The 306 Greatest Books #51 - Winnie-the-Pooh

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne. This book can be found on the BBC and My Book Lists.

Winnie-the-Pooh is one of those stories that had pervaded my childhood. From the movies to the cartoon series, I was (and still am) absolutely in love with Pooh Bear, despite never having read the books. And I am sure that the reason this is on the BBC 100 Greatest Books (which is basically a popularity vote on books) is because of the cultural inundation of Pooh. That being said, I still really enjoyed the book. It brought back many good memories from all the movies and shows which took their plots many times directly from the books. The book is set up with each chapter containing a different adventure with Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends in the Hundred Acre Woods. This is how so many books can be created from the one original book. Each chapter is often broken out and made into a unique book, or cartoon, or movie. Within the stories, A.A. Milne talks to the reader in such a unique way that the language he uses could be considered as poor in other instance but in this instance it feels endearing. I found the best stories to be some of his earlier works in the book, which also ended up being some of the shorter chapters. As the chapters/stories got longer, A.A. Milne's particular use of language didn't seem to work as well. However, overall I would definitely recommend this book, especially for the kid in all of us.

The 306 Greatest Books #50 - King Lear

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is King Lear by William Shakespeare. This book can be found on the Norwegian Book List.

King Lear is the final play for me to read out of the six Shakespearean plays spread across my 100 Greatest Books lists. My personal take on Shakespearean English remains the same, I find it a barrier of entry for me to enjoy the stories and I often miss many of the subtleties within the plays. The plot of King Lear is generally easy to follow; King Lear (aka Dad) is nuts and his kids divide against him, with his "legitimate" son and one of his daughters on one side, and his bastard son with the other two daughters on the other. I hope this isn't too much of a spoiler but the story ends in true Shakespearean fashion, with 90% of the characters dead. I had found this play to be far easier to follow than most of the Shakespearean plays that I have read, however this isn't one of his best in my opinion.

The 306 Greatest Books #49 - The Book of Job

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Book of Job by an anonymous author. This book can be found on the Norwegian Book List.

Although I have seen many 100 Greatest Book lists that put the entire Bible on them, out of my four lists only The Book of Job had made the cut. The Book of Job is often considered to be one of the best stories in the bible because of its attempts to justify the presence of good and evil both together on Earth. As I was reading through the story though, I was getting a little bit confused by the text about who was arguing for each side as God and Satan verbally sparred it out. Otherwise, the book seems to get its point across. Essentially, the story is about a man named Job (pronounced "Jobe") who looses his family and his health because of a bet between Gob and Satan to show that Job will still be a man of God despite all his tragedies. After reading the story I can see the moral implications of the story but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth to see God killing people just to prove a point. Overall, I probably wouldn't advise this as a great work of literature.

The 306 Greatest Books #48 - His Dark Materials

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. This book can be found on the BBC and My Book Lists. The first book in this trilogy can be found on the Observer Book List under its UK title, Northern Lights. 

His Dark Materials has quickly become one of my favorite stories of all time. The series is absolutely enthralling, not letting me put it down for a moment. And it is one of the few series I have returned to time and time again. The story can be considered a cross between The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings, where the world building is a bit less in-depth than LotR and much less preachy than Narnia. I find it a cross between the two stories that takes the best of both worlds. The story is about parallel universes, where the primary character, Lira, is a kid with a physical manifestation of her soul literally on her sleeve; or running all around as the case may be. Lira starts out being a very young kid with little worldly experience, who, over the course of the story, grows into the hero the story needs. I have often heard criticism that this series is like the "atheist's bible" or some nonsense like that, and I find that surprising as this book is actually very spiritual. It is very anti-organized religion though and that could be a bit off-putting to some. I found the story to be a well-written and fast-paced read (about 1000 pages in 2 weeks), where in the end all the plot lines got wrapped up neatly. Although, I do disagree with how it ended, but looking back on the story there was really no other way it could have gone. This is obviously a must read for me and one I have often recommended to a lot of people.