Shantaram Post No. 1

I’m about to start reading ‘Shantaram’, which is a whopping 933 pages long.  It looks almost Biblical in size.  I have to say that I feel quite daunted.  I bought it last year, on the recommendation of a friend, and I’m a little embarrassed to say that it has sat on my bookshelf ever since.  I’ve heard both good and bad things about it, and I imagine that the sheer size of it is what would bother most people, but even so, I will proceed!

Of course I will also (as is my habit) be reading other books concurrently.  I’ve been struggling through ‘The Elegance of the Hedgehog’ by Muriel Barbery for about 2 months now.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad book at all, it’s just that I find that I need a dictionary every 2 or 3 pages!  It’s quite interesting, & I look forward to reviewing it properly when I’m finished.

I’ve also recently purchased Cathy Kelly’s latest book ‘Homecoming’.  I have to admit that I am a bit of a sucker for good ‘chick lit’, and (not that I’m biased, myself being Irish and all) I have to say that nobody writes a chick lit/womens fiction (cringe!) like the Irish!  I’m a huge Marian Keyes/Cathy Kelly/Maeve Binchy/Cecelia Ahern/Ciara Geraghty/Monica McInerney fan.  Ok…  well, Monica McInerney is an Aussie I think, but with a name like that, she must have some Irish ancestry!

But anyway, back to Shantaram.  Any time I meander through Borders, Dymmocks, or Angus & Robertson (which is fairly often) I see it in the top 100/top 50 sections, so it must be good.  I do buy from the ‘top 100′ every so often, because it makes me feel like an intelligent reader, even if the truth would suggest otherwise!  The blurb certainly sounds interesting enough:

‘It took me a long time & most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.’

And with that, I’m signing off so I can begin reading this bad boy!

My 10 favourite books…

1. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)

2. Darkfall (Isobelle Carmody)

3. The Time Travellers Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)

4. Cross Stitch (Diana Gabaldon)

5. The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)

6. Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen)

7. The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)

8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)

9. The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)

10. A Voice in the Wind (Francine Rivers)

It’s so hard to compile a top 10 list… I really struggled with this one.  I have so many favourites, which I regularly re-visit (yes, I re-read! the horror!).  In addition to this, if I’m really enjoying a book that I’m currently reading, I’m always tempted to proclaim it ‘the best book ever’, which is ridiculous, because my number one favourite book of all time is of course ‘Jane Eyre’.  I love it.

You may be wondering why Wuthering Heights isn’t my favourite, given the name of this blog.  It’s not that I don’t like the book, I really do (coincidentally, I also really love the film adaptation in which Heathcliff is portrayed by the amazingly handsome Tom Hardy!).  However, the title of this blog stems from my love of the 1970′s Kate Bush song ‘Wuthering Heights’.  I love Kate Bush.  Even if she is a little strange.  That song is also a dangerous contender for my favourite song of all time…