Willoyd's Reading 2015

[Athena]

I can't wait to hear what you think of this So far almost everyone I've talked to about the book has loved it just about as much as the first novel, except for Athena.

Sorry to be the odd one out , I do hope you enjoy it, Willoyd .

[frankie]

Sorry to be the odd one out , I do hope you enjoy it, Willoyd .

 

No need to apologize, you couldn't really help it that you didn't enjoy it as much as the first novel 

[chesilbeach]

I've read most of Faber's work, and I still think TCPATW was the best and my favourite, and although I read The Apple, I only really remember the last story, which was the one that was a sort of epilogue to TCPATW.
 
There were two other books of his I thought were very good, and they were The Fire Gospel, which is part of the Canongate myths retold series, and is based on of the Greek Myth of Prometheus, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals, and also The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps which is a novella, but surprisingly exciting, considering it is about the detailed, considered work of a paper conservator.

[willoyd]

Sorry to be the odd one out , I do hope you enjoy it, Willoyd .

A bit of a cliche, I know, but it would be awfully boring if we all agreed on everything, especially books! I'm always suspicious of books that everybody has enjoyed, not least because I so often find myself not enjoying the same. So you're not liking it actually provides me with hope!!

 

There were two other books of his I thought were very good, and they were The Fire Gospel, which is part of the Canongate myths retold series, and is based on of the Greek Myth of Prometheus, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals, and also The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps which is a novella, but surprisingly exciting, considering it is about the detailed, considered work of a paper conservator.

 

Thanks for those Claire - I'll look out for both. The latter sounds particularly intriguing!

 

 

 

[Athena]

No need to apologize, you couldn't really help it that you didn't enjoy it as much as the first novel 

 

Thanks, Frankie .

 

I've read most of Faber's work, and I still think TCPATW was the best and my favourite, and although I read The Apple, I only really remember the last story, which was the one that was a sort of epilogue to TCPATW.

 

There were two other books of his I thought were very good, and they were The Fire Gospel, which is part of the Canongate myths retold series, and is based on of the Greek Myth of Prometheus, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals, and also The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps which is a novella, but surprisingly exciting, considering it is about the detailed, considered work of a paper conservator.

Those sound interesting, I might have to look those up . 

 

A bit of a cliche, I know, but it would be awfully boring if we all agreed on everything, especially books! I'm always suspicious of books that everybody has enjoyed, not least because I so often find myself not enjoying the same. So you're not liking it actually provides me with hope!!

Thanks, Willoyd, that's true .

[frankie]

My favorite Faber is by far Under the Skin, but I'm pretty sure it's nothing like the other Faber books that you have been discussing recently, and I don't know if the book is something willoyd would want to read... 

[chesilbeach]

My favorite Faber is by far Under the Skin, but I'm pretty sure it's nothing like the other Faber books that you have been discussing recently, and I don't know if the book is something willoyd would want to read... 

 

I couldn't even finish that one.  Unsettling … made me squirm in my chair and gave up after 100 pages. *shudder*

[willoyd]

Four Dreamers and Emily by Stevie Davies ***

Marianne Pendleton is overworked and underappreciated by both her boss at a higher education institute and her husband. A Bronte specialist, she is organising a conference in Haworth on Emily, to which a diverse range of characters is attracted, including the other three 'dreamers': Eileen, a self-proclaimed expert on Emily Bronte with a passion for 'The Passion'; Timothy, a fragile widower who corresponds with and idolises Marianne, but has never met her, and Sharon, a waitress at the same institute as Marianne, and a Bronte neophyte. The conference proves to be a catalyst for change: change in perceptions, attitudes, and relationships. The results are both dramatic for each of the characters, and intended as entertaining for the reader!

 

Stevie Davies certainly has her tongue thoroughly in cheek in this distinctly sideways look at the academic conference. Whilst never going to quite the same extremes, there is a strong whiff of Tom Sharpe in this novel, although Davies does show a greater degree of empathy towards her characters. These in turn are well defined, if a little stereotypical at times. However, the author just about manages to avoid making it all a bit too obvious, although I was never so engrossed as to find the book unputdownable, not least because this sort of humour doesn't do an awful lot for me. Indeed, there were one or two occasions where I was tempted to put down permanently - not for any great misdemeanour or dislike, simply from a feeling of mild tedium. In the end it never quite came to that, and there was no doubting the author's technical writing ability, so I did manage to read on to the end without too much effort, but I can't say I was wowed at any stage. Overall, it was a pleasant enough read, but nothing in terms of the style of the book that makes me particularly anxious to pursue others by the same author.

