Willoyd's Reading 2023

[willoyd]

Thread contents

 

Post number

02  Book list 2023
03  A Read Around the World

04  A Tour of the United States

05  Classic fiction reading lists

06  Big Reads

07  Favourite books

08  Favourite authors

09  Accolades history

10  spare

11  spare

12  spare

13  spare

14  Review and preview

15  Accolades 2022

16  Welcome!

 

Edited April 5, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Book List 2023

 

January

01.  The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia by Samuel Johnson ***

02.  The Diet Whisperer by Paul Barrington Chell & Monique Hope-Ross **

03.  Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou W *****

04.  Black England  by Gretchen Gerzina ****

05.  Less by Andrew Sean Greer G **

06.  Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid W ****

07.  The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk G ****

08.  The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna W ****

 

February

09.  Captain Hazard's Game by David Fairer G ******

10.  According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge ***

11.  Summer in February by Jonathan Smith ****

12.  Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan GR ***

13.  The Moth and The Mountain by Ed Caesar  ****

 

March

14.  The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby G *****

X.    Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff GX *

15.  The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas W *****

16.  Another Country by James Baldwin U ******

17.  The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa W ****

18.  Who Among Us?  by Mario Benedetti W ****

 

April

19.  History. A Mess. by Sigrun Palsdottir W *****

20.  The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield GW ******

21.  Katherine Mansfield, A Secret Life by Claire Tomalin ***

22.  One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez GW *****

23.  Tokyo Express by Seicho Matsumoto ****

 

May

24.  Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih W ******

25.  Stolen Focus by Johann Hari *****

26.  Potiki by Patricia Grace GW *****

27.  Ultra-Processed People  by Chris van Tulleken ****

28.  I'm Not Scared by Niccolo Ammaniti G  ***

29.  Standing Heavy by GauZ W ******

 

June

30.  Department of Speculation by Jenny Offil *****

31.  After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz **

32.  The Perfect Golden Circle by Benjamin Myers ****

33.  The Fall of Boris Johnson by Sebastian Payne ****

34.  The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante GX **

 

July

35.  Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov GW ***

36.  On Chapel Beach by Laura Cummings ****

37.  Jeremy Hutchinson's Case Histories by Thomas Grant ****

38.  Portable Magic by Emma Smith ***

 

August

39.  Glucose Revolution by Jessie Inchauspie ***

40.  Travelling In A Strange Land by David Park GW *****

41.  Johnson At 10 by Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell ****

42.  Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver GX **

43.  August Is A Wicked Month by Edna O'Brien ***

 

September

44  The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ay Kwei Armah W ****

45.  The Restless Republic by Anna Keay *****

46.  The Flow by Amy-Jane Beer G ******

47.  Minty Alley by CLR James W *****

48.  Incomparable World by SI Martin ***

49.  Stories from Nauru by Bam Bam Solomon and others W ****

 

October

50.  See You In September by Joanne Teague X **

51.  Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston U ****

52.  Chess Story by Stefan Zweig W *****

53.  Rocket Boys/October Sky by Hiram H Hickam U ******

54.  The Meaning of Geese by Neil Ascherson ****

55.  Mr Weston's Good Wine by TF Powys ***

 

November

56.  La Curee (The Kill) by Emile Zola *****

57.  The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark U *****

58.  The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad W *****

59.  The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams ******

 

December

60.  Tall Man in a Low Country by Harry Pearson ***

61.  If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery ****

62.  The Dictionary People by Sarah Ogilvie ****

63.  A Hero Of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov G ***

64.  The Years by Annie Ernaux *****

65.  Christmas Days by Jeanette Winterson ****

66.  Frostquake by Juliet Nicolson ***

 

G = a book group choice, R = reread, U = Tour of the United States, W = Read Around the World, X = unfinished

 

Ratings

*  Positively disliked: almost certainly unfinished.  Most of these books tend to be book group choices! LibraryThing rating 0.5 - 1

**  Disappointing or not particularly liked even if recognise merits:  likely to be at least skimmed, often unfinished.  LT 1.5 - 2

*** Fine, a decent read, functionally useful if read for education.  Books I want to finish, even if I don't feel the need to!  LT 2.5 - 3

****  Good, compulsive reading that, whilst putdownable, demands to be picked up and finished LT 3.5

*****  Very good, into the realms of 'unputdownable'  LT 4

******  Excellent: a top notch read, even if not quite a favourite.  LT 4.5

******  Favourite: books which, for whatever reason, have something special about them, even if only personal to me. For the full list of these (less than 150 of them) see post #7 below.  LT 5

Edited December 31, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Reading The World

A tour of the world in 200 books, made up of one from each of the 193 full members of the United Nations, the 2 UN 'observer' nations (Palestine and Vatican City), Taiwan ( the most significant country with no UN recognition), the four home nations (rather than just UK) and Antarctica (the only continent otherwise not represented).  Books should be prose, preferably fiction, normally written by someone from that country, and ideally set there, but if not, as close as I can get!  Books in blue are those read during the current year.

