Renniemist

I have now finished The Winter King. I enjoyed this book although I think that it was quite slow to start with. The place names are difficult for a modern reader

Thanks for bringing him to our attention Andy. I also had never heard of him. It sounds as if he had a fascinating life. Ryszard Kapuscinski, RIP. I will be reading something of his in the near future.

I am a member of Library thing. I am Renniemist. I had forgotten all about it. It is so long since I have used it. I am adding everyone to my list if you don

Thanks for the recommendation. I will definitely read it sometime this year but I don

I have finished reading The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. I am never very keen on detective novels and I don

Years ago I read a book called

Doesn

Good review PDR. It makes me want to read Vanity Fair despite its length.

I once had a wasp nest in the loft. They managed to squeeze through cracks and vents into my bedroom. I was not very happy I can tell you. Nevertheless because the review sounded so good I have just added The Secret Life of Bees to my wish list.

It has been on my list for quite some time too. I have no good excuse. Maybe I should commit myself to reading it by a certain time.

Its strange you should think that way about

The year has started very slowly as far a books are concerned. I started Tipping the Velvet just before going on holiday. It was not nearly as good as Fingersmith in my opinion. Amazon.co.uk Review The heroine of Sarah Waters's audacious first novel knows her destiny, and seems content with it. Her place is in her father's seaside restaurant, shucking shellfish and stirring soup, singing all the while. "Although I didn't believe the story told to me by Mother--that they had found me as a baby in an oyster-shell, and a greedy customer had almost eaten me for lunch--for 18 years I never doubted my own oysterish sympathies, never looked beyond my father's kitchen for occupation, or for love." At night Nancy Astley often ventures to the nearby music hall, not that she has illusions of being more than an audience member. But the moment she spies a new male impersonator--still something of a curiosity in England circa 1888--her years of innocence come to an end and a life of transformations begins. The Butchers Wife was a very quick read. I read it on the flight home from Cape Town. Under traditional Chinese law, the only valid explanation for a woman murdering her husband is her adultery. In 1930s Shanghai a case came to light where a woman dismembered her husband. There was no evidence that the woman had ever had a lover. This inspired Li Ang to write a deep and harrowing novel about the situation that might lead to such a murder. Chen Jiangshui is a pig-butcher in a small coastal Taiwanese town. Stocky, with a paunch and deep-set beady eyes, he resembles a pig himself. His brutality towards his new young wife, Lin Shi, knows no bounds. The more she screams, the more he likes it. She is further isolated by the vicious gossip of her neighbours who condemn her for screaming aloud, because, as they see it: As women we're supposed to be tolerant and put our husbands above everything else. According to an old Chinese belief, all butchers are destined for hell (an eternity of torment by the animals they have despatched). Lin Shi, isolated, despairing and finally driven to madness, fittingly kills him with his own instrument - a meat cleaver. THE BUTCHER'S WIFE was a literary sensation in the Chinese language world with its suggestion that ritual and tradition are the functions of oppression. It also caused widespread outrage with its unsparing portrayal of sexual violence and emotional cruelty. The novel has made a profound impact on contemporary Chinese literature and today ranks as a landmark text in both women's studies and world literature. Amazon. I have now started on The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Los Angeles PI Phillip Marlowe is working for the Sternwood family. Old Man Sternwood, crippled and wheelchair-bound, is being given the squeeze by a blackmailer and he wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. But with Sternwood

