"Sophie's Choice" by William Styron

Well this certainly was a long and hard read. It took me ages to get through it really did, and usually I'm quite a fast reader.

I'm not entirely sure where to start. The narrator, and I suppose the main character of this book, is a young twenty two year old man named Stingo. How to describe Stingo... In three words I would say that Stingo is self obsessed, horny and madly in love with Sophie.

I didn't like Stingo very much, which was fairly annoying seeing as he was the one telling the whole story, the story being the one of the relationship between Sophie and her boyfriend Nathan in the year 1947, just after the war. And they don't exactly have a stable and easygoing relationship that's for certain.

He also tells us of Sophie's life in Auschwitz during the war.

Stingo meets Sophie and Nathan when he takes lodgings in a home in Brooklyn. Nathan is an American Jew and Sophie is a Polish Catholic who survived imprisonment in Auschwitz.

Throughout the entire book you follow Stingo slowly unravelling the secrets of Sophie's past. At first it seems like there is not much to discover, she only says that she survived. But more Stingo gets to know Sophie, and the closer he gets to her the more he, and through him we, realise just how much she went through, and what terrible thinks she's rather no one ever knew. You have to go through all of her lies and half truths before you finally get to the truth.

All that plus the actual present relationship of Nathan and Sophie as I said before. Nathan is quite deranged and Sophie is completely devoted and infatuated with him. So you can see how that might not exactly be a healthy relationship.

I don't know. It's a good book, the story is sad but well written. My only actual problem is that I really disliked Stingo. Other than that I have no real complaints.

"Making Money" by Terry Pratchett

The Discworld series is one of my all time most favourite book series, and it has been for a while. I've been reading Terry Pratchett books since I was nine years old, and they just keep getting better and better every time I reread them.

I'm not sure how many times I've read "Making Money". I've read it more than once that's for sure. It's one of my favourite Discworld novels.

"Making Money" is the sequel to "Going Postal" (also brilliant by the way), but you don't need to have read the first book to understand or enjoy it.

The main characters name is Moist Von Lipwig (not joking, that's his actual name), and he is a criminal turned respectable gentleman. In "Making Money" he is given the job if restoring the city's bank to it's former glory, so that the city's leader, that is to say tyrant, can borrow some money to modernise the city.

Thus begins a hilarious chain of events.

There's also a few very well developed side plots, that are eventually very important for the development of the main plot.

Really though it is a wonderful story. The plot is great, the humour is fantastic, and the pacing is spot on. Terry Pratchett is one of my very favourite actors and so far he has completely failed to disappoint me, for which I am eternally grateful.

So please read this. Please do. It's wonderful it really is.

"The Seeker" by Sudhir Kakar

This is a novel that works like a type of biography. The plot follows the story of the friendship between Mahatma Gandhi and an English woman named Madeleine Slade (also known by her nickname Mira, and who was a real person who actually existed).

It was quite good because it told the story from the point of view of a man who loved Gandhi telling the story of a woman who loved Gandhi, and from their point of views you get to see and observe Gandhi himself. You see?

In fact this woman, Mira/Madeleine Slade, loved Gandhi so much that in 1925 she left England, her family and her entire lifestyle and culture behind to go join him in his Ashram in Sabarmati. She gave up meat and alcohol and sleeping in a bed, all for him.

She made a a vow and promised to remain celibate for the rest of her days, and she promised to serve him faithfully in his mission to free India from the British in a completely non violent way.

Throughout the book you see just how devoted to Gandhi Mira was. She believed in him to such an extent that in her mind he became a sort of God. What's funny about this is that not only was Mira English, but her father was a British admiral. She pretty much swapped sides and gave up everything to follow her new God.

But what I found particularly interesting about "The Seeker" are the glances into Gandhi's personal life and how he really was. Mira became a great friend of his you see, and she was one of his closest disciples. And he was harsh with her sometimes, just like he was harsh with all his closest friends and family members.

He could be quite demanding and if you made what he considered a mistake he would get angry.

I love Gandhi because of his views on non violence and all that, just like a lot of people. The fact that he was flawed and could get angry doesn't make me like him any less, it actually just makes him seem far more human.

In any case this was a very interesting read, and it told the story of Gandhi's mission towards building a non violent freedom fighter army in a fairly clear and direct way.

The "A song of ice and fire" series by George R. R. Martin

First of all let me start off by saying that these books are huge. Like really, really tremendously big. I had to get up and check but every book is about 1000 pages long.

It took me quite a long time to read these and I admit I took a little break after book 3 before continuing on with books 4 and 5. Not because they weren't brilliant but because my brain had become entirely saturated with the plots and the intrigues of the series.

Also heartbreak. Lots and lots of heartbreak. Heartbreak is not something that these books lack that's for certain.

