Claire's book list 2012

[chesilbeach]

Realised I haven't written a review of The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt yet, and as it's one of the few books I've made some notes about as I was reading it, thought it was about time to post my thoughts on it. The story follows a handful of families in the late Victorian period and through to the end of World War I. The mother of one of the families, Olive Wellwood, is a children's author and throughout the lives of her own children, she writes them each their own personal storybook, and the stories develop as the children grow up.

 

I want to start by saying I did enjoy this book, it was fascinating with characters I was genuinely interested in, but, I have to say, I have a few gripes about it. Firstly, there are too many characters. I struggled to remember which children belonged to which family, and kept getting them mixed up, Dorothy with Florence or Griselda, Charles with Geraint, and could never remember where Hedda came in the family, and those are just a few of the children in the book.

 

Secondly, while I understand the author was trying to explain what's happening in the world as the story develops, there were a few places where the author spent one or two chapters just explaining the history of that period, with no mention of any of the characters. When we discussed this at my reading group, I wondered if I was so irritated by this both because I'd recently read a few books set in the same period that integrated this information into the story of the characters rather than just simply stating it, and because I already knew the history because of my recent reads. The other members didn't seem too bothered by it, but I felt for a 600+ page book, this could easily have been edited out without losing anything from the story.

 

Finally, just a couple of small ones, but near the beginning, the daughters of one of the characters are named and described, yet a few pages later when they arrive at the house of one of the other families, they are named and described again. Why do that when you've already described them? Also, one of the characters, Charles at times goes by the name of Karl, and is sometimes referred to as Charles/Karl, which I personally found really irritating. I know the times he's choosing to be called Karl over the times he feels he needs to be Charles, so why the Charles/Karl moniker?

 

I feel like I need to go back to the good points, for a bit of balance. I loved some of the characters, particularly the girls. Dorothy, Florence and Griselda were believable and genuine, and I think the way she describes the various choices they make and the routes their lives take felt possible. I felt a real affection for them, particularly Dorothy, by the end of the book. Their stories alone would make the book worth reading, but there are others who are interesting as well, making me glad I had read it.

[Brian.]

Great review of The Children's Book, I have seen some A.S Byatt books in my local book haunts but never picked one up. Your review may sway me to do so if the price is right.

[Kidsmum]

Thanks for the review Claire. I've had The Childrens Book on my shelves for ages & keep thinking I must read it if only because it will free up quite a bit of space for other books, your review has spurred me on to give it a go

[chesilbeach]

Well, I'm glad I've encouraged people to read it - I was worried as I spent so much time talking about what I didn't like, but like I said, I did enjoy reading it, so I guess that must come across!

[chesilbeach]

Jason Elliot is a travel writer, and Mirrors of the Unseen tells of his time in Iran, trying to find out more about the land and the people behind the news stories. He travels to the major cities, as well as off the beaten track, stays in hotels or with friends, old and new, and gets under the skin of the country that so many of us only know from headlines and television news.

 

This book is a wonderful piece of travel writing. Combining the history of the land and its people with art, literature, some politics, religion and architecture, with the tales and experiences of meeting the people themselves, Elliot has the perfect marriage of subjects for a travelogue.

 

As is often the case with travel books, my favourite pieces were the encounters with the people, whether they were existing friends, new acquaintances or even chance encounters with strangers, it was fascinating, and often surprising, to meet the ordinary people vicariously through Elliot, although oddly, it was actually an american woman, who had married an Iranian many years ago and had lived in the country ever since who was the most fascinating character. She was able to give an unique perspective on the history of Iran over the last few decades, and her experience of it, which gave you a middle ground between the author and the Iranians, with more subjective story.

 

I also loved all the descriptions of the architecture, and although there are some black and white photographs in the book, they don't do justice to the majesty of the buildings that Elliot describes. It was completely captivating to read about the buildings, and at one point, Elliot investigates some the the alignments of the buildings in a particular place, and although it's only his conjecture, he does provide the evidence to back up his theory, and it's another example of how intelligent humans have always been, even without the technology we rely on today.

 

An absolutely fascinating read, and I will definitely be reading more by Elliot, especially as OH tells me he has his first book on the shelves somewhere in the house - we just need to track it down!

