49) A Woman in Your Own Right: Assertiveness and You 50) The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared

This post is more than a month and a half overdue, as I have been busy with finals, which are now over, yay :)

Guess who just realised that they've completed their challenge?! I'm super happy about that, especially considering that I haven't been doing much reading recently. I've decided that I'll keep the blog going though, at least until I've reached a full year (mid-June) :)

49) A Woman in Your Own Right: Assertiveness and You by Anne Dickson

 I don't read much non-fiction, or self-help books, but I would really recommenced this one.  It's made me question my everyday behavior, and helped me to be more assertive, and thus more happy. If you often find yourself not saying anything in an uncomfortable situation, or unable to communicate how someone's behavior makes you feel, then this is a great book to read. It contains assertiveness exercises and role-plays to help you work on your assertiveness, so you can't just read it. You have to actively put what you've read into practice, and trust me, it really is worth it!







50) The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

 I saw the film adaptation of this book last year in France; unexpectedly it was in the original Swedish with French subtitles, which was a bemusing, but fun state of affairs. If you liked Forest Gump you will enjoy this book, as Allan improbably meets many important historical figures  through a series of random events, baffling the reader with his insouciance and carelessness. It is one of those books that cleverly weaves together past and present, showing us the richness of Allan's past life, which is unknown to all those around him, and the extraordinary events  that unfold when he decides to disappear from his care home just before the celebration of his one-hundredth birthday. You will especially like it if you are interested in history; personally I must admit I found some passages rather boring, in a similar way to the huge chunks of philosophy in Sophie's World, which I found detracted from the plot. Overall it is one of the most random books I have ever read, but also one of the most fun and stimulating; definitely one to try.

47) The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman 48) Atonement

Apologies for my rather long absence; I haven't been doing much reading recently aside from articles for uni as I've got out of the habit of reading for half-an-hour-or-so before bed, which I really must start doing again.

47) The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Thériault

 Ever wondered if your postman read your postcards?

I chanced upon this book in Daunt Books, a lovely bookshop in Marylebone, London, with books organised by the country where they are set, and my mum has since told me that my grandpa used to work there! This book wasn't actually in the travel section, and I must admit to being caught out by it's cover into thinking that it was set in Japan; in fact it is set in Montreal, although there are Japanese aspects to the narrative.  This is a very whimsical narrative, and if you enjoyed The Elegance of the Hedgehog (also originally written in French), then you will appreciate the eccentricities of Bilodo's life. The concept of a postman who lives through the letters of others is a fun one, and  I thoroughly enjoyed the many beautiful haiku, which Liedewy Hawke did a very good job of translating. Overall a very different book, but a thoroughly enjoyable one.


48)  Atonement by Ian McEwan

This is my second time studying this novel (it was also one of my set texts at Sixth Form) but I enjoyed reading it as much as ever, if not more, for the new perspective which The Girl in the Book module has lent me. McEwan does a brilliant job of personifying a variety of characters at different point in their lives, but particularly Briony, both in her childish naivety and her adult repentance. This novel shows how consequences are like ripples spreading out across a lake; one small action can have huge after-effects that remain long after the original splash. Definitely one to read if you haven't yet, and I also highly recommend the film.

45) Answer Me This 46) L'Homme aux cercles bleus

45) Answer Me This by Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann

I got into the Answer Me This podcast last year while living in France, after my friend's anecdotes from it caught me interest. The book is very funny, as is the podcast; it's based on the very simple format of Helen and Olly answerinf people's questions, but the way in which they go about this is very funny and clever. I was also pleased that the answers in the book are not exactly the same as those in the episodes that they've been taken from; a lot of them have been edited to make them more snappy or more comic, with the result being that the book is fresh and enjoyable even if you're already a fan of the podcast. My favourite part has to be their interpretations of flags, for example Tonga:

"We've got a first-aid kit. But Switzerland has got a bigger one."

Classic banter! While I read the book cover to cover (with my fiancé reading over my shoulder), it's also a great one to dip in and out of or flick through- the perfect toilet tome!


46) L'Homme aux cercles bleus

 This book was much more serious but no less enjoyable. It's another one for my course Blindness and Vision in French Culture and it's very readable. Interestingly, when seeing the title for the first time, which translates literally as The Blue Circles Man, I assumed that the blue circles were referring to a blind man's eyes, while the reality is in fact very different. In this detective novel you keep thinking that you've got it worked out and then your expectations are undermined. I found it a bit hard to get a handle on the characters, but I think that's the point.

