read all the books I own

Feels good. Whether I’ll get it finished this year is unknown, I think it’s rather unlikely, but I can make a good dent in it, I’m sure!

A lot of the free Kindle books Amazon has available are classics, which means quite often I can find Kindle version of the books I have left on the DS. Or if not there, through one of the other many free e-book websites (along with other great classics). Why would I want to do that when I already have them on my DS game? Well, the DS screen is much smaller than the Kindle’s, it is also backlit which means it hurts your eyes in the dark, and you can’t read in the bright sunshine. Plus, you only have to press a button to change pages, not drag along the screen with a stylus.

At the moment I’m taking a mini break from the DS classics list, though, and reading a few other books instead. I just finished the two last Austen books I had to read, and now I’m reading Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett. I love the Discworld, but I still have a lot to read.

And I now have a Kindle, although I don’t think I will be adding the books in there to my ‘books I own’ list, as that will take forever. I now have the last two books I have to read of Jane Austen, to complete another list, so I will read those soon as well.

For anyone else who enjoys reading, I find Goodreads really useful in tracking what I’m reading, what I want to read, and finding new books I might enjoy. It’s very much like All Consuming only solely for books, and not so much repetition of books.

It’s so odd to me how just years can make a difference in reading ability. What I mean by that is I remember trying to read Sense & Sensibility at 11, and it may as well have been written in Greek. The same is true of Shakespeare. When we went through Macbeth and Romeo & Juliet at school, we only studied various sections, and had ‘translations’ of what was being said. I read Sense & Sensibility (and a lot of other Austen for that matter) last year with no problems, and recently I have read A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, The Tragedy of Richard III, The Tempest and Much Ado About Nothing, also no problems, in fact I have quite enjoyed reading them. And I never thought I’d write that!

31% done with the DS 100 Classic Books List

I am going to include all the books in my Nintendo DS game ‘100 Classic Books Collection’ (only £10 on Amazon right now), so I have all those to read (well, all those which I haven’t already read). At the moment I am reading The Picture of Dorian Gray.

I’m 25% done, according to this list

I had The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Lovely Bones at home and read both of those. So I think I have read all the books I own now :)

I started reading The Time Traveler’s Wife whilst reading my last book. Normally I don’t like to have two books on the go at once, but I didn’t think I’d get the story lines confused. Not only because they’re very different from each other, but also because they’re in different languages. So after this one (which I am enjoying) it will be on to The Shell Seekers, and then any other books I can find.

And now I will attempt to finish Bröderna Lejonhjärta (The Brothers Lionheart). I’m reading the Swedish version and I have got quite a way through it, it’s just really a pretty sad book. I mean, for the first 30 pages or so, I could hardly see the page for being in tears. But hopefully the sad bit has past, though.

I like the idea of having a list of what I will read, takes the guess work out of it, and makes sure I read what I have. Off the top of my head, I have:

• The Time Traveler’s Wife
• The Shell Seekers
• Bröderna Lejonhjärta (The Brothers Lionheart)
• Twelve Days of Christmas

At the moment I am slogging through Middlemarch, so once that’s done I can sort out when I will read these, and any others I happen to remember, and in what order.