Nickelini Reads in 2014 - Vol 3

We are in the homestretch of 2014, so time for a new thread.



December

75. Silent Spring, Rachel Carson
74. The Cement Garden, Ian McEwan
73. The War of the Worlds, HG Wells
72. Without You, There is No Us, Suki Kim
71. Author, Author, David Lodge
70. Scar Tissue, Michael Ignatieff

November

69. Cambridge Companion to Pride and Prejudice, Janet Todd, editor
68. The Edwardians, Vita Sackville-West
67. Three Day Road, Joseph Boyden
66. Broken Things, Padrika Tarrant
65. Y, Marjorie Celona

October

64. Classic Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories, selected by Rex Collings
63. Fanny Hill, John Cleland
62. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Joan Aiken
61. Nothing to Envy, Barbara Demick
60. Penguin Lives Buddha, Karen Armstrong
59. Does Every Woman Have an Eating Disorder?, Stacey M Rosenfeld

September

58. How to Find Fulfilling Work, Roman Krznaric
57. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Maggie O'Farrell
56. Bear, Marian Engel
55. Bluebeard's Egg, Margaret Atwood
54. The End of the Affair, Graham Greene
53. The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa
52. The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot

August

51. Mr Darcy Takes a Wife, Linda Betroll
50. Written on the Body, Jeanette Winterson
49. England, England, Julian Barnes
48. The Birds on the Trees, Nina Bawden
47. A Cupboard Full of Coats, Yvette Edwards (Adjoa Andoh)

July

46. Being Wrong, Kathyrn Shultz
45. Every Day Was Summer, O Wynne Hughes
44. Murder City, Charles Bowden
43. I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
42. The Swallows of Kabul, Yasmina Khadra
41. The London Train, Tessa Hadley
40. Women without Men, Shahrnush Parsipur

June

39. The Flying Troutmans, Miriam Toews
38. Deceived With Kindness, Angelica Garnett
37. Before I Wake, Robert J Wiersema
36. Before I Go to Sleep, SJ Watson
35. Chocky, John Wyndam
34. A Short History of England, Simon Jenkins
33. Mennonites Don't Dance, Darcie Friesen Hossack
32. Country Girls, Edna O'Brien
31. Astrid and Veronika, Linda Olsson
30. Slammerkin, Emma Donoghue

May

29. A Northern Line Minute, William Leith
28. Seven Sisters, Margaret Drabble
27. Voyage of the Narwhal, Andrea Barrett
26. The China Study, T. Colin Campbell
25. Coventry, Helen Humprheys
24. Harvest, Jim Crace
23. Life After Life, Kate Atkinson
22. How Music Works, David Byrne

April

21. Frangipani, Celestine Hitiura Vaite
20. Life of Pi, Yann Martel
19. The Annotated Sense and Sensibility, ed David M Shapard, & Sense and Sensibility, an Annotated Edition, ed. Patricia Meyer Spacks
18. Fingersmith, Sarah Waters

March

17. The Language of Flowers, Vanessa Diffenbaugh
16. Lone Survivors, Chris Stringer
15. I am Convinced! God, the Truth, and You, Darrell Hall
14. Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm, Philip Pullman
13. Orenda, Joseph Boiyden
12. Beauty: a Retelling of Beauty and the Beast, Robin McKinley

February

11. Wild Harbour, Ian Macpherson
10. Pope Joan, Diana W Cross
9. Sweet Tooth, Ian McEwan
8. The Outsiders, TE Hinton

January

7. Dangerous Liaisons, Choderlos de Laclos
6. Celebrating Pride and Prejudice: 200 Years of Jane Austen's Masterpiece, Susannah Fullerton
5. Wave, Sonali Deraniyagala
4. Broken Harbour, Tana French
3. Three Classic Children's Stories, James Donnelly, illustrated by Edward Gorey
2. A Short History of Myth, Karen Armstrong
1. The Forgotten Waltz, Anne Enright

(from: http://www.retreatbyrandomhouse.ca/2014/01/reading-bingo-challenge-2014/?Ref=Ema...

B
A book with more than 500 pages: The Annotated Sense and Sensibility 742 p
A book written by someone under 30: The Outsiders
A book with a one-word title: Wave
The first book by a favourite author: the Country Girls
A book your friend loves: Coventry

I
A forgotten classic: Wild Harbour
A book with non-human characters: Life of Pi
A book of short stories: Mennonites Don't Dance
A book you heard about online: Three Day Road
A book that scares you:

N
A book that became a movie: Dangerous Liaisons
A funny book: England, England
FREE SQUARE
A best-selling book: the Language of Flowers
A book that is more than 10 years old: Fingersmith

G
A book published this year: Without You, There is No Us
A book by a female author: the Forgotten Waltz
A book set on a different continent: The Swallows of Kabul
A book based on a true story: Pope Joan
The second book in a series:

O
A book with a number in the title: Three Classic Children's Stories
A book with a mystery: Broken Harbour
A book of non-fiction: Lone Survivors
A book at the bottom of your to be read pile: I Capture the Castle
A book with a blue cover: The War of the Worlds

I can already see that there are a few I'm unlikely to get around to.

Hi Joyce, I'd meant to follow your last thread, but somehow got overwhelmed with the 75ers crew. Jumping onto a new thread always gives me hope it'll be more feasible, so I'll wish you a Happy New Thread and hope to do better this time!

Commenting to follow!

Ian McEwan and I think alike . . . 'Very few novels earn their length'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/11067429/Author-Ian-McEwan-Very-few-nov...

My favourite bits:

“Very few really long novels earn their length. My fingers are always twitching for a blue pencil.”

“But I do love this form, the idea that we are sitting down to a book that you could read at one sitting, or within three hours much as you might go to a movie or opera or long play."

“You’ve got to establish characters very quickly, there’s room for one or two sub plots. It’s a form I adore actually.”

He's not saying that long novels are a bad thing. I've read some spectacular long novels, and I'm sure he has too. I know lots of readers on LT love the long book, but unless it's exceptional, I just don't. Too often a book is made long with filler and sloppy writing. It's not a matter of shortened attention span, it's a matter of preference. Here's to 250 page books!

I had to post this as I slog through The Mill and the Floss which would be brilliant if it wasn't so wordy. But I know it's Victorian, and their motto is "why say something in one sentence when you can say it in twelve?". Anyway, I just had to say this. Thanks for stopping by and please go back to what your were doing.

Oh dear, while I do agree with McEwan on a lot of books, I can't imagine editing/pruning George Eliot! The Mill on the Floss is actually one of the shorter ones, so you picked a good one by length, although possibly Silas Warner is shorter. What prompted this reading?

I do love a good cri de coeur like yours though.

I can't imagine editing any of the 19th century greats--it was a different world. Still, I'm ready to be done with the Mill on the Floss, as much as I'm enjoying it. I'm actually listening to it on audiobook. I download books from the library onto my iPhone, and finding something is tedious, so after 20 minutes or so of looking I picked this one--at least I can check off another 1001 list book.

I do love a good cri de coeur like yours though.

Well sometimes one just has to get things off ones chest.

I've found out this year I like to alternate between audio and print with really long books, and I guess that's what I'll do with Mill on the Floss. Helps speed things a long a little. That being said, one thing I've found with those Victorian sagas, as in Dickens's stories for example, is that you do get an immersive experience, precisely because you end up spending so much time in the little world they've created and with all their characters, and if you allow that to take over, it can have a charm of its own. This has been a rather recent discovery, I should add. I simply adored Middlemarch and intend to revisit it as often as is possible, given how long it is and that I do have countless never-read books on the piles...

52. The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot, 1860, Audiobook


Cover comments: my cover isn't available, so I picked this one because I like its vintage feel.

Comments: Maggie Tulliver is a spirited girl who doesn't quite fit in to the patriarchal world of pastoral England. All her life she has a love hate relationship with her older brother, by which I mean she mostly loves him and he mostly hates her. Maggie grows up and has two different men fall in love with her, but she doesn't appear to truly love either of them in return. Still, it's nice to be liked, since so many other people are really nasty to her all the time--because, well, she's sparky, and has unruly brunette hair, and oh, that dark skin of hers.

