Year 12 Reading Log

While cleaning out my room, I found my year 12 (sixth form – I was 16) reading log. To earn some extra credits for NCEA, students at our school had to read nine full-length adult books which I had not read before. At least five books had to be chosen from list A, and all nine books had to be from list A and list B. There had to be a gender balance of sorts – five of one, four of the other.

So here is what I read that year:

• Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte (Required Category: Pre-20th Century Writer)
• Long Walk To Freedom – Nelson Mandela (Required Category: Auto/Biography)
• The House Of The Spirits – Isabel Allende (Required Category: Contemporary Author)
• Once Were Warriors – Alan Duff (Required Category: New Zealand Author)
• Falling Leaves – Adeline Yen Mah (Required Category: Book Dealing With Another Culture)
• I, Claudius – Robert Graves
• The Shelters of Stone – Jean M. Auel
• The Origins of Humankind -Richard Leakey
• Voyage To Atlantis – James W. Mavor

Some notes I have gathered from re-reading the reviews:

• My review of Jane Eyre was a very polite “WTF?!” That book put me off classics for a good while.
• I read Long Walk To Freedom in about five hours, using a technique that would later be used on the days of Harry Potter releases – I locked myself in my room and didn’t come out until I was done.
• I read House of the Spirits during mock exam week. I made notes on language and the use of third vs first perspective, and the evolution of the narrator’s voice.
• I didn’t like Once Were Warriors‘ use of coarse language – “maybe I am overly sensitive to the language” I see there.
• I may have been sensitive to coarse language, but from my memories of Shelters of Stone I didn’t seem bothered by all the sex scenes. I remember sitting and giggling over the naughty bits with friends.
• I was very clearly in a major archaeology/history mode that year.

I don’t read as much adult fiction as I used to, partially because I am no longer required to and partially because since that time there has been major booms in YA and I have discovered the YA book blogging community (and so I am introduced to YA books that I otherwise wouldn’t have been).

Interesting though what you find when cleaning.