 

Read so far: 34/200

Read this year:  18

Europe (13/48)

Austria:  Chess Story by Stefan Zweig  *****

Bulgaria:  Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov ***

Czech Republic:  Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal ****

Finland: The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna ****

Germany:  Measuring the World - Daniel Kehlmann *****

Iceland: History. A Mess. by Sigrun Palsdottir ****

Italy:  The Leopard - Giuseppe Tomaso di Lampedusa ****

Northern Ireland:  Travelling In A Strange Land by David Park ****

Norway:  The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas ****

San Marino: The Republic of San Marino - Giuseppe Rossi ***

Scotland: O Caledonia - Elspeth Barker ***

Ukraine: Death and the Penguin - Andrey Kurkov ***

Wales:  One Moonlit Night - Caradog Prichard ******

 

Africa (9/54)

Angola:  The Book of Chameleons - Jose Eduardo Agualusa ****

Congo, Republic of:  Black Moses - Alain Mabanckou *****

Cote d'Ivoire: Standing Heavy - GauZ ******

Djibouti:  In The United States of Africa - Abdourahman Waberi ****

Ghana:  The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born - Ayi Kwei Armah ****

Kenya:  A Grain Of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong'o ******

South Africa:  The Promise - Damon Galgut *****

Sudan: Season of Migration to the North - Tayeb Salih ******

Togo: Michel the Giant - Tete-Michel Kpomassie ******

Asia (5/48)

Malaysia: The Night Tiger - Yangsze Choo ****

Japan:  Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata **; Tokyo Express - Seicho Matsumoto ****

Pakistan:  The Wandering Falcon - Jamil Ahmad  *****

South Korea:  The Vegetarian - Han Kang *

Turkey: 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World - Elif Shafak **

North America (3/23)

Antigua and Barbuda:  Annie John - Jamaica Kincaid ***

Trinidad and Tobago:  Minty Alley - CLR James *****

USA:  Beloved - Toni Morrison *****

 

South America (2/12)

Columbia:  One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez  *****

Uruguay:  Who Among Us? - Mario Benedetti ****

 

Oceania and Antarctica (2/15)

Nauru:  Stories from Nauru - Bam Bam Solomon et al (plus readings from Indigehous Literatures of Micronesia) ****

New Zealand: The Garden Party and Other Stories - Katherine Mansfield ******; Potiki - Patricia Grace ****

 

 

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

A Tour of the United States

 

My experience of American literature being much narrower than I would have liked, I decided a few years ago to take a tour of the USA in a similar way to our own English Counties challenge: 51 books, one set in each of the states (including Washington DC).  In fact, the English Counties was modelled on an American States challenge here, but in the spirit of broadening that experience, I have amended it using these rules: a. it must be fiction or narrative non-fiction; b. an author can only appear once; c. published after 1900 (what I've read has been predominantly 19th century); d. adult books; e. no rereads. Inevitably some great books and authors will have been left off, but the process itself has already helped identify those holes, and I aim to fill them in as additional reading!  Blue means read, bold means read this year.  Books in black are unread, and are those I've currently got lined up - but they can (and do!) change, and some alternatives are listed below the main list.

33/51

The Keepers of the House - Shirley Ann Grau (Alabama) *****
To The Bright Edge of the World - Eowyn Ivey (Alaska) ******
The Monkey Wrench Gang -Edward Abbey (Arizona)

The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks - Donald Harington (Arkansas)
East of Eden - John Steinbeck (California)
Plainsong - Kent Haruf (Colorado) *****
The Stepford Wives - Ira Levin (Connecticut) *
The Book of Unknown Americans - Christina Henriquez (Delaware)
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurst (Florida) ****
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers (Georgia) ******
The Descendants - Kaui Hart Hemmings (Hawaii)
Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson (Idaho) ****
The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow (Illinois)
The Stone Diaries - Carol Shields (Indiana) *****
The Bridges of Madison County - Robert Waller (Iowa) ****
Not Without Laughter - Langston Hughes (Kansas)
Nathan Coultar - Wendell Berry (Kentucky) ******
All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren (Louisiana)
Empire Falls - Richard Russo (Maine)
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler (Maryland) ***
Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton (Massachusetts) ***
Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison (Michigan) ******
Main Street - Sinclair Lewis (Minnesota) ***
As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner (Mississippi) ******
Mrs Bridge - Evan S. Connell (Missouri) *****
A River Runs Through It - Norman Maclean (Montana)
My Antonia - Willa Cather (Nebraska) ******
The Ox-Bow Incident - Walter van Tilburg Clark (Nevada) *****
Peyton Place - Grace Metallious (New Hampshire)
The Sportswriter - Richard Ford (New Jersey) ****
Cities of the Plain - Cormac McCarthy (New Mexico)
Another Country - James Baldwin (New York) ******
Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier (North Carolina) ****
The Plague of Doves - Louise Erdrich (North Dakota) *****
Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson (Ohio) ***
True Grit - Charles Portis (Oklahoma) *****
Trask - Don Berry (Oregon)
The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara (Pennsylvania) *****
The Witches of Eastwick - John Updike (Rhode Island) ***
The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd (South Carolina) ***
The Personal History of Rachel Dupree - Anne Weisberger (South Dakota)
Shiloh - Shelby Foote (Tennessee)
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry (Texas) ******
The Big Rock Candy Mountain - Wallace Stegner (Utah)
The Secret History - Donna Tartt (Vermont)
Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver (Virginia)
Snow Falling on Cedars - David Guterson (Washington) ***
Advise and Consent - Allen Drury (Washington DC) ****
Rocket Boys - Homer H Hickam (West Virginia) ******
American Wife - Curtis Sittenfeld (Wisconsin) **** 
The Virginian - Owen Wister (Wyoming) ***** 

 

Alternatives for states yet to be read

Hawaii:  Shark Dialogues by Kiana Davenport;  Moloka'I by Alan Brennert

Illinois: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Kansas:  The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton by Jane Smiley

Louisiana: A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Sexton;

Maine:  Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stout

Oregon:  Sometimes A Great Notion by Ken Kesey; Geek Love by Katherine Dunn; Hole In The Sky by William Kittredge

South Dakota Welcome to the Hard Times by EL Doctorow

Tennessee: A Death in the Family by James Agee

Utah: The Nineteenth Wife by David Ebershoff

Virginia:  The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron; The Known World by Edward P Jones

 

 

Edited November 17, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Classic fiction

 

Three authors whose books I want to focus more on:

          +  Charles Dickens

          +  Thomas Hardy

          +  Emile Zola's Rougon-Macquart series

Plus a list of other 'must-reads'.  Highly selective and idiosyncratic, mostly big tomes that I feel a need to have tackled!

