Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Classics I Read in School

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I am so bad at keeping up with these lists...which is sad because they're so fun! Going to strive to do better, and I have a few book reviews backed up too, so hopefully that means a lot of activity here for this little blog soon. Anyway, this week's topic for Top Ten Tuesday over at The Broke and the Bookish is "back to school" and it's a freebie, meaning you can pick how you want to approach your personal list. I have chosen to select the top ten classic works of literature that I read over my schooling years, possibly including college, but not likely. Granted, it's a bit different than if I had been in school; half of these I don't recall if I read them for school or for fun. But being homeschooled makes the lines a bit blurred, and I can't say I'm upset about that! So, here is my list, in no particular order.

1. Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen
     Obviously I had to include P&P, because this set off a lifelong obsession with all things Regency.

2. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
     I distinctly do remember reading this one for fun when I was seventeen, though I think I did write a short paper on it for my mom because it made such an impact on me.

3. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo
     This was my first foray into French literature and it totally blew me away.

4. All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque
     I read this one three times, once in high school, twice in college (one of those for fun). Not as old as the other books on this list, but every inch a classic and a book I tell everyone they should read.

5. Silas Marner, by George Eliot
     Haha, this one I fought with my mom about...it sounded so boring when she wanted me to read it (I think I was in 8th grade?). And the print in our copy made it hard to read, but I struggled through it and found at the end that it really wasn't that bad. I'm thinking of rereading it in the next few years.

6. The Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan
     This is my very first review on my blog! I've read it a few times throughout my life. Always excellent.

7. Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott
     Initially I read this for school, in junior high I think, and got an abridged copy from the library that took me only two hours to read and I was left thinking a lot was missing. Mom suggested I find an unabridged copy, which I did, and that ended up taking me three weeks to read haha. But a seriously amazing story, I love it so much. One of the books that fueled my love of medieval England.

8. The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri
     This I definitely read in college, because I took a class on it. I had read short excerpts in the past, but always only from Inferno, and I was beyond ecstatic that my favorite professor was going to teach on the entire work. It was one of the best classes I ever took (all of his classes were the best, tbh), and I now own three different translations and like to tell everyone they should read the entire thing. [Yeah, you reading this, go read Dante!]

9. The Epic of Gilgamesh, author unknown
     I believe I read this in junior high or my first year of high school, not sure. (The years blur because there's not really such a thing as grade separations when you're homeschooled haha.) It was on my classical literature list and I didn't fight about this one at all, because I adore old, old, old literature. The translation I read was really awesome too, easy for me to read. Wish I could remember which one it was.

10. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll
     I would be remiss if I didn't include this on my list!! The first hundred times I read it were totally for fun, but the culmination of my college career was my senior seminar on Alice, so I spent a lot of time reading and rereading while I worked on that. It's definitely one of my favorite books of all time, despite that it's technically a children's book.

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There you have it, my top ten classics read in school!! As I was writing this list, I actually had to pare down and pick and choose, because there were a lot more than ten...classics were always something I loved very much.

Battle Royale

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Sometimes, you read a novel that just sticks with you.
Sometimes that novel is one you've wanted to read for ages, but only recently got your hands on a copy because time and forgetfulness are real.
Sometimes said novel is everything you hoped for and more.
Sometimes you can't stop thinking about the characters, even a month later.

Sometimes...
...a book changes your life.

Most recently for me, that book was the very violent but absolutely incredible Japanese novel from 1999 called Battle Royale. I kid you not, this was an almost 600 page book with small print that I read in less than 24 hours because I just could not put it down. People call it the original Hunger Games, and also liken it to Lord of the Flies, and I see it. But it's better than the latter, and also hugely better than the former, which I am 99.9% certain is a total ripoff. (There's just too many similarities, guys. Suzanne Collins, at least for the first book, really had to have ripped off Battle Royale. Anyway, I digress.) All that aside, this book was just sooooooooo good. If you don't handle rather graphic descriptions of violence and gore well, I would suggest you stay away, but if you don't have a problem with it, read it. Really. There's so much socio-political stuff, and getting inside the heads of the teenage characters when they are faced with certain death (at the hands of their classmates, no less), is fascinating. Human nature is well explored in this novel, which I find interesting from a Christian standpoint because Japan is so different from most of the Western world in how they view humanity. And yet, the depravity of the human soul is shown so well, as is the fragility. It's so sad and yet so beautiful in its own way, amongst all the killings. I know that sounds so weird, but it's true.

