This is my first time doing the Classics Club spin – members need to create a post that lists twenty books that remain “to be read” on their Classics Club list – my list has 62 books on it, and I have only read 2 so far, so it was easy to pick 20. On Monday 23rd September, a number from 1 through 20 will be posted, and the challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by 31st October, 2019.
Here is my list:
Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
The Englishwoman in America – Isabella Bird
Lorna Doone – RD Blackmore
The Story of the Stone Vol2: The Crab-Flower Club – Cao Xueqin
The Last of the Mohicans – Fenimore Cooper
Tales of the Thousand and One Nights – NJ Dawood (Translator)
This week I have finished one book, and have started three more…
A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny was my choice for the Around the Year Challenge #36 – a book featured on an NPR Best Books of the Year list. This is one in a series about Inspector Gamache, who lives in a village in Quebec. I saw Louise Penny speak at the Perth Writers Festival last year, and was charmed by her. I had only read the first in her series, but then came across this one in a charity shop – I think the 13th book in the series. Gamache is an interesting character – a detective who does not fit the usual stereotype. He lives in a small village, which in this book turns out to be a village not included on maps – hmmm. Despite some questionable background, the stories are always fun and characters well-drawn. The other residents of the village feature in each book, so I think the charm of the series comes from the community of characters rather than just Gamache himself.
I began reading/listening to the audiobook of A Gentleman of Moscow, and am about a third of the way through it. Though I appreciate audiobooks in some ways, I do find that I am easily distracted and lose certain passages. I find I can only listen while driving, but even then I find myself distracted, and of course am unable to turn back to listen again, so although I am really enjoying this book, I know I would appreciate it more if I was reading a real book. I am loving the language, so will see how I go with the rest of it.
I have also begun reading ‘The Best Short Stories’ by Rudyard Kipling, for the Popsugar Challenge ‘two books that share the same title’. I found this challenge irritating (who has two books with the same title?), but managed to find this book as well as Jack London’s short stories (luckily also called ‘The Best Short Stories’, so hope to enjoy them all. The first two Kipling stories were somewhat annoying, being filled dialogue attempting to represent various accents, which was distracting. I have now read a third story, and becoming more engaged.
Due to a desire to have a break from Kipling’s stories, I began the next in my Around the Year challenge – a book set in a school or university – for which I have chosen ‘ Friendly Fire’ by Patrick Gale. I have read several of Patrick’s books before, and always enjoy them, so I expect to finish this one before the others I have embarked upon.
Oh dear, I’m not doing so well with keeping this blog up-to-date. Since my last post, I have read following books:
Uncommon Type – short stories by Tom Hanks. This was for the AtY prompt ‘a book you have owned for at least a year, but have not read yet’. I bought the book when it first came out because it had such great reviews and I had always admired Tom Hanks, but I do wonder if it would have been published had he not already been so well-known. I did enjoy some of the stories and his clever and amusing turns of phrase; I also enjoyed the common thread of typewriters, as I collect old writing implements (mostly inkwells rather than typewriters though). Some of the stories were not up to scratch in my opinion, but I am glad to have read the book.
Nancy Wake – a biography by Peter Fitzsimons. Nancy was an Australian who was highly decorated by France, USA and UK (and eventually, Australia) for her efforts as a secret agent during World War 2. She was married to a Frenchman, was fluent in French, and worked very closely with the French resistance as she undertook many very dangerous missions. It is a fascinating life story, but I did not enjoy the writing. Peter Fitzsimons is a well-known Australian journalist and ex national team footballer. He churns out books, mostly about aspects of Australian history, and has a very distinctive speaking style (enthusiastic but also hectoring) – I could hear his voice throughout this book and it irritated me. In my opinion he puts too much of himself into his books and I am not inclined to read another one. Nancy though – she was amazing. This one was read for the AtY Challenge prompt ‘a book with a person’s name in the title’.