Charles Dickens - Novels
01. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837) *****
02. The Adventures of Oliver Twist (1839) ******
03. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1839) ******
04. The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) ***
05. Barnaby Rudge (1841)
06. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1844)
07. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son (1848)
08. The Personal History of David Copperfield (1850) ******
09. Bleak House (1853) ******
10. Hard Times (1854)
11. Little Dorrit (1857)
12. A Tale of Two Cities (1859) ******
13. Great Expectations (1861) ****
14. Our Mutual Friend (1865)
15. The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)

 

The Christmas Books
16. A Christmas Carol (1843) ******
17. The Chimes (1844) ***
18. The Cricket on the Hearth (1845) ***
19. The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (1846)

 

Thomas Hardy Novels & Short Stories

01.  Desperate Remedies (1871)

02.  Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)

03.  A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873)

04.  Far From the Madding Crowd (1874)

05.  The Hand of Ethelberta (1876)

06.  The Return of the Native (1878)

07.  The Trumpet-Major (1880)

08.  A Laodicean (1881)

09.  Two on a Tower (1882)

10.  The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)

11.  The Woodlanders (1887)

12.  Wessex Tales (short stories, 1888)

13.  Tess of the D'Urbevilles (1891)

14.  A Group of Noble Dames (short stories, 1891)

15.  The Well-Beloved (1892)

16.  Life's Little Ironies (short stories, 1894)

17.  Jude the Obscure (1897)  

 

Emile Zola's Rougon-Macquart Series
01. La Fortune des Rougon (The Fortune of the Rougons) *****
02. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon (His Excellency Eugene Rougon) ****
03. La Curee (The Kill) *****
04. L'Argent (Money)
05. Le Reve (The Dream)
06. La Conquete de Plassans (The Conquest of Plassans)
07. Pot-Bouille (Pot Luck)
08. Au Bonheur des Dames (The Ladies' Delight/Paradise) ******
09. La Faute de L'Abbe Mouret (The Sin of Father Mouret)
10. Une Page d'amour (A Love Story)
11. Le Ventre de Paris (The Belly of Paris)
12. La Joie de vivre (The Bright Side of Life)
13. L'Assommoir (The Drinking Den)
14. L'Oeuvre (The Masterpiece)
15. La Bete humaine (The Beast Within)
16. Germinal
17. Nana
18. La Terre (The Earth)
19. La Debacle (The Debacle)
20. Le Docteur Pascal (Doctor Pascal)

(English titles as used by OUP and/or Penguin, if different to the French).

 

Must-Reads

Cervantes, Miguel de - Don Quixote

de Beauvoir, Simone - The Mandarins

Ellmann, Lucy - Ducks, Newburyport

Faulkner, William - The Sound and Fury

Fielding, Henry - The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling

Galsworthy, John - The Forsyte Saga

Grossman, Vasily - Stalingrad / Life and Fate

Heller, Joseph - Catch-22

Hugo, Victor - Les Miserables

Joyce, James - Ulysses

Laxness, Halldor - Independent People

Mann, Thomas - Buddenbrooks

Manning, Olivia - The Balkan Trilogy

Mantel, Hilary - Wolf Hall trilogy

O'Brian, Patrick - The Aubrey-Maturin sequence

Peake, Mervyn - The Gormenghast trilogy

Perec, Georges - Life: A User's Manual

Powell, Anthony - Dance to the Music of Time

Pynchon, Thomas - Mason and Dixon

Smollett, Tobias - The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

Steinbeck, John - East of Eden

Stephenson, Neal - The Baroque Cycle

Sterne, Laurence - The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Tocarczuk, Olga - The Books of Jacob

Edited November 10, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Non-Fiction Doorstoppers.

 

I've really struggled to settle to longer books since Covid kicked in, even though they previously constituted some of my favourite reading - nothing like a good thick book to get stuck into.  This has been particularly true of non-fiction. So, to help keep prodding, this is a list of non-fiction 'doorstopper'  on my shelves just waiting to be read, a list to complement the Fiction Must-Reads above. 

 

Single volumes

Ackroyd, Peter: Dickens; London The Biography

Barker, Juliet: The Brontes

Brewer, John: The Pleasures of the Imagination

Cherry-Garrard, Apsley: The Worst Journey in the World

Davis, Wade: Into the Silence

Davies, Norman: Vanished Kingdoms

Fox, Robin Lane: The Classical World

Foreman, Amanda: A World On Fire

Gardiner, Juliet: The Thirties; Wartime Britain

Herodotus: The Histories

Johnson, Paul: The Birth of the Modern

Judt, Tony: Post-War

Kershaw, Ian: Hitler

Lawrence, TE: The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Leuchtenberg, William: The American President

