Rebecca Mascull, an author I much admire, has her third novel out early next month. And, to whet your appetites, there will be a blog tour (me too!)
I shall be eagerly reading other reviews, interviews and so on, and will certainly be featuring them on my Posts I Like widget, but these are the blogs and these are the dates:
Rebecca writes literary historical novels with strong female characters. This one is about an aviatrix, and set prior to, and encompassing, the First World War. She always researches meticulously, so just when you might think ‘surely THIS couldn’t have happened at that time, you will find yourself surprised and educated. The Wild Air has a much more introverted, central character than the ones from her first two novels, but she is as interesting, layered, unique and entrancing as ‘The Visitors’ Adeliza Golding and Song of the Sea Maid’s Dawnay Price.
A strangely old best of the reading year: Top reads of 2016
It has been a very weird year, both ‘out there’ within the wider world – which, of course, paradoxically seems set on being a smaller, narrower, meaner world obsessively devoted to self-harm in a foolish attempt to numb its pain – and, reflected in my reading world
I have read (though in some cases, abandoned in disgust) 113 books. Now some of them are still to be reviewed on here : I am regrettably behind on my reviews. But I haven’t posted anywhere near treble figures on reviews. My ‘won’t make the blog unless it is at least a CLEAR (not rounded up) 4 star’ tells its own story. And a goodly number of the books read have not been reviewed anywhere. Books so drearily derivative or, just so abysmal, that I abandoned time spent with them as soon as indecently possible. And that included any time spent explaining their dreariness. Better to head off quickly to time spent with a wonderful book.
I note that a goodly proportion of my ‘best ofs’ were not just reads, but re-reads: books so good half a life-time ago, that it was a treat to dust them off and say hello again. And also, books by authors never read at their time of writing: older writers, discovered.
I think what has, in some ways, sadly, impressed me about those mainly dead and gone older writers is their discipline and craft with language, character, setting, style and narrative. Writers with things to say, and the ability to say what they said memorably and with authenticity. We have a fast-book culture, and sometimes I think, that like fast-food, we have surrendered ourselves to ersatz, sitting heavy in the gut, and with little memorability or feeding much at all.
Now I HAVE read some most enjoyable new books this year, and a small number have crept into my ‘best of’ but, in the main those older reads were more powerful at keeping me thinking and admiring, weeks after closing their final pages.
But I’m still quite shocked to discover (getting into the stats thing) that despite reading 41 books published this year, only 1 of the 2016 novels got into my top fiction reads. Though I race to also say I read some very very good new fictions indeed. It’s just those earlier writers took centre stage
I also had to leave it at top 9 and top 8, as they were clear, and having spent several days agonising over which titles should get the final places, particularly the fictions, as some 5 or 6 were together at the finishing line, I thought I’d podium place the smaller number. If I had to rank, I’d still be here by midsummer 2017, constantly rejigging!
So In no ranking order, just in the order they were read :
Non-Fiction – I had a great NF year, including, inevitably some NF standout re-reads (Oh, Virginia! Oh, George! You delighted me a lifetime ago and you delight me more, and still)
Bee Wilson is an utterly engaging writer on matters historical and foodie – together. I love the history of the domestic, but with First Bite, she soared to new heights, as she wove other passions of mine together – the psychology of food, the relationship we have with food, the politics of the food industry, childhood and the development of taste
Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City as ever, with her reflective, soulful writing about the arts and her relationship with them, delighted me. This book explores mainly American artists, some known to me, some not, and the role of solitariness, alienation and the ability to observe both one-self, and the society one inhabits, in artistic creation. It was also a book which had me blessing the internet as I could search for every artwork she was describing so eloquently
Martin Stevens’ Cheats and Deceits was a fabulous book about the evolutionary ploy of Cheating and Deceiving, and the myriad ways in which it manifests and works. In a year where cheating, deceiving political figures appear to be on the brink of taking us to regrettably dangerous places, it has been quite salutary to think of Trump, Farage et al as particularly obnoxious blister bug larvae, and the populace as a sadly duped Habropoda pallida, taking (to mangle a metaphor beyond recognition) these vipers to the bosom of their children’s nests. Whaaa? Habropoda Pallida is a bee species, and the obnoxious blister bugs hop onto the duped HP, so that they will get carried back to bee nest. Their favourite food is young bee grubs – i.e. they destroy the next generation and its world
On the heels of my snucking in the politics of the present, came a re-read of the wonderful George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. Orwell, like many in his generation with a sense of idealism enlisted for the left in the Spanish Civil War. This was part of Kaggsysbookishramblings 1938 Club. I have loved Orwell’s writing since first discovering him in my teens. And I loved what his writing revealed to me of the man. He still seems an unusually honourable figure
Svetlana Alexievich’s harrowing Chernobyl Prayer allows those most directly affected by the blowing of the nuclear reactor, ordinary Belarusians, to tell their own stories and the land’s story. This is compassionate journalism as witnessing.
I needed some non-fictional joy, following a couple of painful recognitions of what our worst can lead to, and I got it in John Powell’s enthusiastic, playful, erudite Why We Love Music. Another read outrageously enhanced by the benefits of the internet, as I could roam around listening to snippets of illustrative sound
The January Man, which I read in the summer as an ARC from Amazon Vine has not yet been reviewed on here, as there seemed little point to whet appetites when its publication day is the 12th January 2017. The link therefore is to my Amazon UK review. Suffice it to say Christopher Somerville’s wondrous book is much more than a book about walking through the landscape of these isles, it’s a journey through time, through relationship, through music, and it made my heart sing even whilst it made me weep. Curiously, it also reminded me, in the compassionate tenderness of Somerville’s writing, of the very first Olivia Laing book I read, To The River. It will be appearing here closer to publication date with some entrancing media
Jeanette Winterson was my big find of the year. How could I have missed her, how? Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is the autobiographical story which provided much of the material which formed the narrative of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. Here is a woman with a childhood start which is unbearable to contemplate, but whose fierce, fierce, glittering intelligence, and whose capacity for joy sing out. She had me laughing so hard through my tears and anger
And my non-fictions end with Virginia. It’s easy to think of Woolf through knowing her end, and the mental illness she suffered. But she was another who burned with intelligence, humour, joy. A Room of One’s Own takes to the barricades of feminism; singing, wit, creativity and incisive argument its weapons. Again, one I devoured in my twenties, and though much has been achieved since its writing unfortunately it still has relevance, and is not a purely historical read
So to the fictionals – and, as you will see, Virginia and Jeanette take their places on this podium too
It seems kind of fitting that Virginia Woolf should have been my last top non-fiction, and turn out to be, late in February, the first of my top fictions. I re-read – or probably re-re-re-re read To The Lighthouse, as part of Ali’s Brilliant Woolfalong. What can I say? Any time I re-read this one its going to make a best of list. Is it possible (yes!) that it continues to get better, that I continue to find more, with each read. Looks like it,
Alain Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes, first read, most potently, in my adolescence, was another re-read. I approached it slightly nervously, as with any book which had glowed out, and been remembered, for decades. Could it speak to a much older reader, or would its delights be limited to youth. Well, good heavens, there was again so much to discover and to re-discover. A shifting focus, a little more ability to stand outside so that, on this read, Fournier’s extraordinary craft and magic delighted my more critical, intellectual appreciation.
