Tess of the d’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

Your relationship with your favourite book is not unlike what you have with your most favourite person in the world – they drive you nuts, they have ridiculous quirks, they can quite possibly annoy the bloody crap out of you, but you still love the heck out of them, you find them hilarious and you want to spend all your time with them.

That’s me and Tess. So many times have I cursed her idiodicy for listening to her equally idiotic mother, her foolishness for getting back on that bloody cab with that unfortunately (for Tess) named Alec d’Urberville, for that stupid note under the rug. Oh the pain! The PAIN!

The Rachel Papers – Martin Amis

So I don’t really have anything against this book, but I kinda didn’t like it. Like I kinda didn’t like Charles Highway – not in a ‘I freaking hate his guts’ kinda dislike, but more of a ‘what’s that bad smell’ kinda dislike.

Currently Reading: The Rachel Papers – Martin Amis

Gosh. It’s always great knowing someone who has a bigger collection of books than you do. Thanks Panty Shanty – I hope you never find out that I am only using you for your books…

Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami

I always get a bit nervous when talking about Japanese or Japanese-influenced books (of course, with the exception of Memoirs of a Geisha – totally made up by a white man) simply because there is so much to Shintoism that is so different from western culture. Kafka on the Shore is no different.

There is a whimsical quality to this novel and general avoidance of answers that is typical of Japanese art and way of living. These are also qualities that would rightly piss people off in any other book, but surprisingly, Kafka (and the rest of the Murakami collection) is much loved by the Australian reading population. Maybe Kafka on the Shore offers the true example of someone accepting and just going with the flow, a quality that Australians love to say that they possess.

Or (and this is probably more likely) the other possiblity is that Aussies love how Murakami makes Colonel Sanders a pimp. And what a rockin’ pimp he is!

The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood

The Blind Assassin the first time around sucked butt. The second time, it was better, but I got bored. The third? Well… it was just amazing. Spectacular. Set it’s place on the list my top ten faves. Weird, eh?

Books are, I think, like relationships. Sometimes you just aren’t ready to be with the people who you have recently met by chance. They are people who you would be perfect with ten years later. People who, if you had your time with them again at a later date, may be the one you want to spend your life with. Pity you can’t just put someone on the shelf until you are ready (well, some people try…).

The Real Inspector Hound – Tom Stoppard

YOU DON’T READ PLAYS, you might yell at me. PLAYS ARE WRITTEN TO BE WATCHED, NOT READ!

And to that, I say two things:

1) STOP SHOUTING AT ME!

2) You’re right. And wrong. 

You see, while the history of plays has always told us that they were always performed to an audience, we always forget that said audience were, in fact, unlearned, illiterate and predispositioned to heckling. The proliferation of literacy in society means that the reading and writing of scripts is an artform reserved no longer for the exclusive classes of learning, but for any man, woman and child. 

Saying that, I must say that Stoppard is definitely a dish best had performed. He writes slapstick like none other. He makes literary quips like a rubber duck in tepid bath water. He, quite frankly, is a genius. Genius of the eye and of the pretentious academic mind.

But then again, so is The Simpsons.