The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Reading books like this one, make me miss my childhood. it fills me up with such warmth and comfort, and a longing for so long ago. I do have to admit reading as an adult how much i loved reading it and how good the book still is after all these years.

It will always be a classic tale about a toad and his friends who no matter what happens and how many seasons go past they will be there till the end.

The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

It is no wonder this book is considered a classic, the way he writes is simply superb and the way he creates the relationship between John and Sherlock, they are the missing parts if each other and they both fill the void within each other. This is a true platonic friendship

The stories will always stand the test of time as they already proven to do.

Auckland!! Where A Book?

Auckland, What a city! It is what I call a book lovers dream; it has a lot of independent bookstores if you look hard enough. So far, I have fallen in love with 3 of them.

The first being one that Is in the heart of Mount Eden , open 9-9 everyday including the weekends, with a great selection and it’s shelves filled with books, and even has a great loyalty system. It even sits near a great coffee shop, which is open from 6am till very late in the evening. It is one of the small gems that inhabit the inner city.

The second book store is one that was recommended to me by a friend at work, she said that it has such a large selection of books and is stacked from floor to ceiling with books, and boy was she right!!! This book shop, I take two trains to get too as it lives in an area of Auckland called Onehunga, and the name being ‘Hard to Find’ and no the shop isn’t hard to find, but It does have loads of selection that the big stores like Whitcholls or Paper Plus don’t have and it is like a Tardis, it seems small on the outside but is so much bigger on the inside and is wonderful and magical. There is the bottom floor, and there are two top floor sections and you could easily spend hours in there. There will always be a place in my heart for this store.

The third store being somewhat amazing, its name… Bookmark, and what a name that its. Bookmark lives on the main street of Devonport; it has a feeling of adventure to get there, crossing the ferry from the city to this store, which has so many choices and beautifully bound books, and dose of fresh air, mixed with that special aroma that comes from books. This book store becomes a part of your soul and once you leave you feel like you are leaving somewhere that you wish you could stay forever, but once you are outside you are just a few steps away from the water and the ferry, and even if you sit near the water to read or on the way back to the city on the ferry, you feel way more alive.

These three bookstores are only some of the many that lie within Auckland, so go out and explore, who knows what you will find or where you will end up. 

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett, what can I say, simply superb!! Pride and Prejudice is such a fantastically written book, one that no matter how many times it’s read It gives you the real emotion of each character and even though you know that Mr Darcy and Miss Bennett end up together you still fear that they won’t. 

Jane Austen is one of those authors that made each character real and unique, she makes you laugh, cry and at time angry and then makes you sad, I only wish she were still alive to write more books. I will always carry Elizabeth Bennett in my heart as well as Mr Darcy.

The Harry Potter Series by J.K.Rowling (Reading List)

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone

Reading the start of the series again for the thousandth time never stops astounding me, just the magic and innocence of it all. Rereading it, with Harry who hasn’t a clue of the world yet and still has a lot to look forward to.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Every time I read the Chamber of Secrets, all I think of is Dobby and how much Lockhart was a douche and why In the Order of the Phoenix did he not think of the chamber for the meetings after all it would have set the mood.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

This is the one year Harry didn’t have to fight Voldemort, but found something close to a family he could get with Remus Lupin and Sirius Black. Every time I read Prisoner of Azkaban, I get so angry at how they act about Sirius and how he will never be a cleared man as we know all know he is an innocent man and know the Peter Pettigrew is still alive and was living as scabbers, but I also note that there Rowling gives us obvious clues, for example the lifespan of scabbers and how Hermione’s cat going after it more than other rats. I am always glad that we have been given Sirius Black he was always a fabulous drama queen.

Side note

Once I start reading Harry Potter nothing else matters and it is when I get to the Goblet of Fire, the fire in my soul burns for the series more than life itself and it is here where I feel the most excitement and love of the series, but it also pains me to know that death comes to often from now on.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The year Voldemort returns, and the year war starts even if the Ministry denies everything. One of the parts I have found the saddest and always will is when Harry finds out about Neville’s parents and how it puts a little perspective on Neville, that he is as lost as harry.  Then there is Cedric who was should of comeback as victor of the tournament but was killed by Voldemort and to have people deny that Voldemort was back as to say his death meant nothing, it was heart-breaking, he should have been the hero. 

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Looking back on the Order of the Phoenix, I had always considered it my favourite out of the series, but now I find pain. Harry finds himself in a way absent from everyone else and unsure of how to deal with the death of Cedric and being left without information and everyone else not telling him much, even Sirius. Harry also had to deal with the abuse from awful Umbridge, fellow students, the government and the ridicule from the daily prophet, how is a 15 year old supposed to cope.

Then there is Sirius… the man who was locked up for twelve years (even though an innocent man) and two years on the run and then cooped up in a house he hated from his cruel and horrendous childhood, and then to give harry (the only real family he had left other the Lupin) to not open the present that meant they could talk more often without too much risk and then only to be killed in front of Harry and Lupin (who know have all his close friends, who were like his family dead), and not only to mention that he died according to the wizarding world a guilty man and that the world was never told of his innocence, and that only a selected few new of his innocence. I will never be over the death of Sirius Black.

