Bellie, I am still ill. I have one of those colds where if I lived in the olden days I would not have survived winter and where cleaning the house is obviously an impossible task. So I am sat with a cup of tea, eating cake in my Christmas PJ’s even though I know it’s the New Year, trying to read a book. Of course I got distracted and thought I would write on here instead.
As you know, this year I am all about the achievable goals (I am still waiting for your 2016 bucket list by the way) and one of those goals is to read one book a month. But I never said that I had to read them from the beginning! I have lots of books, like I am sure everybody has, that they have started and for one reason or another haven’t got round to finishing. Funnily enough, I can list twelve, one for every month!
I started off the year with Tyler Oakley ‘Binge’, which I can honestly say is one of the funniest books I have read. I actually lol’d. It was written in a way that I felt that Tyler was telling me his stories, and I was sat cross legged on the floor, head on heads listening intently. But I don’t have to tell you about my future best friend’s book, you already know how good it is! Or will be when you read it (add it to your Bucket List).
January
The first proper book on my list to read is “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” by Ransom Riggs. I started this ages ago when I stole it from you and I am yet to finish it. I love the mystery of this book, and the photographs that accompany the story are a little bit scary! But I have no idea where this story is going or what is going to happen! Usually when you begin a book, you have a grasp of the subject and so can guess in which direction the story will go e.g. A girl moves to a new area, meets the cute boy next door and cut to the last chapter following unrequited love, gossip/rumours and mix ups at a party, prom or accidentally sent text message, they live happily ever after. I can’t see the future with this book (see what I did there? The children have super powers. ‘see the future’…) so I have to finish it to know what happens.
February
With this next book however I know what happens. I made the crucial mistake of watching the film before I read the book. And this book is “One Day” by David Nicholls. This has been sat on my shelf for a very long time due to my refusal to read the last few chapters and make the characters sad, because we all know that’s how books work (no spoilers! I know how much you love sad things so you might one day decide to read this). When I pluck up the courage to finish it, I will also make sure that I still have enough courage to watch the last episodes of ‘Breaking Bad’. Same book logic applies to TV.
March
“Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince” by J.K. Rowling. No explanation necessary.
April
I have so many books that I bought when doing A-level English Literature that I haven’t read. Looking back on it now, it makes me even more impressed that I managed to blag my way to a ‘B’. I now have no idea how that happened! But it did, and I obviously use that qualification every single day in my job in a bank. The first of these books is “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte. I love classic literature, but I struggled to get into this book. I am on page 120 of 447, and I still have the receipt from Scarthin Books in Cromford as my bookmark. BTW we should go there soon.
May
I have read “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen multiple times, but there is a bookmark mid way through the book, so I am going to read it again. That counts.
June
I bought “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert when I used to sell sunglasses, and people would come in and tell me stories of how they were travelling to the Maldives, so needed a black pair of Chanel’s to match their tortoise shell cat eye Coach glasses, but nothing over £100 just in case they drop them in the sea and lose them or leave them on top of the car, which they so often did meaning this pair of Chanel’s would be their fifth. I got it to inspire me to travel and see things. It didn’t.
July
“The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown. Started many many many many times, never finished. It’s just so long and confusing. July 2016 is my month to finish it!
August
I started reading “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins when you bought the book when it first came out, but I left for Uni so I never got round to finishing the trilogy. I remember it being easy to read and get into, which is probably for the best because we both know I will still be reading “The Da Vinci Code”.
September
Again, to accompany “The Da Vinci Code” I thought I would give “And the Mountains Echoed” by Khaled Hosseini another go. I was bought this a while back as a birthday present because I loved “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by the same author. I cried my eyes out because his writing is so descriptive and emotional and is just all round great story telling! So you will be relieved to know that my valid reason for not having read this book yet is because I was bought a Hardback, and it’s very heavy.
October
Do you remember when we watched “Tess of the d’Ubervilles” on the TV with Eddie Redmayne before he became Eddie Redmayne? That was a very long time ago, so I don’t suppose you do. But I bought the book by Thomas Hardy and haven’t read any of it. The book is still brand new. That will change in October!
November
“Beloved” by Toni Morrison is another school book that I’m pretty sure I referenced in my coursework but never fully read (again, how I passed English Lit I will never know).
December
I thought I would finish off the year with a feel good book, “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess. When I say I am going to ‘read’ this book, I really mean ‘translate’ by spending the majority of my time flicking to the glossary of terms at the back. Let me give you a couple of examples why –
- Hat = Shlapa
- Mad = Bezoomny
- Nonsense = Chepooka
Wish me luck!
There are probably a lot more than 12 books that I am yet to finish, but when we went on one of our day trips to Ikea recently, Tom bought more shelves to organise the spare room, and my things keep going missing. So some of my books have probably vanished, never to be seen again!
So to all of the books I have loved and lost over the years, this achievable challenge is dedicated to you!
It is a deck of cards full of tips and hints on how to survive a zombie apocalypse. It teaches you about weapons, how to live in different areas, how zombies think etc etc so on and so forth.
dearbellie 