willoyd

I wonder where Good Housekeeping get the information from. Most popular in UK? Most popular in US? Most popular in world? When I see a list like this, the first thing I want to know is where has the information come from. BTW, it can't be the most popular book published that year, as for my year (1958) it's got down Lolita, which was first published in 1955.

Am up to p. 460 now, and have to say that it's distinctly improved, or at least I've got more into it. Still not unputdownable, but trending that way!

woolf woolf:

Completely the opposite of my reaction! (see posting above). Haven't seen that yet, but aiming to get there in the next week or two, as it's on then locally.

I have huge admiration for Grayson Perry, a man prepared to challenge so many of the masculine norms. He may have gone further than most would have the courage to do (including me), but he presents a much needed alternative perspective which will hopefully help smash a few barriers, especially in terms of what is expected of men (and certainly his choice of dress is far more interesting than approximately 100% of men's 'fashion' pages, most of which consign men to the dullest of existences). I really must get hold of a copy of his Descent of Man.

Rather the opposite for me - sounds right up my street, especially when Mr Cat says "This is a book about character development first and foremost so do not expect a sophisticated plot." Plots are fine in their places, but all too often overrated in importance. Mr Cat's review reminds me a lot of Virginia Woolf.......and she's one of my favourite authors! As I Lay Dying is on my US States challenge, so is for me a must-read. Thank you for an interesting review.

Well, I'm up to around p 230 now, and whilst it's been OK, the occasional injections of the sci-fi/fantasy elements have jarred. I have to admit this is a wee bit of a chore - the thought of another 400 pages does not excite me. I wouldn't persist except for the fact this is a reading group choice, and I sort of feel obliged with those. I'll try and push on a bit this weekend, and then decide what to do next week.

Started The Bone Clocks at the weekend, and about 150 pages in this evening. Still a bit unsure of this. Some of the story telling has been engrossing, but am not struck with the sci-fi/fantasy element - in fact, distinctly underwhelmed- and this has spoiled some sections.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon ****** I read this some years ago, before I started keeping records, and remember it as an excellent read, without remembering much of the story. Subsequently, I've also read the prequel to this, The Angels' Game, but was left distinctly unimpressed, a diversity of opinion that seems to have been reflected in reviews. Recently, I've found that The Prisoner of Heaven has come to the top of my tbr pile as part of one of my challenges, but given my blankness on the first book's plot, I decided to reread that beforehand. And so, on Friday, I settled down to start it. 48 hours later, with a few diversions for a few bits of real life (including a cinema visit!), I emerged. In the intervening time, I was completely immersed in the world of Daniel Sempre and his hunt for Julian Carax in 1950s, Franco-ruled, Spain. It was simply an absolutely brilliant story with multiple layers of narrative, satisfying detail, and a fistful of involving characters, all of which I felt wrapped up in even when not actually reading. No, it was not a faultless telling, and there were points where Ruiz Zafon's wordsmithery became a mite overblown and seemed rather rambly, whilst once or twice the means by which the plot was moved forward felt somewhat clumsy - for instance the sixty-page letter near the ultimate denoument. However, story tellers should be allowed room to spread their wings a bit, and it never, at least for me, reached a stage where I felt things had gone too far. But then, I'm not bothered for constant plot pushing and enjoy it when writers luxuriate a bit in their language - although I suppose it does depend on how much I'm enjoying their writing in the first place! In this instance, it was a lot - and that letter at least enabled another important narrative voice room to develop. So, this might not have been technically the greatest novel I've read, but for sheer enjoyment it would be hard to beat. On top of this there is an almost undefinable feel to the book and to the story telling that rubs me up just the right way. It helps, of course, that I've been fortunate enough to have visited Barcelona on several occasions, but I think it's more to do with the parallel timelines (I love that sort of story), the element of mystery, the character of the writing, and the strong streaks of humour that run throughout the story. It's a book with huge character, the sort that I'm a complete sucker for. An easy six stars, the seventieth novel to earn that grade.

No, just The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game.

Currently rereading The Shadow of the Wind. Read it a decade or so ago (before I started keeping records certainly), and whilst I remember really enjoying it, couldn't rememember much of the story, and thus wanted to reprise before tackling The Prisoner of Heaven. About halfway through, and completely bowled over by it, totally compulsive, unputdownable, reading (but I've had to unfortunately!). Can't imagine how it slid off my radar. I wasn't so enamoured with The Angel's Game, so just hope The Prisoner of Heaven is more in this mould!

I did too; comments on my English Counties challenge thread here. Whilst I enjoyed A Room with a View, I much preferred this. I agree not a lot happens, but then it's more of a character study, examining the interactions between, and contrasting, both the sisters and the families. IMO more thoughtful and considered than so many modern writers - fairly typical of the period, or at least of those books that have lasted.

Went to see La La Land today.

Totally agree. A bitterly disappointing ending to the series.

