Tag: books

Top Ten Tuesday – Books I DNF

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Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

This weeks list is top ten books I did not finish. It isn’t often that I DNF a book. I’m not sure what I think will happen if I abandon a book but I tend to struggle on. The ones on this list really annoyed me.

  1. Whatever Love Means – David Baddiel – Tedious exploration of masculinity and sex which is neither exciting or clever.
  2. Lorna Doone – R. D. Blackmore – I had seen an adaptation of this and really enjoyed it but the novel was slow and lacking in tension.
  3. The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith – Peter Carey – This was a very strange book. The style was hard to read, the events made no sense and I didn’t care for the characters.
  4. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky – I really wanted to enjoy this but I didn’t really get that far. The protagonist was annoying and the narrative was stodgy.
  5. The Virgin’s Lover – Philippa Gregory – This was about Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley and reads a bit like Carry on Tudors. Ridiculously bawdy.
  6. The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne. The prose style was unreadable.
  7. On the Road – Jack Kerouac – Sexist nonsense. Perhaps he should have taken longer than three weeks to complete the first draft.
  8. Atonement – Ian McEwan – I finished this but I genuinely wished I hadn’t bothered. I won’t spoil it but to me it felt like McEwan had said ‘and then they woke up’ at the end. It felt lazy and annoying.
  9. The Time Traveller’s Wife. – Audrey Niffenegger I did in fact finish this but only because the thing that annoyed me was right at the end. To be fair, I was already a little irritated but when I realised Clare waited to see Henry one more time, it tipped me over the edge. I know it’s supposed to be romantic but if I’d realised that was the end, I’d definitely have stopped earlier.
  10. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Schaffer – Another time the film was a lot better than the book. Very disappointing.

It’s been a while…

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I decided this year not to do any reading challenges or make any lists of what I was going to read. I finished the TBR challenge last year but I didn’t finish the blogs so I decided no more challenges. My only plan was to read some of the fatter books on my shelf. I didn’t even sign up to the Goodreads challenge as I find that stressful if I get too far behind – which I would if read some long books. I didn’t realise the impact this would have on my blogging but suddenly it is April and I haven’t written a single one. Not good.

It is a little weird not to have a plan. For the last five years, I have always known roughly what books would read and it is weird that everything is now open to me. My only thoughts at the moment are I will probably read Wolf Hall, The Green Mile and A Prayer for Owen Meany as they have been on my shelf for a while but I am currently reading The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt on my kindle and I suspect that is going to take a while so I don’t want to read another long fiction book until I finish that. As such, I am reading The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow at the minute which is a bit lighter.

So far this year I have read the following:

  1. Between Shades of Grey – Ruta Sepetys (2011) 4/5 I was given this for Christmas and I really enjoyed it. It tells the story of Lina a Lithuanian teenager who is suddenly removed from her home by Russian soldiers and sent ultimately to the Arctic Circle. This was a bleak, difficult story about an area of history I was unaware of and it was definitely worth a read.
  2. Big Little Lies – Lianne Moriarty (2014) 3/5 This had been on my kindle for a while. It was okay chick lit with some heavier themes than I was expecting. I did see the twist coming though.
  3. The Evil Seed – Joanne Harris (1992) 4/5 I bought this not realising that it was Harris’ debut novel and had been out of print for a while. It was quite different from the other of her novels that I’ve read as it is a vampire tale but it was still well written with parallel stories and a good amount of tension.
  4. The Sellout – Paul Beatty (2015) 5/5 This has also been on my kindle for a couple of years. It won the Man Booker Prize in 2016 and I can see why. It is a biting satire on the state of race relations in the US, looking at slavery, segregation, celebrity, sociology and stereotypes. First 5 star read of the year.
  5. Tigana – Guy Gavriel Kay (1990) 4/5 (The first of the tomes at 676 pages) I had been meaning to read this for a while but I admit I found its length a bit off putting. I had made an attempt at it while I was at university in the nineties but didn’t manage to finish it even though I remembered enjoying it. Although it took a long time to get through, I’m glad I read it. It was a beautifully written fantasy with action, romance and interesting characters.
  6. Mother’s Boy – Patrick Gale(2022) 5/5 I picked this up about a month ago in a charity shop (much to the annoyance of my husband as I’m not supposed to be buying books). It is a fictional telling of the life of Charles Causley. Not that I knew anything about Causley but Gale is one of my favourite authors so I wanted to read it quickly. It is written from the points of view of Causley and his mother who had a complicated relationship and describes his life as a signalman in the navy. Thoroughly recommended.

The Reading Year So Far

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It’s been a mixed year so far on the reading front. On the one hand, I’ve read ten books so far which is good. On the other, there have been some disappointing reads. The start of the year saw me in lockdown again so I was able to get a lot of reading done. Now I’m back at work, I’m not so sure that I’ll get through some of the very big titles on my list. We’ll see.