MacCulloch, Diarmid: A History of Christianity, Reformation

MacGregor, Neil: A History of the World in 100 Objects

Mikaberidze, Alexander: The Napoleonic Wars, A Global History

Montefiore, Simon Sebag: The World, A Family History

Overy, Richard: Blood and Ruins

Paine, Lincoln: The Sea and Civilization

Parker, Geoffrey: Global Crisis

Richie, Alexandra: Faust's Metropolis

Roberts, Andrew: Churchill; George III

Roberts, JM: The History of the World; Twentieth Century

Sassoon, Donald: The Culture of the Europeans

Schama, Simon: Landscape and Memory; An Embarrassment of Riches; Power of Art

Stevenson, David: 1914-1918

Tombs, Robert: The English and their History

Watson, Peter: Ideas A History; The German Genius;  A Terrible Beauty

Wilson, Ben: Empire of the Deep

Wilson, Peter: Europe's Tragedy; Iron and Blood

Wooding, Lucy: Tudor England

 

Multi-volume sequences

Braudel, Fernand: The Identify of France (2v); The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World (3v)

Catton, Bruce: The Army of the Potomac  (3v)

Fisher, HAL: A History of Europe (3v)

Foote, Shelby: The American Civil War (3v)

Evans. Richard: The Third Reich (3v)

Gibbon, Edward: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (6v)

Macauley, Thomas Babington: The History of England (5v)

Muir, Rory: Wellington (2v)

Pepys, Samuel: The Diaries (9v)

Morris, Jan: Pax Britannica (3v)

Sugden, John: Nelson (2v)

Todman, Daniel: Britain's War (2v)

Woolf, Virginia: The Essays; The Letters; The Diaries (6v each)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Favourite Books

 

A record of the 140 books and series to which I've given my top rating.  These aren't necessarily the best literature I've read, but the books that are personal favourites, that, for whatever reason, struck a special chord in my reading. Individual books within a series are likely to have scored less, but the rating is for the series as a whole. The lists are divided into

•     Fiction
•     Non-fiction
•     Joint fiction/non-fiction
•     Children's fiction

Fiction (81)
Ackroyd, Peter: Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem
Ackroyd, Peter: Hawksmoor
Austen, Jane: Sense and Sensibility
Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Jane: Emma
Buchan, John: John Macnab
Carr JL: A Month in the Country
Carr JL: The Harpole Report
Chaucer, Geoffrey: The Canterbury Tales
Chevalier, Tracey: Falling Angels
Childers, Erskine: The Riddle of the Sands
Collins, Norman: London Belongs To Me
Cooper, Susan: The Dark is Rising
Cunningham, Michael: The Hours
Davies, Martin: The Conjuror's Bird
Dickens, Charles: A Christmas Carol
Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
Dickens, Charles: David Copperfield

Dunant, Sarah: In the Company of the Courtesan

Eco, Umberto: The Name of the Rose
Eliot, George: Middlemarch
Elphinstone, Margaret: The Sea Road
Elphinstone, Margaret: Voyageurs

Evaristo, Bernardine: Girl, Woman, Other
Fairer, David: The Chocolate House trilogy

Faulkner, William: As I Lay Dying

Fforde, Jasper: The Eyre Affair

Forester, CS: The Hornblower series

Goscinny, Rene: Asterix in Britain
Greig, Andrew: The Return of John Macnab

Guareschi, Giovanni: The Don Camillo series
Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Hardy, Thomas: Far From The Madding Crowd
Herbert, Frank: Dune
Heyer, Georgette: The Grand Sophy

Hoeg, Peter: Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow

Horwood, William: The Stonor Eagles

Horwood, William: Skallagrig
Hulme, Keri: The Bone People

Ivey, Eowyn: To the Bright Edge of the World
Japrisot, Sebastian: A Very Long Engagement

Le Carre, John: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Lee, Harper: To Kill A Mockingbird

Leon, Donna: The Commissario Brunetti series

Mantel, Hilary: Wolf Hall

McMurtry, Larry: Lonesome Dove
Melville, Herman: Moby Dick
Miller, Andrew: Pure

Miller, Andrew: Now We Shall Be Entirely Free
Mitchell, David: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Monsarrat, Nicholas: The Cruel Sea
Moorcock, Michael: Mother London
O'Brian, Patrick: The Aubrey-Maturin series

O'Farrell, Maggie: Hamnet
Pears, Ian: An Instance of the Fingerpost
Penney, Stef: The Tenderness of Wolves
Perry, Sarah: The Essex Serpent

Prichard, Caradog: One Moonlit Night

Proulx, Annie: The Shipping News

Roffey, Monique: The Mermaid of Black Conch
Rushdie, Salman: Midnight's Children
Seth, Vikram: A Suitable Boy
Simenon, Georges: The Inspector Maigret series
Smiley, Jane: A Thousand Acres
Smith, Dodie: I Capture the Castle
Steinbeck, John: Of Mice and Men
Stephenson, Neal: Cryptonomicon
Stevenson, Robert Louis: Kidnapped
Swift, Graeme: Waterland

Taylor, Elizabeth: A View of the Harbour
Thomas, Dylan: Under Milk Wood
Thompson, Harry: This Thing of Darkness
Tolkien JRR: The Lord of the Rings
Tolstoy, Leo: War and Peace

Waugh, Evelyn: Brideshead Revisited
Willis, Connie: To Say Nothing of the Dog
Woolf, Virginia: Mrs Dalloway
Woolf, Virginia: The Years
Woolf, Virginia: To The Lighthouse
Woolfenden, Ben: The Ruins of Time
Zafon, Carlos Ruiz: The Shadow of the Wind

 

Non-fiction (49)

Beer, Amy-Jane:  The Flow

Blanning, Tim: The Pursuit of Glory

Bewick, Thomas: A History of British Birds

Brown, Hamish: Hamish's Mountain Walk
Clayton, Tim: Waterloo
Cocker, Mark: Crow Country
Dennis, Roy: Cottongrass Summer

