1001 Books Challenge - UPDATE 38
I suppose it's not escaped notice that I haven't posted one of these in a while. Frankly I was a little overwhelmed with various RL stuff (studying) and by the sheer number of books on my to-read list. I currently have 9 Books on my 'TO BE READ NOW' list and they are all guilting me into not reading anything...
Marley & Me by Josh Grogan
So don't even ask me why I picked this one up. I'd picked it up in a charity shop on a whim because although I've never seen the movie properly it was playing on the first airplane flight I ever took. It made the man next to me cry. I'd been reluctant to see it because I knew it was sad. I hadn't actually known it was a book. So it's been sat on my to-read shelf (ahem, one of my to-read shelves) for ages and - on a whim I picked it up the other day because I wanted to take a cheap and cheerful book to London with me.
Cheerful isn't exactly the word. It may begin happily but there's an inevitibility about the book that you can't really escape. Even reading about Puppy!Marley you know that they got him in 1991 - and that Marley must have been dead a long time. But as the writer's life progresses and Marley becomes harder to manage it's easy to put it out of your mind. I don't think any review would be complete without mentioning the two dogs of my life - Skippy (my grandparents' docile dog, who was an adult dog when I was born and still managed to see in my seventeenth birthday) and Sammy (my parent's current dog, Maltese, completely untrainable and wild). Marley's story made me appreicate them all the more.
Not just dogs. The only pet that's ever been 'mine' is a tabby cat called Gus. Evil. Wild. Greedy. Terrified of strangers. Follows me like a lamb. Very cute. He's a nightmare. I've had him since I started high-school aged eleven - he was one of a litter a cat of ours had - and quickly became my baby. It's only recently that I fully accepted that Gus - my 'little man' - is no longer in the eternal young adulthood I imagined him to be. He was born in 1999. He's practically blind in one eye. He is an old man while I still feel like a teenager.
And that's when the book packs it's punch. The moment John realises Marley has gone deaf is the precise moment I started to cry. I cried for the next forty minutes (NOT EXAGGERATING - my bed is covered in snot and tears now, I'm not a graceful crier). I could barely see by the end.
Yes the writing is sickly and emotive - he's a columnist after all - but it packs a punch. The only issue I had with the story was that he carried on writing about all the responses to his column he had - it took me away from the emotional family reaction.
So if you are wondering whether this is 'your thing' I say give it a go. Yes, it's sad, but it's theraputic. And if nothing else tales of Marley's tobboggining adventures, getting kicked out of canine school, and his overenthusiastic way of carrying out orders when he does understand them will make it worth getting upset.
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Die
Starting Point: 29
Current Point: 53
Realistic Goal: 300 (I should finish, reading one a week, in about 5 years!)
Adams, Douglas: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Adams, Douglas: Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women
Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid's Tale
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
Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights
Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Christie, Agatha: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Cunningham, Michael: The Hours
Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
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
Grossmith, George: Diary of a Nobody
Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Haggard, H. Rider: King Solomon's Mines
Hugo, Victor: Les Miserables
Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Remains of the Day
Kafka, Franz: The Metamorphosis
Lawrence, D. H: Lady Chatterly's Lover
Lee, Harper: The Kill a Mocking Bird
Levy, Andrea: Small Island
Lindegren, Astrid: Pippi Longstocking
London, Jack: The Call of the Wild
Martel, Yann: Life of Pi
Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita
Orwell, George: Animal Farm
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Fall of the House of Usher
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Pit and the Pendulum
Queneau, Raymond: Exercises in Style
Schlink, Bernhard: The Reader
Shelley, Mary Woolstonecraft: Frankenstein
Stevenson, Robert Louis: The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
Stoker, Bram: Dracula
Verne, Jules: Around the World in 80 Days
Walker, Alice: The Color Purple
Walpole, Horace: The Castle of Otranto
Wharton, Edith: The House of Mirth
Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray
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: 68
(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
Peter Pan
The Call of the Wild
Tom's Midnight Garden
-------
My Private To-Read List
Books Read: 9
Further Reading
Forster, E. M: Maurice
Ishiguro, Kazuo: Never Let Me Go
Classics
James, Henry: The Turn of the Screw
Recommended
Jones, Lloyd: Mister Pip (celebrity recommendation)
Larsson, Stieg: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (booksyoushouldread recommendation)
I Liked the Look of Them
Grogan, John: Marley & Me
Salamon, Julie: The Christmas Tree
Shriver, Lionel: We Need to Talk About Kevin
Trashy But Fun
Orlov, Aleksandr: A Simples Life
Marley & Me by Josh Grogan
So don't even ask me why I picked this one up. I'd picked it up in a charity shop on a whim because although I've never seen the movie properly it was playing on the first airplane flight I ever took. It made the man next to me cry. I'd been reluctant to see it because I knew it was sad. I hadn't actually known it was a book. So it's been sat on my to-read shelf (ahem, one of my to-read shelves) for ages and - on a whim I picked it up the other day because I wanted to take a cheap and cheerful book to London with me.
