Claire's book list 2014

[chesilbeach]

Thanks - I'm guilty of not keeping up with this thread, so don't worry that you haven't come across the thread before now!
 
My reading has taken a back seat to sewing this year, but this last week I've had a bit more time, and am starting to build my reading up again, so hopefully there might be an attempt to catch up on a few reviews soon too.
 
I still haven't managed to watch North and South yet, but Richard Armitage definitely deserves the four question marks.

[frankie]

Thanks - I'm guilty of not keeping up with this thread, so don't worry that you haven't come across the thread before now!

 

My reading has taken a back seat to sewing this year, but this last week I've had a bit more time, and am starting to build my reading up again, so hopefully there might be an attempt to catch up on a few reviews soon too.

One of my friends is a mean knitter, she can actually read a book while she's knitting. I don't know anyone else who can do that! Anyhow, I was wondering... Maybe you could try and learn sewing while reading a book Maybe not...

 

 

I still haven't managed to watch North and South yet, but Richard Armitage definitely deserves the four question marks.

[chesilbeach]

I do often listen to an audiobook while sewing, so I have listened to Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice while sewing my quilt!

[chesilbeach]

As my sewing classes have finished, I haven't been as dedicated to my sewing as earlier in the year, and I've had time for some more reading, but because I have still been sewing, I've chosen some lighter reads recently and my reading picked up a bit in April.
 
If anyone looks at the beginning of the thread, you'll notice I've changed my TBR post, as I've picked up a few books when they were on offer but they're later books in a series I'm reading, where I don't have all the earlier books, therefore, I can't read them as they would be out of order.  I've decided to keep a note of them, but exclude them from my main TBR list until I have the earlier books available to me.
 
I forgot to post my monthly update last month, but here's a summary of where I am comparing from the start of the year to the end of April:
 
As at the start of 2014
TBR: 35 books (excludes any books I own on my challenge lists)
Jane Austen reading list: 18/24 books read = 75% complete
J. L. Carr reading list: 3/8 books read = 38% complete
E. H. Young reading list: 0/13 books read = 0% complete
Persephone reading list: 6/104 books read = 6% complete
English Counties Challenge: 7/48 books read = 15% complete
 
 
Current status
Books purchased: 18 (£43.95)
   4 pre-order (£5.66)
   7 Kindle daily/monthly deals (£7.03) - one of these is an omnibus of 4 books
   3 second-hand for English Counties challenge (£7.47)
   5 full price books (£23.79)
Books received as presents: 6
Books read: 34
Abandoned books: 0
TBR: 28 books
Jane Austen reading list: 19/24 books read = 79% complete
J. L. Carr reading list: 4/8 books read = 50% complete
E. H. Young reading list: 0/13 books read = 0% complete
Persephone reading list: 7/104 books read = 7% complete
English Counties Challenge: 12/48 books read = 25% complete

[Athena]

You've made some good progress! Congratulations .

[chesilbeach]

I'm way behind with reviews, but I've managed to catch up a little bit lately.  Rather than double post them, here's links to them on other threads on the board:
 
From my J. L. Carr reading challenge: The Harpole Report by J. L. Carr  http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/11426-j-l-carr/?p=391998
 
From my English Counties Challenge: The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/12298-oxfordshire-the-pursuit-of-love-by-nancy-mitford/?p=392954
 
One of the shortlisted books for the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize for 2014: Shiverton Hall by Emerald Fennell http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/12735-shiverton-hall-by-emma-fennell/
 
And the winner of the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize for 2014: Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/12736-rooftoppers-by-katherine-rundell/

[chesilbeach]

I'm going to try and make good use of the extra day off this week and catch up with a few more reviews today.  Some might be a bit short, but I just want to get some thoughts down!
 
