willoyd
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Dictionary People by Sarah Ogilvie ****
Read as follow up to Pip Williams's The Dictionary of Lost Words. The author is a lexicographer and ex chief-editor of the OED herself. On the last day of her time at Oxford, she went into a previously unopened (at least by her!) file box in the OED archives, and discovered a notebook belong to the most famous editor, James Murray, containing the contact names and addresses of all the volunteers who contributed to the OED during his time, with notes on their contributions. A phenomenal discovery, out of which grew further research into their lives and this book. It's a fascinating and well written piece of history. Each of 26 chapters (named after the letters of the alphabet) takes a theme or individual and dips into their lives and examines their contributions, highlighting what an incredible project this was. It makes for compulsive reading.
However, it's not faultless, and does at least partially fall into a couple of traps, not least that whilst the dictionary is a list of words, this tends to a list of people. Lots of interesting detail, certainly, but it does tend to the encycolopedic style of entry, one 'dictionary person' after another. They are linked, there is a coherence, but I still came away feeling I'd read more of a series of (very interesting) biographical entries than an integrated book. This was then exacerbated by the fact that, for pretty much evey entry, we always got a list of words (with abbreviated definitions) and how many slips they'd contributed. Yes, I know that's at the heart of the subject, but after 20-odd chapters (with usually several people per chapter), it did tend to the formulaic.
This is not to belittle the interest of the quality of the work. It perhaps says more about the best way to read this book. For me, this is very much a book to dip into and out of, perhaps treating it as a series of 26 different essays. I think if I'd read it like that, I'd have graded it higher, and been keen to get stuck in right to the very end. As it was, reading this as a book over a few days, I did feel a slight sense of ennui and repetition by the end, and found myself counting the chapters down ("phew, I've reached V" syndrome). Read as essays, I think this would have made for compulsive reading. I know I will go back and explore it further, and it's definitely staying on my shelves!
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Accolades for 2023
Book of the Year
Rocket Boys by Hiram Hickham (later renamed October Sky).
Fiction Book of the Year
Winner: The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Runner-up: Captain Hazard's Game by David Fairer
Shortlist: Another Country by James Baldwin; Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih; Standing Heavy by GauZ
The top two may not have been the 'best' books I read, but they were the ones I enjoyed the most - comfort reading at its best!
Non-fiction Book of the Year
Winner: Rocket Boys by Hiram Hickham
Runner-up: The Flow by Amy-Jane Beer*
Shortlist: Stolen Focus by Johann Hari; The Years by Annie Ernaux; Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken; The Restless Republic by Anna Keay**
* Best nature/geography
** Best history
Objectively, nothing really touched the Annie Ernaux, but I found my lack of detailed French political history getting in the way a bit - had to read this with Wikipedia to hand to keep looking people up. The others just flowed over me effortlessly! So, probably more my fault than the book's, but this is my personal list!
Duffer of the Year
Winner: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Shortlist: Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Most Disappointing of the Year
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Discovery of the Year
Two independent presses, whose books I've barely started on, but which I've found totally intriguing:
Peirene Press and Fitzcarraldo Editions.
Reread of the Year
Not awarded this year - unusually, there was just the one reread (for a book group), and it wasn't one I rated highly enough to make an award.
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Review of 2023 and looking forward to 2024.
I enjoyed and appreciated the bullet point approach last year, so it's the same again this!
+ 66 books completed and just over 16000 pages read this year, the same number of books as last year, but a 1000 pages less, averaging just over 250 per book. As I said last year, that's the lowest since 2014, but more than anything before then!
+ 1/2 star books were significantly down, with the big difference at 4 star level (5/6 combined were the same). So, a good year's reading.
Pure numbers may be low, but, with 5/6 star books representing 35% of my reading, the quality/enjoyment level has never been higher. Last year, all 1-2 star reads were book club choices, this year it was just a large majority!
+ A similar ratio of fiction: non-fiction this year (69:31) as last year (71:29), back to pre-2017 levels (it's been almost equal the intermediate years). I suspect that's a combination of book groups (who hardly read non-fiction) and the projects I'm tackling, plus the apparent aversion I seem to have picked up to bigger books (see below!).
+ After a 6 year low of 34% female authors, that percentage was up to 42% this year, closer to my 60:40 long term average. Not sure why that's the case: most researchers say that men gravitate more to male writers and vice-versa, but the majority of my favourite writers are women, and I've no awareness of preferring male to female authors. Could it be something to do with the sort of books I read? Even then, I can't think what specifically.
+ Back down to under 20% library books read - disappointing. However, I do have a large personal library of unread books, so that's probably inevitable. The unread library hasn't grown much (by about 30 books to 1420 as I write - but I have been disposing of a fair number recently, so that doesn't say very much! More of an anti-library I'd say!
+ I deliberately didn't set any targets for this year - I all too frequently (always?!) fail to achieve them, but I did say I would like to make progress on the two main projects and my focus authors so....
+ 4 books read for my Tour of the USA - fewer than the 6 in 2022, and taking me to 33 out of 51. That's fairly glacial progress and needs stepping up. Some cracking books read, including my 'Book of the Year'.
+ 18 books read for Reading the World - 2 more than in 2022, and taking me to 34 out of 200. Happy with that - I reckoned on around 10 years to finish this project, and pretty much on track. Again, some wonderful books, completely transforming my reading.
