystopian novels I have read would be committed to memory now (The War of the Worlds, The Hunger Games, The Road to name a few) so there’s really no need to waste precious book spaces on those now, is there? :p

1. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – one of my favourite books and the suspense is never dampened on a re-read, I know I will always enjoy this book.
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – witty, engaging, and an easy read, I don’t think I could ever tire of the adventures of Lizzie Bennet and the trials and tribulations of her family.
3. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien – I think technically this should count as one book since I have the movie tie-in edition that has all of them (justification over haha). I love the story, Tolkien is a genius at world building, and I think it’d be nice to escape the real-world perils for those of Frodo and the One Ring travelling through Middle Earth.
4. Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare – I felt obliged, because of my love of the bard, to pick a play but which one to pick is always going to be a struggle – seriously ask me to pick my favourite Shakespeare play and I will um and ah for hours. I settled on Much Ado purely because it’s the first Shakespeare I studied and loved.
5. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman – in the tough, post-apocalyptic world I think everyone needs a laugh and the dream team of Pratchett and Gaiman definitely deliver on that front.