1001 Novels Challenge - UPDATE 10
One from the children's list today.
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
I'm sure most of you will be aware of the West End/Broadway productions of this show with amazing puppet horses. One of my luckier friends even got to go see it. As a Sherlock fan I already had a slight interest in the story due to the fact Benedict Cumberbatch will shortly be in the Stephen Spielberg production of the film.
Naturally I was expecting big things from the book, and I was very pleased to be proved right. I will come straight out and say the despite my country upbringing, I still grew up in a town and I have never ridden a full-size horse in my life. Nor am I a horsey person. That didn't matter, reading this. Horsey or not, I'm still the sort of person that bursts into tears if an animal so much as sneezes, and you can imagine my growing horror as the story progressed as we saw Joey the horse face situations that many grown men today couldn't comprehend.
At it's heart though, it's a love story (though not enough to gratify my current craving for happy endings) between a horse and his master. Their reunion is something special, and a lovely moment, but for me the hard part of the book is the characters you met, liked, and then were instantly whisked away by the brutality of war. Captain Niccoll's dies within a few pages of arriving in France. Benedict Cumberbatch's character Captain Stewart is taken as a prisoner not long afterwards.
It was there that the story got interesting - we saw Joey become a 'prisoner of war' and work for the German's. It's a unique way of looking at a story, because this viewpoint strips away the natural moral dislike at the idea of 'working for the enemy'. As far as Joey is concerned, there is almost no difference between the Germans and the English - they are all tired, scared, and homesick. At more than one point in the story, both sides are united in their love of horses (the most touching scene being between a Welsh and German soldier rescuing Joey from No Man's Land).
NOTE: I'm going to shortly introduce a third list to this (I know, mad right?!) which will chart my unofficial reading list - that is, books that I'm interested in, that are on my to-read list anyway, or are further reading from the first two lists (such as other books by the writers I like). This one won't have a challenge aspect to it, it will just record my reading.
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Die
Starting Point: 27
Current Point: 35
Realistic Goal: 300 (I should finish, reading one a week, in about 5 years!)
Adams, Douglas: Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women
Austen, Jane: Emma
Austen, Jane: Mansfield Park
Austen, Jane: Northanger Abbey
Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Jane: Sense and Sensibility
Bronte, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre
Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Christie, Agatha: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Cunningham, Michael: The Hours
Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Hound of the Baskervilles
du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
Dumas, Alexander: The Count of Monte-Cristo
Eugenides, Jeffrey: The Virgin Suicides
Forster, E. M: A Room With a View
Forster, E. M: Howard's End
Gaskell, Elizabeth: Cranford
Gaskell, Elizabeth: North and South
Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Remains of the Day
Lawrence, D. H: Lady Chatterly's Lover
Lee, Harper: The Kill a Mocking Bird
Levy, Andrea: Small Island
Lindegren, Astrid: Pippi Longstocking
Martel, Yann: Life of Pi
Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita
Stevenson, Robert Louis: The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
Stoker, Bram: Dracula
Verne, Jules: Around the World in 80 Days
Walpole, Horace: The Castle of Otranto
Wodehouse, P. G: Thank You Jeeves
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Grow Up (and yes, there are crossovers between the lists.)
Starting Point: 61
Current Point: 65
(For reference I'm only going to read books from ages 8+, anything below that age range was already read before starting this)
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
The Story of the Root Children
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
The Cat in the Hat
Green Eggs and Ham
Father Christmas
Burglar Bill
The Snowman
Can't you Sleep, Little Bear?
A Visit From St. Nicholas
Grimms' Fairy Tales
The Emperor's New Clothes
The Ugly Duckling
The House that Jack Built
Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories
Pippi Longstocking
The Worst Witch
Matilda
Tales from Shakespeare
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
A Christmas Carol
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
A Little Princess
The Secret Garden
Mary Poppins
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Hurrah for St. Trinian's
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
James and the Giant Peach
Stig of the Dump
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Magic Finger
The Carpet People
The Indian in the Cupboard
Goodnight Mister Tom
The BFG
The Demon Headmaster
The Sheep-Pig
The Snow Spider
Bill's New Frock
Truckers
Only You Can Save Mankind
Johnny and the Bomb
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Skellig
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Artemis Fowl
The Graveyard Book
Gulliver's Travels
Little Women
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
Madame Doubtfire
Flour Babies
Witch Child
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Young Visiters
Around the World in 80 Days
War Horse
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
I'm sure most of you will be aware of the West End/Broadway productions of this show with amazing puppet horses. One of my luckier friends even got to go see it. As a Sherlock fan I already had a slight interest in the story due to the fact Benedict Cumberbatch will shortly be in the Stephen Spielberg production of the film.
