Tag Archives: Narnia

Goodreads purge and book buying ban

I decided today that my Goodreads lists (i.e. my TBR pile also) needed to be purged. I know many of you will laugh about me when I say that my TBR list contains 140 books, but to me this seems quite a lot and needs some downsizing – and a book buying ban to boot.

I had a closer look at my TBR list and found that I keep adding books that I hear or read about which are unlikely to ever get read by me. I switched a lot of them over to my “read maybe” list, which is a euphemism for “think about it and probably discard the idea”.

I am sad to say that six Narnia books went that way as well. I know, it is my own project and I am not giving it up completely, but the first book so disappointed me that I can’t be bothered to continue at this point.

OK, so where does this leave me? My TBR list is down to 124 books, 44 of which are the “probably never” kind. I should make this hopeless shelf exclusive, shouldn’t I? So 80 books to read, which sounds do-able. 15 of those books I do not own yet, which means I have 65 books at home waiting to be read. Perfect!

Until I have read a significant number of those 65 books I won’t buy another book. What would a significant number be? 20? 20 sounds good to me, that is almost 30%!

Oh, swapping is allowed, btw, simply because sometimes the opportunity comes along to swap a book that I have been searching for and it would be stupid not to to grasp it, wouldn’t it?

OK, the ban has come into effect as of now… Anybody care to join me?

The lion, the witch and the wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

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The lion, the witch and the wardrobe Blurb:

Narnia…a land frozen in eternal winter…a country waiting to be set free.

Four adventurers step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia – a land enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion, Aslan, signals a great change…and a great sacrifice.

In a nutshell:

I read it in: English

I liked it: Kind of yes, kind of no

For people who like: fairy tales, fantasy, good vs. evil

My thoughts:

This was the quickest read for me in a long time. I started some time in the morning and was done in the afternoon (including the usual family interruptions, I might add). According to the target group the story was not overly complicated and extremely easy to follow.

I liked the general idea of the children discovering another world by entering a wardrobe, moving through fur coats and leaving through the back. But there were a few things I didn’t like at all.

The mishmash of characters in Narnia that just didn’t go together. Giants, trolls, fauns, speaking beavers, satyrs, unicorns, centaurs, for me they don’t all belong into the same universe. What I found even more annoying was the appearance of Santa Claus. What on Earth does he do in a parallel fantasy world? And gives some useful gifts, too. Those gifts sounded more like fairy gifts than from jolly old Santa.
The witch was mean, but stupid. She could have gotten more use out of Edmund after he came to her castle had she been a bit nicer. As it was she made him realize how wicked she really was and he turned against her. That wasn’t something I would have expected her to do. She should have kept up her sweet, deceiving personality a little longer.
Aslan, well, that little trick he pulled was not very honourable. I didn’t care about the Christian aspects of that scene but what really annoyed me was that he betrayed the deal with the witch. He gave her his word (implied by his furious roar when she asked about whether she could trust the deal will be honoured) and then he comes up with the even older magic crap which the witch didn’t know about. Not fair! I admit he had to go through a fair amount of humiliation and yes, the witch would have not been honourable and honest either, but two wrongs don’t make a right (sorry about having to quote a commonplace here). Also this is not a very good example for children. I know something you don’t, so I can cheat on you easier. And that is ok, because you are evil and I am good. I didn’t like that. At all.

It was an ok start to the series as the children discovered Narnia together with me. I am curious to know what comes next. At the same time I am quite apprehensive. Will the series continue to give such dubious messages to its readers? The end justifies the means isn’t something I 100% agree with. We will see.

Movie tip

The chronicles of Narnia: The lion, the witch and the wardrobe

Product info and buy link :

Title	The lion, the witch and the wardrobe
Author	C. S. Lewis
Publisher	HarperCollins
ISBN	9780007115617
I got this book from	I bought it
Buy link	Buy The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

If you click on the buy link above you will be taken to The Book Depository.co.uk. If you buy the book through this link I will earn a small commission. You can find my general affiliate links to The Book Depository, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com here.

Have you read this book? What did you think of it? I would love to hear other opinions.

This post is part of

narnia

my Narnia Reading Project 2012.

Narnia reading project kick off

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narnia

OK, it’s January at last and I want to get started on reading Narnia this month. I decided to go with the order of completion which is again a little different from the publication order. In both cases, however, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” comes first.

This is how it goes:

The lion, the witch and the wardrobe
Prince Caspian: The return to Narnia
The voyage of the Dawn Treader
The horse and his boy
The silver chair
The magician’s nephew
The last battle

Who else is going to read in that order and who is planning on starting this month? Please, remember, we have a discussion page for each book where I also posted some questions from the reading group guide at Harper Collins. You can find the links to the pages either on the Narnia project page or in the drop down menu at the top of this blog.

Let’s get started!

Narnia reading project 2012

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Rikki's Teleidoscope I am sure there has been a reading challenge for “The Chronicles of Narnia” by C. S. Lewis before but I couldn’t find a current one. I am a Narnia beginner and don’t want to join in anywhere where people are already up to book five or even re-reading.

I have NEVER read a Narnia book before, have never seen a film and am clueless about the story. But I here they are good.

I am planning to read all seven books – unless it turns out I hate the whole world or concept – and am looking for some fellow readers who are as new to Narnia as I am and would like to explore it with me and other likeminded people.

You are one of them? Great! Head on over to my Narnia Reading Project page and sign up! If you would like to grab my Narnia button, just copy the code in the box at the bottom of this post and paste it into your sidebar or your posts.

My estimated timeline is until the end of 2012. I would like to start reading in January, so we all have still time to get at least the first book, which for me will be “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. You can find more info about the reading order on the project page.

So, what do you say? Are you in?

Code for above Narnia button: