07 | April | 2014 | Bride of the Book God

The story so far……. can be found here

This lot is the pile of books where I remember when and/or why I started reading or why I want to read them for those ones which are part of my bad habit of pulling things out of the stacks because something was triggered by another book.

Really, it will all make sense, honestly.

Let’s go…..

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. Blimey, this was obviously meant to be a re-read, and almost certainly planned to be finished before the first of the Peter Jackson films came out which means I must have started this sometime during 2012? Reading the Book God’s lovely hardback copy (the 1974 ninth impression of the 1966 third edition). 54 pages in which means I have just got past the Trolls. I think I’ll tidy this one away for another day [abandoned]
Sir John Hawkins by Harry Kelsey – subtitled “Queen Elizabeth’s Slave Trader”, I picked this up because I so enjoyed The English Monster by Lloyd Shepherd which I reviewed here. 28 pages in, would like to have another go at this because of my general interest in 16th century history (it’s what I studied for my degree) [keep going]
Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes – “Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World”. Another Book God volume, this is all to do with the novel I’m reading about Tesla mention in my first spring cleaning post. Not yet started, back on the stacks until I’m ready [parked]
Moon Palace by Paul Auster. I have had this book for goodness knows how long but picked it up for the same reason as Empires of Light (Tesla is in it apparently). Not yet started, same fate as the Jonnes [parked]
Justinian’s Flea by William Rosen – “Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe”. Yet another Book God volume, pulled off the shelf because of the excellent series about Byzantium we saw on BBC Four earlier this year. One for later [parked]
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins – book 2 of The Hunger Games, another one to be read before the film. Only got 20 pages in and didn’t get round to the movie either so we can all see how well that worked out! Do still intend to read this, especially as I also have Mockingjay tucked away somewhere, so stays on the pile [keep going].
The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith – I struggled with this one all the way through to page 148 which is where I stopped. I feel I need to try to finish this as it’s such an influential novel and Highsmith is so well-rgarded. Only 100 pages to the end so…. [keep going].
In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood. I was lucky enough to see her speak about MaddAddam in August last year (and to get my copy of the book signed – lots of stuff about that here) and I am really interested in her thoughts on SF given the occasional bad press she has had in that space. So far I’ve only read the introduction but want to work my way through this one [keep going]
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke was the book I identified for my participation on the Long Awaited Reads event in January which came to absolutely nothing. I really really want to read this but just haven’t been in the right frame of mind. Everyone tells me to persevere and who am I to argue so though I’m only 92 pages in and its an absolute chunkster I will [keep going]
Blow by Blow – the biography of the fashionista Isabella Blow which I’ve had for ages and picked up after I went to the eponymous exhibition at Somerset House on my birthday. It’s a super breathless gossipy magazine-type biography written by her husband with a ghostwriter and I will definitely be finishing this one. [keep going]
The Night Eternal by Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan – the third and final book in The Strain Trilogy. The law of diminishing returns is seemingly in play here. I stopped reading this at page 80 in the middle of a chapter because I was getting very exasperated, and that was warring with my natural desire to find out how the story ends. Most annoying. [50 more pages then decide]