Selected Poetry by Christina Rossetti and The Traveller by John Twelve Hawks
Selected Poetry by Christina Rossetti
I liked most of her poetry, although I'm not a very religious person and she very clearly was, so it can get a little dreary reading through all of these - not that all of these are religious, but most are still dreary. I never knew that the Christmas song "In The Bleak Midwinter" was originally a poem by her though, that surprised me! I studied her poem "Cousin Kate" for GCSE but found out it's not that much like the rest of her poems. Most clearly have a moral in them, but they can still be enjoyable, like "Goblin Market", her major work. I'd also read her poem "Remember" before and didn't know it was written by her - obviously I need to pay more attention to who writes what! Christina Rossetti often writes from a different persona, although I hesitate to call it dramatic monologue, and my favourite of these is "A Royal Princess". Not bad for a Victorian poet, especially one of the few female ones.
Books Read: 47
Pages Read: 130
Total Pages Read: 14907
14,907 / 15,000
(99.4%)
The Traveller by John Twelve Hawks
I was given this for Christmas and although it was an ok read, it seemed to build up to all this action which didn't really occur. The Da Vinci Code was more exciting. I don't think it was at all deserving of the comment on the blurb which compared him to Nineteen Eighty-Four and Phillip Pullman, all of which I love, and also Dan Brown. I think Brown is all plot and no finesse but at least he has the plot going for him. It was sort of science fiction, but sort of not, and I don't think it really decided what it wanted to be, apart from the fact that CCTV CAMERAS ARE EVIL!!!11!!!elevEn!! WE ARE ALWAYS BEING WATCHED!! except if you wanted to read that story, you'd actually read the far superior Orwell novel. Not impressed.
Books Read: 48
Pages Read: 605
Total Pages Read: 15512
15,512 / 15,000
(103.4%)
Yes! One target completed!! Two books to read by new year though...oh well, I'm 65 pages into Great Expectations, I'll read some more tonight and aim to finish tomorrow, and then two days to read another book - either Hard Times, The Years (Woolf), The Importance of Being Earnest/Collected Plays or Complete Short Stories by Oscar Wilde, or Wuthering Heights. Possibly Peter Ackroyd's biography on Dickens, but definitely not Middlemarch in two days!
I liked most of her poetry, although I'm not a very religious person and she very clearly was, so it can get a little dreary reading through all of these - not that all of these are religious, but most are still dreary. I never knew that the Christmas song "In The Bleak Midwinter" was originally a poem by her though, that surprised me! I studied her poem "Cousin Kate" for GCSE but found out it's not that much like the rest of her poems. Most clearly have a moral in them, but they can still be enjoyable, like "Goblin Market", her major work. I'd also read her poem "Remember" before and didn't know it was written by her - obviously I need to pay more attention to who writes what! Christina Rossetti often writes from a different persona, although I hesitate to call it dramatic monologue, and my favourite of these is "A Royal Princess". Not bad for a Victorian poet, especially one of the few female ones.
Books Read: 47
Pages Read: 130
Total Pages Read: 14907
14,907 / 15,000
(99.4%)
The Traveller by John Twelve Hawks
I was given this for Christmas and although it was an ok read, it seemed to build up to all this action which didn't really occur. The Da Vinci Code was more exciting. I don't think it was at all deserving of the comment on the blurb which compared him to Nineteen Eighty-Four and Phillip Pullman, all of which I love, and also Dan Brown. I think Brown is all plot and no finesse but at least he has the plot going for him. It was sort of science fiction, but sort of not, and I don't think it really decided what it wanted to be, apart from the fact that CCTV CAMERAS ARE EVIL!!!11!!!elevEn!! WE ARE ALWAYS BEING WATCHED!! except if you wanted to read that story, you'd actually read the far superior Orwell novel. Not impressed.
Books Read: 48
Pages Read: 605
Total Pages Read: 15512
15,512 / 15,000
(103.4%)
Yes! One target completed!! Two books to read by new year though...oh well, I'm 65 pages into Great Expectations, I'll read some more tonight and aim to finish tomorrow, and then two days to read another book - either Hard Times, The Years (Woolf), The Importance of Being Earnest/Collected Plays or Complete Short Stories by Oscar Wilde, or Wuthering Heights. Possibly Peter Ackroyd's biography on Dickens, but definitely not Middlemarch in two days!