willoyd

That was my freebie when I first joined back in the late 80s, and it remains one of my favourite sets. A good example of where I prefer the older edition: the latest version, all gold, swirls and colour illustrations, is way too blingy for my taste, whereas this edition seems to fit Austen like a glove.

10. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett ***** A book group choice, this was my third Ann Patchett novel, having previously read, and enjoyed, The Dutch House (for another group) and Commonwealth (for my Tour of the USA), so this was no reluctant read. The premise was very different though to the previous books, rather more in line (perhaps, as I've not read it yet) with Bel Canto: news comes through to pharmacology researcher Melanie Singh that her colleague and friend, dispatched to the Brazilian jungle to check up on a drug research project being carried out there, has died. The information provided is cursory at best. Under pressure from both employers and the colleague's wife to go and find out what has happened (and to follow up on the project investigation), Melanie heads off to Manaus. It's a daunting, almost overwhelming, experience, not helped by the fact that the head of the project is not only highly elusive, but was Melanie's dauntingly clinical supervisor when she was training as a medical doctor, a career she left after a serious accident. It's a complicated, perhaps unlikely scenario, but in Patchett's hands, I found it compulsive reading. The tropical atmosphere is as claustrophobic as I find that sort of climate, the plot hangs together surprisingly well (at least for me) and, as I found with the previous novels, the author is a real story teller; I couldn't put it down. So, it was with a tinge of disappointment, that I reached the end, rather more swiftly than anticipated, not least because it all came together with what felt to be an almighty rush; after three hundred and thirty-odd pages of careful build up, it was all rather abrupt, and jarred somewhat: for me it just didn't follow from what had happened to date (although considering the novel later, I think I can see what Patchett was doing/saying - however discussing it would be rather a plot spoiler). It's also one of those stories that, whilst you are immersed in it (and I was!), it all makes sense, but when you back away from it on completion, and contemplate it, somehow it all feels not quite as credible. But that is almost a compliment, because reading it, I never once doubted, so 'into' the book I became. It certainly promises to make for a good group meeting, raising any number of discussion points both about the novel as a novel, but also some of the broader issues it raises. Well worth its five stars (it lost one with that ending), and the best of the Patchett novels I've read to date.

09. West by Carys Davies *** I came to this book rather indirectly: various reviews and comments had attracted me to Carys Davies's latest novel Clear, but when I tried to obtain a copy, none of my libraries had a copy, and whilst the hardback seems to have gone out of print, the paperback wasn't due out until the end of February. But an earlier novel of Davies's, this one, was available from one of the libraries, so I thought I'd try her writing out with that. West is a slim volume (as is Clear apparently) of just 160 pages, set, surprise, surprise, in the American West of the nineteenth century . Cy Bellman, a widower, reads an article about gigantic bones discovered in Kansas (we now know them to be of dinosaurs), and becomes obsesses with seeing the original animals, so he sets off up the Mississippi-Missouri to find them, leaving his ten-year old daughter Bess with his reluctant sister. The novel then alternates backwards and forwards between Cy's adventures and Bess's experiences waiting. I loved the writing of this - pellucid, precise prose, packing a great saga of a novel into so few pages. Characters are vividly, yet concisely, drawn, and I do get a great feeling of place. So, all the ingredients are there for a rave review. And yet...I could never get past the problem that I just didn't believe the story. Not that Bellman believed the dinosaurs existed - that worked well in fact - nor the happenings both on Bellman's journey and back at home - all to believable in fact - but in the basic premise that he, already having lost a much loved wife, would simply take off and abandon his young daughter to his obviously disapproving sister, knowing that it would take him at least a year, and probably (although not admitting to others) longer. For me, this just didn't ring true, so much so that I never really bought into what happened next. Maybe that's just my twenty-first century sensibilities cutting through. It might have worked for me if Bess's mother was still alive, but this felt like one step too far. On top of that, Cy's journey felt all too aimless; there seemed to be little or no coherence to his search, just vague sorts of wanderings. Maybe that was all the point (if so, I'm not sure precisely what that point was), but it all just led to a sense of irritation, both with the character and with the author! As so often happens in novels with parallel strands, one engages interest far more than the other, and this was no exception, and I found myself increasingly not really caring what happened to Bellman (a study in wasteful futility), whilst in contrast Bess's narrative saw me through to the end, and I was left wanting to know more. So, something of a curate's egg of a novel, hence the middle of the road grading. But, given the book's positive qualities, I'm definitely looking forward to giving Clear a go when the paperback comes out in a week or so's time. Maybe not immediately - I've quite a stack at present! - but certainly in the near future.

