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.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) by George Orwell: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.

 

I don’t get why I hadn’t read this before. After having received it for Christmas last year, I thought I’d give it a try. The book was a delight.

            Nineteen Eighty-Four was written by George Orwell and published in 1949. It is set in Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, in the super state Oceania. The state is controlled by the Party, led by “Big Brother”; the great leader who may not even exist. This society is constantly monitored by the Party, where a single sign of independent thinking is considered “thoughtcrime” and must be punished. Whenever the Party claims something which is contradicted in any article or historical work, the texts must be changed to fit with what is currently being stated by the Party. In addition to doing this, the Party is also determined to change the way the citizens speak, to entirely remove individualism and any sense of justice or freedom. Controlling historical works and the way people speak, the Party’s plan is to control people’s minds too; a totalitarian society.

            The main character of the novel is Winston Smith. He is a member of the Outer Party and works on changing newspapers and writing new newspaper articles. In the novel we see how Winston tries to resist the Party and Big Brother, creating the plot of the book.

            The novel is full of descriptions of how the Party works, which is probably why it’s so scary to read. It seems as if Orwell is justifying the realism of the scenario. A lot of the argumentation makes sense, and we even see some traces of doublespeak in euphemisms used today (saying “neutralize” instead of “kill”, etc.) Seeing the realism of it is probably the scariest part of this book.

            The language is smooth and simple. Orwell’s simple use of language may be to show how much Winston’s range of thought has narrowed down because of the Party. It may also have been to get the message across to as many people as possible; the easier the language is, the more people will understand.

            The book was extremely exciting. It didn’t feel like reading at all. I couldn’t wait to find out more about Winston and his fate; whether he could find a way to destroy the Party. The novel is intriguing and so original that you just have to keep going.

 

Image from the movie adaptation, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984). The person on the screen in the middle of the picture is Big Brother.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed Nineteen Eighty-Four, and I give it 5/5.

- Charlie.

The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield: Unspoken Emotions and Controversial Discussions

The Garden Parties and Other Stories is a short story collection written by Katherine Mansfield and published in 1922. Mansfield was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1888. During her life she lived in New Zealand, England and France. She died early, only 35 years old, suffering from tuberculosis. One of her friends, and another great author from that period, Virginia Woolf, said the following about her writing: "She was for ever pursued by her dying, and had to press on through stages that should have taken years in ten minutes . . . She had a quality I adored and needed; I think her sharpness and reality - her having knocked about with prostitutes and so on, whereas I had always been respectable - was the thing I wanted then. I dream of her often . . ."

 

Mansfield's writing is very similar to Woolf's. When reading the first short story, I immediately thought of Woolf, as I had already read a couple of her novels. The short story collection consists of 15 short stories (in the Penguin Classics version, other versions contain more): At the Bay, The Garden Party, The Daughters of the Late Colonel, Mr and Mrs Dove, The Young Girl, Life of Ma Parker, Marriage à la Mode, The Voyage, Miss Brill, Her First Ball, The Singing Lesson, The Stranger, Bank Holiday, An Ideal Family, and The Lady's Maid. The settings of the stories are New Zealand, England and the French Riviera.

 

The book has received a lot of praise for its use of narrative. If the short story is long (as some are: At the Bay, for instance, is 33 pages long!), the narrator is to a very large degree omniscient, meaning that we get to know what several people think and feel. In my opinion, this makes the stories more reflected and shows how there are multiple perspectives in a conflict.

 

The short stories are written in a simple language that is easy to understand. One is, however, required to read between the lines in all her stories; even though the narrator is omniscient, the characters' feelings are never clearly shown. One has to look at several actions made by the characters to understand how they feel.

 

The short story collection discusses various topics which were considered taboo at the time: homosexuality, racism, class struggle, sexism, etc. Another short story written by Mansfield, not included in this collection, Leves Amores (1907), received strong reactions due to the story being about two women going on a date. In The Garden Party and Other Stories injustice is shown by provocation through the characters' actions, which at our time would be seen as despicable. Displaying injustice in this manner shows the example of extreme cases, but they are nevertheless effective.

 

 

 

I am giving The Garden Party and Other Stories 5/5. I thought it was brilliant, and I loved every minute of reading it. I will definitely buy her other works and read them with pleasure.

 

- Charlie.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: Boring Novel Read at School or an Interesting Read?

Although I did not read this work in connection with school, I have heard several people (mostly North-Americans) complaining online about this novel, saying how it is a tedious job to analyze it. I ordered the book online pretty cheap; I had heard of it before, and thought I would give it a try. To what extent is To Kill a Mockingbird actually as boring and uneventful as students claim it is?

The novel was published in 1960, and is supposed to take place in 1936. The story is based on the author's own experiences when she was 10 years old. The story takes place in Alabama, USA, where we follow the main character, Scout, and her brother, Jem. Their father, Atticus, is a lawyer who has been given the task of defending a black male convicted for molesting a white woman. The novel discusses racism to a very large extent merely through this part of the story. Class is also discussed, and the school system at the time. Considering the time it was set, the author does not spend much time mentioning Hitler and Nazi Germany, and instead chooses to focus more on prejudice in the American society.

The novel is in no way difficult to understand. Because we follow the perspective of a child, the language is simple and straightforward. The only thing I found "difficult" would be to read between the lines when there are things happening that Scout does not understand. A lot of this is cleared up later in the story, however, so even that is not really a problem. Also, despite many complaints about this book being tedious and boring, I was never once bored while reading it. Perhaps it is about preference; some people like fast-paced entertainment, while others are satisfied with stories that spend more time building up the tension. All in all, I liked reading the stories Scout had to offer, and I was never bored reading the work.

On the other hand, it may be worth noting that the novel is pretty long, meaning that you probably should not read it if you do not have the patience for it. If you want action and quick pacing, this is not the place to look. The story has been written in a very realistic way, and though the climax is very rewarding and really makes you think, the rest of the novel may not be as exciting for everyone.

My rating for this book is 5/5, mainly because I was sitting here trying to find anything negative to write about it except for the fact that it may not be the most exciting book in town. I absolutely loved reading it, and I would definitely read it again sometime just to see if there was anything I missed the first time (most likely). I loved it, and I recommend it to most people who are interesting in novels about history, racism and gender discrimination.

The next review will be on Stardust by Neil Gaiman.

- Charlie.

PS. Sorry about the big gap between the reviews. I will try to write more frequently from now on.

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