willoyd

Yesterday was a big day, as I formally retired! I won't be packing in work completely, but intend to work a lot less and do more of what I want to do, including some voluntary work. It was also the last day of term, and amongst the lovely pile of gifts from children in my class, I acquired four books, all of which were on my wishlist(!): Wonderland by Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss Wild Kingdom by Stephen Moss Foxes Unearthed by Lucy Jones A Natural History of the Hedgerow by John Wright That's set me up well for the summer! Today has to be a big sorting sort of day, as there's a substantial pile of possessions and gifts from school to work my way through and find a home for. It's going to be fun, but it's going to feel very weird at times! Even saying the words "I've retired" sounds odd.

We do,don't we?! Have to say that The Circle was universally panned by my bookgroup. We're a pretty eclectic bunch, and there's usually some disagreement, but not on this occasion. Highest score was 4/10, most in the 2s and 3s (I was one of those at the bottom end!). Bulk of the criticism was centred on the thin characterisation and, "plodding", "predictable" writing, although the premise was generally regarded as interesting. Having said that, this month's book, All Our Wrong Todays, got even more blasted by the group - one (not me!) describing it as the second-worst book we'd ever read! (And, before you ask, the worst is generally agreed as Dysfunctional Romance by Derick Hudson!).

Wow, you do have a lot going on. I don't know how you juggle all these - I'd lose track big time. I find I struggle to even maintain two, and usually land up sitting down with one and reading it intensely just so I can then get back to the other before losing the thread.

To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey ****** Set around the fictional story of an expedition up the Wolverine River in nineteenth-century Alaska, the narrative alternates between (mainly) the journal of the expedition leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Alan Forrester, and the journal of his wife, Sophie, left back in Vancouver Barracks, expecting their first child, interspersed with the modern-day letters between the couple's great-nephew (and inheritor of their cache of documents) and the curator of the museum in Alaska to whom he is donating the cache. Other documents also feature, including letters between the couple, but it's the journals that provide the spine. So far so straightforward, but right from the off, this book had me absolutely enthralled. Ivey evokes characters and places to perfection, her writing precise and to the point - there are no long descriptions but she describes beautifully, every word counting to the full. Whilst this is a scientific expedition (and Sophie gets wrapped up in quite a scientific activity too), there is a strong streak of superstition and mysticism - is this magical realism? - that permeates the story. It never takes over, it's never even certain, but it colours the atmosphere and gives the whole story a texture that helps grip the reader's imagination. This is very much the world of the Native American into which the white man is intruding - and perhaps more was lost than we can imagine with the submission of the indigenous population. A distinct bonus is that all three strands equally appealed, so there was none of the impatience and restlessness that can sometimes creep in with multi-stranded stories, where one wants to get back to one of the threads. These were well balanced, and fed off each other. They also each had their own stories to tell. Having said that, Sophie Forrester particularly grew on me: one could only admire the way she dealt with the vicissitudes thrust upon her, and admire what she made of the chances that did come her way. Interestingly, the book is based on a real-life expedition up the Copper River in Alaska, and the 'maps' of the Wolverine do largely tie in with the Copper River's geography. However, 'based' is the word - this is definitely a work of fiction. But it is a work that as one reads feels all too real, and that is a mark of both the author's ability and achievement. This is comfortably the best book I've read to date this year, and must be a strong contender for Book of the Year. It was certainly a brilliant restart to my reading tour of the US States - if only I could guarantee the rest were as good! It's a shoe-in for 6 stars, but it's interesting to note that several reviewers felt it wasn't as good as The Snow Child. I must try that!

Followed by Adam Nicolson's The Seabird's Cry. Just completed the first chapter - outstanding!

Finished All Our Wrong Todays - this month's book group read. Interesting premise, but it all felt rather thin - on character and on science (I'm no physicist, so may have some of this wrong, but the logic didn't work for me). Too plot driven for my taste, and the plot felt wobbly. 2/6 stars.

Glad to have entertained! But you're right - reviews about things that are rubbish - not just books, but films, restaurants etc - do seem to make for much more interesting reviews. I'm sure that says something significant about us, but am not sure quite what!

Interesting list. I wouldn't have had Jane Austen's books ranked so low down, especially Emma which I regard as a better book than P&P - but I love all of hers, and she is probably my favourite author. Having said that, I'd agree with which 3 appear in the list, as I do with the Dickens books (and with the fact that Bleak House is listed as his best), and probably with Middlemarch being on the top of the pile (although it's not my favourite book, it's definitely one of the greatest IMO). I'm not such a fan of the Brontes is the critics are it seems!

