Claire's book list 2014

[chesilbeach]

Time for a mid-year report ...
 
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: 50
   4 pre-order
   10 Kindle daily/monthly deals - one of these is an omnibus of 4 books
   3 second-hand for English Counties challenge 
   33 other books
Books received as presents: 6
Books read: 80
Abandoned books: 0
TBR: 20 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
 

I'm quite pleased with progress - I've actually read much more than I thought I would, but has been helped immeasurably by holiday reading!    I've bought more books than I was intending to - mostly tree books too, which I hadn't expected. In my favour, I have read more than I've bought, and my TBR has dropped from 35 to 20.

I've still not found any outstandingly brilliant fiction, but I have read some very good books, and my non-fiction reading has been fantastic.  Revisiting A Year in Provence over twenty years after I first read it has been wonderful, and Strands was a truly fabulous book.  I've discovered a few great children's authors thanks to presents from kind people, and I've also read a couple of very different but equally enthralling novels in translation.

No plans for the rest of the year really, just keep on reading, and hopefully get that TBR down even more, and make some more headway into my various challenges.

[Athena]

Your progress is really good! I hope the second half of 2014 will be just as good to you as the first half, and that you'll discover some brilliant reads .

[chesilbeach]

I did something I rarely do today … I went into the bookshop and bought a book on the day of publication!  I absolutely loved Alex, a Dog and the Unopenable Door by Ross Montogomery, which my other half bought me for Christmas, and following the author on twitter now, I knew that his second book, The Tornado Chasers was out today, so I couldn't resist popping in on the way home from work to get a copy.  It was also in the Buy One Get One Half Price offer, so I also got Russian Roulette by Anthony Horowitz as well, which will complete my set of Alex Rider books.  Very pleased with myself
 
Hoping to finish Cider With Rosie tonight (or perhaps tomorrow), and I can then start on The Tornado Chasers straight away!  I had hope to finish CWR at lunchtime, but my head was too fuzzy at work, and I just couldn't concentrate on it.  Fortunately, there's no football on tonight, and all the big tennis games are out of the way, so if I set my mind to it, I should be able to finish the last 40 or so pages this evening.

[Alexi]

Hang on - I always thought Scorpia Rising was going to be the last one? Not that I'm complaining, I love those books!

[chesilbeach]

I think it's a related book without actually being an Alex Rider book.  The back cover says:

 

Contract killer Yassen Gregorovich has been given his orders: KILL ALEX RIDER.  As Yassen considers his mission, he remembers a secret from the past that connects him to the fourteen-year-old spy.  What is it that makes one of them choose to do evil?  What does it take to make a killer?

Edited July 3, 2014 by chesilbeach

[Alexi]

Ah, I see. I'll get round to it one day I'm sure - will probably re-read the whole series. I loved them.

[Athena]

I hope you enjoy The Tornado Chasers, Chesil !

[chesilbeach]

Haven't updated my bookish activity for a while, but since I did last post, I've finished:
 
Cider With Rose by Laurie Lee
The Tornado Chasers by Ross Montgomery
Russian Roulette by Anthony Horowitz
Our Woodland Birds by Matt Sewell
The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin
 
I need to write some reviews, but not around tomorrow, so it might be another week before I get chance, but I enjoyed Cider with Rosie much more than I thought I would, LOVED The Tornado Chasers, really enjoyed Russian Roulette, chuckled through Our Woodland Birds and found myself reading another crime novel with The Winter Queen after it was recommended on R4's A Good Read, but it was very good.
 
Now reading Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd for my reading group.  It's slow going, but rewarding, although I'm still nervous as people have told me how creepy it is.  I wasn't sure if I'd read it before, sometimes I thought I had, and others not, but now I think I may have started it in the past and given up on it.  I feel like I've been reading it for hours and hours (it's probably about 5 hours in total) but I'm still only on page 87!  Thankfully, it's only 217 pages, so I should finish before the book group meeting.