A Croft in the Hills by Katharine Stewart is a memoir from the 1950s of a couple who would escape from the city to the county at every opportunity, and when their daughter was young, found and bought a croft in the Scottish highlands.  Stewart tells the story of their life at the croft, the nature, the land, their livestock and the crofting community.  I love this sort of book, and this was one of the best I've read.  The landscape is so beautifully described, I could picture it in my head, and I became completely attached to the family and their friends.  A lovely book to read.

[chesilbeach]

The Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger are set in a steampunk Victorian London, and follow Alexia Tarrabotti, who lives in a society with vampires and werewolves, and herself is a preternatural, that is, she has no soul, and should a supernatural touch her, they become human.  The series starts with her becoming embroiled in an investigation with BUR (the Bureau of Unnatural Registry) run by the werewolf, Lord Connell Maccon.  I don't want to give too much away, as it would spoil the story, particularly from the second book onwards, but I loved the series.  

 

I'd read the first one a few years ago, and I listened to it on audiobook as a reminder of where it left off, and then read the other four books in quick succession over the space of a week.  If anything, the first one is a little bit too heavy on the sexual tension between Alexia and Lord Maccon, but there is still a strong mystery story throughout, and the following books are even more focussed on the story and the development of the society.  There is a constant humour throughout the books, with a juxtaposition of the mannered Victorian society against the raw feral supernatural society, and the magnificence of steampunk technology.  A very entertaining series with a definite end at the conclusion of book five, and I'm looking forward to the new series from Carriger next year, which moves the society on a few years with what I believe will be a new set of characters, but in the same world.

[chesilbeach]

Edmund Bertram's Diary by Amanda Grange was the final book of Grange's series retelling the stories of Jane Austen from the point of view of the primary male characters of the original books.  Mansfield Park is often an acquired taste among readers of Austen, and I know some don't particularly like the heroine, Fanny, as she is viewed as a meek and mild heroine, sometimes leading to being seen as rather pathetic.  I love Mansfield Park, and what I love about Grange's narrative is that I think she loves Fanny too, and shows how she develops in Edmund's estimation, as well as giving an extra dimension to the story by telling it from Edmund's view.  I've read all the diaries for my Jane Austen reading challenge, and I've enjoyed them all.

[chesilbeach]

Again, to save double posting, here's some links to a few more reviews elsewhere on the board:

 

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/9994-crocodile-on-the-sandbank-elizabeth-peters/?p=393025

 

Strands: A Year of Disccoveries on the Beach by Jean Sprackland

http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/12737-strands-a-year-of-disccoveries-on-the-beach-by-jean-sprackland/

 

Sea and Shore Cornwall: Common and Curious Findings by Lisa Woollett

http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/12738-sea-and-shore-cornwall-common-and-curious-findings-by-lisa-woollett/

 

Strands and Sea and Shore Cornwall work beautifully as companion pieces, and have both been a joy to read, and are my favourite books of the year so far.  Even if I read some wonderful books this year, I doubt many, if any, will surpass them.  Highly recommended for anyone with a love of the beach and the sea.

Edited May 5, 2014 by chesilbeach

[Athena]

Claire, you've been reading a lot of books! Well done on reading things for the challenges .

[nursenblack]

Edmund Bertram's Diary by Amanda Grange was the final book of Grange's series retelling the stories of Jane Austen from the point of view of the primary male characters of the original books.  Mansfield Park is often an acquired taste among readers of Austen, and I know some don't particularly like the heroine, Fanny, as she is viewed as a meek and mild heroine, sometimes leading to being seen as rather pathetic.  I love Mansfield Park, and what I love about Grange's narrative is that I think she loves Fanny too, and shows how she develops in Edmund's estimation, as well as giving an extra dimension to the story by telling it from Edmund's view.  I've read all the diaries for my Jane Austen reading challenge, and I've enjoyed them all.

This series sounds really interesting.  I'll have to put them on my wishlist.

I also enjoyed Mansfield Park, but I do have to admit that Fanny is not my favorite.  I secretly wished she would get with Henry Crawford, even though he was kinda a cad and even though I already knew how it ended.