+ Classic authors: only part of one book (Barnaby Rudge) read for Dickens - that thread has stuttered almost to a halt in the past few years. Not sure why, but perhaps something to do with my longer book problem? Just the one read for Zola (La Curee), which is a pity as I always love them when I get round to them. None for Patrick O'Brian. I'm going to slim my focus down to these next year, to see if I can actually make some progress. The only other 'pure' classic authors (ie.more than 100 years old) were Samuel Johnson (History of Rasselas) and Mikhael Lermontov (A Hero Of Our Time) and, squeaking in chronologically, Katherine Mansfield (short stories).
+ book groups have been more fun since I slimmed down to 'just' two. Although there've been the usual 1/2 star books, the discussions are lively, the choices varied and good to discuss (even the 'bad' ones!) - loving this side of things!
+ So, next year? More books for the two reading projects (40+ completed for USA, 50+ for The World??), more of the authors, and a higher average number of pages per book - 251 is my lowest to date, and I do need to tackle what seems to be a bit of a subconscious fear/phobia/reluctance on bigger books. Fewer (if necessary) but bigger books, perhaps! And also perhaps a higher proportion of non-fiction - I've got some fab books on my shelves that are crying out to be read.
+ See the post below for my accolades of the year.
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Accolades History
For the past few years, I've finished off the year by awarding some of my own accolades to books that I've read that year - for 2023 see a couple of posts below here. Some are included in the Forum's award threads. Titles in bold under Fiction and Non-Fiction Books of the Year were my overall winners for that year. Up to 2016, rereads were eligible for the Book of the Year lists; from 2016 onwards, a separate accolade was listed.
Fiction Book of the Year
2013: David Copperfield - Charles Dickens. Runner-up: The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell
2014: Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy. Runner-up: Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
2015: Middlemarch - George Eliot. Runner-up: The Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian (first 5 vols read this year)
2016: The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry. Runner-up: Howards End - EM Forster
2017: To The Bright Edge Of The World - Eowyn Ivey. Runner-up: The Old Wives' Tale - Arnold Bennett
2018: A View Of The Harbour - Elizabeth Taylor. Runner-up: Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
2019: Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo. Runner-up: Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
2020: Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell. Runner-up: A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
2021: The Mermaid Of Black Conch - Monique Roffey. Runner-up: The Great Level - Stella Tillyard
2022: As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner. Runner-up: One Moonlit Night - Caradog Prichard
Non-fiction Book of the Year
2013: Letters To Alice On First Reading Jane Austen - Fay Weldon; Runner-up: The Real Jane Austen - Paula Byrne
2014: Pursuit Of Glory: Europe 1648-1815 - Tim Blanning. Runner-up: Under Another Sky: Travels Through Roman Britain - Charlotte Higgins
2015: Waterloo - Tim Clayton. Runner-up: Shackleton's Boat Journey by Frank Worsley
2016: The House By The Lake - Thomas Harding. Runner-up: The Outrun - Amy Liptrot
2017: The Seabirds' Cry - Adam Nicolson. Runner-up: Love Of Country - Madeleine Bunting
2018: East-West Street - Philippe Sands. Runner-up: Wilding - Isabella Tree
2019: Daughter Of The Desert - Georgina Howell. Runner-up: The Five - Hallie Rubenheld
2020: Island Stories - David Reynolds. Runner-up: Home - Julie Myerson
2021: The Stubborn Light Of Things - Melissa Harrison. Runner-up: Orchard - Benedict Macdonald & Nicholas Gates
2022: The Invention of Nature - Andrea Wulf. Runner-up: Cotton Grass Summer - Roy Dennis
Duffer of the Year
2013: Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
2014: The Dinner - Herman Koch
2015: Divergent - Veronica Roth
2016: Us - David Nicholls
2017: Two Brothers - Ben Elton
2018: I Am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes
2019: I See You - Clare Mackintosh
2020: Gold - Chris Cleave
2021: Body Surfing - Anita Shreve
2022: The Department of Sensitive Crimes - Alexander McCall Smith
Most Disappointing
2017: Jacob's Room Is Full Of Books - Susan Hill
2018: I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
2019: The Making Of The British Landscape - Nicholas Crane
2020: A God In Ruins - Kate Atkinson
2021: How To Argue With A Racist - Adam Rutherford
2022: The Instant - Amy Liptrot
Best Reread
2016: Emma - Jane Austen. Runner-up: Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
2017: Flood Warning - Paul Berna; Winter Holiday - Arthur Ransome (jointly)
2018: Coot Club - Arthur Ransome
2019: Paddington Helps Out - Michael Bond
2020: Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf in combination with The Hours - Michael Cunningham
2021: Waterland - Graham Swift
2022: A Maigret Christmas - Georges Simenon
Biggest Discovery
2019: George Mackay Brown
2020: Wendell Berry
2021: Gilbert White
2022: JB Priestley; African writing; David Fairer
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The Book Pile
I am very acquisitive when it comes to books, buying (or receiving) far more than I can actually read in short order. I'm happy with that - I like to have a library of books to choose from and follow whims - but it also means that books that I intended to read pretty soon after buying can get lost! So, I've decided to create a virtual book pile. This will consist of such books, with the aim that I will now read them in the near future!. The pile needs to stay manageable, so I will limit it to around a dozen, and will generally only add books to it as books already on the pile get read. Hopefully, this, appealing as it does to my passion for lists, will help me work through the bigger long term reading list. We'll see how it all works!
