"The catcher in the rye" by J.D. Salinger

I started reading this book on my kindle on a long haul flight from Sydney - Dallas, USA. I chose to read it 1) because it is set in New York and I was going to be lucky enough to spend a few days in New York later that month and wanted to read a novel set in that beautiful city, and 2) because it's a classic. Even though this book is a "classic" and is often studied at school, in my personal opinion it is poorly written and boring. The main character is unlikable, the plot goes nowhere really, the language used is repetitive...when I posted on Facebook that I was reading this book, all the comments my friends made were about how much they had disliked this book too, so I definitely would not recommend anyone waste time reading it.

However, if you are also looking to read a good book set in New York, I did stop off at one of my favourite shops in New York: The Housing Works Bookstore Cafe,  and asked the staff for some recommendations. They were very helpful and friendly as always and suggested the following authors and books:

- O.Henry
- Joseph Mitchell
- Edith Wharton 'New York Stories'
- Colm Toibin "Brooklyn"

I found a copy of Colm Toibin's "Brooklyn" and bought that, but haven't read it yet. The staff told me it was coming out as a film soon too. Does anyone else have any recommendations of good novels set in New York that they would like to share?



"The catcher in the rye" by J.D. Salinger
Started: 3rd December 2015
Finished: 13th December 2015
My score: 1/10

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog" by Muriel Barbery

Started reading: 13th September 2015
Finished: 3rd December 2015
My score: 7.5/10
My review will appear here soon.

"We are all completely beside ourselves" by Karen Joy Fowler

I really enjoyed this book, but I don't know what to say in my review about it that wont completely give away the 'twist'. One of the reasons I think I really enjoyed this book was because I was completely unaware of what the twist might be or what was coming until the author revealed it, so i really don't want to spoil that for anyone else. I googled some reviews of this book to see how other reviewers dealt with this, but they all seem to give away the mystery. The book reminded me a little of the style of Barbara Kingsolver - interesting characters/plots and well-researched with believable scientific and historic details. The subject matter also reminded me a little of a book I read by Peter Goldsworthy, but again I better not go into that or it will give away the storyline. Incidentally one of the reviews I read this afternoon was a review  that was written by Barbara Kingsolver of "We are all completely beside ourselves". If you don't care that the twist will be given away, and just want to read a review, then you could click on that link. :-)

Started reading: 5th September 2015
Finished: 12th September 2015
My score: 8.5/10

"Running Like a Girl" by Alexandra Heminsley

Fun and easy book to read - an autobiography that reads a bit like Bridget Jones decides to run a marathon when she initially cant even jog to the end of her street. By the end of the book, she's running multiple marathons. It's hilarious, but also very inspiring for anyone like me that has just started to become addicted to running. Some of the things she describes I can totally relate to, other things I think haha thankfully I am not/wasn't that bad, which all gives me hope. Also she goes into how running is more of a mental game than just a physical one, which is definitely something I am beginning to realise and love about it :-) I definitely recommend it, but especially if you are a runner or just starting to run.

"Running Like a Girl" by Alexandra Heminsley
Started reading: 30th August 2015
Finished 1st September 2015
My Score 8.5/10

"The Lacuna" by Barbara Kingsolver

Although this book took me nearly 3 months to finish reading it, I really did enjoy it. It was quite a thick book and didn't often fit into my work bag, and as most of the reading I've been getting time for is on the bus to and from work lately this meant it took a lot longer than it should have to read this book.

It is an historical novel (my favourite genre), set mostly in Mexico (and partly in USA) during the 1930s-1950s. Although the main character, Harrison Shepherd, is completely fictional, there are plenty of other interesting real life characters woven into the story - for example the famous artist Frida Kahlo and the exiled Bolshevik leader Trotsky. The story is mostly in the form of a series of diary notebooks written by Harrison depicting his life and his interpretation of life and politics surrounding him, from childhood to the 1950s. Harrison writes well, really capturing what is going on around him, and I was fascinated especially by the sections of the book set in Mexico. I didn't know a lot of Trotsky and his exile in Mexico, but I was a little bit familiar with some of Frida Kahlo's self portraits, and Mexico is definitely on my travel bucket list. I was less interested in a section in the second half of the story that dealt with the era of Communist hunting in USA, and the series of reviews and fan mail letters associated with the novels that Harrison writes while living in the USA. I really did enjoy the book overall though, and it did capture some interesting people, places and events in history that I didnt know a lot about. If I had been reading this on my kindle I'm sure I would have finished reading this book in less than a month. 

