The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, The Great Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.

It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. 

After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem.

There was so much hype around the movie, so I wanted to read the book before I let Leo distract my appreciation from the original.

For the first half of the book, I found the storyline quite 'scatty' and the characters dialogue jumped around as if they weren't having a conversation, but were each talking about separate topics.

It also took me halfway through the book to feel any kind of engagement with the characters - other than Nick, the main characters weren't featured as often until the last 50% of the book.

So after nearly quitting, I persevered, and I'm glad I did, as towards the end it all fell in to place and I could appreciate it all a bit more.

Originally I thought I would enjoy the movie more, but after I finished I'm glad I read the book first. 

I read a caparison online before writing this review (which can be read here http://www.hollywood.com/news/movies/55013084/great-gatsby-book-vs-movie?page=all). It also made obvious a lot of subcontexts within the story (e.g. Daisy's superficial relationship with her daughter and her materialism). I still haven't watched the movie, but now I can't wait to see if I agree with this. 

I'm glad I read it. It is a classic and must read for all.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building's tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence.

Then there's Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter.

Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma's trust and to see through Renée's timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.

I usually love books that are based in Paris, but I have made it through 50% of the book and I am sitting on the fence about it.

I have enjoyed reading it so far. The characters are not unlikeable, the writing easily transports me to the location of the story and I wouldn’t class it as boring by any means – it reads like you are having a sneak peak in to Renee and Paloma’s private lives making it feel even more real - but so far I can’t really see the point of it all.

I’m putting my decision to stop reading it down to me wanting to read something a bit exciting and modern – the story so far has been moving along at a slow and steady pace. Apparently the best part of the book is the last quarter so I am keeping this in mind and will most likely come back and finish it at another time.