Willoyd's Reading 2024

[willoyd]

09.  The Sorrow of War by Nao Binh **

The book for Vietnam in my Reading The World project. This is a classic of the Vietnamese war I understand, on a par with All Quiet on the Western Front and other war greats. I can see sort of see why, but personally I found this a tough, unrewarding read, boring me rigid before I reached half way, and struggling to make it to the end of what is, after all, only a slim 220 pages or so. Graphic in detail (the even mildly squeamish should be wary), unrelenting in its grimness, it may well be an all too starkly accurate portrayal of what the war was like, but I also found it repetitious and narrow in its language (this, of course, may be a function of the translation), equally repetitious in its narrative, and disjointed in its telling - chronological this is not (I don't normally find this a problem, but on this occasion it just confused). The odd attempt at metafiction just felt clumsy. All of this, for some readers (actually, most readers from the reviews - I'm definitely in a minority here) may well add to the impact, or carry this into the realms of the classic, but I'm afraid it just lost me about a quarter of the way in, and with only occasional remissions, it remained that way to the end, by which time I was really having to force myself not to leave it unfinished (I'm really trying to ensure I read books all the way through for this project, even if it's one I'd normally abandon). I'm sure this is down to inadequacy as a reader on my part, but this was a book I was glad, relieved, to put behind me.

[willoyd]

10.  The Offing by Benjamin Myers *****
We're reading a Myers book for my next book group (The Perfect Golden Circle), but as I've read it before (I may still reread) I decided to try one of his that I hadn't read. My local indie shop owner, knowing I was after something a bit lighter, suggested this.  Spot on!  It's an elegiac look back by the narrator, Robert, to a time just after the Second World War when, as a young man on the cusp of moving from school to the mines in his Durham coalfield village, decides to 'take off' for a few weeks in the summer to explore the world around him on foot. He lands up in Robin's Hood Bay (on the North Sea coas)t, and meets up with and develops a friendship with an older woman living on her own. It's a Bildungsroman, but aside from that, reminds me very much of perhaps my favourite book, A Month In the Country, as in both the (young male) narrator's character and relationships develop over an English rural summer with a quietly powerful long term impact on their life.  - it's not quite there, not being as nuanced, nor with quite the variety of tone and he plot development that was part of what marked AMITC out, but it was a beautifully poetic read with an interesting development, that I can see myself going back to. Benjamin Myers is an author who is gradually growing on me - he's not (so far anyway!) spectacular or showy (although I'm told that a couple of his books that I have yet to read are very different), but quietly gets under your skin. An initial five star read,but could easily get kicked up a level later. (BTW, 'offing' is apparently the name for the distant part of the sea that's in view - the part where the horizon meets the sky).

[willoyd]

Currently reading the big one!
Could well not be posting much over the next month or so, as have at last got stuck into a book that have been intending to get to grips with for some time now, my choice for Ireland in Reading the World - the almost inevitable Ulysses*! Am around 150 pages in (Leopold Bloom has just arrived at the cemetery).  Am being helped along by Patrick Hastings' The Guide to James Joyce's Ulysses, which has a useful summary of each episode, which I'm reading as a follow-up - and it does help.  I've also got one of the annotated versions on my Kindle, and that's been really useful too understanding some of the references, although one could get hopelessly bogged down if checking out each one!

But even before using these, I'm starting to find it utterly addictive. In places it's almost hypnotic in its rhythms. It's particularly picked up since Leopold Bloom appeared (in section 4, Calypso) - his internal narrative is rather more down to earth than Stephen Dedalus's and have almost instiinctively warmed to him.  If anything (and only so far!) have found it an easier read than expected, although section 3 (Proteus) left me gasping rather especially at the start.

It's going to need a reread though, I can already see that!! In the meantime, I had expected that I might need to intersperse with some lighter reading and that I would likely have to be quite structured/organised in my reading to get through, but at present, I'm loving the exploration and positively wanting to pick it up and get stuck into the next bit, so we'll see!

*In fact, Ulysses was from the word go, at the heart of the project, as set it as the baseline, the earliest, book that could be read.  I started Reading The World in 2022, the centenary year of the book's publication, and it was the first book I chose for a country.  Sort of made sense that books should come from the last 100 years - or at least in the years since Ulysses was published.

[willoyd]

11.  Not A River by Selva Almada *****

Much as I'm loving Ulysses, it's a book that I think I'm going to need the occasional break from, and this is the first! Reading various articles on publishers of books in translation (particularly a Guardian profile piece on several UK indie publishers), my eyes picked out this book from Charco Press in a tabletop display in my local Waterstones during a browse earlier this week. I've not read any of their books yet, but the name was familiar from the articles. A quick glance, and I knew I was hooked, not least by the production values (I'm a sucker, especially, for French flaps!). I've since discovered it's on the longlist for this year's International Booker and, having read it, I'm not surprised.
At only 99 pages (including a fascinating translator's note), this was a short but absolutely compulsive read: two friends are on a river fishing trip with the teenage son of another friend who died on a previous visit. They successfully land (by shooting!) a monster ray, which attracts the attention and the ire of local villagers, threatening as the book progresses to boil over in violence. The story tells of how the relationship pans out, with flashbacks centred both on the fishermen and the villagers' lives fleshing out both how they got here, and why things work out the way they do. It's a carefully, tightly woven narrative, made all the tighter by Almeda's very lean language and the spartan use of punctuation and paragraphing. So often this latter makes life harder, but the author's style rapidly grew on me, and it really did add to the atmosphere and my involvement as a reader (I may have been helped by the fact that I'm a few hundred pages into Ulysses, which has similar traits that actually made this feel relatively easy!). Almeda's focus is primarily on aspects of masculinity, much toxic, in a strongly patriarchal society, and some of the fallout from this, with this being the third in a thematically related trilogy of books (they each stand alone, with no narrative or character crossover, so don't need to be read in order).
Yet, whilst the questions are asked and themes aired, this is also, in its simplest terms, a brilliantly told story, with a twist that both took me utterly by surprise, and made me go back to reread whole sections (easy enough when there's only 99 pages!) to tease out the clues, indeed large bites of narrative meaning, that I'd missed. This was a book which produced a genuine "Oh I see it now!" moment well after I'd reached the end. Maybe (probably!) I'm just a bit thick, but I did enjoy the revelatory experience!
So, a very happy impulse choice (perhaps not the right word, as this is a very dark book!), and a great one for Argentina, the 37th country to be visited in Reading The World.

