What I've Read in January

I didn't realise January was over until this morning, where has the month gone?! At the beginning of the year I set myself very modest but realistic the challenge of reading two books in January and though I haven't done so well with the rest of my goals I actually read 7! Admittedly two of them are graphic novels and one of them is for children, but I'm quite pleased to have managed it. Here's what I read:

 
Old Peter's Russian Tales by Arthur  Ransome // Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
I started reading Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen before Christmas, but I gave up halfway through when it started to become a little repetitive. I didn't really get this with Old Peter's Russian Tales and I think I enjoyed every story. There was a little wife-beating in one of them that I wasn't much of a fan of, though...  

Murakami can do no wrong in my eyes, so obviously I really enjoyed Sputnik Sweetheart. Not quite as much as others I've read by him because I didn't find the characters as relatable. Perhaps because it's a lot shorter than the others, perhaps because nothing else can live up to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle which, three months down the line, I'm not quite over yet.



Saga, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan // Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi
I'm not even going to even try to explain what Saga is all about as it's just too bizarre for words. Romeo and Juliette meets Star Wars seems to be a good starting point. I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but I'm excited for the next installment, so that must be saying something! Embroideries was a Christmas gift from Tom that I'd been meaning to read for a while, and though I didn't like it quite as much as Persepolis (stupid comparison really, it's a lot different) it was a light and amusing read. I'm a bit crap at explaining, but Goodreads sums it up quite well - 'gloriously entertaining and enlightening look into the sex lives of Iranian women'.



Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut // Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
I've lumped Lolita and Slaughterhouse-Five together, because they're both books I was disappointed by. I'm really interested in the history of Dresden and I liked what Vonnegut had to say about the WWII firebombing, but I just couldn't get over how much I didn't like the writing style. I think Lolita is a phenomenal novel - so clever and very well-written, but for some reason I just didn't enjoy reading it. Does that make any sense? I think I could have some real fun writing an essay on it (lame), but the entertainment factor just wasn't there for me.


The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
The very best book I read this month was The Snow Child. I worked in Waterstone's (refusing to drop that apostrophe) last year and it's been on my radar for a while, but recently Michelle's recommendation and the Kindle sale persuaded me to read it. It's based on Little Daughter of the Snow from Ransome's Russian Fairytales, and it's such a beautifully-written tale of love on so many different levels. I hope there's more where that came from!

What have you been reading lately?