George Eliot is of course a fabulous writer, and although this novel is typically Victorian (read: too wordy by far), for the most part it was very interesting. Maggie Tulliver is one of my favourite literary characters, and I also really loved (or loved to hate) her aunts. Of the other 19th century writers I've read, this most reminded me of Thomas Hardy, perhaps Jude the Obscure (even more-so that Eliot's Middlemarch).

But the thing that most interested me about this novel is how much her life of unquestioned obedience to the men in her life (despite her better nature) is so close to the lives of women still today who live in traditional patriarchal societies (some of which are right her in North America). I wouldn't expect a novel written for a mid-19th century audience to be so relevant, but Maggie Tulliver's life is too close to the survivor blogs that I regularly read. If only those god-church-and-the-family homeschoolers would be allowed to read this book. But alas, Eliot is not on the narrow list of approved reading.

Recommended for: lovers of 19th century literature and victims of 21st century repression from extreme traditional adherents.

Rating: 4.5 stars. I would have given it 5 if it wasn't so long (the audiobook was over 24 hours).

Why I Read This Now: Audiobook, it's on the 1001 list--and others, and I usually like 19th century English classics.

Congratulations on a nice new thread!

Excellent review of Eliot. I love those wordy Victorian novels. I guess I'll never adapt to texting language.

I read Mill on the Floss a long time ago and most of the details escape me, but I will never forget that ending!

I haven't read The Mill on the Floss, but like Vivienne, I love the wordy Victorian novels. I am adding this to my reading list.

#8 - I've found out this year I like to alternate between audio and print with really long books

Smiler, Good point. I happened to do that with Anna Karenina and Jude the Obscure, and it worked very well. I should remember to do it on purpose some time.

#11 - but I will never forget that ending!

Yes!

Oh, The Mlll on the Floss sounds good. It took awhile, but I have grown to love wordy Victorian novels. Did it work as an audiobook? I've never been able to do anything other than non-fiction in audiobook. I'm listening to one now about a family in which that dynamic is at work -- the younger children were not even taught to read and the oldest girl is a sort of special handmaiden to her father. I think I might just be happier with that at a nice historic remove.

#15 - I'm listening to one now about a family in which that dynamic is at work -- the younger children were not even taught to read and the oldest girl is a sort of special handmaiden to her father.

Oh, that sounds interesting. What's the title?

I like listening to novels on audiobook, but I have to be in the mood. I listen while doing something mindless like weeding or watering my garden, or cleaning house.

Interesting how you found much of The Mill on the Floss still relevant today

Mill on the Floss has been on my TBR — and my Kindle — for ages! Your review reminds me that I want to get to it!

Joyce, it's Pilgrim's Wilderness by Tom Kizzia. It's really interesting. Last week, I was back and forth between Munich and Rosenheim each day, which is a good hour away, with some tedious stretches involving lots of traffic and roadworks. It was a great choice as the time sped by. I was planning on using that time to get a good start on Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-first Century, but was distracted.

Oh, putting Pilgrim's Wilderness on my wishlist. I see it's getting some great reviews.

53. The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa, 1958, translated from Italian by Archibald Colquhoun


Cover comments: yeah, whatever

Comments: The Leopard is set during the Risorgimento of Italy in the 1860s, and follows Prince Fabrizio and his family's decline from aristocracy to discarded relics.

The author wrote The Leopard--his only novel-- over the last 12 or so years of his life, and it was published posthumously. Thus he never knew the high praise and critical acclaim it received, including being called the Greatest Italian Novel of All Time. The English translation by Colquhoun has also been met with high praise.

Although I can see the literary merit in it, and there are many magical passages, overall the book just didn't work for me. It's only 320 pages, but it took me 24 days to read it because I could only follow it if I put my complete focus on exactly what was being said. When I read normally, I'd realize that my thoughts had wandered off and I had no idea what I'd just read, and I'd have to go back and refocus. What is the exact opposite of a compelling read? Whatever the term, that's what The Leopard is. Also, there was sexist thread going through it that was beyond what I'd expect to find in an Italian novel about the 19th century. For example, at an aristocratic ball, the females in attendance are described as inbred, although somehow the males there aren't. There was too much of that sort of thing. Females are silly, females are dumb, females are like monkeys. No thanks.

Recommended for: The Leopard regularly makes all the lists of top novels, so if you're wondering why, go ahead and read it and don't take my comments into consideration.

Why I Read This Now:: It's one of the older books in my TBR pile.

I've been meaning to read The Leopard for decades. Your review isn't making me move it up the TBR faster! I did enjoy the movie.

Rebecca -- I'm sorry! I really feel bad that I didn't like The Leopard better. It's really supposed to be one of the greats. I think I'll keep it and perhaps try it again another time and see if it improves. I hate to put people off a book that they may love.

55. The End of the Affair, Graham Greene, 1951, Audiobook read by Colin Firth


Cover comments: not exactly inspired, but somehow it fits the book just fine.

Comments: After reading the 81 reviews of The End of the Affair here on LT, I don't know what to write. Part of the problem is that I liked the book so much, and I find it difficult to write glowing reviews without sounding silly, trite, and gushing. Let's see . . . Maurice Bendrix, a novelist, is struggling with his emotions after his lover abruptly ended their affair. He has an unusual amount of contact with her husband (now that I think of it, more than he had with her). Lots of strong emotion--love, lust, but also a huge amount of bitterness, and some anger and hate too. And it's set against post WWII London. My description is just sad and undersells the whole thing. . .

This is my third Greene. I thought the Third Man was silly (hey, the author didn't like the novel either!), although the film is supposed to be fabulous. The other one I read was Brighton Rock, which started out "meh" but won me over by the end. I expected to sort of like this, so it was a surprise to me that I liked it so much. I liked the switching time line, the mid-century British milieu, and mostly, I loved the deep passion.

Audiobook: I'm sure a big part of my enjoyment of this was listening to the audiobook read by Colin Firth. I hate sounding like a fangirl, but he did an excellent job capturing just the right tone. I'm not the only one who thought this though--it won the Best Audiobook Prize of 2013. I think many of those who rated this book "boring" would have thought something different if they'd listened to this version. If you're interested, here's a 2.5 minute video of Colin Firth discussing the novel, reading snippets, and generally talking about his love of reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwU1UnMUTzA&list=FLWd7UeV-rb5aAUSlHJADNJA

I look forward to relistening to this and exploring the nuances. It also makes me want to read a lot more of Graham Greene.

Recommended for: Based on the mixture of negative and positive reviews, I'm not sure. But it's definitely going on my top 5 for this year, so if you like good novels. . . .

Now you have to see the film with Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore.

I'm one of those on the side of the really liking this novel. As you say, it covers so many emotions and does it so well.

Yes, I want to see the film now. I wonder if it's on Netflix . . .

# 21 - I understand what you mean about The Leopard. I tried reading it a couple of times, but always gave up after some 50 pages. I also have a thing about this book that puts me off, but I can't quite put my finger on it. I'm pleased to see that I'm not the only one who does not understand what makes this the best Italian novel ever...

I loved The End of the Affair and listened to the same version. The writing was just beautiful.

>24 Nickelini: Thank you so much for the Colin Firth link. I love the idea of audiobooks, but have only managed to get through one so far, but I bet I would have no problem listening to Colin Firth read to me!

I have The Leopard on my TBR. Glad to know that I can ignore it a bit longer.

>24 Nickelini: I've added The End of the Affair to my Audible library. Thanks for the review.

56. Bluebeard's Egg, Margaret Atwood, 1983


Cover comments: There are elements to this Vintage edition cover that I really like. The typeface used for the author's name is interesting and attractive, and the purplish-greyish blue colour is fabulous. The best part, I think, is the key, with its creepy hands and egg-shaped lock. Not sure if the arrangement of the pieces works though, so I'll give this a solid "B".

Comments: This is a collection of 13 short stories, mostly about women and their relationships with men, daughters and their aging parents. There were some great characters and lovely writing, but overall I found the structure of the stories lacking. Especially for stories that were to be a response of sorts to fairy tales, I personally need a bit more actual story telling. My favourite story was "Two Stories About Emma," and I think I liked it because Emma actually did something, unlike too many of the other protagonists who seems to merely exist.