[willoyd]

Four more to note whilst progressing to page 400 or so in Ulysses:

 

12. The Perfect Golden Circle by Benjamin Myers ****
A reread for one of my book groups of a book I enjoyed last June. Similar to The Offing in style (see book 10 this year), again set in a sultry summer in the English countryside. This time a study of a friendship between 2 men, creating crop circles in the wheat fields of southern England, each chapter centred on a single creation. I love Myers's almost otherworldly descriptions, although his biggest weakness, IMO, is a tendency to overelaborate simile - trying just a bit too hard. When he keeps it figurative-lite (or not at all), he's superb! His central characters have an interesting depth to them, and there's a lovely thread of gentle humour throughout. Eminently readable, this actually improved on second reading. The Offing still has the edge though, but it is just an edge!

 

13. The Years by Annie Ernaux *****
A reread (last read in December) for a book group. Better than I remember it, because this time I made sure I tracked events recorded, based as it is so much on French cultural and political history, about which I know little beyond a basic list of presidents. The whole approach fascinates, and it generated some lively discussion, pretty much all of which was very positive about the book.

14. Caroline by Richmal Crompton **
Another book group read, and rather underwhelming. Crompton is of course best known for her Just William books, but she wrote a significant number of adult novels too, most of which have disappeared into the print ether, hard to obtain even second-hand. A few have been reprinted, and generally acclaimed, but I have to say if this is an accurate sample, her writing hasn't aged well for me, and this felt badly dated, and very predictable. I'm also reading Family Roundabout in the Persephone Press edition. Similar in style, but hopefully just a bit less so on both fronts (although not convinced yet).

15. Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo ****
A classic of Mexican writing apparently, which is why I chose it for my Reading the World project, included in a list of world's 100 most important works by the Nobel committee, and a major influence on Latin American literature. Slim at only 125 pages but anything but a short or straightforward read with chronological shifts, dead talking to the alive (and other dead!), and a style of writing that sometimes makes it quite hard to workout who is being written about and who is talking. To be honest, half way through I was feeling decidely unenamoured, but it grew on me and is, I think, a book that needs to be read more than once to work out what is going on, and interesting enough that it's worth reading more than once! I was relieved to read that even Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the writer of the Foreword of the translation I read, reckoned it's a difficult one! I'm not going to write a more detailed review, simply because I don't really have a lot more I feel I can say. Maybe once I've given it another go!

 

 

[willoyd]

Reading Catchup Part 1 (May!)

 

I've got a long way behind posting reviews and keeping things up to date, so a couple of posts to sort that out.  The last book I've reviewed here is Pedro Paramo, finished at the end of April, so the following should bring me one month closer, covering my reading for May. A fairly long post, with 7 books reviewed:

 

16.  Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton ***
My second Richmal Crompton in short order, mainly because my book group, rather than designating one book for the month, agreed that we would each read at least one book by Crompton, and see if we can discuss her as a writer, rather than focusing on the one book. I've also had this Persephone Press edition on my shelves for a while, so everything fitted neatly together....

In many respects this represents typical Persephone fair - a mid-twentieth century female author whose writing has been largely overlooked in recent years, telling a story of domestic life. Crompton's adult books haven't just been overlooked, they've virtually disappeared, and until recently even secondhand copies were very hard to come by, unlike her 'Just William' children's novels, which have an almost cult following. Persephone's revival of Family Roundabout saw a reversal of that, and Faber have built on this with the republication of half a dozen or so of her other titles in digital/print to order editions - which is where I sourced Caroline from.

As one would expect from a Persephone book, Family Roundabout is easily read, and generally feels well written. However, in spite of the phalanx of 4 and 5 star reviews online, I have to confess to mild disappointment at the end of this 350-page read. There's nothing inherently 'wrong' about the book, but it all felt a bit run of the mill and predictable. The story centres on the domestic lives of two largeish families over a period of 20 years, 1920-39, each ruled (in very different ways) by the family matriarch: the old-word, slightly faded, genteel Fowlers and the rather brasher, more commercially orientated Willoughbys, linked by the marriage of two of the second generaton (of three covered). The latter family is ruled with a rod of iron, the former is rather more gently supported. And from that, the story follows fairly obvious tramlines. The characters themselves conform to largely straightforward two dimensional patterns, the women showing a bit more variety and depth compared to the men, the latter almost without exception rather mediocre and/or 'wet' - on this evidence Richmal Crompton has a fairly low opinion of the male of the species.

Having now read two of Crompton's adult novels, I think that's probably enough to be going on with. I'm not sure if I'll read any more - i certainly don't feel any particular desire to do so, although Family Roundabout was an improvement on Caroline. In summary, the books came across as pleasant, rather bland, obvious and mildly dated ways to pass the time, so not really my sort of books.

 

17.  The Plague by Albert Camus *****
One of those books where a review by someone like me seems almost pointless, so high up the ladder of acclaim and regard does this sit, and how ignorant I am of the relevant philosophies, but suffice to say that this has all the power and provocation of thought that one would expect from such a classic. It also surprised me in being a thoroughly good read: Camus's language is fairly spare and straightforward, but his evocation of place and atmosphere is so strong, and his characters all too human - perhaps not surprising for such a proponent of existentialism (at least as far as I understand it). Having struggled somewhat with studying L'Etranger at school, this turned out to be a real 'pleasure' (if that is the right word for a book about such a dark subject) to read. Read for one of my book groups.

 

18. Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco ***
Read for my World project as the book forThe Philippines. Strangely two-dimensional, overly complex, over-written, this was a book that I had really looked forward to reading but ultimately found disappointing. Seemed to take forever to finish. I'm not sure quite why I've rated it as high as 3 stars, but credit where credit is due - the idea was clever (and should have been entertaining and intriguing), and there were some excellent individual scenes. This should have been a great book, but the author seemed to spend too much time trying to impress rather than engage the reader.

 

19. The Collini Case by Ferdinand von Schirach ****
A book group read that I read in one sitting - gripping. Leanly written, evoking much in surprisingly few words; understated yet packing an important message, with much to say on the impact of its Nazi past on post-war Germany (at least the legal side of things!).  My one criticism perhaps was the lack of character depth, but this wasn't what the book was about. I'd never heard of this before it was nominated by another member, but was glad to have read it, one of the main reasons for joining a book group! We will have much to discuss when the group next meets - another reason.