Edited April 9, 2015 by willoyd

[frankie]

I couldn't even finish that one.  Unsettling … made me squirm in my chair and gave up after 100 pages. *shudder*

 

I can imagine... It's not for everyone  

[willoyd]

Stuffocation by James Wallman **

 

Stuffocation - suffocation from the veritable tidal wave of 'stuff' that our capitalist economy is built around: we are exhorted to buy more and more stuff so that our economy can continue to thrive, but it still fails to bring happiness, or even life satisfaction, with it. Wallman examines the causes, and then looks at various responses - minimalism, medium chill, rejecting them all until he reaches 'experientialism', whereby we spend just as money, but on experiences. And if, along the way, we buy just as much stuff, but now we're buying it to enjoy that experience (surfboards, bicycles, bunjee jumping gear, etc etc), then that's not a problem - indeed it's good, as it'll keep the economy going.

 

Do I sound skeptical, even cynical? Well, I certainly buy (deliberate pun!) into the idea that it's the experiences that matter, and some of the ideas in Stuffocation were certainly worth examining, but there was a thinness to the arguments - predominantly based, so it appeared, on purely anecdotale evidence - and a flabbiness to the reasoning (for instance, how do you define 'experience', and thus when it's 'good' to be buying stuff? Wallman was way too dismissive of the alternatives, simply because they undermined the current economic model - has he even vaguely heard of environmental issues?) that I ultimately found completely exasperating. I'm also very suspicious of anybody who defines themselves as a futurologist. Does he actually have any real knowledge or expertise in the area? On this evidence, not particularly. Disappointing.

Edited April 18, 2015 by willoyd

[willoyd]

A bit of a lull for a couple of weeks, as life at work went mad for a while, with a big deadline for an award application and a residential to be managed (30 year 6 children in London for a week!), amongst other things (like teaching the odd lesson!), so a little bit behind....

 

A couple of reviews to come, but in the meantime, still managed to finish a couple of books: Night and Day was Mrs Woolf's usual superb self, even if not (IMO) her best (To The Lighthouse and The Years probably remain my favourites), whilst Behind The Scenes at the Museum (read for my book group) was OK, but definitely not Kate Atkinson's best either.  Am currently just over a quarter of the way through Birdsong, which again is OK (and better than Atkinson's OK!), but I've still to work out why people rave about it so much - maybe that led me to expect too much. 

 

A few purchases in the meantime too, mostly non-fiction, so probably of limited interest here (but listed on the first page of this thread), but two that might be more so are:

 

Capital Crimes -  Martin Edwards (short stories in the British Library series of revived crime stories)

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (dead cheap but nice copy of the Folio Society edition from a charity shop)

and Birdsong itself

 

I do need to read some of those bought this year now - the backlog is getting longer by the day!  At least Birdsong will contribute to the 'have read' list!

[Athena]

I hope you enjoy your new books . I read In Cold Blood for secondary school and while I don't remember much of it nowadays I do remember liking it back then.

[chesilbeach]

Am currently just over a quarter of the way through Birdsong, which again is OK (and better than Atkinson's OK!), but I've still to work out why people rave about it so much - maybe that led me to expect too much.

I was rather underwhelmed by it too after everyone telling me how great it was … I'll wait until you've finished and reviewed it before I make any comments, but perhaps we have the same reservations about it.

[willoyd]

Night and Day by Virginia Woolf *****

By Woolfian standards, this has to be one of her most conventional novels, relating the intricate and developing relationships between two men and two women. What initially looks like two fairy obvious couples turns out rather differently in the end.

 

Of course, being Virginia Woolf, even at this early stage (Night and Day was her second book) things aren't quite as conventional as they seem, and the various threads that the author weaves into the narrative make this somewhat more thought-provoking. In particular, Woolf examines the role of women in contemporary society, with the main female protagonist, Katherine, attempting to develop her mathematical studies in the face of a societal brick wall, whilst Mary Datchett is busy carving out her career (career? woman? well, really!!) within the suffragette movement. Not only are they both strong-minded, but the men they are involved with, Ralph and William, are distinctly more female, at least in stereotypical terms. The roles have definitely been reversed!

