KEV67

How brainy do you have to be to write a good book? I have often wondered. Can you make up by steady application what you lack in spontaneous creativity? I posted about Umberto Eco earlier. He was definitely very clever. In Focault's Pendulum he had two or three characters discuss the history of Freemasonry, the Rosicrucians and the Knights Templar for about 700 pages . They hardly drew breath. I was frustrated waiting for the action to start. I am looking at a poster of We Need to Talk About Kevin. by Lionel Shriver. When I read that book, I thought this woman is having deeper thoughts than I have ever had during my entire life. Motives and memories are explored at great length. I am reading a biography of Winston Churchill, who did a bit of writing himself, although non-fiction. Despite his school results and officer entry exam results not being outstanding, he was a pretty clever guy with an incredible memory. He wrote a four volume history on the first Duke of Marlborough. He was not a minister at the time, but he was an MP and he was pretty busy with other stuff. I am reading a Jack Reacher. Lee Child can think up some ingenious plots. My favourite booktuber has just had a book published (or accepted for publishing). I do not know how she managed to write a book while holding down a job, reading as many books as she did, and generating so many YouTube videos. She talks quick and she reads quick. I suspect she is pretty clever. J.R.R. Tolkein was a professor of English at Oxford. He must be the king of world building. In Silmarillion he wrote something like an Old Testament for the Lord of the Rings, and he invented at least one new language and parts of others. Still, maybe not every successful author needs to be as clever.

Apologies.

I enjoy buying books, but when I buy them I intend to read them. I may as well leave my anti-library in the bookshop where I have not paid any money for them. Umberto Eco was definitely a clever fellow. Reading Focault's Pendulum convinced me of that, although I found it exasperating. Not as exasperating as The Island of the Day Before, after which I stopped reading him. The Name of the Rose was good. I am reminded of the bit in The Great Gatsby in which Gatsby shows his bookshelf full of great books which he has not read. I took it as a criticism: that he was trying to pretend he was more learned and cultured than he was. Not that I am accusing you of any of that.

One thing about the Great American Novel is that it is a bit early 20th century, notwithstanding Moby Dick, Huck Finn, and Little Women. I mean there's Catch 22, but that's 1960s. After that, I am not sure who is worth reading. I started reading one Rabbit book by John Updike, but gave up. Portney's Complaint sounds unpleasant. David Foster Wallace sounds difficult. I read one Saul Bellow, which was good, but I was not tempted to read him again. Perhaps the concept has expired.

Also, I have splurged and I have not finished yet. Apart from Clarissa, which is truly humongous, I have three Osprey duel series books, one Jack Reacher, Bonjour Tristess & Wide Sargasso Sea, two science fiction, one western, one book on WW2 aircraft engine development, and another teach yourself Latin book. Also A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I feel relatively virtuous compared to most of you. My TBR list was relatively under control. One thing that helps is I don't read ebooks. Also, I don't have any shelf space left. I have long wanted to get another bookcase, but the only way I could do that is to get a shorter sofa. Also, while I Oxfam most my read books, any book with some sentimental attachment I keep. Sentiment can be a strange thing as I have a bunch of economics books, engineering books, renewable energy books and foreign language dictionaries which I will probably never use again. However I have invested so much time in them I am reluctant to get shot of them. Perhaps I should put them in cardboard boxes and shift them somewhere.

No I have not read either. Isabel Allende came up when I did a google search on magic realism. I think it is overt instances of magic that bother me in literary fiction. If a character grows horns out his head, or is levitating off the floor, or is 200 years old, that is difficult to ignore. Imagine you are reading a bit of literary fiction by someone like Anthony Powell or Anne Tyler and suddenly a dog starts speaking, without the character being mentally ill or on drugs. It breaks the mood. If a character sees a ghost or has a tarot card reading that seems to come true at least in part, I could handle that.

