Cue the fanfare… my Reading Bingo card is complete!!
A Book with More Than 500 pages:
Under the Dome, by Stephen King
(1,074 pages, published November 10, 2009 by Scribner)
2.5 stars
500 pages??? Pffftt. Where’s the challenge in that? I could read 500 pages with one hand tied behind my back. Tell you what… I’ll read a thousand pages for this square. Enter Under the Dome. (Note: I technically could have read this one with one hand tied behind my back anyway, seeing as how I used my Kobo. The hardcover weighs 3.6 lbs; no way was I carting that around!) There was only one problem with this plan… those thousand pages weren’t all that great. You’ve probably guessed from my book snobbery that Stephen King is not my usual type of read, but I’ve enjoyed a couple of his books, and so this one has been on my radar for a couple of years. I figured I’d be immersed in a gripping – though likely eerie and/or creepy – supernatural tale. But this wasn’t so much about the supernatural as it was about all the horrible things that horrible people in a small town will do to one another when the supernatural occurs. Some stretches of the book are better than others. When it came to the climax of the story line, and more of a focus on that supernatural element, I did have a hard time putting it down. But for the most part, the writing is lackluster and the characters formulaic. (Maybe the book was just more of a letdown than it should have been because I read it immediately on the heels of a month solid of prize fiction.) My feelings on Dome won’t stop me from trying another of King’s novels in future, or from recommending one to you now: 11/22/63 is top-notch!
A Forgotten Classic:
The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot
(598 pages, published 2010 by Premier Classics (first published 1860))
4 stars
Here’s another category where I wasn’t sure how to go about choosing the book. If a book is forgotten, how will I remember to read it? No matter, I’ll pick something that’s a classic, but that’s not super-popular these days, and that should cover me. Now to narrow it down… I haven’t read any Victorian literature in a while. And I think I’ll try an author I’ve never read before. How about George Eliot? Middlemarch was in vogue this year (thanks to Rebecca Mead’s memoir My Life in Middlemarch) so that’s clearly not the one. And what do you know, here’s The Mill on the Floss on display at the bookstore for $5. Bingo! I mean, Reading Bingo! Like many other works from 19th-century England, The Mill on the Floss is full of social commentary, and romance, and ladies and gentlemen addressing each other in a version of English that I wish we still spoke today. The particular focus in this one is on duty to one’s family. The whole way through the book I was enjoying it, but also thinking to myself, “This is pretty good, but Eliot’s no Dickens or Hardy – I haven’t even cried once yet.” And then, wham! She waited until THE SECOND-LAST PAGE to hit me with the big tragedy. So I got my crying jag after all, and that makes me happy.
(By the way, does anyone know why some pen names stick, and other don’t? All three Brontë sisters published under male pseudonyms, but we know them as Anne, Charlotte and Emily. Yet here we have Mary Ann Evans, who did the same, and remains commonly known as George Eliot. What gives?)
So, I guess that’s a wrap! Big thank you to Random House of Canada for the Reading Bingo fun. And an even bigger thank you to YOU, for reading my ramblings, and for your comments and encouragement. Will I do it again next year? If they offer it, I will! I think I’ll do it differently though. Locking myself in month by month was stressing me out a bit. So maybe I’ll just check in with Reading Bingo a few times over the course of the year. Which means I’ll have to come up with other ideas for bookish posts to keep this conversation of ours going!
Don’t forget to send me your Reading Bingo books in the next few weeks, so I can post your cards at the end of the year.