How to be Danish by Patrick Kingsley *** I read this as a follow-up to Helen Russell's The Year of Living Danishly. At the time I bought it, I thought it would be a rather more in-depth look at aspects of Danish life, although some of the Amazon reviews warned me that this might not quite achieve this. In the end, they proved reasonably accurate. How to be Danish is a short book, barely 180 pages, consisting of just seven chapters, each one looking at a particular aspect of Danish 'life'. The author deliberately selects well-known aspects, and attempts to strip away the surface layers to look at what they actually tell us about Denmark. However, as he himself confesses, he doesn't always stick to the theme, and has a tendency to wander down ways that interest him. In effect, we have seven extended essays, where the author follows his wont. What's here is interesting enough, but it rarely extends beyond the superficial. The chapter on New Nordic cuisine is probably the most in-depth (it is the longest), but sadly that was probably the theme I was least interested in. The chapter on Danish education promised much more, but unfortunately it was horribly thin, although one or two titbits of information suggested that it could have been so much more; The equivalent chapter in Helen Russell's book was far more rewarding. Perhaps the best part of the book was it's heart, the two central chapters on the social welfare system and on immigration, which together started to live up to the book's title. So, overall, a bit of a disappointment, but Kingsley writes well enough, and I found enough to keep me intersted to the end, so two stars would probably be a bit harsh. It's just that there is the promise of a so much better book that never quite emerges. Two and a half would be fair, so it rounds up to a three.

Finished Georges Simenon's The Flemish House, another in the Maigret series, and the third book of the year. Not the most complex of whodunnits, but then that isn't Simenon's style. Highly atmospheric - which is what I read them for, so a bit more than a cut above the average!

I enjoyed Possession. It's quite demanding, but once in it, it is very absorbing. I've got The Children's Book on the shelves, but am yet to tackle it. I notice you're currently reading the first volume of Virginia's letters. How are you getting on with them? I've got complete sets of her letters, essays and diaries on the shelves, and really must at least make a start on some of the multitude of those volumes this year! Where are you with the fiction at present? I followed your Mount Virginia link, but it's back in 2012 as far as I can see. Great to here you're back into reading properly. I can't imagine not reading a word for three whole months - I'd go start staring bananas.

She's well worth reading. I've now read the majority of her books, including the biographies of Samuel Pepys, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen and now Nelly Ternan, all outstanding. Am looking forward to Mrs Jordan's Profession, probaby some tie this year.

The Invisible Woman by Claire Tomalin ***** This is the biography of Nelly Ternen, who for many years was hidden from view, and was only after her death in 1914, and not really fully until the second half of the century, gradually revealed as the long term mistress of Charles Dickens. It's a fascinating piece of detective work, Tomalin attempting (very successfully) to piece together the life of someone who deliberately tried to hide much of it, to the extent that it wasn't until the 1920s that even Nelly's children knew what her life before her marriage to their father (six years after Dickens died) was like - or even that she was in fact over a decade older than she claimed. In truth it's more than a biography of just Nelly, as the lives of her older sisters, Fanny (who married Anthony Trollope's brother Thomas) and Maria were so closely intertwined with Nelly's that it's almost a group biog of the three sisters. But given that their lives were so dominated by the Dickens relationship, it's that which occupies the bulk of the book. It was Dickens who enabled the secrecy, creating alternative identities and addresses, juggling timetables as expertly as a professional magician, all to preserve the facade created by his early publications of the morally upright family man (an image even his daughter Kate repudiated vigorously), but also to protect Nelly from the opprobrium of (a) being from a theatrical background (apparently tantamount to prostitution in its social status) and (b) being labelled a fallen woman through her relationship with Dickens. Whatever one thinks of his duplicity (compared to the likes of Wilkie Collins, George Eliot and others who were all rather more open about their relationships) - and there were circumstances that made it difficult for Dickens to do anything else once embarked on the relationship - it did mean that the three sisters were able to sustain 'respectable' lives both during his life and after his death, even if there were costs, especially for Nelly herself. Tomalin's biography is a thoroughly sympathetic portrait of a woman trapped by the social mores of the time making the best of what the cards dealt her. The level of detail that Tomalin achieves is remarkable given the challenges faced, in particular the volume of documentation deliberately destroyed in covering up. Only once or twice did it feel as if it there were significant holes in the fabric of the narrative, and once or twice where the story felt in danger of becoming a bit of a checklist (on the 2nd s/he was here, on the 4th s/he was there, then on the 5th s/he was back there....). Otherwise, Tomalin really brought the sisters to life. Nelly Ternan has been portrayed as a conniving schemer, but Claire Tomalin is far more sympathetic to her, and argues her case convincingly. Nelly may not have got everything right, but one is led to understand why she did what she did, and is left respecting and, indeed, admiring the mental strength and perseverance with which she handled the hand she was dealt. I started off reading this biography because I was interested in the life of Charles Dickens; I finished it much more interested in the indomitable lives of the Ternan sisters, and of Victorian women in general. I also finished it with even more respect for Claire Tomalin's biographical skills - she remains a firm favourite.