Meaulnes led me to another favourite, more modern author – John Fowles, whose The Magus owed a deep (and expressed) debt to Fournier. The French Lieutenant’s Woman plays majestically with the novel’s structure. He was using ‘meta-fiction’ devices quite early. Everyone does it now, but it was a wonderfully playful, sly thing, when I encountered it first (yes, another re-read)
Finally we get to a fiction published this year, Eowyn Ivey’s To The Bright Edge of The World. In part, her inclusion is because her first, The Snow Child, was such an extraordinary first novel that she had set herself a dangerous peak to attain with her second. So I was delighted to find that this book was both very different from her first, but had elements of the strengths of her first – the potency of myth and magic, and, oh yes, the wonderful, cold, mysterious setting of the frozen North
H.E.Bates was an author I thought I had read but in fact, never had. Love for Lydia (which had been a TV adaptation which I never saw) was a sheer delight. Luscious writing, restrained writing, in this story of the interwar years.
Christopher Isherwood’s Mr Norris Changes Trains was another re-read. Once again, I think in part it is the lurch to the right which has made many of us think uneasily of those major conflagrations of the twentieth (and of course we are moving through the hundredth anniversary of the 1914-1918 War To End All Wars) Isherwood’s part autobiographical part-fictional narrative of his time in Berlin as the world of the 30s was doing its own inchings to the dark places, as dangerous demagogues were making their appeals to hatred, fear and castigation of ‘the other’
Oh, Virginia again! Her magnificent cross-gendering historical fiction Orlando was my very first Woolf, in my teens. And this romp from Elizabethan England to the twenties crossing geography and gender, mixing historical personages with invented ones stays so pleasurable – another book where I wasn’t only re-reading, but re-re-reading
I discovered Jeanette Winterson’s 1997 novel through some chance or other, this year. Gut Symmetries was my first Winterson, in late August. I am currently reading my fourth, so, perhaps, expect more Winterson’s to imperiously demand inclusions in best ofs, for 2017. A marriage of the story of an affair and the Grand Unified Theory of particle physics. Rarely does a writer make me think about maths and physics so delightfully, and force a mental work-out without making me whimper
And there, sadly I have to leave it. There were just too many books fighting really really hard for the final two places. I could briefly decide to place one or two, but the others started screaming ‘Me! Me! deservedly, so I would substitute, but the screaming never died down.
At least all the ones chosen meant that the unchosens stayed respectfully silent and stopped yelling at me that they deserved the podium instead.
Duelling Banjos were menacing enough, with or without the presence of Voight and Reynolds, without the nervousness of duelling books at dawn, fighting for places!
And, of course, I wish you all the very best for you, yours and all your books, in 2017. I hope we might have some chance of living in ‘less interesting times’ as far as ancient Chinese curses go. I wish you all a harmonious year, and excitement, derring do and much ‘interesting’ firmly within the pages of your books!
So……..I have dusted off my wings, – or, at least attempted to exercise them into non-existence .
Provoked by a reminder of the bingo by blog-world’s Queen of Jersey Cleopatralovesbooks – who…managed to complete her own Bingo – well done Cleo! –
I thought I must see how I would fare
And, breaking all the keep them guessing mystery writing rules, you can see, by the title that I didn’t get quite past that finishing line. Alas, no Brownlee brother was there to support me, gasping and dizzy, and help me to complete my readathon Bingo
There are links to all the original reviews on book titles within text, not the pictures……and also, links to other blogs in places where thanks are due…….
More than 500 –This is a straight steal from Cleo’s over 500 – I didn’t list the page numbers so though I knew this was a long one, it was a quick cert for a 500 without more checking. Jodi Picoult’s Small Great Things unhappily seems a particularly pertinent look at prejudice, and more than ever important in what has been a disastrous political year, on both sides of the pond, and wider.
Forgotten Classic – HE Bates The Triple Echo was a film I saw many years ago, and a recent discovery of Bates sent me on a search for the book that gave rise to that film. What a marvellously crafted writer he is, and this one is another book which in many ways, seems remarkably ahead of its time, though subtly hinting at something that I suspect that present day marketing departments might have wanted a writer to be lurid about
A Book That Became A MovieI suppose I could have had the Bates, above, in this slot, and had John Fowles – The French Lieutenant’s Woman as the forgotten classic. Both good films, but I suspect the Bates novella is more apt as ‘the forgotten’ though the wonderful Fowles IS reissued in Penguin Modern Classics, deservedly. Fowles, writing later, is perhaps less forgotten in-the-mists
A Book Published This Year The insufficiently well-known Patrick Flanery’s thrid book was published this year. I Am No One may not quite reach the spectacular level set by his first two books, but I can’t resist any opportunity to fly the flag for this wonderfully astute, subtle and excellent writer. Once again, unfortunately, world events seem to make this an even more sober and important read about the surveillance society.
A Book With A Number in the TitleAlison Weir Six Tudor Queens Katherine of Aragon Now, Alas, I did not fall overboard enough in enthusiasm for Weir’s first in a series of fictional accounts of 6 unhappy ladies, to review it on the blog. However should you BURN to read my account of it, follow the permalink for my Amazon review, This was a Vine book, so I HAD to review it there
A Book Written By Someone Under ThirtyMany of my very best reads this year have been re-reads. I’m tempted to say most of them, as I have had a standout year reading favourites from my teens and twenties. Alain Fournier’s only book was written before he was thirty, and is incandescent. Fournier died, aged 27, one of the many millions scythed down in the First World War. Le Grand Meaulnes is an elegaic, dreamlike book, one which felt far richer read as an adult, than it did when I was the age of the teen aged central characters, and first read, and never forgot the book
A Book With Non-Human Characters A recent re-read of another book from childhood is this magical one from Paul Gallico. Jennie should find particular favour from the cat-adorers amongst us. Many, I suspect, as reading and cats go together superbly, as they often involve the seductive availabilty of laps. particularly if the book is absorbing enough to keep the reader pinned to a comfortable chair. The adventures of a white cat called Peter and an appealing Scottish cat called Jennie shouild warm the cockles of all hearts, though the ailurophiles will be certain pushovers
A Funny Book The wonderful Jane from Beyond Eden Rock banged drums for the delightful wit and sparkle of Marjorie Sharp. Readers wantiing to make her acquaintance now can, with ease, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Jane and others who whipped up the rest of us to hunt down long falling to pieces second hand copies, rare as hen’s teeth. Open Road Media, a brilliant epublishing company, have reissued ten of her titles. Now, come on, you know you want to join Jane’s celebration of Marjorie’s birthday next month (January 25th), so follow the Open Road link and buy a happy Marjorie. We really need her to make us see the world can still be a warm and kindly place. I think the inauguration of the Deplorable, and the 2017 triggering of Article 50 must have me heading Marjorie-Wards. Here is the enchanting Cluny Brown
A Book By A Female Author I think it’s probably largely due to HeavenAli’s Woolfalong that she must win my ‘the blogger who got me to read most of my best reads of 2016’ awards. All my Woolfs, almost entirely re-reads, fill slots in the Bingo To The Lighthouse was a particular potent Voyage Out (see what I did there?) as it is a book which has some particular, personal meaning for me.
