Iris' 1010 challenge

I'm trying to give myself an easy start. That's why I'm going to say I'll try to read 5 books in each category. I know myself a little by now. These categories are probably going to chance over the year. I've come up with 10 categories that I think I might be able to stick to.




1. Golden Oldies {classics}
2. Growing Up is Such an Adult Thing To Do {books from 1001 Children's Books You Need to Read Before You Grow Up}
3. Smells like teen spirit {young adult}
4. We were supposed to bring faith & civilization {books on missionaries}
5. There's no day like today {contemporary fiction}
6. Candles & a Cup of Tea {anything that makes me cuddle up on the couch and forget about the world outside}
7. Austenland {anything Austen-related}
8. Somewhere, sometime.. {World literature /& historical fiction}
9. Students only {reserved for study-related books}
10. You can call me anything you want {random}

Wish me luck!

Hi Iris, love your category titles especially the YA one. I am sure you don't need it but good luck!

I'm sure the YA one isn't all that original :-P Thank you for the good luck however. These kind of challenges always get me all excited to start reading. It's a shame I don't have that much time.. I'm going to check out your thread now :-)

I certainly wouldn't class putting two categories into one as cheating. The challenge is meant to be fun and not restricting in any way. This is your challenge so it's up to you to design how it's put together within the very loose framework that we have here. Good luck and happy reading.

1. Golden Oldies {classics: 1001 books you must read before you die}
1. The Awakening - Kate Chopin (read: april)
2. Candide - Voltaire (read: may)
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Suggestions:
The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

2. Growing Up is Such an Adult Thing To Do {books from 1001 Children's Books You Need to Read Before You Grow Up}
1. When We Were Very Young - A.A. Milne (read: 01/13)
2. The Brothers Lionheart - Astrid Lindgren (read: 02/28)
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Suggestions:
Now We Are Six - A.A. Milne

3. Smells like teen spirit {young adult}
1. The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker - Leanna Renee Hieber (01/05)
2. Victoria and the Rogue - Meg Cabot (read: 02/08)
3. Arthur and the Seeing Stone - Kevin Crossley-Holland (read: 02/16)
4. Benny and Omar - Eoin Colfer (read: april)
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Suggestions:
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Shiver - Maggie Stiefvater

4. We were supposed to bring faith & civilization {books on missionaries}
1. Mary Slessor. Everybody's Mother - Jeanette Hardage (read: 01/09)
2. God and One Redhead - Carol Christian and Gladys Plummer (read: 01/16)
3. Mary Slessor of Calabar. Pioneer Missionary - W.P. Livingstone (read: 01/22)
4. She Had a Magic - Brian O'Brien (read: 01/24)
5. The Expendable Mary Slessor - James Buchan (read: 01/25)
6. Christian Moderns Webb Keane (read: 04/06)
7.
8.
9.
10.

5. There's no day like today {contemporary fiction}
1. The History of Love - Nicole Krauss (read: 01/03)
2. Night Train to Lisbon - Pascal Mercier (read: 03/21)
3. The Solitude of Prime Numbers - Paolo Giordano (read: 04/03)
4. Solar - Ian McEwan (read: 04/10)
5. Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese (read: april)
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Suggestions:
Enduring Love - Ian McEwan
Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger (reading in May, VictoriaPL)

6. Candles & a Cup of Tea {anything that makes me cuddle up on the couch and forget about the world outside}
1. Silver Bay - Jojo Moyes (read: 02/26)
2. The Wise Virgins - Leonard Woolf (read: may)
3. Making it Up - Penelope Lively (read: may)
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

7. Austenland {anything Austen-related}
1. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters - Jane Austen/Ben H. Winters (read: 01/28)
2. Vampire Darcy's Desire - Regina Jeffers (read: 02/01)
3. Enthusiasm - Polly Shulman (read: 02/28)
4. Jane Bites Back - Michael Thomas Ford (read: 03/02)
5. Sanditon - Jane Austen (read: 03/16)
6. Me and Mr. Darcy - Alexandra Potter (read: 04/02)
7.
8.
9.
10.