07. Orbital by Samantha Harvey ****** A reread for one of my book groups. I only read this last September, and the review still stands. Suffice to say that I possibly enjoyed this even more second time around, allowing myself to mull over each chapter individually. 08. A Sunday in Ville-d'Avray by Dominique Barberis *** Picked up on a whim in a bookshop. Beautifully written, very atmospheric, the torpor and rather melancholic atmosphere permeates every line, reflecting the dullness of this Parisian suburb and life in it (so dull, the narrator's husband refuses to go with her!). Two sisters (one the city centre resitdent narrator, visiting her suburban sister) spend time together and secrets emerge in conversation. Yet, ultimately, this felt all a bit empty and lacking in heft or any real meaning. Maybe that was deliberate, but only a few days later, and I'm already struggling to remember much of the book. It strikes me as an exercise in style rather than substance. The blurb says 'sharply observed and wryly funny', possibly the former, although i didn't really get the point of the observation, but I'd love to know where the latter was. Having said all that, maybe just wrong book at one wrong time? I did enjoy the prose after all.

06. Notes From the Henhouse by Elspeth Barker *** Having read and enjoyed Elspeth Barker's O, Caledonia as my book for Scotland in my round the world tour, I was looking forward to this collection of essays and short stories, reinforced by the reviews I read. Essays depend on high quality writing, and that was for me the primary strength of her novel. In the event, this proved an enjoyable read, but not as compulsive as I had expected. There was again no doubt about the quality of her writing, but there was a sameness to much of it that left me feeling that she was repeating herself - I suspect that individually in a magazine/journal these would have been a great read, but as a collection (even though I tried to pace myself) it was all too much of a muchness. So, I loved the early ones whilst I was fresh, but later on (especially parts 2 and 3) things began to pall. Amongst these there were some highlights, essays on a first driving lesson (what was the instructor thinking?!) and much of part 4 (including Portia the pig!) standing out. The short stories at the end, in the Appendix, were a bit of a damp squib for me - all so similar, all very much in the vein of her novel, and an awful lot of death (in her essays too). So, whilst enoyable, with some excellent prose, it wasn't a keeper; quite unexpected. Maybe I should have spaced reading them out even further?

05. The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley *** A time travel novel that has received a lot of publicity and complimentary reviews, although interestingly those in forums appear to be rather more mixed than I've seen from critics. The premise is that the British government has acquired time travel, and is bring people through from the past. In order not to disturb the time continuum, they are restricted to those who in their own time are just about to die (I'm assuming that they were regarded as dead because they had disappeared into the future!). One of these is Graham Gore, a member of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition. The (unnamed) narrator is employed as a 'bridge', ie someone to guide the inevitably bewildered subject (kidnapee?) through the travails of the 21st century - living as a housemate. So, an interesting, indeed promising, premise which initially worked well for me: following Gore through his adjustments proved interesting with plenty of possibilities. But fairly soon it started to leave me asking "And....?". I was also starting to ask precisely what sort of novel the author inteded this to be. I don't want to suggest that books need to be straitjacketed into a specific style or genre, but I do think the author needs to be very clear about what they are trying to achieve, what the book is about. The problem was that this one seemed to fall between various stools. Obviously it comes over initially as time travel sci-fi (although you rapidly appreciate that the true sci-fi enthusiast is likely to be disappointed, as the author tells us to forget all the technical side of things, and just accept it for what it is!). Romance is almost inevitable, there's just that feel to it. Various interesting social issues are raised, highlighted by the struggle Gore has to adjust to modern day societal norms (not least living unchaperoned in a house with a mixed heritage, female bridge). Then there's the morph into thriller, with, after a fair amount of longueuse in the middle third, a mad rush to a frenetic end with a twist that didn't really work, not least because the book was so determinedly not sci-fi for so long, but then relies on it at the end (and I don't think that's a spoiler). In other words, this is a book that never quite decides what it is, skimming across several genres, multiple ideas, but none in any depth. At the end, it all felt rather superficial, and a mite disappointing, not least given the potential. I haven't read huge amounts of time travel, but just off the top off my head, the likes of The Time-Traveler's Wife and Connie Willis's novels (eg Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog) are head and shoulders better than this (even if the Willis novels contain some fairly awful historical faux pas). But, it's a first novel, and there is enough here to suggest that it might be worth keeping an eye out for future books.

