So yeah, I’ve been book shopping again. And I really shouldn’t. It’s not like I haven’t got enough books to read. I really haven’t anything to say in my defense – except, well, it’s books and I love books. I was at the university for a job interview and of course, had to visit the book store. Here’s what I got.
Salam Rushdie: Midnight’s Children
Salman Rushdie is a very fascinating man. I follow him on twitter and he always has something interesting to say. He has written a lot of books and I’ve only read one of them so far, The Satanic Verse. This was one of those books where I felt, that I wasn’t clever enough – or at least hadn’t enough knowledge about it’s subject. I’ve been wanting to read Midnight’s Children for several years and I hope to get around to reading it even though I already have one Rushdie novel on my list of books I want to read this year. Rushdie is an author that I really hope I can get into – his books sounds so good. Besides, Midnight’s Children won the Booker of Bookers in 2008 – as well as the Best of Bookers in 1993 after first winning the Man Booker Prize in 1981.
About the book:
Born at the stroke of midnight at the exact moment of India’s independence, Saleem Sinai is a special child. However, this coincidence of birth has consequences he is not prepared for: telepathic powers connect him with 1,000 other ‘midnight’s children’ all of whom are endowed with unusual gifts. Inextricably linked to his nation, Saleem’s story is a whirlwind of disasters and triumphs that mirrors the course of modern India at its most impossible and glorious.
F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby
Years ago I watched The Great Gatsby with Robert Redford. I didn’t get it. I don’t remember anything from it except that it was Robert Redford. I think it’s one of those stories that you can’t appreciate before you reach a certain level of maturity. I’ve read some interesting reviews of this recently and I think – or at least hope – that I have reached a high enough level of maturity now to get it. By the way, I noticed that this year there’s new movie version of this story out – of course with Leonardo di Caprio …
About the book:
The parties at Gatsby’s Long Island mansion were legendarily glamorous affairs. Yet amid the throng of guests, starlets and champagne waiters, their host would appear oddly aloof. For there was only one person Jay Gatsby sought to impress. She was Daisy Buchanan: married, elegant, seducing men with a silken charisma and ‘a voice … full of money’. As Gatsby pursues shady deals and his doomed obsession with Daisy, F. Scott Fitzgerald distills the essence of the Jazz Age, and probes to the empty heart of the American Dream.
Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey
I’ve read three of Jane Austen’s novels so far – Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma. I liked them all three – I preferred Pride and Prejudice (although I think I prefer P & P with Colin Firth). I’m looking forward to reading this one. There’s just something about Austen, I like. Even though this book on the surface doesn’t sound special, I’m sure it is good since it’s Austen.
About the book:
Catherine Morland, an unremarkable tomboy as a child, is thrown amongst all the ‘difficulties and dangers’ of Bath at the ripe age of seventeen. Armed with an unworldly charm and a vivic imagination, she must overcome the caprices of elegant society, encountering along the way such characters as the vacuous Mrs Allen, coquettish Isabella and the brash bully John Thorpe. Catherine’s invitation to Northanger Abbey, in her eyes a haven of coffins, skeletons and other Gothic devices, does lead to an adventure, though one she didn’t expect, and her misjudgement of the ambitious, somewhat villainous General Tilney is not wholly unjustified. However, with the aid of the ‘unromantic’ hero Henry Tilney, Catherine gradually progresses towards maturity and self-knowledge.
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The Literary Bunny 