Books that are ineligible to be added include any that are included in another reading project* or being read for a book group - these are meant to be all books that could otherwise get overlooked because I'm so focused on these other areas. I'll also keep a record of which book pile books I have actually read.Fiction
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford
Non-fiction
Thunderclap by Laura Cummings
Walking the Bones of Britain by Christoher Somerville
The Burgundians by Bart van Loo
Ten Birds That Changed the World by Stephen Moss
Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart
Book Pile books read this year
The Marriage Question by Claire Carlisle
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Classic fiction
Three authors whose books I want to focus more on:
+ Charles Dickens
+ Thomas Hardy
+ Emile Zola's Rougon-Macquart series
Plus a list of other 'must-reads'. Highly selective and idiosyncratic, mostly big tomes that I feel a need to have tackled!
Charles Dickens - Novels
01. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837) *****
02. The Adventures of Oliver Twist (1839) ******
03. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1839) ******
04. The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) ***
05. Barnaby Rudge (1841)
06. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1844)
07. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son (1848)
08. The Personal History of David Copperfield (1850) ******
09. Bleak House (1853) ******
10. Hard Times (1854)
11. Little Dorrit (1857)
12. A Tale of Two Cities (1859) ******
13. Great Expectations (1861) ****
14. Our Mutual Friend (1865)
15. The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)The Christmas Books
16. A Christmas Carol (1843) ******
17. The Chimes (1844) ***
18. The Cricket on the Hearth (1845) ***
19. The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (1846)Emile Zola's Rougon-Macquart Series
01. La Fortune des Rougon (The Fortune of the Rougons) *****
02. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon (His Excellency Eugene Rougon) ****
03. La Curee (The Kill) *****
04. L'Argent (Money)
05. Le Reve (The Dream)
06. La Conquete de Plassans (The Conquest of Plassans)
07. Pot-Bouille (Pot Luck)
08. Au Bonheur des Dames (The Ladies' Delight/Paradise) ******
09. La Faute de L'Abbe Mouret (The Sin of Father Mouret)
10. Une Page d'amour (A Love Story)
11. Le Ventre de Paris (The Belly of Paris)
12. La Joie de vivre (The Bright Side of Life)
13. L'Assommoir (The Drinking Den)
14. L'Oeuvre (The Masterpiece)
15. La Bete humaine (The Beast Within)
16. Germinal
17. Nana
18. La Terre (The Earth)
19. La Debacle (The Debacle)
20. Le Docteur Pascal (Doctor Pascal)(English titles as used by OUP and/or Penguin, if different to the French).
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Reading The World
A tour of the world in 200 books, made up of one from each of the 193 full members of the United Nations, the 2 UN 'observer' nations (Palestine and Vatican City), Taiwan ( the most significant country with no UN recognition), the four home nations (rather than just UK) and Antarctica (the only continent otherwise not represented). Books should be prose, preferably fiction, normally written by someone from that country, and ideally set there, but if not, as close as I can get! Books in blue are those read during the current year.Read so far: 38/200
Read in 2022: 16, 2023: 18
Read this year: 4
Europe (13/48)Austria: Chess Story by Stefan Zweig *****
Bulgaria: Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov ***
Czech Republic: Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal ****
Finland: The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna ****
Germany: Measuring the World - Daniel Kehlmann *****
Iceland: History. A Mess. by Sigrun Palsdottir ****
Italy: The Leopard - Giuseppe Tomaso di Lampedusa ****
Northern Ireland: Travelling In A Strange Land by David Park ****
Norway: The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas ****
San Marino: The Republic of San Marino - Giuseppe Rossi ***
Scotland: O Caledonia - Elspeth Barker ***
Ukraine: Death and the Penguin - Andrey Kurkov ***
Wales: One Moonlit Night - Caradog Prichard ******
Africa (9/54)
Angola: The Book of Chameleons - Jose Eduardo Agualusa ****
Congo, Republic of: Black Moses - Alain Mabanckou *****
Cote d'Ivoire: Standing Heavy - GauZ ******
Djibouti: In The United States of Africa - Abdourahman Waberi ****
Ghana: The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born - Ayi Kwei Armah ****
Kenya: A Grain Of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong'o ******
South Africa: The Promise - Damon Galgut *****
Sudan: Season of Migration to the North - Tayeb Salih ******
Togo: Michel the Giant - Tete-Michel Kpomassie ******
Asia (6/48)Malaysia: The Night Tiger - Yangsze Choo ****
Japan: Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata **; Tokyo Express - Seicho Matsumoto ****
Pakistan: The Wandering Falcon - Jamil Ahmad *****
South Korea: The Vegetarian - Han Kang *
Turkey: 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World - Elif Shafak **
Vietnam: The Sorrow of War - Bao Ninh **
North America (5/23)Antigua and Barbuda: Annie John - Jamaica Kincaid ***
Grenada: The Bone Readers - Jacob Ross *****
Mexico: Pedro Paramo - Juan Rulfo ****
Trinidad and Tobago: Minty Alley - CLR James *****
USA: Beloved - Toni Morrison *****
South America (3/12)
Argentina: Not A River - Selva Almeda *****
Columbia: One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez *****
Uruguay: Who Among Us? - Mario Benedetti ****
Oceania and Antarctica (2/15)
Nauru: Stories from Nauru - Bam Bam Solomon et al (plus readings from Indigehous Literatures of Micronesia) ****
New Zealand: The Garden Party and Other Stories - Katherine Mansfield ******; Potiki - Patricia Grace ****
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A Tour of the United States
My experience of American literature being much narrower than I would have liked, I decided a few years ago to take a tour of the USA in a similar way to our own English Counties challenge: 51 books, one set in each of the states (including Washington DC). In fact, the English Counties was modelled on an American States challenge here, but in the spirit of broadening that experience, I have amended it using these rules: a. it must be fiction or narrative non-fiction; b. an author can only appear once; c. published after 1900 (what I've read has been predominantly 19th century); d. adult books; e. no rereads. Inevitably some great books and authors will have been left off, but the process itself has already helped identify those holes, and I aim to fill them in as additional reading! Blue means read, bold means read this year. Books in black are unread, and are those I've currently got lined up - but they can (and do!) change, and some alternatives are listed below the main list.