Fadiman, Anne: Ex Libris
Frater, Alexander: Chasing the Monsoon

Gogarty, Paul: The Water Road
Hanff, Helen: 84 Charing Cross Road
Harding, Thomas: The House By The Lake

Harrison, Melissa: The Stubborn Light of Things
Hastings, Max: All Hell Let Loose

Hickham, Homer H:  October Sky / Rocket Boys
Holland, James: Dam Busters
Hoskins, WG: The Making of the English Landscape

Howell, Georgina: Daughter of the Desert
Huntford, Roland: Shackleton
Jamie, Kathleen: Findings
Junger, Sebastian: The Perfect Storm
Lee, Hermione: Virginia Woolf

Lewis-Stempel, John: The Running Hare
Liptrot, Amy: The Outrun
Longford, Elizabeth: Wellington, The Years of the Sword

Macdonald, Benedict & Nicholas Gates: Orchard

MacDonald, Helen: Vesper Flights

MacGregor, Neil: Germany, Memories of a Nation
Moore, Richard: In Search of Robert Millar
Nichols, Peter: A Voyage for Madmen

Nicolson, Adam: The Seabird's Cry
Pennac, Daniel: The Rights of the Reader

Peterson, Mounfort and Hollom: A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe

Pinker, Stephen: The Language Instinct
Rackham, Oliver: The History of the Countryside
de Saint-Exupery, Antoine: Wind, Sand and Stars
Salisbury, Laney and Gay: The Cruellest Miles

Sands, Philippe: East-West Street

Schumacher, EF: Small is Beautiful
Simpson, Joe: Touching the Void
Taylor, Stephen: Storm and Conquest
Tomalin, Claire: Pepys, The Unequalled Self

Tree, Isabella: Wilding
Uglow, Jenny: The Pinecone
Unsworth, Walt: Everest
Weldon, Fay: Letters to Alice on first reading Jane Austen
Wheeler, Sara: Terra Incognita

Wulf, Andrea: The Invention of Nature

Young, Gavin: Slow Boats to China

Joint fiction/non-fiction (1)

Klinkenborg, Verlyn: Timothy's Book with Townsend-Warner, Sylvia: Portrait of a Tortoise

 

Children's Fiction (9)
Berna, Paul: Flood Warning

Bond, Michael: The Paddington Bear series
Kipling, Rudyard: Puck of Pook's Hill/Rewards and Fairies

Kipling, Rudyard: The Jungle Book

Milne, AA: Winnie-the-Pooh/House at Pooh Corner
Pullman, Philip: Northern Lights
Ransome, Arthur: The Swallows and Amazons series
Sutcliff, Rosemary: The Eagle of the Ninth
White, TH: Mistress Masham's Repose

Edited December 31, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Favourite authors

 

To qualify for this list, I have to have read at least three books by that author (amazing how many where I've just read two, especially non-fiction!), so no one-book wonders (it's the book then, not the author!). None of the books themselves need to have reached a six star rating, but they do need to have been rated consistently highly.  I've only included authors of adult books - for favourite children's authors, see favourite book list, as the two lists are pretty much the same.  I've also included titles of books for authors where I have particular favourites.

 

Fiction
Jane Austen  (Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Lady Susan)
JL Carr  (A Month in the Country, The Harpole Report)

Willa Cather  (My Antonia, O Pioneers)

Charles Dickens  (Bleak House, David Copperfield)
Sarah Dunant  (In The Company of the Courtesan, Hannah Wolfe trilogy)

Margaret Elphinstone  (The Sea Road, Voyageurs)

Thomas Hardy  (Far From The Madding Crowd)
Donna Leon (Brunetti series)
Patrick O'Brian (Aubrey/Maturin series)
Georges Simenon (Maigret series)

Elizabeth Taylor  (A View Of The Harbour)

Virginia Woolf  (Mrs Dalloway, The Lighthouse, The Years)

Non-Fiction
Tim Clayton  (Waterloo)
Jan Morris  (Venice, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere)
Claire Tomalin  (Pepys, Dickens, Austen, etc.)
Jenny Uglow  (The Pinecone, Nature's Engraver)

Both

Melissa Harrison (The Stubborn Light of Things, Hawthorn Time)

Edited February 9, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Accolades History

 

For the past few years, I've finished off the year by awarding some of my own accolades to books that I've read that year.  Some of those are included in the Forum's award threads.  A list of some of the main awards are listed below.  Titles in bold under Fiction and Non-Fiction Books of the Year were my overall winners for that year.  Up to 2016, rereads were eligible for the Book of the Year lists; from 2016 onwards, a separate accolade was listed.

 

Fiction Book of the Year

2013:  David Copperfield - Charles Dickens.  Runner-up: The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell

2014:  Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy.  Runner-up: Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

2015:  Middlemarch - George Eliot.  Runner-up: The Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian (first 5 vols read this year)

2016:  The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry.  Runner-up: Howards End - EM Forster

2017:  To The Bright Edge Of The World - Eowyn Ivey.  Runner-up: The Old Wives' Tale - Arnold Bennett

2018:  A View Of The Harbour - Elizabeth Taylor.  Runner-up:  Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

2019:  Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo.  Runner-up:  Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry

2020:  Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell.  Runner-up:  A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

2021:  The Mermaid Of Black Conch - Monique Roffey.  Runner-up:  The Great Level - Stella Tillyard

2022:  As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner.  Runner-up: One Moonlit Night - Caradog Prichard

 

