I was amazed to find that the house we were staying in came complete with it's own mini library, which included a number of books on my reading list that I had yet to buy. There was also a little patio at the front of the house Steff and I sat drinking our Pimms and watching the sea and reading our books. Bliss. Because of this I am now much further ahead on my big book challenge (here).
No. 96 A Town Called Alice is the best book I have read to date from the list. I couldn't put it down (literately fell asleep with my nose buried in it). Can't understand how it is only 96. Especially when there are books like the earlier mentioned Five People You Meet In Heaven ahead of it. I raved about it so much, Steff abandoned what she was reading to become a convert to Alice too. It is one of the longer books on the list, and covers so much time and harrowing events plus has a very happy ending. I do think though that you could be forgiven in thinking that the actual author finished the book about halfway in and a fanfiction writer has decided the ending as it follows the main characters for a very long time after the main heart of the story has ended. But there is nothing wrong with that. More books should have as many nicely tied endings as this.Unfortunately I went from a book that I loved to a book I absolutely hated. No. 18 Catcher in the Rye. I disliked the style, the protagonist and the story. In fact I thought there was barely a story held in the pages. I like my books to have a beginning, middle and end; this seemingly had none of them. I can't fathom why it is so highly praised. I can understand how the stream of consciousness style of writing could be popular, it just isn't for me. But the lack of plot bugged me. It is an extremely short book, took me about 4 hours in total. So if anyone else is doing the challenge read it to get it out of the way, but I wouldn't read it for pleasure.
No. 72 Dracula was much better. I have never watched the movies, although my Mom tells me we watched them together when I was a few months old, funny how I don't remember that, and I haven't really paid any attention to the spin-offs (Van Helsing, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) so the story was brand new to me. In fact I quite enjoyed seeing the characters on the page, having previously heard them mentioned in pop culture but genuinely not knowing they were actually associated with the original vampire novel. I particularly enjoyed the way it was written, in the form of journal entries and letters between the 5 protagonists. If anything it ended to soon and the main event had happened before I really had time to notice it (not unlike the death of Sirius Black, yes I'm still bitter about that).
The Best thing about the house was that it contained a copy of Alan Alda's Autobiography Never Have Your Dog Stuffed. He is perhaps my favourite person in the world (Hawkeye & Vinnick!) and has always seemed like a lovely and bubbly guy when I have seen him interviewed. I know it isn't on the list seeing as it is "literature", but there should have been an exception. It is full on anecdotes rather than a full blow by blow of his life which means that although there are parts where I genuinely did laugh out loud, you don't really get into anything overly personnel. He keeps the contents strictly about him, mentioning his family and people he has worked with but they are in the background to his stories about his experiences, which in my opinion makes him very classy.And he really did have his dog stuffed.
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