A Book With A Mystery I had adored Eowyn Ivey’s first novel, The Snow Child. So I was completely delighted to find that her very different second To the Bright Edge of the World was as memorable and magical, though in a different kind of way
A Book With A One Word Title And here we are, back with Virginia Woolf again. Orlando was the first Woolf I ever read, in my teens, and what a fizzy, playful delight it is.
A Book of Short Stories I loved Michael Cunningham’s A Wild Swan and other tales, beautifully illustrated, subversive fairy stories. It’s particularly apposite he follows, and precedes also, another Woolf title on the Bingo, as he wrote the book The Hours (from which an acclaimed film was made), with Woolf, her writing and her life, as a theme. It has been long on my TBR and needs to move to ‘Having Been Read’ and, no doubt, if my enjoyment of his writing here, indicates, reviewed on the blog.
Free Square Who else but Virginia Woolf again, this time the marvellous lecture she gave, a sparkling, witty, imaginative classic of the feminist canon. In no way ‘worthy’ or dusty and dry A Room of One’s Own is a book which still, sadly is about battles which are still needing to be fought. Sorry to labour the point again, but the unfotunate election of a man to the highest office in the land despite expressed attitudes and actions towards women that should have died out well over a hundred years ago, show there is a long way to go.
A Book Set On A Different Continent So yet another wonderful re-read was set for me by the invitation to JacquiWine’s Jean Rhys Reading Week. The marvellous Rhys fills the ‘another continent’ slot for her Mainly West Indies set Wide Sargasso Sea a kind of companion novel or alternative view of Jane Eyre. This tells the story of Rochester’s Mad Wife.
A Book of Non-Fiction My re-reading of George Orwell ‘s Homage to Catalonia, an account of his time with the POUM militia during the Spanish Civil War, is, again, thanks to another Blogger. In this case, Karen from Kaggsy’sbookishramblings. It was my read for her 1938 club
The First Book of A Favourite Author So, no surprises, we stay with Woolf courtesy of Ali’s Woolfalong. and The Voyage Out I could also have had this in a book set on a different continent, due to its somewhere in South America setting. It’s less stylistically innovative than her later writing, but my, all that unique voice is unfolding
A Book That You Heard About Online So, my most recently reviewed title The Summer That Melted Everything perfectly qualifies, as it was one of the choices offered by my on-line bookclub!
A Best Selling Book Robert Harris’ Pope Election thriller Conclave also gives me the chance to link my oldest virtual bloggy (in fact, pre-bloggy) chum Fiction Fan, particularly as she encouraged me in the writing of a pretty please to Harris’ publisher for a review copy on the strength of previous 5 star reviews I’d given to Harris’ earlier works
A Book Based on a True Story Thomas Keneally’s Napoleon’s Last Island was the fascinating story of the friendship between the Emperor, imprisoned on St. Helena and young Betsey, daughter of the Superintendent of Public Sales for the East India Company. It was one of those strange, but true, narratives
A Book at the Bottom of The TBR Pile I had requested Alain de Botton’s part philosophical reflection, part novel structure around philosophy The Course of Love and I have no idea why it took me so long to embark on it. It was wonderful
A Book Your Friend Loves As Cleo got me into trying this year’s Bingo it seems only fair to let her have the honour of the Friend Loves slot – it was her review of Anna Hope’s wonderful The Ballroom that alerted me to the book
A Book That Scares You It was an earlier book by Michelle Paver, another frozen setting in her Dark Matter, that filled this slot on an earlier challenge. And she scared me again with Thin Air
A Book That Is More Than Ten YearsOld Rather more than Ten Years Old is E. Nesbit’s wonderful The Railway Children first published in book form in 1906 – it had been serialised in a magazine, the previous year
The Second Book in a Series – Alas! Alas! Alas! No full card for me. This was, as I suspected it would be, once I looked at the card, my stumbling block. I’m not really a fan of ‘series’. Unless I have only just discovered the writer somewhere in that series and have been attempting a feverish re-read, this particular bingo is always likely to trip me up. Mind you, that did happen with Tana French last year, and, if memory serves me well it was either Cleopatra or Jane, both of whom feature in my 2016 Bingo card, who introduced me to Ms French – I know one lured me with Broken Harbour and one with The Secret Place and within 6 weeks I had submerged myself in the Dublin Murder Squad’s company.
I DID, briefly, on finding a one square missing, consider a quick re-read of the magical Moomin series – book 2 of it, to be precise, but those of you who would frown on such behaviour can un-purse your lips. I didn’t. Though I may well have a little Moomin re-explore, as Tove-Land is sheer joy, and I have only ever reviewed Finn Family Moomintroll, the first I read, as a child, on here
A Book with A Blue Cover So, finally an author I have been very late to come to, but am working my way through her stunning books, so, thanks to Jeanette Winterson, with a blue cover for Gut Symmetries an astonishing weave of love story and particle physics
And that, dear bloggers, was Bingo 2016 in this house
Now my third birthday is over and I am feeling the effects of quaffing too much of Margery Sharp’s champagne, inevitably this book blogger’s thoughts turns towards her reads, not to mention her posts on her reads. And idly looking through WordPress stats to see which posts have been most viewed, yielded results which intrigued me a little.
Far and away my most viewed post was the hardly mainstream non-fiction book by Mark Rowlands, the title of which gives away the contents The Philosopher and The Wolf Rowlands is a philosopher, with a passion for wolves, and his book explores what it might be to be human, and what it might be to be wolf. I posted this review shortly after I started blogging, when, to generate some bloggy content I was cannibalising some of my most loved reads which I had raved about, sometimes years earlier, on Amazon. My review of Rowlands book has been viewed (and continues regularly to attract viewers) over 1160 times in my 3 years of blogging – though a miniscule number of likes!
In a shifting competition for second place, with 650 and rising views each are two other non-fiction books. Currently ahead by a whisker (at the time of writing this post) is Robert Massie’s Nicholas and Alexandra, which he wrote back in 1967. Admittedly, it is more directly about the Romanovs than the progress of the revolution, but of course, the journeys are entwined. And Massie wrote the book largely because his own son was born with haemophilia, which of course had devastating effects on the last Tsar’s family.
It may be that the third book, by Sharman Apt Russell, published in 2001, Anatomy of a Rose which, unsurprisingly is about Roses, will have knocked the Romanovs into third place by the time this goes live, as these two continue to jockey with each other.
Apt Russell is a Pantheist and a writer who is much concerned with the environment. Her writings about the natural world are plenty full of science, but laced with a poet’s, mystic’s sensibilities, so they are the very reverse of drily factual, objective laying out of unemotional fact.
A much needed quality – the Peace Rose
Curiously (or not) the Wolf and the Rose books have attracted their many visits from image searches, not from the titles of the books. I have no idea whether those who landed on my blog following their viewing of a page where a picture of a wolf, or a botanical drawing of the parts of a rose appeared, were pleased or irritated by what they found.
