The Fourth Hand by John Irving

I should have put The Fourth Hand down under F's in my alphabetical list, but for whatever reason had it as a number instead of written out.  This is one of the books that has been on my list for years and I don't know how or why it got on my list.

Part of me really liked the book and found the story intriguing.  Part of me got annoyed by the book at the same time.  The story is about a news reporter that loses his hand in an accident and then years later receives a hand transplant.  The story itself was really interesting and I liked it for the most part.

The part I didn't like was that the main character reminded me of the main character from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  In both that book and this one the main character sleeps with just about every woman that crosses his path.  It bothers me because I spend the whole time thinking "Obviously a man wrote this book because no woman would ever create a male character like this."  I also think that I am reading the author's idol, that the author wishes he could be like those men and sleep with anyone and everyone and it irritates me.

The story was good, and other than all the sex the book itself would be good.

The Fourth Hand gets 3 out of 5 stars.

1984 By George Orwell

I had never heard of 1984 until I saw it mentioned in an article I was reading one day.  I thought it sounded interesting so I added it to the list.  After looking into it a little bit it seems to be one of those books that everyone has heard about except me.  I don't know where I have been.

It was written in 1949 about England in 1984 and what the author thought could or would have changed.  It is all about a society that has Big Brother watching them at all times and Big Brother also alters everything to be what he wants it to be.

It took me 3 weeks to get through the first 90 pages.  That's when I decided to skim the rest of it and it took me 3 hours to skim through the other 140ish pages.  It was okay.  A little too wordy for me if you know what I mean.  It was an interesting read.  If I wanted to take 6 months to read it I could have gotten through the whole thing, but it isn't really my style of book.

1984 gets 3 out of 5 stars.