Books read in 2019

[pretty_plant]

So today I look at what I have read on Goodreads and was pretty surprised to see that I had only read between 30 and 40 books this year. I feel bad for having spent too much time procrastinaing instead of doing anything productive but I do feel that I sometimes rush myself so much into reading books that I just lose any kind of enjoyment in the process.

However, my Goodreads this year is also pretty unorganized because I have become terribly inactive. When I looked through my shelf, I see that most of the Pratchett's books I have read this year did not have a finish date and that there were so many books that were marked read even though I have not read them. When I finished with organizating them, the books read in 2019 were 42. It is probably inaccurate because I don't think that I have added everything into my bookshelf and definitely not with the appropriate date.

It was interesting to look back at the books I have read this year. I kept feeling like I had read this book years ago but it turned out, I read it at the beginning of this year.

Because I am not going to do much in my winter break because I don't celebrate Solar New Year or Christmas, I have put up a list of what I will read in two weeks, which are four novels by Dickens, the Iliad (I have read the one translated into my native language but have never read the translation done by Fagles) and Moby Dick. Knowing me, I will probably procrastinate and spend most of the time sleeping. Hopefully, I will get through the Iliad and at least A tale of two cities by the time the winter break ends.

Comments

[regshoe]

~40 books in a year isn't bad going, and I think that's about what I've managed this year (I'll have a look at my list properly next week, when I have more free time and have finished the last book of the year). And you're absolutely right that trying to rush reading more things just for the sake of it is a bad idea. It's about quality, not quantity (and if you've been reading lots of Terry Pratchett then quality clearly isn't a problem :P).

Ooh, A Tale of Two Cities, that's one of my faves. What other Dickens books are on your list?

[pretty_plant]

I actually only intended to read one Dickens but then when I got to the library, I found a collection called "The shorter novels of Charles Dickens", which includes Oliver Twist, Hard times, A tale of two cities and Great expectations. So I just thought to myself I might as well borrow it. From the look of the book, I am in doubt about how short those novels are, though.

I actually have never read any Dickens's besides A Christmas Carol (and I also have not read any Shakespeare's besides a small excerpt from Romeo and Juliet in my textbook) so I just want to rectify that at some point.

[regshoe]

From the look of the book, I am in doubt about how short those novels are, though. xD I think 'shorter' may have been the important word there, in comparison to the likes of Bleak House...

I've read a few of his novels, and IMO they're a bit hit-and-miss—he's one of those writers who developed a lot over the course of his career, and some of the later stuff is very good but the earlier stuff not so much. Great Expectations in particular is really good, though!

I've never actually read any of Shakespeare's plays, although I've seen (on stage or as films) a few. I love Richard II and really must get into the Henrys at some point.

[pretty_plant]

Shakespeare was after all a playwright, though. I think that a faithful adaptation of his play on the stage or on TV is probably closer to what he imagined. (I did watch a movie of Romeo and Juliet and watched ballet versions of Romeo and Juliet, A midsummer's Night Dream. But most ballet versions of anything tended to be very loosely adapted anyway.) Reading will probably just give you an idea of the actual dialogues as spoken few hundred years ago.

From what I see, Dickens was a pretty prolific writer. I think one thing that I notice about great prolific writers is that a lot of them have their hit-and-miss moments. It is especially appparent in writers who have to cater to the public to earn their income. But if they write 50 novels (short stories or anything really), I think it is enough for them to write a few truly amazing novels in order to be consider an amazing writer.

[regshoe]

Very true! There's pros and cons to either way, I think. A good play/film version is more faithful to how it was intended and more rich and imaginative, and seeing it acted out can make it easier to follow if you find the language difficult, which I do sometimes—but reading the text makes it easier to really concentrate on the details of the language, which is worth doing with Shakespeare!