The three continue to steadily get viewed, and it is a rare day when none of them feature in my visiting stats
We are a patterning, narrating species, drawn to making connections and looping together this and that. The web, the net, both wonderfully named, offer new kinds of connections, and can begin, in the mind of the viewer, to tell new stories. Quite possibly, the wolves, the Romanovs, the roses connect not at all, but as the weaver of particular junctions on the patchwork quilt of my own blog, I have rather embarked on an idea of connections. This journey has meaning to me, even if the conclusions have no resonance for anyone else.
Let’s start
The wolf, that creature of the wilds, particularly of the shadowy fastnesses of forests, has long inhabited our dark dreams, our nightmares. Canis lupus exists as the shadow side of man’s best friend, the domesticated sub species Canis lupus familiaris, which we have made safe and beloved. But, maybe, a little bit of wild exists in the memory and genepool of even the most civilised and tamed of little doggies, who satisfy our days by honouring its tribe, pack, heritage by offering its human, leader of the pack status.
But, those untamed ones, what of them? They, like us, are a top predator. They, like us, are a tribe, pack, community animal. They, like us, are highly intelligent. But, unlike us, (or, perhaps, like us?) they are untamed. Once the wolf threatened our attempts to make our world safe and domesticated. When we became agriculturalists, the wolves were predators on our gathered flocks. Wolf was a story to scare our children with, the dangers of roaming through those dark forests – and what a field day those twining, tendrilly, loamy, mushroomy forests offer symbolically to post-Freudians. And what symbols the voracious, hungry wolf, confidently rampaging through those forests might hint at, lurking in hairy fashion under our buttoned up clothing. Whose are those slavering bloodied jaws?
Who could forget the transformation scene from American Werewolf in London
It’s no wonder that one of the staples of gothic horror fiction is the werewolf. Man (and woman) rips through the civilised and restraining veneer to become a creature of howling unrestrained desires at the full of the moon. Not our fault, of course, instinct overcame and possessed us. Jekyll and Hyde, each one of us.
But the wolf fascinates, because they are creatures of more than just the savagery we like to tar them with. Wolves are fiercely loyal to their pack. They are the tenderest of parents, the most intelligent of hunters, they symbolise a power, an honesty, a freedom. They live on the edge, and we envy and fear them for that. There are those who hate and fear them, and are opposed to re-wilding. And there are those who perhaps yearn for them. We half fear, and half long to find our untamed, unconfined wolfishness.
The unearthly sound of wolves howling is one of the most popular recorded soundscapes. We respond to them in a way beyond intellect. And some of us want, however foolishly (we might be made mincemeat) to run with them, to run, run, run with them
And what do you know – wolves are good for us, wolves are very very green indeed. I’m indebted to another blogger, Jilanne Hoffman, for reminding me of this wonderfully charged and wondrous video, narrated with such enthusiasm by George Monbiot.
The rose might appear to be the antithesis of the wolf. Although wild roses exist – we have tamed, named, brought them into the garden, into order, pruned and civilised them. They smell sweet, and, we might think, are a million scent miles away from the musky animalic odour of wolf.
Interestingly, the wild rose is also known as the dog rose, Rosa Canina – so we can see a botanical wolfish connection. I wonder where that connection to dogginess came from. Does it refer to the fact that delicate though the petals of a rose may be, the plant can fiercely defend itself, sharply stabbing with its little canine tooth shaped thorns?
But, to go back a little to the rose, now beautifully cultivated in gardens, possibly shapely, possibly highly scented. However, that succulent, seductive, rose perfume is actually rich in some extremely musky, urino-faecal odour notes, containing pheromonal notes (that’s what acts as the chemistry of desire to pollinators) the indoles. Indoles occur in faeces, (nice!) and have a faecal note – but at very low concentrations – are perceived as floral. Some of the most heavenly and expensive essential oils and floral absolutes – for example, rose, orange blossom, jasmine, contain indoles. The whiff of sex adheres to roses. Roses are, of course, above all other flowers, the flower that symbolises love, sexual love, the I love you gift of lover to lover. But roses are not only symbolic of sexual love and Eros.
The Roses of Heliogabalus by Alma Tadema, 1888, Wiki, Commons
In Christianity, the Rose is synonymous with the Virgin Mary, and symbolises spirit incarnating, surrender to the divine. The rose with its thorns also symbolised Christ’s wounds. In Sufiism, the connection between rose and love became translated to symbolise the desire for union with the divine.
Roses, particularly red roses, symbolise the heart, heart’s blood – and by a sideways jump, adopted into the red rose of socialism, the red flag of the people, deepest red, shrouding oft the martyred dead.
Stirringly sung here, by Pól Macadiam with solidarity poster accompaniments
And the Rose can be militant and warlike too, in English history, where the Plantagenet succession battles between the Yorkists (White Rose) and the Lancastrians (Red Rose) were known as the Wars of the Roses. This delicate flower here standing for strife and conflict, later the heraldic Tudor Rose, a composite of the white and red, symbolised the end of the Plantagenet conflict. Henry Tudor (Henry VII) was a descendent of the Lancastrian side, and marriage to Elizabeth of York, and the children of that marriage, marked the formation of a new dynasty.
Henry VII’s son, he of the six wives, created a kind of revolution in the religion of the land, mainly because of his following that doggy-rutty-overwhelmed by deepest desires. That man well in touch with his inner werewolf, I feel. Not to mention how fervent ideological belief led to the potential for further over-throwings and rebellions, if not quite revolutions, in the generation of the children of that much marrying king.
Which gives me the sew-up to the Romanovs, and yet more blood, yet more brutality.
I think all I can say on that, whether dwelling on the history of the bloodiness of Roses Wars, the Tudor succession, or how blood itself (haemophilia) contributed to that Russian Revolution is a quote from the Scottish play, used to justify further bloodshed. Something I feel drives escalations of all violence
I am in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er,
I am so sorry–this post has turned out to be dour and bloody. I should at least offer some refreshment!
Glass of bull’s blood, anyone?
To lighten things a little, before you all leave the morning after the night before birthday party early, do at least have a nice bunch of roses. I will make certain the wolves stay in their pens till you all get home, and that the ghosts of queens with severed heads and others somewhat bloodily despatched stay within doors
Blame those visitors doing their searches, not me, ‘twas they that started me thinking along these roads
And I can’t resist one of my favourite chanteuses, the magnificent June Tabor, here with the driving rhythms of Oysterband. Staying with an earlier, bloody connection between Russia, (by way of France) and Roses, the flower symbolises the United Kingdom, in the folk-song Bonny Bunch of Roses. Here, from their album, Ragged Kingdom, the driving rhythms can accompany your journey home, clutching your bonny bunch of roses-oh!