The main achievement so far is having finished Middlemarch. I’m not really one for the classics so reading such a long book was a big ask. My main motivation was it is one of my father in law’s favourite books and he doesn’t really approve of a lot of the things I read (Terry Pratchett, David Mitchell, anything with a hint of fantasy or magic realism, in fact) so I don’t think he really believed I’d manage it. It was a slog for most of it. It was only the last two hundred pages where I felt compelled to find out what would happen. Now it’s finished, I’m glad I read it but mostly just because I can now say I’ve read it.

I’ve been trying to read more widely. My default option is male, white authors such as Julian Barnes, Chuck Palahniuk, Ian Rankin and Markus Zusak. Okay so often they have interesting things to say about masculinity but I’m trying to get out of this comfort zone. So I’m trying to read more women, LGBT writers and writers of colour. So far this year, this has brought me some of my favourite reads – Take Nothing With You by the fabulous Patrick Gale, The Testaments by Margaret Atwood and The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead – all of which are much recommended.

The other thing I set myself to do this year was to read more current fiction. I read a lot of contemporary fiction but not usually things that were out in the last couple of years. This hasn’t panned out quite so well. I found Where the Crawdads Sing tedious (as I so often do with things that have been really popular) and David Mitchell’s Utopia Avenue was just disappointing. One thing with reading things from twenty+ years ago – it’s easier to know what is good because they have stood the test of time.

Another thing I’ve wanted to do is expand the genres I read in. I try as much as possible to read a variety of genres. It’s at least partly responsible for some of my less good reads. A lot of the people I’m friends with on Goodreads seem to read only one genre and they post a lot of five star reviews but I know that I would be bored with that. I view it as basically reading the same book over and over. My favourite genres are probably dystopia (I’ve already read two this year) and detective fiction and I fall back on them a lot but I try to make sure I step outside them as much as possible. So I’m currently reading Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carre – spy fiction being very much unchartered territory for me – and I’m really enjoying it. I’m not sure how much of this genre I will read in the future but I think I will explore some of Le Carre’s back catalogue.

As it’s nearly the Easter holidays, and once I’ve finished Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, I’m going to embark on another of the large classics on my list – probably Moby Dick. And then it will be on to some non-fiction as I’ve not read any of that yet this year. Although often when I make proclamations about what I am going to read, I completely abandon them. One thing is for sure, it will be an interesting reading year.

Full House Reading Challenge 2018 Sign up.

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So I have decided that I will do the Full House Reading Challenge. Despite not finishing it last year, it did give me some focus and also it forced me to read some things from my bookshelf that I had been meaning to read. Hopefully I’ll get all books read this year.

I have some ideas for some of the categories but recommendations gratefully received for the rest of them.

  1. Mystery / Thriller – Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama
  2. Historical – The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes
  3. Over 500 pages – Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
  4. Four Word Title – The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan
  5. Most recent addition to TBR – The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver 
  6. A Classic – Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
  7. Fantasy – Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
  8. Adapted to a movie – The Bridges of Madison County – Robert James Waller
  9. Number in the title – Red Riding 1977 by David Pearce 
  10. Under 250 pages – The Quiet American by Graham Greene
  11. New to you author from another country – The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
  12. Dual Time Line – White Rose, Black Forest – Eoin Dempsey
  13. Memoir / Autobiography = Americana by Ray Davies
  14. Reread – 1984 by George Orwell
  15. Humour – It’s not me, it’s you – Jon Richardson
  16. Favourite Series – Allegiant – Veronica Roth
  17. Has plot twist – Resurrection Men – Ian Rankin
  18. Coming of Age – Turtles all the way Down – John Green
  19. Set in Library / Bookshop – 84 Charing Cross Road
  20. Holiday season – So This is Christmas – Josh Lanyon
  21. Book to improve life
  22. Redemption theme – Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
  23. From TBR Randomly chosen – Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon – Currently reading
  24. Children’s Book – The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain
  25. N.F. Hobby book

Another new year

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Well, it has taken a while to get round to writing my first blog this year. In fact, the end of last year was so hectic, I never got round to writing an end of year blog which I fully intended. This will have to act as both.

I was pleased with the amount that I read last year and with the fact that I completed the two reading challenges I signed up for. Both of which – eclectic reader challenge and TBR challenge – I have signed up for again. I read some excellent books – The Slap and Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas spring straight to mind, as do The Absolutist by John Boyne and Complicity by Iain Banks and of course, Maddaddam by the amazing Margaret Atwood. I also read some authors that have been on my list for a while – Dorothy L. Sayers, Daphne Du Maurier and John Updike  – not all of which were enjoyed but it felt good to have read them at last.