#40. Montana: A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean **** Review to follow

Yes, it is. And, yes, you can buy from their site. I do regularly, usually when they have a sale, although I tend to buy individual titles through my local (indie) bookshop - they usually get next delivery.

Just finished a quick read (an afternoon), A Sunday in Ville-d'Avray by Dominique Barberis. Picked up in a bookshop on a whim a few days ago. A reasonably decent read - beautifully written - but didn't really live up to the blurb, quoted reviews on back cover or initial browse. Wryly funny? Really? 3 stars. Getting stuck into this month's 'big' read, The Burgundians by Bart van Loo. A Christmas present from a couple of years ago that for some reason I've long intended/wanted to read but have always seemed to have been deflected from. Very promising start.

Since last posting here, have finished So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell, my book for Illinois in the Tour of the US - really enjoyed it (5 out of 6 stars), followed by The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, and Elspeth Barker's collection of essays and short stories Notes From the Henhouse, neither of which quite hit the mark for me for different reasons, both 3 stars, although I loved Barker's writing. Will be starting Orbital tomorrow, a reread for one of my book groups. It was a 6-star read last time out in September, and am looking forward to exploring it further.

#39 Illinois: So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell ***** I had several possibilities for this state, not least Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow and Crossroads by Jonathan Frantzen, two 'big guns', but I opted for this slim novella, barely 135 pages long, mainly because I was intrigued by someone obviously so highly rated (winner of the American Book Award with this novel), but of whose work I knew next to nothing - and even less of the author himself. No regrets either - this was an absolutely captivating contemplation on how we draw our memories together, the impact they can have on our lives, and the destructive impact of an affair between two neighbours on their respective families. I loved the writing, understated, spare even, but all the more vivid as a result: sympathetic if flawed (ie human) characters, the stark environment, the fallout all laid bare: a very human tragedy. It reminded me of Willa Cather's Prairie Trilogy. In this story, two rather insular boys, neighbours and drawn together almost from necessity, are separated by the murder of a local farmer at the hands of, it turns out, one of the boy's fathers. It very soon becomes apparent that the murdered man had been having an affair with the murderer's wife, both men having been nex door neighbours and close friends previously. The other boy is the narrator, looking back on the event from older adulthood, and trying to reconstruct what really happened from his memories and other still available evidence. And, as the author writes, memory is "really a form of storytelling" that often changes in the telling, not least to help us handle our own emotional conflicts which make our true life stories unpalatable - we (almost) all have something we really don't like looking back on in our past (I certainly do - positively cringe-making even now, over 40 years later). "In talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw". Reading Maxwell's biography in Wikipedia, I suspect that there are significant autobiographical elements here: the setting is Lincoln, Illinois, Maxwell's hometown; the narrator's mother dies from Spanish flu when he is about 10 as did Maxwell's mother; one of the main characters is an orphan brought up by aunt and uncle, as was Maxwell for some time; the narrator's father remarries and moves to Chicago with his family - Maxwell's father did the same, as Maxwell rejoined him there. These are all key influences within the book. How deep the autobiography goes, I don't know, but it's a book that feels very personal. It's certainly left me wanting to explore his relatively small oeuvre, just six novels, although more short story collections, and a couple of non-fictions, in amongst his main work, almost 40 years as fiction editor for The New Yorker. 5 stars, although I'm not quite sure why I didn't give it 6, so it might change.