Chinese Lessons by John Pomfret. I read this for the Popsugar Challenge – ‘a book set on a college or university campus’. As I studied China and Chinese language at university way back in the 1970s, and then lived and worked there for 5 years more recently, I am always drawn to books about this most fascinating country. John Pomfret was one of the very early exchange students from the US to China, spending a year at Nanjing University where his classmates had just lived through two of Mao’s worst programs: the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Pomfret went on to become a journalist, spending much of his career in China, and after attending his Nanjing class’ 20th reunion, he caught up with the lives of several of his former fellow students. This is quite an old book (published 2006), but it gives a fascinating insight into the lives of a generation that saw massive changes over the years.
Normal People by Sally Rooney was my local Book Club’s choice for August. It was a quick read, and everyone in the group enjoyed it (we are a relatively mature group – ages ranging from mid-50s to 80+). I knew the book had had a lot of hype, but many had never heard of it, and groaned on realising that it was Irish (we seem to have had a lot of very dark and depressing Irish novels over the past few years). Luckily this young, fresh voice was enjoyed by all. The story follows two academically gifted young people who have connected secretly at high school where he is popular and she is a complete outsider. When they move to university, somehow she becomes the popular one (she is rich, like most of the other students at Trinity College), while he struggles to fit in (he is poor). They remain dedicated to one another while each pursuing other partners – I just wanted them to stay together. This author is one to watch.
Coffin Road by Peter May. This is a crime fiction author I really enjoy, especially because of his settings. I first heard of him while hiking in the Outer Hebrides (Scotland), where our guide made recommendations of books set on Lewis and Harris, and how excited I was to discover that he also has a series set in China! I really enjoyed his Harris Trilogy, so was very happy to come across this stand-alone novel, also set on Harris. It starts with a man washed up on a beach, hypothermic and having lost his memory – a good story with relevance to current issues. This one was for the AtY challenge ‘a psychological thriller’.
The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith is the first in a new series by this most prolific author of books that are unfailingly thoughtful and amusing, and able to put a positive spin on most aspects of human behaviour, no matter how strange. I always enjoy his books, though this one, about a detective in Sweden, was rather slow and not as polished as many of his others. I read it for the Popsugar challenge prompt ‘a book set in Scandinavia’. I still laugh whenever I see the umlaut above the A in the author’s name – another example of his sense of humour. I have seen him speak several times, and he does a lot of giggling at his own jokes – very endearing.
This is a classic that I have tried to read several times, but this time I managed to get all the way through. Despite often falling asleep, and struggling with the small print and yellowed pages of my 1977 small format paperback edition, I persevered and was very glad to have actually read it. The motivation was the Popsugar Challenge prompt to read a book that has inspired a common phrase or idiom, and I was surprised to find that this book not only inspired ‘Lilliputian’ but also ‘yahoo’ – a race of disgusting, ugly, uneducated human like creatures. The other surprise was that it is not even remotely what I would consider a children’s book – I learned so much from reading the notes/references about social and political events at that time, and although I found the writing style difficult to engage with, it was a fascinating read in many ways. Jonathan Swift was clearly a man of strong opinions and a savage wit – I don’t think I would have liked him much.
It is a shame that the popular understanding of this book is mostly only about Gulliver’s visit to Lilliput – some of the other lands he visits are equally strange and interesting, but I was skeptical about the fact that he seemed always to become a favourite of the royal family of each land, often for several years, until something negative happened and he had to leave.
This book was the second completed of my Classics Club list, and it takes my total TBR list down to 219!
I first read Middlemarch by George Eliot when I was a teenager, when I was drawn to very long novels, and especially the English classics. I read it again some years ago and loved it, so was excited when I came across both Silas Marner and The Mill on the Floss in a charity shop. I really believe George Eliot is one of the best novelists ever, so I am keen to read all of her works.