This year I’m aiming to read more classics so half of the books I have picked for the eclectic reader challenge are pre 1950. Half of those are pre 1900. The first book I finished this year was a spy thriller which was a new genre and hopefully the eclectic reader challenge will continue to encourage me to read new genres.

I wasn’t sure that I was going to keep writing a blog post for each book I read but looking back over last year’s posts, I realised that it was making me think more deeply about what I was reading.

As for writing, while I still aim to write every day, it doesn’t always work. Time is the one commodity I lack at the moment.  I’m still in the process of editing / re-writing Choose Yr Future. It seems like an never-ending task at the moment. However, I’m sure I will recognise the point when I am happy with the storyline and structure and then I will be ready to let beta readers have a look at it. At the minute, I know it is not ready to be seen by other eyes. If I’m not happy with it, I wouldn’t expect others to be.

I’m not feeling downhearted though. I’m still trying to enter as many competitions as I can and while I haven’t won any yet, I’m not going to give up. If you don’t enter, you really don’t have a hope of winning. I enjoy the process of writing/re-writing even though sometimes I feel a bit like Sisyphus pushing the words into place only to realise later that they still don’t fit.

 

Top Ten Tuesday – once read authors.

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Top Ten Authors only read once.

This wasn’t as obvious as I first thought. I tried to avoid listing people who had only written one book. Some authors I have been meaning to read more of, others not so much. It’s certainly reminding me of things that have been loitering around my TBR pile for quite a while.

1. Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre – obviously I suppose. I really ought to read more as I enjoyed this.

2. Tracey Chevalier – The Girl with the Pearl Earring – again an obvious choice. It was okay but not really my sort of thing.

3. Wilkie Collins – The Moonstone – quite a recent read – The Woman in White is quite high up my TBR list.

4. Douglas Copeland – Hey Nostradamus! – a good read – should definitely read more.

5. William Golding – Lord of the Flies – Had to read in order to teach which always seems to put me off reading any thing else by the author.

6. Doris Lessing – The Fifth Child – Didn’t like this much at all but she is much loved so perhaps I should have another go.

7. Michael Moorcock – An Alien Heat – I don’t normally like this sort of thing but I found this really enjoyable. Must read more.

8. Alice Sebold – The Lovely Bones – another read in order to teach.

9. John Steinbeck – Of Mice and Men. Of course. I read this at school and since then have taught it I don’t know how many times. It’s a fabulous book but the association with school puts me off reading anymore Steinbeck.

10. Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse Five – A marvellous read and like An Alien Heat, a real surprise to love it so much.

 

 

 

Books Read in 2014 – 42. Chocky by John Wyndham

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Genre: Dystopia
Narrative Style: First person, chronological
Rating 4/5
Published: 1970
Format: Kindle
Synopsis: When Matthew starts to communicate with an unseen being named Chocky, his parents are understandably worried. After all, Matthew is too old for an imaginary friend. Furthermore, Matthew is starting to ask questions that seem to have come from somewhere beyond his own mind. As time passes, they grow more and more concerned and involve outside help. This turns out to be a big mistake.

There were a couple of reasons for choosing to read this book. I could vaguely remember the TV series and was curious to read the book behind it. Secondly, I had been meaning to read more Wyndham since reading The Day of the Triffids a few years ago. So I had high hopes for the book and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. This is a really good read and the only thing that stopped it getting five stars is that sometimes it seemed a little old fashioned which is inevitable, I suppose, with this sort of fiction.
The story begins with Matthew’s parents noticing little oddities that are out of place for an eleven year old – like having an imaginary friend. It seems harmless enough and although they are curious, they are not unduly worried, as their son seems happy enough in himself.
However, clues begins to appear that suggest that this is no ordinary imaginary being. Matthew starts to ask questions that are almost beyond his understanding. His teachers complain that he is starting to ask about concepts that are too difficult to explain and he sometimes appeared to be arguing with another being. They decide to seek outside help and it is suggested that Matthew may be possessed by an outside force. Understandably, they find this an unsatisfactory answer and seek help elsewhere.
Events do become more sinister – for example, Matthew rescues his sister from drowning without being able to swim. The press start to become interested and Matthew is sent to an important psychologist who equally has no answers for them.
I must admit that I wished I had no knowledge of the events that were to come as I could remember exactly who Chocky was, However, I could not remember the exact storyline and so when Matthew goes missing near the end of the novel, I was as perplexed as his parents. I also could not remember Chocky’s purpose in using Matthew as a reporter on this world. I was impressed by the ecological reasoning used by Chocky in her disgust at our dependency on fossil fuels that will inevitably disappear. This reads now like a warning still unheeded as we are still desperate for a clean, safe solution to this problem. There was a contrast between Chocky’s altruistic attitude and that of the doctors who want to exploit Matthew’s unusual knowledge.
The narrative is written from the point of view of David, Matthew’s father and was convincing in its curiosity about Chocky and its concern for Matthew. The story is written in a straightforward way but that only made the ending seem more devastating because the reader could believe in its reality. Very enjoyable.