(Apologies to Welsh listeners, who might or might not feel a little aggrieved at how the song-writer’s need for metre and rhythm has done strange things to ‘our United Kingdom’ to quote the current political-speak)
I received a lovely and unexpected email from Open Road Integrated Media, an epublishing company who seem to have been keenly re-establishing sometimes neglected authors fallen out of attention in a world where the often badly written latest hypery, in bookie terms, is drowned in sticky saccharine puffery
(I had to get that off my chest again)
But, as this post is meant as a thanks and a celebration of discerning publishers, discerning and dedicated bloggers who champion the neglected splendours from earlier decades, lesser trodden paths, hidden byways from other lands and the like, I will put on my best smile, fill the best champagne glass and shout ‘Huzzah’ ‘for she’s a jolly good…..blogger’, applauding ferociously in specific directions…
Open Road Media emailed to thank me for my review of Margery Sharp’s out of print Cluny Brown, and to tell me that they were releasing 10 Margerys on April 12th and would I like advance copies of Cluny and The Nutmeg Tree to download and review (or in Cluny’s case, mention again) Yes, I would, I certainly would. What a treat. Thank you Open Road
And I do believe that it is the sterling work on Margery’s behalf done by passionate reader bloggers who have created a buzz which a responsive publisher ‘in the niche’ has responded to
And so the biggest cheer goes to Jane at beyondedenrock. I had never heard of Margery Sharp before Jane ran her MargerySharp day LAST year, which I missed, but her periodic Margery including posts, and my appreciation of her discernment about half forgotten writers made me take notice, and track down a rare battered copy of Cluny from a marketplace seller. Most of her titles are now only available, battered, at eye-watering prices, so it was a jolly find. Except that I was left with a taste for more. And more was unobtainable outside eye water.
Until now
And then Jane also introduced me to another Margery champion, The Margery Sharp blog. I’ve become aware of a wonderful little community championing the rarer, the ones who should not have been forgotten…..and of course the lovely small publishers (Persephone, Pushkin and others) who are also tenderly re-planting books, and sending their cuttings out all over (okay, the metaphor might not quite work)
So, as well as Jane, I also want (nervously) to thank another little clutch of bloggers who have rather grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and thrust new reads, not to mention re-reads into my path. They are all making me aware of ‘so many WONDERFUL books, so little time’ And I am buying, buying, buying, not to mention desperately scouring the shelves of second hand shops, for lists and lists of treasures
So, my new Nemeses (it sounds better than Nemesises, and, what do you know, the spell checker slumbered at Nemeses, but spat at the snakey version with the extra hissing consonants), are found below, in no particular order – they are equally dangerous to the diminishing of bank balances and the cluttering of space, as I earnestly search for second hand copies of rarities. Who knows, perhaps their fierce and championing work may yet yield re-releases of any gone out of print (as in the Sharpists’ successes)
Let’s nervously, gratefully hear it for
HeavenAli (responsible for my happiest re-read of the year thus far, To The Lighthouse)
Kaggsysbookishramblings (I expect her to be responsible for another glorious re-read as part of her 1938 Challenge (Homage to Catalonia)
Shoshi’s Book Blog (all things Russian, and much much more – re-reads of Dostoievsky are well overdue)
Of course, thanks to these (and other) bloggers my own self challenge (Reading the 20th) is woefully foundering, as book after book which I intended to read at some point in a glitteringly beckoning future year gets bumped into the present urgent read, due to a splendid and seductive heads up, generally as one of their irresistible challenge. I keep telling myself – ‘I will continue the sequential Reading the Twentieth next week’ At this rate, it will be next decade. Shame on you and your blandishments, ladies!
Meanwhile have some of Margery’s champagne. I’m sure she won’t mind
Now how can I resist the lure of this, particularly as I can use it to add in all those great books which got squeezed out of my top 10-but-as-I-can’t-count-became-11. I have studiously avoided, with one exception any books which made my ‘best of’ .
Curiously/fortuitously pretty well all the categories had appeared in the PopSugar challenge, so, by nearly completing that, I could mark a full card on this
Over 500 pages for Norman Collins – London Belongs To Me. This 700 pager, London on The Home Front in the Second World War is a good old fashioned book, and nods to Dickens
A forgotten classic gives Austrian writer Stefan Zweig his place with Beware of Pity, published in 1939. Unsurprisingly events at home meant Zweig had wisely left his homeland some years earlier
Alfred Hitchcock and Daphne du Maurier seem a happy match though the Master’s film of Rebecca is substantially less dark than the writer’s book
It took an ex-pat Brit, long resident in America, to bring Tessa Hadley to my attention. Published this yearThe Past may be my first Hadley, but it won’t be my last. She is definitely an ‘understated’ writer – that is, trusts the reader’s intelligence
Patrick Hamilton’s Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky is for sure a book with a number in the title – actually, it is a trilogy. Not to mention a TV adaptation. He could have happily filled over 500 pages and forgotten classic slots too! He made my best reads of 2015 with another title.
Colette’s extraordinarily racy book, given its 1900 publication date, was published when the author was 27. Claudine at School, my entry for a book written by someone under 30 could equally well have gained the movie and the funny and the forgotten classic slot!
I had never read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and only did so as part of my ‘Reading The Twentieth’ long term challenge (published 1900) Although the central character is a little girl, a lion, a scarecrow, a tin man, several munchkins and the like give it status as my book with non-human characters. To be honest, it wasn’t my favourite in this category – that belongs to my re-read of Kenneth Grahame’s much more wonderful Wind In The Willows. But as I didn’t write a review, just basked in the book, Baum gets the slot
Another re-read, and what a delightful one, gets my ‘a funny book’ slot – though it also qualifies in my mind as perhaps a forgotten classic. Dodie Smith, she of 101 Dalmatians wrote the delicious I Capture The Castle. Judging by my ‘comments’ on the post, a lot of us have fond memories of this, reading it in our teens. I suspect the humour gets better and better as the reader disgracefully ages
So many brilliant books by so many brilliant authors. I’m delighted to get Marianne Wheelaghan’s The Blue Suitcase in as my book by a female author. Though I rather resent the category which seems to suggest books by females might be rare! The Blue Suitcase, loosely based around Wheelaghan’s mother,growing up in Germany in the 30s, was one which gave me much heartache not to include in my ‘top 10’ of the year. Had I done a top ten fiction, it would have been there. It occupied my thoughts for quite a long time after I finished reading. Always something which I value.
I got a lot out of Claire North’s assured time-jumping, body-jumping SF-ish, Triller and Suspense-ish, Lit-Ficcyish invention. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August had me reading through the night feverishly wanting to solve the many mysteries.
I’m a huge fan of (well-written) books about espionage, fact and fiction. The idea of leading a double life would fill me with impossible to handle anxiety. The fact that some people do, for various reasons, interests me. Simon Mawer’s sequel to The Girl Who Fell From The Sky, which I read a couple of years ago, is Tightrope my highly recommended one word title book
Short stories are often something I have some reservations about. Rose Tremain is an author I much admire. And The American Lover had me delighted with nearly every story in this collection
Rebecca Mascull’s second novel was another book which absolutely would have made my Top Ten if I had gone the ‘Top Ten Fiction’ route, instead of a mixed top ten. And leaving her wonderful Enlightenment set Song of the Sea Maid just out of the combo top-ten was a very hard thing to do. So she gets the central ‘free choice‘ slot here
Brian Payton’s The Wind Is Not A River was set during the Second World War, in the Aleutian Islands, part of America’s Alaskan territory, which was invaded and occupied by the Japanese army. Which most Americans were unaware of at the time, a very secret war. And, as I live in the UK, Alaska definitely qualifies as a book set on a different continent
Peter Doggett’s 125 years of popular music Electric Shock was an utterly absorbing book. Not just music, but also social history. It gets the non-fiction slot, though non-fiction books have also been slotted in in other spaces!
