Wednesday 30 December 2015

THE BIRTHDAY BOOK HAUL





So most bloggers are busy with their end of year/beginning of 2016 blog posts, and I'm still trying to catch up with my own schedule :')

BUT my all revealing post on the awesome books I received on my birthday is finally here! I know you guys were absolutely dying in anticipation for it. (Detect sarcasm.)

I'm going to blurb the books for you guys (with the help of trusty goodreads) so you have an idea of what they're all about, though I'm sure some of them are VERY familiar *cough* Cinder *cough*.

1) THE LUNAR CHRONICLES, MARISSA MEYER.

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravaged the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her lie becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the centre of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.

AAGHHH SDHKJFHFEKF. SO. This series has been splashed around the online book community since I first joined it. I heard about it on Youtube, and saw review posts, and of course, the many MANY pretty pictures of it on Instagram. The last book in the series was released a short while ago so it was once again all over my feed. But I have no idea how my sister knew I was dying to read them!

2) HOGWARTS LIBRARY.

This speaks for itself. My Harry Potter collection continues to flourish <3

3) CATCH - 22, JOSEPH HELLER.

At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war. 

His problem is Colonel Catchcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes an attempts to excuse himself from the perilouos missions that he's committed to flying, he's trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he's sane and therefore, ineligible to be relieved. 

4) ATONEMENT, IAN MCEWAN.

Ian McEwan's symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from this master of English prose. 

On a hot summer dat in 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment's flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant and Cecilia's childhood friend. But Briony's incomplete grasp of adult motives - together with her precocious literary gifts - bring about a crime that will change all their lives. As it follows that crime's repercussion through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century, Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority that mark it as a genuine masterpiece. 

I've only read one novel of McEwans, which I've read twice: Enduring Love. I read it for the first time when I was 13, and the second when I was 17, and studying it for A levels. I found it to be incredibly disturbing, and uncomfortable both times so I'm a little nervous about Atonement, but my sister LOVES the movie so I'm hoping I'll love the book just as much.

5) ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE, GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ.

The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.

No real idea what this is about, but I'm looking forward to finding out! I've heard great things about Gabriel Garcia.

6) THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, J.D. SALINGER.

Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with 'cynical adolescent.' Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.

Another classic. It's interesting to see how the popularity of old and new novels swings around in the book world. The Cacher in the Rye was published in 1951, but recently it's once again regained immense popularity!

7) TRAIN TO PAKISTAN, KHUSHWANT SINGH.


"In the summer of 1947, when the creation of the state of Pakistan was formally announced, ten million people - Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs - were in flight. By the time the monsoon broke, almost a million of them were dead, and all of northern India was in arms, in terror, or in hiding. The only remaining oases of peace were a scatter of little villages lost in the remote reaches of the frontier. One of these villages was Mano Majra."

It is a place, Khushwant Singh goes on to tell us at the beginning of this classic novel, where Sikhs and Muslims have lived together in peace for hundreds of years. Then one day, at the end of the summer, the "ghost train" arrives, a silent, incredible funeral train loaded with the bodies of thousands of refugees, bringing the village its first taste of the horrors of the civil wars. Train to Pakistan is the story of this isolated village that is plunged into the abyss of religious hate. It is also the story of a Sikh boy and a Muslim girl whose love endured and transcends the ravages of war.

This is the cherry on top of the birthday bundle cake. Ever since I read Pakistan: A Hard Country last year I've had an insatiable thirst for South Asian literature, and studying postcolonial, and global literatures at universities has only amplified that. I can't wait to read this book, and many more to come. 

So there you have it! All the books my sister bought for my birthday :D But, in the words of Rory Gilmore, I have no time for recreational reading until June. 


What do you guys think of this selection? Have you read any of them? And do any others capture your interest??
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2 comments

  1. ooh, this is such a good mix of books too!! I LOVE CINDER. I mean, I absolutely adore it. hehe. So just a mild infatuation there. ;) And I haven't read any of the others because I suck at classics and I'm new to Harry Potter. But yay for delicious birthday books!! Your family is awesome, clearly. ;)

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    Replies
    1. Yes they really are! Aaahh Cait I wonder if there'll ever be a day that you decide to give a classic a go :D

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