Off to the middle of nowhere

I'm off on a two week house-sitting adventure, at a place with no internet, no digital TV, and plenty of cake. Hopefully i will manage to read a few books, and write a few stories. I have brought with me a selection of books, but I don't know which to read first! here is the list:

• 1984 by George Orwell (a book that i really should have read many years ago, but have never got further than the first few pages)
• The name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (I haven't read any Eco, except for a couple academic articles)
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (another of the many books that I have bought years ago but never read)
• The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (apparently a lot darker than the film, and rather short)
• The Men who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson (found it in a second hand books shop a few days ago. I didn't know the film was based on a novel, and so I have seen the film, and liked it, so hopefully I will like the book)
• Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (one of the texts from my thesis last year that i only read bits of and really want to read more)
• The complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (a lovely compuilation of fascmille copies of the original stories and The hound of the baskervilles as they appeared in the Strand Magazine. Hoping to read a story or two to boyfriend each night.)

I've also brought a rhyming dictionary, just in case I feel like being productive and writing some rhyming poetry.

Or i could always read one of the many books on native birds that are scattered about this house.

montyreads: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson.

This has been on my 'must read soon' list since i bought it back in 2009. What made me shove it to the top of the list was that boyfriend wanted us to watch the film, and I'm one of those annoying people that doesn't watch the film 'til I've read the book. (I also always stay in the cinema til the end of the credits). Fear and Loathing is one of those books that is held in high regard by the punk-readers, the ironic-shirted wannabe writers who go on week-long trips to the middle of nowhere to 'get inspired'. Not that that's a bad thing, but I am always a little bit skeptical of things that people really really love.

Fear and Loathing, however, deserves the love that it gets. Although it did not completely pull me in, it did entertain me. I love the kind of phrases Thompson uses:

'Here they were arguing with every piece of leverage they could command, for a room they'd already paid for and suddenly their whole act gets side-swiped by some crusty drifter who looks like something out of an upper-Michigan hobo jungle.'

The odd way the language flows and the left field humour connects it all together and makes you feel like you are on one big trip. Which i think is kind of the point.

i don't think i read it at the right time (or am possibly not the right kind of person) to really get the most out of this book. yes i liked it, but i don't love it. I'm looking forward to watching the movie though.

montyreads: The Vesuvius Club by Mark Gatiss

I finished reading this a while ago, and I'm really lazy so I haven't posted a review until now.
This was the perfect book for what I needed. Having just finished my honours year and had been stuck in academia for the last 5 years, it was time for some perfectly silly fluff. Gatiss' novel is an adventure full of murder, intrigue, debauchery and cross-dressing. Ridiculous and rather hilarious, it was great fun reading it. The Vesuvius Club leaves room for many more adventures for the main character Lucifer Box, who is rather like a deviant Sherlock Holmes with a talent for seducing pretty young things, whether they be male or female. I'm looking forward to reading future Lucifer Box adventures.

Only a short review this time, mainly because I finished reading it a while ago and can't remember too many of the details.

How lazy am I!