bohemien fleur
"I am simply a 'book drunkard.' Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them." --L.M. Montgomery
"I read like a bee and write like a butterfly!" --Altered quote from Philip Pullman
My love of books comes from my mum; when I was a child, I would explore her books often... more »
"I read like a bee and write like a butterfly!" --Altered quote from Philip Pullman
My love of books comes from my mum; when I was a child, I would explore her books often... more »
"I am simply a 'book drunkard.' Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them." --L.M. Montgomery
"I read like a bee and write like a butterfly!" --Altered quote from Philip Pullman
My love of books comes from my mum; when I was a child, I would explore her books often and we went to the bookstore a lot, sometimes almost every weekend. I would discover a new novel at least once a month, but most of all, I loved looking at my mum's archaeology coffee-table books, filled with photographs of faraway places.
Throughout my youth, I read way too much fantasy, and my head was in the clouds! During high school I read the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, which opened up my mind and got me interested in philosophy and religious studies. It is my favorite novel. I then moved on to historical fiction, until I discovered many of them to be too inaccurate; even so, I still read them, although I am very picky as to which ones I read. I unfortunately missed out on the advanced English classes in high school in order to take advanced art, and so, I have not read many of the "classics." I am currently working on catching up on them now! Although, generally, I have set the fantasy genre aside, I still read such books, from time to time. As Ursula K. Le Guin said, "Fantasy is true, of course. It isn't factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy. They know that it challenges, even threatens, all that is phony, unnecessary, and trivial in the life they have let themselves be forced into living."
As I said, I dislike poorly written historical fiction (i.e Philippa Gregory), hokey fantasy (i.e. Forgotten Realms), and mainstream/best-seller "inspirational" spiritual and self-help books (i.e. Eat, Pray, Love and The Secret). So, I am currently reading the "classics," novels like Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, contemporary Japanese literature, like Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto, and other thought-provoking novels, like The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, in addition to some fantasy novels, like A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin.
As the author Zadie Smith said in an interview with KCRW's Bookworm program, "But the problem with readers, the idea we’re given of reading is that the model of a reader is the person watching a film, or watching television. So the greatest principle is, 'I should sit here and I should be entertained.' And the more classical model, which has been completely taken away, is the idea of a reader as an amateur musician. An amateur musician who sits at the piano, has a piece of music, which is the work, made by somebody they don’t know, who they probably couldn’t comprehend entirely, and they have to use their skills to play this piece of music. The greater the skill, the greater the gift that you give the artist and that the artist gives you. That’s the incredibly unfashionable idea of reading. And yet when you practice reading, and you work at a text, it can only give you what you put into it. It’s an old moral, but it’s completely true."
I definitely agree that most reading done by many people today is done more for entertainment purposes then for real learning. Flaky romance novels, like The Other Boleyn Girl, hokey fantasy novels, and watered-down spiritual books, like Eat, Pray, Love, are making Oprah's Book Club and The New York Times bestseller lists instead of true pieces of art. Even so, I would disagree that this is a completely bad thing; although I think that many people should expand their horizons and move beyond some of these books, and even read books that may make them feel uncomfortable, reading for entertainment purposes is alright, from time to time. Harry Potter and Twilight have gotten young people reading, which is a wonderful thing! And reading definitely beats watching television and having your brains turned to mush!
I am also interested in writing, and for a while in high school, I was set on becoming a novelist. I do not think that this dream is completely dead, but I am definitely not as passionate about writing as I was back then. Completing one novel is, however, on my list of things to do before I die. As Haruki Murakami said, "Writing novels, to me, is basically a kind of manual labor. Writing itself is mental labor, but finishing an entire book is closer to manual labor. It doesn’t involve heavy lifting, running fast, or leaping high. Most people, though, only see the surface reality of writing and think of writers as involved in quiet, intellectual work done in their study. If you have the strength to lift a coffee cup, they figure, you can write a novel. But once you try your hand at it, you soon find that it isn’t as peaceful a job as it seems. The whole process—sitting at your desk, focusing your mind like a laser beam, imagining something out of a blank horizon, creating a story, selecting the right words, one by one, keeping the whole flow of the story on track—requires far more energy, over a long period, than most people ever imagine. You might not move your body around, but there’s grueling, dynamic labor going on inside you. Everybody uses their mind when they think. But a writer puts on an outfit called narrative and thinks with his entire being, and for the novelist that process requires putting into play all your physical reserve, often to the point of overexertion."
