Fear and Loathing in La Liga: Barcelona vs Real Madrid

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Super Long Book Titles

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl. This week it’s all about super long book titles. These are all books I’ve read, and I think some of these book titles are deceptive as when you count the words there’s not as many as you think, they just have a lot of syllables. I noticed a lot of these books are non-fiction – those semi colons definitely help book titles to become longer!

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
Fear and Loathing in La Liga: Barcelona vs Real Madrid by Sid Lowe
The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker
Butterfly: From Refugee to Olympian, My Story of Rescue, Hope and Triumph by Yusra Mardini
The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After by Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil

Gould’s Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish by Richard Flanagan
Roger Federer & Rafael Nadal: The Lives and Careers of Two Tennis Legends by Sebastián Fest
Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash by Eka Kurniawan
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
How to be a Heroine (Or, what I’ve learned from reading too much) by Samantha Ellis

Have you read any of these long-titled books? And do you find some books don’t have so many words in the title as you first think they do?

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Top Ten Best Books I Read In 2015

Top Ten Tuesday is a feature run by BrokeAndBookish each week – I’m thinking I might not take part every week but just see if a week takes my fancy. Where has this year gone?! As we’ve only got a few weeks left, here’s the ten books I’ve loved the most this year. In June I talked about my favourite books I’d read so far this year so if you want to know about some other awesome books and to see which ones made both lists shimmy over here.

For once I’ve put these in order, going from ten to my number one book of the year.

FullSizeRender (91) 10. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
I love me some thrillers with unreliable narrators and The Girl on the Train certainly has that! I loved how Rachel wasn’t reliable or even likable a lot of the time and it was one of those mysteries that left me guessing till the gripping finale.

FullSizeRender (82) 9. Fear and Loathing in La Liga: Barcelona vs Real Madrid by Sid Lowe
Barcelona and Real Madrid’s rivalry is legendary and Fear and Loathing in La Liga delves deep into both clubs history and looks at Spain’s history too. This was a fascinating read, it was sometimes a bit dense and a little dull when it was talking about players I didn’t know about but on the whole it was great read.

FullSizeRender (99) 8. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
I thought A Monster Calls was just a children’s book and I was so wrong! Yes it has illustrations and is about a young boy but it deals with grief and death and abandonment so well. It really makes you think and the beautiful passages go so well with the often scary drawings.

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TOP TEN TUESDAY: Top Ten Books I’ve Read This Year So Far

Top Ten Tuesday is a feature run by BrokeAndBookish each week – I’m thinking I might not take part every week but just see if a week takes my fancy. As we are now half way through the year (how has that happened?!) today’s Top Ten Tuesday is the ten best books you’ve read so far this year. If I’ve reviewed the book mentioned, its title will go to my review where you can see me gush even more about it.

The Martian by Andy Weir
I loved the humour in this book. Mark Watney has such a realistic voice, I can image him being on Mars and being like “Well now what? Guess I’ll grow some potatoes.” All the characters were interesting and flawed and the story was gripping and funny. I cannot wait for the film adaptation – it’s probably one of the films I’m most looking forward to this year.

Doubletake by Rob Thurman
It was great to return to the Cal Leandros series after so long. Robin Goodfellow was still his usual self – though a little on edge due to family stuff and it was nice to learn more about Nico’s side of the family. I’ve still got more books in this series to catch up on which I’m looking forward to doing.

Secret Avengers by Ales Kot and Michael Walsh
Secret Avengers is a lot of fun. The characters are great, the story’s exciting and fun, and the art is wonderful. If you’re not sure where to start with Marvel comics – give Secret Avengers a go. (more…)

REVIEW: Fear and Loathing in La Liga: Barcelona vs Real Madrid by Sid Lowe

This is the story of the legendary rivalry between Barcelona and Real Madrid. Today it might be summed up as Messi vs Ronaldo but there’s decades of history that shows how different the two clubs are and how and why their rivalry is so prominent in world football.

By studying the history of Barcelona and Real Madrid, Fear and Loathing in La Liga looks at the history of Spain. From Franco’s dictatorship and how that effected the country and its football – both what actually happened and how those acts were perceived. Real Madrid was seen as Franco’s team, while Barcelona were the Catalan freedom fighters. This mythology still affects how the teams are perceived in the press and by the fans today.

Fear and Loathing in La Liga is a fascinating read. It has first hand accounts of different matches and players, managers and coaches and fans talk about why they believe there to be such a rivalry between the two teams.