Rating: Rate me "disappointed." I expect more from Atwood. I know there is a lot of depth to these stories that I'm missing, but it's because the author didn't make me care.

Why I Read This Now: I had 8 Margaret Atwood books in my tbr pile, and I decided on this one because I thought it might relate to my 2014 fairy tale project (which it sort of did, I suppose)

Recommended for: Most of the reviews here at LT are similarly "meh" like mine, but over at Goodreads there are many rave reviews. If you think short stories by Atwood are worth checking out, don't let me dissuade you. But if you've never read Atwood before, don't start here!

I've just now finally caught up to your thread after quite a while of dragging behind and not quite getting to the newest post (I know somewhere in your previous thread I owe you a "you're welcome" or something along those lines.) Enjoyed your last four reviews and love your recommendation for The Mill on the Floss. And you have made me want to listen to Firth's reading of The End of the Affair - even though that book would probably not be my first choice to finally read Graham Greene. Too bad Bluebeard's Egg didn't work for you.

57. Bear, Marian Engel, 1976 (afterword by Aretha Van Herk)



Cover comments: These New Canadian Library editions don’t stand out very much on their own, but when you bring several of them together, I think they are very attractive. More cover comments to follow at the bottom of this post.

Comments: My challenge is how to describe Bear in one paragraph without sounding silly or missing the important bits. Not sure it can be done, but here goes:

In the opening paragraph of Bear, archivist Lou is described as mole-like. The historical institute she works for has recently been bequeathed a small island, with a house and a substantial 19th century library. Lou’s job is to spend the summer there, cataloguing its contents and determining the potential value to the institute. Just by the act of leaving the cold, grey city, Lou begins her transformation (check off CanLit trope). Arriving on the island, Lou learns that the house comes with a bear, who she finds chained up behind the house. Over the summer, Lou forms a sort of friendship with the bear, and yada yada yada, bear porn. Yes, you read that right.

Bear is one of those chewy literary books that you can read straight up, or pull apart and explore the layers and symbolism. The author started this when the Writer’s Union of Canada put out a call to established authors to write a piece of pornography (a project that was abandoned when the submissions that came in were dreadfully unpublishable). But Engels ran with the idea. As Margaret Atwood says in her blurb for the book (and I note that something about this reminds me of Atwood’s own book Surfacing), the bear sex is “as plausible as kitchens,” and the short novel is indeed written in a realistic style. But there are a thousand other things going on too. The main one is how Engels plays with and subverts the CanLit canon with its ubiquitous themes of the transformative powers of wilderness, the savage, nature, man against the wilderness, etc and so on. Then there’s the whole second wave feminist sexual awakening trope. But the one that I keep coming back to is—despite the realism—a fabulist feel. Is Bear a play on “Beauty and the Beast”? Or “Snow White and Rose Red”? Or with the lonely octagonal house as one of the characters, is it Gothic? It’s all of these.

My edition had a nice afterword written by university professor Aretha Van Herk that goes over some of the deeper meanings for those readers who got stuck on the sexy bear stuff.

Bear was awarded the Governor General’s Award for Literature, in a year when the jury included Mordecai Richler, Margaret Laurence, and Alice Munro. In places, the writing is absolutely gorgeous, and I can’t stop thinking about this book (and it’s not the bear porn that’s sticking in my mind).

Recommended for: It’s only 115 pages, so if you think it sounds interesting, give it a try. It’s definitely a not-to-be-missed book for anyone who is serious about reading CanLit. I wish I could have studied this at university—it would have been so much fun.

Why I Read This Now: Bear has been in my TBR pile for a while, but I thought to suggest it to my book club after discussion of it went viral on the internet this summer*. In my book club, we vote on the books we will read, and every single member voted to read Bear. I look forward to the upcoming discussion.

*More on this to follow in a later post.

Rating: Great writing + interesting story + librarian hero + humour + bravery of writing erotica + CanLit playfulness + literary influences = 4.5 stars.

I commented in my last post (# 34), that discussion of Marian Engel's 1976 book Bear went viral on the internet this summer.

It all started here: "What the Actual Fuck, Canada?" http://imgur.com/gallery/uf3YE

Which was instigated by this cover:



Discussion on CBC: "Bearotica: Why the 1976 Novel Bear is Actually a Good Read" http://www.cbc.ca/q/blog/2014/08/18/bear-1976-retro-racey/

And for those of you who like to discuss cover art for novels, the publisher has this: "Bear Re-Imagined" http://penguinrandomhouse.ca/hazlitt/feature/bear-re-imagined

And also this interesting article: "There's More to Bear than Bear Sex" http://penguinrandomhouse.ca/hazlitt/feature/theres-more-bear-bear-sex

Well, you lost me at the bear porn part, but "there's more to Bear than Bear sex" revived my interest slightly . . .

Rebecca - I don't even like dogs licking my hand, so I hear you! Really, there's so much more going on.

"Bear" A Canadian thing? Great review.

Strange. I know you well enough here to trust your opinion, but if I heard about this book in any other context i would never have been able to take even discussion of it seriously.

#38 & 39- Canlit, baby!

Very interesting . . . and disturbing. :-)

I have a copy of Bear but until I read the excerpt on one of the links you posted I had no idea how explicit it was. Maybe that's because the cover of my edition just has a ho-hum picture of some trees. I'm impressed that Canadians are open-minded enough to give such a work a major literary award.

I saw that image post for Bear and definitely went AAAHHH. I'm glad to hear it sounds like they were a bit choosey to find that sort of passage and that there's more to the book. And seriously, good job Canada in that open-mindedness (or lonely lust maybe!). I'm curious about it, but not sure I'm curious enough (and I really don't like longer sex passages in audiobooks).

57. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Maggie O'Farrell, 2006


Cover comments: Although it's not exactly bad (a woman's face!, nice typeface), this looks like a cover for the type of book I wouldn't like. But not so fast . . .

Comments: Finally! I compelling read. This is a difficult book to describe without giving too much away.

Iris Lockhart lives with her big dog in Edinburgh and runs a vintage clothing shop. She's juggling an odd relationship with her step brother and another with a married lover when her attention is taken away by the discovery that she has a long lost relative. And that she is the next of kin to this great aunt Esme, who is about to be released after 60 years in a mental hospital. This novel jumps between two Scottish girls, Kitty and Esme, growing up in India and then moving to Scotland, of Iris's grandmother Kitty who is now in a care home with Alzheimer's, and of Iris's discoveries about her family.

What I Liked: I found a lot to like here. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox is full of family secrets, which I think make some of the best stories. It is told from multiple viewpoints--Iris, Esme as a child, Esme today, and part way through the book we start to hear the rambling Alzheimer memories of Iris's grandmother. I found it horrifyingly fascinating how easy it was for young women to get locked up forever for off-beat behaviour. And finally, I really enjoyed both the plotting and found some lovely writing. This was a book I didn't want to put down and couldn't wait to pick up again.

What I Didn't Like: As many have noted in the reviews, the ending comes at a great rush, and many things are unresolved. I'm not so bothered at the unresolved as I am that the ending just sort of crashed down on the readers. It seems to me that the author was setting up for a possible sequel. And secondly, this novel committed the most annoying sin and pet peeve of mine: a woman getting pregnant the first time she has sex. I complained about this in Slammerkin earlier4 this year. Scientific statistics show the chances of getting pregnant in any single sexual act are 3-11%, but in novels it's around 100%. Stop. Please stop. This is a cliche. Find some other way to move your plot forward. Also, I didn't see what the relationship with the step brother had to do with the story. Even though I know it wasn't incestuous, it still bordered on creepy.

Also, there is a scene very early in the novel that is set at a formal lunch, and Esme is tied to a chair so can't misbehave. Suddenly she is left alone when some event happens to cause everyone to panic and rush out of the room--but the narrator doesn't say why, and this scene is never revisited. I'm surmising it was an earthquake but I don't really know. I really enjoyed the scene and would like to know exactly what happened.