Suggestions:
Jane Austen's Letters - Jane Austen / edited by Deirdre Le Faye
Jane Austen. The World of her Novels - Deirdre Le Faye
Mr. Darcy, Vampyre - Amanda Grange
Jane's Fame - Claire Harman

8. Somewhere, sometime.. {World literature /& historical fiction}
1. The Secret History of the Pink Carnation - Lauren Willig (read: 02/07)
2. Miss Chopsticks - Xinran (read: 03/24)
3. Flesh and Grass - Libby Cone (read: april)
4. Dreams of Trespass - Fatima Mernissi (read: april)
5. Palace Walk - Naguib Mahfouz (read: may)
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Suggestions:

9. Students only {reserved for study-related books}
1. Modern Social Imaginaries - Charles Taylor (read: 01/18)
2. Religious Commitment and Secular Reason - Robert Audi (read: 03/11)
3. Theorizing Gender - Alsop, Fitzsimons & Lennon (read: 03/12)
4. Gender and the Politics of History - Joan Wallach Scott (read: 03/31)
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Suggestions:

10. You can call me anything you want {random}
1. Desert Flower - Waris Dirie (read: 03/08)
2. Persepolis 1 - Marjane Satrapi (read: 03/10)
3. Boy - Roald Dahl (read: 04/10)
4. Witness the Night - Kishwar Desai (read: may)
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (audiobook) - J.K. Rowling

Even though I started reading the History of Love a little before the end of 2009, I decided to include it into this challenge. I absolutely loved the book. I think this one goes onto my recommendations and 'give away to people who want you to get them a book you enjoyed'-list.

Review
It's been a while since I loved a contemporary novel and I didn't expect I would like this one that much, but I did.

The book is about an old man Leo Gursky, that knows he is in the last years of his life. In the book he describes his days as he looks back on his life, while writing a novel about it. At the same time we meet a girl called Alma Singer, that was named after 'every girl in the book The History of Love'. There are other chapters that tell the biography of the writer of the history of love. And there are a few chapters from the hand of Alma's sister. The many viewpoints might make the book a little complicated, but if you aren't too distracted the book isn't hard to follow. While reading you discover how every character in the story is somehow connexted to the novel The History of Love and how they are connected to each other.

The things that make this book as good as it is, is the love you start to feel for many of the characters. I am usually not a fan of old people in books, it's usually hard to relate when you're younger, but while reading you can truly relate to Leo Gursky. The writing style plays a big part in this as well. It's hard to describe, but it's like the words are flowing. Combined with the little specific jokes of every character, it creates a vivid picture of every scene. Every character has a specific writing style that seems to fit the character, their occupation and age.

In a way this book is similar to Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer as it also deals with World War II, the holocaust and Eastern Europe, but I think this is the more accesable of the two. That doesn't make Foer's book the better one though. This one is surely as good, and I am inclined to say it's better.

Sometimes a book just leaves you feeling so drawn into its world that you aren't sure what to say about it to explain what makes it that good. This surely is one of them.

--

The next books will probaby be in the category of missionaries. I'm hoping to read a fictin book in the upcoming month as well. I'm just hoping to find the time in between studies.

I postponed studying a little, when I got some of the books I ordered in the mail. And The strangely beautiful tale of miss Percy Parker was one of them, so I decided to start reading that first.

Review
A young adult book about Victorian London, that should've been just the thing for me. It wasn't, however, and yet it somehow was. I keep postponing writing a review about this one, because it’s hard to bring the very divergent feelings I have on this book together. I can name so many things that make this book a bad one, and yet I read it in one go and didn't dislike it enough to want to stop reading - at all.

I'll start with the things I didn't like.
The style isn't great. It's over-the-top dramatic/romantic. I can't find another word for it. It's trying to be really literary, but then it's too simple to be and that makes it annoying.
The story isn't thought out that well, either. Some of the ideas are nice, but in the end it just seems like a lot of mythologies packed together, while none is elaborated. Most of the characters in the story seem to change their mind all of a sudden sometimes, to make a plot twist happen. And really? You can see the plot twists coming miles ahead.

