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Hello everybody, I am back. Pretty soon this time. October has passed already and I have
to say, I read more than I expected. I'll be going backwards and on the last book I
read I won't waste too much time; it's this book Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone.
I talk way too much about this book, but October 31st is Harry Potter day so I celebrated Halloween
with reading this. That's not sad at all... [honestly I liked it :p] Before that I read
a book of which I am a little unsure if I can call it a book. It's the importance of
being earnest by Oscar Wilde and it has a total of 50 pages I believe. Ooh wow, 54.
It's a play and it's really funny which a rather unexpected ending, however you do need
some previous knowledge about the Victorian age to understand most of it because it's
basically just a enormous satire about the culture at that time. Apparently Ernest was
a very popular name at the time and was Earnest (with an a) a character trade that was very
appreciated and the characters are basically everything except earnest. Before that I read
the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Co-el-jo, coolhoe, I have know idea how to pronounce that name.
But it's a very well known book so you might have heard of it and first I'd have to say
that I really like this cover. It's basically a fairytale full of life wisdoms which are
a little bit too prominent sometimes which can be annoying but can also be really interesting.
Before that I read how to talk to a widower by Johnathan Tropper. A friend gave this to
me when she had to move and couldn't take all her books with her. It actually wasn't
even meant for me but somebody left it and I just took it so my expectations weren't
too high for this one but it was 100% better than expected, it's really an awesome book.
The main character was so sympathetic, he's really funny and... I don't know. I really
started to feel for him. It took me a while to get into this story but after about 50
pages I really wanted to know how it ended and it made me laugh and cry and.. all the
feels. Before that I read this book; what we talk about when we talk about Anne Frank
by Nathan Englander. In Dutch is called [Waar we het over hebben als we het over Anne Frank
hebben] suprising no? [it's a literal translation :p] it's a collection of short stories, there
are 8 in the book, it's pretty thin. The title story is definitely the best one in my opinion.
I usually never read short stories but it surprised me because every story was so different
both form and content wise which was very refreshing. I read it in stages, story by
story and they all centered around the same theme; being jewish, of jews. But because
they were all so different is remained interesting and it actually was nice because there still
was some overarching message that came through. If I had to describe the book I'd say it's
funny, but in a very uncomfortable way. Nathan Englander is also a very good writer and basically
I liked this book a lot more than I expected. I read some newspaper articles about this
which made me curious and I definitely think I will read more short stories now. The penultimate
[google translate gave me this word, isn't it awesome XD] book I want to talk about it
Persuasion by Jane Austen. I loved it. The main character is called Anne and she's so....
badass! She is sensible, not annoying, very empathic.. She's so much better than Emma
or Lizzie Bennet, she's definitely my favorite Austen *** of all the Jane Austen books
I've read so far. The love interest in this story was also much more.... interesting.
I liked him better than Knightley or even Darcy. The book has a bit of a Cinderella
feel to it and my new goal is to read all Jane Austen's before the end of the year and
I already have a copy of Northanger Abby lined up so you'll hear about that one next month.
And finally the first book in October I read is the Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling. It has
been translated to 'de Goede Raad' in Dutch [the Good Council] which I think is a great
title btw. It has A LOT of characters and what I think Rowling did very well is that
none of them are flat. They all have a back story, several sides and nobody is completely
good or evil. The descriptions are also amazing, which I kind of expected from her. What I
didn't like as much is that the ending seemed to be the ending to a different story from
what was actually told in the first part of the book and some characters turned out to
be pretty irrelevant for the story. I also wished if would be a bit faster, some parts
could have been cut out, especially since it's quite a large book. Don't expect it to
be Harry Potter, but it's definitely worth your time. It's definitely an adult book,
I think after 10 pages there is lots of cursing and sex which took me a while to get used
to. So I have some mixed feelings because I still secretly hoped it would be as monumental
as Harry Potter, which it is not in my opinion, however it is still a good book and I really
enjoyed reading it. That was it. October was a good month reading
wise; 7 books and they were all nice so no quickly to November. As I mentioned I am definitely
trying to read Northanger Abby and I'll also try to finish some books I already started
earlier but I will show those some other time. Bye!