Recommended for: The negative reviews here on LT usually comment that the reader didn't like the changes in narrator and jumping through time. They were not marked in any way, so I agree that you have to pay attention. Also, some objected to the unresolved ending. If those sorts of things don't bother you, then give this a go. Also, some brought expectations to this book and then faulted it when it didn't meet what they wanted. I really didn't know what to expect, so I thought it was a good read.

Rating: 4 stars for the book itself + .5 star for keeping me reading = 4.5 stars.

Why I Read This Now: I've wanted to read this for several years and it bubbled up to the top of my tbr pile.

Just posted on the ClubRead wrap up thread, but thought I'd post here too:

Not my best quarter, and in fact, July and August were fairly awful. Still haven't found a 5 star read this year.

Best of the bunch:

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Maggie O'Farrell
Bear, Marian Engel
The End of the Affair, Graham Greene
Being Wrong, Kathryn Schultz

One I didn't finish (but read way more of than I needed to!): Murder City, Charles Bowden

19 books in total, 13 new to me authors.
16 fiction, 3 non-fiction
female: 13, male: 6

10 UK
3 US
2 Canada
1 each from Australia, Italy, Algeria, and Iran.

>44 Nickelini: I do have The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox on my wishlist, but you have moved it up. Thank you.

58. How to Find Fulfilling Work, Roman Krznaric, 2012


Cover comments: this is part of the extensive "School of Live" series, and together I think they are fun and attractive.

Comments and recommended for: One of the prominent tags for this book here at LT is self-help, which I guess it is, maybe, but to me it's more philosophy and psychology. I guess reading it might help one find fulfilling work, so maybe it really is self help. Anyway! For anyone contemplating changing careers, this may help you figure out what you want and give you a few pointers on how to go about it. Quite interesting, although it's not leaving me feeling any clearer than when I started it.

Why I Read it Now: I need to embark on a new career and feeling stuck.

Enjoyed your excellent review of The vanishing act of Esme Lennox

#46 - Nana, I think you'll like this one.

#48 - Thanks. Between not wanting to give anything away, and rather liking the book, I found it difficult to write. On the book's review page, Cariola wrote an excellent review.

I have a weakness for Maggie O'Farrell's novels. I can see that they are imperfect (or, I can see that other reviewers saw problems) but I don't care. They are excellent intelligent escapist novels. After You'd Gone remains my favorite.

>47 Nickelini: Wishing you well on your career search?/change.

>44 Nickelini: borrowed this from the library years ago. I read the first few pages just before returning it otherwise unread. It left me interested, but haven't picked it up again.

# 50 - RidgewayGirl -- I know exactly what you mean! Well said

#51 - Dchaikin - if you see it again, give it another try. It can be a little fun holiday from all that heavy stuff you read ;-)

>57 mabith: I loved Bear! I had this snooty thing about CanLit and would never take any courses in it. Then one day a local bookstore was offering a gift certificate for anyone who could identify 50 opening sentences from 50 CanLit books. Inspired, I not only tracked them all down, but read them all too (and won the gift certificate). That was how I discovered Bear at the local library. I'm so glad to hear there's a new edition, so that now I can add it to my own library. It is a book that has stuck with me for many years and you captured it beautifully.

#51 - Wishing you well on your career search?/change. Thanks, Dan! I keep running into dead ends, but maybe something will work out.

#53 - Sassy - That's such an interesting book promotion. I had no choice about studying CanLit--as part of my English major I had to take one of two CanLit courses. I ended up loving it, and it's where I discovered Kiss of the Fur Queen, which is one of my all time favourite books.

>51 dchaikin: >54 Nickelini: Also wishing you well -- and good luck figuring out what you want to do and landing a job.

59. Does Every Woman Have an Eating Disorder?, Stacey M Rosenfeld


Cover comments: suitable to the topic

Comments: Rosenfeld is a clinical psychologist who specializes in helping those with eating disorders and body image concerns. She explores different angles of our culture that cause girls and women to have negative or unhealthy ideas about their bodies. To me, the most interesting chapter was "Fat Isn't the Problem," where she shows that our common ideas about fat are a social construct and not supported by scientific fact to the degree that we've all been led to believe. In the final chapter the author gives some strategies on how to stop the body-loathing and develop healthier attitudes toward oneself. A worthwhile read.

Although this book is full of excellent information and insight, because of my life experience, I did not find a lot of new information here (apart from the chapter mentioned above). For someone who has travelled a different path, this book could be life changing. There is also a must-read section for mothers who have daughters.

Why I Read This Now: I rec'd this through the ER program. I was drawn to the title because I recently realized that a few older women I know who I thought were naturally thin or very disciplined actually had some unhealthy eating and exercising behaviour, and that, combined with my own past history of disordered eating, made me wonder if the title was true. I am also very interested in the treatment of eating disorders in fiction, and thought some up-to-date research would add to my knowledge base.

Recommended for Mothers of daughters, any woman who thinks her body isn't good enough and is troubled by that. Anyone who thinks the next diet or exercise program is going to fix her life.

I'm glad that last one was done well. I don't think I'd get anything new out of it either, but plenty of people will and it's definitely a necessary thing to talk about.

The Secret Scripture, Sebastian Barry, 2006


Cover comments: I like it a lot--it's intriguing.

Comments: Sorry to say I Pearl-ruled this. I'm sure it's nothing to do with the book. I'm in a major reading slump and can't seem to focus on anything. I will try this one again sometime in the future. I only posted this as a record for myself.

60. Buddha, Karen Armstrong, 2001


Cover comments: I find this attractive

Comments: This is part of the Penguin Lives series, and so is a biography and not a book about the religion of Buddhism, exactly. It took me months and months to get through this 187 page book, and I almost chucked it a few times. But I did appreciate learning a few things that I wouldn't know without the book, so I stuck it out. To be fair, it's not all the author's fault--this subject involves a wealth of unfamiliar nouns--names of people and places, as well as many concepts.

I read another Armstrong (A Short History of Myth) earlier this year, and I have now deleted all her other books from my wishlist. She writes about topics that I find interesting, but she has a gift of making those topics boring.

Why I Read This Now: I don't know much about non-Abrahamic religions, and wanted to change that.

Recommended for: if you don't know anything about Buddha and want to know a little, go read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse.

Rating: not good.

. . . I have now deleted all her other books from my wishlist. She writes about topics that I find interesting, but she has a gift of making those topics boring.

I did this same thing to Alison Weir several years ago for the same reason.

#60 -- Yes, I read two Alison Weir books before giving up on her too. I feel about her exactly as I feel about Armstrong.

>61 Nickelini: I want desperately to like her books, but I read the Eleanor of Aquitaine one and Queen Isabella and I was SO BORED - how do you make those lives boring?? So I tried one of her historical fiction novels (I can't even remember who it was about - Jane Grey?) and it wasn't good either. Oh well.

I was going to say "Well, I'll write off Karen Armstrong..." but I don't actually find Alison Weir boring, just dry. Though she's certainly no Candice Millard or Caroline Alexander. Alexander especially has made me desperately enthralled with subjects I previously had no real interest in (The War That Killed Achilles, The Bounty).

#63 - No, don't write off Karen Armstrong just because I did. It would be boring if we all liked and disliked the same things.

Fascinating review of the bear book--must find that.

I haven't read much by Karen Armstrong and don't particularly plan to, but I'm thinking those short introductory type books written to specifics are ungrateful formats for most writers. Any 100 general pages on Buddha, Mohammad and the like are going to be very much like another, no? But I've really enjoyed her memoir The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness. She spent years as a nun--that alone is worth reading about.

Lola - I can see you liking and appreciating Bear.

She spent years as a nun--that alone is worth reading about.

Indeed!

61. Nothing to Envy, Barbara Demick, 2009


Cover comments: Fits the book perfectly

Comments: Demick, a journalist, follows the lives of six North Koreans and intermixes their stories with a chronological history of Korea. An utterly fascinating book that I couldn't put down. The stories of the details of their lives are horrific, maddening, and amazing. I did have a general idea of the dystopia that North Koreans live under, but that didn't make this book any less interesting, and of course I learned a lot.