 

20.  Why We Get Sick by Benjamin Bikman ***
An examination of insulin resistance - what it is, how it's caused, how to deal with it. Being prediabetic myself, I found Bikman's take, that prediabetes/diabetes is actually just a symptom of a broader underlying problem, very interesting. I don't know enough of the science to be able to judge how accurate this is, but it generally makes eminent sense based on what else I've read (and my own experience), although I'm wary of some of the stronger strictures. Three stars is my standard grade for a non-fiction book that satisfactorily fulfills a function even if it isn't (and doesn't set out to be!) a great 'read'.

 

21.  The U.S. Civil War by Louis P Masur ***
One of the excellent OUP Very Short Introductions. Does what it says on the tin: a concise introduction to the subject, in this case the American Civil War. It's a period I find I'm increasingly interested in, but a period I also find very hard to develop any sort of framework for - I suspect because the geography is so unfamiliar. This went some way towards helping with that, so that hopefully I'll be able to read some of the more indepth material on my shelves and keep track of what is going on. Not written for the complete beginner unfortunately, with assumptions of understanding/knowledge made (perhaps written for the American rather than European reader?), but helpful all the same. A functional 3 stars.

 

22.  By The River by various writers ***
One of a series of volumes of essays published by Daunt Books (nice production with attractive cover and French flaps) on a variety of themes, this one obviously based around rivers. Attractive to look at, but sadly a bit disappointing, with all too many of the essays seemingly barely touching on the actual subject! I enjoyed Jo Hamya's "I Felt Sure She Had Gone Down To The River", focused on Virginia Woolf's suicide in the River Ouse, Roger Deakin's wild swim and discussion on access in "Approaching the Itchen" and Michael Malay's "Nightfishing" on eels (perhaps the highlight). Amy Jane Beer's "What Is A River" came close, but largely just reprocessed aspects of her excellent book The Flow. Otherwise, to be honest, I wondered why some were even included. None were bad, and the writing was pretty much universally very readable, but I reached the end of too many thinking 'so what?' All in all ok, but rather underwhelming as, given the writers, I was expecting so much more.

Edited July 8 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Reading Catchup Part 2 (June):

 

23. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett ****
Read as my book for Virginia in my tour of the States.

Commonwealth is the story of two families and how they become intertwined when the father of one 'runs off' with the mother of the other. The six children (4 and 2) become almost a tribe united in their dislike of their parents. The result (and this novel is very much centred on consequences) culminates in tragedy with which the families have to learn to live, and then in the fallout when one of the (now adult) children tells the story to her partner, a famous author in decline, who uses the plot as the basis of what becomes his bestseller, also entitled Commonwealth.

Both story and characters are complex and multi-layered: the chronology shifts backwards and forwards, as do the relationships, and it's not always easy to keep track of the multiple members of the families - it wasn't difficult if I sat down and thought, but I did need to do that sitting back on several occasions to just mentally review who was related to who and how. To be honest, I wasn't overly engaged for the first half of the book, not least because this seemed to be heading down a fairly obvious track, but I suddenly found myself engrossed, and I positively enjoyed both the structure and the character development as they developed into the second half. No stereotypes these!

As touched on above, this is very much a story of consequences, of knock-on impacts, almost of the butterfly effect as it might affect lives - indeed that life as it pans out for all of us is can so easily be influenced, changed, by the smallest of events and actions, and that it's not just how lives are impacted, but how characters are changed. In the end, having not been a huge enthusiast a good way into the book, I found myself really quite disappointed when I came to the end!

 

24. The Sea Detective by Mark Douglas-Home ****
Crime detection with an interesting twist - the main protagonist is an expert in ocean currents and forensic marine research. Some of the characterisation is a bit simplistic, not quite matching the quality of plotting, but still a thoroughly enjoyable, easy read, that I didn't want to put down, and where I intend to go on and read the sequels.

 

25. The Details by Ia Genberg *****
My book for Sweden in my world tour. Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, this was actually a choice for one of my book groups. It didn't make a huge impact on most members, who were pretty flat about it, but I and one other were distinctly more enthusiastic! Split into 4 chapters, each effectively a character study of an individual who made a significant impact on the narrator, recollecting them through the fog of a virus. The descriptions and writing were distinctly unfoggy (in fact, the illness felt trivial, simply an excuse to explain, unnecessarily in my opinion, why the narrator was recalling them), the precision and detail (inevitably given the title) marking the whole, very slim, book out. For me the character studies actually said as much if not more about the narrator than the subjects - in the creation, the development and the ending, as these were all relationships that had finished in one way or another (or had they? Part of the novel was surely about how the relationships had, in their own way, continued and affected the narrator). Whilst I found the book thoroughly engaging, immersive even, almost more interesting than the characters described (and none were particularly likeable, or even ones that I cared about) were those who were left out, not least the friend who appears in all 4 chapters almost as a common thread. Presumably (in pat) because that relationship still existed? But others surely didn't.  All in all, whilst there was very much a 'could take it or leave it' air about most of the group discussion, I found this to be one of the strongest reads I've had so far this year, and feel very glad to have read a book that would almost certainly not have otherwise crossed my horizon.

 

26. A Heart So White by Javier Marias ***
Read both for one of my book groups, and as the book for Spain in my round world tour. This is probably Marias's best known book, and it starts with a bang (literally) as a young newly-wed, Teresa, commits suicide during a family meal. The book is narrated by her nephew Juan, daughter of her sister Juana and Ranz, the man who was Teresa's husband at the time and who later marries her younger sibling. In simple terms, it's a mystery around why Teresa killed herself, but it is actually far (and I mean FAR) more complicated than that.

Juan, an interpreter is recently married to another interpreter, Luisa. Juan contemplates the nature of marriage, relationships (one of equals, or is it always a case of one manipulating/compelling the other?), and secrets (especially in a marriage). His own style is highly voyeuristic, but voyeurism through voice rather than sight, his interpreter skills focusing in on the subtleties and importance of language and verbal communication. Marias was himself an interpreter and translator (including the Spanish version of Tristram Shandy!), so it's interesting as to how much of this might be autobiographically drawn.