Read so far this year. December 58 The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler 7/10 57 Sharpe’s Trafalgar by Bernard Corrnwell 7/10 56 Brick Lane by Monica Ali 5/10 55 The Road by Cormac McCarthy 8/10 54 Spilling the Beans by Clarissa Dickson Wright (audio book) 7/10 53 Sharpe’s Fortress by Bernard Cornwell 7/10 52 Border Crossing by Pat Barker 7/10 51 The Life of Pi by Yann Martel 8/10 November 50 Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson 6/10 49 A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving 10/10 48 The Ruby in her Navel by Barry Unsworth 7/10 47 Port Mungo by Patrick McGrath 8/10 46 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque 8/10 October 45 The Forest by Edward Rutherfurd 7/10 44 One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson 7/10 43 Animal's People by Indra Sinha 10/10 42 Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller 9/10 September 41 The Woman Who Walked into Doors by Roddy Doyle 7/10 40 The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd 7/10 39 Atonement by Ian McEwan 10/10 38 The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood 8/10 37 On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan 9/10 36 The Sea by John Banville 10/10 35 Arthur and George by Julian Barnes 7/10 34 Exodus by Leon Uris6/10 August 33 A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon 8/10 32 In The Country of Men by Hisham Matar 6/10 31 The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly 7/10 30 The Distance Between Us by Maggie O'Farrell 7/10 29 Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday 8/10 28 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J K Rowling 8/10 27 Anne of Green Gables by L M Montgomery 8/10 July 26 The Covenant by James Michener 8/10 June 25 The Hills is Lonely by Lillian Beckwith 8/10 24 The Night Watch by Sarah Waters 9/10 23 Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys 7/10 22 Fruit of the Lemon by Andrea Levy 7/10 May 21 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro 9/10 20 Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood 7/10 19 The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell 9/10 April 18 My Lover's Lover by Maggie O'Farrell 7/10 17 A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon 8/10 16 Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky.. abandoned March 15 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov 8/10 14 Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller 8/10 13 Every Light in the House Burnin' by Andrea Levy 7/10 12 The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld 6/10 February 11 After You’d Gone by Maggie O’Farrell 9/10 10 Perfume by Patrick Suskind 8/10 9 A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle.6/10 8 On Beauty by Zadie Smith. 8/10 7 The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman. 8/10 January 6 An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro 7/10 5 Slow Man by J M Coetzee 7/10 4 The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell 7/10 3 The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler 6/10 2 The Butchers Wife by Li Ang 6/10 1 Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters 5/10

The following are a list of books that are in my to be read pile. Now I know that there is no way that I am going to read them all this year, because I refuse to give up going to the library (I enjoy going) and I am also sure that I will browse in bookstores and be tempted (I love doing that). My list could well end up bigger at the end of the year than at the beginning, especially since there will be books to get for the reading circle. My philosophy for this year is to relax and enjoy books. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde Holy Fools by Joanne Harris The constant Gardener by John le Carré East Wind West Wind by Pearl S Buck The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle Bitten by Kelly Armstrong The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke The Abortionist’s Daughter by Elizabeth Hyde The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga Mauritius Command by Patrick O’Brien The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco Jamaica Inn by Daphne duMaurier Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver Portrait of a Killer by Patricia Cornwell The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka Africa Diary by Bill Bryson Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Baudilino by Umberto Eco Broken Verses by Kamila Shamsie Derailed by James Siegel Empire of the Sun by J G Ballard Hey Nostradamus by Douglas Coupland I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela Misery by Stephen King Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehrain Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi Russka by Edward Rutherfurd Shindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally The Accidental by Ali Smith The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson The Falls by Ian Rankin The Haj by Leon Uris The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw The Palace of Heavenly Pleasures by Adam Williams The Peoples Act of Love by James Meek The Sicilian by Mario Puzo The Suspect by Michael Robotham Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis Vernon God Little by D B C Pierre What the body Remembers by Shauna Singh Baldwin Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder

Nowadays the only hardback books that I read come from the library. Paperbacks are much easier to carry and lighter to hold. If you fall asleep reading a paper back there is less likelihood of you breaking your nose. I just feel comfortable with paperbacks.

Elizabeth Gaskell is another author that I intend to read in 2007. Thanks.

Wow! Great present Muggle. I am really envious. Enjoy!

Muggle you didn

Muggle this is difficult. Er! Mm! Did you get some wine?

I found Blindness a particularly grim book to read. Saramago gave a very bleak view of humans but unfortunately it was very believable the way that people reacted to the circumstances. The style I had no problem with after the first two or three pages. I even think it added to the drama. The conversations seemed very realistic to me. I think Princessponti has summed this up exceptionally well. I did not read all her posts until after I had read the book and then I found that I agreed with her. Thank you for your reviews Princessponti.

I finished reading Blindness on Friday before going north. I have now started on The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. The Chicago World

I really liked Never Let Me Go, but I believe it

Prodigal Summer is a contemporary novel. If you read it let me know how you get on. I am curious to know what others think about it. Anyway I hope you enjoy it.

Prodigal Summer Author: Barbara Kingsolver Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives amid the mountains and farms of southern Appalachia. Over the course of one humid summer, this novel

I have finished Prodigal Summer. This is a really good book and an easy read. Barbara Kingsolver is a great author. I am now starting on Blindness by Jos