30 Day Book Challenge - Day 26
A book that changed your opinion about something
Sarah:
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence.
this book was a real eye-opener for me. it changed the way i think about love and sex and relationships a lot and made me appreciate them in ways which had never occurred to me before. it opened my mind, you could say. and made me realise with more clarity that sex doesn’t just equal shameful or taboo or pure lust, but can epitomise love and intimacy and equality, and is not something to be hushed up but rather something to celebrate and be proud of. it’s about exploration and understanding yourself. it also confirmed for me that there are no barriers other than the ones that you create for yourself, and you should do what you want in life and not what others expect of you.
Andy:
Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman
This book changed the way I thought about so many things. The concept of original sin, the way adolescence is portrayed, even the friendship between Lyra and Roger, led me to look at so many things in life differently. A must read for people out there.
I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
– Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda. (via importanceofbeingme)
(Source: onebookthief)
30 Day Book Challenge - Day 18.
A Book That Disappointed You.
Sarah:
i don’t actually have an answer for this one, i don’t think i’ve ever been truly disappointed by a book and if i have i obviously thought it wasn’t worth remembering because nothing at all really springs to mind.
Andy:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
Before the die hard Potter fandom comes down on me like a tonne of bricks, it is not this entire book I was disappointed with. In fact, the majority of this book lived up to my expectations of Rowling. It was the ending, and the sheer luck of Harry that i was disappointed with. SPOILER ALERT, that the elder wand really belonged to Draco for he disarmed Dumbledore I was fine with, but the pure coincidence that Harry happened to win Draco’s wand when held at Malfoy Manor and as such he was the true owner of the elder wand, this stretched belief a bit too much. When you think about it this way, if the trio had been better at hiding from the snatchers, Voldemort would have killed Harry in the final Battle of Hogwarts.
30 Day Book Challenge - Day 17.
Favourite Quote From Your Favourite Book.
Sarah:
“words, in my not so humble opinions, are our most inexhaustible source of magic”.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K.Rowling.
since i don’t have one outright favourite book because i love so many equally, i just went for one of my favourite literary quotes ever ever ever. it sums up my feelings towards language and words perfectly and i cannot get enough of it.
Andy:
“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining he is kissing every cranny of your body. No don’t blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just “being in love”, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossums had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.”
Dr Iannis in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
When reading this book, this passage was one I instantly loved, the description of love is amazing, and that it is used by a father to console his daughter on her feelings for the foreign invader Antonio Corelli.
30 Day Book Challenge - Day 14.
Favourite Book Of Your Favourite Writer.
Sarah:
Atonement by Ian McEwan
i know i already answered with this on day one, but it really is my favourite book by him. go here for an explanation.
Andy:
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkein
My favorite of the LOTR trilogy, mainly because of the fact it explores so many settings. It builds up the amazing characters in a world unlike any other. As the first book to ever achieve such a thing, I feel it deserves recognition.
30 Day Book Challenge - Day 13.
Your Favourite Writer.
Sarah:
Oscar Wilde and Ian McEwan
i couldn’t choose one so i’m going to be greedy and have two favourites.
Wilde is simply the most witty, intelligent, brilliant, clever wielder of words that ever set foot on this earth and i adore everything that he produced and everything that he was and stood for.
McEwan writes captivating and brilliantly moving masterpieces which shock and engage and force you to consider life in ways that you may never have even thought of before.
both are incredible men and incredible writers and i love love love them.
Andy:
J.R.R Tolkein
Tolkein is essentially my idol when it comes to the literary world. The designer of Middle Earth and the writer of arguably the best fantasy novel ever. The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit, now made into films, were the first to break into true fantasy adventure territory. Tolkein, I salute you.
30 Day Book Challenge - Day 10.
Favourite Classic Book
Sarah:
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
i know a lot of people don’t like this book, but i love it and for some reason i’ve always found it intriguing and captivating and i’ve read it multiple times without ever tiring of it. it’s so intense and you find yourself sucked completely in and yet it’s not a hard book to get through. also, Emily is the only Bronte that i don’t hate.
Andrew:
The Odyssey by Homer
This is going back to Ancient Greek literature, and yet Homer’s Odyssey is one of my all time favorite books (poems I should say, my classics teacher would kill me for calling it a book). The love of Odysseus and Penelope is enough to last over 10 years, and Odysseus’ epic journey from Troy is rife with danger and mythical beings. A classic I would advise you all to read at some point.
Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia…You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you’ll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present”.
– John Green, Looking for Alaska . (via pandaa-no-yume)
30 Day Book Challenge - Day 7.
Most Underrated Book.
Sarah:
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H.Lawrence.
honestly i don’t think this book gets enough praise. or not the right sort, anyway. it’s praised for being frank and open about sex, but at the heart of it it’s actually a story about finding yourself and learning lessons in life and falling in love. i think it’s hugely unfair that it’s famous for being smut when the explicit aspect of it is absolutely not the main feature.
Andrew:
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman
I do not feel that these three books get as much credit as they deserve. They deal with the struggles most face in their teenage years, and yet due to the issues of dust in her own world, Lyra and Will travel between realities, and eventually Lyra must loose the one she loved the most in order to protect everyone.
I am standing upon that foreshore, a ship at my side
spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says, “there, she is gone.”
Gone where?
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
Just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me - not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone at my side says, “there, she is gone”,
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, “here she comes!”
And that is dying.
– Gone From My Sight by Henry Van Dyke.
30 Day Book Challenge - Day 5.
Book That Makes You Happy
Sarah:
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
this book is everything that is good in life. clever witty humour, sarky social comments and a hilariously melodramatic plot. you can’t help but admire.
Andrew:
Eragon by Christopher Paolini
Though not in itself particularly happy throughout, Paolini establishes a harsh fantasy landscape against which the struggle of Eragon, the last dragon rider, is set. This makes the success of Eragon and the rebels ultimately a brilliant ending for the first in the Inheritance Cycle.
30 Day Book Challenge - Day 3.
Your Favourite Series
Sarah:
The Harry Potter Series
i mean come on you must have seen that coming. this series was my entire childhood, it was what i grew up with and it was what made me fall in love with reading and storytelling. Jo Rowling created something magical and captivated my entire generation and i will be ever thankful that i had such a fulfilling and enchanting story to guide me through to adulthood.
Andrew:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
A trilogy in five parts, and one of the best series that I have ever read. It piqued my interest in sci-fi stories, and created a sense of adventure in me that no over book had quite managed to capture.The bizarre host of characters Adams creates, including a two-headed, three-armed alien, just add to the amazing story this series tells.
