read a book a month in 2008

Watership Down
Richard Adams

“Watership Down is the first and most successful novel by British author Richard Adams. A heroic fantasy about a small group of rabbits, it was published in the UK by Rex Collings Ltd in 1972. Although the animals in the novel live in their natural environment, they are anthropomorphized, possessing their own culture, language (Lapine), proverbs, poetry, and mythology. Evoking epic themes, the novel recounts the rabbits’ odyssey as they escape the destruction of their warren to seek a place in which to establish a new home, encountering perils and temptations along the way.”

Woah. Although I still adore this novel, re-reading it through a feminist lens detracted somewhat from the pure elation I felt as I followed Fiver, Hazel and Bigwig on their journey the first time round.

Still a classic favourite, however.

“Rabbits need dignity and above all the will to accept their fate.”

“They’d altered what rabbits do naturally because they thought they could do better.”

Persuasion
Jane Austen

I didn’t really enjoy this book as much as my all-time favourite of hers, Emma. Anne, the heroine, was a bit too sanctimonious for my liking (although Captain Wentworth was everything that a hero should be).

“Unmarried at twenty-seven, Anne Elliot fears that she is destined to be a spinster forever. The only love she ever felt was for a poor naval officer named Wentworth who proposed to her eight years ago. Because of his lack of family ties, Anne was persuaded to break off her engagement to him, and as a result ends up living with her father, Sir Walter Elliot, a self-centered baronet who rarely notices his second daughter.

Anne longs for her deceased mother as her female companions comprise mostly of her older sister, Elizabeth, who resembles their father in temperament too much for Anne’s taste, and her younger sister, Mary, who is nervous and arguably co-dependent.

Wentworth and Anne’s paths cross again when his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft, takes over the Elliot family estate. Austen, who often focused her works on themes centering on women and the gender roles of the day’s society, writes about the daily lives and interpersonal relationships between the members of this typical family. Her trademark subtle references to the irony of life and her satirical social commentary are also peppered throughout the novel, making it another of Austen’s classic works.” – Krystle Hernandez

“How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!”

“You pierce my soul.”

Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand

The story of the man who said that he would stop the motor of the world, and did.

I don’t think I can express yet what a profound impact this book (and Rand’s personal philosophy: objectivism) has had on me. The issues that I have struggled with and the problems I have identified with the world all surfaced in this text, and were all dealt with in a manner that I will endeavour to incorporate into my own life.

Production; merit on ability rather than need; our greatest joys the result of the greatest fact of our existence; the reclamation and triumph of individual aptitude and responsibility. Wow, just wow. Highly recommended.

“Who is John Galt?”

“For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors – between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it.”