Equally, the book itself is a translation from Spanish, and much of our group discussion circled around the importance of this in both understanding and enjoying the book: Margaret Jull Costa chose to stick to the original Spanish structure - where sentences at times extended to half a page or more, and commas functioned much as full stops would do in original English. This, according to a bilingual member of our group, is relatively easily handleable in Spanish and not untypical, but whether it was the most appropriate style to adopt in English was subject to much (and rather inconclusive!) debate. This all on top a looping narrative, including repetition of themes and even individual phrases and paragraphs. To be honest, most of us got used to the style, and some, indeed, came to positively enjoy it (no different, for instance to the lack of speech marks or full stops in some original English works?). It didn't, however, make the reading an easier, and several (including me) found it hard to read large chunks of the book at one go - a chapter or two at a time was enough for me (and they weren't long).

As a book group choice, this proved a thoroughly successful selection, as it stimulated a really lively and thoughtful discussion, both in terms of the themes addressed, and in terms of our views on the book itself, these ranging from 'hatred' to 'love' - perhaps the widest range of opinion we've had for a while. Most did enjoy it though, and found it rewarding to read, whilst all agreed they were glad to have read it (different to enjoyment)! I remain slightly ambivalent - definitely glad to have read, not so sure about anything else. In one respect I want to reread it - there was much to reflect on, much I wanted to go back over, much I wanted to read again in the light of later reading, but I have to admit finding it tough going at times, especially in the third quarter where a particularly bizarre relationship was put under the microscope. On that front, I would suggest it's definitely not a book to read if you need to like your characters (or I think even care for them). If I do go back to it, I think I need a rest. It could be a long rest too!

Edited August 31 by willoyd

[willoyd]

July so far!

 

27. English Journey by JB Priestley ***
Read in parallel with Stuart Maconie's The Full English (see below). A fascinating historical document, one person's snapshot of 1933 England, in the 'calm' before the storm of World War 2. This was particularly so, as I read it in the Folio Society edition, illustrated with contemporary photographs. Priestley is not afraid to express how he sees things, and finds much both to like and to be angry about. There are also some juddering moments when, at best, one has to accept that this is not a contemporary writer! I was surprised to find it quite hard work to finish - just felt long. (I was very surprised that my own village on the outtskirts of Leeds was mentioned twice, even if only in passing!).

 

28. The Full English by Stuart Maconie ****
A modern retracing of JB Priestley's English Journey. I picked this up almost at random (and then, when I realised what it was, started reading Priestley's book in parallel to fully follow Maconie's efforts at repeating Priestley's experience), and half expected it to be one of those light, attempting-to-be-humorous travelogues that are either a pleasant easy read, or cringemaking (a la Tim Moore). In the event, this pleasantly surprised, as it was rather better, being much more straightforward and down to earth, more an attempt to put a finger on the pulse of England today. It doesn't dig any deeper than taking a pulse, but in that it, at least for me, succeeded. It was certainly an interesting historical update!

 

29. Thunderclap by Laura Cumming  ******
Initially a Christmas present from my OH, then also a book group choice (which encourage me to get around to reading it!). Why oh why did I delay? I had read and enjoyed Cumming's On Chapel Sands, which focused on her mother, this went down the paternal route. Cumming herself is art critic for the Guardian, and the daughter of Scottish artist, James Cumming. The book is a memoir around him and of the importance of Dutch art in Laura's life, focused particularly on Carel Fabritius and in particular his painting 'A View of Delft'. I found it beautifully written, perfectly balanced, and a totally captivating read (I also learned a lot!). The sort of book where you want to start again immediately. It's also the sort of book I want to write more about, but I think I'll leave that until I've reread it! Comfortably the best book I've read so far this year.

 

30. A Flat Place by Noreen Masud **
Like Thunderclap above, this was shortlisted for this year's inaugural Women's Prize for Non-fiction - another memoir, but utterly different, both in its writing and in my experience of the book. Masud has been diagnosed as suffering from complex post-traumatic disorder, the result of an abusive upbringing in Pakistan, from which she escaped to Britain (when her father disowned her) in her mid-teens. The book takes as its theme her fascination with flat places, tied up with her illness, the series of chapters each focusing on a different location - the first in Pakistan, the rest in Britain - reflecting the flatness she herself feels. It's a slim volume, barely 200 pages, a book widely acclaimed for the quality of writing, but I have to say I struggled. To me, it was in fact a bit of a mess. The initial chapter (focusing on the author's early life in Lahore) whilst laying some groundwork to understanding the causes of her cPTSD, left quite a few questions unanswered, deliberately so I felt. I did think clarification would come in later chapters, where discussion of her illness and therapy was interwoven with her experience of the different British flat places, but no, the obscurity remained. Instead, her (understandable) anger seemed to widen to include negative commentary on British racism, colonialism and weakness, the very homogeneity of which smacked (to me) of the very same traits she was accusing people of. And, on a very trivial note for some, any book that includes even one phrase along the lines of "where me and my sister slept when we visited" (p.159) can not possibly be described as 'beautifully written'. Sorry!

I think there were two main problems with this book for me. The first is partly of my own making: I came to this expecting a book largely about the various 'flat places' themselves, and to some extent it was, but only to the extent of how they affected her and her illness, in a very tightly focused way: they simply became, to me, overheavily used metaphors. The former was almost inevitable I suppose, given the introspective, isolationist, nature of the illness as the author describes it (about the only being that she seems initially to have a successful relationship with is her cat, although the late chapter describing her time with her mother suggests an improvement in that relationship), but whereas several reviewers have commented on finding the 'nature' material less interesting, I found the balance too much the other way, suggesting a falling between two stools. (With the chapter on Orkney featuring so prominently, I was strongly reminded of Amy Liptrot's, The Outrun, which to my mind was a far stronger, more coherent, book). Interestingly, in her end note, the author herself says that the book started "solely, [as] a study of encounters with flat landscapes. It was in writing it....that I came to understand that the complex trauma I sustained in my early life was an element which could not be omitted",

Secondly, another reviewer pointed out that in Safiya Sinclair's How To Say Babylon the author is told to hold off writing her memoir until she is cured (IIRC). In A Flat Place, it's apparent that Masud's illness is ongoing. Obviously some illnesses are permanent (Is this? Very possibly, but actually I don't feel we learned much about the condition, and again only in how it related very tightly to the author herself*), but this book did come over as someone who is still very heavily enmeshed in the process, and I wonder if that is why it felt so muddled and egocentric (yes, I know it's a memoir, but this was so about 'me').