Come to think of it, I wonder if Thomas Hardy's books may have some magic realism. In Test of the d'Urbervilles there were a number of bad omens. In The Woodlanders, Giles Winterbourne has an almost magic touch with the saplings. I cannot think of anything magical or superstitious in Far From the Madding Crowd, but there is some witchcraft in Return of the Native.

I was wondering whether the reason I find magical realism jarring is that you usually find it in literary fiction. and literary fiction is supposed to be realistic. You're reading how realistic, although perhaps unusual characters think and react in realistic, although perhaps extreme circumstances. When something impossible happens, you know you are not reading that. Worse, you may wonder what is going on. Is this some symbolism to unpack, or is it just there for the heck of it? Having said that, my favourite book I have read as an adult was Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I suppose you could class most of his books as literary fiction, give or take the odd instance of spontaneous combustion. Nevertheless, some parts of Great Expectations seemed rather magical and fairy-tale-like. Miss Haversham could not really have worn the same wedding dress for fifteen years non-stop, nor would her wedding cake have lasted that long. When I was reading it I thought her death seemed rather magical too, although I cannot remember it very well.

I think Magical Realism refers to books like One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I read The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, which I think is also an example. I disliked them both. I cannot think of too many other books like this that I have read. Either a book is realistic, or at least not supernatural; or the book is clearly fantasy, science fiction or whatever. I read a book by Bernard Cornwell about one of King Arthur's lesser known knights (Warlord Chronicles). I quite liked the magic in that, because it might not have been magic, just coincidence. I thought that was very skilfully done. I cannot say why the magical elements of One Hundred Years of Solitude irritated me. It might be that if I were Columbian I would have understood the historical allegories.

Mock away, but when I went into Waterstones today, JRR Tolkien's translation of Beowulf was in the sci-fi and fantasy section.

I read thirty-five books in 2021. I defeated War and Peace. I read a lot of nautical books. My favourite book was a Jack Reacher, which is firmly on the entertainment side of the entertainment-literature spectrum. OTOH I lent it to a friend who does not read much, and she loved it. Jack Reacher is such a good sniper he takes the Coriolis Effect into account when he takes a shot. Classics wise I was a bit disappointed.

Maybe, but if I keep it in my satchel there is a chance one of my colleagues will see it when I am on a site visit, and then I would not hear the last.

Yes, I did buy it for the cover, but I stayed for the reading! Your favourite book cover of 2021! The Shadow-Line by Joseph Conrad. It is a painting of a sailing ship moored to a quay. I even found one of their shopping lists! Your most read author of 2021! C.S. Forester – read four Horatio Hornblower books I'd rather kiss an anti-vaxer! Your book that wasn't worth bothering with in 2021! The Frozen Crew of the Ice Bound Ship. Penny Dreadful was an apt term. I don't know where this year has gone! The book you most wanted to read in 2021, but didn't get too award! Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Could not find a copy in any shop. I'm sorry it wasn't a unicorn! Your biggest literary let-down of 2021! Maybe War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. It was good, but not among the best things I have ever read. Think: Spot the Dog, BUT BETTER! Your favourite illustrated book of 2021! I’ll go for Q-Ship vs U-Boot by David Greentree, one of the Osprey Duel series Compact and bijou, Mostyn! Compact and bijou! Your favourite short story (or collection of short stories) of 2021! Blood on the Mink by Robert Silverberg from the Hard Case Crime series, although One Night of Violence, an appended short story, was better. He made Mr Darcy look like Kermit the Frog! Your favourite literary character of 2021! Probably Natasha Rostow from War and Peace. Leo Tolstoy knew how to write teenage girls. I like things to be in boxes, nicely ordered boxes! Your favourite genre of 2021! Nautical books: I read nine. I laughed so much, people moved away from me on the train! The funniest book you read in 2021! Thatcher Stole My Trousers by Alexei Sayle, although not as good as Stalin Stole My Homework After two years of COVID I have no life of my own anymore, so I just read about others! Your favourite biography of 2021! By Tank by Ken Tout, D to VE Days. The fighting, the casualties, absolutely horrific. Your non-fiction recommendation of 2021! Going to go for By Tank again. Sounds like stuff someone made up! Your fiction book of the year, 2021! Die Trying by Lee Child. The only book I gave 5 stars. Overall, I was a little disappointed, especially by the classics.War and Peace was good, but not up there with my favourites. The Red and the Black got a bit silly. Wives and Daughters, a bit dull. East Lynne, a bit melodramatic. Dracula lost steam. I was impressed by Proof by Dick Francis and The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers.They were intelligent books. Blood Meridian was like Lonesome Dove meets Moby Dick. It had great dialogue. and it was poetic and witty. Still not sure I 100% liked it. Whiskey When We're Dry had a similar line in laconic, Wild West drollery. In honesty I am not enjoying the Hornblower books quite as much as I was, The Jack Reacher book was the most fun to read. In non-fiction I found The Victorian Clergy quite interesting. One other book I read that was interesting was The Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar. He was an utter git, but not a bad anthropologist.