34/51The Keepers of the House - Shirley Ann Grau (Alabama) *****
To The Bright Edge of the World - Eowyn Ivey (Alaska) ******
The Monkey Wrench Gang -Edward Abbey (Arizona)The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks - Donald Harington (Arkansas)
East of Eden - John Steinbeck (California)
Plainsong - Kent Haruf (Colorado) *****
The Stepford Wives - Ira Levin (Connecticut) *
The Book of Unknown Americans - Christina Henriquez (Delaware)
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurst (Florida) ****
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers (Georgia) ******
The Descendants - Kaui Hart Hemmings (Hawaii)
Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson (Idaho) ****
The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow (Illinois)
The Stone Diaries - Carol Shields (Indiana) *****
The Bridges of Madison County - Robert Waller (Iowa) ****
Not Without Laughter - Langston Hughes (Kansas)
Nathan Coultar - Wendell Berry (Kentucky) ******
All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren (Louisiana)
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stout (Maine) ***
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler (Maryland) ***
Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton (Massachusetts) ***
Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison (Michigan) ******
Main Street - Sinclair Lewis (Minnesota) ***
As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner (Mississippi) ******
Mrs Bridge - Evan S. Connell (Missouri) *****
A River Runs Through It - Norman Maclean (Montana)
My Antonia - Willa Cather (Nebraska) ******
The Ox-Bow Incident - Walter van Tilburg Clark (Nevada) *****
Peyton Place - Grace Metallious (New Hampshire)
The Sportswriter - Richard Ford (New Jersey) ****
Cities of the Plain - Cormac McCarthy (New Mexico)
Another Country - James Baldwin (New York) ******
Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier (North Carolina) ****
The Plague of Doves - Louise Erdrich (North Dakota) *****
Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson (Ohio) ***
True Grit - Charles Portis (Oklahoma) *****
Trask - Don Berry (Oregon)
The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara (Pennsylvania) *****
The Witches of Eastwick - John Updike (Rhode Island) ***
The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd (South Carolina) ***
The Personal History of Rachel Dupree - Anne Weisberger (South Dakota)
Flight Behaviour - Barbara Kingsolver (Tennessee)
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry (Texas) ******
The Big Rock Candy Mountain - Wallace Stegner (Utah)
The Secret History - Donna Tartt (Vermont)
The Confessions of Nat Turner - William Styron (Virginia)
Snow Falling on Cedars - David Guterson (Washington) ***
Advise and Consent - Allen Drury (Washington DC) ****
Rocket Boys - Homer H Hickam (West Virginia) ******
American Wife - Curtis Sittenfeld (Wisconsin) ****
The Virginian - Owen Wister (Wyoming) *****Alternatives for states yet to be read
Hawaii: Shark Dialogues by Kiana Davenport; Moloka'I by Alan Brennert
Illinois: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Kansas: The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton by Jane Smiley
Louisiana: A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Sexton;
Oregon: Sometimes A Great Notion by Ken Kesey; Geek Love by Katherine Dunn; Hole In The Sky by William Kittredge
South Dakota Welcome to the Hard Times by EL Doctorow
Tennessee: A Death in the Family by James Agee, Shiloh by Shelby Foote
Utah: The Nineteenth Wife by David Ebershoff
Virginia: The Known World by Edward P Jones
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Favourite authors
To qualify for this list, I have to have read at least three books by that author (amazing how many where I've just read two, especially non-fiction!), so no one-book wonders (it's the book then, not the author!). None of the books themselves need to have reached a six star rating, but they do need to have been rated consistently highly. I've only included authors of adult books - for favourite children's authors, see favourite book list, as the two lists are pretty much the same. I've also included titles of books for authors where I have particular favourites.
Fiction
Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Lady Susan)
JL Carr (A Month in the Country, The Harpole Report)Willa Cather (My Antonia, O Pioneers)
Charles Dickens (Bleak House, David Copperfield)
Sarah Dunant (In The Company of the Courtesan, Hannah Wolfe trilogy)Margaret Elphinstone (The Sea Road, Voyageurs)
David Fairer (The Chocolate House trilogy)
Thomas Hardy (Far From The Madding Crowd)
Donna Leon (Brunetti series)
Patrick O'Brian (Aubrey/Maturin series)
Georges Simenon (Maigret series)Elizabeth Taylor (A View Of The Harbour)
Virginia Woolf (Mrs Dalloway, The Lighthouse, The Years)
Non-Fiction
Tim Clayton (Waterloo)
Jan Morris (Venice, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere)
Claire Tomalin (Pepys, Dickens, Austen, etc.)
