Abbey+R

ABBEY'S LITERATURE CANON The following list contains novels that I believe to be truly wonderful, they are in no particular order.

**To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee**



To Kill a Mockingbird is one of those rare novels that will never age, although it is set decades ago you still have this ability to relate with it. You feel connected with the characters of Scout and Atticus Finch, you feel as though you too are going with the struggles and triumphs throughout. It demonstrates the horrendous conditions in which African-Americans found themselves in the 30s, Harper Lee portrays these issues so brilliantly. Set in the small town of Maycomb, the issues presented seem amplified as everyone knows everyone. One night when Atticus sits outside the jail, the 'mob' appear. Atticus's children are so concerned that they come to his aid, surprisingly Scout takes a stand. Striking up a conversation with Mr Cunningham, after her many probing questions the mob are almost forced to disperse, this shows you the power one young girl can have and how things can turn so quickly. As a reader you question humanity, the pure hatred people can hold for someone else or the compassion that can prevail. Honestly this is a book that you must have read simply for it's brilliance.

**QUOTES** "Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."

" Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

"I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year."

**The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold** With a young, protagonist in heaven you'd think at times this would disappoint however it is not to be. Susie Salmon is a rather enthralling character. This novel gives you an insighinto the deceptive nature of some people. George Harvey, the seemingly kind and lonely neighbour turns out to be nothing more than a cold blooded murderer and rapist. This novel is written with a narrator in 'limbo,' this book takes an unexpected perspective as she looks down on the ones she has left behind and the events that occur for them. It describes the struggle to prove Mr Harvey guilty and the events that happen due to this. It makes you think about innocence, guilt and deception and you question the minds of many. This is a beautifully written novel, one of my favourites. You can’t put it down until the end and even then you are wishing it didn’t have to end. A novel you could happily read many times and still be surprised, upset and thoroughly heart-warmed.

For a review http://www.curledup.com/luvbones.htm

**QUOTES** “He wore his innocence like a comfortable old coat.”

“Murder had a blood red door on the other side of which was everything unimaginable to everyone.”

"Murderers are not monsters, they're men. And that's the most frightening thing about them."

**The Curious Incident of the dog in the night time - Mark Haddon**  A young fifteen year old Christopher hates yellow and brown. He only counts in prime numbers and suspected of killing his neighbours poodle. This novel is beautiful, it tells of the story of a teenager suffering with Aspergers. His journey discovering his past and his journey to the future, for me I really learnt a lot about this condition from these 226 pages and feel I understand just that little bit more. This novel at times is difficult to read, only from the point that with Christopher's situation it can be hard to understand and it can become a little confusing. However most of the time it is written with such beauty that you can't put it down.

QUOTES "I know all of the countries of the world and their capital cities, and every prime number up to 7,057." <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"I do not tell lies. Mother used to say that this was because I was a good person. But it is not because I am a good person. It is because I can't tell lies." <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Most murders are committed by someone who is known to the victim. In fact, you are most likely to be murdered by a member of your own family on Christmas day." <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">[|SUMMARY AND REVIEW]

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">**Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen**

How could this novel not be on your list, the classic of all classics. Although I had indeed seen the movie before I had read the novel, the book did not disappoint. In fact I was pleasantly surprised at how beautiful it was. Austen entwines these lovely characters that you will never forget, with romance and humour this book can be read and reread countless times. It follows the story of the Bennet sisters leading a stereotypical 19th century life in England, their mother is attempting to marry them all off as quickly as possible. When Elizabeth meets Darcy they both immediately take this disapproval towards each other and this novel tells of their story and they events that conspire between this unusual pair. This novel epitomises eloquence and leaves you thoroughly in love with these two particular characters.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin: 0px;">On the Jellicoe Road - Melina Marchetta This novel confuses until it's denouement, with its changing between present day and the past it leaves you questioning why on earth you picked it up in the first place. This doesn't seem like a good thing, but I was pleasantly surprised when it all clicked into place. Taylor, this strong and unwavering character was abandoned by her mother at a 7/11 along the Jellicoe Road 6 years ago. Throughout this novel her past and present begin to make sense to her, when Hannah disappears and her search to find her mother begins. It tells of unlikely relationships, of surprising events and the past. With it’s fairly simple language you could knock this over in a few mere hours, it has a beautiful ending and is written with a certain eloquence that is hard to discern.