*In the endnote, Masud states that she is "less interested in the diagnosis, or the term, than in the particularities of the way I experience of my life." and, indeed, questions the legitimacy of the word trauma as being a purely "Western paradigm". To be honest, I would have appreciated her having this discussion earlier in the book, as it puts a completely different slant on what one has understood to have learned to that point.

[France]

13 hours ago, willoyd said:

J

 

 

29. Thunderclap by Laura Cumming  ******
 I found it beautifully written, perfectly balanced, and a totally captivating read (I also learned a lot!). The sort of book where you want to start again immediately. It's also the sort of book I want to write more about, but I think I'll leave that until I've reread it! Comfortably the best book I've read so far this year.

 

 

I couldn't agree with you more! I learnt so much and it's so enticingly written - my one frustration was that I had it on my Kobo (an impulse buy because it was 99p and looked "quite interesting" which shows why buying ebooks on a whim can be a good thing) and I had to keep on stopping to look up the pictures she was writing about on my phone. I'm definitely going too buy a proper copy to savour.

[willoyd]

On 7/27/2024 at 1:51 PM, France said:

I couldn't agree with you more! I learnt so much and it's so enticingly written - my one frustration was that I had it on my Kobo (an impulse buy because it was 99p and looked "quite interesting" which shows why buying ebooks on a whim can be a good thing) and I had to keep on stopping to look up the pictures she was writing about on my phone. I'm definitely going too buy a proper copy to savour.

 I've now accumulated all four of her books in hardback, having got hold of copies of A Face To The World and The Vanished Man in the past few days (on abebooks).  Having said that, even with the pictures provided in the book, I found myself looking up others that are mentioned but not shown!

[willoyd]

31.  Runaway by Alice Munro  ***
Read as the book for Canada in my Reading The World project. I've long intended to try Alice Munro's work. I'm not inherently a short story fan, the only writer ever really grabbing me being Katherine Mansfield, but, after all, Munro is a Nobel Prize winner, and regarded as one of the greats of short story writing.
There is no doubt in my mind that she is a brilliant writer - there's a quality to her work that shines through, and I certainly had no difficult in finishing the book. However, the fundamental problem remains - these are short stories and Munro just doesn't overcome that for me. One Runaway reviewer likens short stories to endgame studies in chess as compared to the novel / full game, and that sums the issue up perfectly for me: there's an artificiality of context, a lack of development that the short story writer simply can't get away from. They're great to examine, to practise on, but they lack the depth that only a full game can provide. They always seem to have one specific point they're trying to make, one twist that gives the story an 'ending' before it's fully started. Munro tackles these issues far better than most writers I've come across: her character development given the lack of space is remarkable (although her men don't work for me), but she still lacks the space to really get to grips, and whilst I can sit back and admire her work, it just doesn't hold me (I regularly find myself checking out how many pages to the end), not least because of the slightly surreal atmosphere that permeates so many. It doesn't help also that every one (as happens with most short stories it seems) ends in almost predictable disappointment - they reek of melancholia - and it's not only the characters who are disappointed either... So, a decent enough read, but nothing there that screams at me to want to read more, and confirmation that, even in the hands of the best, short stories really don't work for me (although there's always Katherine Mansfield!). I live in hope though.

Edited August 14 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Two contrasting books!

 

32.  Permafrost by Eva Baltasar *****
The first in a trilogy of books examining aspects of contemporary women's lives. I was first attracted to this when working out which book to read for Spain in my Reading The World project. Whilst it was pipped at the post by a book group choice (Javier Marias), it was still on my list of 'must try's.  Totally out of my comfort zone, but there was something utterly appealing when browsing.  Punchy, nervy, electric - life as seen through the eyes of an internally vulnerable and potentially suicidal young lesbian narrator (almost completely my opposite!), told through a series of short chapters, and utterly gripping to read - I galloped through it, with a finish that took my breath away.  It's actually a book I find very hard to describe, even harder to categories, and to some extent much of it almost washed over me - I'm really going to have to read it again soon - but I've already bought the second volume, [Boulder], and await the third (English translation due out this month) with keen anticipation!

 

33.  Normal Rules Don't Apply  by Kate Atkinson *
I remember reading some of Atkinson's early books with pleasure, and particularly enjoyed her first Jackson Brodie novel Case Histories, but have gradually become less and less enamoured with her writing, starting with Emotionally Weird. She seems popular with book groups, and the last couple I've read (including God in Ruins) have been group choices. Either she's changed (possibly) or I have (more likely), but she's no longer a writer of choice for me.  And then, this month,  one of my groups not only decided on the latest Atkinson, but it's a set of 'connected' short stories, a genre I'm not overly struck with anyway (see my notes on Alice Monro's Runaway above).
So, Normal Rules Don't Apply was always up against it, but I was open to persuasion!  And I was persuaded: that finally, and irrevocably, Kate Atkinson and I part company.  This was an utter mess.  There were a couple of interesting ideas (the Void in the first story being one), but the further in I progressed, the more ridiculous, the more self-indulgent this book felt, the more  it came across as a scrap book of half-worked ideas that hadn't quite made it beyond the draft phase.  Yes, there were connections, but these soon became tiresome, there for the sake of being there, and all too often failing to move the narrative, or characters, on.  Indeed, the characterisations felt utterly flat to me - the women in particular all the same, just with different names - and the narratives all circling around each story's punchline, as this was the sort of short story the author appears to favour.  As the title suggests, normal rules don't apply, with a fair sprinkling of talking animals, fairy tale characters, etc etc, but to work, there needs to be some sort of coherence or consistency, and there wasn't.  It was just unappealing, uninteresting, nonsense.  My first one star review of the year (only the second in two years), and a prime contender for the 2024 Duffer award.

 

Edited August 31 by willoyd

[willoyd]

35*.  Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk ******

Read as the book for Poland in my Reading the World project. Superficially a murder mystery, this is a book that offers so much more - a book that (although much lighter) reminded me of The Name of the Rose. 60+ year old Janina Dusszejko (although she won't thank me for using her name - she hates it) lives in deep countryside on the Polish-Czech border. One night, her neighbour Oddball (she ascribes names to people rather than use their given names) disturbs, having found the dead body of another neighbour Big Foot. It's the first of a series of deaths, some more mysterious than others, and the development of a murder hunt, with all the victims members of the local hunting club.