[chesilbeach]

Pompeii by Robert Harris is the book for my local reading group next month, and it looked like a quick read, so I thought I'd get it out of the way, for want of a better expression! It tells a fictionalised tale of the last two days before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the first century AD. Told from the point of view of the Aquarius (the engineer who is responsible for the aqueduct that carries water to the towns in the region), it describes the signs that led upto the point of eruption, and is a thriller of politics and corruption, and a love interest thrown in to boot.

 

I've only ever read one book by Harris before (The Ghost) but from what I can see of his books, he likes to write fictionalised accounts of real events. I would say this book would make a good holiday read, as it reads like a blockbuster thriller. If you're a fan of history and the Romans, I don't think you're going to learn much from this book, although it's obvious that the author has done his research, and I was fascinated by the description and engineering of the aqueduct.

 

On the slightly negative side, I'm not sure about the dialogue. Most of the speech is in a modern, contemporary style, with a sprinkling of swearing thrown in, which I actually liked because it made it easy to read, and let's face it, we have no real idea how they would have spoken in those times and it certainly wouldn't have been in English, but on the other hand, it did take me out of the story a bit at times.

 

Good thriller though, and an interesting subject to tell a story about, and I'd recommend as a good, holiday read.

Edited June 29, 2012 by chesilbeach

[Janet]

I read about 200 pages of The Children's Book a few years ago, but felt it was so bogged down in waffle that I really wasn't enjoying it at so I gave up. My Mum borrowed it for her book club recently and waded through it, but although she 'got into it' and enjoyed it, she said she wouldn't say it was great so I decided to pass it on to a charity shop in the hope that someone else can get some enjoyment from it.

 

Pretty cover though! </shallow>

[chesilbeach]

I read about 200 pages of The Children's Book a few years ago, but felt it was so bogged down in waffle that I really wasn't enjoying it at so I gave up. My Mum borrowed it for her book club recently and waded through it, but although she 'got into it' and enjoyed it, she said she wouldn't say it was great so I decided to pass it on to a charity shop in the hope that someone else can get some enjoyment from it.

 

Pretty cover though! </shallow>

I can totally understand that Janet, and I have to say, if it weren't for the fact it was for my reading group, I might well have skim read a lot of it and just found out how it ended, but I felt that since it was pretty good, I ought to read all of it so that I could explain what I didn't like about it as well.

[frankie]

Re: The Children's Book. The 'waffling' is what intimidates me about A. S. Byatt. Why does she need to go on and on, does she not have the funds to find an editor? I find that I'd love to read a few of her novels, but when I started reading Possession, I was completely lost and I fear that might happen with this novel, too.

[chesilbeach]

Re: The Children's Book. The 'waffling' is what intimidates me about A. S. Byatt. Why does she need to go on and on, does she not have the funds to find an editor? I find that I'd love to read a few of her novels, but when I started reading Possession, I was completely lost and I fear that might happen with this novel, too.

It does make me wonder about the editing process at times. I felt exactly the same about the later Harry Potter books - are the editors not allowed to comment on this sort of thing when an author is successful? Are they only asked to check spelling/grammar and story line inconsistencies? I'm always fascinated by the role of an editor, and I guess that they're all different in their approach, and, for example, from what we read of the editing of the last Harry Potter book, it was multiple editors who had different chapters to edit - how can that work?! The thing with The Children's Book is that I think despite the chapters I felt were extraneous to the book, I still enjoyed it, and it most of them weren't until the latter parts of the book, by which point you're engrossed in the story and can sort of forgive it.

[chesilbeach]

So, as I mentioned over in the Book Activity thread, it's Independent Booksellers Week in the UK this week, so I decided this morning to make the trip to the closest indie bookshop to me. It takes about an hour to get there, and then it's a park and ride bus journey, so with the cost of petrol and bus ticket, it's not a quick, convenient or cheap option. It was actually a bit of a difficult decision to make, as I felt that if I was going to make the effort to go, I ought to support them by buying books as well as just browsing, so I knew I was going to break my no book buying rule. In the end, I decided that I'm over 70% of the way through my TBR shelf, and I set myself strict rules on what I would buy, so I would break the challenge on this occasion. Here's what I bought:

 

First up, I bought a book which initially was going to be a gift for someone else, but I've already decided to keep it for myself as I knew I wanted a hard copy of it rather than an ebook because it's an illustrated book, and I wanted to get the full effect of the illustrations. The book is:

 

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

(from the back cover):The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do. But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting. He's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming...The monster in his back garden, though, this monster is something different. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth.

