Reading on the blog

2011-09-28T22:12:00.001+01:00

Brooklyn - Colm Toibin
Love and Summer - William Trevor

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

2011-09-28T22:07:00.003+01:00

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.

2011-09-28T22:02:00.000+01:00

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.

2011-09-28T21:55:00.001+01:00

Love Letters of Great Women

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

2011-09-28T21:50:00.000+01:00

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)

2010-04-02T16:40:00.018+01:00

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

2009-12-13T13:33:00.005Z

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.

October

2009-11-14T17:28:00.011Z

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
Oh just shut up.

In terms of reviews, enough has already been said.

Lady Chatterley's Lover - DH Lawrence
I've always thought this would be rubbish, but I have to admit I really enjoyed it. Plus Babes had great fun doing the accents.

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Meh. And I think he was a bloody racist.

September

2009-10-13T22:28:00.008+01:00

The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
My first Hemingway, apart from some short stories. I don't know if 'enjoy' is the word, but it was interesting from a writing perspective.

Jeeves in the Offing - P G Wodehouse
What ho!

Fantastic Mr Fox - Roald Dahl
If I have to run the kids' reading group in the library then I'm gonna pick books I want to read. And you can't beat Roald Dahl.

August

2009-08-26T17:58:00.010+01:00

Firmin - Sam Savage
This was really really good actually. It's about a rat who lives in a bookshop and learns to read by eating books. He's a lonely intellectual watching the gradual collapse of his neighbourhood and the people who live there, finding consolation in literature. A very different, and deceptively simple story and a must for book lovers.
It's not easy to make me relate to a rat. This one gets a STAR.

Fair Play - Tove Jansson
Like her books for children, Tove Jansson's stories for adults are bizarre and lovely.

Miss Bugle Saw God in the Cabbages - Sara Yeomans
Why is anything with 'Miss' in the title strangely appealing? This was pretty good. "Enid Blyton for Bitches". Says it all.

July

2009-07-17T10:31:00.012+01:00

The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters
All Sarah Waters books are fantastic and this is one of the best. I actually had a nightmare about it. Very chilling, in a psychological horror sort of way. I was reminded of the film 'The Others.' Not because of the plot, I won't give that away, but just the feel of it. The way you're thinking 'I'm not scared at all, aren't I brave' most of the way through, and then you turn the last page and realise you'll never sleep tonight.
This one gets one of my rarely bestowed STARs.

What I was - Meg Rosoff
Even better than How I Live Now. A weird mix of Catcher in the Rye and Huckleberry Finn. Very different, and it's always nice to come across something different.

Maurice or The Fisher's Cot - Mary Shelley
More remarkable than the story is the fact that this tale for children by the author of Frankenstein was considered lost and only discovered in 1997, 150 years after it was written.
It's quite a sweet story, which she wrote for the daughter of a friend. It was found in the library of an Italian man who is descended from a friend of Shelley's. Amazing. There's an article about it here.

Eclipse - Stephanie Meyer
OK, I'm sad and pathetic, but I'd no sooner closed this book than I'd ordered Breaking Dawn on Amazon. And I may or may not be reading Midnight Sun on the Stephanie Meyer website (she posted it there, it's allowed, so neh!).
And really it's just too ironic of me to be yelling, 'Get a life, Bella' when I just spent 3 days of mine reading a million-page book about vampires.
Leave your inner feminist at the door, girls.

Breaking Dawn - Stephenie Meyer
Good grief. Just, good grief.
Know when to stop, people.

June

2009-06-29T10:20:00.009+01:00

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - Winifred Watson
A Persephone Classic and a brilliant read. Like a female version of Jeeves and Wooster, all wit and fashion and misunderstandings. A real feel-good, cinderella story.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer
I thought this looked a bit twee and Granny-esque, but actually I really enjoyed it. The writing was very smooth and witty and it was sweet without being sickly for the most part. The author was American (but does the Brits very well), wrote the book (her first) in her 70's and didn't live to see it published.

New Moon - Stephanie Meyer
I've done a fuller review of this on Overdue. Suffice to say, I loved it but definitely consider it a guilty pleasure.

The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Another fab children's book by Neil Gaiman, about how the scary things in life are not the monsters under the bed.

April and May

2009-05-24T11:05:00.015+01:00

The Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West
Set in England during WW1, this was (unintentionally) hilarious. The absolute horror with which the wife and cousin of Captain Baldry regard the woman he was in love with as a young man (because she's poor) is all the more farcical because it's so seriously meant. They almost can't bear to look at her because her purse is a poor quality material. Evenually the cousin comes to feel sorry for her because the poor thing has had to live her whole life with a man who wears carpet slippers in the house. Actually quite a good story, well written and I really enjoyed it. I just find all that delicate feminine sensibility stuff so bizarre.
I'd recommend this one.

Before Green Gables - Budge Wilson
The Anne of Green Gables series were my favourite books as a child so I was half delighted, half horrified to find they were getting some Canadian writer I'd never heard of to write a prequel to celebrate Anne's centenary. But it was lovely. It refered to all the characters mentioned in connection with Anne's past in the series and gave them all their own stories.
A must for Anne fans.

Moominland Midwinter - Tove Jansson
Another Moomin adventure. These have got to be the best kids books ever.