How to explain these books. "A song of ice and fire" is a medieval fantasy series, and in this series everyone wants the throne. And so throughout the series we see the perspectives of multiple pretenders to the throne. Some demand it, some are trying to keep it, some believe it's theirs to take back, and some believe it's theirs to take away.

There is no true baddie. And there are no real good guys either. At the beginning you might absolutely hate this one character and you just want him to die. And then he (or she) is redeemed. And vice versa.

Another thing in "A song of ice and fire"? No character is safe. Not one. Everyone and anyone can die at any moment. This series is so full of twists and turns you would hardly believe it. In book 5 some characters have ended up in places and situations you never would have guessed in book 1. 

If you are wondering why I haven't spoken about the main character yet it's because there is no one main character but instead there are dozens. And I guarantee that you will end up having at least three favourites that are on opposite sides. So basically no mater whoever wins the throne we will all end up in tears.

There are still two more books to come out in "A song if ice and fire" so I don't know who will win in the end. Only George R. R. Martin himself knows I imagine. This man has killed off so many beloved characters I'm actually afraid for the next two books. Excited yes. But very, very afraid.

And on one last note I would tell you (if you didn't already know, and I'd be surprised frankly if you didn't) that "A song of ice and fire" is being adapted into a television series by HBO (so expect nudity and violence) called "Game of Thrones", and it is fantastic, just like the books. That's how I personally found out about the books in the first place, I watched the show (don't anyone dare judge me).

So all of you reading this go on and read this series and watch it too! It's brilliant, absolutely fucking brilliant.

"House of many ways" by Diana Wynne Jones

"House of many ways" is the sequel to "Howls moving castle". It's a kids book at it's good enough for children I guess.

I was however quite disappointed with this book. I enjoyed "Howls moving castle" very much which is why I got the sequel in the first place. But "House of many ways" didn't have the same charms as Howl did.

First of all the main characters in Howl became secondary characters and news characters were introduced. I had been looking forward to seeing the old characters so this was quite disappointing I have to say.

Then there's the fact that I found the story to be paced far too fast. There was no time to digest any of the information before brand new information was thrown at your face.

And last of all the plot wasn't as interesting as the plot in Howl, and the magic in it wasn't half as charming and as lovely to imagine.

So all in all the plot wasn't a bad plot, and the story wasn't a bad story, it's just that "House of many ways" didn't live up to its predecessor.

I didn't hate this book. But I didn't love it or enjoy it all that much either. I much preferred "Howl's moving castle".

"The Host" by Stephenie Meyer

I didn't want to read "the Host" at first because the Twilight Saga hadn't impressed me all that much. Not that I hated it, because I didn't. I say this because Twilight is one of those books that people either hate or love. I didn't hate Twilight, but I didn't love it either. There, now that that's out of the way...

"The Host" was lent to me by a friend who convinced me to read it. And I was pleasantly surprised because I enjoyed very much. I found it interesting and quite sweet. Also the concept of the alien life forms invading earth was really cool here. Not cheesy as most alien invasions are, at least in my eyes.

In this case the aliens are actually these parasite type creatures who take over the bodies of the life forms occupying the invaded planet. And they're very peaceful creatures who don't like conflict or war or any of that stuff. So obviously they invade us. Which isn't conflictual or warish at all, no, no...

Anyway, what happens usually when the aliens take over the host body is that the previous consciousness of the human is erased. But this is the story of a girl who resists the invasion of her own body. So the alien (named wanderer) and the girl (Melanie) kind of have to learn to live with one another, seeing as they have to share a body.

It's also a love story. Melanie is in love with a man named Jared, and Wanderer feels Melanie's emotions and so falls in love with him too. And then madness ensues...

It's a good story. I definitely would recommend.

"The Age of Miracles" by Karen Thompson Walker

My auntie lent me this book on the condition that I read it in a day, because my cousin was also reading it. So it wasn't really lent to me. I guess i was pretty much ordered to plow through the thing because my auntie had liked it and thought I would too.

I read it in under five hours to my cousins shock. I don't think she expected I could read that fast. But hey! I was under pressure.

This is a story about the end of the world. But it's the slowest end of the world I've ever read about.

Basically the world starts to spin slower and slower, and so days start to get longer and longer. Days go from 24 hours long, to 26.5 hours, to 34 hours, and so on.

No one knows why this is happening. At first no one even noticed. But once they did the problems just flowed in and they didn't stop coming.

The story is told from the point of view of an eleven year old girl named Julia, who watches the world fall apart right in front of her. She explains to the reader how everything that was taken for granted in the world can no longer be relied on.

The entire world just implodes. Plants and animals start to die out, people panic and start running even though there is no where to run to, people start getting sick, crops die...

And all this happens very slowly, Julia only tells us how the world survived the first year of this disaster. She tells us about how people reacted, how some panicked completely, and how some just acted as if nothing was wrong.

An interesting and quite read. If you're interested in apocalyptic stories I do recommend this book. It's terrifyingly realistic.