 

Secondly, I knew the shop stocked Persephone Books, and I'm planning a new challenge to start next year which will be to read the entire Persephone catalogue of books, so I had a look at their selection, and I chose:

 

Mariana by Monica Dickens

(from Amazon.co.uk):Mariana (1940) is the story of a young English girl's growth towards maturity and happiness in the 1930s. We are shown Mary at school in Kensington and on holiday at her beloved Charbury; her attempt at drama school; her year in Paris learning dressmaking and getting engaged to the wrong man; her time as a secretary and companion.

 

Finally, the reason I love independent bookshops, is that you get a variety of books to chose from, both bestsellers and well known authors, but in amongst them, you find the independent publishers or the translated foreign fiction that you rarely see in the large bookshop chains, such as Waterstone's or Blackwells, so I knew I wanted to find something new that I would never come across anywhere else or stumble upon using an online bookseller. After narrowing the field down to a few different books, I eventually decided on:

 

Clash Of Civilizations Over An Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous

(from the cover): A small culturally mixed community living in an apartment building in the centre of Rome is thrown into disarray when one of the tenants is murdered. As each of the victim's neighbours is questioned by the police, readers are offered an all-access pass into the most colourful neighbourhood in contemporary Rome. Each character takes his or her turn "giving evidence," recounting his or her story - the drama of racial identity, the anxieties and daily humiliations born of a life spent on society's margins, but also the hilarious imbroglios that are inevitable in this melting pot of cultures. What emerges is a moving story that is common to us all.

 

All of these books will be set aside until after my TBR challenge, as I'm still determined to read the old ones before I start anything else new.

[vodkafan]

 

All of these books will be set aside until after my TBR challenge, as I'm still determined to read the old ones before I start anything else new.

 

Drat so I can't count these against you then. I have 31 tree books still to go I bought another one yesterday

[chesilbeach]

Well, we're half way through the year, so thought I'd have a look at my stats for the year so far. As of the end of June 2012, I have read:

82 books

 

of which:

28 were by male authors (34.1%)

54 were by female authors (65.9%)

 

and:

63 were fiction (76.8%)

19 were non-fiction (23.2%)

 

and of that:

2 were Biographies (2.4%)

5 were Chick-lit fiction (6.1%)

7 were Children's fiction (8.5%)

2 were Classics (2.4%)

9 were Crime fiction (11.0%)

11 were Fantasy fiction (13.4%)

6 were General fiction (11.5%)

1 was a Graphic novel (1.2%)

9 were Historical fiction (11.0%)

3 were Humorous fiction (3.7%)

3 were Memoir (3.7%)

1 was Science fiction (1.2%)

5 were Science (6.1%)

7 were Travel (8.5%)

4 were War fiction (4.9%)

7 were YA fiction (8.5%)

 

I have read:

12 from my 2008 TBR pile (14.6%)

10 from my 2009 TBR pile (12.2%)

5 from my 2010 TBR pile (6.1%)

11 from my 2011 TBR pile (13.4%)

30 were new 2012 books (36.6%)

4 for my library reading group (4.9%)

3 for BCF reading circles (3.7%)

7 for My Year With Jane Austen challenge (8.5%)

 

They were:

33 Books (40.2%)

47 eBooks for Kindle (57.3%)

2 eBook for iPad (2.4%)

 

I have rated (5=best; 1=worst):

4 books at 5 stars (4.9%) (2 of these were from My Year With Jane Austen challenge and re-reads)

23 books at 4 stars (28.0%)

45 books at 3 starts (54.9%)

8 books at 2 stars (9.8%)

2 books at 1 star (2.4%)

 

On average, so far I have read a book every 2.2 days.

 

On the 1st January there were 56 books on my TBR shelf, and this peaked at 65. I started my plan to reduce it to zero on the 4th March and as of today, there are 17 of these books left on my TBR shelf.

 

My favourite book of the year so far was:

William - An Englishman by Cicely Hamilton

 

My least favourite book of the year so far has been:

The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery

[vodkafan]

Impressive statistics Claire. I would not know how to start working that lot out I would have to just make up some numbers and hope nobody checked.

[chesilbeach]

Thanks. It's what comes of being a maths and statistics nerd - data in spreadsheets and databases everywhere!

[poppyshake]

Re: The Children's Book. The 'waffling' is what intimidates me about A. S. Byatt. Why does she need to go on and on, does she not have the funds to find an editor? I find that I'd love to read a few of her novels, but when I started reading Possession, I was completely lost and I fear that might happen with this novel, too.