For an alternative view on the book, see this set of reviews!

Well that's definitely understandable! That Wainwright list does look a good one. As they all do it seems - I've just tracked back through previous lists to the first one in 2014, and have to say that every year looks good - especially the shortlists. I've read a fair few on these lists, and got others to read on my shelves, and of the ones I've read, there's not been a bad 'un. I think it's likely to be a stronger point of reference for my reading in the future - but over a longer period of time. What you're doing is a bit too tight a timescale for me, but more power to your reading elbow!

Still falling behind, perhaps because I'm actually reading more (this has been my best June since I started keeping records), so another fistful of mini-reviews: The Misty Harbour by Georges Simenon **** I find Simenon's atmospheric Maigret stories totally addictive - the literary version of the old black and white films of light and shade, murky streets and alleys, early morning drizzle, and smoke-filled bars (Camels of course!). Set in Ouistreham, a town I remember as the starting point for one of our most memorable cycle tours in France, this has got it all. Great stuff! And there's so much more to come too - just loving reading the series! The Circle by David Eggers * Dystopian novel set in Silicon Valley, recently made into a film and read because it was a book group choice. The main protagonist, a rather naive, starry-eyed Mae Holland is gradually consumed by a company, The Circle, and a life that is completely focused on social media at the expense of direct human relationships. Aspires to much, and has an interesting premise, but has to be one of the worst written books I've read in a while - ranks alongside the drivel that was Divergent. Characters are paper-thin (tissue paper!), language at the level of a primary school child's writing, and the plot blindingly obvious - the identity of the mystery character for instance being obvious from his first appearance (who else was it going to be?!). Never mind Duffer of the Year, this is a serious rival for Duffer of the Decade, and I resented reading every one of its interminable 400+ pages. Having said that, there was one good line - ironically, it was the last one. The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier **** Tracy Chevalier is almost always good value as a novelist, and this did not disappoint. The Lady and the Unicorn may not be quite in the same league as Falling Angels or The Girl with a Pearl Earring, but is definitely worth reading (and a breath of fresh air after the nightmare of the previous book). It is the fictional history of the eponymous and famous set of six fifteenth-century tapestries now on display in the Musee de Cluny in Paris and how they came to be made. I'm no expert on fifteenth-century history, but Chevalier does have a habit of getting inside the skin of her characters and bringing them to life. Things may well not have happened this way (indeed, the author makes no bones about having to take fictional liberties), but with all her novels, one feels it could have happened so, and I almost always finish her books wanting to find out more about the real-life characters and events she includes (and don't have any problem with them often turning out a bit different to the way she portrays them - these are novels after all). The Sparrowhawk's Lament by David Cobham **** A review of the state and status of each of the fifteen breeding raptor species in the UK by a man who has been involved with birds and filming for pretty much all his life. This is a beautifully presented hardback, with masses of evocative pencil drawing by Bruce Pearson. Cobham himself is very readable, and overall I thoroughly enjoyed the book, but there were one or two minor irritations. Firstly, this was meant to a book about 'How British Birds of Prey are Faring"; in actual fact, it's more a memoir of David Cobham's experiences with them. Yes, there is a goodly sprinkling of overview and looking at each species as a whole, but it's run through, nay overwhelmed in places, by personal anecdotes, memories, journal extracts etc, which, for me, change the whole nature of the book, and not for the better. Each chapter also seems to have been written largely in isolation from the others, and as a result there's far too much repetition, particularly when it comes to historical event like the various acts of parliament or events such as the conscription of gamekeepers, or of references (particularly to Leslie Brown's British Birds of Prey). This was a good book, but with a bit more thought it could have been a great one - maybe even just by making it clearer what it was about. I did learn a lot though! Half in Love by Maile Meloy *** I bought this on the Kindle as a curiosity induced follow-up to seeing the film Certain Women, which was an absorbing and affecting contemplation on the lives of three women living in Montana, and based on three of Meloy's short stories. I'm not a great fan of short stories, so this was always going to have to work hard to completely convince me. In the end, it didn't, and I did get to the end of quite a few asking myself what the point was, but there were a few that really made me sit back and think, and at the end there was a cumulative impact that made me go back and re-examine some of the stories again. On the whole, I got to the end of most of them thinking that here was the basis for an effective novel or character study, but that they were just too under-developed for me. Maybe I'm not patient enough, or maybe I just don't have sufficient insight or skills to draw out everything Meloy is trying to say - the ones that I most appreciated were, after all, just that bit more obvious in terms of a twist or outcome to round the story off. This may be why Certain Women made such an effective film - the director (Kelly Reichardt) perhaps doing that work of drawing out the interior for me, and making it a bit more 'obvious'. If one is into short stories, I suspect this makes a very interesting and challenging collection; certainly reviews suggest it is. I needed a bit more.

