Hey guys, guess what? I'm back. For 2016 I made some bookish resolutions. One of them was to keep this blog up and post once a week. And man, did I fail that one, badly. There's a lot of reasons, but they'll all just sound like excuses so let's just file these past three (oh man) months away under "Trial and Error". But, spring has come, I am sitting outside in the sunshine and I am highly motivated to do this. Because while I failed miserably at keeping up a book blog, I nailed bookish resolution number two: read more books.
March is over and so far I have read 20 books out of my goal of 60. That's right, I am currently at 33% done. I am not an overly fast reader so I am a little bit proud of this statistic. I know that this reading challenge is only for fun and not a competition that one needs to win, but it's still satisfying to be on schedule. What's even better, I've had an amazing reading year so far and loved the majority of these 20 books. I am planning a "Reading Challenge Update" in which I will tell you about my favourite books so far :)
But, back to March. I've read 7 books this month. As always, if you are interested in an in depth review, just let me know.
The first book I read was a modern classic: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. This book is set in a dystopian future in which books have been banned and firefighters, instead of putting out fires, burn down houses that contain books. Life is centered around mindless entertainment and human interaction has become emotionless and corrupted. This was a dark read, but a brilliant one. It made me feel extremely uncomfortable at times, because this future that Bradbury describes seems so plausible. It's not some far fetched dystopia, I really believe this could potentially happen to us if we're not careful. "Coloured people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside. Better yet, into the incinerator." In today's society, we're people are offended by everything we are heading in this direction and I feel like this book should be read more in schools.
After that, I moved on to lighter themes and finally got to read The Martian by Andy Weir. I've heard brilliant things about this book and was really happy to find it in a local charity shop. The Martian follows Mark Watney, an astronaut, who gets left behind during a mission on Mars and mistakenly declared dead. Alone on Mars, Watney needs to find a way to get back to Earth, or die trying. I was highly entertained throughout this whole book, mainly because the main character has a brilliant sense of humour. The point of view of this book switches between Watney on Mars and NASA officials on Earth so that a majority of times the reader knows more than Watney, which adds a lot of suspense to the story. I really felt with Mark Watney and rooted for him throughout the entire book. Unfortunately I was spoiled for the ending when I was about halfway through and maybe that's also why the ending is my least favorite part of the book, but still, a very good read.
The next three books I read, Wolf Brother, Spirit Walker, and Soul Eater where all part of a series by Michelle Paver. It's called "Chronicles Of Ancient Darkness" and I've never heard of it, before I found the first two books on our bookshelf at work. I started flipping through them and was pretty much hooked straight away. I had a look online and all the books in the series (there are six) actually have really high ratings and I can totally understand why. It's set in the Neolithic Age and follows the main character Torak and his friends on their adventures. There's magic and mystery and friendship and it shows how people lived back then, which I find really interesting. I love Pavers writing style and all in all I am just so glad that I discovered her books. The series is apparently aimed at kids age 9-12 (oops) but especially the first book had so many moments that had my heart pumping so I think you can definitely read it even when you're older. Also, the audio book is narrated by Ian McKellen, if you're not sold yet.
I don't read non-fiction books a lot, but this month I read Greek Mythology by Sofia Souli (It was a library book and I had to give it back before I could take the photo). This was a summary of the most well known stories of Greek Mythology and it was really interesting. I read the Percy Jackson series last year and I recognised so many stories and characters from the book, but it was nice to read about the original myth. The thing that really annoyed me though was the sloppy translation. There were so many typos and misspelled words. I hope they can fix that for future editions.
I then went on reading Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin. I am considering writing a full review on this one, so let me know if you would be interested in that. This is an alternate historical fiction book set in 1956. Alternate because in this story, the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) have won World War II. The main character Yael, is a seventeen year old death-camp survivor and has joined the resistance. Her mission is to compete in the Axis Tour, a motorcycle race from Germania (formerly Berlin) to Tokyo and win it in order to meet Adolf Hitler and kill him. This book was amazing. It plays with so many "What if's" and "Could have been's" that are uncomfortable to think about, yet fascinating. It was filled to the brim with action, love, hate and betrayal. The part during the race gave me strong "The Hunger Games" vibes as well, because while killing other contestants isn't encouraged it also isn't exactly forbidden. For me, this is an important book. To look at this possible outcome while all over Europe right wing parties are gaining power and followers again. History is prone to repeating itself and we shouldn't forget. "The world within these pages could have been our own. For a time and a place, it was..."
All in all, I had a pretty good reading month and can't wait for next months books. I hope you all have a wonderful day :)
Tabea
After that, I moved on to lighter themes and finally got to read The Martian by Andy Weir. I've heard brilliant things about this book and was really happy to find it in a local charity shop. The Martian follows Mark Watney, an astronaut, who gets left behind during a mission on Mars and mistakenly declared dead. Alone on Mars, Watney needs to find a way to get back to Earth, or die trying. I was highly entertained throughout this whole book, mainly because the main character has a brilliant sense of humour. The point of view of this book switches between Watney on Mars and NASA officials on Earth so that a majority of times the reader knows more than Watney, which adds a lot of suspense to the story. I really felt with Mark Watney and rooted for him throughout the entire book. Unfortunately I was spoiled for the ending when I was about halfway through and maybe that's also why the ending is my least favorite part of the book, but still, a very good read.
The next three books I read, Wolf Brother, Spirit Walker, and Soul Eater where all part of a series by Michelle Paver. It's called "Chronicles Of Ancient Darkness" and I've never heard of it, before I found the first two books on our bookshelf at work. I started flipping through them and was pretty much hooked straight away. I had a look online and all the books in the series (there are six) actually have really high ratings and I can totally understand why. It's set in the Neolithic Age and follows the main character Torak and his friends on their adventures. There's magic and mystery and friendship and it shows how people lived back then, which I find really interesting. I love Pavers writing style and all in all I am just so glad that I discovered her books. The series is apparently aimed at kids age 9-12 (oops) but especially the first book had so many moments that had my heart pumping so I think you can definitely read it even when you're older. Also, the audio book is narrated by Ian McKellen, if you're not sold yet.
I don't read non-fiction books a lot, but this month I read Greek Mythology by Sofia Souli (It was a library book and I had to give it back before I could take the photo). This was a summary of the most well known stories of Greek Mythology and it was really interesting. I read the Percy Jackson series last year and I recognised so many stories and characters from the book, but it was nice to read about the original myth. The thing that really annoyed me though was the sloppy translation. There were so many typos and misspelled words. I hope they can fix that for future editions.
I then went on reading Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin. I am considering writing a full review on this one, so let me know if you would be interested in that. This is an alternate historical fiction book set in 1956. Alternate because in this story, the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) have won World War II. The main character Yael, is a seventeen year old death-camp survivor and has joined the resistance. Her mission is to compete in the Axis Tour, a motorcycle race from Germania (formerly Berlin) to Tokyo and win it in order to meet Adolf Hitler and kill him. This book was amazing. It plays with so many "What if's" and "Could have been's" that are uncomfortable to think about, yet fascinating. It was filled to the brim with action, love, hate and betrayal. The part during the race gave me strong "The Hunger Games" vibes as well, because while killing other contestants isn't encouraged it also isn't exactly forbidden. For me, this is an important book. To look at this possible outcome while all over Europe right wing parties are gaining power and followers again. History is prone to repeating itself and we shouldn't forget. "The world within these pages could have been our own. For a time and a place, it was..."
All in all, I had a pretty good reading month and can't wait for next months books. I hope you all have a wonderful day :)
Tabea