Jenny Uglow (The Pinecone, Nature's Engraver)
BothMelissa Harrison (The Stubborn Light of Things, Hawthorn Time)
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Favourite Books
A record of the 140 books and series which I rate as 'favourites': 6+ stars! These aren't necessarily the best literature I've read, but ones, that, for whatever reason, struck a special chord in my reading that continues to resonate long after actually reading them. Individual books within a series are likely to have scored less, but the rating is for the series as a whole. The lists are divided into
- Fiction
- Non-fiction
- Joint fiction/non-fiction
- Children's fiction
Fiction (82)
Ackroyd, Peter: Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem
Ackroyd, Peter: Hawksmoor
Austen, Jane: Sense and Sensibility
Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Jane: Emma
Buchan, John: John Macnab
Carr JL: A Month in the Country
Carr JL: The Harpole Report
Chaucer, Geoffrey: The Canterbury Tales
Chevalier, Tracey: Falling Angels
Childers, Erskine: The Riddle of the Sands
Collins, Norman: London Belongs To Me
Cooper, Susan: The Dark is Rising
Cunningham, Michael: The Hours
Davies, Martin: The Conjuror's Bird
Dickens, Charles: A Christmas Carol
Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
Dickens, Charles: David CopperfieldDunant, Sarah: In the Company of the Courtesan
Eco, Umberto: The Name of the Rose
Eliot, George: Middlemarch
Elphinstone, Margaret: The Sea Road
Elphinstone, Margaret: VoyageursEvaristo, Bernardine: Girl, Woman, Other
Fairer, David: The Chocolate House trilogyFaulkner, William: As I Lay Dying
Fforde, Jasper: The Eyre Affair
Forester, CS: The Hornblower series
Goscinny, Rene: Asterix in Britain
Greig, Andrew: The Return of John MacnabGuareschi, Giovanni: The Don Camillo series
Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Hardy, Thomas: Far From The Madding Crowd
Herbert, Frank: Dune
Heyer, Georgette: The Grand SophyHoeg, Peter: Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow
Horwood, William: The Stonor Eagles
Horwood, William: Skallagrig
Hulme, Keri: The Bone PeopleIvey, Eowyn: To the Bright Edge of the World
Japrisot, Sebastian: A Very Long EngagementLe Carre, John: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Lee, Harper: To Kill A MockingbirdLeon, Donna: The Commissario Brunetti series
Mantel, Hilary: Wolf Hall
McMurtry, Larry: Lonesome Dove
Melville, Herman: Moby Dick
Miller, Andrew: PureMiller, Andrew: Now We Shall Be Entirely Free
Mitchell, David: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Monsarrat, Nicholas: The Cruel Sea
Moorcock, Michael: Mother London
O'Brian, Patrick: The Aubrey-Maturin seriesO'Farrell, Maggie: Hamnet
Pears, Ian: An Instance of the Fingerpost
Penney, Stef: The Tenderness of Wolves
Perry, Sarah: The Essex SerpentPrichard, Caradog: One Moonlit Night
Proulx, Annie: The Shipping News
Roffey, Monique: The Mermaid of Black Conch
Rushdie, Salman: Midnight's Children
Seth, Vikram: A Suitable Boy
Simenon, Georges: The Inspector Maigret series
Smiley, Jane: A Thousand Acres
Smith, Dodie: I Capture the Castle
Steinbeck, John: Of Mice and Men
Stephenson, Neal: Cryptonomicon
Stevenson, Robert Louis: Kidnapped
Swift, Graeme: WaterlandTaylor, Elizabeth: A View of the Harbour
Thomas, Dylan: Under Milk Wood
Thompson, Harry: This Thing of Darkness
Tolkien JRR: The Lord of the Rings
Tolstoy, Leo: War and PeaceWaugh, Evelyn: Brideshead Revisited
Williams, Pip: The Dictionary of Lost Words
Willis, Connie: To Say Nothing of the Dog
Woolf, Virginia: Mrs Dalloway
Woolf, Virginia: The Years
Woolf, Virginia: To The Lighthouse
Woolfenden, Ben: The Ruins of Time
Zafon, Carlos Ruiz: The Shadow of the WindNon-fiction (48)
Blanning, Tim: The Pursuit of Glory
Bewick, Thomas: A History of British Birds
Brown, Hamish: Hamish's Mountain Walk
Clayton, Tim: Waterloo
Cocker, Mark: Crow Country
Dennis, Roy: Cottongrass SummerFadiman, Anne: Ex Libris
Frater, Alexander: Chasing the MonsoonGogarty, Paul: The Water Road
Hanff, Helen: 84 Charing Cross Road
Harding, Thomas: The House By The LakeHarrison, Melissa: The Stubborn Light of Things
Hastings, Max: All Hell Let LooseHickam, Hiram H.: Rocket Boys / October Sky
Holland, James: Dam Busters
Hoskins, WG: The Making of the English LandscapeHowell, Georgina: Daughter of the Desert
Huntford, Roland: Shackleton
Jamie, Kathleen: Findings
Junger, Sebastian: The Perfect Storm
Lee, Hermione: Virginia WoolfLewis-Stempel, John: The Running Hare
Liptrot, Amy: The Outrun
Longford, Elizabeth: Wellington, The Years of the SwordMacdonald, Benedict & Nicholas Gates: Orchard
MacDonald, Helen: Vesper Flights
MacGregor, Neil: Germany, Memories of a Nation
Moore, Richard: In Search of Robert Millar
Nichols, Peter: A Voyage for MadmenNicolson, Adam: The Seabird's Cry
Pennac, Daniel: The Rights of the ReaderPeterson, Mounfort and Hollom: A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe
Pinker, Stephen: The Language Instinct
Rackham, Oliver: The History of the Countryside
de Saint-Exupery, Antoine: Wind, Sand and Stars