In addition to novels, I also like to read some manga and watch a lot of anime. My list of anime/manga can be found here: http://myanimelist.net/profile/bohemien_fleur.
Novels I have read in 2009 (38 so far):
--Real World by Natsuo Kirino (1/8/09)
--Six Novels by Colette (Claudine at School by Colette [1/14/09]; Gigi by Colette [1/15/09]; Mitsou by Colette [1/19/09]; Chéri by Colette [1/23/09]; The Last of Chéri by Colette [1/26/09]; Music-Hall Sidelights by Colette [1/30/09])
--The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1/30/09)
--In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami (2/4/09)
--Out by Natsuo Kirino (2/13/09)
--Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (2/17/09)
--The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (2/23/09)
--The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (3/8/09)
--Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (3/12/09)
--Women of Silk by Gail Tsukiyama (3/16/09)
--New Moon by Stephanie Meyer (4/2/09)
--The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt (4/2/09)
--Number9Dream by David Mitchell (4/15/09)
--Children of God by Maria Doria Russel (4/26/09)
--Autobiography of a Geisha by Sayo Masuda (4/29/09)
--Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (5/17/09)
--Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel by Jonathan Safran Foer (5/19/09)
--Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (5/21/09)
--Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (5/26/09)
--Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens (5/26/09)
--The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (6/3/09)
--Ghostwritten by David Mitchell (6/15/09)
--20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo (6/18/09)
--Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (7/1/09)
--Naomi by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (7/26/09)
--The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima (8/2/09)
--Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (8/9/09)
--Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (8/18/09)
--Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (8/27/09)
--A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami (9/1/09)
--A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (9/6/09)
--Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakmai (9/16/09)
--After Dark by Haruki Murakami (10/12/09) « less
"I read like a bee and write like a butterfly!" --Altered quote from Philip Pullman
My love of books comes from my mum; when I was a child, I would explore her books often and we went to the bookstore a lot, sometimes almost every weekend. I would discover a new novel at least once a month, but most of all, I loved looking at my mum's archaeology coffee-table books, filled with photographs of faraway places.
Throughout my youth, I read way too much fantasy, and my head was in the clouds! During high school I read the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, which opened up my mind and got me interested in philosophy and religious studies. It is my favorite novel. I then moved on to historical fiction, until I discovered many of them to be too inaccurate; even so, I still read them, although I am very picky as to which ones I read. I unfortunately missed out on the advanced English classes in high school in order to take advanced art, and so, I have not read many of the "classics." I am currently working on catching up on them now! Although, generally, I have set the fantasy genre aside, I still read such books, from time to time. As Ursula K. Le Guin said, "Fantasy is true, of course. It isn't factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy. They know that it challenges, even threatens, all that is phony, unnecessary, and trivial in the life they have let themselves be forced into living."
As I said, I dislike poorly written historical fiction (i.e Philippa Gregory), hokey fantasy (i.e. Forgotten Realms), and mainstream/best-seller "inspirational" spiritual and self-help books (i.e. Eat, Pray, Love and The Secret). So, I am currently reading the "classics," novels like Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, contemporary Japanese literature, like Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto, and other thought-provoking novels, like The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, in addition to some fantasy novels, like A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin.
