Penguin Classics!

Hello, everyone!

I just received The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde from the Book Depository, and I thought I'd share a picture of it in case you're thinking about getting it too!

It cost me €15, which I don't think is bad considering it's a hardback.

I've been wanting to read this book for a long time, and with this book in my bookshelf it won't take long until I'll just have to pick it up and read it.

I'm definitely buying more books in the Penguin Classics series. I've seen there are other books by all sorts of writers, ranging from Homer to Austen to Dickens.

The title page

What do you think?

If you've read the book, did you like it?

- Charlie.

How I feel about Murakami

I don't know how I feel about him.

So far I've read three books by him: After Dark, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and Norwegian Wood. To be honest, the only one I liked was Norwegian Wood.

I read all three books in Norwegian, which may explain why I sometimes felt like the language didn't quite live up to my expectations. All the books I've read by this publisher have been terribly translated and I'm never buying a book translated by them ever again.

I generally like the storylines of the books I've read so far, and I often like the main characters of the novels. Sometimes, however, the characters are just a bit too unrealistic, making me fall out a bit.

I've heard a lot of good things about his new trilogy, 1Q84, though. I'm planning on ordering it soon and see whether I like this one. After having disliked two of the three books I've read by him, I'm afraid of having to make a gamble every time I open another one of his novels.

People either love him, or they think he is overrated. There doesn't seem to be anything in between. I guess I'll just have to make up my mind.

What do you think about Haruki Murakami? Do you love everything he has ever written? Are you like me, and can't make up your mind?

And last, but not least, do you recommend 1Q84?

- Charlie.

How Should I Organize my Bookcase?

Hello everyone!

If you're anything like me, you also wonder how to organize your bookcase. There are several ways to go: you can organize your books by name of author, genre, date of publication or even by color! How is it possible to decide?

I used to organize my book shelves by the first letter of the authors' surnames, but after a while I decided to organize according to genre. At the moment, these are what my various book shelves contain:

• British classics like Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens
• Wordsworth classics
• Classics by foreign authors (like Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy and Henrik Ibsen)
• Books that look old-fashioned (just because they look good together, sigh.)
• Books I don't plan on reading right away (gifts etc.)
• Fantasy.

How do you organize your books? Are you satisfied with the way you've organized them?

- Charlie.

Let There Be Change!

So I've been thinking about the blog and whether it should only consist of book reviews - the answer is no.

From now on, the blog will also give you updates in my life related to books. I will try to make the blog more interesting for you as a reader, and I hope you will enjoy my future posts!

- Charlie.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. The setting is New York in the 1920s, with all its glamor and style. While the first-person narrator of the novel is a young man by the name of Nick Carraway, the main focus is on his rich neighbor, Jay Gatsby, and his relations with a woman named Daisy. After having seen the novel’s fairly recent movie adaptation this year, I thought I would give the book a try. What are some positive and negative aspects of this novel?

            The novel mainly consists of dialog, in addition to a couple of references to the setting. The language used is easy to understand and at no point confusing for the reader. Sentences are straight-forward and short, always bringing the story forward. Sometimes, however, there are references to place names that are not further described. This makes the setting difficult to imagine for anyone not oriented in the New York area. References to songs and articles from the time were, luckily, explained in the endnotes (in the Wordsworth edition). When Fitzgerald uses a lot of dialog, he exposes the characters in another way. He also captures the setting more thoroughly, as there is a lot of small talk, especially among the minor characters. I liked the way Fitzgerald did it, but I felt he could have described more of the setting for those who do not know that much about the New York area.

            Nick Carraway is definitely an interesting choice of narrator. His role is to see Gatsby’s situation from an outsider’s perspective. Seeing as he is Daisy’s second cousin, the reader also sees the conflict from both sides. Nick seems easy-going and optimistic, and as opposed to Gatsby he seems more inexperienced. Nick has just moved to New York and is ready to start a new life; one may say that Gatsby represents this new, mysterious lifestyle that one is introduced to when moving to such a large city. The reader only knows what the narrator knows, and so we explore and experience the city at the same time as Nick. I appreciate the way Fitzgerald uses narrative voice to tell the story, and I think this is a positive attribute to the novel.

            The story itself is very interesting. Although it primarily concerns romance, it does it in a way I have never seen before (I must confess I have not read a lot of romantic fiction). The feelings of the characters seem so mixed and conflicted that one is left wanting to read the thoughts of the other characters. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and thought it was well structured.

            The novel never gets boring. Being only 115 pages long, it manages to keep up the pace really well. Toward the end, I could not put it down for an instant. The story builds up in a very satisfying way, and Fitzgerald has done a great job at creating dynamic and complex characters.

 

All in all, I thought the novel was great and I am giving it 4/5. I will definitely be looking for some of his other works, such as The Beautiful and the Damned and The Love of the Last Tycoon.

- Charlie.

 

Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence: A Novel That Deserves More Attention

Mark Lawrence's debut novel Prince of Thorns was published in 2011. Its sequel, King of Thorns, made the trilogy even more popular, so much that I even recall seeing it in an airport bookstore in Norway. Author Conn Iggulden reviewed the series saying: "Excellent - on a par with George R.R. Martin." In my experience, debut novels tend to be less smooth in their descriptions of setting and character, however. Sometimes the story also ends in an anticlimactic way. I will now go through my thoughts as thoroughly as I can, and lastly I will give my rating of the work.

The plot may sound like a typical one, but it has a certain twist to it. The protagonist, Jorg Ancrath, is early on in his life scarred due to his mother and brother being murdered. After leaving the castle with thieves who were initially sentenced to death, he leads them on their path to achieve his goal of killing the people who did him wrong. While the reader experiences Jorg's childhood as flashbacks, we follow him and his group on the road back to the castle, where Jorg is ready to claim his heir to the throne.

There were many parts of Prince of Thorns that I thoroughly enjoyed. Although Jorg is the biggest antihero I have ever read about, he is the narrator, making it interesting for the reader to see his train of thought. Following the mind of the murderer, the reader finds out about his past and how he had to grow up fast, thus in a way making up for his behavior. I really liked the narrative because it disgusted me in the same way that A Song of Ice and Fire disgusts me. There is something about the roughness of Prince of Thorns that I, and many other people, enjoy reading. The setting of the novel is also interesting, seeing as there are clear hints at the novel taking place in a post-apocalyptic universe. I am guessing the novel takes place hundreds (perhaps thousands) of years after most of the world has been destroyed by atomic bombs. Considering it is a fantasy novel I think the setting is pretty unique.

Some people may not enjoy the fact that there is a large amount of violence. There are many chapters filled with violent scenes, some of them quite morbid. There was also a time at the beginning of the novel where I found myself bored with Jorg's character, mainly because I thought he would be the typical antihero. At the beginning I also thought the plot was very basic, but the climax definitely made up for it.



All in all, I cannot wait to start reading King of Thorns. If this sequel made the trilogy more famous, I cannot wait to see which parts of the novel made it so interesting to the readers.

My rating for this book is 4/5. It has some flaws, but the story and narrative are really interesting and fun to read. I am looking forward to reading more of this series, and I am curious as to what Mark Lawrence will be writing in the future.

Welcome to my blog, by the way!

The next novel I am reviewing will be To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
- Charlie