[chesilbeach]

I read a lot of books last week while I was away, and all were easy holiday reads, and a lovely time I had with them!
 
Before I left, I treated myself to a couple of M. C. Beaton's Regency romcoms, so that I could finish or continue with a couple of the series, so I read The Adventuress and Rainbird's Revenge to finish off the A House for the Season series, which concluded in an unexpected, but more satisfying way than I'd been expecting.  I also picked up the second of the Daughters of Mannerling series, Intrigue, and I already had the third, Deception, on my TBR.  More entertaining Regency tosh, and a merry afternoon I spent reading those.
 
The holiday seemed a good time to attack my TBR on my Kindle, so I then alternated between the last three Hamish Macbeth books in an omnibus I bought a while back, and the last three Amelia Peabody books by Elizabeth Peters in another omnibus
edition I'd got on sale.  I thoroughly enjoyed these murder mysteries, and Amelia has become a firm favourite with me.  This strikes me as a bit odd, as I'm not particularly interested in history or archaeology, but this series set in the late 19th century, with Amelia and her husband Emerson on their archaeological digs in Egypt, have just the right amount of comedy, with an intelligent, feminist, and slightly eccentric heroine, and they've really hit the spot.  The mysteries are always intriguing, and I'm enjoying these a lot.  At the moment, the remaining books in the series are all only 84p on the Kindle, so the whole series will only cost me another £12.60 to buy, and I think I might indulge in them this week, to keep for future summer reading.
 
Two other books read over the week were Revenge Wears Prada and The Perfect Retreat.  Revenge Wears Prada is Lauren Weisberger's sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, and I was a bit dubious about reading it.  I'd loved the first book when it came out, (it was a time when I was reading a lot of romcoms, to the exclusion of most other genres) as it had an edge to it, and it stood out at the time.  However, I read Weisberger's next couple of books, and I thought they got progressively weaker, and had given up on her books at that point, but I thought Revenge would be interesting to have a look at.  Unfortunately, I thought it lacked originality, it was a bit clichéd at times, and although it rolled along at a good pace, it didn't have that edge to it any more that I'd loved from the first book.  I don't know why I keep buying romcoms, as I think for the most part, I've grown out of them, but there are a couple of authors I do still enjoy, so maybe I should just stick to their work for the occasional foray into that territory.
 
The Perfect Retreat by Kate Forster was another romcom I'd bought on offer on one of the Kindle deals, and again, it was perfectly fine, and entertained me while I read it, but again, rather predictable, and just not my type of book any more.  I must stop buying off the special offers pages, unless they are books I already have on my wish list!
 
I've still got a few outstanding reviews of books I read before I went away, but they need a bit more consideration before I put my thoughts down on those, so I'll come back to them later.  Overall though, I enjoyed my lighthearted week of reading.

[Athena]

It's a shame you didn't enjoy Revenge Wears Prada much. I liked the first book, will be interesting to see what I make of the sequel (it's on my TBR).

[Alexi]

I'm like you - I have largely grown out of rom coms after reading a lot of them in my late teens and then when I picked up reading again once I left university. Conversely, I love rom coms in movie form! Not sure why that it - probably because I can concentrate less on movies than I do books for some weird reason, but I definitely like my romance on screen!

 

Having said that, I do have a few lying on my TBR, either left over from a time I was reading more of them or because I have really enjoyed the author in the past, and I enjoy revisiting them very occasionally - normally on beach holidays  

 

I am happy to read romance, I just prefer (most of the time!) if it isn't the main focus of the book. 

 

I read The Devil Wears Prada when it first came out and hated it, but loved the film. I am an odd specimen I realise. 

[chesilbeach]

Looking at my book pile, I've just remembered that my book group book for next month is The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse.  My OH has a few Jeeves and Wooster omnibus editions, and this is in the first one, but it's the third book in the omnibus.  I thought initially I'd have to read the first two before it, but looking up the publications dates, the first two were originally published after The Inimitable Jeeves, and from what I can tell, The Inimitable Jeeves is actually the first full length novel in the series.  I'm officially confused!
 