Then there's the main irritation for me: the main characters: Miss Percy Parker and Alexi Rychman. Percy is a girl that is supposedly remarkably good in several languages. Yet whenever she speaks another language, it's only basics like "Nein" or "Merci". I even thought one of the German sentences in this book wasn't exactly right, yet I'm no native speaker. Anyway, I get that the book has to be understandable for readers who do not read these languages, and I personally dislike it when books repeatedly quote different languages (even if the translation is given), but this made the character look a little bit unconvincing. Combined with the fact that she's an albino (or at least: white eyes, white hair, looks like a ghost), is very insecure and seems to just be stumbling while finding the world outside really confusing because of her supernatural abilities. She is never demonstrated as a powerful woman, until suddenly in the end, when it's needed for the plot, she acts like a goddess and she is the most powerful creature around. But of course, after she performs these amazing acts she falls down confused and doesn't have a clue what just happened. And then there's her fawning over her teacher. I have no problem with a student-teacher relationship if it's all "legal" and no teacher of 40 doing weird things with a girl of 12, but the way it is described in this book is most irritating. I know women in the Victorian era weren't supposed to think of more than having a husband and children and that they really weren't supposed to have that much of a mind of their own. This book tries to show Percy as an independent woman in that she continues studying (and yet, only because she looks weird and will never get a husband anyway), but fails miserably in that the girl can't seem to get a grip of herself whenever she's near her teacher, Alexi Rychman. She just swoons. And the way this is described really got on my nerves sometimes, for example:

'Percy dares look up into his resolute face. "Oh, Alexi. Whatever that was, whatever is happening... I need you"'.

And then there's the fact that the author will try to explain to you that it actually made the relationship that much more exciting, because it was between a teacher and a student. Everywhere in this book, she seems to give away just a little too much:

'"As your professor, it was unbearable. Unattainable as my student, and yet... the difference in our status did add a titillating dynamic to this entire ordeal," he purred, drawing a finger over her cheek.'

And last but not least, the other main character: Alexi Rychman. The name should say enough about where the inspiration for this character came from: Alan Rickman. And if you didn't quite grasp that, there are always the hints of him being able to hold a whole classroom in his grasp and walking in and out of rooms while his black robes fly around him. It's clear as can be: This is professor Snape, only with a different name, in a different fantasy setting. And oh, I do get why you could find yourself attracted to that man, but at the same time it immediately seems as if this is all someone's fantasy written down.

You might be wondering when I'll ever start writing about the things that I did like. Here's the thing: I realized while writing that, no, this isn't a good book. And yet I somehow, somewhere did enjoyed reading it, although it irritated me a lot as well. Why? It's something simple: you don't have to think, you can just read. And once you get over all the annoying stuff, I couldn't help but feel a little for the characters. It's just not nearly as good as it might've been. I really wish it had been, but it wasn't.

I started reading Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, but I'm currently doubting whether I want to finish it. I usually finish what I start reading, and I'd feel bad about not finishing anything Austen-related, but everytime I start reading I feel that I had much better start rereading the original. I enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies somewhat, but this all seems a little too farfetched. (I know, I know, P&P&Z already was, but this is so much worse). I can't help feeling that finishing this book will ruin the story for me for a long time. Colonel Brandon as a half squid? Really? And having to read about how he has to pin his tentacles to his ears when he has to eat? And they're moving to a little island, at exactly the spot where the sea is at it's most dangerous? It's all just a little bit too much. If one of the daughters is supposed to be sensible, as Elinor is, it just doesn't fit with the original story at all.

Uh oh. I have Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters on my 1010. Of course, I have never really embraced the original material... What are you reading next?

I just went over to your challenge and you have so many books that I'd like to read! You seem to have many books that combine Jane Austen with something supernatural and that made me wonder: how come if you never embraced Jane Austen's original material? Or is it just that Sense and Sensibility was never a favourite of yours?

I am not sure what I'll be reading next yet. Apart from the fact that I'll be reading tons of books on Mary Slessor in the upcoming two weeks (keeping my fingers crossed that I'll manage to pull that of) for my studies, I am still not sure if I'm completely ready to abandon S&S&S. But I think I might for the time being and try to pick up something light to read. I'm open for suggestions as to what though.

Sense and Sensibility has never been a favorite. I like Pride and Prejudice a bit more. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was the highlight of my beach reading. I really enjoyed it. I started looking for other books like it and Amazon had a ton of them. Mansfield Park and Mummies just came in the mail yesterday and I think I'll start it this weekend.