Cheerful isn't exactly the word. It may begin happily but there's an inevitibility about the book that you can't really escape. Even reading about Puppy!Marley you know that they got him in 1991 - and that Marley must have been dead a long time. But as the writer's life progresses and Marley becomes harder to manage it's easy to put it out of your mind. I don't think any review would be complete without mentioning the two dogs of my life - Skippy (my grandparents' docile dog, who was an adult dog when I was born and still managed to see in my seventeenth birthday) and Sammy (my parent's current dog, Maltese, completely untrainable and wild). Marley's story made me appreicate them all the more.
Not just dogs. The only pet that's ever been 'mine' is a tabby cat called Gus. Evil. Wild. Greedy. Terrified of strangers. Follows me like a lamb. Very cute. He's a nightmare. I've had him since I started high-school aged eleven - he was one of a litter a cat of ours had - and quickly became my baby. It's only recently that I fully accepted that Gus - my 'little man' - is no longer in the eternal young adulthood I imagined him to be. He was born in 1999. He's practically blind in one eye. He is an old man while I still feel like a teenager.
And that's when the book packs it's punch. The moment John realises Marley has gone deaf is the precise moment I started to cry. I cried for the next forty minutes (NOT EXAGGERATING - my bed is covered in snot and tears now, I'm not a graceful crier). I could barely see by the end.
Yes the writing is sickly and emotive - he's a columnist after all - but it packs a punch. The only issue I had with the story was that he carried on writing about all the responses to his column he had - it took me away from the emotional family reaction.
So if you are wondering whether this is 'your thing' I say give it a go. Yes, it's sad, but it's theraputic. And if nothing else tales of Marley's tobboggining adventures, getting kicked out of canine school, and his overenthusiastic way of carrying out orders when he does understand them will make it worth getting upset.
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Die
Starting Point: 29
Current Point: 53
Realistic Goal: 300 (I should finish, reading one a week, in about 5 years!)
Adams, Douglas: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Adams, Douglas: Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women
Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid's Tale
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
Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights
Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Christie, Agatha: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Cunningham, Michael: The Hours
Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
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
Grossmith, George: Diary of a Nobody
Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Haggard, H. Rider: King Solomon's Mines
Hugo, Victor: Les Miserables
Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Remains of the Day
Kafka, Franz: The Metamorphosis
Lawrence, D. H: Lady Chatterly's Lover
Lee, Harper: The Kill a Mocking Bird
Levy, Andrea: Small Island
Lindegren, Astrid: Pippi Longstocking
London, Jack: The Call of the Wild
Martel, Yann: Life of Pi
Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita
Orwell, George: Animal Farm
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Fall of the House of Usher
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Pit and the Pendulum
Queneau, Raymond: Exercises in Style
Schlink, Bernhard: The Reader
Shelley, Mary Woolstonecraft: Frankenstein
Stevenson, Robert Louis: The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
Stoker, Bram: Dracula
Verne, Jules: Around the World in 80 Days
Walker, Alice: The Color Purple
Walpole, Horace: The Castle of Otranto
Wharton, Edith: The House of Mirth
Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray
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: 68
(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
Peter Pan
The Call of the Wild
Tom's Midnight Garden
-------
My Private To-Read List
Books Read: 9
Further Reading
Forster, E. M: Maurice
Ishiguro, Kazuo: Never Let Me Go
Classics
James, Henry: The Turn of the Screw
Recommended
Jones, Lloyd: Mister Pip (celebrity recommendation)
Larsson, Stieg: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (booksyoushouldread recommendation)
I Liked the Look of Them
Grogan, John: Marley & Me
Salamon, Julie: The Christmas Tree
Shriver, Lionel: We Need to Talk About Kevin
Trashy But Fun
Orlov, Aleksandr: A Simples Life