 

The book is full of Woolf's superbly observed scenes and precisely developed characters. Her care with her choice of words is immediately obvious, even if she has, here, written a rather larger book than her norm. Even so, there were one or two moments where, in spite of the incisive and precise nature of her writing, it felt that an editor's hand was needed. But it picked up as the novel progressed, and the last third sped past.

 

This was the last of Virginia Woolf's novels that I had yet to read, and it surprised me a little for being rather more assured than I had anticipated. However, it is still recognisably an earlier novel of hers, with later writing fairly obviously foreshadowed. Having said that, its rather more conventionally novelistic style still hung together well, and, whilst not amongst my absolute Woolf favourites (for which one needs to go to To The Lighthouse and The Years (not everybody's choice for favourite!), it's definitely in at least the second tier.

Edited May 13, 2015 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Behind The Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson ***
This was Kate Atkinson's first book, one that won her the Whitbread/Costa Book of the Year award, read as one of my book group's monthly choices. It's one I've been meaning to read for sometime, having, in turn, loved (Case Histories), enjoyed (Human Croquet) and given up on (Emotionally Weird) other books of hers. Which category would this fall into, or would it carve out its own?

Well, true to form, it carved out its own, somewhere in between Human Croquet and Emotionally Weird. The opening lines were certainly promising, reminiscent (presumably deliberately so) of Laurence Sterne's Tristam Shandy, written only a few miles north of York, both Kate Atkinson's birthplace and the setting for BTSATM. Early chapters continued the promise, with the main protagonist, Ruby, starting off her life story from within the womb, describing a couple of parents (Bunty and George) not too distantly related to Punch and Judy (without the violence). After that though, whilst the writing generally maintained the quality, the story telling started to stutter a bit.

There was no one issue, rather an accumulation. First of all, the early pages positively swarmed with new characters, a host of relatives. This was partly inevitable, and partly the point, given that this was the saga of Ruby's life, but even so, keeping track was fearsomely difficult on occasions, and Atkinson seemed to assume one would pick them up immediately, with little if any prompting. No chance! I managed to keep track by constructing my own family tree (I later disoovered one through Wikipedia, but actually you don't want to look at it, as it effectively gives a couple of plot lines away - much better to build your own up as you go along). To some extent, the best way of tackling this was just to go with the flow, but for at least one reader in the group, this was a major turnoff, and a reason for not finishing the book.

I also found the story unremittingly dreary: nothing ever went right for Ruby and her family. The author certainly injected strong streaks of blackish humour (there were moments where even I laughed out loud), but there was little alleviation to the negative plot turns: you just know that whatever is happening, it's going to turn sour, and it does. It also spent page after page not going anywhere. Now it actually did, and the ending (without giving anything away) is partly very much a cumulative effort, but for the most part, I was left wondering, where is the sense of direction (or, indeed, is there meant to be one, given this was a life story)? And then, were any of the characters actually likeable? No, they weren't.

So, whilst the story bounces along, zigzagging backwards and forwards chronologically (a feature I enjoyed, but which left some of my book group in despair trying to keep up with the who's who aspects), not going anywhere particularly fast, but doing so in an engagingly written way, and whilst there are no doubt some worthwhile and interesting themes (not least the emphasis on the female history of the family), I can't say this goes down as one of my favourites. And as for the plot twists - well they're largely sufficiently well signalled that they don't come as too much of a shock, although the precise details of the main one and its implications were well disguised, and I liked the way one or two subplots were intertwined into the main narrative to add texture and, in one case, a slightly implausible but effective coincidence.

As a first book this was a good read, and one that would have enticed me to read the author further. Reading this after one or two of her later efforts, it's not quite so successful, a bit like sampling a lesser wine after a better one, rather than as part of the build up. It's certainly worth reading as an 'earlier work', but as a Whitbread Book of the Year, I have to say it was mildly disappointing.

 

Edited May 21, 2015 by willoyd

[bobblybear]

Hmm, I have yet to make up my mind about Kate Atkinson. I loved Case Histories, but really disliked Life After Life. If I give her another read, I think I will go with the sequel to Case Histories.

[willoyd]

Hmm, I have yet to make up my mind about Kate Atkinson. I loved Case Histories, but really disliked Life After Life. If I give her another read, I think I will go with the sequel to Case Histories.

 

I think it's fairly obvious that I agree with you!  I don't think I've ever read another author where I've varied so much in my opinion of their books.  This, of course, may be a bit of a back-handed compliment - she may simply be a writer who is prepared to experiment rather than sticking to a formula, in which case, all respect.  I've yet to try Life After Life, on my Kindle, but like you, I certainly intend to go with the next Jackson Brodie book at some stage soon - One Good Turn?

