Here goes nothing

Yes, I know I really shouldnt be blogging on a weekday (and the first day of school at that), but I needed to blog. Something. Anything. Just to get my mind of stuff.

And so here's a list of 10 books you should read some time this year:

1. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
2. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
4. Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence
5. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
6. New Ideas from Dead Economists by Todd G. Buchholz
7. King Lear by William Shakespeare (No, really???)
8. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
9. Mister God, This is Anna by Fynn
10. The Way by JoseMaria Escriva

If you've forgotten how beautiful the English language is, read The God of Small Things. It's the only book I've read in months that has made me stop, put it down, lean back and go wow. It leaves you breathless, (and no that has nothing to do with the hot sex in it), and reeling from the magic of Roy's writing. She does things with words, bits of sentences and spirals of paragraphs I've never seen before. Don't take my word for it. Go read.

The Handmaid's Tale leaves you breathless too, but more with a nagging sense of dread than anything. It's a dystopian novel - something like Orwell's 1984, but feministic and with so many twists your heart curls. I won't tell you the story, cuz then it'll take all the fun out of reading the book.

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is, needless to say, a winner. She writes the sharpest and wittiest social commentary - and it's delightful cuz a lot of the things she says about the relationships between men and women are still true today. Wonderful when you can identify a crush in a hero/heroine, or an ex-crush in a villain/brainless git.

For General Information, I do the first 3 books in the list for Lit. For someone to have to read these books over and over and over again and still be in love with them, they've gotta be pretty good.

I'm gonna skip describing a couple of the books cuz it's getting late and I've still got homework to do, but New Ideas is by far the most interesting economics book I've read. It's nothing like a text book, and with a bit of thinking all the concepts are so easy to understand. Yay.

If you feel like you've lost your sense of wonderment at the world, or you're just jaded, disenfranchised and tired of life, read Mister God, This is Anna. It is the most beautiful book written about a child by her guardian. Read it, and you'll never look at the world in the same way again.

As for The Way, well, read it if you need inspiration. Or want to be awed. Blessed JoseMaria Escriva founded Opus Dei, a Catholic organisation now known sadly because of bad publicity in books such as the Genesis Code and the Da Vinci code for extremism and fundamentalism. I suggest you find out more about the organisation before drawing any conclusions for yourself, but the book is a gem. A lifeline, if you like. Agree or disagree with me, but give it a glance.

Mum and Dad are out hunting for a lab pup. I'm gonna train him to run with me - dogs are always so much more encouraging than humans. And loving. And accepting. And forgiving. My Teddy is soooo handsome.