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I don't have anything else I feel I can say at this point about Battle Royale. You will just have to read it for yourself to see just how beautiful it really is. Beyond five stars.

The Moor's Account

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Historical fiction is a really great genre to read, but it seems to be dominated by tales set in Europe, specifically England. At least in my experience. And I will admit, I used to mainly read books set in England because I've always been an Anglophile. However, with my quest to continue to read outside my comfort zone and knowledge set, I've discovered some fairly interesting tidbits of history. For instance, reading The Moor's Account, by Laila Lalami, gave me insight into a much lesser-known Spanish expedition to the New World (aka North America) in the early 1500s, the Narvaez Expedition. Not only is the book about an expedition we don't usually learn about in school, but (as per the title) it's told through the eyes of a black man from North Africa, a Moor, who is a slave. He is the first recorded black man to set foot on the continent. The author lists her sources at the back of the book and I'm really curious to do more research at some point.

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Mustafa ibn Muhammad ibn Abdussalam al-Zamori, renamed Estebanico when he was brought to Spain, tells his story as a member of the Narvaez Expedition to find gold and colonize La Florida, and gives a unique perspective as he talks about present-day events and being a slave to a man of the expedition, Dorantes, but also in how he tells the story of his birth and upbringing as the son of a well-to-do notary in Azemmur, a city in Morocco. He explains, throughout the ill-fated journey, how he came to be a slave, even after he was a slaver for some time himself. As the expedition journeys through Florida and encounter many Indians, things become increasingly difficult, and most of the members of the group die. Estebanico does not get involved in the politics of the Spaniards, instead befriending the Indians when possible, and helping out wherever needed. The group loses their way and ends up in the Land of Corn, which is essentially the modern-day plains, likely Texas. Things become bad enough that even his master says he will grant his freedom if they ever make it out alive. Eventually, after much, much wandering, and many long years, the small group left is rescued and taken to Mexico. There, Estebanico continually reminds Dorantes of his promise, and Dorantes continually puts it off. At this point they have married Indian women and Estebanico is the only one who actually intends to keep his vows after being rescued. At last, Dorantes has refused to let him go free for too long, so Estebanico takes advantage of the fact that he's been asked to lead another expedition, and he and his wife go, leaving no traces behind them.

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Okay so that review is a bit muddled, but to be fair I read the book almost a month ago and took too long to write my review! Also, the story itself is muddled, being a tale of harrowing adventure and certain death, as well as being interspersed with vignettes from the past. And because it was written like a journal, there were no quotation marks, which honestly drove me mad. All other punctuation was great, and I realize this was a stylistic choice on the part of the author, but gah, it was annoying. Anyway, it was a great story, though I have to admit I felt that the author also took a lot of liberty in portraying white Christians as always evil, and the black Muslim as super pious and never taking any part in gruesome or promiscuous acts. But, that is her choice too, and it didn't detract enough from the story to make me quit reading.

So, I did love the book, though it was tough to follow at points. The landscape descriptions were fantastic, and it was really easy to feel the different environments they traveled through. I would encourage anyone interested in historical fiction to pick it up, especially if you have a particular interest in Spanish expeditions. And I would welcome any recommendations for historical fiction that isn't English!

5 Centimeters Per Second

Ahhh Japan, how I do love thee. Your food, your culture, your music...and your anime and manga. Nothing quite compares, and when people dismiss anime and manga, they're really missing out. It's not "just cartoons and comic books" and definitely not "just for kids". This isn't American Saturday morning stuff, guys, though there's shows of that type. It's an entire art form in and of itself, with multiple genres. There is literally something for everyone. And it really irks me when someone won't even attempt to understand that.