I think I'll just read that one on its own for now, but since the book is a bit of a monster, now might be a good time to read it, with the bank holiday weekend here, as I might be able to finish it at home and not have to lug it to work with me.  I think it's the heaviest paperback I've ever read - I'd be cream crackered just carrying from the car park into the office!

[Athena]

Good luck! I hope the book won't be too heavy. I own quite a few heavier books I haven't read yet because they're heavy. I hope you enjoy the book .

[chesilbeach]

The beginning of a new month means it's time to divvy up where I am on my reading so far this year ...
 
As at the start of 2014
TBR: 35 books (excludes any books I own on my challenge lists)
Jane Austen reading list: 18/24 books read = 75% complete
J. L. Carr reading list: 3/8 books read = 38% complete
E. H. Young reading list: 0/13 books read = 0% complete
Persephone reading list: 6/104 books read = 6% complete
English Counties Challenge: 7/48 books read = 15% complete
 
 
Status as at the end of May
Books purchased: 34
   4 pre-order
   10 Kindle daily/monthly deals - one of these is an omnibus of 4 books
   3 second-hand for English Counties challenge 
   17 full price books
Books received as presents: 6
Books read: 58
Abandoned books: 0
TBR: 22 books
Jane Austen reading list: 19/24 books read = 79% complete
J. L. Carr reading list: 4/8 books read = 50% complete
E. H. Young reading list: 0/13 books read = 0% complete
Persephone reading list: 8/107 books read = 7% complete
English Counties Challenge: 12/48 books read = 25% complete

[chesilbeach]

Sky Hawk by Gill Lewis

 

Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk):

There's a secret hidden on Callum's family farm, a secret nestled in the forest, above the dark waters of the loch. Callum and Iona make a pact to guard the secret together and keep it safe from harm. From mountain peaks and glittering lochs to vast skies and mangrove swamps, the promises made by Callum will change his world for ever ...

 

Review:

There seems to be a new category of children's books called Middle Grade, which covers the 9-12 age range, and this is where this book fits.  I got it as a present for Christmas, and it took me a little while to get around to it, but it was so worth the wait.  It was an excellent book, and absolutely perfect for the age range.  There are all sorts of themes in there, peer pressure, environment and climate, socio-economics of developing countries, and bereavement amongst others, but all told within a believable, heartfelt, engrossing tale.

 

There are some moments of heart breaking sadness and unexpected twists, alongside uplifting moments of soaring joyousness, with the authors love of the natural world as the backbone that keeps all the threads knitted together.  

 

It was great to have Callum as the main character too, giving the chance to look at the difficulties of growing up from his point of view, being friends with a girl and finding his place in his own family. I often seem to read books with a female lead, so it made a nice change, but in no way would it be described as a boys book, and there are still girls present in the story, making it accessible to all children. A fantastic book that would be excellent to read aloud.

Edited June 1, 2014 by chesilbeach

[Athena]

You've made great progress, Chesilbeach !

[chesilbeach]

Twelve Minutes of Love: A Tango Story by Kapka Kassabova

Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk):
To the uninitiated, tango is just a dance, albeit a dance with an exotic and sensuous allure. To the true tanguero, it is something akin to a religion, attracting the lost, the lonely, and the fanatical with its formal rituals, its sense of belonging, and its intense emotions. Kapka Kassabova first set foot in a tango studio ten years ago and, from that moment, she was hooked. With the pulse of tango thruming through her body and the music filling her head, she’s danced through the night, from Auckland to Edinburgh, from Berlin to Buenos Aires, suffering blisters and heart-break, as well as forging lasting friendships and experiencing all-too-brief moments of dance-floor ecstasy. Here Kapka takes us inside the esoteric night-time world of tango, to tell the story of the dance from its afro roots to its sequined apotheosis in 'show tango', exploring its cultural and emotional pull and enticing us to join her at the milonga.

