Happy Days - Book Depository now accepts NZ dollars!

I think I have just had the most exciting news of my week. The Book Depository now accepts New Zealand Dollars!! This is dangerous and fantastic all at the same time. I think I may have to physically restrain myself until my next pay date.

Wednesday New Read Roundup 28 Sept 2011

A weekly post to highlight new books added to my To Read list thanks to all those other great book bloggers out there.

See my full To-Read list at goodreads.com.

1. I like a happy feel good book as much as the next person so when Shelley at Book Clutter described The Blue Castle (Lucy Maud Montgomery) as "warm apple crisp with vanilla-bean icecream" sweet it went straight on my list. Of course it also helped that the author wrote one of my favourite children's books (even I didn't read it till I was in my 20s!).
2. When I read the review at The New Dork Review for The Lonely Polygamist (Brady Udall) I wasn't sure if I would put it on my list. It sounded like a good book but not the type of thing I would normally read. But I'm all about getting out of my comfort zone (and why else would I be reading book blogs if not to find new and different books out there?!) so I'm going to give this one a go.
3. I have a confession to make. I have never read anything by Ernest Hemingway... does that make me strange? Either way this review at The Blue Bookcase has me wanting to give Hemingway a try. I may start with a short story or two first before moving onto the book reviewed (A Moveable Feast) but I'm looking forward to it.
4. I miss London. I lived there for two and a half years and when I think about it I have a lot of fond memories. So reading the review of Victoria Line, Central Line (Maeve Binchy) at She Loves Reading about a series of stories about people travelling the London Underground I was transported right back to those memories and so I really want to read this book because of that.

What did you find this week?

If you want to create your own new read roundup post feel free to do so and post the link to your blog in the comments below. Happy reading everyone!

Genres

Have you ever struggled to apply a genre to a book you are reviewing? I certainly have. Especially as I am quite new to this and trying to specify a single genre against a book is rather tricky.

Most recently I was trying to determine the genre of a book and was thinking about putting it down to biography or memoir but I realised I wasn't perfectly clear what a memoir really was so I did a little research.

Now to understand this first we need to define an auto-biography and a biography. That's relatively simple; the first is a book about a person written by that person and the second is a book about a person written by someone else. That's pretty clear.

However a memoir is a little trickier. A memoir for many is classed as a sub-genre of auto-biography in which the story focuses on an aspect of the person's life. It may be only one time in a person's life, or one event or simply one aspect of their life. A memoir focuses on the emotions, moods and attitudes within the story rather than the factual events that occurred.

So the question I have is can a memoir be a biography? According to the literal definition of the genre, no. But why not? Take for example the book I mentioned earlier; tuesdays with Morrie. This book centers around the death of Morrie Schwatz, his feelings and thoughts and emotions about dying. If it had been written by himself I would have no qualms about saying this was a memoir. But it wasn't written by Morrie Schwatz, it was written by Mitch Albom. But here's the clincher the book is also about Albom and his experiences with Morrie. So is this book actually a memoir about Albom or a biography of Schwatz?

On a side note I fight with the genre Literary Fiction. Is it really a genre? Or is it just a term to try and differentiate a 'serious' book from it's counterparts? If we define a book on our blog to be literary fiction should was also assign it another genre to help clairfy it?

I am fascinated by genres (especially when a book doesn't fit into one) and find it a great way to fuel a discussion. So what do you think? Have you read the book and have an opinion on it's genre? Do you think a biography can be a memoir? Is there another genre I haven't heard of that could define a biographical memoir? What do you think of Literary Fiction as a genre? Do you even care about genres? Tell me your thoughts.

It's Monday. What are you reading? 26 Sept 2011

It's Monday. What are you Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Book Journey to outline what you have been reading and what you plan to read this week.









Last week I read tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom), a true story about a man getting back in touch with his college mentor who is dying from a terminal illness. I really enjoyed it, it's a beautiful uplifting book which allows you to explore aspects of your own life. Check out my full review here.

For this week I've just started To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) which is another book on my 100 book challenge list and one that I have been wanting to read for awhile. Luckily last week I was lent it by a friend of mine from book club who has been helping me get through the classics on my list and who thinks this is one of the best. I usually catch up a lot on my reading over the weekend but this weekend I got my hands on a challenging jigsaw puzzle (I'm a bit geeky with jigsaws, I love them) and I spent all my spare time on the weekend doing that! So I'm looking forward to getting into this book this week.

P.s. I'm off to see The Help at the movies tonight with my Mum so I'll let you know what I think. It's an independent cinema so looking forward to enjoying a glass of wine (or two...) with a great movie!

tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)

Title: tuesdays with Morrie

Author: Mitch Albom

Publisher: Sphere

Publication Date: 2009
First Published: 1997 

Pages: 192

Source: Book club borrowed

Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir

Goodreads | Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

"When you learn how to die, you learn how to live."

Mitch Albom writes the true story of getting back in touch with his college professor and mentor, Morrie Schwartz, nearly twenty years after they have last seen each other, when he learns that he is dying from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). What starts as a reconnection with one of the most influential people from his past turns into one final classroom lesson. The subject? Life.

tuesdays with Morrie is a beautiful life affirming book which not only presents a wonderful story but provides the opportunity to re-address the values you have in your own life.

"Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We're teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it." pg 35

His "class" subjects with Albom include a variety of things in our lives that we seem to always have questions about; our culture, regrets, death, family, emotions, fear of aging, money, love, marriage and forgiveness. 

"You have to find what's good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now. Looking back makes you competitive. And, age is not a competitive issue." pg 120

One of my favourite sections was on emotions. I think a lot of it was due to my frame of mind having just lost a beloved family pet. It really helped me to experience the book in a different way than if I had read it at any other time. Morrie suggests that we throw ourselves into emotions, embrace them, understand what they are and how they make us feel, and then let them go. "you experience them fully and completely". It allows us to then recognise our own emotions and to not fear them. I found it incredibly healing to think that I could embrace my grief and to not feel guilty or embarrassed for feeling so much grief about a pet, embrace it and feel it, and then let it go.

"Most of us all walk around as if we're sleepwalking. We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do." pg 83

tuesdays with Morrie is a truly uplifting book that allows us to re-connect with our own values and to analyse whether we are living to those ideals, while providing opportunities to remember those mentors in our lives who have shaped who we are.

"But the big things - how we think, what we value - those you must choose yourself. You can't let any-one - or any society - determine those for you." pg 155

Read It

tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

Order from Amazon.com| Amazon.co.uk