Tana French. Oh, Tana French. Now, I first encountered her with her fourth book, recommended by a couple of bloggers. And pretty quickly went on to her fifth book, also recommended by those bloggers. (Since you want, rightly, to know WHICH bloggers : Jane from her previous blog FleurInHerWorld for Broken Harbour and Cleopatralovesbooks for The Secret Place ) And, what do you know, Ms French hooked me and wouldn’t let go; within 6 weeks I had read everything she has written. Her Dublin crime series is magnificent. So Tana French is clearly an author I love and this book is therefore the first book by an author I love: In The Woods What all her many fans are shouting, screaming, stamping their little feet crossly about is when will number 6 appear, when? WHEN, Tana???
To be honest, most of the books I now hear about are books heard about online. But I’m delighted to use the slot to further push another book it really hurt to exclude from my Top Ten of the year. Jasmine Donahaye’s Losing Israel explores the complexities of the conflict between Israel and Palestine in a very personal way
I enjoyed Sarah Water’s best-sellingThe Paying Guests with some reservations. I suppose I might have included any one of Tana French’s other books as an unreserved best-seller recommendation, but I’m trying to avoid author duplication here, or duplicating anything from my top ten list which was yesterday’s post!
Paula Milne’s well-written Circling the Sun, my entry for a book based on a true storyslot, is another with reservations – mainly because she plays a little fast and loose with this account of the aviator and horse trainer Beryl Markham, as I discovered when I did a little more research into Markham. I have a slightly uncomfortable feeling around biographies as fiction when the impression given to the reader is that this is more biographical than it really is. It feels as if a life has been tampered with, and I would have preferred it if Milne had come clean and clear at the end about what had been invented.
Back to a book with not a whisker of reservation about its inclusion – except, with no apologies, to state this has already appeared as one of my firm top ten. Richard Yates’ extraordinary Revolutionary Road was indeed a book at the bottom of my TBR pile. I had bought the book 4 or 5 years ago following a strong recommendation by someone who had given me some other great reads, mainly non-fiction. But following one or two fictions which hadn’t worked for me, I thought this book might be another one such, and it rather slipped off the radar, till an impassioned review by FictionFan pulled this book out from its languishing place at the bottom of the pile to become possibly THE book of this year.
Lissa Evans warm-hearted Crooked Heart was a book loved and recommended by a friend ‘in real’. And I loved and recommend it too!
Andrew Michael Hurley’s The Loney is a book that scared me. And it’s brilliant. And scary………….
J.D. Salinger’s FAR from forgotten classic, The Catcher In The Rye which I re-read this year is my book over 10 years old
Jane Smiley’s Early Warning is the second bookin a trilogy of books looking at 100 years of American history. I enjoyed it enormously, but can’t quite work out why I’ve dilly dallied over getting the final volume
And finally, to finish my card, is a book with a blue cover. Where I’m Reading Fromis one of two thoroughly enjoyable books by Tim Parks which I’ve read this year, all about reading, writing, reviewing, publishing and, indeed the all the vexed philosophical ideas you may have about why on earth you, me and our species ever read at all, read in the past, currently read, and may (or may not) read in the future
Having completed my card its time to do wings avoiding work, building muscles for some hefty tomes on the agenda for 2016
Have a wonderful New Year, one and all, and see you, auld acquaintance, new acquaintance, on the far side of the year
Another terrific year of reading, and a hard choice to get it down to 10 + 1. In the end, the criteria for inclusion came down to the fact that all these books continued to make me think about them and talk about them and be not quite ready to let them go and start something else. Book nags, the lot of them!
In no particular order, but more or less the order I read the books in, though two of the books I found were in, out, in, out with each other, and by the time Ginger finished a final decision was not forthcoming, which would seem to make them joint 10, as none of the others budged a millimeter from inclusion. 4 of these books are non-fiction, the rest fiction. Books by dead Americans loomed large this year.
Links to original reviews within the text.
C.J Sansom’s Lamentation was the first of two books in my list this year which gave me certain nightmares about what it might have been like to live in the reign of that much-marrying man Henry VIIIth. A terrific book, a proper page-turner, and one which had me worrying intensely for the central character and his friends, as much as if I was back in the day, and Sansom’s characters were real. This was a book which made me cry, lots, and also terrified me, was instructive, and gave much exercise to the heart too
Helen MacDonald’s extraordinary book, H is for Hawk, winner of the Samuel Johnson prize was a clear and unforgettable inclusion in my list. Written in searingly powerful prose, MacDonald’s book encompasses grief at the loss of her father, a transcendental exploration of the natural world, an assessment of T.H. White, and, most of all a kind of intensity about what it means to be human through engaging as searchingly as possible in attempting to inhabit the being of a non-human living creature.
Patrick Hamilton was described by J.B Priestley as one of the best minor novelists writing in the interwar (and beyond) years. That sounds like being damned with faint praise, though I don’t believe it was meant in that way. I think, over time, his stock has risen, and that perhaps his difficult personal history may have prevented his peers from seeing quite how good his writing is. He is particularly fine in being able to give authentic voice to ‘little people’ – and, especially, to women. The Slaves of Solitude, set in 1943 is wonderfully funny, as well as making the reader wince with true empathy and recognition, often in the same moment. A light touch writer
American author Dorothy B. Hughes 1963 Golden Age Crime Thriller The Expendable Man makes my list for similar reasons to the three other American books. Not just a well-crafted book, and a strong narrative, but a book which lays bare much of how society, in specific times and places, is faring. Novels, creating the imaginary lives of imaginary individuals, can really bring home, powerfully, something which statistical analyses of information about attitudes from questionnaires and studies, fail to do. I can’t say too much about Hughes book. There’s a journey the reader needs to make for themselves with it, but I do recommend it highly. The fact that it was re-published by the excellent Persephone Press is also a recommendation!