Overall I find the length of a book fairly immaterial of itself. I think that's best illustrated by the fact that my all-time top dozen includes the likes of Bleak House, Middlemarch, War and Peace, Wolf Hall and A Suitable Boy, yet the one that tops the lot is A Month in the Country (barely 120 pages)! I'm currently in the midst of a long term project, the Maigret series, and am loving it, yet barely a book rises above 180 pages. But that's because they are the sort of books I find make for pretty easy reading. Something like The Pillars of the Earth or the bigger fantasy/science fiction novels would be hopelessly daunting, as I generally can't abide that sort of writing any more (the exception being Lord of the Rings, twice read in four or five days, unputdownable). In other words, it's not the length that matters, but the nature of the material, different for all of us. Having said that, I love much historical non-fiction, and have a number of fairly chunky volumes, but do find them a bit daunting at times - mainly in term time when I find it hard to settle to longer books of that sort. They are excellent, but require a level of concentration that I can't give them then. It's why I tend to only get through 2 or 3 of those a year.

Trying to cut back on book buying, but I couldn't resist the Blackwell's half price sale, the order for which arrived today - there's always a goodly list in this one. These were all books on my wishlist: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow Spitalfields by Don Cruickshank The Gene, An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yonge Scandinavians, In Search of the Soul of the North by Robert Ferguson

Actually, Claire, that probably sums up the book better for me too than what I wrote, so thank you for the comments! I do agree about the message, and about the unsatisfactory nature of the ending, to such an extent, I'm not sure why I didn't mention either in my review - although I was writing this very late at night, and almost fell asleep at one point, so was surprised to see today that what I wrote even made sense! I'm not sure I was quite as irritated as you, but things definitely made me feel wary. I've amended my review, mostly with an addendum, to reflect this.

I must admit, whilst I used to be able to read children's books fairly regularly, the past few years I've read less and less, and now only one or two a year. I suspect it's because of teaching - I find once I leave school, I crave adult company/reading/theatre/cinema etc. Even then it's mostly the older stuff (as in the age of the book, not the reader!) - I loved rereading Swallows and Amazons over Christmas for instance - Philip Pullman and JK Rowling proving rare exceptions. Loved Barchester Towers by the way! Hope it does the same for you.

The Awakening of Miss Prim by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera ** Prudencia Prim responds to an advertisement for a job for which she is apparently singularly ill-qualified: librarian in a private house, the candidate apparently required to hold no academic qualifications. She's loaded with them, but manages to be offered the post. Right from the start the household screams (very politely) its differences to the norm, populated (almost overrun!) with children whose knowledge of the classics and other arts would devastate many a far older scholar ,and headed by a man whose name we never learn, referred to throughout the novel as The Man in the Wingchair. The village in which the house is situated is equally quirky it seems, if seemingly idyllic in its rejection of so many are twenty-first century's priorities (the rat race!) and the inhabitants' approach to life. Initial browsing suggested this was a rather different book to the norm too - the semi-fabulous plotting looked intriguing and the language had a studied elegance that appealed; I wonder how much of both these stemmed from the Spanish translation, Arturo Perez-Reverte jumping immediately to mind, whilst there was a whiff of Carlos Ruiz Zafon in there too. Actually, I've always found Perez-Reverte a wee bit problematic, his novels (admittedly last read some years ago) strikingly poised but ultimately feeling somewhat superficial, rather too studied. I've been in two minds about Zafon as well - Shadows of the Wind was fine, but The Angel's Game rather overdid it. I have to admit, Miss Prim left me in rather the same state too. I could not decide whether this was a book which needed to be taken seriously in some places, or whether it was simply an as-light-and-as-thin-as-silk entertainment dressed up to make the reader feel clever. I don't really know, but, whilst I did enjoy aspects of the narrative, I can't say I ever fully engaged, rather feeling I was looking in to the story from the boundaries, and not certain quite what it was telling me; it almost felt too stylish for its own good. Ultimately this was quite an enjoyable read but one that always felt it was trying to impress rather than include me, and I wasn't overly impressed with what the author was apparently trying to tell me. Later note: this was written late at night, when I was quite drowsy, and I missed out one key aspect of the novel that did bother me whilst reading. Claire, in her post below, reminded me, and pretty much hit the nail on the head: I felt increasingly unhappy as the book progressed about what the author (a woman) was writing about (presumably) her view of feminism and of women's roles. The reasoning she used just felt twisted. TBH, I wasn't exactly happy with how she appeared to perceive men either! I'm still going to leave it as a three-star read, because I was intrigued throughout by it, but the more I reflect, the more uncertain I feel. Later, later note: Having sat on this, it's a 2-star read. At the end of the day it was certainly readable, but overall it was disappointing.

Can I still recommend the list that grew out of those discussions? Several of those doing the challenge (including me!) have found that the list has thrown up a range of excellent books that we might not have otherwise got around to reading. Whilst the list has obviously got a higher than average proportion of classics on it - inevitable when one of the main criteria was that the book should be the most famous book set in that county - it has landed up with a really good range of different books too. It's definitely worth exploring. Like others, I have substituted a few books with alternatives. I've done that mainly when there has been a book listed which I've read before and, for one reason or another, don't want to reread. There was just one where I disagreed with the group choice (I chose Fanny Burney's Evelina for Bristol), but even there I'll land up reading The Misses Mallet one day. Otherwise, there have been plenty of books which I've been happy to reread.