the belle lumiere

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood – I’d seen this listed on a few ‘top post-apocalyptic books’ lists floating around on the internet and had purchased it a while ago but never got around to reading it. Now that I’ve finally read it I’d class it as one of my favourite books. I wasn’t a huge fan of The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood but this book seems to have a completely different style of writing (at least in my opinion) and I love it. The basic story outline is that our protagonist Offred is living in a future society where women can no longer procreate. Those that are still fertile are segregated from the rest of society and live with powerful men who attempt to get them pregnant. If they fail to do so, the women lose their value and are cast aside. The thing is, Offred still remembers life before this major shift in society, and seeing her struggling to come to terms with the current arrangement makes things all the more interesting. The most terrifying aspect of this book is how real it could be, and how bleak the thought of that is.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – I re-read this book before going to see the film adaptation earlier this year. I love Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark so much it makes me sad that the character is not actually a real live person that I can marry and make babies with.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt – This was the first book suggested for the recently established Seekrit Reeding Klub. It was a heavy read but I really enjoyed it. The character development was great (which is apparently crucial to me liking a book) and the dense waffly nature of the plot made it feel like every time I picked up the book and read for five minutes I had been transported into another world for an extended period of time. I can’t describe the plot without getting too dense and waffly myself, so here is the blurb – “Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and for ever.”. I can’t wait to see how this is transformed into a movie (if it ever eventuates). Jake Paltrow if you ever read this, Dee and I have some casting ideas we’d like to workshop with you.

The Long Walk by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman) – I bought this book on a whim after seeing it mentioned in a video by Priscilla at The Readables. The concept of the story is basically a group of teenage boys embark on a “Long Walk”, an event held every year in a futuristic (for the time it was written I assume) society, and the last man standing wins. Quite literally, as everybody else either drops dead from sheer exhaustion, or collect their ‘ticket’ if they get over 3 warnings for stopping or slowing down too much and are slaughtered on the spot. I won’t go into too much detail because I don’t want to ruin it for anybody else, but that description alone was enough to entice me in.

True Grit by Charles Portis – One of the most dry and witty books I’ve ever read and I loved it. I’m not sure if it helped that I had seen the recent remake of the film, because I could quite clearly hear Hayley Steinfeld’s clipped voice narrating the story in my head.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett – I re-watch the 90′s film version of this story at least once a year and it still remains one of my all time favourites. I’d read the book as a child but had no recollection of the way it was written and how much the original book differed from the film. This is such a timeless story, I love the way that it’s written and the way that it makes me feel. I want to move to England and live in a big mansion on the moors where it’s cold and rainy most of the time but when it’s sunny I can go outside and play with a hot country boy and grow roses in a garden. Is that too much to ask?