I'm really looking forward to reading your comments about the Counties challenge, and perhaps comparing notes, but this seems to have been put on to the backburner after your surge earlier in the spring. Is it the reading or the book itself? (Must admit, although I enjoyed it overall, it was a bit heavy going in places). You're almost there!

So, just over a year since the last post, and have at last started to get going on this challenge - put to one side whilst I prioritised finishing the English Counties list first. But now that's completed, I can get stuck into this list and add to the solitary 'tick' (True Grit). And what a brilliant first book, as I absolutely loved Eowyn Ivey's #2 To the Bright Edge of the World (Alaska), earning a straight 6/6. Review to follow, but I'm so glad to get this list properly underway now. If the rest of the list is anywhere close to this one, I'm in for a treat.

Just finished Eowyn Ivey's To The Bright Edge of the World. Superb! First 6-star (favourites list) read of the year.

Getting behind again, so a fistful of mini-reviews to start to bring me back up to date: The Green Road by Anne Enright ** No doubt in my mind that Anne Enright is by fairly objective measures (if there are any!) a good writer, but I just wasn't engaged by the story's structure or by the characters, or, above all, by the style. In particular, her idiosyncratic use of punctuation started driving me demented as I kept having to go back and reread sentences to work out what they meant, disrupting any continuity in the story. As one of my book group said, they were really surprised I didn't like this, as they thought it right up my street, so maybe it was partly my mindset at the time (issues at work), but I struggled to do more than finish by skim reading. A Sweet Wild Note by Richard Smyth **** A personal view on birdsong, but also much about its role in our culture, the science behind it, and so much else. Very readable and interesting. I particularly enjoyed it as so many of his locations were local and thus familiar to me. Beautiful cover too! The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett ***** My last book in the English Counties Challenge, and it proved a cracker. This doorstopper of a novel focuses in on the lives of two sisters, initially together in Bursley (a scantily disguised Burslem), then two sections considering first one then the other as their lives split and run parallel, one remaining at home, the other in Paris at the time of the Franco-Prussian War, then a final section back in the Potteries. Arnold Bennett's writing is so eminently readable, and his character development thoroughly three-dimensional. I was immersed from the word go. Down the River by HE Bates ***** I have to confess that I am not a particular fan of HE Bates's fiction, at least the books I've read up to now - mostly his humorous fiction. However, this was a completely different kettle of fish. Bates's description of the world of the two rivers of his childhood, the Nene and the Ouse, was thoroughly captivating. He paints the picture beautifully. It's slim enough that I will almost certainly read it again in the near future. I also loved the illustrations by Agnes Parker. Brown Toller have done a great job, and I'm definitely going to follow up others in this series of natural history classics.

Glad you loved it Claire. So did I - can only agree with everything you say!

30 up for the year this week. A bit behind last year (a record breaking one with 80), where I was on 35 at this point, but only 380 pages behind. Still more than any previous adult year. Given this year has included 2 x 600+ page books and 3 x 500 pagers (it's been a strong year for classics, finishing off the English Counties challenge mainly!), I'm surprised the current total is as big as it is. Next half of year, I'm expecting to tackle a few more doorstoppers, hopefully some non-fiction too, so am not expecting to overtake last year's total. Target? Don't actually have one, but would be pleased to reach 60 I suppose.

I know what you mean. One reason I got stuck into the last books on the English Counties challenge was just that: having had my surge last year, I wanted to start reading other books I'd picked up over the last few months (including some of both year's Wainwright lists!), which is a bit what I'm doing at the moment (although I do have the US States to kickstart, and a couple of others that I'm already involved in). Good luck with finishing off the Counties - you're almost there, especially now you've got past the Cronin! BTW, I did very much enjoy Landskipping, which looks like one of those from last year you didn't get around to - so I can recommend it. I've got the other one, Weatherland, on the bookshelf read to read too!