Here are two tidbits of detail that really struck me: First, the government (which controls all), inserts their propaganda into every possible corner of life. On page 120, Demick shows some examples of first grade school texts:

"A girl is acting as a messenger to our patriotic troops during the war against the Japanese occupation. She carries messages in a basket containing five apples, but is stopped by a Japanese soldier at a checkpoint. He steals two of her apples. How many are left?"

"Three soldiers from the Korean People's Army killed thirty American soldiers. How many American soldiers were killed by each of them if they all killed an equal number of enemy soldiers?"

And a poem:

"Where have we gone? /We have gone to the forest. /where are we going? /We are going over the hills. / What are we going to do? / We are going to kill the Japanese soldiers. "

And finally, a song:

"Our enemies are the American bastards / Who are trying to take over our beautiful fatherland. / With guns that I make with my own hands / I will shoot them. BANG, BANG, BANG. "

Grade one!

The second tidbit that really struck me is when Jun-sang, after years of disillusionment, is covertly listening to South Korean TV and he hears Kim Jong-il's voice for the first time--all his life, announcers had read the great leader's words in an awed and quivering voice, and the people never got to hear the leader's voice for themselves. Evilishly creepy.

Recommended for: I guess if you have no interest in North Korea, then skip this one. But really, how can someone not be interested? Therefore, everyone should read this book.

Why I Read This Now it was physically at the top of my non-fiction TBR pile. I think I had put it there because the book has so many rave reviews on LT (and no bad reviews).

Enjoyed your review of Nothing to Envy

Nothing to Envy was such a great book - well done and very memorable. I remember being pretty shocked. Even though I knew things were bad there, I didn't know quite how bad. I also liked how she didn't just end their stories after they got out of North Korea.

#69 - Yes, I liked how she talks about their lives in South Korea. I was surprised at how few people have actually managed to get out. The details about starving to death were pretty disturbing. That along with "go to work even though no one is going to pay you. If you don't, we'll send you to a camp. Oh, and figure out how you're going to eat on your own." Is there a place were life is any more unfair.

>59 Nickelini: "...but she has a gift of making those topics boring."

I couldn't agree more.

>67 Nickelini: Enjoyed your review. Knowing that this book includes a history of North Korea actually makes it much more appealing to me.

Dan - Oh, the book is full of history. She does a really good job of wrapping the stories of regular people into the historical arc. It really stops the book from dropping into dry passages. Check out the reviews here at LT --they are all 4 & 5 stars. I can't imagine anyone not liking this book, unless they are just completely uninterested in people.

>61 Nickelini: Sounds amazing. One for the 'you can get this when you've created space for another book' list. The children's text books sound extraordinary.

Great review of Nothing to Envy, Joyce. I'll probably read it next year.

I am a big fan of Nothing to Envy too.

62. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Joan Aiken, 1962


Cover comments: I absolutely love this Vintage Classics edition cover. Just perfect.

Comments: Oh how I would have loved this book when I was eleven. How is it possible that I missed it back then?

This novel is set in an alternate Victorian England (although the forward note says the reigning monarch is Good King James III), when packs of ravenous wolves roamed the countryside. Apparently, this occurred because "at this time, the Channel Tunnel from Dover to Calais having been recently completed, a great many wolves, driven by severe winters, had migrated through the tunnel from Europe and Russia to the British Isles". Wow, what a setting.

This is the story of Bonnie and Sylvia, and they do fight off wolves, but the most threatening wolf of all is the new governess who has made the parents disappear and is aggressively trying to turn the girls into workhouse orphans.

My edition says that Aiken wrote The Wolves of Willoughby Chase as a one-off spoof of the Victorian Gothic adventure stories she had read as a child. She isn't shy about using big words and sophisticated language, and there is a short glossary in the back to describe Victorian objects such as antimacassars, blunderbusses, and oubliettes.

I also found it interesting that Aiken foresaw the Chunnel when she wrote this in 1962, and of course that set me off to investigate, and I learned that engineers were proposing the crossing back in the early-mid 1800s when this book is set. So yes, I learned something from a children's book.

Recommended for: 11 year olds, and anyone who wants to read a book that they would have loved back when they were 11.

Why I Read This Now: Not sure how this bubbled to the top of my TBR. The portrayal of wolves in literature and art is one of my interests. I'm also interested in wolves in the British Isles.

Sometimes I learn better from children's books than from grownup books...

I loved The Wolves of Willoughby Chase when I read it -- probably around age 9 or 10, based on when it was published. While I haven't reread it, I always think of it when I remember a New Yorker cartoon I was very fond of. In the cartoon, a group of wolves and bears are chasing a Russian-type sled pulled by horses, and one of the wolves has turned his head around and is asking the bears "See, isn't this more fun than hibernating?" I know they really have nothing to do with each other (except wolves), but I always think of them together.

I have recently bought a lot of Vintage Classics, and would really love to read this one. Sound like a wonderful book.

#78 - Dan - Indeed!

#79 - Rebecca - That's funny!

# 80 - Edwinbcn -- aren't Vintage Classics lovely? The children's ones have nice blue spines instead of the scarlet red of the adult books.

63. Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, John Cleland, 1749, audiobook


Cover comments: as usual, my audiobook cover is not available, so I picked this Oxford Classics cover as I think it suits the book nicely.

Comments: This is one eighteenth century man's idea of a woman's idea of her sexuality. It is the first-person narration of a teenage country orphan's experiences triumphing through becoming a prostitute. There's not a lot of story, it's written as one long description and no dialogue, and there is very little character growth. Despite that, Penguin Classics, one of the numerous esteemed publishers of this novel, claims that "Fanny Hill stands as one of the great works of eighteenth-century fiction for its unique combination of parody, erotica and philosophy of sensuality."

Okay, whatever you say. I mostly found it silly. However, I think it's an interesting historical document that shows us that our commonly-held belief of previous generations all being very proper people (or all prudes, depending how you look at it), is actually false. I think that's important. I do roll my eyes when Jane Austen readers get all aflutter at the suggested combination of Austen with sex. I don't think we know if Jane Austen read Fanny Hill or not, but I'm fairly positive that Mr Darcy did. I usually hesitate to pick up 18th century literature, but when I do I am usually relieved that it isn't a stuffy as so many 19th century works. And I like how Fanny was never punished for her promiscuity, as would be sure to happen in later fiction.

Recommended for:
- people who want to read the most-banned book ever
- readers interested in pre-Victorian sensuality
- writers looking for admiring euphemisms for the erect penis
- readers of 1001 books and other such lists
- people who enjoy erotica (although they should note that while the sexual acts are frequent, they may be rather tame compared to later erotica)

Why I Read This Now: When I can't find an audiobook that I really want to read, I default to something from the 1001 list. I also want to read more 18th century literature--but not the stuffy stuff!

Rating: due to the high eye-rolling activity this book drew out of me, I'm giving it 2 stars. Still, I'm not sorry I listened to it. It's just that after about 40 minutes, I pretty much had the whole book down.

I wish my 11-year-old granddaughter was up to the challenge of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase because it sounds like something I'd enjoy reading and discussing with her. Unfortunately she seems to have been struggling for three years to read Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

I recall reading somewhere the Jane Austen read and enjoyed The Monk, which is quite explicit itself only not exclusively focused on sex.

Of course I read Fanny Hill for all the wrong reasons when I was a teenager. I can still vaguely remember that encounter in the sea while bathing.

Hello Joyce! For some reason I had lost this thread and only just found it. I have been thinking about you and your book club reading Bear, particularly after I recently heard a very interesting discussion about it on a CBC podcast. How did the rest of the book club like it?

Also, I've been wondering recently about re-reading the Wolves series, which I really loved when I was younger. Your review is making me think I definitely should!

I've found myself unintentionally reading quite a bit of 18th century fiction and nonfiction lately. Maybe I'll have to give Fanny Hill a try.

>83 StevenTX: Maybe she's struggling because it's just not so interesting to her? I took ages to read a terrible novel, Clues in the Woods largely because I was so bored. I only read it because I felt like I had to start reading novels (Asterix and Donald Duck were my reading loves at the time), since my family all read a lot. A couple months after that first clunker I rushed through The Hobbit with no trouble.

