1+1+1 for 365, day 30: a very long novel , but a very fine one...

TODAY'S QUOTE: "All our pursuits, from childhood to manhood, are only trifles of different sorts and sizes, proportioned to our years and views. " - Samuel Richardson

TODAY'S BOOK:
Clarissa by Samuel Richardson 

I don't expect that many of  the readers of my blog have rushed out to buy Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady. The reason is not the storyline or the quality of the writing, but rather the fact that it is long.  In fact it is very, very  long and at around a million words (I had to look this up) it is one of the longest novels in the English language.  

But I've always thought one of my minor claims to fame is that I indeed read all of it and wrote a paper about it during my honours year at university.  I had to make do with library copies at the time, but today it would be possible to buy it at a reasonable price in printed format or even download it in e-book format.

1+1+1 for 365, day 22: Away from the shire and back again

TODAY'S QUOTE:

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him."

- J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again)

TODAY'S BOOK:

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, to give the book its full title, Tolkien's second most famous work and first published on 21 September in 1937 - and this date is the reason why I chose it for today's post.

I was given my copy of  by a poetic boyfriend a long time ago.  He thought (quite rightly) that my education would not be complete without having read Tolkien and he said best to start with The Hobbit before I get round to The Lord of the Rings.  I was in a phase where I read completely different things and at first I could not relate to its fantasy world. But the boyfriend patiently introduced me to the magic of hobbits and many other things relating to Tolkien. Maybe the many cups of coffee and glasses of sherry helped, but in order to ensure that I would actually read the book, my romantic suitor stopped reading from poetry books for me for a while, and proceeded to read from it out loud while holding my hand during long cold winter's evenings in my small flat.

1+1+1 for 365, day 21: A really long saga - but a good one

TODAY'S QUOTE:
"Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem." - John Galsworthy

TODAY'S BOOK: 
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy

John Galsworthy, who was among the first widely read authors of the Edwardian era, published the first book in The Forsyte Saga (A Man of Property) in 1906, while and the others followed between 1918 and 1921.  The books that make up the sequel, A Modern Comedy, followed between 1924 and 1928 and  the last book of The End of the Chapter, the second series of sequels, was published posthumosly in 1933.  Thus it took almost 30 years - a whole generation of reading - for this remarkable example of a family saga to reach the bookshelves.