Day 271 – Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day...

Time is not on my side it seems, and I have come to the realisation that it just ain’t going to happen. 10 days, 7 books, 1 wedding and 1 honeymoon...

Spending two and a bit months organising my wedding, has sucked significant reading time out of my life.

And so my dear readers (my dear mother!) I am giving myself an extension to the 19th of December 2010. An extra 44 days, which now works out to be 38 books in 325 days.

While I’m mainly only cheating myself by doing this, I am also saving myself from a complete breakdown...

54 days remaining, 7 books to go, ah I can breathe again

Day 266 – The library was small by Carrickross standards (pg 71)

RSVP by Tara Moore is like no other book I have ever read, this is not a good thing.

Characters called Ashling, Honoria, Rossa and Coppelia were the first sign that something wasn't quite right here. Not forgetting the twins, Indigo and Sapphire (who get up to all kind of unmentionable things).

The murder / whodunnit intrigued me, and was the only thing that kept me reading.

With so much scandal and depravity and more incest than is humanly possible, it’s like Mills and Boon on crack, Bold and the Beautiful on steroids... it’s like something I never want to experience ever again.

15 days remaining, 7 books to go

Day 261 – There’s no way I would have stumbled on the book (pg 194)

Old School Ties by Kate Harrison was a light piece of fluff. Nothing overly entertaining, but at least it wasn’t horribly painful to get through.

The main characters were able to redeem themselves, despite all the unresolved teen angst and sex scandals flying about.

The topic at the core of this book was bullying, in schools particularly.

It has re-inspired me to jot down a few more notes pertaining to an idea for a documentary I had a while back on bullying.

It has also added to my many fears of child rearing, no mother wants their child to be a victim of bullies, or worse, to be a bully themselves.

Best not to worry about these things just yet. First comes childbirth, then the rest of the worries are sure to follow!

20 days remaining, 8 books to go

Day 260 – Mandras never did read that book (pg 232)

In the interest of achieving my goal, more than half of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres, was read to me by Michael Maloney. I had never ‘read’ a book on tape, until necessity pointed me in such a direction.

The story was wonderful, the book on tape, a revelation. What began as a way to try and cheat, has introduced me to something I may not have found otherwise. It’s quite freeing too. Even though it takes longer to listen to the story than to read it, I was able to get on with cooking and cleaning while ‘reading’, fantastic!

To be honest I wasn’t looking forward to this book and wasn't quite sure why I had picked it up. All I knew of it was a short trailer I had seen for the film adaptation starring Nicholas Cage and Penelope Cruz. Thankfully it was nothing like it! It is not so much a love story, as a story about a group of very different, very interesting characters whose actions are all intertwined.

Captain Corelli himself does not appear in the story until halfway through, which didn’t bother me at all. All the characters are fantastic. That's not to say Captain Corelli is an uninteresting character, he is wonderful.

The story is set mainly on the Greek Island of Cephalonia during the Italian and German occupation in World War II. Given that my fiancée is Greek, I delighted in recognising the few Greek words used, and was thoroughly amused by the characters and their way of life.

It is a big story, with a lot of history and, like I said, many characters. I think perhaps listening to much of this book enabled me to better understand and keep track of all the characters and goings on, than if I had been reading it myself.

After setting a rather lovely pace through most of the story, the end did seem to gallop through big plot points including incidents involving much meaningless (and historically correct) death and destruction. None-the-less I grew quite attached to the crazy, wise, witty, engaging and humorous inhabitants of Cephalonia, and was sorry to leave them and their Island behind.

21 days remaining, 9 books to go

Day 257 – and raced voraciously through Hortense’s small and eclectic library (pg 342)

I am positive that White Teeth by Zadie Smith has a poignant and thought provoking message. I unfortunately failed to determine exactly what that message was.

Another book where I detested all of the characters. Just when I thought a character was going to change, that they were going to better themselves and become something different, their story disappears and I was moved on to another character.

I liked the way it was written, I enjoyed the tangled web that was woven, I just didn’t quite make it to the point.

The convergence of all the characters at the end, coming together for a single but disjointed purpose... it’s all there, I just wasn’t.

Perhaps one day, someone will explain to me what it was about, and I will say... “Ahhh”.

At this stage I will blame pregnant brain and move on with my life.

24 days remaining, 10 books to go

Day 252 – I hadn’t read the book. As a result, I got pretty confused! (pg 47)

I have not read a lot of biographies. I don’t have anything against them per se, I just need to be interested in a person’s story to even consider picking one up.

Peter Jackson; a film-makers journey by Brian Sibley, was a gift. Although I am a filmmaker, it is not a book I would’ve selected for myself.

Most of this biography was a ‘making of’ The Lord Of The Rings. Even when discussing his earlier works, such as Heavenly Creatures, there were references to The Lord Of The Rings, and how all of this would eventually lead to it. I would’ve much preferred to have these as reminiscences once the story came to the rings, looking back to the earlier films

I feel that this book was far too reliant on the success of the rings and didn’t give enough weight to other aspects of Jackson’s life and filmmaking career. It’s also far too long.

Perhaps it is because the lustre of The Lord Of The Rings has faded a little in my eyes. If I had read this when it was all new and exciting, I may have been more interested. As it stands, I’m not terribly inspired.

28 days remaining, 11 books to go... Still with no idea how it’s going to happen.