Charles, a blind man, takes a vicious pleasure in offering to help sighted people cross the road.
Mathilde, a marine biologist, enjoys studying people as well as fish.
Adamsberg, a measured man, has an incredible ability for finding out the truth.
Clémence, a lonely lady, looks to replace the love she once lost.

What do all these people have in common? How will the Chalk Circles Man bring them together, and who is he? 

43) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 44) Des Aveugles

A couple of people have asked if I managed to read fifty books by the end of December. Just to let you guys know, I'm still doing this blog- I started it in June, not last January, so I've still got six months left! I read the books that I'm blogging about now back in December, so I should be putting up another post soon to get me up to date.

43) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

 This is another book for my course The Girl in the Book. It's a strange book. The Brodie set are children, children who are part of an adult world that they don't understand, led by the intriguing Miss  Brodie. It reminds me of The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley in that the girls, like Leo, are very naive, but are gradually forced to leave that naivety behind by the mature situations in which they find themselves. Unlike some of the other books on the course, where sexuality is quite implicit (eg Alice in Wonderland, Frost in May), this book contains several sexual relationships/ experiences, both concerning the girls and Miss Brodie herself. Mr Lowther and Mr Loyd are the two main male figures among a sea of girls, and they spark a lot of interest (pun completely unintended) in pupils and teacher alike. The strict censure of society is contrasted with Miss Brodie's casual lessons spent lounging outside in the shade of an elm tree, and Miss Jean Brodie seems to be depending on her pupils to keep her young, to keep her in her "prime". She begins living vicariously through them, the question is, is she helping them to live their lives, or forcing them to live her own?


44) Des Aveugles by Hervé Guibert 

I am studying this book for my module Blindness and Vision in French Culture and find it very interesting. I didn't like the first few pages, as I found them very confusing, (I later found this out to be deliberate on Guibert's part; we as readers are supposed to experience disorientation from trying to visually understand the world of blind people), but after that I got into it. There were quite a few words that I didn't know, but these tended not to interfere with my understanding too much. Notably, this is the first book on the course that doesn't make blindness into a big issue; it's not about blindness, it's about Josette, Robert and Taillegueur, and their complicated relationships. Effectively, because all of the characters are blind, none of them are blind; none of them are "different" because of their blindness, and this allows us to focus on their personalities and behaviour, without ocularcentric bias.  

41) Orange is the New Black 42) The Member of the Wedding

41) Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman

Having really enjoyed the Netflix adaptation of this book, I must say I was disappointed with it, although that may partly be because I was always biased towards the series. Firstly, the character names are different, which I found disconcerting, there also wasn't any insight into the other character's pre-prison lives, which is one of the things that I really enjoy about the series. Additionally I found that some of the writing was a bit too obvious, especially the introduction. However, moving on to things I did like; I finally understood why Boo has a dog in prison (she's training it to be used as a seeing-eye dog in a scheme called "Puppies Behind Bars"). The book also made me think more deeply about the federal system; prison isn't necessarily the best option for non-violent crimes, as it doesn't help with rehabilitation, and so inmates become institutionalised and often end up back in prison after they are released. I found the following sentence very poignant: "The  lesson that our prison system teaches its residents is how to survive as a prisoner, not as a citizen - not a very constructive body of knowledge for us or the communities to which we return."


42) The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers

Another novel for "The Girl in the Book" module, it's again one I probably wouldn't have read otherwise, but I'm really glad that I did. I have to admit that I was not at all convinced at the beginning, as I found the modernist style a bit off-putting (I kid you not, the word "lavender" is used eight times!) but I got used to it and even began to enjoy it eventually. It's painful how naive Frankie is, and the scene with the soldier had me really frightened for her for a while. I find it interesting how the book can be divided into three sections by what she chooses to call herself: when she is Frankie she is looking to belong, when she is F. Jasmine she thinks she has found her rightful place, and when she is Frances she realises that she was wrong.  This book is all about not belonging; Berenice, her African American maid, doesn't have an equal place in society because of her colour, John Henry, her cousin, wants to be "half boy and half girl", and Frankie herself wishes that people could "change back and forth from boys to girls". It's about being trapped by society's expectations on race and gender, and on love. It's about realising that these invisible boundaries exist, and that discovering that is part of growing up. Frankie sums this up nicely: "In a way she was sorry. It was better to be in a jail where you could bang the walls than in a jail you could not see."