[chesilbeach]

Finished Hawksmoor, Our Garden Birds and Don't Point That Thing At Me this week, so the reviews are piling up!  Hoping to get to them this weekend though, especially with all the thunderstorms forecast.
 
I've found the Kindle Summer Sale on the Amazon UK website, and have been compiling a list of possible purchases from there, and it's rather a long list.  It would more than double my TBR, and if I was being really strict, only six of the books are actually on my wish list, but they're all such bargains, that I'm not sure I'll be able to resist the rest.  The sale runs until the first of September, so I don't have to make my mind up now, but I had been hoping to get that TBR down much lower before splashing the cash.  I'm also trying to read all my tree books, so I haven't been using my Kindle for a while, and I'd be tempted to pick it up and go through the lot, as I'm not sure I'd have the willpower to resist the bright, shiny new books on it.  I think I'll mull it over today, and think about what to do in the morning.  In the meantime, here's hoping I can reduce that TBR a bit more today!

[Athena]

I hope you are able to pick up some nice Kindle books . Happy reading this weekend .

[chesilbeach]

Hatchet Job by Mark Kermode

 

Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk):

For decades, the backbone of film criticism has been the hatchet job – the entertaining trashing of a film by professional reviewers, seen by many as cynical snobs. But with the arrival of the internet, have the critics finally fallen under the axe? With movie posters now just as likely to be adorned by Twitter quotes as fusty reviewer recommendations, has the rise of enthusiastic amateurism sounded the death knell of a profession? Are the democratic opportunities of the internet any more reliable than the old gripes and prejudices of the establishment? Can editing really be done by robots? And what kind of films would we have if we listened to what the audience thinks it wants?

 

Starting with the celebrated TV fight between film-maker Ken Russell and critic Alexander Walker (the former hit the latter with a rolled-up copy of his Evening Standard review on live television) and ending with his own admission to Steven Spielberg of a major error of judgement, Mark Kermode takes us on a journey across the modern cinematic landscape.

 

Like its predecessor, The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex, Hatchet Job blends historical analysis with trenchant opinion, bitter personal prejudices, autobiographical diversions and anecdotes, and laugh-out-loud acerbic humour. It’s the perfect book for anyone who’s ever expressed an opinion about a movie.

 

Review:

I'm a big fan of Mark Kermode; I love the radio programme with Simon Mayo, follow his video blog, Kermode Uncut, and I've read his previous books on the film industry too.  I was, therefore, already aware of some of his thoughts on the current state of film review and the ups and downs of being a critic, so what this book brings is an expansion of this theme, and looks at the history of film critique and where we are today with amateur bloggers, film criticism as a profession, press embargoes, and even the part Twitter has to play today.

 

If you're a fan of Mark, I think you'll enjoy reading this book, as it expands themes you'll already have heard him talk about, and if you've never really come across him before but are a fan of films, then I think you'd still find it an interesting look at this part of the film industry.  But, here's the thing, I think I would say that unless you're familiar with a Kermodian rant, or the quirks of his delivery and his sense of humour, then I'm not sure you'll find it quite as readable as I did.  Me, I loved it, and as always, hello to Jason Isaacs.

Edited July 20, 2014 by chesilbeach

[chesilbeach]

A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
 
Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk):
Peter Mayle and his wife did what most of us only imagine doing when they made their long-cherished dream of a life abroad a reality: throwing caution to the wind, they bought a glorious two hundred year-old farmhouse in the Lubéron Valley and began a new life. In a year that begins with a marathon lunch and continues with a host of gastronomic delights, they also survive the unexpected and often hilarious curiosities of rural life. From mastering the local accent and enduring invasion by bumbling builders, to discovering the finer points of boules and goat-racing, all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life are conjured up in this enchanting portrait.
 