Sean Michael’s Us Conductors was a delight. Canadian Michael’s between the two world wars and beyond, USA and Russian set novel, won Canada’s Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s Man Booker equivalent. It is a kind of fictionalised biography of Leon Termen, a scientist and inventor who invented the teremin, an electronic musical instrument played by the performer’s hands between the circuits of two oscillators. The book, like the instrument, and like Termen’s life, is a weirdly wonderful thing. This was another book which was instructive, as well as being beautifully written, thoughtful and engaging. It was one of two books I had my in/out tussles with. I couldn’t bear to drop it, nor could I bear to drop the other which was as equally needing inclusion. Published 2015 in the UK
John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath , a flawed, raging, book about the exploitation of migrants, the disenfranchised, an impassioned polemic for the righteousness of socialist politics, and against the putting of profits above fair pay and working conditions, was always going to be high on my list. Published in 1939, as war began to provide a terrible solution to the stock market crash of the late 20s, this is another book which uncomfortably drags the reader to the mirror, making us examine ourselves, and the society we live in. Steinbeck pulls no punches, and his writing is sometimes sublime and sometimes punches the reader round the head to ensure he gets his point across. It’s a far from comfortable, far from easy read, but good heavens, it is an awakening one
And I’m staying Stateside with Richard Yates Revolutionary Road. Originally published in 1961 Yates’ book is a portrait of a suburban marriage, and of corporate America, the American Dream and its underbelly. It is set in the mid-50s, in Connecticut. Though it was made into a fine film, directed by Sam Mendes, with Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Caprio, which at some point I mean to positively review, what the film can’t do (outside using dialogue taken from the book) is to do justice to Yates’ stunning use of language, and the way something which is described in the book, like the building of a rockery path in a garden, encapsulates, in a very unforced way, metaphors as well as close description. In this, there is a kind of poetic sensibility in his writing, which is full of layers, whilst being absolutely accessible
Having spent quite a lot of time on fictions set earlier in the twentieth century this year, it became time for two non-fiction books about history to occupy my ‘best books’ slot. Alison Weir’s The Lady In The Tower connects back to my first read book of my top reads, the C.J. Sansom. Weir explores the last few month’s of Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn. This is history, not historical fiction, and she uses the book to also explain what historians can and cannot do with their research. As well as piecing together documentary evidence she also explores how the thinking of the times in which a later historian is writing, will influence interpretations of meaning. So history has changed its view of the principal players, over time
And then there is the wonderful children’s history book, A Little History of the World, written by the art historian E.H. Gombrich in the 30s, which follows ‘history’ right from prehistoric times with a wide-angled view of the world. It has been updated to end with the fall of the Berlin Wall in the recent translation into English. Less about a view of an individual country across the millenia, there’s a global view of ideas, dreams and nightmares of attempts at world domination. It’s like the historical version of the evolution of mankind. Gombrich may have written it for children, but it proves to be a book of immense interest and edification for adults
I returned to Stateside reading in the first book in my ‘Reading the Twentieth’ Challenge. And what a book Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie turned out to be. Dreiser was looking at concerns which would come to dominate again, later in the century – how women (and men) are exploited by capital, the hypocrisy of society towards women’s sexuality, how much we can be said to have free choice, given the power of the unconscious, and the need for peer acceptance, toeing the line, fitting in: the influence of the thinking of the times upon us. A great, rich, weighty tome of a book. I’m keen to engage with Dreiser further, if I can ever penetrate further into the century!
And my final book, one published this year, was also the other one of the in/out tussle. Sara Taylor’s assured debut novel The Shore is a collection of interweaving stories about a community within the geography of islands off the Virginia Coast. Told in distinct voices, and in a back and forth timespan between 1876 and 2143 this is a strange and powerful book. Violent at times, it is never gratuitous, though punches are not pulled. I found myself quite amazed at the strength and assurance of the writing. Taylor is certainly a writer to watch; this is a first novel of great finesse, brutal and beautiful all at once
It only remains to wish you all a very happy 2016, and may your TBR’s grow ever more unwieldy, as magnificent books demand to be added!
Having embarked on the 2015 PopSugar challenge, I’m unlikely, I hope, ever again to try a challenge which is ‘random’, in terms of categories without a clear literary focus – for example, the randomness of ‘a book with a one word title’ ‘a book written by an author with your initials’ and the like. I must admit, although I started well, reading exactly what I would normally read, and then seeing if it fitted into categories, pretty quickly the bizarre/’fun’ nature of this challenge began, I’m afraid, to irritate this rather serious reader.
It meant 100 books – not a problem, I’m normally reading a couple of books a week, depending on length and intensity. But categories such as ‘a book with a colour in the title’ began to lose appeal, very quickly.
Paperback, hardback, eread, the books kept arriving and mysteriously downloading…..
However……………..I doubt if the long term challenge I’ve set myself would have materialised without the PopSugar, as doing it let me see that this year there have been some big gaps in my reading:
I was a little shocked to see, for example, that until the idea of MY challenge presented, I had read no books in 2015 which were more than 100 years old. My reading of books in translation and non-fiction were a bit under-represented.
Abandoned books hope…all ye who enter here. Dante’s Inferno illustration from Mapsinchoate, Pinterest
Regrettably, there were a lot of books in the category ‘books you didn’t finish’. Only ONE of these made the ‘books read in 2015’ total, as it was a book which originally I didn’t finish, only because I’d started it at the wrong time and headspace, and it was seriously a-lurking on the TBR for that better time. So it properly earned it’s place in that particular PopSugar niche as it turned out to be one of my Top Ten of this year. The 7 or 8 other ‘books you didn’t finish’ represent books so not to my taste that abandonment was achieved quite rapidly, and without qualms
There were a couple of unfilled categories – what a voracious reader I have always been – I must confess there was NO book which I ‘should have read in high school, but didn’t’ – I did think about stretching it to include the COMPLETE Canterbury Tales, Prologue and All Tales, which I SHOULD have read for my Chaucer Paper whilst at University, and, quite frankly, had a huge aversion to – the original Middle English, don’t you know. But, well, it wasn’t in the category of ‘high school’ and seemed to be too much of a dreadful punishment now.
I also ploughed ‘an author with my initials’ – curiously, there do not appear to be any who have books reasonably accessible, there is one with the same first initial and last name, but he inserts another middle name, so it isn’t quite a match anyway. He at least is an author who I might be interested in reading, and might be able to get hold of a book by, but it won’t be before the end of the challenge
So, failures for high school, and failures for initial
Anyway…………….pertinent to blog world, for the category ‘a book recommended by a friend’ it’s perhaps unsurprising that bloggers have been more responsible for reccs than ‘real’ friends – certainly, a couple of bloggers have pressed me numerically into more reccs than the one or two reads specific ‘reallies’ did
Top reccer of the year honours are shared, equally, by Fiction Fan and Jane, now blogging at Beyond Eden Rock. 6 a-piece. Well done both.
I suspect next year that the challenge for ‘most tempting blogger of the year on Lady Fancifull’s TBR’ will be quite fiercely contested in 2016, as I started following three bloggers late this year who are rapidly looking like making inroads on 2016’s TBR, particularly as they read a lot of classics, often from other countries (it’s all going to serve my Reading the Twentieth) Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings, Shoshi’s Book Blog and JacquiWine look like giving me RSI of the 1-Click finger
And, more thanks due to Jane. Looking at those endlessly fascinating (to the blog author, if to no-one else) stats I see that she has soared ahead of others in driving her readers to pop over to look at my site. Thanks, Jane, for the great books and the helpful posted diversion signs!
And thanks to PopSugar for pointing up where I want to be heading in my reading over the next several years, and into making me design a seriously exciting as well as alarming little project for myself.