Naturally I was expecting big things from the book, and I was very pleased to be proved right. I will come straight out and say the despite my country upbringing, I still grew up in a town and I have never ridden a full-size horse in my life. Nor am I a horsey person. That didn't matter, reading this. Horsey or not, I'm still the sort of person that bursts into tears if an animal so much as sneezes, and you can imagine my growing horror as the story progressed as we saw Joey the horse face situations that many grown men today couldn't comprehend.
At it's heart though, it's a love story (though not enough to gratify my current craving for happy endings) between a horse and his master. Their reunion is something special, and a lovely moment, but for me the hard part of the book is the characters you met, liked, and then were instantly whisked away by the brutality of war. Captain Niccoll's dies within a few pages of arriving in France. Benedict Cumberbatch's character Captain Stewart is taken as a prisoner not long afterwards.
It was there that the story got interesting - we saw Joey become a 'prisoner of war' and work for the German's. It's a unique way of looking at a story, because this viewpoint strips away the natural moral dislike at the idea of 'working for the enemy'. As far as Joey is concerned, there is almost no difference between the Germans and the English - they are all tired, scared, and homesick. At more than one point in the story, both sides are united in their love of horses (the most touching scene being between a Welsh and German soldier rescuing Joey from No Man's Land).
NOTE: I'm going to shortly introduce a third list to this (I know, mad right?!) which will chart my unofficial reading list - that is, books that I'm interested in, that are on my to-read list anyway, or are further reading from the first two lists (such as other books by the writers I like). This one won't have a challenge aspect to it, it will just record my reading.
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Die
Starting Point: 27
Current Point: 35
Realistic Goal: 300 (I should finish, reading one a week, in about 5 years!)
Adams, Douglas: Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women
Austen, Jane: Emma
Austen, Jane: Mansfield Park
Austen, Jane: Northanger Abbey
Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Jane: Sense and Sensibility
Bronte, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre
Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Christie, Agatha: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Cunningham, Michael: The Hours
Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Hound of the Baskervilles
du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
Dumas, Alexander: The Count of Monte-Cristo
Eugenides, Jeffrey: The Virgin Suicides
Forster, E. M: A Room With a View
Forster, E. M: Howard's End
Gaskell, Elizabeth: Cranford
Gaskell, Elizabeth: North and South
Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Remains of the Day
Lawrence, D. H: Lady Chatterly's Lover
Lee, Harper: The Kill a Mocking Bird
Levy, Andrea: Small Island
Lindegren, Astrid: Pippi Longstocking
Martel, Yann: Life of Pi
Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita
Stevenson, Robert Louis: The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
Stoker, Bram: Dracula
Verne, Jules: Around the World in 80 Days
Walpole, Horace: The Castle of Otranto
Wodehouse, P. G: Thank You Jeeves
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Grow Up (and yes, there are crossovers between the lists.)
Starting Point: 61
Current Point: 65
(For reference I'm only going to read books from ages 8+, anything below that age range was already read before starting this)
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
The Story of the Root Children
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
The Cat in the Hat
Green Eggs and Ham
Father Christmas
Burglar Bill
The Snowman
Can't you Sleep, Little Bear?
A Visit From St. Nicholas
Grimms' Fairy Tales
The Emperor's New Clothes
The Ugly Duckling
The House that Jack Built
Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories
Pippi Longstocking
The Worst Witch
Matilda
Tales from Shakespeare
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
A Christmas Carol
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
A Little Princess
The Secret Garden
Mary Poppins
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Hurrah for St. Trinian's
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
James and the Giant Peach
Stig of the Dump
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Magic Finger
The Carpet People
The Indian in the Cupboard
Goodnight Mister Tom
The BFG
The Demon Headmaster
The Sheep-Pig
The Snow Spider
Bill's New Frock
Truckers
Only You Can Save Mankind
Johnny and the Bomb
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Skellig
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Artemis Fowl
The Graveyard Book
Gulliver's Travels
Little Women
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
Madame Doubtfire
Flour Babies
Witch Child
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Young Visiters
Around the World in 80 Days
War Horse