Salisbury, Laney and Gay: The Cruellest MilesSands, Philippe: East-West Street
Schumacher, EF: Small is Beautiful
Simpson, Joe: Touching the Void
Taylor, Stephen: Storm and Conquest
Tomalin, Claire: Pepys, The Unequalled SelfTree, Isabella: Wilding
Uglow, Jenny: The Pinecone
Unsworth, Walt: Everest
Weldon, Fay: Letters to Alice on first reading Jane Austen
Wheeler, Sara: Terra IncognitaWulf, Andrea: The Invention of Nature
Young, Gavin: Slow Boats to China
Joint fiction/non-fiction (1)Klinkenborg, Verlyn: Timothy's Book with Townsend-Warner, Sylvia: Portrait of a Tortoise
Children's Fiction (9)
Berna, Paul: Flood WarningBond, Michael: The Paddington Bear series
Kipling, Rudyard: Puck of Pook's Hill/Rewards and FairiesKipling, Rudyard: The Jungle Book
Milne, AA: Winnie-the-Pooh/House at Pooh Corner
Pullman, Philip: Northern Lights
Ransome, Arthur: The Swallows and Amazons series
Sutcliff, Rosemary: The Eagle of the Ninth
White, TH: Mistress Masham's Repose -
Book List 2024
January
01. A Passage to India - EM Forster G *****
02. York Advance Notes, A Passage to India - Nigel Messenger ***
03. Strong Female Character - Fern Brady ****
February
04. Daniel Deronda - George Eliot G *****
05. Cursed Bread - Sophie Mackintosh **
06. The Bone Readers - Jacob Ross W *****
07. Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout U ***
08. The Marriage Question - Claire Carlisle ****
09. The Sorrow of War - Bao Ninh W **
10. The Offing - Benjamin Myers *****
March
11. Not A River - Selva Almeda W *****
12. The Perfect Golden Circle - Benjamin Myers GR ****
13. The Years - Annie Ernaux GR *****
April
14. Caroline - Richmal Crompton G **
15. Pedro Paramo - Juan Rulfo W ****
G = a book group choice, R = reread, U = Tour of the United States, W = Read Around the World, X = unfinished
Ratings
* Positively disliked: almost certainly unfinished. Most of these books tend to be book group choices! LibraryThing rating 0.5 - 1
** Disappointing or not particularly liked even if recognise merits: likely to be at least skimmed, often unfinished. LT 1.5 - 2
*** OK, a decent read, functionally useful if read for education. Books I want to finish, even if I don't feel the need to! LT 2.5 - 3
**** Good, compulsive reading that, whilst putdownable, demands to be picked up and finished LT 3.5
***** Very good, into the realms of 'unputdownable' LT 4
****** Excellent: a top notch read, even if not quite a favourite. LT 4.5
****** Favourite: books which, for whatever reason, have something special about them, even if only personal to me. For the full list of these (less than 150 of them) see post #7 below. LT 5
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Thread contents
Post number
02 Book list 2024
03 Favourite books
04 Favourite authors
05 A Tour of the United States
06 Reading The World
07 Classic fiction reading lists
08 The Book Pile
09 spare
10 spare
11 spare
12 spare
13 spare
14 First review!
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Catch up time!
La Curee (The Kill) by Emile Zola *****
The third (in the reading order recommended by Zola) in the Rougon - Macquart sequence, focusing on the financial shenanigans surrounding property development in Paris during the Second Empire, and the redevelopments carried out by Baron Haussmann, much of it reflecting real life dealings. Whilst I'm not making swift progress here, I'm loving each book as it comes - Zola's writing is so rich, so evocative, his detailed descriptions (too much for some) painting a fantastically vivid picture. As with all Zola's 'wealthy' novels, it's the Rougon half of the dynasty at heart, Aristide (brother of Eugene and son of Pierre and Felicity) now coming to the fore, under his adopted name of Saccard. The main protagonist is, in fact, his second wife Renee, and the plot focuses on her relationship with her stepson Maxime and its outcome, with Saccard keeping multiple plates spinning, Renee's dowry being a crucial element - very much a marriage of financial convenience.
I was slightly bemused at the title, but I hadn't realised that 'The Kill' actually refers to the kill in a hunt, and specifically to the portion thrown to the dogs, so, actually, all too appropriate. And it's Renee who is all too clearly in danger of being La Curee, and torn to pieces.
The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter van Tilburg *****
The book for Nevada in my Tour of the USA. The story of a 'posse' (of very doubtful legality, so closer to a lynch mob) pursuing a group of rustlers, and the fall-out when events go horribly wrong. The psychology of the mob and the impact it has on those involved sits at the heart of what turned out to be a far more thoughtful, deeper, novel than I had anticipated. This is the third western I've read as part of my Tour of the USA (following on from Lonesome Dove and The Virginian,, and they have made an excellent trio. This may just about be the 'third' of the three, but it's well up there, and, having only ever read one other before (Cormac McCarthy's All The Pretty Horses), I'm up for more!