Review:
Last month, there was a Book A Day list going on Twitter, where every day you tweeted about a book that you loved for a particular theme, and for the favourite summer reads theme, one of the books I dragged of the shelf was a copy of A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle.  We have a few copies of this lying around the house for some reason, and I know I first read it back in 1991, a couple of years after it was first published, as my OH had read it when it first came out in hardback, and we'd also both ended up buying paperback copies.  It was one of the first books to start the publishing trend of memoirs of starting a new life abroad as opposed to the previously more common travel writing of just visiting a country.  
 
I adore reading books where people move to a new country (particularly France, Italy and Spain) and love the fish out of water elements, with a new language, different customs and often a different approach to life.  This book has all of that in abundance, and follows the Mayles first year in their new home in the south of France.  I loved all the characters they meet, some of whom become good friends, the descriptions of the weather, the food and the landscape are lovely, and there is a genuine fondness for the new community they live in and where they try to adapt and fit themselves into it, rather than trying to get it to fit them.
 
Twenty years after first reading it, it was a joy to reread.  While I remembered a lot of the characters and the general stories of the book, I had forgotten the detail, so it was like visiting an old friend you haven't seen for a while, and having a good catchup, retelling all the old anecdotes, but it still felt new.  Plenty of colour, some great descriptions of fabulous food, humour and affection for their new neighbours and friends, and while probably the first of this style of book, definitely one of the best I've read, and still feels fresh and relevant today.

[chesilbeach]

The Taste of Apple Seeds by Katharina Hagena

 

Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk):

For Iris, childhood memories are of long hot summers spent playing with her cousin Rosmarie in her grandmother's garden, a place where redcurrants turned to pale tears on the branches of trees and beautiful Aunt Inga shook sparks from the tips of her fingers. But now her grandmother is dead and, along with inheriting the property, Iris finds that she also inherits her family's darkest secrets.

 

Reluctant to keep it, but reluctant to sell, Iris spends one more summer at the house. By day she swims at the local lake, where she rediscovers a childhood companion. Alone at night she roams through the familiar rooms, exploring the tall black shadows of the past. In the flicker between remembrance and forgetting, Iris recalls an enigmatic grandfather who went to war and came back a different man, the night her cousin Rosmarie fell through the conservatory roof and shattered her family's lives, and a moment of love that made the old tree in the orchard bloom overnight.

 

Review:

When I go to independent bookshops to browse for books, I'm often drawn to translated fiction, as it's something I don't often come across in the bigger stores, such as Waterstone's, or when browsing online, as there the selection of books is too great and I find it harder for books to jump out at me.  I bought this one at the Falmouth Bookseller while on holiday, as I loved the title, and when I found out the author was German, I was even more intrigued, as I don't think I've read any contemporary German authors at all.

 

This was such an affecting book to read, with Iris as the narrator recalling the story of three generations of the women in her family after the death of her grandmother.   The synopsis above is and excellent description of the story, and in addition, I would say it is also the story of how Iris comes to terms with her own past, and finds out who she is herself and is allows her to move onto the next stage of her life.  I don't really want to say too much about the rest of the story, as it's best to find out as you read it, but I loved the descriptions of the house, and what life was like as a child visiting her grandmother, the different lives her mother and aunts had led, the frank and honest view of the creeping dementia her grandmother suffered, and the impact childhood events can have on the rest of your life.

 

In addition to the various women, the house itself becomes a character in the story. With it's hidden routes to different rooms, it becomes like an enabler, hiding the secrets of the occupants, and gradually revealing the truth to the reader. By the end, you real as if there is more to be found, and a lifetime of living there would not be enough to seek out all its hidden tales, but that as life move on, each generation will leave their own stories behind to be discovered all over again.

 

Beautifully written and translated, this was a very moving story, and I would highly recommend it. This is the authors first and only novel so far, and is a very accomplished debut, but I will definitely look for more of her work in future.

[Athena]

I read A Year in Provence in Dutch, when I was a teenager, but I didn't get on with it at all. I can't remember what exactly my problem was, though. I've visited the Provence myself many times when I was a child and a teenager, my grandparents used to have a little house there. But for some reason I didn't like the book much. I'm glad you enjoyed it though .