Review:
It's no secret I'm a big fan of Strictly Come Dancing, and the Argentine tango is one of my favourite dances, so from the moment I saw this book, I knew I was going to read it. The book is as much the journey of Kassabova's life as it is about tango, but it's how tango threatens to take over her life, and how much it defines her at times. You also get to hear the history, meet others equally infatuated and controlled by the dance, and how it can insinuate itself into the soul of some, who seek that perfect dance as its elusiveness forever haunts their waking hours. This is not the story of steps, lifts and pizzazz, this is the emotional guts of the obsessive combination of music, movement and soul. Tremendous.
 

[chesilbeach]

Tout Sweet: Hanging up my High Heels for a New Life in France by Karen Wheeler
 
Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk):
In her mid-thirties, fashion editor Karen has it all: a handsome boyfriend, a fab flat in west London and an array of gorgeous shoes. But when Eric leaves, she hangs up her Manolos and waves goodbye to her glamorous city lifestyle to go it alone in a run-down house in rural Poitou-Charentes, central western France.
 
Acquiring a host of new friends and unsuitable suitors, she learns that true happiness can be found in the simplest of things – a bike ride through the countryside on a summer evening, or a kir or three in a neighbour’s courtyard.
 
Review:
Just my cup of summer tea, a spritely memoir of someone escaping a failed relationship and the everyday humdrum of modern city life, running away to a life in another country and the trials and tribulations of such a dramatic change of speed and direction, but with humour, warmth and a good dose of sunshine.  Perfect escapism for a sunny read, and I'll definitely read the next instalment - probably on holiday while escaping my own life albeit for a brief week away.
 

[chesilbeach]

The Bookshop That Floated Away by Sarah Henshaw
 
Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk):
In early 2009 a strange sort of business plan landed on the desk of a pinstriped bank manager. It had pictures of rats and moles in rowing boats and archaic quotes about Cleopatra's barge. It asked for a £30,000 loan to buy a black-and-cream narrowboat and a small hoard of books. The manager said no. Nevertheless The Book Barge opened six months later and enjoyed the happy patronage of local readers, a growing number of eccentrics and the odd moorhen.
 
Business wasn't always easy, so one May morning owner Sarah Henshaw set off for six months chugging the length and breadth of the country. Books were bartered for food, accommodation, bathroom facilities and cake. During the journey, the barge suffered a flooded engine, went out to sea, got banned from Bristol and, on several occasions, floated away altogether. This account follows the ebbs and flows of Sarah's journey as she sought to make her vision of a floating bookshop a reality.
 
Review:
I absolutely had to buy this when I saw it in the bookshop, as it sounded brilliant.  I'd actually heard of the book barge, due to the news story about it being banned from Bristol, so that added an extra reason for me wanted to read the full story.  Unfortunately, I found it lacking.  The author actually points out at one point why it was hard to write something that people would want to read, as these type of memoirs often rely on the characters that make up the authors story, and due to the constant moving from one location to another, and the isolation of living on the boat mostly by herself, this was difficult to achieve.  And that really sums up the problem.  It's a bit fragmented, and seems to bump around without much cohesion in the journey, I found it difficult to follow the relationships, particularly with her boyfriend, as I was never really sure if they were still together, or whether they had split up and he was just her friend.  There also wasn't enough to do with the books or the customers.
 
It's not that I didn't like it, but I didn't like it enough, and I wanted more fluidity in the journey and the people she met.  I couldn't help thinking about what I would like to have read, and I would have preferred more of a diary format, or perhaps to have more of a running theme through it, with more focus on the customers, or the books, or even what she was reading throughout, instead of dipping in and out of all of it, amongst reminiscences of childhood and the past.  It just felt a bit jumbled and not what I'd hoped for.