The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad *****
From the West to East....A series of short stories, linked through the life of the 'Falcon', set in the Pakistan/Afghanistan border region, the author having worked much of his life as a Pakistani government official in the region. The language is simply constructed but with a clarity that seemed so appropriate for a largely desert, mountainous, environment! As a westerner (even though I've visited Pakistan) the culture was totally alien, but, with a strong sense of authorial sympathy for his characters and subject, I felt I gained much insight. I was certainly gripped - this is a short book and pretty much unputdownable. (This was the book for Pakistan in my Reading The World project).
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams ******
Picked up on a whim, as the subject material interested me. Glad I did! Esme is the daughter of one of James Murray's researchers in putting together the OED in the late 19th century. Motherless, she spends much of her time at her father's feet (under the table!) in the Scriptorium, the heart of the project, and develops her own fascination with words. Her life is one that is almost inevitably intertwined with the dictionary and its team, but other events and people have a profound impact too! I just loved this book from start to finish, barely able to put it down. The plot, the characters, the historical context all combined to make this an almost ideal read for me - perhaps not the greatest 'literature', but an absolutely stonking story, really well told.
Tall Man in a Low Country by Harry Pearson ***
Read as background to a visit to Brussels, mainly on the train getting there! Initially promising, this actually proved a mild disappointment, even if scraping three stars. I expected insight into Belgium from somebody who I was under the impression had lived there. In fact, it's really just the story of an extended holiday in Belgium (with flashbacks to a previous holiday!), and whilst there was the odd flash of insight, I felt it was written by somebody no more knowledgeable than I was about the country, and didn't ever really get beyond stereotypes and the superficial. I've got another book on my Kindle by Alex Le Sueur on the same subject, although he does live in the country (his wife is Belgian), so I hope that's more rewarding (although the title, Bottoms Up in Belgium, is decidedly unpromising!).
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery ****
Shortlisted for the Booker, this is a set of interconnected short stories featuring American-born, Jamaican-descent, Trelawney and his family. There is a thread of desperation that runs through these stories, with family relations always on edge, sometimes descending into breakdown, money tenuous, life in the margins threatening, all against an at best uncertain racial/cultural background. Actually, not background, but right to the fore, especially in the first story, with Trelawney struggling to develop any sense of identity, and the racial caste system in America sounding absolutely nightmarish! Written in the second voice, this proved a rare example of it being the perfect choice. Splashdown, the central story, is the only one not to feature Trelawney of Delado (his brother), focusing on their cousin Cukie, but its position at the heart of the book, providing an alternative scenario and suggesting an all too plausible direction for the two brothers, was surely earned; it packs a fair old punch. I found the writing vivid and lively, streaked through with a strong sense of humanity: at times endearing, these characters could also be quite appalling - it all depends on the perspective - but one felt one always understood why they did what they did, however desperate (except maybe some of Topper's later actions!). An ideal book for a book club - so much to discuss!
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Book #34: The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad for Pakistan *****
A series of short stories, linked through the life of the 'Falcon', set in the Pakistan/Afghanistan border region, the author having worked much of his life as a Pakistani government official in the region. The language is simply constructed but with a clarity that seemed so appropriate for a largely desert, mountainous, environment! As a westerner (even though I've visited Pakistan) the culture was totally alien, but, with a strong sense of authorial sympathy for his characters and subject, I felt I gained much insight. I was certainly gripped - this is a short book and pretty much unputdownable.
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And now finished The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad, my book for Pakistan in Reading The World. Another 5/6 stars: short,vivid and gripping (only started 2 days ago).
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#33 Nevada: The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark *****
Review to follow
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#32 West Virginia: Rocket Boys / October Sky by Homer Hickam Jnr *****
Review to follow
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Finished The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark, the book for Nevada in my tour of the United States. Far more than 'just' a Western! 5/6 stars.
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On 11/7/2023 at 8:42 AM, Hayley said:
Maybe they’ll have an amazing January sale 🤞. Although I remember noticing last year that they didn’t have anywhere near the kinds of reductions they had in the past!
I think there's very little chance of that. I started collecting Folios back in the late 80s, and was a regular buyer until a few years ago, around the time they got rid of the membership structure. Recently, their prices have gone through the roof as they have become increasingly 'fashionable', and most of the fiction I would have wanted is only being produced as LEs (limited editions), which I have no interest in nowadays (I've sold off all but one of the LEs I bought in the past). The sales used to be good for picking up older titles reasonably cheaply, but that seems to have gone by the board in the past couple of years, and they are now of very limited interest. I'm a member of the Folio Society Devotees group on LibraryThing, and there are quite a few longer term members like me who have become rather disillusioned I'm afraid, not least because FS seem to be increasingly catering for a very different type of market, centred primarily on the fantasy/scifi enthusiast, and have seemed to have lost any interest in classical lit (other than LEs) other than rehashing a limited range of popular titles. They have improved on the American literature front, but I've gone over to Library of America for that now, which provides far greater depth of coverage and is much better value (I'm currently reading one of their volumes). i occasionally pick up the odd travel/exploration title, which they do well, my latest being Paul Theroux's Old Patagonian Express, but othewise all my FS purchases are now in the secondhand market, as there's still some interesting titles to explore from the back lists.