Both of these books deal with imprisonment in different ways. We are both trapped by ourselves and our own actions and by those around us. They are both about learning to cope with different prisons, though Piper gets out of hers, while Frankie only discovers hers at the end of the book.     

39) A Room of One's Own 40) Frost in May

39) A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

I had to read this for The Girl in the Book, and  while finding the ideas about women's independence interesting, I found it a bit hard to get through, especially since it's an extended essay rather than a novel, and I find it hard to engage with non-fiction. I definitely wouldn't have finished it if I hadn't been studying it, but I'm glad that I did have to read it, as it's a very influential piece of writing, and (to my slight shame) it's the first time I've read anything by Virginia Woolf. I really want to go on to read her novel Orlando, of which I have already seen the film adaptation, as I think that it has some interesting things to say about the fluidity of gender.



40) Frost in May by Antonia White

I will be studying this book for the aforementioned module in January, and I will be interested to see what my lecturer has to say about it, as I found it to be very engaging and enjoyable to read. Having previously read a couple of novels about life in monasteries (The Hawk and the Dove and Sucking Sherbet Lemons), I believe this to be my first novel about life in a convent (I'm not counting Madeline :p), and I find it intriguing in its exploration of the rigidity of convent school life. This very rigidity (the girls are not even allowed to bathe naked) lends itself to small acts of rebellion which bubbles beneath the strict timetable and rules. Nanda has "particular friendships" with other girls despite the fact that it is forbidden, and these friendships seem to hover on the edge between platonic and romantic, as the girls' need for love is met in each other. The shocking denouement of the novel is actually disappointingly under-dramatised and abrupt, leaving us rather dissatisfied, however there are three "sequels" (I put "sequels" in quotation marks, as White changed the name of the main character from Nanda to Clara) to Frost in May, and it would be interesting to see where life outside the convent would take Nanda/ Clara.

37) An Abundance of Katherines 38) The Well of Loneliness

37) An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Already a fan of The Fault in Our Stars, I had been pre-warned that the rest of John Green's books weren't as good, and I have to agree. I'm sure sure whether it's the subject matter; a book about a girl with cancer lends itself better to being emotionally profound than a book about a guy who's dated a whole series of girls with the same names, but I definitely connected with this book a lot less than TFIOS. You could also argue that that's due to there being a male protagonist rather than a female one, but having a male protagonist didn't stop me from connecting with Christopher in Haddon's The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night-time, who in fact shares a lot of traits with Colin, the protagonist of this book, so I strongly suspect of having Asperger's Syndrome. While I lacked a personal connection with the story, I did enjoy it a lot, and found both Colin and Hassan amusing and interesting characters, although I was less convinced by Lindsey. I enjoyed the way in which the plot slowly revealed Colin's back story with all the different Katherines, which developed along with his "theorem" for predicting relationships, but that doesn't stop me from finding it highly unrealistic that 1) Colin would have had so many girlfriends (especially given his dedication to improving his mind, which seems to leave little time for other things) and 2) that they would have all been called Katherine. Overall I recommend this book if you enjoyed The Fault in Our Stars, but don't expect it to stay with you in the same way.


38) The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

This is another book on my course "the Girl in the Book". For a book written in the 1920s, I was surprised at how candid this novel was about lesbianism, or "inversion" as it was then called, though I think that rather than being a lesbian novel, it could nowadays been seen as a transgender one, as Stephen repeatedly wishes to be a man (and yes, her parents chose to call her Stephen, even though she was a girl, don't ask me why) when she's younger, and aspires to look like one when she is older. I think that if given the option to transition then she probably would have. Even though there's nothing more explicit than"and that night, they were not divided" in the novel, it was judged obscene by a British court and the publisher was forced to have it printed France and secretly shipped over to England. Just as Stephen was censored by her family and the society in which she lived, Hall was censored for daring to broach such a controversial subject. This makes me realise how lucky we are these days (in the UK at least) to live in a society where there is freedom of speech and people can access all the information they want at the touch of a button.