Non-fiction Book of the Year

2013:  Letters To Alice On First Reading Jane Austen - Fay Weldon;  Runner-up: The Real Jane Austen - Paula Byrne

2014:  Pursuit Of Glory: Europe 1648-1815 - Tim Blanning.  Runner-up: Under Another Sky: Travels Through Roman Britain - Charlotte Higgins

2015:  Waterloo - Tim Clayton.  Runner-up: Shackleton's Boat Journey by Frank Worsley

2016:  The House By The Lake - Thomas Harding.  Runner-up:  The Outrun - Amy Liptrot

2017:  The Seabirds' Cry - Adam Nicolson.  Runner-up:  Love Of Country - Madeleine Bunting

2018:  East-West Street - Philippe Sands.  Runner-up:  Wilding - Isabella Tree

2019:  Daughter Of The Desert - Georgina Howell.  Runner-up:  The Five - Hallie Rubenheld

2020:  Island Stories - David Reynolds.  Runner-up:  Home - Julie Myerson

2021:  The Stubborn Light Of Things - Melissa Harrison.  Runner-up:  Orchard - Benedict Macdonald & Nicholas Gates

2022:  The Invention of Nature - Andrea Wulf.  Runner-up: Cotton Grass Summer - Roy Dennis

 

Duffer of the Year

2013:  Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

2014:  The Dinner - Herman Koch

2015:  Divergent - Veronica Roth

2016:  Us - David Nicholls

2017:  Two Brothers - Ben Elton

2018:  I Am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes

2019:  I See You - Clare Mackintosh

2020:  Gold - Chris Cleave

2021:  Body Surfing - Anita Shreve

2022:  The Department of Sensitive Crimes - Alexander McCall Smith

 

Most Disappointing

2017:  Jacob's Room Is Full Of Books - Susan Hill

2018:  I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou

2019:  The Making Of The British Landscape - Nicholas Crane

2020:  A God In Ruins - Kate Atkinson

2021:  How To Argue With A Racist - Adam Rutherford

2022:  The Instant - Amy Liptrot

 

Best Reread

2016:  Emma - Jane Austen.  Runner-up:  Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

2017:  Flood Warning - Paul Berna;  Winter Holiday - Arthur Ransome (jointly)

2018:  Coot Club - Arthur Ransome

2019:  Paddington Helps Out - Michael Bond

2020:  Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf in combination with The Hours - Michael Cunningham

2021:  Waterland - Graham Swift

2022:  A Maigret Christmas - Georges Simenon

 

Biggest Discovery

2019:  George Mackay Brown

2020: Wendell Berry

2021:  Gilbert White

2022:  JB Priestley; African writing; David Fairer

 

 

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

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[willoyd]

Review 2022, Preview 2023

 

Rather than the screeds I almost posted (get rather carried away sometimes!), some bullet point stats and thoughts:

 

+  66 books and just over 17000 pages read this year, the lowest since 2014, but then more than anything before 2014!

 

+ Pure numbers may be low, but, with 5/6 star books representing 35% of my reading, the quality/enjoyment level has never been higher.  All 3 1-star and 5 of the 9 2-star books were book group choices.

 

+ Just 29% non-fiction, the first time below 30% since 2015 (50% last year); equally, just 34% female authors, the lowest since 2016.

 

+ 27% Library books, the highest to date. As last year, e-books represent c10% of my leisure reading (use it a lot more for language study etc), down from 20-25% in the four years to 2020.

 

+ The only one of last year's targets I achieved was to read at least 6 Tour of the USA books (I read exactly 6).  I didn't read any Dickens beyond a  reread of novella The Chimes, just one Zola, and none of the doorstoppers (let alone the aimed-for 4) that I intended to complete.  As a result, the average page count per book was 261, well below the 300 target, but at least up from the low of 248 in 2021.

 

+ I did make good progress on the new project for 2023, Reading The World, with 16 books completed (and mostly enjoyed a lot!). Only another 184 to go!

 

+ I joined a new book group that's been set up by my local indie book shop (making 4 in total!), but have decided to take a back seat in 2 of the others where, in one, meetings have become more erratic and, in the other, the book list (dictated by the local library service) is looking increasingly tedious and uninspired.  The other 2 are developing in seriously interesting ways!

 

+ So, overall, I feel this year has been a bit of a turning point, the two projects and my two main book groups introducing me to a far more diverse and interesting range of reading, fiction in particular. At age 64, and with probably only 1000 or so books left in me (and that if lucky!), I'm becoming more ruthless in what I read and don't read.

 

+  See the post below for my accolades of the year.

 

+ Next year?  Having failed to meet pretty much every target I've set in the past few years, I'm not setting any this year, sort of!  I would like to see progress on my US and World projects and focus authors, and hope that the proportion of 5/6 star books continues to grow.  I wouldn't mind if the number of books read dropped further, as long as the average page rose in compensation!  Not much different to last year then!  One thing I do positively want to do this year is read more poetry - I've read very little in my life let alone in the past few years.

 

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Accolades for 2022

 

Book of the Year

Couldn't choose between Faulkner and Wulf: each brilliant in their own way, with both Prichard and Dennis hot on their heels.  An excellent year, where several 'mere' shortlisters would have won in other years.

 

Fiction Book of the Year

Winner: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Runner-up: One Moonlit Night by Caradog Prichard

 

Shortlist:

Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann

Golden Hill by Francis Spufford

The Trees by Percival Everett

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

 

Non-fiction Book of the Year

Winner: The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf

Runner-up:  Cottongrass Summer by Roy Dennis

 

Shortlist:

The Astronomer and the Witch by Ulinka Rublack

Samuel Johnson, A Biography by Jon Wain

Michel the Giant by Tete-Michel Kpomassie

 

Duffer of the Year

Winner:  The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith

 

Shortlist

An Honest Deceit by Guy Mankowski

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

 

Discovery of the Year

Three of them this year, and i'm not going to split them!