Started reading: 5th June 2015
Finished: 30th August 2015
My score: 8/10

"The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying" by Marie Kondo

I decided to read this book as I seem to have a lot of clutter in my little flat that has accumulated after moving house multiple times in the last 10 years. As my current place doesn't have a lot of cupboard space I've decided the time is right to finally sort through things properly and have a clean out, and really set my place up in a way I'm happy with. Which might include some more space for bookshelves rather than boxes of stuff I haven't opened in years or cabinets full of papers. The idea of de-cluttering has been a bit overwhelming for a while (which is why I haven't done it yet) and it will involve taking a hard look at what I need and want to keep, and being fairly ruthless in getting rid of/donating/trading things I do not actually need or want but have been keeping for whatever reason.

I thought that maybe reading this book would give me some inspiration/motivation to actually start the de-cluttering process rather than just thinking about it. It has succeeded in that aspect, and I have started sorting through and discarding items, so that is great. However I have mixed feelings about the book itself. Some parts of the book really made sense to me and gave me new approaches on how to tackle my de-cluttering, e.g. sorting by category of items rather than by room, but as the book progressed I started to realise that the author and me would not see eye to eye on many things. Her attitude to books...basically, if you've read it, you wont need to read it again so throw it out, if you bought it but didn't read it and have bought other books since then you missed your chance to read it and should throw it out, if you half read a book, throw it out...there's no point to a book being on your bookshelf unless it sparks joy when you hold it...(this is my paraphrasing of the chapter called "Unread books - sometimes means never"). The summary was 'the moment you first encounter a particular book is the right time to read it. To avoid missing that moment, I recommend that you keep your collection small". Not going to happen in my flat, most of my books "spark joy" whether unread or read. I enjoy reading them, re-reading many of them and just looking at and remembering them. Part of my desire to de-clutter was to make more space for bookshelves haha.
Then there was the anthropomorphising of inanimate objects. E.g. socks:
“Never, ever ball your socks. I pointed to the balled up socks. ‘Look at them carefully. This should be a time for them to rest. Do you really think they can get any rest like this?’ That’s right. The socks stored in your drawer are essentially on holiday. They take a brutal beating in their daily work, trapped between your foot and your shoe…The time they spend in your drawer is their only chance to rest…”
Hmm alrighty then. At first I wasn’t sure if this was due to the translation from Japanese to English, but as the book went on it really seemed to be something the author was seriously concerned with. She also on numerous occasions has conversations with inanimate objects…e.g “I return to my bedroom, put my empty handbag in a bag and put it on the top shelf of the wardrobe, saying ‘You did well. Have a good rest.’…”
While the author’s style and attitude do not match with mine, I did learn a few useful new tips for ways to approach a big de-cluttering of my flat. But it was either entertaining or ridiculous in many ways in my opinion.


Started: 20th May 2015
Finished: 31st May 2015
My Score: 5/10

"Three Dog Night" by Peter Goldsworthy

I read this book as part of the Aussie Author Challenge. I have now read 4 books by Peter Goldsworthy. While I loved "Honk if you are Jesus" and "Wish", I was not particularly blown away with "Everything I know", and I really did not connect with any of the characters in "Three Dog Night". It was one of those books that I just painfully struggled through, not enjoying it, but not wanting to give up on a book half way, particularly when I have really enjoyed other books by the same author.

The storyline - an Australian psychologist Martin falls for his beautiful UK trainee psychologist student, Lucy, they fall in love, marry, and decide after some apparently blissful years to move to Adelaide. In Adelaide, Martin parades Lucy around to his old school buddies as if she's a trophy. Martin's best old buddy, Felix, is a pretty strange bitter kind of character, obviously very intelligent but not easy to get on with as he seems to get pleasure out of making other people uncomfortable. It turns out Felix is dying, and his last wish as it were is to borrow his friend's wife for the last few weeks of his life and try to ruin their marriage. I found it pretty implausible, plus motives and actions were never explained properly for Felix or Lucy and Martin often came off as pretty immature. I found the characters were unlikeable and I did not feel empathy for them, so I really couldnt recommend this book unfortunately.  I thought this Peter Goldsworthy book had been recommended to me, but it turns out that there is another book with the same title but different author - Elsebeth Egholm, and that was the one that was recommended. I will keep looking out for that one. I still have another of Peter Goldsworthy's books on my shelf to read - "Navel Gazing" - so I hope it is more enjoyable than his "Three dog night".

Started reading: 12th May 2015
Finished: 5th June 2015
My score: 3/10
Aussie Author Challenge stats: Male author.