Well, the stack of read books has got higher.
Just to recap, the '7 books in 7 days challenge' started last Tuesday and ends at midnight tonight, during which time I have to complete seven books.
At the time of my last update I had completed three books and was about to start book 4. So how has it gone? Pretty well. I've completed five books and am currently reading my last two.
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
Again, I had an idea in my head what Pet Sematary would be about - and I was completely wrong 😁
By the way, the spelling is deliberate - in the book the burial ground was named by local children and that's how they thought Cemetery was spelt. The plot worked out completely different to how I thought it would. Overall it was a good book, however, unlike 'Salem's Lot', which I read between Christmas and New Year, I wouldn't read this one again. Now I know the twist, I can't forget it. I also thought the book shouldn't have ended where it did. It needed to go on. It took me 4hrs and 26 mins to read.
The Martian by Andy Weir
Having seen the film I knew how the book would go, and it was almost exactly the same. A bit more technical stuff and a big bit had been altered in the film, quite a technical bit, so presumably that was to aid understanding for the audience. There's only so much science stuff you can introduce in one go to a non-scientific audience. I really enjoyed it and finished it in 5hrs and 3 mins. It took longer as I stopped every now and then and read back on some of the technical stuff as it was being explained. I will probably go back and read it again at some point.
Where am I now?
On Saturday I started War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (translation by Anthony Briggs). By yesterday evening I had completed two of the three volumes in 8hrs and 50m but made a decision to read the third volume today and instead begin reading Viking Britain by Thomas Williams around 8pm yesterday.
Why? Because War and Peace has been very hard going and I'm a bit tired of reading it. I've not really found it that interesting on the whole, although there have been some very nice scenes here and there where I was emotionally stirred and got into what was going on. I'm hoping it is just the translation because it feels very disjointed, and the way women are portrayed is misogynistic, which I find difficult to put up with but have to remember it was a feature of the times Tolstoy lived in. I've struggled and have fallen behind in my timings, but then it wouldn't be a challenge if it was easy. 😁
So very shortly I'm going to start reading Viking Britain again (I got about a third of the way through that in 2hrs 41m yesterday) and will complete that, have a late lunch and then it's on to the final part of the challenge - the third volume of War and Peace.
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