[chesilbeach]

 

Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee

 

Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk):

Cider with Rosie is a wonderfully vivid memoir of childhood in a remote Cotswold village, a village before electricity and cars, a timeless place on the verge of change. Growing up amongst the fields and woods and characters of the place, Laurie Lee depicts a world that is both immediate and real and belongs to a now-distant past.

 

Review:

I first read this book in a horrible school classroom in a terrapin hut in 1984, and I don't remember the details, but know I disliked it terribly, so when it came up on the English Counties Challenge, I knew I had to read it again to see if my 13 year old self had misjudged it. Fortunately, Kay bought me a copy for my birthday, and despite putting it off for a while, it seemed like it was about time I faced it again.

 

As I started to read the first chapter, all my old prejudices came flooding back - the descriptions of his memories of being a three year old child are too romanticised and don't ring true. Oh dear, I wondered if I could bear to carry on with this over nostalgic narrative? Determinedly, I ploughed on, and I'm actually glad I did. Lee is a poet, and his prose is influenced by this, and I think that is what I struggled with myself. I've never been much of a poetry reader, and personally, I don't understand it, but when you are a poet, your world is all about finding language to provoke emotion, and this is exactly what I think Lee is trying to do with his memories too, to put into words the emotions he wants to remember from being a young, carefree child in a period of hardship and hard work. Once I learned to try and work with this style, I found it a bit easier to read.

 

After the first chapter, I actually found it much easier to read, and having been to Slad where the story takes place, I could picture the landscape of his childhood world, and get to know the family and his place in this long gone English country life, and by the end, I found I'd enjoyed reading his story, albeit with some reservations about how romanticised some of it felt. That's not to say there aren't some brutal realities in there, with recollections of living in poverty and the facts of living in an age before modern technology, but I still feel the early pages are a bit twee, and it slightly overshadowed the rest of the book for me. I know this won't be a common opinion, as nearly everyone else I've talked to about it, raves about the book and how wonderful it is, but it's how I feel, and I can't get away from it. I did enjoy it much more than I had anticipated, and it does have some wonderful descriptions - I love the chapter on his uncles - but it's never going to be a favourite of mine. I'm glad I've read it again, but perhaps that 13 year old in me just won't give up those prejudices after all.

[chesilbeach]

Our Garden Birds by Matt Sewell

Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk):

In this beautiful, collectible new volume, street artist Matt Sewell offers his own unique take on 52 of our favourite British garden birds.

 

Since its first appearance in July 2009, Matt's 'Bird of the Week' feature for the Caught by the River website has quickly become a cult hit. His pop-art watercolours are distinctive and enchanting, as are his innovative descriptions, which see great tits 'bossing the other birds around', the 'playful yet shy buoyancy' of bullfinches and the 'improbable' nature of the waxwing ('like a computer-generated samurai finch').  With 52 birds, one for each week of the year, this delightful gift book will appeal to bird watching enthusiasts, children and adults, and art and illustration fans alike.

 

 

Our Woodland Birds by Matt Sewell

Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk):

Britain has some of the most beautiful woodland in the world, with some of the most beautiful inhabitants. All year round, the trees in forests, copses and wastelands offer our feathered friends food, shelter and a place to congregate and show-off.

 

Now, in this beautiful follow-up to Our Garden Birds and Our Songbirds, street artist Matt Sewell captures Britain's unique woodland life with his charming and distinctive illustrations. Featuring an array of enchanting scenes, from bramble-picking Blue Tits and a flight of Finches to a parliament of young Tawny Owls, Matt's quirky, pop-art watercolours and whimsical descriptions express the individual characters of our woodland birds as never before. A delightful gift, this book will appeal to bird-watching enthusiasts, children, adults and art and design fans alike.