Yes I objected to the waffling too .. which is pretty hypocritical of me come to think of it

 

I'm going to start The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey today .. I hope it hits the spot

[chesilbeach]

I'm going to start The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey today .. I hope it hits the spot

*jealous* I've been coveting that book ever since we saw it in Octavia's - every time I see it in a bookshop I want it! Hope you enjoy it

[vodkafan]

The Snow Child is one of the books I picked up in Waterstones and noted down as a possible good read. In space of 2 minutes I saw 3 other people (all women) pick this book up and read the blurb .

[chesilbeach]

Can one chance meeting ruin your life? In Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd, academic Adam Kindred finds himself the prime suspect in a murder and decides to go into hiding by not using his mobile phone, credit cards, etc., and living rough in order to avoid the police, while trying to find out why the man he's accused of killing, was murdered in the first place.

 

Each chapter follows a different character in the story, including police officers, the real killer, a pharmaceutical company CEO, which really helps to move the story along. I thought the story was well plotted, and it's a cracking read, in fact, I ended up staying up an hours later than normal because I was desperate to finish it by that point! It's also completely believable that Adam could have found himself in that situation, and the downward spiral of his life into the murky depths of society in London is at times chilling.

 

One thing I felt was that this look at modern London society was a similar theme to A Week In December by Sebastian Faulks which I read recently. I think the murder plotline holds together much better in this book, and still manages to provide an insight into life in London.

 

There was one thing that let it down slightly for me, and I'm going to have to put it in a spoiler, so if you don't want it spoilt, then DON'T LOOK AT THE SPOILER!!!

 

There is a reference to Bellerophon which sparked a memory of the film Mission Impossible: II, and then later you find out a pharmaceutical company is involved in the plot, and then towards the end there is a reference to the Greek myth of Bellerophon and the Chimera.

 

It didn't actually spoil the story, as you sort of know what's happening as it's going along, it's more a story of how it happens rather that what happens, but it did give a bit too much away for me, but maybe it's just because that film is one of my favourites that it immediately sprang to mind.

 

Overall, it's a very compelling book, I didn't want to put it down at all while I was reading it, and despite that one minor niggle, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[poppyshake]

*jealous* I've been coveting that book ever since we saw it in Octavia's - every time I see it in a bookshop I want it! Hope you enjoy it

The Snow Child is one of the books I picked up in Waterstones and noted down as a possible good read. In space of 2 minutes I saw 3 other people (all women) pick this book up and read the blurb .

It is hitting the spot .. I read about eight chapters yesterday in a row .. but then I gave a brief outline to Alan about what had happened so far and he has totally spoilt the plot for me by guessing the rest ... it has such a ring of probability about it that I bet he's right and now I will be looking for it and not at all surprised. If he is wrong I will get a t-shirt printed I swear I should have learnt by now not to share my stories with him

[chesilbeach]

TBR now down to 15 with paperbacks down to 11, but things are getting tough. I want to read the paperbacks first, and after just finishing a history/biography book, I want to go back to a fiction next. However, the six fiction books all seem so daunting! I was thinking of Human Traces next, but looked at it last night - it's 800 pages long! I think I may have to resort to putting the names in a hat and pulling one out at random, as at the moment, none of them are inspiring me, and I'm wasting valuable reading time staring at the spines up on the shelf. Here goes...

[chaliepud]

Yay, Human Traces! readit readit readit!!!! :D

[chesilbeach]

Yay, Human Traces! readit readit readit!!!! :D

I knew you'd say that! I chose the eenie, meenie, minie, moe option and ended up with The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh, sorry. I hereby promise that the next fiction book I read will be Human Traces - does that make up for it?

[chaliepud]

 

I knew you'd say that! I chose the eenie, meenie, minie, moe option and ended up with The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh, sorry. I hereby promise that the next fiction book I read will be Human Traces - does that make up for it?

 

I suppose it'll have to do . I'm just so keen for someone else to read it! His books have been very hit and miss for me but I found Human Traces to be utterly absorbing, so I'm wanting to know if anyone else feels the same...

[vodkafan]

O my diddly gosh I am going to have to try to read 2 books for every one of yours Claire. Hopefully Hungry Tide will be so boring as to send you comatose every time you try to read it so I can catch up

Edited July 7, 2012 by vodkafan