#38 Delaware: West of Rehoboth by Alexs D Pate **** Edward is an athletic but introverted, bookworm, twelve-year old black boy living in Philadelphia, who spends his summer vacations in Rehoboth, on the coast of Delaware, where his mother has a regular summer job, whilst his father stays at home (having driven them to the resort). It's the 1960s Jim Crow era, and blacks and whites are effectively segregated. Here he develops a fascination, indeed obsession, for his 'Uncle' Rufus, who has been (for some unknown reason) expelled from the house of 'Aunt' Edna (where Edward with his mother and younger sister stay) who herself is a successful matriarchal business woman, more than capable of mainipulating even the local (white) police force. One of Edward's literary heroes is Hercule Poirot, and he determines to investigate Rufus, a hard drinking, messed up man. The bulk of the novel focuses on the development of that relationship, one banned by both Edward's mother and Aunt Edna, and its outcomes, filling in the relevant backstory of Edna's and Rufus's backstory on the way. Alexs D Pate, who I'd never heard of before researching which book to read for Delaware (there isn't a wide choice), is a great story teller, who gets well inside his main characters: Eddie and Rufus come alive in his hands, although his lesser characters are rather more lightly sketched. There's a liveliness and clarity to the opening scenes which I found immersive. After the family (bar father) move to Rehoboth, the narrative narrows down somewhat to Eddie's burgeoning obsession with Rufus to the exclusion of much else. This is the nature of the story: it is a tale of obsession after all, but I have to admit to feeling that perhaps a little something went missing as a result - this was more of a niggle than a spoiler though, and the thrust of the story still remained compulsive. The last third of the book though....hmmm. All I want to say, because much more would lead to spoilers, is that it was not what I expected, was an admirably different approach, and whilst I'm still not sure if it fully worked for me, certainly made for an interesting read. Overall, I really enjoyed the author's style: his descriptiive work in particular added a certain richness which made this as much a story of place as people, whilst on the latter, I felt I really learned something about black life at this time; this was a place, a society, a time about which I knew little; I probably still know little, but a few doors and windows have been opened. The story itself, whilst not perfect by any means for me, was still addictively readable - I looked forward to sitting down to read and left it reluctantly, reaching the end satisfied that the story had been fully told, but wanting to know more about Eddie's life beyond. A very enjoyable addition to the tour list.

#37 Tennessee: Shiloh by Shelby Foote **** A novelised story of the battle, a significant turning point and one of the bloodiest in the American Civil War, told by 4 participants, 2 from each side. Shelby Foote is perhaps best known for his fairly monumental 3-volume history of the war (on my shelves to be read!), but this is a slim thing, quickly read. Really enjoyed the writing providing a very human take on what must have been an utterly grim couple of days. Led to quite a bit of follow-up reading as this is a period of history I know little about, but am slowly getting to grips with (having in the past few years read the gripping The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara - also with follow-up reading - and James Macpherson's excellent Battle Cry of Freedom)

#36 Virginia: Commonwealth by Ann Patchett **** I'd originally got a Barbara Kingsolver down for this state, but having rather fallen out with her books since reading the excellent The Poisonwood Bible, I started looking elsewhere. And then someone mentioned that Ann Patchett's Commonwealth was at least partly set in Virginia. Having read and enjoyed The Dutch House for a book group, and intended to explore her writing a bit more, problem solved! Commonwealth is the story of two families and how they become intertwined when the father of one 'runs off' with the mother of the other. The six children (4 and 2) become almost a tribe united in their dislike of their parents. The result (and this novel is very much centred on consequences) culminates in tragedy with which the families have to learn to live, and then in the fallout when one of the (now adult) children tells the story to her partner, a famous author in decline, who uses the plot as the basis of what becomes his bestseller, also entitled Commonwealth. Both story and characters are complex and multi-layered: the chronology shifts backwards and forwards, as do the relationships, and it's not always easy to keep track of the multiple members of the families - it wasn't difficult if I sat down and thought, but I did need to do that sitting back on several occasions to just mentally review who was related to who and how. To be honest, I wasn't overly engaged for the first half of the book, not least because this seemed to be heading down a fairly obvious track, but I suddenly found myself engrossed, and I positively enjoyed both the structure and the character development as they developed into the second half. No stereotypes these! As touched on above, this is very much a story of consequences, of knock-on impacts, almost of the butterfly effect as it might affect lives - indeed that life as it pans out for all of us is can so easily be influenced, changed, by the smallest of events and actions, and that it's not just how lives are impacted, but how characters are changed. In the end, having not been a huge enthusiast a good way into the book, I found myself really quite disappointed when I came to the end!