 

Review:

I love Matt Sewell's beautiful watercolour paintings of British birds.  They're not photographic, but despite his own quirky style, the birds are highly recognisable and Matt brings life to them in both the image and the words.  These aren't really reading books, and not field guides either, but the brief descriptions and stylised pictures beautifully describe the birdlife of our countryside, eccentrically and enthusiastically.  A must for anyone who loves looking at or listening to birds, from occasional glances to a dedicated twitcher. Simply lovely.

[julie]

Claire

Good luck on the book sale . I hope you can pick up some that you want, but also keep reading your paper books so you can finish them up first, since that is your goal. I know it's hard to buy new books and not read them first, though !

[chesilbeach]

Thanks Julie.  That's my biggest fault when it comes to my reading … being distracted by shiny new books!  It's one of the reasons I want to try and keep my TBR as low as possible.  I know I got it down to nothing at one point, but it seemed to build up almost immediately which was incredibly frustrating.  I have managed to almost halve it since the beginning of the year, and fortunately, the summer sale doesn't end until September, so if I can make a big enough dent in that TBR pile, then I can still hopefully pick up a few.  If I bought all the ones I wanted, it would be close to 20 books, and I know that I'd be back at the same point I am now, so perhaps I need to just focus on reading as much of my TBR shelf now, and then just try and pick up a couple at a time in the sale.  Not sure I can do that, I guess it'll be a case of "watch this space"

[chesilbeach]

I'm going to have a bit of a rant, so feel free to ignore this post!  

 

We visited a few bookshops yesterday, some second hand, some new books, and in the new book shops, I got really irritated because they didn't have a children's book I loved.  It's one that's been published fairly recently, but for some reason they didn't have a copy in the shop.  In one of the bookshops, I then had a look at the display table, where they pick out some books they're trying to promote, and see that quite a number of them are books I read as a child, and made me realise that I've seen quite a lot of this, and it seems as though booksellers are too nostalgic, and trying to sell old children's books to parents who read them when they were little.  This is a very short term view of selling, in my opinion.  Promote contemporary books to children!  They're the readers of the future!  If you get them with books and stories from their own time, with characters and situations they can recognise themselves in, their parents can introduce them to the classics later on, but you need to whet their appetite first.  

 

I know I'm an old fart, who lots of people say shouldn't be reading children's books, but I'm a sucker for a good story, and most of the contemporary children's authors I've read recently have been excellent at producing them.  I can understand that bookshops want to sell as many books as they can, but I worry that if you put too many old children's books in the limelight, then parents buy them because they want to recapture that joy of reading that book, that they experienced when they were little, rather than letting their children buy books they want to read.  As much as I love the books I grew up with, I don't think there has been a better time for children's literature, and there are some seriously good books and authors out there who will capture the imagination of this generation of readers, who will become the book buyers of the future.  There is a place for classic children's literature, but it shouldn't be front and centre in a bookshop today - don't pander to the nostalgia of parents!!!!

 

That said, I'm sure someone will be able to come back with a rebuttal to my argument that will completely convince me that the opposite is true!

[Chrissy]

I understand completely.

 

I look at children's books and those from the young adult range and feel excited and jealous. Excited for the youngsters that will get to read from this wonderful range of books, and jealous that I am not growing up with the book. A measure of my enjoyment is often found when I wish that a book I have recently read had been around in my younger days, and I am delighted for my nieces and nephews that they have access to these now.

[chesilbeach]

Q: A Love Story by Evan Mandery

 

Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk):

A picturesque love story begins at the cinema when our hero – an unacclaimed writer, unorthodox professor and unmistakeable New Yorker – first meets Q, his one everlasting love. Over the following weeks, in the rowboats of Central Park, on the miniature golf courses of Lower Manhattan, under a pear tree in Q’s own inner-city Eden, their miraculous romance accelerates and blossoms.

 

Nothing, it seems – not even the hostilities of Q’s father or the impending destruction of Q’s garden – can disturb the lovers, or obstruct their advancing wedding. They are destined to be together.

 

Until one day a man claiming to be our hero’s future self tells him he must leave Q.

