Victorian Celebration Giveaway

Allie is hosting the wonderful Victorian Celebration for June and July over at her blog, A Literary Odyssey. Many reviews have been posted, so check out the master post to find a list of links to reviews.

I'm hosting an international giveaway today for participants of the Victorian Celebration. I will select one winner who may select one of the following books as their prize. I'll be giving away the Vintage Classics edition (as I am in love with the covers). Here is the selection, based on Victorian books that I've read, enjoyed, and reviewed on my blog.

It will be shipped via Book Depository so you may enter if they ship to your address. I reserve the right to ship from another bookseller depending on the location of the winner. To enter, please leave a comment including the items below. Remember, you must be a participant of the Victorian Celebration to qualify.

1. Tell me your favorite Victorian book.
2. Tell me the book you would select were you to win.
3. Your email address (to contact you should you win).

The giveaway begins today and will close midnight July 9. I'll randomly select a winner the following day and will notify the winner by email. The winner will have 72 hours to respond or I will select someone else. Happy reading!

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

by Robert Louis Stevenson
published 1886
completed June 2012


Two reviews in a week! It's some sort of miracle. This is my first book (well, novella) completed for the Victorian Celebration. You can still join in the fun here. My goal was to try some new-to-me authors, and I have never read anything by Robert Louis Stevenson. I especially was excited to read this after recently visited Edinburgh, home of Stevenson. I'll write a little bit more about that at the end for those who plan to skip it.

So, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. We all seem to know the basics of this story. I can't even remember when I learned of it--probably as a child. It's such a popular reference that I doubt there are many that don't know. I'm one of those strange readers that prefers to know absolutely nothing about a book before picking it up to read. Knowing who Hyde is didn't ruin the book for me, but what I wouldn't give to have read it back in the 1800's when it wasn't common knowledge. It must have been so exciting to read and try to figure out who this evil man was and what his connection was to the upstanding Dr Jekyll.

It's a quick little read and leaves you with plenty to ponder. I don't want to start a discussion on the duality of our nature, but Jekyll is an interesting character. Most interesting in the fact that his friends thought they knew him, but they really didn't. I think we've all come across people like that in real life.

 

During my visit to Edinburgh, we took a guided tour bus (we were tired and too lazy to walk). We were able to see the home in which Robert Louis Stevenson grew up. It was pretty fun listening to the stories the guides would tell, one of which was that a man named Deacon Brodie was the inspiration for the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Brodie was a respectable cabinet-maker by day, and by night a robber of his wealthy clients (after making wax impressions of their keys). Wow, classy guy. Sorry for the not-great quality of pictures. The bus was a'movin'.

Overall, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, is a quick read and was well-worth the time. After this experience, I'm looking forward to reading more by Robert Louis Stevenson--maybe a little Treasure Island.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Code Name Verity

by Elizabeth Wein

published 2012

completed June 2012

Do you like my little model? I was getting bored just using cover images, and I'm not creative enough to take a cool picture of just the book. My solution--use a cute kid (she is mine so I'm particularly biased). That should do the trick.

I'm not usually a new release reader. If I get around to them within a year of release, I'm pretty lucky. This book fell into my hands in an unusual way, for me at least. I had seen this review by Nymeth (go read it--it's excellent, as always), and added it to my ever-growing TBR list, assuming I'd get to it in a year or two. The next week I received an email from netgalley offering me the book as a "read now." I've never even requested a book from netgalley. I have a teeny tiny blog so despite the fact that I didn't find anything interesting the only time I looked, I never felt like I could justify requesting a book. But hey, if you're offering it to me, why not? So I downloaded it to my kindle and sort of felt guilty. Well, netgalley and the publisher win because I loved it so much that I bought a copy and will probably buy more copies to distribute to my family (so they don't steal mine). I don't feel guilty anymore.

I'm sure you're sick of my rambling up until this point so let me tell you now what I can about the book. Which isn't much. For very good reasons. This is a book that should not be spoiled. I know there is a debate over whether a book can actually be spoiled. Let me tell you now that in my opinion, this one can.

Code Name Verity centers around two young women serving their country during World War II. It opens with one of the girls being interrogated by the Gestapo after being captured in France. She's been allowed to write down her story.

My word of caution with this book is that it starts out slowly. It will pick up. Just push through. Once you hit about halfway through, you won't want to put it down. The first half was good, but I didn't quite get why everyone loved it. Once I hit the last fifty pages or so, it all made sense. Elizabeth Wein crafted this story so well, but it isn't apparent until it's all wrapped up.

I can't say enough about the two young women in the story. I appreciate it at my age, but I would have loved to have read this as a teenager. Friendship is the center of the story. It's so refreshing to find a YA novel about girls that deals with friendship rather than a romance. There is no romance at all. Just two incredibly strong and brave young women, who would make wonderful role models for young girls.