Janina herself is 'different'. Whether she's just a 'mad old woman', as the local authorities see her as, or merely 'eccentric' or 'unconventional', or somewhere on a spectrum is left to the reader's judgement, but she is an absolutely fascinating and powerfully drawn character, especially interested in animals (with whom she relates better than most humans), astrology and the poetry of William Blake, who, whilst socially isolated in some ways and certainly highly individual, even reclusive, still manages to develop a small, tight, coterie of friends - a group of friends on the fringe of society, and largely disregarded by those with power (even when closely related!). As a reader, I found myself on several occasions drawn along by Janina's thought processes, completely agreeing with what she was thinking, particularly recognising the weaknesses/features/tics she zooms in on in others (eg the constant repetition of standard, on trend phrases), and then suddenly finding myself realising that I've been pulled along so far, and that we're now in the realms of what I would regard as extreme or at the very least 'individual' behaviour/attitudes. She's certainly not afraid to speak out, but when, for instance, one reads her letters of 'advice' to the local police, one starts to see why the word 'mad' is applied - but where does 'normality' end and 'madness' begin? Janina's strong belief in astrology is one side of the line for some, and tending to the opposite for others. Her equally strong belief in animal rights threatens to take her views over the divide (at least for many people), but then when the hypocrisy with which she's dealing with fully reveals itself, her extreme doesn't seem to be quite so extreme after all - or maybe it still is? Tokarczuk appears to thoroughly enjoy playing around with our perceptions of the 'normal' and the 'extreme', teasing us, none more so than in the her handling of the denouement!

Even so, I think I missed a lot: several reviews touch on the relevance of so much of this novel specifically to attitudes, politics and the role of religion in Poland that completely passed me by (until explained!). But even missing that, this is a book that both thoroughly entertained (it's genuinely funny in places) and constantly pulled me up short and made me think. I have to admit, I did rather glide over some (most!) of the astrology, but that was it - the rest was riveting, one of the strongest pieces of fiction I've read this year (and a bit of a relief after the one-star nonsense of the previous book!).

 

*Book 34 was The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald, a reread for one of my book groups. 

Edited September 7 by willoyd

[willoyd]

The first of a series of catch-up reviews:

 

36. The Boundless River by Mathijs Deen *****
A series of 'stories' set around the River Rhine, or, more accurately the Rhine and its tributaries. Early on in the book, Deen talks to a hydrologist about the source of the river, and is told off for focusing in on one 'source' - that the river should be treated as a whole, and that the only 'source' is the rain that falls on the entire catchment. Some of the stories are historical, some contemporary. Some are historical narrative, some are accounts of meetings with people, some are told as stories based on events - the collection (I think they're marginally better described as essays) is eclectic, wide ranging, and thoroughy readable. I did find the stories based on history a bit lightweight - I'd have preferred more history and less fictionalisation, but it certainly left me wanting to know more. I think the aim is to give an overall impression of the history, impact and even personality of the river - and on that I think it succeeds. Having cycled the length of the Rhine a few years ago, I feel quite a strong personal engagement with the river, and this both added to that, and made me want to explore more of the region. My only regret was that it wasn't a thicker book (!), - I wanted more!

[willoyd]

37. The Book Censor's Library by Bothayna Al-Essa ******
Translated from the Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain.
The book for Kuwait in my global reading project, this is a fantastical satire examining the rise of authoritarianism and the dangers of book censorship : 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 are obvious influences, but oh is this so timely. In a post-Revolution society where imagination and much technology is banned, and conforming to 'logic' is the rule, the unnamed protagonist of this book finds himself a member of the team of book censors responsible for approving (or not) the books people are allowed to read. He's desperate to conform, but finds himself being sucked into the joys of reading (triggered off by reading Zorba the Greek) and into the resistance, the Cancers. At the same time, his daughter is showing scary signs of imagination, where fairy stories (and where did she acquire her knowledge of them) are all too real, making her vulnerable to being shipped off to one of the much feard child rehabilitation centres.

I'm not normally a fan of satire, and definitely not of dystopian fiction (and this is both), but, like our protagonist, I was unrelentingly sucked into complete addiction. This was almost an effortless read, particularly noteable given the darkness of the subject matter, the writing crisp and sharp, with not a trace of having been translated. The fantastical element, well controlled, added an edge that both intrigued and entertained (all those rabbits!). Unusually for me, there were some genuine laugh out loud moments. Yet this book is deadly serious, and there were moments which exemplified why I don't enjoy (if that's the right word) dystopian fiction.

All in all, a brilliant read. Not quite a 'favourite' (can such a book ever be one?) but another outstanding read on my world tour.  Glad to get a book for Kuwait, they are few and far between in this country.  This one has only recently become available in the UK (and the book is noteably even then printed and published in the States).

[willoyd]

38. Oxygen by Andrew Miller ***
Read for one of my book groups. I've previously read a couple of Miller's later books, which I've really enjoyed, and I mean really enjoyed, both featuring on my favourites list, so I was delighted that my group chose one of his to read for our September meeting. This was a bit different from the get-go, as the previous two, Pure and Now We Shall Be Entirely Free, had both been historical fiction, whilst this was contemporary. It focuses on four characters: Alice Valentine, an elderly woman dying from cancer, Larry and Alex, her two sons (Larry an ex-pro tennis player and recently written-out soap star in America, gradually disconnecting from wife and troubled young daughter, and struggling to adjust; Alex a translator and currently caring for his mother), and Laszlo Lazar, a Hungarian emigre and playwright living in Paris. Laszlo is tenuously connected to the first three through Alex, as Alex is translating one of his plays into English. Chapters focus on one character at a time (in no particular order), and much of the story is told as through the subject's eyes.

The writing is, as with both previous reads, brilliant. I love the precision and detail painting a vivid picture, sucking me in to each scene. This and the perspectives taken meant that the characters were really fleshed out too, so for about the first quarter or so of the book I was enthralled. Gradually, however, I found myself disengaging, growing restless: this was all very beautiful and insightful, but when was anything actually going to happen? We'd had a couple of what now seemed false starts, but otherwise, and now we are a third of the way into the book, nothing but nothing was actually doing. I think part of the problem also was that there were effectively four threads, and whilst three were reasonably closely connected (although Larry in America was still distant for much of the book), the Laszlo thread never really linked up - this was really two completely different stories intertwined, barely connected by the 'oxygen' thread, which, whilst adding to the imagery, was nowhere near enough to help create a fully successful single novel.