A Review @http://www.theage.com.au/news/book-reviews/on-the-jellicoe-road/2006/10/13/1160246311285.html


 * BEGINNING OF THE NOVEL**
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;">"My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die. **
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;"> I counted. **
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;"> It happened on the Jellicoe Road. The prettiest road I’d ever seen, where trees made breezy canopies like a tunnel to Shangri-La. We were going to the ocean, hundreds of miles away, because I wanted to see the ocean and my father said that it was about time the four of us made that journey. I remember asking, 'What’s the difference between a trip and a journey?' and my father said, 'Narnie, my love, when we get there, you’ll understand,' and that was the last thing he ever said." **

<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">**QUOTES** <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">** "//Never//,' he tells me in a tone full of ice, 'underestimate who or what I care for." ** <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">** "Whatever is now covered up will be uncovered and every secret will be made known." ** <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"Instinct tells me to go to Hannah's, but she doesn't live there anymore and that's when I realize the major difference between my mother and Hannah. My mother deserted me at the 7-Eleven, hundred of kilometers away from home. Hannah, however, did the unforgivable. She deserted me in our own backyard."
 * DIALOGUE**
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;">JOHNA: "It's bullshit," he tells me, flicking through it. "There's no such thing as Atticus Finch." **
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;"> TAYLOR: I shrug. "It'd be nice if there was, though." **

<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"This is what I know. I look like my father. My father disappeared when he was seventeen years old. Hannah once told me that there is something unnatural about being older than your father ever got to be. When you can say that at the age of seventeen, it's a different kind of devastating."

<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"And life goes on, which seems kind of strange and cruel when you're watching someone die."

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">**Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne** This heart wrenching and raw novel gives you immense insight into the holocaust. Bruno, the eight year old protagonist is painfully naïve and when his family moves to Poland his life is changed forever. His favourite pastime is exploring and one day he comes across a huge long fence. Behind the fence is young Shmuel, Bruno cannot grasp the situation in which Shmuel finds himself, which as the reader can be rather frustrating. As their friendship grows, Bruno’s father becomes more involved with the concentration camp and one day Bruno ventures under that fence. The next sequence of events with leave you uncontrollably crying, it is written so beautiful yet the situation is altogether awful. This author writes with such eloquence and passion that you feel as if you are a part of these characters lives. You feel pain for these characters and you laugh when something amusing occurs, this is a truly tremendous yet heart breaking novel. This is a book I will never forget. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; line-height: normal;"> For a review http://www.theage.com.au/news/book-reviews/the-boy-in-the-striped- pyjamas/2006/01/03/1136050420787.html


 * QUOTES**
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">"We don't have the luxury of thinking ... Some people make all the decisions for us." **


 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">"You wear the right outfit and you feel like the person you're pretending to be, she always told me." **


 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">"Despite the chaos that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let go." **

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">**Elsewhere - Gabrielle Zevin** This novel tells of a young girl by the name of Liz, who tragically died in a bicycle incident. She ends up 'Elsewhere,' and after watching her own funeral from up above she comes across her Grandmother whom she had never met before. This story explains her view from elsewhere and the concept of moving on, life continues as it would on earth however you age backwards and get younger. For some this is great but for Liz being only 16 she hasn't got long until she goes down the river and into oblivion. I am not usually a fantasy genre reader, however this novel really captured my attention. It was so beautifully written, you feel an unconditional bond with the character of Liz, just like in life she would frustrate you but you would also sympathise with her. Click for a [|REVIEW]


 * FAVOURITE PARAGRAPH**


 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;">"There will be other lives. **
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;"> There will be other lives for nervous boys with sweaty palms, for bittersweet fumblings in the backseats of cars, for caps and gowns in royal blue and crimson, for mothers clasping pretty pearl necklaces around daughters' unlined necks, for your full name read aloud in an auditorium, for brand-new suitcases transporting you to strange new people in strange new lands. **
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;"> And there will be other lives for unpaid debts, for one-night stands, for Prague and Paris, for painful shoes with pointy toes, for indecision and revisions. **
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;"> And there will be other lives for fathers walking daughters down aisles. **
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;"> And there will be other lives for sweet babies with skin like milk. **
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;"> And there will be other lives for a man you don't recognize, for a face in a mirror that is no longer yours, for the funerals of intimates, for shrinking, for teeth that fall out, for hair on your chin, for forgetting everything. Everything. **
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;"> Oh, there are so many lives. How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one. We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls. But that's not how it works. A human's life is a beautiful mess." **


 * QUOTES**


 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;">"Sorry but nothing of much importance ever happened to me...I'm just a girl who forgot to look both ways before crossing the street." **


 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18px;">"A life isn't measured in hours and minutes. It's the quality, not the length." **

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">**The Heaven Shop - Deborah Ellis** Although I haven't read this book in about three years and it is hard to recall all the details, I definitely know this is one of my favourite books. Deborah Ellis has written so many simple novels with a complex plot line, after reading all her other novels I was desperate to read more. This novels hits the hard issues, HIV/Aids is the most notable topic. Her use of simple language allows for younger readers to enjoy her novel and yet gaining information about epidemics around the world, it gives you the ability to sympathise and care for people on the other side of the world due to her beautiful skill in writing.

[|Summary and Review]