Characterisation is excellent – she seems to have a such a good insight into people and is so witty in some of her descriptions – I often laughed out loud. There are characters who behave very badly, but most do have redeeming features, or act through ignorance rather than malice. Maggie’s relationships with her parents, brother and aunts are all complicated, and despite the fact that society has changed so much since this novel was written, it is very easy to relate to Maggie’s struggles. I have read that this novel is quite autobiographical – if so, George’s life must have been so difficult. The descriptions of Maggie’s yearning for love and acceptance while being criticised for her dark colouring and spirited personality are heartbreaking.
I read this as part of the Goodreads AtY challenge – the prompt for this one was a book of more than 500 pages – my edition has 691 pages. I also read it as the first in my Classics Club challenge.
Overall this book was a joy to read and I heartily recommend it.
This club requires members to make out a list of at least 50 classic titles they intend to read and blog about within the next five years. So, here is my list, and my commitment to read these books before August 2024.
Anonymous
Beowulf – read 5 November 2021
Austen, Jane Bean, CEW Bird, Isabella
Northanger Abbey – read 5 April 2020 On the Wool Track The Englishwoman in America – read 30 April 2021
Blackmore, RD
Lorna Doone
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bronte, Anne
Agnes Grey
Bronte, Anne
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – read 26 October 2022
Bronte, Charlotte
The Professor
Bronte, Charlotte
Shirley
Buchan, John Buck, Pearl S Buck, Pearl S Burns, Robert
The Thirty-nine Steps – read 27 February 2022 Pavilion of Women – read 10 October 2020 The Promise The Poetical Works of Robert Burns
Cao, Xueqin
The Story of the Stone V2 – The Crab-Flower Club
Cao, Xueqin
The Story of the Stone V3 – The Warning Voice
Cao, Xueqin & Gao E
The Story of the Stone V4 – The Debt of Tears
Cao, Xueqin & Gao E
The Story of the Stone V5 – The Dreamer Wakes
Cather, Willa Cervantes
O Pioneers – read 10 October 2021 Don Quixote
Chauvel, Charles & Elsa Cooper, Fenimore Dawood, NJ (Trans.)
Walkabout – read 19 July 2020 The Last of the Mohicans – read 19 July 2022 Tales from the Thousand and One Nights – read 29 December 2019
Defoe, Daniel
Robinson Crusoe – read 7 August 2021
Defoe, Daniel Di Lampedusa, Tomasi Dickens, Charles
Moll Flanders – read 10 March 2021 The Leopard Martin Chuzzlewit
Dickens, Charles
Our Mutual Friend – read 30 May 2020
Dickens, Charles
Barnaby Rudge
Dumas, Alexandre
The Three Musketeers
Dumas, Alexandre
The Count of Monte Cristo
Du Maurier, Daphne Du Maurier, Daphne Eliot, George
Rebecca – read 4 October 2020 The Birds and Other Stories – read 8 November 2022 The Mill on the Floss – read 12 August 2019
Eliot, George
Daniel Deronda
Eliot, George
Adam Bede – read 19 January 2023
Fielding, Henry Forester, CS Forster, EM
The History of Tom Jones: A Foundling – read 21 June 2021 The Good Shepherd – read 7 December 2019 A Passage to India – read 29 March 2022
Fortescue, Winifred
Mountain Madness
Gaskell, Elizabeth
North & South – read 25 April 2022
Gaskell, Elizabeth
Mary Barton
Gorky, Maxim
My Apprenticeship
Graves, Robert
I, Claudius
Graves, Robert
Claudius the God
Greene, Graham
The Quiet American
Haggard, Rider Harrower, Elizabeth Hardy, Thomas Homer
King Solomon’s Mines The Watch Tower – read 24 January 2023 The Trumpet-Major – read 12 December 2021 The Iliad – read 4 August 2022
Hugo, Victor
Notre-Dame of Paris – read 12 November 2021
Idriess, Ion L Idriess, Ion L James, Henry
The Yellow Joss & Other Tales – read 15 January 2021 Man Tracks – read 30 January 2022 The Portrait of a Lady
Kingsley, Charles
Hereward the Wake
Kipling, Rudyard Langley, Eve Lawrence, TE
The Best Short Stories – read 2 October 2019 The Pea-Pickers Seven Pillars of Wisdom
London, Jack
Best Short Stories – read 26 December 2019
Luo, Guanzhong
Three Kingdoms Vols 1,2,3
Mahfouz, Naguib Marcus Aurelius Maugham, W Somerset Niland, D’Arcy
Sugar Street Meditations – read 11 January 2021 Of Human Bondage – read 6 December 2021 The Shiralee – read 29 October 2019
This week I have finished two books, one for the Around the Year in 52 books challenge, and one for book club, which I managed to fit into a prompt for the Popsugar challenge.
