Reviews: January classics (Nesbit, Gaskell, Aeschylus)

03 Tuesday Feb 2015

Tags

era: ancient greece, era: victorian, reading: challenges (2015), reading: fun book reviews, reading: stunning, text type: drama, text type: novel, writer: aeschylus, writer: gaskell

January wasn’t anywhere near as booktastic as I would’ve liked, but the three I’d finished were all very enjoyable. I had decided to start working on the Classics Reading challenge first, and now I’m finding it hard to put down those lovely old books!

1. E. Nesbit – The Story of the Treasure Seekers (3 Jan)
2. Elizabeth Gaskell – Mary Barton (16 Jan)
3. Aeschylus – Prometheus Bound, The Suppliants, Seven Against Thebes, The Persians (trans. Philip Vellacott) (31 Jan)

As always, I’ve included cover images of the version I’d picked up. Some of them were a little difficult to find, so please pardon the poor image quality!

Reviews: 13 books from Jan/Feb! (Heyer, Zusak, Dickens, Nietzsche, McEwan, Rushdie, Tolkien, Austen, etc)

05 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by Samantha Lin in Booktastic

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

era: 20th century, era: regency, era: victorian, reading: challenges (2014), reading: far and wide, reading: fun book reviews, text type: autobiography, text type: non-fiction, text type: novel, writer: austen, writer: dickens, writer: mcewan, writer: nietzsche, writer: young adult authors

I started my little bookfest in late January, and didn’t think it would go far—until, a week and five books later, I realised that hey, I can read books for funfunfun! In an attempt to have some sort of structure in these reviews, I’ll be organising my thoughts about fiction into four categories, which is essentially adapted from Aristotle’s take on tragedy in his Poetics (yes, I’m boring and completely unoriginal—thank goodness for the basics!).

So, here’s a list of the books I read in Jan/Feb (with finishing dates):

1. Georgette Heyer – Arabella (30 Jan)
2. Julian Short – An Intelligent Life (1 Feb)
3. Georgette Heyer – Cotillion (2 Feb)
4. Markus Zusak – The Book Thief (3 Feb)
5. Charles Dickens – A Tale of Two Cities (Penguin Classics, ed. Richard Maxwell) (7 Feb)
6. Mark Haddon – A Spot of Bother (10 Feb)
7. Friedrich Nietzsche – Ecce Homo (Penguin Classics, trans. R. J. Hollingdale) (11 Feb)
8. Ian McEwan – Solar (13 Feb)
9. Sarah Rees Brennan – Unspoken (14 Feb)
10. J. D. Salinger – The Catcher in the Rye (21 Feb)
11. Salman Rushdie – Midnight’s Children (24 Feb)
12. J. R. R. Tolkien – The Hobbit (24 Feb)
13. Jane Austen – Persuasion (Penguin Classics, ed. Gillian Beer) (27 Feb)

And, my thoughts on them (with the cover images corresponding to those of my copies):

Continue reading »