This book is one of only a handful that have made me cry. It takes a lot. To put it in context, The Fault in Our Stars didn't make me cry. I couldn't hold back with Code Name Verity. It was that affecting, but not in a manipulative way. For days afterward, just thinking about the book made my heart ache. I will never forget this book, and I will read it again before the year is through.

I'd hate to say this book is for everyone because no book is. I will say that I would encourage people to at least try it. I anticipate seeing this book on many year-end lists of favorite books.

The Standalong/What I've Been Up To

I might be crazy, but I'm not the only one. That makes me feel a teensy bit better. Over the next two months, starting in June, a group of us crazy readers will be undertaking The Stand by Stephen King. I am equal parts terrified and excited. I found a 25 pence copy (40 cents) at my local charity shop last month and it has been sitting on my desk taunting me ever since. Trish at "Love, Laughter, and a Touch of Insanity" is hosting. Clicky here for more details. Join us, won't you?  Trish also added a little meme for the participants.

1. What makes you want to read The Stand?
Um, I don't know? Everyone else is doing it? I easily succumb to peer pressure? One of those.


2. Describe your preconceived notions of The Stand.
That it's scary and probably a bit wordy (per my previous experience with Stephen King).

3. What was the last scary(ish) book you read or movie you saw?
Oooh, I have to think about that one. I haven't read anything really scary in a while. Maybe Bag of Bones by Stephen King this past summer. I'm not really into scary movies so I can't even think of one that I've seen within the last decade. How embarrassing. I'm a wimp.

4. Which version of the book will you be reading from?
The copy I found at the charity shop is the uncut version. I'm a little nervous as my previous experiences with Stephen King left me feeling like he needed a better editor. Now I'm choosing to not read the version that was originally edited, but the version that includes all the lovely details the editor cut out. We'll see how it goes. If I get desperate, I'll just get a copy of the original.

5. What are you previous experiences with Stephen King?
I've read two--Bag of Bones, and 11/22/63. Both were good, but not amazing. The editing issue I previously mentioned was the main drawback to both. I found the first 200 pages of each really slow and tough to get into. That's quite a few pages to slog through before it picks up.

6. Anything else you'd like to add (bonus points for being extra random).
This has absolutely nothing to do with books, but I thought I'd do a little update for this question. I've been awful not blogging about books lately, but I haven't read anything that I feel compelled to write about. I don't want to just throw something together for the sake of a post. That would be unfair to you. I've been reading, but just not writing about it. So instead, I thought I'd show you some pictures from our most recent trip.

As you know, I'm an American, and as is common to some Americans, I'm not really certain of my roots. It's interesting being in Scotland as many of the families here are 100% Scottish and have never even left the town in which they grew up. My grandmother, though, is 100% Norwegian. Both of her parents were born in Bergen, Norway before they immigrated to Montana. Being one-quarter Norwegian and makes me more Norwegian than anything else. I feel more of a connection to that culture than any other, so we made a trip to Bergen a few weeks ago. Stunning. That's all I can really say. It's an amazingly beautiful country. I'll post a few pictures if you're interested. My internet isn't great so I've reduced the size of the pictures so the quality may not look the best. Hopefully they'll be decent enough.

Thoughts on the Book Blogging Community

I'm going to post some rambling thoughts today, so I'm apologizing up front. I've been away from the blog for nearly two months. Work for me this time of year is insane. I do have some down time in the evenings, and I choose to use it to read rather than write. Writing doesn't come easily to me (more on that later) so I opt for something requiring less concentration and effort. Things have slowed down some in the past few weeks, but it takes a bit of time for me to recover.

I'm hoping to post some book reviews next week, but to be honest, it's been difficult to come back to the blog. I've missed it, but I'm leery. I'm sure most of you have seen the drama going around lately within the book blogging community. I don't really want to rehash it, but only mention it to explain where these thoughts originated. It's disheartening in two respects--first, that it happened, and second, the reaction. The vitriol that was spewed churned my stomach. I've been avoiding twitter ever since. I guess I was naive to assume that this community was one where bloggers supported each other. Instead, I found that many find joy in the failure of others. Sickening. The personal attacks, the name-calling, and the back-biting were appalling. I'm embarrassed to be associated with this group in any way.

A completely different topic (I told you I would ramble). I struggle for how I fit into this book blogging community. I do not have a degree in English Literature or in writing of any kind. I have degrees in Accounting--about as opposite as you can get from everyone else. I enjoy reading, but I don't approach reading in the same way as many other bloggers. I don't have the background or skill set to deconstruct a text. I'm not a moron (I totally rocked my AP English Lit test--as if that counts. Ha!), but for me, I read for pleasure. That's not to say that I don't read difficult books. I do. (Sometimes not having an English degree is to my advantage because I don't know enough to be intimidated by anything.) But ultimately, I want to enjoy what I read. I choose to write about some of what I read on this blog, but it isn't easy. I struggle to write every single post. Writing is far from natural for me, but I feel rewarded for the effort, inferior as the end result may be.