As for suggestions.... have you read any of Neal Shusterman? He's currently one of my favorite YA authors. Everlost and Downsiders are two good ones.

Thank you, I will look into Neal Shusterman. I have so many books to buy! And yet I have so many unread ones at home. But I guess that´s how it always works, at least for me.

Sense and Sensibility wasn´t a favourite of mine either, but I think I did the right thing for now, putting the Sea Monsters away.

Instead I read A.A. Milne´s When We Were Very Young yesterday.
I didn´t expect to like a book of poems, but I did. Some I didn´t quite seem to understand, or just didn´t get the beauty of, but most made me smile. A kind of fond smile. I can´t explain it, really, it´s just something that touched me in a soft but cheerful way. I especially liked the poems that were about nature, or some of the longer ones, for example the ones about a bear that thinks he´s fat, or the one about the many things a chair can be for a child.

I started listening to the audiobook of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I never listened to any audiobook before and thought it safe to start out with a book I have read many times before. I'm really enjoying it thus far: The Englishness of it all is just lovely. I'm not sure if I want to count audiobooks as reading however, and have put the book in the random category for now. What are your thoughts on audiobooks?

Just jumping in to say that I really enjoyed Enthusiasm.

@ cmbohn: Thanks, I've heard a lot of people mention they liked it. That's why I really want to read it.

In the end, I decided that I couldn't stand not finishing an Austen-related book, and so struggled on through Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

Review:

Giant lobsters, terrifying swordfish, London converted into a giant dome on the bottom of the sea and a man suffering from a curse by a sea witch. All form the background of the new book by Quirk Classics in the monster mash-up genre: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. One thing’s for sure: it’s a monstrosity of a book.

After the success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the publishers must have wanted to cash in on this new hype. Granted, who could blame them? The combination of Pride and Prejudice with zombies was funny. It’s not for everyone, it’s over the top and the idea of zombies certainly got a little old close to the end of the book. Still, it gave a funny twist to the story. More publishers must’ve noticed that the public seemed to like it, because currently there are books appearing everywhere that combine classic Austen with freaky super natural monsters. Quirk must’ve thought that they’d better be quick with their own follow up. That’s why, a couple of months ago, a trailer appeared for “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters”.

Sadly, the book doesn’t live up to the trailer. And that’s saying a lot, because the trailer wasn’t all that great to begin with. Except, it was still funny and the book isn’t.

This is Sense and Sensibility in a world in which every animal that lives in the sea has turned against mankind and wants to eat every single human there is. Strangely, this doesn’t mean that the British all move inland and stay away from the water. The Dashwood family goes to live on a small island that is on the most dangerous coast: Devonshire. And instead of visiting London halfway through the book, they visit Submarine Station Beta, which is below sea level. Both of course, set the stage for disaster.

It’s just all a little too farfetched. To make it worse, Ben Winters thought it necessary to change most of the characters around. Margaret, instead of being a happy child turns into a member of some sect. Mr. Palmer had his own experiences with this sect, because apparently he can’t behave like he does in Sense and Sensibility for no reason other than his character and bad marriage. All the characters are less sensible in that they usually ignore the dangers or attacks of sea monsters that happen in front of their nose for reasons of decorum. The worst change was made, however, to Colonel Brandon. He was hit by a curse which changed him into a half-squid and makes him utterly unlovable from the start. I love the character of Colonel Brandon in the classic Sense and Sensibility, but was unable to feel anything but disgust in this book. Of course, mostly this was disgust for whatever Ben Winters was thinking. Readers have to struggle through pages in which Colonel Brandon has to pin his tentacles to his ears to be able to eat, is regularly covered in slime and worst of all: his tentacles are linked to that other part (or parts, apparently in his case) of his body that deal with sexual arousal. How, if ever, could you want to read a book based on Austen that features the sentence:

‘She noticed that his appendages at times seemed to stiffen a bit when he chanced to glance upon Marianne, as if excess blood were flowing into them.’