Well, eventually, things did happen, but by then I was starting to skim, and what happened wasn't enough to pull me fully back in, although, forcing myself to settle down for the last pages, I loved the ending! Apparently (from Wikipedia), this, Miller's third book, received mixed reviews on publication, and, reading the quotes, I can't really disagree with any of them, both positive and, perhaps to a lesser extent in some cases, negative (some positively didn't like the ending!). I'm glad that several suggested this wasn't as good as his first two, as I have those to come! I am surprised though that this was shortlisted for both Booker and Whitbread. Still good enough that I will continue to look forward to some of his other work.

[willoyd]

39. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey ****
Picked up on a whim in my local independent: Persephone Press is almost always worth a try, and the blurb was very persuasive, especially the recommendation quote from Virginia Woolf, and the phrase describing this as an "eccentric mixture of Katherine Mansfield, Cold Comfort Farm, and EM Forster" (all three of which I love!). At barely 120 pages, this was very much a quick read, finished in under a day and a couple of sittings.

And I'm just not sure! Dolly Thatcham is about to get married to the older Owen Bigham on a breezy, bright March day, and the family are gathering and preparing for the day's ceremony; she herself needs sustenance (a bottle of rum!), whilst an ex-lover (or is he?) is waiting to put his oar in. It's a perfect scenario for a dissection of upper middle class social mores, and in many respects this matches expectations. I could instantly see the Cold Comfort Farm connection, portraying much of the same humour and bite with a cast of characters that included the suitably awful (if not quite as luridly drawn!).

The Mansfield and Forster connections were not quite so obvious however, and, in fact, it was the quality of writing (at which these two are so superb) which left me asking questions. I think, I hope, it was deliberate, but there was a clunkiness at times which, whilst underlining the action, left me wondering. Also, whilst both Mansfield and Forster are outstanding character writers, there simply wasn't a similar depth here. That's almost inevitable: it's a rare piece of satire that manages that, and this was no exception to the rule. We're not talking carboard cutouts, but nor are we talking rounded individuals either - not surprising given the extensive cast, the space, and the material, but Mansfield? Forster? I think not - this was a very different kettle of fish.

However, I did however find myself laughing out loud on a couple of occasions, which is no mean feat for an author to pull off, and, allowing for that clunky niggle, I did find this funny, deliciously so at times, especially in the wake of books like Richmal Crompton's Family Roundabout. The problem is that this latter sort of book has rather got lost in the mists of time, just like those that Stella Gibbons was spoofing, and unless familiar with them and/or 1930s English society, much of the point could easily be missed.

But, whatever the faults (and, as I said, I'm not even sure if all these are faults!), I galloped through this, and found it a very easy and enjoyable read. It actually left me wanting more, even if that might have been a mite more depth, but that's still no bad thing. I can easily see me returning to this in the not too distant future to see if I can make my mind up!

BTW, the edition I read was in Persephone's Classics series, which are supplied with the full colour cover rather than their standard grey offering. I always like their covers, but absolutely loved this one, the painting used being 'Girl Reading' by Harold Knight, a near perfect match IMO. They say don't judge a book by its cover, but this one certainly attracted me and made me pick it up!

[willoyd]

40. Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck **
Translated from the German by Michael Hofmann.

I came to this via the International Booker (so that shows such prizes work!), which this won, and a friend's recommendation. Set in the old East Germany this is the story of an affair between 19-year old Katherina and 53 year old Hans- married with a son. It's an affair that starts off with an intensity that matches the suddenness and unexpectedness of their meeting, but is ultimately, and almost inevitably, doomed - we know that from the outset as the novel is framed by an older and now married Katherina receiving boxes of letters etc after Hans's death. It's also an affair paralleled by the fall of the Iron Curtain: Kairos is ancient Greek for 'the right or critical moment' - critical moments both in Katherina and Hans's lives, and in the history of Gemany.

There is no doubt in my mind of the quality of Erpenbeck's writing. The rapid switching back and forth between thought strands that opened the first 'proper' chapter gave an instant edge, a freshness, that instantly grabbed me (and was the final hook in buying the book!), and there was a depth that kept me involved for quite a while. But gradually, it started to feel like so many other similar stories, things started to get rather repetitive (and unremitting), and when the submission and abuse came in, I was on the way out. I did skim through to the end, but there was nothing that persuaded me that this was other than the same old same old. Natasha Walters in the Guardian opened her review with the words "Jenny Erpenbeck's Kairos is one of the bleakest and most beautiful books I have ever read". Well we half agree, but her concept of beauty and mine must be very different!

Edited September 7 by willoyd

[willoyd]

41. Walking the Bones of Britain by Christopher Somerville *****
A fascinating walk through Britain from the Outer Hebrides to the Thames Estuary, travelling through the chronology of British geology, from the oldest Pre-Cambrian rocks in the UK on the Isle of Lewis, through to some of the youngest in the south-east. Somerville is a lucid and always interesting writer and whilst there wasn't a huge amount of new learning here for me, I found several individual jigsaw pieces sliding neatly into place, and the pages (and miles) rattling along. I found his commentary on some of the related issues (environmental impact of HS2, response to climate change flooding in the south-east, etc) very much to the point, in an understated way. The list of books, othe resources, and sites to visit at the back definitely add to the usefulness to - I've already installed the BGS Viewer app on my phone, and started using it regularly. I'll definitely be dipping into this for reference and reading in future, and whilst it's a mite overstated IMO, the Specator opinion quoted on the cover describing this as 'one of our finest gazeteers of the British countryside' at least points in a similar direction as mine!

[willoyd]

42. Orbital by Samantha Harvey ******
A slim novel, just 139 pages, in a beautifully presented paperback (French flaps etc). And an absolutely beautiful read too! A study of one day in the life of 6 astronauts (or rather, 4 astronauts and 2 cosmonauts!) on the International Space Station - a day that includes 16 sunrises as they orbit the earth once every 90 minutes - it may be set in space, but it's so much about the human existence and our place on the earth, or, indeed, in the universe. It was a book that I had to force myself to put down, as to really appreciate it I needed more time and space (!) than one continuous sitting would allow me, and it cries out to be reread soon. Harvey's writing is exquisite, and I was totally involved from the very first word, when the crew are soundly asleep in the early hours of their 'day':

Rotating about the earth in their space craft they are so together, and so alone, that even their thoughts, their internal mythologies, at times convene. Sometimes they dream the same dreams - of fractals and blue spheres and familiar faces engulfed in dark, and of the bright energetic black of space that slams their senses. Raw space is a panther, feral and primal: they dream it stalking through their quarters. Well, I loved it anyway!