I shall keep a weather eye out for people doing odd challenges like ‘1924’ ‘German reading month’ etc, as some of these sound interesting little ideas for a book or two, every now and again, but with my own Everest of a challenge, I take myself out of commission from anyone else’s!
As far as categories which I WAS interested in (as they had some literary point, for me)
I read 117* books Not all of which were reviewed, and some of this year’s reads will be reviewed next year, for various reasons
Of these: 38 books published this year 53 books written by women 2 books of short stories(fewer than normal, it illustrates that I’m not really drawn to short stories, which seems to be the preface to every book of short stories I DO read and review!) 62 books set in a different country – perhaps predictably, the bulk of these were American or European, and this is something I want to redress, and roam a little wider next year 18 non-fiction – pretty woeful! 4 books more than 100 years old (see what I mean, my challenge will improve that one, for sure) 55 books by an author I had never read before 9 books originally written in another language (woeful, again my challenge will include this)
Okay………time to refine the nominations for books of 2015 before all you bloggers mass your ranks and get serious on building my 2016 TBR pile
*Number might be a little more than that, as I may well finish another one or two between the posting of this and the end of the year
A Very Slow, Very Long Journey 1900 – 1999 (or perhaps 2000)
Oh yes, I know, many of you are shouting furiously that because the first year AD was year 1 and not year 0, so the first century, and all the others, must start with year 1 of its particular century.
But you know that just doesn’t feel like the right start for this journey. So, if I start in error, so be it.
So, having decided crossly, ‘I’m not going to do any more reading challenges’ I’ve invented a variation on one, for myself. It’s going to be a corker, whether I get anywhere near completing, or not. And I’m trying not to put a timescale on it, as there will of course be other reading going on
The challenge is this, reading 4 books, in 4 categories, for each year 1900-1999. And, to qualify as one of the reads for that year, I’ll be doing it sequentially – so a 1967 book, for example, will only qualify as my 1967 book once all 4 1966 books have been read, otherwise, its just a book which I’ve read which happened to be published in 1967!
The categories are, for each year:
A Fiction book written by an author from the United Kingdom, originally published in English
A Fiction book originally written in English, by an author not from the United Kingdom
A Fiction book originally written in another language, date of first publication in its original language (but which I’ll be reading in English)
A Non-Fiction Book
I’m interested to see what picture I get of ‘the times’ once I’ve read a few years, although of course I’ll no doubt be creating that picture by the choices of book, which are likely to be erratic.
And, once I’ve read all four categories in each year, and have moved on to the next year, the rule is that I can then ADD to a year already read (go back to it) – even though going forward is not allowed. This is because, having I hope gleaned a kind of idea of a flavour of a year, I suspect I may read books set in that year still with an awareness of my ‘read the century challenge’ and if so, they would qualify
And, from time to time, rants may arise connected to a year or a span of years (lets say, then, it’s going to take nearer to 20 years, as I keep creating new complexities and deviations!)
It may also be that I break my own rule, on this blog, of not reviewing anything which is not 4 star, minimum, with my ‘Twentieth Century’ challenge as I might read something less appreciated but which is somehow right in there in that ‘reading the twentieth century’ context, and I might appreciate it in context, even if not on its own isolated merits
I’m beginning to get quite excited by this mammoth reading task, as reading sequentially, and perhaps stopping for quite a while on a certain year, could take me into all sorts of highways and byways – what was happening that year, what were they wearing, what kind of chocolate were they eating……………………………
Even if the books chosen may have a randomness (for example, something already on my shelves) reading with this sequential focus will create patterns, not to mention determine directions.
I’ll compile an index of those reads as they happen, and each read will also get categorised and indexed in my normal fashion
Onwards………………….a journey of 400 books (at least) and a hundred years, starts with just one book in just one year
Technical Thanks and Warnings of Flickering Images Are Due:
I’ve long been deeply admiring of the repeating images which often adorn the interesting blog posts of Madame Bibilophile’s excellent blog
And then my esteemed long-time bloggy friend and mentor on things bloggy, FictionFan made a post with one.
So I asked for instructions…
You have been warned…………future posts are likely (for a while at least) to suffer a plethora of over and over until I work this new delightful trick out of my system.
Thanks Madame Bibi! Thanks FictionFan!
And meanwhile, whilst you listen to Patti, here is possibly the most heartbreaking and frustrating gif a woman could ever find…….
I think it’s time I tried to grab that horse and get out of this place…………….., or at least be in a position to catch up with some of that fast moving chocolate
Bee Wilson is an utterly engaging writer on matters historical and foodie – together. I love the history of the domestic, but with 
Martin Stevens’ 
Svetlana Alexievich’s harrowing 
recognitions of what our worst can lead to, and I got it in John Powell’s enthusiastic, playful, erudite 
The January Man, which I read in the summer as an ARC from Amazon Vine has not yet been reviewed on here, as there seemed little point to whet appetites when its publication day is the 12th January 2017. The link therefore is to 
And my non-fictions end with Virginia. It’s easy to think of Woolf through knowing her end, and the mental illness she suffered. But she was another who burned with intelligence, humour, joy. 
Alain Fournier’s 
Finally we get to a fiction published this year, Eowyn Ivey’s 
Christopher Isherwood’s 
I discovered Jeanette Winterson’s 1997 novel through some chance or other, this year. 
existence .
Interestingly, the wild rose is also known as the dog rose, Rosa Canina – so we can see a botanical wolfish connection. I wonder where that connection to dogginess came from. Does it refer to the fact that delicate though the petals of a rose may be, the plant can fiercely defend itself, sharply stabbing with its little canine tooth shaped thorns?
I received a lovely and unexpected email from 
And finally, to finish my card, is 
Patrick Hamilton was described by J.B Priestley as one of the best minor novelists writing in the interwar (and beyond) years. That sounds like being damned with faint praise, though I don’t believe it was meant in that way. I think, over time, his stock has risen, and that perhaps his difficult personal history may have prevented his peers from seeing quite how good his writing is. He is particularly fine in being able to give authentic voice to ‘little people’ – and, especially, to women. 
American author Dorothy B. Hughes 1963 Golden Age Crime Thriller 
Sean Michael’s 
John Steinbeck’s 
And I’m staying Stateside with Richard Yates 
Having spent quite a lot of time on fictions set earlier in the twentieth century this year, it became time for two non-fiction books about history to occupy my ‘best books’ slot. Alison Weir’s 
And then there is the wonderful children’s history book, 
I returned to Stateside reading in the first book in my ‘Reading the Twentieth’ Challenge. And what a book Theodore Dreiser’s 
And my final book, one published this year, was also the other one of the in/out tussle. Sara Taylor’s assured debut novel 
There were a couple of unfilled categories – what a voracious reader I have always been – I must confess there was NO book which I ‘should have read in high school, but didn’t’ – I did think about stretching it to include the COMPLETE Canterbury Tales, Prologue and All Tales, which I SHOULD have read for my Chaucer Paper whilst at University, and, quite frankly, had a huge aversion to – the original Middle English, don’t you know. But, well, it wasn’t in the category of ‘high school’ and seemed to be too much of a dreadful punishment now.