Not even the semi-critical look at colonialism helped the enjoyment of this book. If you want to voice your objections to Britain’s colonial past, why insist on giving Lady Middleton, Mrs. Palmer and her mother (in this story all forcibly abducted from a faraway island) so many characteristics that are basically ethnocentric prejudices from the colonial period?

I finished reading Vampire Darcy's Desire and am currently reading Arthur and the Seeing Stone for the young adult category.

I liked Vampire Darcy's Desire and enjoyed it so much more than Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The book caters to that category of readers that aren't only looking for a fun mashup of genres, but like the romantic feel of Austen books.

---

Review:
Austen adaptations usually fall in one of two categories. They either contain 90% or more Austen material, with some lines in between that are supposed to show the story from the point of view of another person, or they are complete rewrites, usually with a lot of nonsense thrown in, that only lift the names from the Austen-original. Vampire Darcy’s Desire is a little bit of both, which makes it a better book than most Austen-based books I’ve read.
Regina Jeffers turns Pride and Prejudice into a gothic novel, in which suspense and sexual tension play a large part. Darcy is now a dhampir (In Jeffers’ words: the product of a union between a vampire and a human) that has sworn never to marry or have children, to stop the family curse that turns every male first-born into a dhampir. Enter Elizabeth Bennet, who soon dominates his thoughts and feelings. While their romance unfolds, both get entangled in a fight to stop the arch enemy of Darcy: the vampire George Wickham.
Having read a preview of Vampire Darcy's Desire a few weeks ago, I knew I had to read this book sometime or other. I don’t regret ordering the book as soon as I could. While the book starts out with some of the scenes that would seem familiar to any reader of Pride and Prejudice, Jeffers didn’t simply copy out the story while adding the elements of Wickham being a vampire and Darcy a dhampir. Instead, this is a true original story wrapped up into the world of Pride and Prejudice, with some of the original Austen dialogue.
Having read Jeffers’ preface, I couldn’t help but feel she did a good job at recasting Pride and Prejudice into a gothic novel. It’s interesting to see how that works out. Especially since Austen lived during the times that gothic novels were immensely popular, as her making fun of the genre in Northanger Abbey shows. Vampire Darcy’s Desire is never too over the top or ridiculous, like the recent Quirk Books retellings are. Instead it’s a highly enjoyable story that combines both Twilight and Austen in a way that I think will make many Austen fans like it, although there are probably always some purists around that had better stay away.

Update on my progress:

I read and reviewed Meg Cabot's Victoria and the Rogue. Review here or here.
In short, I didn't enjoy it much. Too predictable and alike to Cabot's other regency novel: Nicola and the Viscount.

I also finished reading The Secret History of the Pink Carnation. I still have to review it however. I enjoyed reading it a lot.

Also, I decided to go crazy and upgrade all my categories from 5 to 10 books. I don't usually read 100 books a year, but I'll just see it as a challenge. 50, I'm noticing now, was a little bit of an underestimation.

I finished reading The Seeing Stone (Arthur) a few days ago. I really enjoyed reading it. The book was well thought-out and thought I think it would be a good way to intriduce Middle Age life to boys aged 8 or up, I think the way the book describes things makes it a book for children age 12 and up. Wonderful read though. I loved the little glimpses of Middle Aged life which seemed a lot more realistic than the often idealistical heroic tales of knighthood. I don't know how book 2 and 3 will be in that respect, since they seem to deal with the crusades.
At first I was dissapointed that this book wasn't really about the Arthurian legends, but in the end I rather liked the way Crossley-Holland dealt with the subject manner of the parallel lives of Arthur in 1200 and King Arthur in the Seeing Stone.

Still holding off on reviewing The Pink Carnation. I did love reading it. I'm just not sure what to say about the book other then: I wish I would've found out about this series sooner!

Hooray, I finally found your thread! I hope you do decide to read Enthusiasm for your Austen category -- I enjoyed it a lot! Also, @16 :: I read The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker last year, and I had all the same problems with it that you did. Truthfully, I didn't enjoy it at all; as you said, it was like the author's personal fantasy in print. Definitely not my cup of tea, despite the interesting premise.

Thank you for stopping by!

Actually, I ordered Enthusiasm a few days ago, so I should be able to read it in the upcoming month. I am really looking forward to it, since I've seen so many good reactions online (looked it up after seeing it in your post).