This weeks AtY prompt was “a children’s classic you’ve never read” – I don’t like this type of prompt, because I’ve already read most of the classics, but realised that I had never actually read ‘Wind in the Willows’, despite owning a beautiful hardback copy illustrated by Pixie O’Harris, which I bought when my kids were little. They weren’t interested in it, though I think we started it several times over the years. Anyway, I finally read it through this week, and… hmmm, I know many people adore it, but I found it interesting but not especially charming. The characters were well-described and clearly relevant to the class differences in England at that time, and there were some amusing passages, but I won’t read it again, and will probably sell my copy as I don’t think it will be attractive to grandchildren either.
The other book I read this week was fascinating. ‘The Erratics’ won the Stella Prize this year, and I had already heard about it on podcasts and read reviews, so was looking forward to reading this extraordinary memoir. It is fairly short, so I finished it in two days, and then watched an hour-long interview with the author, Vicki Laveau-Harvie, as I particularly wanted to hear how her sister reacted to the book. The story is all about the two sisters being called home to rural Canada to look after their elderly parents after their mother falls and breaks her hip, and the father is unable to care for himself. The parents have disowned the daughters many years before, so there has been no contact, and it turns out the mother has been starving the father, who starts to come good once the sisters move into the family farm and feed him up while the mother remains in hospital. Mother has a personality disorder that has made life hell for everyone around her for many years, and this is represented with many amusing but awful anecdotes. It’s an excellent book that I recommend highly, and I’m looking forward to the book club discussion this week. I fitted it into the Popsugar challenge for the prompt “a book with a plant in the title or on the cover” – the cover has some trees in the bottom corner.
In other reading, I am still limping through both ‘Tracker’ by Alexis Wright, and ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. I have also begun reading ‘The Mill on the Floss’ by George Eliot, for this coming week’s AtY prompt – a book with more than 500 pages (my Penguin Classics edition has 691!).
Black Opal, by Katharine Susannah Prichard, was written in 1918, and published in Australia in 1946. It is about life on the opal fields in western New South Wales at that time. My copy is an old hardback with very yellowed pages and very small print, salvaged from my elderly uncle’s collection. I have chosen to read it now for the Goodreads Around the Year Challenge, which I am doing in order – this week’s prompt was for a book published before 1950. So far I am enjoying it very much – Katharine Susannah Prichard writes beautifully and I have always enjoyed Australian historical fiction, so the whole experience with this old book is very nostalgic.
What I just finished reading:
The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton. This was for the Goodreads Popsugar Challenge prompt – a book with a ghost. Though it was very long (585 pages), it was an easy read and a great story, though I usually am a bit impatient with ghostly characters and unlikely scenarios. There was a lot of jumping around between timelines and characters which was often confusing, but there was enough repetition for me to finally get a grip on what was happening, and I found it a satisfying read overall.
What I will read next:
This is often tricky. For the AtY challenge, my next prompt is a book with an elderly character, so I plan to read Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout within the next week or so. I usually average two books per week, so might fit in another Popsugar challenge book, probably A Loyal Character Dancer by Qiu Xiaolong, for the prompt ‘a book written by an author from Asia, Africa or South America’. On the other hand, I really should return to Tracker by Alexis Wright – a tome I have taken a break from because it is so long and rather repetitious. I do want to finish it but am having some difficulty motivating myself to return to it as there are so many other great books waiting to be read!
This post is for WWW Wednesday hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.
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Me, My Shelf and I 