I still have a couple of bookcases worth of FS volumes - I do tend to prefer their older more understated productions, and there are quite a few favourites which are a real pleasure to read and reread.
Having said all that, my reading preferences have changed quite dramatically in the past few years, and am enjoying especially exploring more independent publishers like Peirene, Peepal, Pushkin, Fitzcarraldo, Persephone etc, along with a range of other world lit, so highly unlikely to buy much FS nowadays even if their prices ameliorated.
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Finished Emile Zola's La Curee (The Kill). Excellent - 5 stars (out of 6).
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Two more to finish October off:
The Meaning of Geese by Neil Acherson ****
Returning home to north Norfolk after 10 years working in South America and elsewhere as an eco-guide the experience of which has led him to reject flying as a transport option, the author is plunged straight into lockdown. He decides to spend more time on his first nature love, the wild geese that winter on the coast near his home, borrowing his grandmother's bicycle and cycling the 25+ miles return journey most days of the winter of 20-21. Framed in a diary format, this book represents his account and thoughts - very much a personal experience as the subtitles suggest.
This proved a good read, but only occasionally, at least for me, tipped over into a 'great' read. As with so many nature writers, I felt that he was at times trying too hard, and the descriptive language all got rather too much - one doesn't need an adjective in front of EVERY noun, and certainly not a barrage of two or three each. When he was at his best, was when he focused on the background to the geese, talked about the work and his relationship with other birders, or spent some time filling out a related topic - perhaps because this came more naturally to him? Having said that, reading other reviews suggests that quite a few readers found his book almost too technical, and felt that this was a bird mainly aimed at fellow birdwatchers. So, overall, I suspect what actually happened is that this book actually falls a bit between two stools. It certainly could have benefited from some decent illustrations (even line drawings) to support the bird descriptions (brants and brents, pink-footed and white- fronteds etc) to help those unfamiliar with the multitude of species present in Norfolk, and, by biggest gripe with so many of these books, some decent maps. I read this book next to my phone, which has both the Collins Bird Guide on it and the Ordnance Survey app - and I was constantly swapping from book to phone and back. Both of these enhanced the book enormously, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, feeling I learnt a fair bit (and certainly it's increased my desire to spend some time down there in the not too distant future!), but what could have been a 'great' book, proved, in the end, to be merely 'good'.
Mr Weston's Good Wine by TF Powys ***
In the opening pages of this 1920s novel, published by Vintage Classics, Mr Weston arrives in the fictional Dorset village of Folly Down, a travelling salesman for his various 'wines', accompanied by his assistant Michael. Something is very odd - children trying to steal whatever the contents of his car are, are scared almost to death, and run off screaming. The contents of the car? We found out much later. But what we do find sooner is that there is a host of decidedly 'interesting' (read, odd) characters inhabiting Folly Down, with much carnal activity and mysoginistic abuse (particularly from one female character!) - the writing is light, but the undertones are very dark. It rapidly becomes apparent that Mr Weston is, in fact, God, that Michael is, of course, his archangel, that supernatural things do happen (like Time stopping), and that this is a religious allegory on the fight between good and evil.
This book may have been written in the 1920s (and set in 1923), but the writing, at least initially, felt quite modern, and it was an easy book to get going on However, it wasn't too long before I found myself foundering somewhat, and by halfway (even earlier) this was proving a difficult book to finish. The multitude of characters didn't help - there were far too many introduced in too short a time for me to keep a grasp on them without notes (yes, I found myself making notes!), and there was absolutely no subtlety - I felt that everything, be it character, moral, idea, was driven home with a sledgehammer. I have to admit, that I did wonder, at least to start with, if this wasn't so much a religious allegory, as a commentary on rural fiction of the time in the mould of Cold Comfort Farm, the character were so cartoonish (one of them was even largely confined to the woodshed!). Equally, there was no light and shade in the language itself, and that 'moden' feel, with its mock-biblical edge, gradually became monotonously tedious. This book was only 240 pages long, but it felt much longer. And yet, it still managed, at least in part, to get under my skin, and having breathed a sigh of relief at finishing, I did find myself browsing back through it, interested enough to check up on the precise details of what happened and how things worked in the way they did. It was hard work though!
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Have moved on to La Curee (The Kill) by Emile Zola. Ten pages in, and it's already easy to see why it's a classic.
Willoyd's Reading 2023
in Book Blogs - Discuss your reading!
Posted · Edited by willoyd
A Hero Of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov ***
Read for one of my reading groups. A short (barely 140 pages) novel set in the Caucasus of the early 19th century, featuring the somewhat amoral soldier Pechorin as the ironically titled 'hero'. This reads like a series of 5 short stories, told from different perspectives, examining Pechorin's sense of alienation from the society around him, and his refusal to conform: is he heartless or just brutally honest? I found this a difficult book to get into, really only grabbed by the fourth (and longest) of the five episodes - made all the more interesting (IMO) by the fact that it was told from Perchorin's perspective, thus seeing the world through his eyes rather than the rather mystified others around him. But maybe it was made more interesting by the fact that we'd seen him through the rather non-plussed eyes of other, more conventional, observers first? It'll be interesting to see what the rest of the group make of it. BTW, I looked forward to reading the introduction for insight, but found it hard going. One ot be read in small chunks, or, at least, not late at night!