Friday Memes: Book Beginnings, Friday 56, Feature and Follow Friday

I have been far too distracted lately, unable to focus my attention for very long on reading or writing reviews. I have lost count as to how many books I have started and tossed aside over the last few weeks. Not to mention the plethora of half-attempted reviews. I think it is time to take a little break away from this blog and re-charge. However, I will be taking several literary works on my mini-vacation including some poetry (collection of Keats), To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (comfort reading) and some other light entertaining beach reads, which will undoubtedly include Elmore Leonard. I do not know how long I will be gone but I hope to at least finish The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton before returning.

Thanks to Rose City Reader for hosting this meme. Share the first line or two from the book you are reading and provide some brief impressions:

"The suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset. It was built of a bright brick throughout; its sky-line was fantastic, and even its ground plan was wild."

Chesterton sets the scene for his mad-cap thriller with some strong imagery and foreshadowing. One can visualize the endless rows of identical brick houses painted in red. The adjective of "ragged" is interesting; perhaps alluding to a sense of imperfection, something faulty, unstable. I get the sense here that the  author seems to be building up towards something crazy and unexpected. Is he trying to peel back the veneer of suburbia to reveal its ugliness and depravity? Dunno.

Thanks to Freda's Voice for hosting this meme, which works nicely in conjunction with Books Beginnings. All you have to do is grab any book, turn to page 56 (or 56% in your e-reader) and share any sentence. Taken from the same book:  

"Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven tomorrow, so as to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7:45 for Paris."

Pistols at dawn! Hell yeah. I haven't gotten this far yet but color me intrigued. Someone is intent on going straight-up gangsta. 

Thanks to Parajunkee and Alison Can Read
for hosting this blog-hopping meme. Question of the week:  

Have you ever read a book you thought you'd hate but loved or vice versa? 

More the latter. I tend to have fairly high expectations for many "classics" but have been disappointed on so many occasions. Most recently, The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Passage to India by E.M. Forster, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. The list goes on...

Catch ya'll on the flip-side.