Got my copy. There were rather more people in the shop than I was happy with, but I don't think they saw the cover. My favourite places to read are in Caffe Nero or on the train, but I will have to read this at home. Not unless I cover the cover with wallpaper, like we used to do with our school books. There was a two for one-and-a-half deal, so I got The Wide Sargasso Sea as well.

Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey. I think it was a famous book in the 1920s. I saw a film about him, well actually it was about his lady friend, Carrington. Carrington was quite a good film, actually. I read the first two chapters on Cardinal Newman and General Gordon. He roasted them. First, Strachey would build them up, then tear them apart. The next chapter was on Florence Nightingale, and I did not think she deserved that treatment, so I stopped reading. Later I heard Strachey intended to give her this treatment, but was too impressed by her achievements to do so. Anyway, I was at my mother's, and she has a copy of the book. Strachey does not rip into Miss Nightingale, except to draw attention to her over-working some of her helpers and to her acerbic sense of humour.

I quite like A Christmas Carol, but only the Alistair Sims version.

That is if you consider it is. I can see some parallels with fantasy. I read it eight times as a boy. The story is about rabbits. Sure, they are not very naturalistic rabbits. I am pretty sure rabbits are not that intelligent, unless we have all been underestimating them all these years. The Wind and the Willows is never categorised as sci-fi or fantasy. Beatrice Potter is never considered a science fiction writer.

The Great Gatsby left me feeling nonplussed. If it wasn't for its reputation I would have said it was a good book, but I would not have picked it out as the greatest American book of the 20th century, or one of them. It has a reputation for containing a lot of hidden messages and symbology. The green light refers back to something in Greek mythology. There's quite an interesting theory that Gatsby is passing for white. I suspect some of it might have gone over my head, but if you have to read a guide to understand why a book is a work of genius, you have to wonder how good that book is to the ordinary reader.

I read the Grapes of Wrath. I found it unremittingly miserable. I thought this man was trying to win a Pulitzer. I thought to myself that Woody Guthrie did this dust bowl depression stuff much better, but then I found out Woody Guthrie was inspired to sing about the dust bowl after reading Grapes of Wrath.

A problem with a lot of introductions is they give a lot of the plot away. So often it is advisable to read them after the book. Another thing is that when I get a book, I want to get started. I don't want to read thirty pages of introduction first. Nevertheless, the introductions are interesting sometimes.

Friedrich Nietzsche: I have not read anything by him. He seems a five star weirdo but very clever. I did enjoy a YouTube video of Bertrand Russell discussing him.

That sounds like a good idea.

Next year I plan to read one of Shakespeare's comedies in one of those Arden books, probably A Midsummer Night's Dream. I don't care if Titania was given the fairy equivalent of Rohpinol. Just don't care. In 2023, God willing, I will do the big one, Hamlet.

That's a very nice story.