[chesilbeach]

A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson
 
Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk):
It is 1923 and Evangeline English, keen lady cyclist, arrives with her sister Lizzie at the ancient Silk Route city of Kashgar to help establish a Christian mission. Lizzie is in thrall to their forceful and unyielding leader Millicent, but Eva's motivations for leaving her bourgeois life back at home are less clear-cut. As they attempt to navigate their new home and are met with resistance and calamity, Eva commences work on her book, A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar...
 
In present-day London another story is beginning. Frieda, a young woman adrift in her own life, opens her front door one night to find a man sleeping on the landing. In the morning he is gone, leaving on the wall an exquisite drawing of a long-tailed bird and a line of Arabic script. Tayeb, who has fled to England from Yemen, has arrived on Frieda's doorstep just as she learns that she is the next-of-kin to a dead woman she has never heard of: a woman whose abandoned flat contains many surprises - among them an ill-tempered owl.
 
The two wanderers begin an unlikely friendship as their worlds collide, and they embark on a journey that is as great, and as unexpected, as Eva's.
 
Review:
I don't really know what to say about this book.  It's one of those middle of the road reads that didn't fully engage me, but was ok to read.  I think the clues as to how the contemporary story linked with the historical story were fairly obvious, and that made it feel a bit predictable, and I didn't actually see the need to alternate between the two throughout the book.  I think I might have actually preferred it more if they'd been written separately, or even the historical part been the main bulk of the story, perhaps using the modern day story to top and tail it.  
 
The characters were fine, but they didn't worm their way into my heart so that I was desperate to read what was going to happen to them next.  Maybe the one exception was Tayeb, and thinking about it now, his was the story I would loved to have read a whole book about - that could be a fascinating read but as it was, it felt that we only skimmed the surface.
 
Having said that, there was nothing that bothered me like bad writing or poor characterisation, so it's difficult to find actual faults to pick out, it was perfectly fine, just a bit pedestrian when I wanted it to fly.  Damning with faint praise springs to mind.

[chesilbeach]

Miss Ranskill Comes Home by Barbara Euphan Todd
 
Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk):
This 1946 novel (by the author of the Worzel Gummidge books) is about a woman who goes on a cruise and is swept overboard; she lives for three years on a desert island before being rescued by a destroyer in 1943. When she returns to England it seems to her to have gone mad: she cannot buy clothes without 'coupons', her friends are only interested in 'war work', and yet she is considered uncivilised if she walks barefoot or is late for meals. The focus of Barbara Euphan Todd's satire is people behaving heroically and appallingly at one and the same time. Rosamond Lehmann considered Miss Ranskill Comes Home 'a work of great originality, and delightfully readable, a blend of fantasy, satire and romantic comedy... a very entertaining novel and less light than it seems.' This has been an especial Persephone favourite.
 
Review:
Oh how I loved this book.  This is exactly what I wanted to find in my reading this year, and yet again, it seems Persephone have hit the spot.  Can you imagine what it would be like to have been on a desert island with absolutely no contact to the outside world, only to be rescued and returned home in the middle of the Second World War?  To rationing?  To air raid sirens and shelters?  To no home at all?  Todd's story of Miss Ranskill brings you slap bang into that world, but instead of a frightening, despairing look at it, we are treated to a satirical gem of a story, which made me smile and chuckle as much as it did ponder the impossible life Miss Ranskill had returned to.  From the littlest things like trying to buy a picnic lunch on her first day back, to finding your childhood home has been commandeered by the Army, to making contact with the sister who thought you were dead, we follow the English woman as she tries to find her place in a world dramatically different from the one she left behind.
 
I loved that there was such humour to be found in the situation, a way to see the ridiculous in the darkness of war, putting on a brave face in adversity, and how having a stiff upper lip doesn't always mean forgetting you are human, and treating others likewise.
 
An absolutely fabulous book, and another highly recommended book from the Persephone publishers catalogue.