Books Read in 2014. 41. Turnstone – Graham Hurley

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Genre: British Detective

Narrative Style: Third Person, Chronological
Rating: 2/5

Format: Kindle

Published: 2000

Synopsis: Joe Faraday is an overworked cop with family issues. Even though he lacks resources, he knows that he must help Emma Maloney find out what happened to her father. He is already dealing with a drugs bust gone wrong and a murdered grandfather. Furthermore, he lacks evidence and his boss wants him to focus on cases that will give the station a better media image. Joe cannot let the case go even when it seems that it is an obsession that is all in his head.

I picked this book to read because in the blurb it mentioned that it was about a daughter searching for her father and it sounded interesting. However, apart from a brief prologue, this storyline doesn’t appear until about a quarter of the way through. To me, this is too long before introducing what will be your main storyline. This problem of balance is one that effects the whole of this novel. At first, we have the murder of a grandfather and a drugs bust that goes wrong. But these are all but abandoned once the search begins for Maloney’s father. At times, Joe’s son is the focus of the story and then he too is abandoned. Moving between plot and subplot could certainly have been handled better.
I wasn’t convinced by the character of Joe. Maybe I am too much in thrall to detectives like Ian Rankin’s Rebus but Joe just didn’t convince. He seemed too well-behaved to go off on his own in the way that he does. By contrast, his opposite number, the corrupt cop was just a bundle of stereotypical bad cop attributes to really convince or make the reader have any feelings for.
The worst part of this novel though is the ending. Not so much the solving of the disappearance which was interesting enough but the epilogue which saw all of Joe’s family and personal problems neatly wrapped up. It was too simplistic by far. I won’t be reading anymore in this series.

Top Ten Tuesday – Ten Authors I Own the Most Books From

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It is a while since I’ve done a Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by The Broke and The Bookish)but Ten Authors I Own the Most Books from appealed so here it is.

1. Terry Pratchett – 35. It was always obvious that Pratchett was going to win. I love the discworld books although I have got a bit behind with them and haven’t read the most recent ones.
2. Margaret Atwood – 18. My favourite author.
3. Ian Rankin – 14. Mostly the Rebus books but a few others. I don’t own the whole series of Rebus books otherwise this would be a bit higher.
4. Julian Barnes – 9. Another favourite although I haven’t loved everything I’ve read by him.
4. Ian Banks – 9. A bit hit and miss but he has written some of my favourite books – The Wasp Factory, for example.
6. Irvine Welsh – 7. I started to read Welsh for my MPhil and I love his early stuff.
6. Ian McEwan – 7. Most of these were read for my MPhil and I loved some and hated others. The Child in Time is one of my favourites.
8. Kate Atkinson – 6. The Jackosn Brodie series and a couple of others.
9. Angela Carter – 5. I thought I had more than this. I need to read some more I think.
9. Martin Amis – 5. Again, a MPhil read and not a favourite.

Books Read in 2014 – 38. The Lie by Helen Dunmore

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Genre: War, Historical Fiction
Narrative Style: First person narrative set in 1920 with flashbacks to the first world war.
Rating: 3/5
Publication: 2013
Format: Kindle
Synopsis: Daniel has survived the First World War and is now back in his hometown, homeless and without family. He is haunted by his experiences in the trenches and by the death of his best friend, Frederick as he tries to make a new life for himself.

I picked this to read because I enjoy reading about the First World War and because it had good reviews but I found that it paled compared to other fiction that I have read about this conflict. I found it neither as emotionally compelling as some (The Absolutist by John Boyne) or as interesting in terms of the themes treated here (Regeneration by Pat Barker, Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks).
The main reason for my discontent was that the plot seemed stretched, little more than a short story’s worth of content strained by its extension to a novel. Daniel is sympathetic and interesting but not a lot happens to him, even during his flashbacks so there is little to move the plot along.
Where Dunmore does succeed is in her descriptions – both of the Cornish coast and the life in the trenches. They are vivd and really give the reader a sense of Daniel’s isolation and horror. Also the descriptions of him re-working Mary Pascoe’s land are an interesting metaphor for his attempts at starting a new life whilst also constantly reminding him of the mud in the trenches.
I also liked the analysis of class and the differences between Daniel and his much richer friend, Frederick are apt and seem realistic. The differences between them become particularly apparent when they are both in the army but in completely different roles.
Unfortunately, this couldn’t make up for the lack of action and also the I found the ending unsatisfying and a little ridiculous.