But I digress.

5 Centimeters Per Second is one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking manga I've ever read. I watched the anime first, and happened upon the manga by chance a week later. The title refers to the speed at which cherry blossoms fall from the tree. It's a story that everyone will likely be able to relate to in some way, because it is an all-too-familiar look at friendship and love, and how time and distance can change those things.

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Akari Shinohara and Takaki Tohno become friends in elementary school, bonding over everything from lack of physical prowess to their love of books and science. Their friendship is incredibly strong and a clear love grows as they do. Soon, Akari moves away from Tokyo, because of her parents' jobs. When they are thirteen, Takaki finds out he will be moving very far south, and plans a train journey to go see Akari one last time before he moves. Even though it is March, a huge snowstorm delays the trains and he is hours late, and yet Akari is still waiting for him. They kiss that night under a snow covered cherry tree, and it is the last time they see each other. The letters last for some years, but it becomes hard to relate when they are unable to visit each other.

In high school, a young woman named Kanae has a terrible crush on Takaki, which he unknowingly makes worse because he's so kind. And yet in the back of his mind he is always thinking of Akari. This carries into his adult life where we see him barely relating to anyone, basically living as a shell. His girlfriend of three years cares for him very much, but he can't even see that. The ending of the book (and film) is so sad because at this point we see that Akari has moved on with her life and is soon to be married, and there is a point at which they cross each other's paths...but then a train goes through and when Takaki turns around she is gone. But at this point Risa, his girlfriend, has let him go, and he has begun to realize what he has missed in life.

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Maybe that review doesn't make much sense, but really it's a great story. Before cell phones and social media kept everyone attached at the hip (for better or worse), it took work to keep up a long distance friendship, especially one that blossomed into love so young. Do you ever find yourself wondering where so-and-so is now, and what might have happened if your friendship had stayed the same? Even in the social media saturated world, we still lose connections for whatever reason. But the important thing is to keep on living and not let those things cause us to forget to really live.

Does My Head Look Big in This?

Every once in a while I read a book that I have mixed feelings about. Like, super mixed feelings. The most recent one was a YA book called Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah. And it's not that I didn't enjoy it. Actually it was a fairly quick read that did cause me to reflect on some things. But the cliches, oh my word. There weren't any love triangles, thank goodness, but the whole preppy high school mean girl thing was on full display, as well as the hot-guy-falls-for-average-girl-who-hates-her-image. But if you can look beyond that, and the frustratingly cliche views on Christianity, there is a good story here. And also, maybe I just have a hard time fully liking the whole first-person viewpoint.

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Amal Mohamed Nasrullah Abdel-Hakim is a sixteen year old Australian girl who deals with the regular pressures of high school, but with the added bonus of being Muslim. It had never been an issue before, but now she's decided that she's reached a point in her faith journey where she is ready to wear the hijab, a head covering, full time. It doesn't help that her parents actually discourage it at first. It also doesn't help that it's less than a year after 9/11 and fear of Islam is running very high. And of course she's only been at her school, a prestigious prep school in Melbourne, for one term. So really, it's probably the worst time to be making the choice, but Amal does it anyway.

Her friends don't turn her away, and one of her teachers is even super accepting of it, making sure she has a private place to pray, as well. Throughout the school year, Amal goes through many situations where it's her first time being out in public with a head covering on, and she has to endure a lot of ridicule, but there are also those strangers who are kind enough to realize she's different from radical Islam. And as Amal grows in her confidence, she helps a few others grow along the way. She befriends her cranky old Greek Orthodox neighbor and gets her to smile for the first time in ages, and she helps her best friend's mother see that marrying her daughter off at sixteen is the absolute wrong choice. By the time the school year draws to a close, Amal has a better understanding of herself and how she relates to the world as a Muslim and as an Australian who has Palestinian blood.