This is on the Booker longlist, and the shortlist is going to be announced in a fortnight's time. This, IMO, has got to be there - if it isn't, the six that are had better be pretty amazing!

[willoyd]

43. Not A River by Selva Almeda *****
A reread for one of my book groups of a book I read earlier this year. I always thought I was going to reread this anyway! If anything, even better second time around. I've now obtained the other two books in Almeda's very loosely connected trilogy, so hope to tackle those later this year.

 

44. The Pleasure of Drowning by Jean Burlesk ****
My World project read for Luxembourg. A thoroughly entertaining collection of short stories, a series of alternative perspectives on traditional stories and legends. It's a quick, very easy, read, being barely 80 pages long, but packs a fair bit into that. I'll definitely be rereading it soon too. I'm not convinced that's the author's genuine name!  Luxembourg is a difficult country to find a book for, but this filled the hole very satisfactorily!

Edited Wednesday at 11:10 PM by willoyd

[willoyd]

45. Ulysses by James Joyce ******
A book that I've intended to read for many years, but kept shying away from: "when I've got the time to devote to it". Making it my choice for Ireland in my world reading project - and putting it right at the centre of the project by requiring every other book to be 'post-Ulysses' - was designed to force the issue! In the end, I started this in March, read about one-third, and then took a break between the end of April and the beginning of September, at which point, for various reasons, I set myself the target of reading it by early October. And finished it was today!
It is comfortably the biggest, most challenging, even most exhausting, book I've ever read; it's the only one (so far!) where I've been glad of a guide alongside it (I used Patrick Hamilton's The Guide to James Joyce's Ulysses, and found it very useful in keeping me on track!). Even with that help I found a few sections very difficult (excruciatingly so at one point, fairly early on - but Hamilton helped me keep going!), but I was very pleasantly surprised as to how much was anything but, and overall it ranks amongst the most enjoyable books I've ever read, culiminating in the glorious final section, Molly Bloom's stream of consciousness soliloquy. It's certainly the most intricate book (fiction or non-fiction), and the one, when I got to that final "Yes!, that has provided the greatest sense of achievement! I totally get why this is often cited as the greatest novel ever written.
I'm not going to attempt to write a fuller review, but just to say that I will definitely be reading it again, although perhaps in small sections now I have an overall broad grasp of it (if anybody can ever 'grasp' this novel!). How can I give this anything but 6 stars? Wow!

 

46. The Guide to James Joyce's Ulysses by Patrick Hamilton ****
Read this in parallel with Ulysses itself. Divided up into the 17 recognised 'sections' of the novel, I mostly read the opening couple of introductory paragraphs to each section before reading the text, and then read the meat of the commentary when I finished a section. This way, I was warned/prepared for the 'tough' stuff, but still felt I was coming to the actual novel fresh. Having read the guide post-section, I would often find myself reading parts of sections again, tracking bits where I'd missed something or not fully understood first time. The author's style is relaxed and informal, and certainly helped me enormously. The book is based on an excellent website, Ulyssesguide.com; I just preferred having the book to hand. BTW, Hamilton uses line numbers from the corrected Ulysses, edited by Hans Walter Gabler. Although I read most of the novel using the eminently readable Everyman edition, I also had a copy of a Gabler edition from the library to help me cross reference, although it wasn't entirely necessary. I started reading it, but the font size etc didn't make it easy for me, so I went back to Everyman as my prime reading copy, even if there were a couple of layout issues.

[lunababymoonchild]

13 hours ago, willoyd said:

45. Ulysses by James Joyce ******
A book that I've intended to read for many years, but kept shying away from: "when I've got the time to devote to it". Making it my choice for Ireland in my world reading project - and putting it right at the centre of the project by requiring every other book to be 'post-Ulysses' - was designed to force the issue! In the end, I started this in March, read about one-third, and then took a break between the end of April and the beginning of September, at which point, for various reasons, I set myself the target of reading it by early October. And finished it was today!
It is comfortably the biggest, most challenging, even most exhausting, book I've ever read; it's the only one (so far!) where I've been glad of a guide alongside it (I used Patrick Hamilton's The Guide to James Joyce's Ulysses, and found it very useful in keeping me on track!). Even with that help I found a few sections very difficult (excruciatingly so at one point, fairly early on - but Hamilton helped me keep going!), but I was very pleasantly surprised as to how much was anything but, and overall it ranks amongst the most enjoyable books I've ever read, culiminating in the glorious final section, Molly Bloom's stream of consciousness soliloquy. It's certainly the most intricate book (fiction or non-fiction), and the one, when I got to that final "Yes!, that has provided the greatest sense of achievement! I totally get why this is often cited as the greatest novel ever written.
I'm not going to attempt to write a fuller review, but just to say that I will definitely be reading it again, although perhaps in small sections now I have an overall broad grasp of it (if anybody can ever 'grasp' this novel!). How can I give this anything but 6 stars? Wow!

 

46. The Guide to James Joyce's Ulysses by Patrick Hamilton ****
Read this in parallel with Ulysses itself. Divided up into the 17 recognised 'sections' of the novel, I mostly read the opening couple of introductory paragraphs to each section before reading the text, and then read the meat of the commentary when I finished a section. This way, I was warned/prepared for the 'tough' stuff, but still felt I was coming to the actual novel fresh. Having read the guide post-section, I would often find myself reading parts of sections again, tracking bits where I'd missed something or not fully understood first time. The author's style is relaxed and informal, and certainly helped me enormously. The book is based on an excellent website, Ulyssesguide.com; I just preferred having the book to hand. BTW, Hamilton uses line numbers from the corrected Ulysses, edited by Hans Walter Gabler. Although I read most of the novel using the eminently readable Everyman edition, I also had a copy of a Gabler edition from the library to help me cross reference, although it wasn't entirely necessary. I started reading it, but the font size etc didn't make it easy for me, so I went back to Everyman as my prime reading copy, even if there were a couple of layout issues.

This is on my 'someday' list too. That's a very useful review and has helped me enormously, thanks for that.