books books books
9. "Agnes Grey" by Anne Bronte (1846) - England
Definitely a bigger fan of Anne than of Emily (Charlotte is still my fave, I have to admit). This book was quite good, lighter than "The Tennant of Wildfeld Hall" but still kind of bleak. God I wanted to smack some of the people in this book so bad.
"It is foolish to wish for beauty. Sensible people never either desire it for themselves, or care about it in others. If the mind be but well cultivated, and the heart well disposed, no one ever cares for the exterior ... So said the teachers of our childhood ; and so say we to the children of the present day. All very judicious and proper, no doubt ; but are such assertions supported by actual experience? We are naturally disposed to love what gives us pleasure, and what more pleasing than a beautiful face - when we know no harm of the possessor at least? A little girl loves her bird - Why? Because it lives and feels ; because it is helpless and harmless; but though she would not hurt a toad, she cannot love it like the bird ... They that have beauty, let them be thankful for it, and make good use of it like any other talent ; they that have it not, let them console themselves, and do the best they can without it ; certainly, though liable to be over-estimated, it is a gift ... and not to be despised."
10. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Steig Larsson (2005) - Sweden
An unsettling novel... I've never been a big fan of CSI-type shows (except Bones) or mystery novels, but I had heard a lot of good things from people in Ireland - apparently this trilogy has sold like a bazillion copies. Anyway, it was an interesting read even though it took me soooo long to get past the first 100 pages. Can't say I particularly liked the male lead all that much, and I don't know if I "liked" the female lead as much as I was amused by her crazy. I'll probably pick up the other two before heading home, because I'm a sucker for odd couple relationships I wanna see where theirs goes.
"Salander's greatest fear, which was so huge and so black that it was of phobic proportions, was that people would laugh at her feelings. And all of a sudden all her carefully constructed self-confidence seemed to crumble. That's when she made up her mind. It took her several hours to mobilise the courage, but she had to see him and tell him how she felt. Anything else would be unbearable."
11. "December Bride" by Sam Hanna Bell (1951) - Northern Ireland
I was assigned this one for class, but put off reading it until I had to for my final paper. In the end, I really liked it. So much of the sadness in it caused by not speaking, by silence... ahaha, that sounds so deep. The main female was really interesting, and strangely likeable for someone whose thought-process I did not understand at all. Really interesting book.
"A nimbus of flame danced for a moment on the globe, flickered and vanished, and from all the corners of the kitchen, ancient shadows crept out, silent-footed, to sit by the dying fire."
12. "Star of the Sea" by Joseph O'Connor (2002) - UK
Just finished this one right now -- wowww. Heartbreaking and disgusting and interesting and oddly funny. About the famines in Ireland in the early 1800s, particularly the 1840s. Written as if it were non-fiction, so it's like reading a collection of letters and first-hand accounts of the famine. Really well written, I'm going to look for more of this author's work.
"Looking back over these pages, they seem to say almost nothing about her; it is as though she was merely a collection of footnotes in the lives of other, more violent people ... Some things I have invented but I could not invent Mary Duane; at least no more than I have already done. She suffered more than enough in the composition."
I should have read 32 books by now -- oops!!I guess I've fallen behind...