>87 mabith: I probably didn't phrase that very well. She loves the Wimpy Kid books, but doesn't read them (or anything) as well as she should for her age and hasn't been able to advance beyond them. Her latest book, Sisters, is also basically a comic book. When she was in 3rd grade she was reading at the 4th grade level, but now that she's in 6th grade she's still at a 4th grade reading level. Her parents, though they aren't readers themselves, have sent her to tutoring, but it hasn't helped much. They say they've evaluated her for learning disabilities, but haven't found anything. It's frustrating to see someone who loves books be unable to advance as she should.

I'm a great fan of Bear -- I first read it when it came out in that dreadful 1976 pb edition and reread it a couple of years ago -- it's always sort of haunted my memory. But then as a kid I was a big fan of "Rose Red and Snow White."

>88 StevenTX: Has her sight been closely evaluated? I have a cousin that was diagnosed with differing focal lengths for each eye which made words disappear from pages. Reading is a physical AND mental strain for her if she is not wearing her glasses.

>90 lesmel: Yes, she has regular eye exams and wears glasses. Her problem may be a loss of mental focus rather than physical ever since they gave her the distraction of an iPhone. (Sorry for hijacking your thread with a personal issue, Joyce. I should have just said something prurient about Fanny Hill instead; then I could have been quietly ignored.)

Steven - not at all! I'm finding it quite interesting and I'm concerned. Let us know if you find the cause of the problem. (and the iPhone and internet haven't been great for my book reading either!)

>82 Nickelini: think it's an interesting historical document that shows us that our commonly-held belief of previous generations all being very proper people (or all prudes, depending how you look at it), is actually false

This is one of my pet peeves, as I've read plenty of books from earlier years and from other cultures that had plenty of sex, if not always explicitly. I put it in the same category with people who think that nobody had sex until they were married and then only with the person they were married to until the 60s (and yes, I do know some people who sort of think that).

Steven, you can count on everyone on LT to be concerned when a child isn't reading much/well! If she reads comics more readily I'd try some that are child-appropriate but with more advanced vocab. Calvin and Hobbes is great for that. I can't imagine being that young with smartphone technology and how it might have changed my relationship with books. I grew up with computers from my toddler-hood on, but a Commodore 128 doesn't quite compare.

#85 - For some reason I had lost this thread and only just found it. I have been thinking about you and your book club reading Bear, particularly after I recently heard a very interesting discussion about it on a CBC podcast. How did the rest of the book club like it?

Margaret - overall everyone liked it, but it sort of left everyone somewhat speechless. So not really the conversation piece that we'd all hoped. Don't know what that says about us as a group, because there certainly is a lot to discuss here. We had one new member and she seemed quite taken aback and asked "WHY we chose this book." She seemed a little worried about the type of group she had just joined.

#93 - Rebecca - I put it in the same category with people who think that nobody had sex until they were married and then only with the person they were married to until the 60s (and yes, I do know some people who sort of think that).

That's such a good way to describe what I was trying to say.

64. Classic Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories, selected by Rex Collings


Cover comments: good cover for a book of old ghost stories

Comments: Short ghost stories, arrranged in chronological order, starting with the wholly pre-Victorian Sir Walter Scott, through Edgar Allan Poe, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thackeray, Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Edith Nesbit, Oscar Wilde, and Saki (with many others in between). Nothing much to inspire my imagination here. Overall, I found this collection tedious.

I'm doing better with stories from 50 of the Scariest Short Stories of All Time, found at: http://flavorwire.com/483530/50-of-the-scariest-short-stories-of-all-time/7

Why I Read This Now: I'm always on the look out for a good creepy ghost story. I rarely find one.

Rating: 2 stars

Recommended for: Lovers of 19th century short stories.

#85 Also, I've been wondering recently about re-reading the Wolves series, which I really loved when I was younger. Your review is making me think I definitely should!

Margaret -- I see that Joan Aiken is from your corner of the world! I'm trying to figure out which of her books I read when I was a child--I'm sure I must have read something.

#95 Hah! I hope you managed to reassure her with the next pick.

#99 - I hope you managed to reassure her with the next pick.

Not sure--we're reading The Orenda, which I've heard described as "torture porn" (I've already read it and it's tres violent)

65. Y, Marjorie Celona, 2013, audiobook read by Sarah Moon


Cover comments: no comment as my audiobook cover is not on LT

Comments: Y takes its title from the opening scene where 18 year old Yula leaves her newborn baby at the front door of the YMCA, and it also suggests the word “why?”, as in “why would someone abandon her baby?” The novel shifts back and forth in time and follows the baby, now named Shannon, as she is passes through foster care and eventually into a more stable home, and alternates with the story of Yula and what happens to her in the time leading up to Shannon’s birth.

Y has received rave reviews and was nominated for the Giller Prize. I’m stunned, because I thought the writing was fairly atrocious. I was able to make it through only because I listened to the audiobook, but if I’d been reading the paper copy I would have thrown it in the recycling bin before getting halfway through. A few of the negative comments I read were that readers found the characters unlikeable and the story unrelentingly depressing. This may be true, but is not my complaint.

To give the writer some credit, I think she handled the alternating storyline and the pacing well. Of course from the beginning the reader knows that this is going to be Shannon’s quest for her birth mother, and I was mildly interested in the path that would take. So it wasn’t all bad.

If I had a paper copy, I would have noted all the problems I had with how the story is written, but since I’ve already erased my electronic copy, I will just outline a few of my problems. Overall, I could see the author at work, and picture her checking her copious notes as she sat at her keyboard. I can see that she took a creative writing course, and was given the advice to add an air of reality and to paint a picture through the use of rich detail. She was also told to know absolutely everything about all her characters—not to use it in the novel necessarily, but to understand what makes them tick. Celona’s problem is that she couldn’t stop herself from including every single meaningless detail. The result is that for every minor character that is ever mentioned and every major character that enters a scene, the reader gets a sentence describing their hair, a sentence or two describing their complete outfit, and a sentence describing the effect of their physical appearance on Shannon. This made the narrative flow very clunky and mechanical. Before the end of the first chapter, it was making me scream. She also layered on the forced details like this with settings and locations. I often admire the magic an author can achieve with subtle details, but here I felt like she was bludgeoning me over the head with them.

Celona chose an unusual narrative technique, one that I will dub “first person omniscient.” The narrator, Shannon, knows details about other characters thoughts and motivations, even when she wasn’t there, even when she wasn’t born yet. Ultimately this is just a hinky form of third person narration.

And to really make sure I hated this book, Celona employs my pet peeve cliché of the young woman having sex for the first time and getting pregnant. In actuality, the chances of conceiving from any single sexual encounter is 3%-11%, but in literature, if you’re young and unmarried, it’s 100%, cause sluts have to be punished. Authors: if you want to have some credibility, stop. Please stop.

It’s pretty clear from the start where the novel would end up, and that was fine with me as it was really about the journey. However, I was surprised at how judgemental and preachy the ending was—colour me Not Impressed.

Recommended for: creative writing teachers to show their classes how NOT to use detail.

Why I Read This Now: audiobook

Rating: 1 star

66. Broken Things, Padrika Tarrant, 2007


Cover comments: I like it, and it really suits the book.

Comments: This is a short collection of very short pieces, all which are about women who are somehow off, and some, rather psychotic. The writing is wonderful at times, with great use of detail and imagination.

I really liked Broken Things, although it took me a long time to read for a book so short. The stories are strange and dark, and it's difficult to read more than one or two at a time. It's tiring to introduce my brain to a whole new world, new characters, and new story every four or five pages, especially since they were all so odd.

Blurbers on the back cover compare the stories told in Broken Things to Angela Carter, Maurice Sendak, Edward Gorey, Neil Gaiman, and Jan Svankmajer.

Rating: 4 stars

Recommended for: readers who like dark, disturbing short stories.

Why I Read This Now: it bubbled up through my TBR pile.

>101 Nickelini: Recommended for: creative writing teachers to show their classes how NOT to use detail.