Edited May 23, 2015 by willoyd

[willoyd]

The Willoyd Book Mountain

I've never really added up the books I've yet to read on my shelves, generally adopting Umberto Eco's philosophy that a library should actually largely be unread books, a store of knowledge to be tapped (or is that just my excuse!)*. But, whilst nowhere near Eco's league (thirty thousand? That's really scary!) the book collection has rather grown over the years, and maybe a certain amount (!) of control needs to be exerted, so I've decided that I really do need to tackle the yet to be read books on my shelves, and slim the pile down in one way or another.

 

So, I've made a 'To Be Read' list, or rather I've gone through my LibraryThing catalogue, and divided my books into three categories: those that I've read (indicated by a star rating), those for reference (tagged 'ref'), and those that are intended for reading ('tbr'). Whilst the vast majority of my books are catalogued, there are some that are still to go on (mostly reference books though), but the result is that as things currently stand the TBR list numbers 1275 books, with another 57 volumes that are part of sets that have been catalogued as one item (e.g. Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples - these are tagged 'tbr multi' and will eventually be separated out), giving a grand total of 1332!!

 

Coo. That's more than I thought; I had reckoned on just under a thousand. So, the target is to get this number down, and the first aim has to be under that four figure number. Some of that will be through reading, and some of that will have to be through weeding, although I've just done quite a big job on that front. Even so, it'll take some time, and the number is likely to go up a bit first as additional books are catalogued, so the first step towards that first mini-target is to get under 1300 (especially as I'm unlikely to stop buying altogether!). Looks like a fairly big multi-year project is on hand! One day I'd like to get it down to a couple of hundred - or is that just pie in the sky? We'll see.....

 

* From The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb:

The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books) and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with "Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?" and the others - a very small minority - who get the point that a library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you don't know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allow you to put there. You will accumulate more books and more knowledge as you grow older, and the growing numbers of unread books will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.

Edited May 23, 2015 by willoyd

[Athena]

Good luck, Willoyd !

[bobblybear]

I think it's fairly obvious that I agree with you!  I don't think I've ever read another author where I've varied so much in my opinion of their books.  This, of course, may be a bit of a back-handed compliment - she may simply be a writer who is prepared to experiment rather than sticking to a formula, in which case, all respect.  I've yet to try Life After Life, on my Kindle, but like you, I certainly intend to go with the next Jackson Brodie book at some stage soon - One Good Turn?

 

Many people raved about Life After Life, but I found the repetitiveness of it a bit much.

 

I thought the Jackson Brodie sequel was Started Early, Took My Dog but now I find that is the 4th book in the series. I didn't even know there were four, I thought it was just the two!

 

Good luck on reducing your Book Mountain. My TBR pile is around the 300 mark, and I find that difficult enough to manage.

[chesilbeach]

I read Behind The Scenes at the Museum when it first came out in paperback (which I think was about 1995), and I have to say, I don't remember that much about it, except that I remember pushing it at my OH and telling him he must read it, and thinking that I couldn't wait to read what Atkinson wrote next … and then promptly forgot all about her. 
 
The next time I came across her books was in my book group, when Case Histories came up as the choice one month.  Not being a fan of contemporary crime, I thought this might be different and would give me a chance to read this writer I'd so enjoyed years ago, but I was disappointed.  I think the crime aspect was a problem for me, as it just isn't my cup of tea, and although I read it to the end, I found that quite dreary … a word I spotted in your review for Behind The Scenes at the Museum.
 
I have been wondering whether to try her again, but to go back to her non-crime novels.  I've heard very good reviews of both Life After Life and it's sequel A God in Ruins, so I've added both to my wish list recently, and reading your review has increased that spark of interest, so I've bumped it up the list a bit, so might get to it sooner rather than later.

[willoyd]

I have been wondering whether to try her again, but to go back to her non-crime novels.  I've heard very good reviews of both Life After Life and it's sequel A God in Ruins, so I've added both to my wish list recently, and reading your review has increased that spark of interest, so I've bumped it up the list a bit, so might get to it sooner rather than later.

I will be interested to see what you make of them, especially as we seem to have mirror-image views on the two we share! I've certainly read some good comments about Life After Life, and have that on my Kindle to be read. A God in Ruins appears to have received a somewhat more mixed reception.