The Post Office Girl - Stefan Zweig
This unpublished novel was found among the authors papers after his death (a suicide pact with his wife). It's set in Austria just after the first world war and was written during the second world war before the author was driven out of Germany. It's like a cinderella story but with the real life tragic ending. Beautifully written, especially for something he never intended to publish. I'd give this one a star.

Librarianship An Introduction - G Chowdhury
This one took up most of the month. Mainly because it was so boring I had to read it about 6 times to take anything in. And I'm not used to having to finish books that bore me.
There were other text books too but I'm too bored even thinking about them to go into detail.

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister - Gregory Maguire
The true story of Cinderella, from the point of view of the Ugly Stepsister. This wasn't quite as good as Wicked but pretty enjoyable all the same.

March

2009-03-02T18:48:00.013Z

The Outcast - Sadie Jones
I read this in one day and it totally took my mind off my toothache. I thought the main character was really well drawn and totally believable despite having been through some major stuff and being pretty messed up. It must be hard to create a character who doesn't really understand himself, and still make the reader understand him and believe in him.
I'd recommend this one, (as do Richard and Judy, so it must be good!)
A good start to March, I think.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13¾ - Sue Townsend
I think everyone should re-read this once a year, so you never forget what it was like to be 13¾. I laughed so hard it hurt. My favourite bit was his Valentines Poem for Pandora:

My young love,
Treacle hair and knee-socks
Give my system deep shocks.
You've got a magic figure:
I'm Roy Rogers, you are Trigger.

Gold - Dan Rhodes
Um...I didn't really get this. It was ok, I suppose. Readable. But I was told it was hilariously funny and it just wasn't. I quite liked the main character but nothing really happened. It had a really good last paragraph, but it wasn't worth reading the whole book for.

Just Henry - Michelle Magorian

If you loved 'Goodnight Mister Tom' (and I did) you'll love this. Feel good, old fasioned fun. It's about 600 pages but I read it in 2 days. Took me right back to being 13 again.

The Stories of Tobias Wolff - Tobias Wolff
Another Tobias Wolff. I really like this guy's stuff. I'd never read any of his short stories before and I really enjoyed them. They're a bit Raymond Carver I think.
(I just looked at the back cover and they compare him to Chekhov, who they also compare Raymond Carver to on the back of 'Will you please be quiet, please?')
Excellent stuff.

February

2009-02-03T14:52:00.013Z

Under The Hawthorne Tree - Marita Conlon McKenna
A kids' book about the famine in Ireland, which later became a series of books and a TV series.
Very sweet and very sad.

The Complete Polysyllabic Spree - Nick Hornby
Loved this. I'll post a proper review on Overdue.

The End - Lemony Snicket
WTF?! I feel gypped! 13 freakin books! And NO ending. OK, OK, the world's a terrible place where people don't really have happy endings, I get it. But there were THIRTEEN books. And I read them ALL. And I CARED. And I want to know what the bloody hell was going on! I want the bad guy dead or in prison. I want the orphans adopted by Daddy Warbucks. I want JUSTICE, dammit.
They should put on the cover, 'WARNING, does NOT contain spoilers'.

February has been a pretty terrible reading month. I couldn't get into anything or make myself sit down and turn the TV off. I blame the weather. Roll on reading on a picnic blanket in the sun.

January

2009-01-05T19:52:00.028Z

Tom's Midnight Garden - Philippa Pearce
Getting off to a good start, got this for Christmas, which is the perfect time to read children's books. Couldn't quite believe I'd never read it before. I half expected to get to page 3 and go 'Oh yeah...' but I didn't. And it was great. Loved it. Kinda reminded me of The Time Traveller's Wife actually, which was also amazing.

This one gets a STAR.

In Pharaoh's Army - Tobias Wolff
This is part two of Wolff's autobiography and I read it because I read part one (This Boy's Life) last Month and had to find out what happened next. It's as readable as any novel, and if you didn't know it was an autobiography you could believe it was fiction. I'll probably read more of his stuff. I only read This Boy's Life in the first place because I'd read one of his novels, Old School, and loved it.
This one also gets a STAR. Gosh, either I'm getting soft or I'm having a fantastic start to the reading year. Last year I only awarded 8 stars in total for the whole year!

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit - PG Wodehouse
I love these books because:
There are millions of them.
You don't have to read them in any order at all.
You're guaranteed a laugh per page.
Jeeves and Wooster are two of the best characters in English Literature.
They make you want to say things like 'What ho!' and drink Martinis while doing the Charleston.
Nuff said.

My Side of the Story - Will Davis
Gay teen + dysfunctional family = Entertaining read for rainy afternoon.
Nothing too mind blowing. Written in 'teen-speak' so don't bother if that annoys you.

In summary, I'm like the definition of Whatever.

A Winter Book - Tove Jansson
I read this because I'm a big Moomins fan and wondered what her writing for adults was like.

This is a beautiful book of short stories which seem to be fairly autobiographical and span a lifetime, from a tiny child listening in on her parents' parties to an old lady realising she will never go fishing again. Phillip Pullman says they are 'As smooth and odd and beautiful as sea-worn driftwood', which I think is the perfect description. Simple but intriguing. Unpretentious, unfussy but truly touching and memorable. I think she'd have been a facinating person to meet.