Well... more like a personal reading month, but PeNoReMo sounds more like a sex convention for homosexual Mexican nerds, I don't know...

Anywho, as of late, I've been reading a lot, and it's been about a month (I think it's 30 days today) since I bought a whole pile of books and started working my way through them. So I thought I'd talk about them here.

Fight Club: by Chuck Palahniuk. 208 pages.
It's about the middle class guys putting aside their same numb lives to feel important and alive, by beating the shit out of eachother. The writing is very fluid, and adopts motifs quite well. We see things as mediated through the protagonist's eyes, which lends itself (in great effect) to the psychology of the characters. The story is pumped with bizarre facts and matter-of-factly events that are nothing short of quirky. Fight Club is compelling in its oddity. The characters are brutally real, the world is brutally real, yet the whole thing is so remarkably different and riddled with an ugliness of blemishes and scars and other such humanistic flaws.

The Road: by Cormac McCarthy. 256 pages.
This story is about a father and son walking through a post-apocalyptic American landscape. Following the road. There's not much more than that. A couple of scenes that truly shock, despite being quite short and compact, it's the tension buildups and aftermaths that really leave the impact. Other than that, it's the father and son's struggled relationship that brings the reader in. They're just a regular middle class father and son, presumably belonging to the typical suburban home, white picket fence, 2.5 kids of the generic American anonymous family, prior to all the apocalypse stuffs. It's their genuine struggle in extremities that drives the narrative forward at full speed. Loved it, so sparse and dry, yet tense and compelling.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time: by Mark Haddon. 226 pages.
One of the stranger reads that I've come across. It's a novel written by a teenager with Aspergers. Weird, but wonderfully written and illustrated. Goes off on many tangents and reveals turbulent relationships and colourful characters. The protagonist is frustrating at times, but it's easy to sympathise with him. Very good read, great character driven story.

A Clockwork Orange: by Anthony Burgess. 176 pages.
Ultra-violence. Rape. Drugs. A teenager conditioned by a totalitarian government into good behaviour. This book is so well structured, its use of language so profound, its repetition of motifs held sparse, yet intriguing. The book in nothing short of astounding. The Nadsat teenage slang is a barrier the reader must overcome to better understand the text, but with it comes a deeper understanding of the characters, and the world at large.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: by J.R.R. Tolkien. About 100 pages in.
This book is of a whole different literary league. A lot to consume, such vibrant history and rich world settings. I can't help but feel overwhelmed by it all, the book is a real challenge, but certainly not one without significant rewards.

Dune: by Frank Herbert. About 100 pages in.
Certainly an interesting tale, very traditional feeling in its world politics for something set in an otherworldly future. I'll have to read more before I come of a solid opinion on the text.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: by Austen and Grahame-Smith. About 30 pages in.
Quite self explanatory literary fiction/zombie horror parody here. Reads kind of like a mad-lib. You could call it clever. You could call it hilarious. You could call it a literary abomination. I'm at a loss as to what to think. Again, I'll need to read further.

A Game of Thrones: by George R.R. Martin. About 80 pages in.
I'm finding myself caught up in the realm of this novel with ease. It's got a beautiful vibrant fantasy setting, hinting at the historical richness of Tolkien, however it's not as heavy laden as tLotR. It reads smooth. Real smooth. The character oriented chapters are a fascinating literary ploy and I've rapidly grown keen of the style. 80 pages in and I feel like I'm relating with the characters deeply and richly, despite their being numerous and so full of history and character. Thanks gOS, for recommending it to me.