Then there is Snape who was always my favourite character, seeing how he was treated by the marauders was horrible and unfair, yes I will admit he was not in any right to call Lilly a mudblood, but he was treated unfairly by them, and I feel in this part of the book is where his undercover work for the order began, as there were people who knew he was a former death-eater like Mr Malfoy and even Umbridge knew that the two were connected and Mr Malfoy had given a nice word on Snape to her and I do believe the Snape has a good side but is being exploited for the his mistakes and his bitterness.

It is only now that I feel a lot of sadness when I read Harry Potter and the Order of the phoenix, but I think it is the fact I gain a lot of emotions and that it speaks to me on a spiritual level that it is my favourite book even through the sadness and even when I am trying to hold back the tears.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

The world now knows that Voldemort is back, and things aren’t going well for the ministry and for the Order, and Harry is still coping with the death of Sirius, and is going back to school, but not till his mission with Dumbledore.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is where the whole wizarding world changes and for the reader, for all the books we have believed that as long as there is Dumbledore, everything will be fine, but we find that even with Dumbledore there nothing is the same. Then unexpectedly we find Snape kills Dumbledore (even if Dumbledore knew and told Snape to kill him, so that he can help bring Voldemort down from the inside (and that we don’t know this till the next book when we find out that Snape was never Voldemort’s, but Lily’s)) the death of Dumbledore hits home like we all have lost someone dear. The wizarding world is never going to be the same again.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

It all ends here, the final part of the series. Lord Voldemort reigns supreme and only Harry can stop it; The Deathly Hallows is one where death must came and we all must live with the loss of all we love and hold true, and must realize that those we did not trust can be trusted again and old judgements must die and in the end, all will be well.

The Series Overall

The Harry Potter Series is the thing that got me into reading and is one that I will love passionately till the day I die. The characters and emotion are as real to me as flesh and blood. I have cried and wept with Harry and his friends as much as I have cheered with him through his entire journey. Harry Potter will be with us always..… Until the very end……

Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant (Reading List)

What a personal triumph! I am never one to not like a book on philosophy or even a book at all, but this took all of my might to finish, but then again, with books I am a completest.

Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee

Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee, i believe is a great book yes a bit rushed and some parts a bit disconnected but it changes the views we have ourselves since To Kill A Mockingbird, it teaches us that change isn't as easy and doesn't come fast enough and the way we view people especially through the eyes of a child and through they way we perceive things to be, but to challenge one's way of thinking, and at the same time questioning the status-quo helps us grow and the more we are open to other ideas and options the more things will change in the long run we must first stop running from ourselves.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Reading List)

Written in the viewpoint of the two children of Atticus Finch, a lawyer defending an innocent man of color named Tom Robinson who is being prosecuted on a rape and assault of a young white woman  in the 1930’s where town views were not so kind towards those you were not of the ‘same cloth’. The story shows Atticus trying to teach his children against the prejudice of the town’s viewpoint and teach them the morality of their convictions and actions. Even with the loss of the case Atticus still allows his children to observe the brutal honesty of the conviction and death of Tom Robinson and it’s ripple effect it has on the Alabaman town of Maycomb .

To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel that over the years has sold over thirty millions copies and has been read by so many more. Atticus Finch since the books debut in 1960 has been the moral hero of the story and has given them a moral compass to be guided by and given us sense of the moral integrity that we must live by which shows through the way he speaks and acts, his actions follows his words and acts the same no matter where he was and who he was with and he explains this in one simple line to scout “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what”

With the recent news of a sequel ‘Go Set a Watchman’ which is based 20 years after the events of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ has given the story an extra burst of life. I look forward to reading the sequel and to return to the town of May

comb.

To finish I leave you with quote from the book, but it holds true even in today’s world “but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down...”

Gone With The Wind by Margret Mitchell

Gone with the Wind by Margret Mitchell was written over 60 years ago  in 1936, and was written through the eyes of the slaveholder at the break of the American Civil War, it was based around Scarlet O'Hara who after certain events found herself a survivalist. Mitchell writes O’Hara as a woman who makes chooses and decisions to keep her home running and to keep the man she secretly loves and his family safe, however she marries three men, one being the beau Captain Rhett Butler who is the only man who sees her for what she really is and the cloak she hides behinds. Mitchell depicts the way society worked at the time of the war and the reconstruction brilliantly and shows that the line between true love and love lust is a thin one and that telling the difference at the wrong moment can be the worst mistake one can make. By the end after the anger, love and sadness you feel more for Scarlett and even more for Rhett but as it goes, tomorrow is another day

1984 by George Orwell (reading list #15)

OK so let me get this straight, you protest the government, only to be manipulated by them so to make you the bad guy. That was a horrible betrayal ending. But it was a plot twist and not what I expected. It was hard to get into but once Julia comes along the book becomes so much more, I can see why this is a classic. I highly recommend this to read.