I read a post recently about a blogger's frustration with the lack of professionalism in the reviews of book blogging community. I don't know. Are we meant to be professionals? I've never proclaimed myself to be one nor have I intended to become one. This is a hobby for me. Does my lack of credentials preclude me from writing about books? I probably shouldn't call what I write "reviews" because they're really not. I write about my personal experiences as I read. I try to be fair, as I know that often times I disagree with popular opinion, but they're still my opinions. I try to be respectful in my reviews. I don't know if I succeed.

That said, I want to thank all of the bloggers whose blogs I follow (who happen to write about books or not) for not being dragged into the muck with everyone else. I'm happy that there are still bloggers who are above all of this pettiness, who write honest, thoughtful posts because it's what they enjoy doing. It's not about the numbers, or the authors, or publishers for them. I'm grateful that I have found a subset of the community that actually cares about other bloggers, and has created a feeling of support and inclusion.

I'm nervous to post this because it's very personal. I don't want people to think I'm fishing for compliments here; I'm not. I just wanted to get my thoughts out there in a hope that maybe I'm not the only one that feels this way.

I'm psyching myself up for those reviews yet to come. Wish me luck (and some extra time).

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Lolita

by Vladimir Nabokov
published 1955
completed February 2012

Lolita and I have had an interesting relationship. Not being an English major in college, I only heard of it a few years ago when I started seriously looking for book recommendations. It was on many classics lists, but when I read the synopsis, my first reaction was "absolutely won't ever read that." Why would I ever want to read a book about a pedophile? Who would ever want to read a book glorifying a pedophile? Creeps, that's who.

After joining the book blogging community, I started to notice that many bloggers that I respected had read and enjoyed Lolita. I'm assuming they're not creeps so I figured that there must be something more to it. And there is. Much more. I'm glad that I convinced myself that it was okay to read it because my initial impression was completely wrong.

First, the writing is mind-blowing. I read a blog post recently where someone was criticizing Nabakov for being narcissistic in his writing of Lolita, to the point that it distracted from the story. I can understand why they felt that way because at times it was frustrating. I wanted the story to move forward, but I was trapped in this lyrical writing. I can't blame Nabokov for that; I can only blame my personal impatience as a reader. By the book's completion, I appreciated the style of writing and found that fit perfectly. It's written by the ultimate narcissist, not the actual author, but the narrator of his own strange story--Humbert Humbert. It was comical how highly he spoke of his good looks and cleverness.

I can't say that I really enjoyed being in Humbert's head, but it was incredible how Nabokov pulled of a first-person account of pedophile. Despite the subject matter, it's surprisingly not explicit. Much is implied (for which I was grateful). As expected, Humbert is the epimote of an unreliable narrator. The first half of the book, I felt awful because I felt myself sympathizing with him (not that I ever thought what he was doing was okay). As the story moves on, the facade is slowly cracking and you begin see that things aren't as rosy as he was previously painting. By the end the facade is blown wide open, and I'm sure as you'd suspect from this story line, things don't end well for anyone. The reality of it sits heavily.

This is one that I'd love to read again in a few years. I'm not ready to jump back in to the level of sordidness in Humberts mind for a while. It's an uncomfortable read (intentionally so, I think), but I'm hoping that the next time around I can enjoy the language more as I won't be distracted wondering what will happen next.

Classics Club

Jillian at A Room of One's Own posted about this fantastic idea for a Classics Club earlier this week. There was so much interest that she moved on it really quickly, and it's all set up! If you're a regular reader of the classics, check out her post and join us. It's up to you to set your own goal, and it's a fun way to interact with other readers of classics.

Start Date: March 9, 2012
Goal for completion: March 9, 2015
Prize for completion: Book buying spree (limit to be set closer to completion)
Books I intend to read (or re-read)*:

1. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
2. Persuasion by Jane Austen
3. Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë 
4. The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
5. My Antonia by Willa Cather
6. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
7. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
8. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
9. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
10. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
11. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
12. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
13. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
14. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
15. Middlemarch by George Eliot
16. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
17. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald 
18. Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald
19. Howards End by E. M. Forster
20. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster
21. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
22. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
23. The Wind and the Willows by Kenneth Graham
24. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
25. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
26. Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy 
27. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
28. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston
29. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
30. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
31. Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
32. Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Maugham
33. The Painted Veil by W Somerset Maugham
34. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
35. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
36. 1984 by George Orwell
37. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton 
38. Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger
39. Franny and Zooey by J D Salinger
40. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
41. Dracula by Bram Stoker
42. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
43. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
44. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
45. The Warden by Anthony Trollope
46. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
47. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
48. Night by Elie Wiesel
49. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
50. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

*The list may change at my discretion.