Edited May 26, 2015 by willoyd

[willoyd]

A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell ***
 

I started reading the A Dance to the Music of Time sequence, of which this is the first volume, a few years ago, but stumbled after the first couple of books, not through any dislike, but simply because I became distracted by other reading. So - a fresh start.

Nick Jenkins (presumably modelled on Anthony Powell himself) recounts his early life at school (Eton?), during a gap year, and at Oxford, with the emphasis very much on establishing a cast of characters. His prose is precise and unrushed, the word languid jumping to mind, although there is also a sense of wistful melancholia pervading throughout.  As for the plotting, it's almost trivial, although there are some excellent set pieces, not least the opening pages. In all, it very definitely has the feel of being the opening to a much more substantial story, and as a result has little meaning as a book in its own right.

Unfortunately, it seems that I got my timing completely wrong, as I next need to read two other fairly substantial books, Birdsong and Anna Karenina, before seeing them as theatre productions, but intend to pick up book two after those. Whilst not entirely captured by A Question of Upbringing, I'm sufficiently intrigued to want to find out more.

[Alexi]

I enjoyed Life After Life, but felt it lost its way a bit in the second half of the novel. I would like to try something else by her though.

 

Willoyd - a bit off topic, but I wondered if it's not too personal if you could share the highs (and lows!) of your decision to change careers to teaching? I think I'm right in thinking you didn't go straight into it after leaving education?

[willoyd]

Willoyd - a bit off topic, but I wondered if it's not too personal if you could share the highs (and lows!) of your decision to change careers to teaching? I think I'm right in thinking you didn't go straight into it after leaving education?

 

Interesting question - any particular reason?  You are right, I didn't train as a primary teacher until my mid-40s.  I did initially start a PGCE in secondary education when I finished my degree, but a bout of meningitis, which saw me in the university sanatorium for some weeks in the middle of the year, gave me time to contemplate my future a bit more than I had previously done, and I decided that I didn't want to step straight out of one form of education, and straight into another. 

 

My early career path was rather varied, but I've always been involved in sports coaching, and moved into coaching and development as a professional in my late twenties.  It got to a stage though where I was primarily working as a manager (of other development officers) and administrator (grant bids, writing policies, strategies etc.), and I realised that I really wasn't doing what I either wanted or thought worthwhile - basically I had a bit of a midlife crisis!  After some ( actually, a lot of!) discussion with my wife, I decided that what I had really enjoyed was working with young people, so I took a year out to do my PGCE in primary - fortunately there were government bursaries available for mature students doing this, and that managed to tide us over (just - my wife was made redundant a few weeks before I started, but fortunately managed to find a new job a few months later).  I've now been in the same school for the past dozen years - I've no aspirations to move up the greasy pole - deputy headships and headships have absolutely no appeal, effectively representing a move back into what I left behind in the first place!

 

I enjoy primary teaching enormously: I love the age group (at least the top end of it - I reckon I'm actually a natural middle school teacher, but such schools are virtually non-existent nowadays.  Sadly so, as I reckon the three tier scheme is far better than the two tier), and I love teaching across the curriculum and working with one class in depth for the year, rather than only seeing one aspect of children through teaching a single subject, even if you get a more longitudinal experience.  They are also, in spite of the worst efforts of politicians apparently determined to wreck education on the great altar of exam training and meaningless statistics, much more 'fun' places to work than a secondary school. 

 

The highs are very much working with the children, and working with my colleagues, the best team I've ever worked with.  There are many adjectives that can be used to describe teaching, but boring is not one of them - it's the most exciting, the most challenging, and the most exhausting job I've ever had (and, having been self-employed and working sometimes twenty hours at a stretch, sometimes overnight in the outdoors, I know exactly what exhausting means!). 

 

The biggest low is the failure of this country to really grasp what education needs to be about, exemplfied by a friend (not a colleague) who has worked in twelve different countries' education systems (including China, South America, Europe, Canada, Africa) and is quite clear in her mind that our children are the most mollycoddled and ill-prepared children she's ever encountered.  That, coupled with the ridiculous overload of administration and evidence required simply to satisfy the control freakery of politicians, who haven't a clue what they are talking about (and massively mislead parents as a result), can be massively demotivating and debilitating.  It's certainly not a job where I'll last much beyond I'm sixty - I'm in my mid-fifties now, and am already running out of steam a bit.

 

Anyway, hope that helps a bit!

Edited May 27, 2015 by willoyd