As the author Zadie Smith said in an interview with KCRW's Bookworm program, "But the problem with readers, the idea we’re given of reading is that the model of a reader is the person watching a film, or watching television. So the greatest principle is, 'I should sit here and I should be entertained.' And the more classical model, which has been completely taken away, is the idea of a reader as an amateur musician. An amateur musician who sits at the piano, has a piece of music, which is the work, made by somebody they don’t know, who they probably couldn’t comprehend entirely, and they have to use their skills to play this piece of music. The greater the skill, the greater the gift that you give the artist and that the artist gives you. That’s the incredibly unfashionable idea of reading. And yet when you practice reading, and you work at a text, it can only give you what you put into it. It’s an old moral, but it’s completely true."
I definitely agree that most reading done by many people today is done more for entertainment purposes then for real learning. Flaky romance novels, like The Other Boleyn Girl, hokey fantasy novels, and watered-down spiritual books, like Eat, Pray, Love, are making Oprah's Book Club and The New York Times bestseller lists instead of true pieces of art. Even so, I would disagree that this is a completely bad thing; although I think that many people should expand their horizons and move beyond some of these books, and even read books that may make them feel uncomfortable, reading for entertainment purposes is alright, from time to time. Harry Potter and Twilight have gotten young people reading, which is a wonderful thing! And reading definitely beats watching television and having your brains turned to mush!
I am also interested in writing, and for a while in high school, I was set on becoming a novelist. I do not think that this dream is completely dead, but I am definitely not as passionate about writing as I was back then. Completing one novel is, however, on my list of things to do before I die. As Haruki Murakami said, "Writing novels, to me, is basically a kind of manual labor. Writing itself is mental labor, but finishing an entire book is closer to manual labor. It doesn’t involve heavy lifting, running fast, or leaping high. Most people, though, only see the surface reality of writing and think of writers as involved in quiet, intellectual work done in their study. If you have the strength to lift a coffee cup, they figure, you can write a novel. But once you try your hand at it, you soon find that it isn’t as peaceful a job as it seems. The whole process—sitting at your desk, focusing your mind like a laser beam, imagining something out of a blank horizon, creating a story, selecting the right words, one by one, keeping the whole flow of the story on track—requires far more energy, over a long period, than most people ever imagine. You might not move your body around, but there’s grueling, dynamic labor going on inside you. Everybody uses their mind when they think. But a writer puts on an outfit called narrative and thinks with his entire being, and for the novelist that process requires putting into play all your physical reserve, often to the point of overexertion."
In addition to novels, I also like to read some manga and watch a lot of anime. My list of anime/manga can be found here: http://myanimelist.net/profile/bohemien_fleur.
Novels I have read in 2009 (38 so far):
--Real World by Natsuo Kirino (1/8/09)
--Six Novels by Colette (Claudine at School by Colette [1/14/09]; Gigi by Colette [1/15/09]; Mitsou by Colette [1/19/09]; Chéri by Colette [1/23/09]; The Last of Chéri by Colette [1/26/09]; Music-Hall Sidelights by Colette [1/30/09])
--The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1/30/09)
--In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami (2/4/09)
--Out by Natsuo Kirino (2/13/09)
--Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (2/17/09)
--The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (2/23/09)
--The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (3/8/09)
--Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (3/12/09)
--Women of Silk by Gail Tsukiyama (3/16/09)
--New Moon by Stephanie Meyer (4/2/09)
--The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt (4/2/09)
--Number9Dream by David Mitchell (4/15/09)
--Children of God by Maria Doria Russel (4/26/09)
--Autobiography of a Geisha by Sayo Masuda (4/29/09)
--Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (5/17/09)
--Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel by Jonathan Safran Foer (5/19/09)
--Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (5/21/09)
--Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (5/26/09)
--Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens (5/26/09)
--The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (6/3/09)
--Ghostwritten by David Mitchell (6/15/09)
--20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo (6/18/09)
--Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (7/1/09)
--Naomi by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (7/26/09)
--The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima (8/2/09)
--Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (8/9/09)
--Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (8/18/09)
--Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (8/27/09)
--A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami (9/1/09)
--A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (9/6/09)
--Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakmai (9/16/09)
--After Dark by Haruki Murakami (10/12/09) « less
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- member since June 8 2008