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Alright, so I feel like I have to make a disclaimer here that I'm not accepting Islam in the least. I read this book with an open mind, though, and it helped me more to understand that there are differing interpretations within every religion. It's good to know these things, and it's also good to remember that they are people too. And on the surface, this book was a teenage journey of identity, and there's always something worth gleaning there.

City at World's End

As many of you are aware, audiobooks are not particularly my forte. I have a hard time focusing if I can't also follow along with the words, plus many narrators are terrible and should never have been chosen. If you can't articulate your words, don't narrate something, thankyouverymuch. Anyway, I've found that the free service LibriVox offers some fantastic recordings, though all of older books because they have to be public domain. I don't mind this because I have a thing for science fiction from the 1950's, and there's plenty to choose from there.

Recently, I chose to listen to The City at World's End by Edmond Hamilton, which was first published in 1951. It was actually a really great story, and I totally believe George Lucas's initial inspiration for Chewbacca came from a character in this book. It's glaringly obvious, in my humble opinion.

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In the years following WWII, there is a fear of more atomic warfare, with whispers of superatomic power. On a sunny June morning in Middletown, Indiana, a superatomic bomb detonates over the city, but it doesn't cause the destruction that had been imagined. Instead, the scientists of the city soon realize they've been thrown into the future -- far, far into the future. The earth is much colder, the sun is much redder, and the constellations make no sense. What follows is a desperate attempt to survive, where thousands of people are frightened for their lives. The people find an empty domed city, and move the population there, and the main character, Kenneston, is able to repair a huge communications device and start sending out a signal, in hopes that there are other humans on earth.

When months later a sleek black spaceship drops out of the sky, not even the scientists whom Kenneston works with are ready to see people and creatures from beyond the solar system. But soon there is talk of evacuation, and the people from the past are desperate to stay on Earth. Kenneston takes matters into his own hands again and soon there's a hope for staying.

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Honestly, I can't give much more of a summary than that, because it's tough for me to remember character names when I can't see them haha. But really, this book was so cool and I enjoyed listening to it. The science isn't very accurate, obviously, but it doesn't have to be, and anyway it gets a serious pass because it was written before we knew much about space.

The Secret Sky

Last week I decided I was going to read through my library's collection of YA lit, from the beginning. It's a rather daunting task, especially as I'm sure there's going to be more than a few that I hate. Also it will take me a long time, given that I won't only be reading YA. Anyway, I jumped in with both feet and grabbed the first two books on the shelf. The first one alphabetically being The Secret Sky: A Novel of Forbidden Love in Afghanistan, by Atia Abawi. It's one that I likely would have picked up even without my challenge. And I was not disappointed, though this book is not for the faint of heart. It tore me apart while I read it.

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The Secret Sky is told from three viewpoints, Fatima, the girl, Samiullah, the boy, and Rashid, his cousin. It takes place in modern day Afghanistan, mostly in a tiny village. Fatima is a Hazara, a Shia, and Sami is a Pashtun, a Sunni. They've known each other their whole lives but of course as they grew, tradition dictated that they would never be allowed to see each other again. Sami was gone off to the madrassa with his cousin Rashid when the book opens, and he returns shortly. Turns out he was disgusted with the teachings there, and hopes for a better world. He and Fatima are so happy to see each other again, but with tradition and culture and religion bearing down on them, they can only meet secretly, which is also completely forbidden. But love grows despite everything, and they end up in a fight for their lives. Rashid is brainwashed by the teachings of the madrassa and he causes much grief for his cousin and Fatima, but not without essentially losing himself in the process.

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Honestly, I don't usually like YA romance because it's all cliche and often way too promiscuous. This novel, however, broke my heart so soundly and I cried. It's not cliche, it's a triumph. It shows the dangers of Islam and how hard it is to live a normal life in the Middle East, particularly as a woman. The things that Fatima goes through...that her own family does to her, it's horrifying. There's death in this book, horrible, unnecessary death. There's so.much.hate. But you should read it. It will stick with you. And it should.