That looks like another excellent list. I've read Love of Country and The Running Hare, and rated both 5/6 star reads, whilst the repute of others has gone before them! I've got enough other challenges on my plate not to add another one, but these Wainwright longlists certainly look to be very promising guided reading lists - which I suppose is what the organisers/publishers are hoping - and I'm already looking forward to your reviews, which proved really interesting and useful last year.

Replying to Janet's post got me thinking: it's a few years since I put up my top 5 anti-recommendations, so what would my list be now? Of the five previous nominations, four still stand as definite contenders: Justine (Lawrence Durrell), Homecoming (Bernard Schlinck), Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl), and Da Vinci Code/Deception Point (Dan Brown). I've changed my mind on Lord of the Flies, having now got myself to reread it as an adult, and finding it quite a powerful parable. However, I'm going for a set of completely fresh ones, ones read since that last listing. So, in no particular order..... The Boy in Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne. I can't understand this book's popularity. It's horribly over-sentimental, and totally lacking in credibility on so many fronts, not least the silly 'alternative' names the author uses. Why on earth, for instance, would a German boy mistake 'Fury' for 'Fuhrer'. And so on. Divergent by Veronica Roth. My Duffer of the Year for 2015. I know I'm not the market she's aiming at, but this is so badly written that it fills me with horror that so many thinks it's so good. Aside from that, the characters are so thin they're almost transparent, and the plot just doesn't hold together. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Duffer of the Year for 2013. Thoroughly predictable so-called thriller centred on two equally thoroughly unlikeable individuals, which for some unknown reason seemed to garner almost hysterical approbation, and has led to a rash of similar books, several of which I've tried, none making the slightest positive impact (I'm thinking especially of The Silent Wife and Girl on the Train). Books by Ben Elton. Tried various of these several times over the years, and each one has been a disappointment - the last two because they were book group choices (didn't we learn the first time?). They always look so promising, but the problem is that he just isn't much of a writer IMO. Much of his stage act relies on shouting at his audience; so do his books it seems. He does try, but maybe too hard? Certainly, he needs a really good editor, but doesn't seem to have one. The Circle by Dave Eggers. I had several possibilities for this last one, but as this is the latest one-star read and the one that triggered off my revisiting books I can't recommend, it's surely the one to finish off with. The premise is promising, the execution disastrous. Clumsy one-dimensional characters (especially the central protagonist, Mae, who seems to have absolutely no personality at all), excruciatingly obvious plotting (for instance a mystery character whose identity is painfully obvious), exposition for dialogue, and a range of vocabulary that wouldn't be a credit to a primary pupil. And, all the way through, I kept wondering if the IT would at any time doing anything but function perfectly.......

@Janet : I started writing a detailed reply, and then I found this , which says it all so much better than I ever could! Hope that explains!

Could say more about them than you! I remember being in a discussion a few years ago with a good (female) friend - car sharing to work it was - both of us avid readers and discussing Jane Austen (who we both adore). At one point she said, "D'you know, you're quite a girlie reader, Will?." From her, I took that as a real compliment! On the original question: yes, of course they'll judge me - it's human nature. Am I bothered? Not a bit. (If I was going a bit deeper into this, I'd ask the question, do they know what I think of the book or why I'm reading it?).

Kept going for another 130 or so pages, but couldn't take any more. An interesting concept ruined by simply awful writing. Mae, the central character, is the most uninteresting, shallow protagonist I can recall coming across. Maybe it was deliberate, the thought of another three hundred or so pages of this filling me with the sort of dystopian horror that I think the author was trying to inspire. Perhaps not so deliberate though, the horror was more to do with the future of novels than the future of society. More of this would surely sink us all. Finished with this sooner than anticipated, so not sure what am going on to next. Later edit: Have moved on to Tracey Chevalier's The Lady and the Unicorn. Whilst I am not ecstatic about all her books, she is a consistently good story-teller and writer.

Finished Georges Simenon's The Misty Harbour this morning, the next Maigret in the series I'm reading. Usual high standard. Am meant to be reading Dave Eggers's book, The Circle next, for my book group, but twenty pages in and it looks decidely unpromising (trying to be polite!), so will see if can keep it going.

Another one that would fit there, I think, if you wanted to avoid witches and gangsters (!) is Secret Water - the Arthur Ransome book. This was possibly my favourite in the Swallows and Amazons series when I first read them.