February Books

I read quite a bit more this month and I also have a couple of unfinished books that will roll over into march or beyond as I have a lot of books to read in part or whole for uni right now. But here are all the books I read this month!

Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud

Freud is a must-read for any student of English lit, so naturally, I gravitated towards this collection of essays to accompany my unit on modern lit. I have been fascinated by psychology for many years and even considered studying it instead of Eng Lit. This was an interesting read but some points regarding women vexed me slightly but that’s to be expected from a 20th-century text.

The Radleys by Matt Haig

A light-hearted, fun and quick read. The story was a little predictable but I don’t really care about that as it was rather funny and a nice way to pass an evening or two.

Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast by Oscar Wilde

I thought this was going to be a short story but it was actually just a collection of Wilde’s witticisms, Funny as they are I was a little disappointed.

Colour and Light & Concord 34 by Sally Rooney

I read a couple of Sally Rooney’s short stories to try and get on backtrack with my (totally impossible) 75 books in a year challenge, which I didn’t but I like reading a good short story nonetheless. I like Rooney’s writing and I like how she navigates heavy topics in a sensitive but real way.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

I like the David Fincher movie so I thought I would check out the source material. I think its a case of the film is better than the book, in the respect of dealing with the whole Tyler Durden revelation and the iconic ending scene has much more power than the cop-out ending of the book.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

I cried. And I can’t believe I only have 2 more books to go before I’ve finished Harry Potter, I only started listening to the audiobooks last year and I’m already nearly finished! Once again I have to commend Stephen Fry on bringing these stories to life with his exceptional narration and I feel like he adds a lot of magic to the stories.

Books I Haven't Finished (Yet!)

I love reading, it is one of my favourite things to do, but sometimes life gets in the way. So here is a collection of books that I have started reading but am yet to finish.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

I started reading this book years ago, and I mean years. There is photographic evidence of me reading the book on one of our family holidays to Greece, when I was 10! So that was way back in 2003! I think I got up to something like chapter 11 or 12 and then I just stopped, I lost where I was in the book and the next time I picked it up I just couldn’t remember what had happened in the story. 15 years later I still haven’t read the book. Will I read it someday? No, I’ll just get Stephen Fry to read it to me on audible.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Quite often I have a love hate relationship with classics, their language is beautiful but archaic, they are problematic in their depictions of Women, other ethnicities and social issues when read from a modern point of view. And so on. But Dorian Gray, I really wanted to love it, and maybe I just attempted to read it at the wrong time, but I found it, dare I say…boring.

1Q84 part 1&2

I love Murakami, I love what I’ve read of 1Q84 so far, but I started reading the book at a really stupid time, just before I started my French module in Uni. That year came and went so quickly and I then had to start reading what has felt like 1 million books for this years studies and as such 1Q84 has sat patiently on the shelf, same for Killing Commendatore too. I promise I’ll get to you two this summer!

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

I received a ebook copy of this book before it was published, I read some of it, but for a reason I can’t remember I stopped reading it. This book has since been so hyped that I’m kind of curious to get back into it and finish the story as I did get quite a way into the narrative.

A Discovery of Witches

Having watched the Sky TV Series based on this book I naturally bought it immediately and started reading it, however it is a rather large book and there have been several novels that I have had to prioritise reading as they are in my course and most likely in my exam in June. So I will have to rediscover A Discovery of Witches this summer.

Le Petit Prince

I set myself the goal of reading a French book in its entirety last year, I failed but I did get quite a ways into Le Petit Prince which is probably the most famous French book from the 20th century. I will dive back into it as I still want to achieve this goal, and hopefully it will also help improve my french so that I can start reading more complex french novels!

So that’s all the books that I started reading and haven’t quite got round to finishing. I wonder how many of these I can get finished this year, shall I aim to get them all read in 2019? Let me know in the comments section what you think!