BOOK HAUL #1

One of my main passions is reading, I like all books from all different genres and have recently done a little haul of some that I've heard are good. I will do proper reviews once I've finished reading them;

1. How To Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran - I am very excited to start reading this as it has been recommended to me by various people. It is described as,

"Part memoir, part rant, Caitlin Moran answers the questions that every modern woman is asking."

I would consider myself to be a modern day feminist and am passionate about women's rights - whether it be equal pay or reproductive rights - so sometimes it's nice to get a book which can add a bit of humour to this sometimes overly-serious subject.

2. The Liar, The Bitch And The Wardrobe by Allie Kingsley - I've read that this is a nice, easy-reading chick-lit book which sounds very similar to Devil Wears Prada. The book description is as follows;

"If you’re going to step on people on your way to the top, you might as well do it in stilettos . . .

. . . Or so she’s been told. Lucy Butler, former wallflower, lands her dream job working for her idol, world-famous fashion photographer Stefano Lepres. But in a world where getting doused in coffee for not getting the order right is the new normal, she isn’t getting any closer to her ideal of being behind the camera herself.

Then a superstar actress generously takes Lucy under her wing and teaches her the ways of the rich and famous—treating her to racks of designer clothes and introducing her to a life of private planes and penthouse suites. Soon Lucy is dating a rock star, attending the hottest Hollywood parties, and dressing the part.

Lost in the luxury, she loses sight of the things that once mattered most. It’s going to take a hard blow from the high life to send Lucy back to the real life she always wanted."

I like a good girly novel as much as the next person, so I have high hopes for this!

3. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk - This is the book which inspired the absolutely amazing movie adaption, Fight Club. The story is of a young man who is suffering from insomnia and ends up meeting a soap-maker who ends up forming an underground fight club "which turns into a violent revolution"; 

"Every weekend, in basements and parking lots across the country, young men with good white-collar jobs and absent fathers take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded for as long as they have to. Then they go back to those jobs with blackened eyes and loosened teeth and the sense that they can handle anything. Fight Club is the invention of Tyler Durden, projectionist, waiter and dark, anarchic genius. And it's only the beginning of his plans for revenge on a world where cancer support groups have the corner on human warmth."

I have been wanting to read this for some time now and, as it is quite a short book, hope it gives as much impact as the movie did.

4. Columbine by Dave Cullen - I have been fascinated by the story of Columbine for some time now and have watched several documentaries about the tragedy. There is something so shocking about the idea of two like-minded kids ending up carrying out such an atrocity on their own peers. Was it all down to bullying or were they just psychopathic? The book description says;

"On April 20, 1999, two boys left an indelible stamp on the American psyche. Their goal was simple: to blow up their school, Oklahoma-City style, and to leave "a lasting impression on the world." Their bombs failed, but the ensuing shooting defined a new era of school violence-irrevocably branding every subsequent shooting "another Columbine."

When we think of Columbine, we think of the Trench Coat Mafia; we think of Cassie Bernall, the girl we thought professed her faith before she was shot; and we think of the boy pulling himself out of a school window -- the whole world was watching him. Now, in a riveting piece of journalism nearly ten years in the making, comes the story none of us knew. In this revelatory book, Dave Cullen has delivered a profile of teenage killers that goes to the heart of psychopathology. He lays bare the callous brutality of mastermind Eric Harris, and the quavering, suicidal Dylan Klebold, who went to prom three days earlier and obsessed about love in his journal. 

The result is an astonishing account of two good students with lots of friends, who came to stockpile a basement cache of weapons, to record their raging hatred, and to manipulate every adult who got in their way. They left signs everywhere, described by Cullen with a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of police files, FBI psychologists, and the boy's tapes and diaries, he gives the first complete account of the Columbine tragedy."

As heartbreaking as it is, I am so intrigued by this story and I've heard that this book is very well-reasearched and gives some insight into the why's and how's of the situation surrounding Columbine.

All description details via Amazon.com