I just went over to your thread to check if you were the one asking for good books about the Persephone and Hades myth. When I saw that post I was reminded of Percy Parker and how I would definitely not advice to read that book.

Overview of February:

I haven't been as actively reviewing this month as I was in January. I still have some catching up to do. Especially since in the last week of February I read 3 more books: Silver Bay by Jojo Moyes, The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren and Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman. I'm hoping to catch up in the following days.

As you can see my categories are very uneven at the moment, but I knew it would be like that from the beginning. When I am busy studying I can never get myself to read a classic (I don't have the time to pay that much attention) and I tend to have periods in which I want to read nothing but Austen or historical fiction and periods in which I don't feel like reading those so much.

The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren.

I got this book for Valentine's Day from my boyfriend. He remembered how I always say that I really loved this book as a child. Rereading it made me realise I had forgot so many things about this book and yet, I couldn't help but fall in love with it all over again.

I really want to start (re)reading every Astrid Lindgren book now.

My review: http://www.librarything.com/work/85785/reviews/57099284

Finished writing a review for Enthusiasm. I loved it as much as I though I would after reading the recommendations and reviews of other readers here on LT and especially at the 1010 challenge. I have to say, it's one of the best YA or Jane Austen related books I've read.

33 :: Hooray, glad you liked it!

I just finished reading Desert Flower by Waris Dirie. It's an impressive read because of the subject matter, but not at all well written (in my opinion).

Persepolis 1 by Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis is a graphic novel about a girl growing up in revolutionary Iran. It is rather interesting to see the Iranian revolution from the viewpoint of a little girl. Seeing her move from a belief in being a saviour to being a communist so rapidly and her pointing out the duplicity in much of the ideals of her elders is.. and I feel weird saying it, kind of funny. Of course, there is nothing funny about the way the revolution turned out, but it was refreshing to see it through the medium in which it was represented here. I have to say that I really liked the style of the drawings. Yet, I have to say that I feel hesitant about saying that I enjoyed reading this book. There was something about it that makes me unable to say that I did. Having read a few more things about the revolution for classes I felt that this book put things too simply sometimes. I know that it’s a memoir and that the simplistic nature of the stories probably also have to do with the fact that it is supposed to tell the story from the viewpoint of a child (and believe me, that sometimes works to make it funny), but I couldn’t help but feel that it was lacking somehow. I wish I could explain it better, which is why I hesitated to write about this book at all. I’ve heard that Embroideries by Satrapi is more enjoyable however and I’m looking forward to finding it and reading it someday.

I seem to be busier with my blog these days than with librarything. I try to keep up, but it's suddenly somehow more exciting at my blog (since I'm new to it). I'm sure I'll be active on here again soon.

Anyway, I joined a Chine Challenge that I'm going to combine with my category 8 on here. I just finished reading Miss Chopsticks for it and I really liked the book. The naive style of the story got on my nerves sometimes, but it's really fitting for the story.

Apart from that I also finally read Night Train to Lisbon, which had been on my shelves for ages. I absolutely loved it. I know some people find it pretentiously philosophical, but I didn't think so at all.

I participated in the read-a-thon this weekend, although not for the full 24 hours and I finished 3 books, of which 2 will count towards my 1010 challenge. I'm taking the reviews a day at a time, so I just put up Solar, which I enjoyed immensily. It seems to be one of those books that people are divided about, but it being my first McEwan, I liked it a lot.

I also added:

The Solitude of Prime Numbers - I liked Giodano's style. At times his phrasing was incredibly beautiful. Yet, in the end, this book left me with a feeling of dissapointment and dislike. Maybe I expected too much out of a book that's been hyped and has such a great title?

Gender and the Politics of History - Is a classic when it comes to gender and history, but a lot of what Scott says has been taken up in more modern works and thus wasn't all that new to me. Also, I have a personal aversion to social-economic history, which is what made me enjoy this book less.

Me and Mr. Darcy - Cannot say otherwise than that I was dissapointed. Maybe I should learn to leave Austen-inspired books alone for a while?

Christian Moderns - Very theoretical read on missionaries in the Dutch Indies.