1.  JB Priestley - local author, totally under my radar until this year. Must read more!

2.  African writing - some fantastic stuff read on my Read Around the World.  Looking forward to more having barely read any previously.

3. David Fairer - another local author, barely known. Just 3 books to his credit - an historical fiction trilogy set in Queen Anne London. Found myself immersed in the first two, really looking forward to the third.

 

Most Disappointing of the Year

The Instant by Amy Liptrot (A complete let down after her superb first book)

 

Reread of the Year

A Maigret Christmas by Georges Simenon.

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Welcome to my reading blog for 2023. This thread is now open!

 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

First Book of the Year

 

It's always good to get the year going.  This year's first completion was Samuel Johnson's The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, a meditation by the great doctor on what makes for a happy life: Prince Rasselas lives a life of luxury, safe from any source of unhappiness, in a secured valley in Abyssinia, but is frustrated by this (whiffs of the life of Siddharta Gautama, the Buddha, here!).  He decides to escape, for as he says in answer to his teacher's attempt to put him off "Sir, if you had seen the miseries of the world, you would know how to value your present state", his reply is "Now you have given me something to desire; I shall long to see the miseries of the world, since the sight of them is necessary to happiness."  He escapes with his sister and a servant, and sets out to explore the outside world and establish precisely what happiness is.

This was published within weeks of Voltaire's Candide, and there are some major similarities, but Johnson is not the cynic that Voltaire is, and the results are not pre-ordained.  It is, perhaps, a slightly harder book to read - the language feels more 18th century and there are more abstract and complex discussions, but it is still eminently readable, and thought provoking.  Not my usual read, but an interesting follow-up to reading Jon Wain's biography of Johnson last year; I have a couple of other books on my list to continue this theme, which I hope to get around to soon.  In the meantime, a good way to start the year off.  3 stars (out of 6).

 

Two books purchased in the sales to also start the year off:

Portable Magic by Emma Smith (a history of books and reading)

The Flow by Amy-Jane Beer ('rivers, waters and wildness')

 

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

On 1/3/2023 at 8:14 PM, willoyd said:

Two books purchased in the sales to also start the year off:

Portable Magic by Emma Smith (a history of books and reading)

The Flow by Amy-Jane Beer ('rivers, waters and wildness')

 

 

And a few more:

 

Agatha Christie by Lucy Worsley (Waterstones half price)

Why Is This A Question? by Paul Jones (ditto)

Dinner With Joseph Johnson by Daisy Hay (ditto)

A Life of James Boswell by Peter Martin (Oxfam)

 

The latest podcast from Slightly Foxed is based around the Daisy Hay book, with her as the main guest - and is a major reason in why I bought it! Really interesting, as ever.  For me, the SF podcasts are the best literary podcasts around; just a pity they are only quarterly nowadays. The Boswell book ties in with my current fascination with all things Samuel Johnson!

[willoyd]

Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou *****

The story of the eponymous boy as he grows up in a Congolese orphanage, later escaping to a life of survival and petty criminality on the streets of Pointe-Noire, whilst seeing himself as a sort of Robin Hood. It's a pretty brutal life, and the violence is notably casual, but the author writes it more in the style of a latter day Don Quixote, a sort of picaresque bildungsroman, than what could have been an unrelentingly grim story. As 'Mose' gradually loses grip on reality, there seems to be an increasingly strong element of that self-deluding Spaniard present right to the end! Overall, this was a fairly easy read which I found myself fairly galloping through. What struck me most was the strong maleness of the book - there are plenty of women, but they aren't drawn in the same depth and seem to flit in and out of the narrative almost casually (that word again!) - although it's the lack of a mother figure, or rather, perhaps, the search for one, that seems to dominate Mose's life. How accurate a reflection of Congolese life at this time this is, I can't say, but there's a ring of authenticity to it that I found convincing - it feels that the author is drawing on personal experience.
Incidentally, the book's title in the original French is 'Petit Piment' or Little Pepper - Mose's nickname in the street gang he belonged to.

Edited September 28, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Three more books

 

The Diet Whisperer by Paul Barrington Chell and Monique Hope-Ross **

Some interesting information, but ultimately disappointingly faddish in it's didactic delivery of the 'one and only' diet.  Tim Spector's work a better place to go IMO.

 

Black England by Gretchen Gerzina ****

A new edition of the 1995 book on the history of black people in Georgina England. A fascinating read really highlighting how black history has been os thoroughly ignored for so long (but then so has most history outside that of white men, particularly 'great' men). I did feel that the author wandered off the subject a bit in the second half, with chapters focusing on subjects such as the translocation of many 'immigrants' to Sierra Leone for instance (with huge overtones of the current Rwanda policy).  Not that they're not relevant, just that the balance felt a bit skewed.

 

Less by Andrew Sean Gear **

A Pulitzer winner (2018), and a book group choice.  I'd never have guessed the former, as this simply wasn't up to the quality of so many other winners that I've read.  Arthur Less basically runs away on a 'road' trip round the world  to avoid his ex-lover's marriage to another partner, and that is essentially it. It started off in reasonably promising fashion, but petered away into a series of supposedly humorous and presumably insightful episodes of culture clash in different locations.  Ultimately it felt tedious and rather cliched, although the title did seem apposite.  I did reach the end, but only by skim reading bits.  A surprising disappointment.

