Much as I abhor rule 6, this is actually going really well.

Um ... I don't really know, to be honest. I mean, some bits were beautiful, moving ... others didn't touch anywhere near me. Lots of it was very predictable - I realise I am experiencing this thirty years later but still. I loved the fairytales. The ending I met with considerable boredom - I think I'd just had enough by then. I mean, it was worth a read, but ... I don't know, it just didn't gel. Much like this entry.

Wonderful wonderful wonderful wonderful wonderful wonderful wonderful wonderful.

I'm afraid Mervyn Peake used up all the imagination and eloquence in the world, so I can't really elaborate.

I actually liked this more than Zarathustra. Again, love Nietzsche's style, have lots of questions for him, lots of points to think about, lots of laughing out loud in the quiet area and getting funny looks.

Oh my fucking God. Dave Stewart's self-satisfaction is driving me up the wall. When he's describing musical theory I already know I'm bored out of my mind; when he's describing musical theory I don't already know I have to keep referring to wikipedia and google to supplement what he's saying, because he is NOT EXPLAINING HIMSELF PROPERLY. Example: in the section about intervals, where the man sets a quiz, does he bother to explain the difference between an augmented 4th and a diminished 5th? No, no; he waits until fourteen pages later to do *that*. Instead, he throws in a few paragraphs of "witticisms", which are about as helpful as they are entertaining. Fucking wanker. I mean, I'm still going to read this, and try to learn something from it, and hopefully use it as a point of reference in the future - but I will have to do so constantly assisted by a computer. That really is not what I bought this book for. I just want to learn music theory, for Christ's sake.

Vibrant, brilliant - but it's no Anna.

(I'm sorry. I know it's a clichéd criticism, but it's how I feel.)

I am looking forward to reading lots of Flaubert in the future, though. I aime him very much.

Once again I find the bookswellread cataloguing system lacking: I could not finish this book. There should be an option for that.

Admittedly my expectations were high, so there was a large chance of disappointment. Having attended a Tracy Chevalier talk about this book, found her to be gracious and genuine, AND nursed a frantic passion for William Blake for quite some time ... I think the only thing that could have lifted them yet further would have been if I'd read Girl With A Pearl Earring and found it to meet its hype.

I feel I should make it clear here that I didn't hate this book; I just found it unbearably pedestrian. I could have continued reading it, but the thought of all the fantastic books I have not yet read that I could be reading instead of this was more than I could bear. What carried me through the first two hundred and fifty pages was curiosity: I wanted to see Blake through the eyes of those who were there; I wanted to find out more about him. I found nothing of value; Chevalier's characterisation of the man made him little more than a stereotypical Disney benevolent father-figure. I really resent that. I'm sure those who lived alongside Blake probably did connect intensely and wonderfully with him, but Chevalier's representation of this lacked subtlety, and any portrayal of anyone's encounter with Blake was overblown, worthless, far too frequent to be at all precious; above all, mawkish. The whole 'Come here, my children, and read my songs with me' thing just came across like a stumbling realisation of a naive, emotionally-stunted sprog's deepest intellectually-correct desires. Said sprog could be anything up to thirteen; I do not expect such immaturity from serious artists.

And on top of that, there was absolutely nothing in the story to save it. The characters surrounding Blake did not develop beyond Everymen, so I couldn't care about them, and there was nothing much resembling a plotline. The constant knowing references to Piddle in particular ground against me - yes, Tracy, I know it's quaint: I have lived in Britain my entire life. And I think that's what it comes down to: this book suffers irredeemably for its author's Overenthusiastic American Syndrome. I wouldn't have thought this at all of Chevalier having met her, knowing she has lived here for twenty-two years ... but there we are. The premise of the book remains one of interest; it's unfortunate that it was executed so crudely. I intend to explore the books listed in the bibliography, but I expect that is where the good that I will take from this book will be exhausted.

OH. Let me collect my thoughts.

This book had a lot going from it from the very beginning: it smells perfect, exactly like an old book should; its cover is beautiful; it treads exquisitely the line between being floppy and being firm: it is a pleasure to hold.

Then I opened it, and it made my heart dance.

I'm not sure how far Nietzsche intended people to take Zarathustra as a self-help figure, or indeed how far it is wise to do so; I am sure that this book was precisely what I needed at this stage in my life. It guided me not into following Zarathustra but into believing I could climb my own path up my own mountain - and it told me so so beautifully. I mean, of course Zarathustra become insuffrable at times, but every time I disagreed with him my thoughts took me to amazing places.

When I asked my old philosophy teacher why Nietzsche was his favourite philosopher, he said it was precisely because he did not agree with him, and because his ideas took him to interesting places. I concur. I think it's a fool who follows him blindly (and didn't Zarathustra say not to find him, but to find yourself?). I think you're missing out if you don't allow Nietzsche to supplement your own intellectual journeys - not least because it's so rare to find a writer who is so unafraid to be openly passionate. I love that. I want to read everything he's written. Amazon, here I come.

After seeing the du Maurier drama last week it was all too apparent that my ignorance of her works was preposterous and had to end. Thus Rebecca. It was another of those books that rendered me incapable of dealing with anything outside of it for several minutes after each session, made me wander as though in a dream, back to my desk, unable to focus, wholly confused as to why this world I live in exists. It was extremely powerful, and I look forward to reading it again at some point. And I fucking adore Daphne. I would love to meet her.

Again, this site should rate out of ten, because Great Expectations would get seven. I found it cute, which, while fun and a delight, is not what I read books for. The points at which I was truly engaged were too distant from each other to save this book for me. I don't mean to say that I think it a failure - I don't at all; it just didn't transport me into that stream of terrible beauty that the books I find truly satisfying wrench me into.