13 May 2011

30 Day Book Challenge Part 1: Days 1-13

Gah, who went and broke blogger then? It's been down on and off since wednesday thus depriving me of the opportunity to obsessively check my stats every 10 minutes. Actually, this may be a good thing in fact - am sure it's not healthy to balance your self-esteem on blog stats. I did actually blog on Wednesday night - WoTW was Diversity, in case you missed it.

So I was supposed to do a book review last night - Daughters of Rome by Kate Quinn. But I couldn't, due to aforementioned blogger issues (blogger as in the blog hosting company not ME, the blogger). And I'm randomly too tired to do it tonight. It's been a long week at work - what with having to work a whole FIVE DAYS. I'd gotten used to the 4 day weeks and long weekends - what with all the recent bank holidays. Still, we've got another one coming at the end of this month - woopee! I may, or may not, be going to France then as well.

Anyway as I'm tired, I'm doing a bit of a easy post tonight - actually it's a list - with part 2 to come either on sunday or next week. It's the 30 Day Book Challenge, which works 'zactly like the 30 Day Music Challenge.

Here is part 1:

Day 1: Favorite book: Um, can I have two?? The Blind Assassin and The Secret History. Always.

Day 2: Least favorite book: The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy. Forced to do this for A-Level. Fucking boring and with an incredibly distasteful non ironic wife selling scene early on Just.so.repressed. arghhhh

Day 3: Book that makes you laugh out loud: Starter for 10. Very.fucking.funny.

Day 4: Book that makes you cry: Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg. If you've ever thought about how amazing female friendship is and the ties that bind - in the worst possible circumstances, this book covers it so poignantly. My copy is tearstained from 10 years ago.

Day 5: Book you wish you could live in: Open House - Elizabeth Berg. For the line "...you were running around with your helmets on backward...living lives that are totally oblivious. Thank god you met each other so you could wake up!" - this happens right at the end of the book. I shan't say more for fear of spoiling a wonderful novel.

Day 6: Favorite young adult book: I know I should say something cool + trendy, like The Hunger Games or Matched, but when I was young, YA didn't really exist. If it did it was called teenage literature, when publishing houses weren't trying so hard to be all things to all people. So I'd probably pick The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

Day 7: Book that you can quote/recite: Hmmmm, tough one this......rather pathetically random chunks of The Odyssey + the Aeneid from having to memorise far too much for my Latin + Ancient Greek A-levels!



Day 8: Book that scares you: Lunar Park - Bret Easton Ellis. Oddly, I found this one much, much creepier than American Psycho. Also The Shining - Stephen King.

Day 9: Book that makes you sick: Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler

Day 10: Book that changed your life: The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold. Taught me so much about the craft of writing and my view of the world. Such wonderful writing.

Day 11: Book from your favorite author: Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman. Alice Hoffman is so very talented, even if she doesn't know how to use Twitter. Illumination Night, to me, is like the tardis of novels. It's quite short and yet seems to pack such a vast array of characters, events, plot twists even, into a minimum of pages. It's quite a talent.

Day 12: Book that is most like your life: hah, probably jPod by Douglas Coupland - all my friends are Gen X-ers!!!

Day 13: Book whose main character is most like you: I don't think I exist in any books. But if I did, I think I'd be a funny combination of Bridget Jones (who I always have an affection for), Elaine - from Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye and Little Miss Chatterbox by Roger Hargreaves.

I'll be back with the rest of the list in the next week - so feel free to post below any of your 30 Day Book Challenge favourites! And there's a facebook page so you can also join in.

Thank you and good night,

Stupidgirl has left the building

3 comments:

  1. ha this is a brilliant concept!

    marc nash

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  2. Great - completely different to mine, I LOVE LOVE LOVE The Mayor of Casterbridge!

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  3. great idea...you gotta read THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith wharton, about repressed adulterous lovers in gilded age Manhattan. Rich 'Patroons' (an old dutch title) with vast inherited estates up the Hudson. Town clubs, receptions, palatial 'cottages' in Newport R.I.. Stolen moments, visiting 'cousin' English dukes and all powerful social matriarchs. Daniel Day Lewis and Michele Pfeiffer and Wynona Rider played the triangle in the Martin Scorsese movie. Even people who don't like 'chic flicks' like this one. a 'must have' experience. do not deprive yourself...........One thing more.....didn't you feel like an addict without your favorite fix? It was torture being without blogger.com...I actually had to talk to people, the analog variety, not digital ones!!! P.S. I love The Shining too.

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