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I have been very quiet on the blog recently, simply because I haven’t been reading that much, due to an increase in social activity (it’s that time of year, lots of cocktails, what can I say) and also because I have been distracted by my new toy, the iPad which I bought myself as an early “didn’t I do well in 2010” present.
I have always been easily diverted by bright and shiny things.
So I will not reach my target of 52 books this year but will attack the same goal with renewed vigour in 2011. At least, that’s what I’m saying now.
And I will be helped by the bookish spoils received from the Book God and others this Christmas:
- My Favourite Dress by Gity Monsef and others – a beautiful big fashion picture book, full of talented designers picking their favourite frocks, none of which I can ever afford or indeed hope to fit into…
- 100 Years of Fashion Illustration by Cally Blackman – absolutely gorgeous book with wonderful examples of fashion illustration from Paul Iribe in 1908 to Kareem Illya in 2005. Has made me realise that I would have liked to have been a wealthy Edwardian
- Britten & Brulightly by Hannah Berry – a graphic novel to add to the collection “There are murder mysteries and there are murder mysteries, but this is a noir where nothing is black and white” sayeth the blurb
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, in graphic form by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young – exactly what you might think, absolutely lovely and wished for solely because I liked the illustration of the Cowardly Lion on the cover….
- Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King – it wouldn’t be Christmas without a new Stephen King purchase though in terms of reading I am about 5 books behind (not to mention the Dark Tower series (so let’s not and say we did))
- Blow by Blow by Detmar Blow with Tom Sykes – the story of Isabella Blow, muse to Alexander McQueen – yet more high fashion
- Paperboy by the lovely Christopher Fowler – won the first Green Carnation prize and looks like it will be brilliant – to be saved for the dead grey days of January
- Dark Matter by Michelle Paver – a ghost story “Out of nowhere, for no reason, I was afraid”
- Phantoms on the Bookshelves by Jacques Bonnet – I love books about books
- The Dead of Winter by Chris Priestley – another one of my favourite authors. “A boy, a mysterious guardian and a haunted house with a terrible secret”.
- Gaslight Grimoire: fantastic tales of Sherlock Holmes – Fantastic tales. Sherlock Holmes. What’s not to like?
- A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore – shortlisted for the Orange Prize, don’tcha know. Audrey Niffenegger says its full of perfect sentences and that would be good enough for me even if I didn’t already like Lorrie Moore
- The Existential Detective by Alice Thompson – on my wish list simply because I read about it at Lizzy’s Literary Life and it sounded right up my street
- The Thoughtful Dresser by Linda Grant – more fashion; “the thinking woman’s guide to our relationship with what we wear”
- A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd – WWI mystery novel
- The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova – can it live up to The Historian? I hope so…
- Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan – “Three strong women. Two feuding families. A singular story of enchantment…”
Not a bad haul, I have to admit. And there’s also The Pattern in the Carpet by Margaret Drabble (a personal history with jigsaws) which I have already started.
So here we are, another birthday; I am 48 today, and can remember when that seemed impossibly old! No matter, I’m still 17 inside my head and have had a lovely birthday weekend, only slightly spoiled by Andy Murray’s failure to won the Australian Open.
I always try to do something special around my birthday, and this year it was a trip to the theatre to see War Horse, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo, and recommended by my good friend the Silvery Dude. It’s a simple story of a farm horse sold to the army and sent to serve in World War One; what makes it exceptional is the puppetry used to bring the horses (and other animals – I became particualrly fond of the goose) to life on stage. Really enormously clever and so convincing in movement that I pretty much forgot they weren’t real. There is a DVD about the making of the production which is apparently well worth watching.
And of course with birthdays go presents and the Book God was generous as always and gave me several books:
- Howard’s End is on the Landing by Susan Hill – because I love books about books
- Seeing Redd by Frank Beddor – because all things Alice in Wonderland are significant at the moment
- Anything Goes by Lucy Moore – a biography of the Roaring Twenties
- Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton – dragons!
And now that the major project that I’ve been working so hard on since last February looks like its nearing fruition, I think 2010 might turn out to be quite a good year…..
So this was my first proper exposure to Nick Hornby; of course I know who he is, I have High Fidelity on DVD (saw a bit of it when channel surfing and thought it looked good enough to buy but I haven’t yet watched it), I know about his Arsenal thing, I know the titles of most of his novels and so on.
But The Complete Polysyllabic Spree is the first of his books that I have ever read; I’m not even sure when I got it (must be recorded in a post on here somewhere) but I know why I bought it, and that’s because it’s a book about books and reading, and I can’t resist anything like that.
And of course when I started reading this Mr Hornby started popping up all over the place, because he is the screenwriter for the acclaimed (and hopefully to be seen by me at some point) film An Education, so I found myself watching him being interviewed by Jonathan Ross on the BBC; don’t you find it often happens that as soon as something comes to your attention in your reading you start seeing references to it all over the place?
I always find it difficult to review books like this because it really comes down to whether you like the writer’s voice or not and I found that I did. Setting aside his inability to get very far with the Iain M Banks novel he started (I have to understand that not everyone gets sci-fi, but it’s really difficult to make allowances sometimes), I enjoyed the columns and I clicked with his sense of humour.
I’ve added some titles to my wishlist, and actually succumbed and bought a couple of recommendations when on my way to meet my friend-who-hasn’t-yet-got-an-alias-for-the-purpose-of-being-referred-t0-in-this-blog on Thursday afternoon and thought I was going to be early so hit Waterstones, and we know how that normally ends. Please don’t tell the Book God, I’m supposed to be under a book-buying embargo on the run up to Christmas…..
Anyway, how can you possibly dislike someone who can point out that “there comes a point in life, it seems to me, where you have to decide whether you are a Person of Letters or merely someone who loves books, and I’m beginning to see that the book lovers have more fun.”
Will almost certainly be getting more Hornby – once I’m allowed to that is….
So this week’s question is “How do you arrange your books on your shelves? Is it by author, by genre, or do you just put it where it falls on?”
Well when we first moved into this house over 10 years ago I started off with really good intentions, and shelved my books by genre, and within genres alphabetically by author. As I say, we’ve now been here a while and things have changed in a big way, so now I just put new books where I can find a suitable space.
We installed new bookcases last year (I talked about it here); suffice to say, the shelves don’t look like that anymore…..
For many people Jasper Fforde is an acquired taste, but I’ve always been glad to say it was one that I acquired early and I have enjoyed both his series of novels.
First Among Sequels is a return to the world of Thursday Next, Jurisfiction agent, supplier of floor coverings to the people of Swindon and cheese smuggler. I’ve always liked Thursday, her complicated family and cloned Dodo, Pickwick. Unfortunately, I was vaguely disappointed in this one, even setting it aside for several days.
The plot for this novel managed to be both simple and complicated at the same time, so I’m not even going to try to summarise it; if you have read any of the others then you will know what to expect., and if you haven’t, I really wouldn’t recommend you start here.
There were too many things going on, and I think I found the alternative Thursday Nexts (I’m not even going to try to explain how she manages to work alongside two alternative versions of herself) irritating.
However, I persevered until the end and was rewarded with some good jokes, interesting set-ups and a cliffhanger which presumably will lead us into another instalment. But these couldn’t save it from being somewhat unsatisfying.
Bride of the Book God 