November Reads

November is nearly over, and I'm continuing with my goal of reading 3 books per month for a year (#050 on The List).

As this month was National Novel Writing Month, I thought it might be difficult to read three full-length novels as well as trying to write a 50k novel, so I picked some shorter books to read for November. As before, I've rated the books I read out of 5.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding (3/5)

I picked this book up at a charity book fair a few years ago, but never got around to reading it until now (mainly because I was looking for a short book!)

When I started secondary school, we did a project relating to Lord of the Flies, though never actually read the book, so I wanted to see what the fuss was about.

Of course I already knew some big spoilers, such as what happens to Piggy, though some other parts were a surprise.

I found this book difficult to get into and thought the ending was rather abrupt, but nonetheless managed to read it in a day.

The Dark Side of the Sun by Terry Pratchett (4/5)

There aren't many books by this author that I haven't read, and this was one of them!
This sci-fi/fantasy novel is fairly short but an easy read, with an entertaining group of main characters. It's another that I read over the course of a day, and thoroughly enjoyed. As the story is set in a different world, it took me a while to get into the flow of this book, but once things started happening I flew through the pages (and then the cover fell off, as it's a second-hand book, and I had to glue it back on again).

Tales from Moominvalley by Tove Jansson (5/5)

Until this month, I had never read any Moomin stories, nor seen the cartoons. I bought this book on a whim after seeing a quote from it that I rather liked.
This book is a collection of short stories about the characters found in Jansson's other Moomin books. The stories are all utterly charming and are accompanied by the occasional illustration. These are the kind of tales that really awaken the imagination and the characterisations are all really strong! I probably could have read this book in a day, but instead I took to reading one story per evening, as I found them relaxing.

I found out that there are six books preceding this one, and a few after it, so have wish-listed them all!  

With regards December's reading, I haven't decided yet. Since the next Hobbit film will be out soon, I suppose I should read The Hobbit!

Well, I still have a pile of books to plough through, and bought a couple more recently at an NSPCC Christmas fair, so I'm spoilt for choice!

Missed my previous book post? See what I read in July to October here.