#35 Maine: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout **** I originally had Richard Russo's Empire Falls down for this, not least because I'd been somewhat underwhelmed by my previous effort at a Strout novel, My Name Is Lucy Barton, but a book group discussion (where I was in a minority of one in my views on the author's work!) encouraged me to give her another go - and given the success of this book (Pulitzer Prize winner) it seemed the obvious one. It's construction is also one that intrigued, the novel being formed from 13 short stories. Well, I'm very glad to have read Olive and, whilst I can't say I have been completely converted, it was certainly a far more rewarding experience than the one with Lucy Barton. Or, perhaps, 'appreciated' would be a better word, as books as downbeat as this are rarely 'enjoyable'! It's certainly beautifully written: I was caught up in the writing from the outset, and loved the little details, the turns of phrase and the internal monologues; characters and place were strongly wrought. I found the development of Olive herself particularly intriguing, the way she ran as a thread through the 13 stories, sometimes the main character, rather more often introduced sideways, almost a cameo on occasions. The themes of older age, personal isolation (even when surrounded by others) and contrasting perceptions and experiencing of the same events also added to the coherence and interest, making me sit back after each story and reflect on what I'd just read. Characters were not necessarily likeable (far from it - there weren't many that were in fact, including Olive herself), but they were interesting. And yet, and yet...whilst this worked for me as a collection of connected short stories, it didn't quite make it as a novel in the same way that, for instance, Jonathan Escoffery's If I Survive You did. Whilst there were elements of connection, in the end the stories themselves were just too fragmented to create the coherence that a novel needs. That fragmentation was created in a a number of ways, none enough on their own, but together too much. Firstly, the story chronology is out of sequence. This in itself isn't a major issue, but when you read in the first story that Olive's husband Henry has retired, and then in the second story that he's thinking of retiring, it just jolts one out of immersion, prompts checking and questioning before settling (slightly uncertain) back in, and leaves one never quite trusting the thread of the narrative after that. It might be a set of short stories, but it's also a novel, and whilst plenty of novels use time shifts etc (often to advantage), there's a reason, and here there seems to be no good reason for doing so. Secondly, the characters are too fragmented, or at least isolated. The Kitteridge family provide some continuity, with Olive, Henry and son Christopher appearing throughout. One or two other characters appear in more than one story, but in general, once a person has been written about, they largely vanish. Given that this is meant to be a relatively small community (or at least that's the impression), that just didn't work for me - I'd expect people to appear and reappear. It also proved unsatisfactory. If you're going to have a dramatic event in a novel, then one expects, indeed wants, to learn something of the outcome of that event. You just don't have one, and then no mention of it or those involved ever again. Finally, there's the repetition. In several later stories we are told things that we already know about: we've read all about them only a story/chapter or so earlier. The copyright page tells us that several of the stories have been published previously (over a 15 year period), which is fine, but if they are now being brought together as a novel, then they need editing and co-ordinating. There was also a feeling of sameness to several of the stories - we are dealing with different people (by name), but rather too similar characters/scenarios? The disjunct between novel and short stories was also driven home by the fact that for a small community, there's an awful lot of drama: murder, hostage taking, suicide (more than one), accidental killings, along with all the other life threatening natural hazards of life. It's not quite Midsomer* but it still seems a bit OTT, and maybe lent to that sameness feeling? Never mind being downbeat about old age, I think most of those inhabitants of Crosby, Maine, would be grateful, even relieved, to make it that far. I think that's partly because one piece of such drama in a short story is fine - it works, it's what the story is centred around. But drama after drama, in each chapter, is too much for a novel. The result was that, whilst some of the drama worked well for me early on, by the second half of the book I was grateful for the stories focusing on the domestic. However, whilst I feel I've focused rather on the negatives, in the greater scheme of things they are rather more blemishes than deep-seated faults. I found so much of this compulsive reading, not least the character of Olive herself. She's obviously not immediately likeable, if at all, but there's a humanity to her that gives her depth, and makes you wonder quite what you would make of her yourself. There's an ongoing thread around her relationship with Christopher that raises all sorts of questions, discussion points, issues of witness reliability etc worthy of a whole book on its own, never mind everything else - it's superbly handled by the author, and is one of the most thought provoking threads I've read in fiction for some time (not least because it's so relevant to aspects of my life). So, an involving, interesting book (I rarely write as much as this in review), stronger if treated in its raw form as a collection of individual short stories. I certainly intend to try out more of Elizabeth Strout, and more specifically re-examine Lucy Barton. She may not be a 'favourite' author, but is one that has made me think here, and I'm interested to see what I make of some of her other work.