Brooklyn - Colm Toibin
Love and Summer - William Trevor

Ah, you repressed Irish gals...  (Actually these were pretty good)

Brief Lives - Anita Brookner

Gosh, isn't it desperately sad that you're all getting older and have no friends and you're going to die soon...  Oh, no, wait, you're all completely despicable and irritating and have completely failed to gain my sympathy, but hey, thanks for wasting 10 hours of my brief life.  No really, I appreciate it.

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Men tied to trees...  Women flying off to Heaven in the middle of hanging out the washing...  Totally insane.  Totally loved it. 

Love Letters of Great Women

Feeling a bit ashamed that my love letters usually just say 'bring home milk.'  I should probably try harder.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf - Edward Albee

"I swear, if you existed, I'd divorce you."

Best. Line. Ever.

December - January (OK, I got behind)

Changing My Mind - Zadie Smith
A book of essays on random topics from war heroes to movie reviews. A good 'dip in and out of ' book.









The Children's Bach - Helen Garner
I didn't enjoy this at all. It wasn't that it was bad. I just didn't enjoy it. And what's the point of being brilliant if no one can bear to be around you?







Selected Poems of W.B. Yeats
For my english course.











The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Loved this. It gets a Star.
There's a brilliant story about a woman who tries to impress a man by showing off her housewifely skills and her cooking but she's terrible at it and in the end he proposes to her on the condition that she never attempt to cook or clean again but focuses instead on her art because that's much more important. Pure porn for women.


Call Me By Your Name - Andre Aciman
I didn't connect with this at all and it was nothing to do with the story, it was the writing. If there's such a thing as 'masculine' writing, this is it. I don't mean all action, because it wasn't, but it got so bogged down in psychological analysis it was exasperating. 'I think this but he knows I think this or maybe he thinks I think that because I said this and he thought that and I think he thinks that I think that he thinks....blah blah blah.' Very technical and quite cold.
And I love psychological detail. Virginia Woolf does it perfectly. But in a completely different way. And I've often found that men don't like the way she writes, but women do. If there's such a thing as 'female' writing, she's it. The guys should try this one instead.



An Education - Lynn Barber
This was lots of fun. The film was great too.

November

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne
A really good book for kids. I don't think there's as much in it for adults as people say, but it's very good. I'll probably watch the film too. I've just noticed that this book cover spells it 'pajamas' which I've never seen before. Odd.





The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
My first Faulkner (I gave up on Absalom Absalom years ago). Not bad. I'm not rushing to read any more though. Better than Joyce.
I didn't really like any of the characters but at least I thoroughly hated a couple of them. That's always something.





The Moth Diaries - Rachel Klein
A bit whiny and slow, I almost didn't finish this one. It's kind of jumping on the vampire bandwagon but at least it tries to do it a bit differently. I can't see teenagers really getting into this. Much as they like a good whiny heroine, it's requires a bit too much thought for too little reward.






To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
I loved this. I've read it before but I think I was too young to appreciate it. It also made me notice I find a real difference in reading fiction by men and fiction by women. I can appreciate both but I really identify more with women's writing, and I found a real difference in the response to Woolf in my english class. The men tolerate her, even like her, and the women adore her.