Edited January 22, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid ****

Following on from Black Moses, this was another growing-up story for my world tour, this time centred on a young girl in Antigua. At the core of the novel is her relationship with her mother - initially very intimate, almost overwhelming, later more mixed and complicated as her mother appears to distance herself from her daughter as the latter reaches puberty - there's certainly growing alienation. But then, we're just seeing this from one perspective, and the reliability is uncertain. Annie certainly seeks substitutes, best-friending intensely successively with 2 contrasting peers. Annie is bright, top of her class, but increasingly rebellious, and the novel examines the complexities of her development - all from Annies point of view. It's beautifully written, with a clarity that makes this short, but very full, novel an easy read - almost too much so, as it's all too easy to miss some of the depth as one gallops from page to page. In particular, it touches on a number of different themes, the most prominent (at least to me) being the influence of colonialism. And yet, I never fully engaged with Annie. I think we're meant to sympathise with her, but there's something (fairly small admittedly) missing, possibly created by the temporal jumps between chapters - this is more episodic than continuous narrative (it was originally published as a series of chapters/short stories in The New Yorker). But still a powerful read, which I am likely to return to.

Edited September 28, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna ****

A return to Europe, to Scandinavia, in my Read Around the World project, with a slim volume that is something of a cult read, although one that I didn't really expect to gel with. However, it's short, a mere 135 pages, so I reckoned I could hack it; the reviews are certainly mixed. In the end, though, I needn't have worried, as this actually really struck a chord, not least as I benefited enormously from getting more involved in nature when dealing with work-generated stress issues, even if my experiences were nothing like this! However, whilst this might have been written in the mid-70s, so much of what it's about resonates even more strongly today.

At heart, this is almost pure social satire (which is partly why I didn't expect to get on with it much, satire often going right over my head!). The main protagonist, Kaarlo Vatinen, rescues a hare that his car hits. The act seems to trigger a major reaction in his mind, and he takes off in the the Finnish landscape, leaving job, wife and his whole lifestyle behind, in spite of their efforts to hang on to him. The book then becomes something of a picaresque, almost back to nature, journey, although this is nature that is distinctly red in tooth, claw and fire. In the meantime, the 'civilised' world keeps threatening to intrude, and however dangerous nature might be, the latter is in danger of threatening even more, often ridiculously so.

The book's humour is often cited but, personally, it rarely made me more than smile. But it didn't need to - I still enjoyed the ridiculousness and the satire. As I so often find, I think the satire would be funnier, blackly so, on film, and I do intend to look out the film that was made of it in the 1970s (there are two adaptations apparently, with another French one made later in the 2000s). In the meantime, this proved to be a much more engaging and rewarding book than I expected, one I would recommend to others. even if just to decide for themselves what they think!

Edited January 30, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk ****

Read for one of my book groups, this is eighteenth century historical fiction set initially in London, then transferring to Constantinople for much of the second half. Zachary is the only son of Abel Cloudesley, a clockmaker who specialises in automata. Zachary's mother dies in childbirth, and he is jointly cared for his father, wetnurse Mrs Morley, and great-aunt Frances - with some rivalry between them.  From his mother he acquires second sight, the ability to see another's thoughts and future events when in physical contact with them.  This is a blessing and a curse.

I have a soft spot for the 18th century, and am generally happy reading both fiction and non-fiction based on that era.  This proved no exception - it was an easy book to settle down to, and I rapidly became immersed in the story.  The first half was particularly engaging, but I did take a while to adjust to the shift to Constantinople.  It's noticeable that a number of reviewers say that they felt the book lost its way and them here, and I can understand why, but personally I think it was just the shift from a tightly knit grouping, with all the main characters in close proximity, to a bit of diaspora. This inevitably led to parallel threads, and a common complaint has been about too many diversions, too many characters and a loss of focus. Perhaps, but I enjoyed the narrative complexity and the interweaving threads that this generated, and never felt there was such deflection from the main thrust. OK, he might have over-egged things slightly (but I'm not going to say with what, as I think that would spoil the narrative), and at least one thread could have been left out without affecting the central narrative, but there was something appealing about it that added texture for me.  But then I'm not a fan of one track plotline novels, so characteristic of standard thriller/adventur/crime stories, and like a bit more variety and diversion - it's a story!  Such complexity takes some handling, but, especially given it was a first book, I thought the author coped well, and gathered in the threads very effectively. I was certainly relieved that the 'magical realism' aspect, Zachary's second sight, wasn't overdone and, whilst playing an important role, didn't dominate to the extent that the title of the book threatened it might.  All in all, this proved an enjoyable read, and I look forward to reading more from this author.  BTW - loved the cover!

Edited September 28, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

I need to catch up with some of my reviews, but in the meantime, this is the latest read, my 20th book in Reading Around the World - 10% there!

 

The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas *****

Another slim Scandinavian volume, regarded as a literary classic by many, this was my book for Norway.  It's hypnotic, highly poetic in style, very lean, even simple, in its language, using a range of techniques that appear to upend many of the norms of 'good' writing (eg deliberately repeating words or phrases, multiple times sometimes, in sentences, really focusing the reader's mind). It's one of those books that is a captivating read even if not sure I fully understood everything going on; it cries out to be reread, probably several times.   There's so much packed in here, that even though it's only 140 pages long, I felt at the end as if I'd read a book at least double the length, and that was not due to boredom!  I also find it very hard to describe my reaction - almost too complex, and much easier to talk than write about it - but perhaps it's sufficient to say for the moment that I've immediately ordered a copy of Vesaas's other major work available in English, The Birds.

Edited September 28, 2023 by willoyd