The Novella Challenge

Now here's a challenge that can help me reach my goal of 100 books this year - the Novella Challenge - you have to choose 6 novellas and read them between April and September. And luckily for me, it seems that ones already read this year can count if you want them to. I want them to. ;-)

A novella is meant to have between 100 and 250 pages - some ideas are available on the challenge blog, more are out there on the web, look around. I have already read three that qualify:

1. Stardust by Neil Gaiman
2. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
3. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

and I plan to read another three (probably more!) from the following list:

Animal Farm by George Orwell
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho
The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Gabriel's Gift by Hanif Kureishi

I am not a sane person.

Yep. I went to the bookstore again. The used bookstore, so it didn't cost me very much, but still! And when I go I tend to get everything I want, I have no self-restraint. I'm blogging about it so that I can keep track of my habit. Oh it makes me so happy, here's what I got this time:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Summer Sisters by Judy Blume
A Model World and Other Stories by Michael Chabon
Mourning Ruby by Helen Dunmore
Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella
The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
I Don't Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson
One True Thing by Anna Quindlen
The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks
Heaven and Earth by Nora Roberts
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
Affinity by Sarah Waters

Pretty good for a small second-hand book store in Brussels!

Eva Luna

Chilean author Isabel Allende has a real knack for weaving fantastic stories. My favorite book of hers is still The House of the Spirits, but Eva Luna is also excellent. The book follows Eva's life from poor beginnings to a strange influence on her country's fate. And, wow, is her life colorful! The people she meets, the decisions she makes, the life she ends up leading - the reader certainly doesn't get bored.

The story takes place in Chile and shows what life in a struggling South American nation, with both the good and the bad there for us to examine; a sort of political commentary is present somewhere in there too. It's because of all this that the book has so many layers.

Five stars - the storytelling is incredible.