 

Review:

I read this after Kay reviewed it, and on the whole I enjoyed it. It's an engaging story, it's quite quirky and an interesting take on time travel, in that it's very much a personal story, with the protagonist future self visiting the modern day protagonist, trying to prevent him from fulfilling that protagonists fate … still with me? It's sort of a twist on the adage of if you knew then what you knew now, you'd have done things differently, but the author gets you to question whether that would be the right thing to do.

 

The story rattles along quite nicely, and with each change of direction the modern day protagonists life takes, a new future version of himself comes back to visit to warn him of a change he must make, but ultimately, I found the title itself a spoiler! It tells you that it's a love story about Q, so as the book progresses, you can guess what's going to happen.

 

I noticed that on IMDB there is an entry for Q categorised as being in development, and I think it might make a good film, but again … change the title as it gives away too much information!

 

I've actually debated whether to put some of these comments in spoiler tags, but if you read the book, I genuinely believe the title is a spoiler, and I still think it's the story along the way that's interesting and keeps you wondering how it will get to the conclusion, not what conclusion it'll get to, so I've decided to leave them in text as I'm not the one spoiling the plot, and haven't actually said what happens, just pointed out that it does exactly what it says on the tin.

[chesilbeach]

Don't Point That Thing At Me by Kyril Bonfiglioli

 

Synopsis (from amazon.co.uk):

 

Portly art dealer and seasoned epicurean Charlie Mortdecai comes into possession of a stolen Goya, the disappearance of which is causing a diplomatic ruction between Spain and its allies. Not that that matters to Charlie ... until compromising pictures of some British diplomats also come into his possession and start to muddy the waters. All he's trying to do is make a dishonest living, but various governments, secret organisations and an unbelievably nubile young German don't see it that way and pretty soon he's in great need of his thuggish manservant Jock to keep them all at bay ... and the Goya safe.

 

Review:

I bought this from an indie bookshop where I usually pick up something quirky, unusual or unique, but I've since found it's being promoted in Waterstone's too, so perhaps this wasn't the find I was hoping it would be. It's a reissued series of books based around Charlie Mortdecai, and was first published in the 1970s. I don't think it's explicitly stated, but I get the feeling the setting is more the 1960s, but it's definitely a post-war setting.

 

I think as a reader, you're supposed to fall in love with Charlie as a loveable roguish anti-hero, but there's a much nastier tone than I felt comfortable with, and I didn't like any of the other characters either. There were very few female characters, and again, I didn't like them or the way they were depicted - they were either one dimensional or merely referred to.

 

There's a quote on the cover from the New Yorker which says, "Like the result of an unholy collaboration between P. G. Wodehouse and Ian Fleming", but having read both those writers, I personally wouldn't put this even close to them, and I didn't even like the Ian Fleming novel I read!

 

Maybe I'm just not the target audience, but I didn't think it had dated well, I didn't appreciate the humour - I could see where it was supposed to be funny, but not my sense of humour - and I found the story far fetched.

 

I'll be very interested to see if anyone else reads it, as I'd like to see another opinion on it from someone I know!

 

EDIT: I forgot to mention, this is also being adapted on film, and Johnny Depp is playing Charlie, and the cast includes Ewan McGregor, Gwyneth Paltrow and Oliver Platt, so I'll be interested to see if they leave it as a period piece or update it, but I think I'd go and see it, and see what they make of it.

Edited July 25, 2014 by chesilbeach

[Athena]

I understand how you feel about the children's books Claire. It makes perfect sense what you're saying.

 

I have Q: A Love Story on my wishlist. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Great reviews !

[pontalba]

Good reviews, Claire.  I really like the sound of Q: A Love Story. 

Re Don't Point That Thing At Me, I agree, sometimes "humor" that is dated just isn't funny anymore. 

Thanks for the heads up.

[chesilbeach]

Thanks, Kate.  I think I enjoyed Q: A Love Story more than Kay - here's her review for another point of view.