I'm amazed you finished this book!

I'm amazed you finished this book!

I know. Not sure why I did. But it's easier to do that with audiobooks. I just go about my mindless chores and listen away.

>101 Nickelini: Y Lol

#105 - Oh sure, you can laugh.

>101 Nickelini: i'm pretty sure I wouldn't have, but thanks, now i certainly won't read or listen to this. Love your critique.

# 107 - Thanks, Dan. Doing my bit. I read, so others don't have to.

67. Three Day Road, Joseph Boyden, 2005


Cover comments: entirely suitable for the story

Why I Read This Now: After not enjoying the same author's The Orenda this past winter, I hadn't planned on reading any more of his books for a while, but this was my book club's November book so I pulled it out from the depths of the TBR pile.

Comments: Joseph Boyden's debut novel is about two Cree young men, Xavier and Elijah, who become snipers on the Western Front of WWI. Their story is interspersed with stories from the life of Xavier's aunt, Niska, who takes care of the wounded and morphine addicted Xavier at the end of the war.

Three Day Road has won awards and earned critical acclaim, and it is highly esteemed by readers. The writing is good, the story is interesting, it has a pleasing narrative flow (something that has been lacking in too many books I've read this year), and the WWI setting is one I usually like reading about. Despite all that, I did not enjoy this book. I think it comes down to simply not wanting to spend time in the world he created. And every time I picked it up I thought how much I'd rather be reading something else.

Recommended for: everyone, since I seem to be the only person who didn't like Three Day Road.

I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy Three Day Road! It's hard being one of a few who dislike something getting loads of good press.

>109 Nickelini: Living in Canada, do you think there is a bit of social/cultural pressure to read books like this, given the attention given to them?

I did like this book to my surprise, didn't like the sequel so much and have not yet read The Orenda. I also read 419 and The Sisters Brothers feeling I should, but approaching them in a rather tepid fashion. However, I liked both and would actually rate The Sisters Brothers quite high.

You deserve a good book next.

#111 Living in Canada, do you think there is a bit of social/cultural pressure to read books like this, given the attention given to them?

Sassy - now that you mention it, YES. As expected, my book club really liked Three Day Road and The Orenda and a common comment was "I learned so much about ______". And I guess learning through reading is a good thing. But yes, I did feel pressure to like these and acknowledge their importance.

I haven't heard much good about 419 so I feel no pressure to read that one, but the subject interests me so I might read it one day. As for The Sisters Brothers, I do feel pressure to read that one because it's "so good," but I doubt I ever will because it just screams "not for me." I've developed pretty good spidey sense when it comes to books, although I'm surprised occasionally enough that I don't rely on it 100%.

You deserve a good book next.

Thank you Dan. Yes, yes I do. I've started The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West, and although I'm not loving it, I am enjoying it quite a bit.

I thought that The Sisters Brothers was clever, but ultimately just that; it was missing a heart. Still, it wasn't badly written. I've picked up a copy of 419, but haven't felt any great compunction to read it. I do, despite being outside of Canada, feel responsible for keeping up with CanLit. Usually, this works very well for me. I read Through Black Spruce and was not a fan, so I don't feel a need to read anything else by Boyden.

68. The Edwardians, Vita Sackville-West, 1930


Cover comments: I like this Virago Modern Classics cover with it's purplish tone (I also like to say purplish)

Comments: Sackville-West wrote this novel for fun and to make money. It was a financial success, and 85 years later, it's still fun. She says in the author's note in the front, "No character in this book is wholly fictitious." Nor are the settings, including Chevron, the country estate of the novel that Sackville-West modelled in great detail after her ancestral home of Knole.

As with probably most books about the Edwardian era that were written afterwards, this novel is a critique of the foolishness and decadence of the upper classes who blindly waltzed themselves into an unexpected horrific end. I suppose that The Edwardians doesn't really have anything shocking or new to say--but it's an insider's look at a world that I find fascinating. I loved the settings, and the story line, and the characters. And I have to admit I have a bit of a crush on Sebastian, the dashing, moody, conflicted hero of the story.

Why I Read This Now: I'd set off to read a bunch of Edwardian era books this year but haven't really done that. Now I remember why I wanted to. Also, I visited Knole House in 2013, so it's fun to read a book set there.

Rating: This isn't a stunning piece of literature or anything, but I really enjoyed it. A solid 4 stars, if not more. The book has an excellent introduction by Victoria Glendinning.

Recommended for: Anglophiles, Virago fans, readers interested in the Edwardian time period.


My daughters in front of Knole House in 2013

69. The Cambridge Companion to Pride and Prejudice, Janet Todd, editor, 2013


Cover comments: Follows the pattern for all the recent Cambridge Classics. Nice background art, peevish Mr Darcy = all good.

Comments: This is a collection of 15 of the bestest most recent academic articles on Pride and Prejudice. They cover a broad range of topics and my favourites included "Narrative," "Character," "The Economic Context," "Austen's Minimalism," and "The Cult of Pride and Prejudice and its author" (all written by various scholars). But my favourite essay was by the editor herself. I prepared myself to have a little Darcy fan girl moment when I started "The Romantic Hero," but although she doesn't come out and say it, I don't think Janet Todd likes Mr Darcy one bit. And all her points about how awful he really is are all completely valid. Which, of course, just makes Mr Darcy an even more interesting character.

Recommended for: Austen students, readers who want to understand P&P on a deeper level, people who can't get enough of Pride and Prejudice.

Why I Read This Now: I can't get enough Pride and Prejudice?

Rating: 4.5 stars

Another good Cambridge Companion.

I suppose the value of a Cambridge Companion is directly related to one's interest in a particular author or book. What I liked about this one is that it's new (2013) so talked about current culture, and also that it was focused on P&P and not Austen as a whole.

That being said, what Cambridge Companions do you recommend?

The Cambridge companions I have read are Albert Camus, Mary Shelley, and English literature 1500-1600 and they have all been excellent

Am adding the Cambridge Companion to Pride and Prejudice to my wish list. Enjoyed your comments!

You know I have to read anything Jane Austen related that you recommend. Off to see where I can get a copy . . .

adding to my wish list!

70. Scar Tissue, Michael Ignatieff, 1993


Cover comments: a truly hideous movie tie-in cover

Comments: This short novel about a philosophy professor's struggles with his parents' deaths was deep, layered, and interesting.

Scar Tissue was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1993. From 2008 through 2011, Michael Ignatieff was the Leader of the Official Opposition and he ran for Prime Minister of Canada in 2011. I just find it interesting that we had a prominent political leader who was also a Booker Prize nominee. That's quite a combination of skill sets.

Recommended for: people who want to read novels about Alzheimer's, people who like novels with a philosophical angle, people who want to read Booker Prize nominees.

Why I Read This Now: needed one more book for my 2014 "Ugly Covers" challenge.

The Edwardians is on my short list to read in the new year -- nice to know you enjoyed it.

Your mention of your 2014 "Ugly Covers" challenge sent me over to your challenge thread to check it out. While there I noticed your comments regarding Fairy Tales from the brothers Grimm: a New English Version by Philip Pullman which you read before I got into Club Read 2014, so I missed it then, but it is now belatedly on my wish list, thanks to you. I enjoyed perusing the other thread and looking at your other "Ugly Covers."

Speaking of covers, I was thinking of you when I uncharacteristically bought Stay, Illusion for what I think is the most beautiful cover I've seen in a while. Right now I have it sitting on a small tabletop easel where I can admire it.

>123 Nickelini: I remember finding this a very moving book, which I don't usually like, but this was an exception. I had no idea that it was being made into a movie. Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent had already stamped those roles. Who will they cast now?

That is a truly ugly cover and would put me right off the movie. Luckily my edition has a somewhat better one.

For anyone in the UK, this is the same Michael Ignatieff from late night television.

#125 - Suzanne - that is indeed a gorgeous cover. It looked familiar to me, and I find that I'd pinned it to my Medieval Pinterest board last year. I got it from an article in the Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/4969118/Historical-warnings-about-kil...

Now I'm pinning your picture to my Fabulous Covers board. Thanks!

#126 I had no idea that it was being made into a movie. Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent had already stamped those roles. Who will they cast now?

I'm really sorry, but I don't know what you mean.

>127 Nickelini: I checked out the link. Unfortunately, it's the back side of the Wilton Dyptich so it's almost by accident that anyone would ever know about it but for someone putting it on the cover of a book!

#128 -- that's kinda cool!

>127 Nickelini: I was thinking of the Sarah Polley film Away from Her, where Julie Christie is the person with dementia and Gordon Pinsent is her spouse. I couldn't think of anyone who could play those kind of roles as well as these two.

#130 - Oh, okay. I'm not familiar with that. Thanks for clarifying!

71. Author, Author, David Lodge, 2004, audiobook


Cover comments: yeah, whatever.

Comments: a fictionalized biography of Henry James. I listened to this audiobook while going for my regular walks, and it was most pleasant to listen to as I strolled along. I read The Master by Colim Toibin a while ago, so I was already familiar with the main people and events of James's life. I think because of this, I would have been bored if I'd read a paper copy.

Recommended for: readers interested in literary biographies and Henry James.

Author, Author sounds intriguing. I will watch for it.

>130 SassyLassy: That is a great film, but harrowing!

71. Without You, There is No Us: My Time With the Sons of North Korea's Elite, by Suki Kim, 2014


Cover comments: it didn't grab me, but when I stop to look at it, it's actually rather nice. I really like the font, and the colour is very unusual.

Comments: This is an utterly fascinating memoir of a journalist going undercover as a Christian missionary teacher at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, an elite university in North Korea. Her job is to teach English to Korea's next generation of leaders.

I've always been interested in North Korea, but my interest is heightened this year after reading Nothing to Envy, by Barbara Demick. That book gives a thorough overview of North Korea, with vivid salient details. Without You, There is No Us also gives vivid detail, but where Nothing to Envy was broad and encompassing, this book has a tight, narrow focus. And where Nothing to Envy exposes the difficult lives of average North Koreans, Without You, There is No Us shows the lives of a exclusive group--young men who believe themselves to be the best in the world, but who in reality live such excessively restricted lives that it boggles minds of the rest of us. These students believe they are attending one of the top five technical universities in the world, yet don't know about the internet, and when they start learning about it, can't comprehend it.

Through her six months of teaching these students, Kim walks several tightropes. The first is the cultural balance. The North Korean government expects the school to make these students fluent English speakers without exposing them to any non-North Korean information. Kim herself wants to plant seeds of doubt, and widen the mental horizons of her students. But in doing so, she has to be careful not just to keep herself out of trouble (deportation, gulag, execution), but also to not endanger the lives of the students. She also realizes that in damaging their world view too extensively, she can inflict mental trauma. As a western reader looking for a good story, part of me wanted her to really let them know what's going on, but of course Kim was wiser and showed better sense.

She also had to balance staying true to herself and fitting in with her fellow teachers, some who were extremest fundamentalist Christians. They were not allowed to show any signs of their Christianity, which usually helped her blend in. Still, she had to be constantly on guard on that front as well.

Another area where she struggled for balance was with her students, who on one hand were enthusiastic, hardworking, and friendly, and on the other hand were amazingly adept liars.

I was engaged by this whole book, but Chapter 22 stood out. This is where she tries to teach essay writing, but it's incomprehensible to people who have been taught since birth not to question, and that "the great leader says" is all the evidence one needs.

BTW: the "You" in the title refers to the regime leader.

Recommended for: everyone, unless you're just not interesting in North Korea.

If you're only going to read one book about North Korea, it should probably be Nothing to Envy. However, I don't think that takes anything away from Without You, There is No Us, which will go on my top five list of most interesting and most readable books for 2014. Also, if you don't know much about the country, or why it is the way it is, this isn't the place to start.

Why I Read This Now: I read an excerpt, and then saw Suki Kim on Jon Stewart, and couldn't resist. I almost never buy newly published books and read them right away, but I'm very interested in this topic.


Building in Pyongyang; the sign reads: WE ARE HAPPY.

The author has some great pictures at her website: http://www.sukikim.com/album

A further note on Without You, There is No Us. I knew there were some ethical concerns with Suki Kim and her project. I just found a page on her website where she addresses them:

http://sukikim.com/ethicsnote

I had mixed feelings about Without You, There Is No Us because I was concerned about the possibility of the book endangering the students she had taught. (I read an article by her in the NY Times.) I hope that what she wrote on her web site about how she tried to protect the students worked. And I may read the book, too.

>135 Nickelini: Ok. Those are both on the list...and I'm not even interested in North Korea.

#137 Rebecca -- yes, I hope it worked too. I hope you read the book so I can hear your comments.

#138 Lesmel - Yes, you really should track both of them down. If you do, let me know what you think.

72. The War of the Worlds, HG Wells, 1898


Cover comments: really ugly, however, I think that may be somewhat intentional. It looks like this was originally a B&W illustration from the 1906 edition of the book and has been colourized in a sort of tongue in cheek way. Ugly but I sort of like it because it fits the book. This picture is blurry, but on my cover I like the people fighting giant aliens from horseback.

Comments: It's 1894 and Martians attack London. Most of the city is destroyed and very few people survive. There is no gallant British defence against the alien invaders, and the nameless narrator spends most of the book running from the Martians.

This year I've complained about the lack of narrative in the books I've chosen. I can't say that this book suffers from that, but I still didn't find it very interesting. The thing that bothered me the most was the absolute lack of characters or personality in the people in these pages. It's closer to straight reportage than telling a story.

Why I Read This Now: Anyone who knows my reading tastes would predict that I wouldn't like this, so why did I even bother? Well, I like to venture out of my comfort zone now and again, and I also like to read the seminal works of important literary trends. It's on the Guardian 1000 and the 1001 Books lists. But I read it now because it showed up when I searched "Edwardian" and I needed one more book this year for that challenge. Written a few years before the Edwardian era, it's questionable whether or not it qualifies.

I'm going to say "yes," because it reveals something important about the Edwardian age that I didn't realize. I thought that the Edwardian were happily partying through their time, completely oblivious to the future they were creating. But now I learn that the fear of invasion was a major tension of the time. The War of the Worlds is part of a body of work now called "invasion literature" that spoke to this fear. The genre started with The Battle of Dorking in 1871, which was about a German invasion of Britain. I was also interested in how HG Wells foresaw both mass mechanized destruction, and poison gas--two things that were not yet known. So WWI wasn't quite the shock that I had thought it was (although the severity obviously was).

Recommended for: readers who are interested in the roots of sci-fi and Martian literature.

I heard Suki Kim on NPR and was impressed with her humanity. Her note on the ethics of writing the book seems very well thought-out to me.

73. The Cement Garden, Ian McEwan, 1978


Cover comments: not very inspiring

Comments: a short, dark, disturbing early McEwan. Off to take a shower now.

Why I Read This Now: it's been at the top of my TBR for a few years.

Recommended for: Ian McEwan completists.

>123 Nickelini:, >126 SassyLassy: I thought "Away From Her" was a really splendid movie, and not really very bleak. I had expected it to be really racking.

I remember Michael Ignatieff back in the 80s when he presented "The Late Show" or whatever it was called; he looked rather like the young Daniel Day Lewis and did the classic black leather jacket and black jeans look.

Horribly addicted to print as I am, I often wish, reading your thread and others, that I could print out collected threads from the group as a sort of magazine cum reference guide. So much more satisfying than trying to remember who said what where, and find discussions on a particular book/subject. I could carry it to book shops, read it whilst running a bath. It would be so useful, and such a nice read.

>143 Oandthegang: Much as I dislike the concept of "liking" on platforms like Facebook, it would be very handy here in terms of marking books I want to read and being able to find them in a handy list later rather than needing to write them down that exact instant before I forget.

>143 Oandthegang: I either add books to my Amazon wishlist so I can check them on the Amazon app when I'm in a bookstore or add them to a section on my reading thread that lists recommendations from other LTers. Harder to check in a store, but I can include more info.

74. Silent Spring, Rachel Carson


Cover comments: ho hum

Why I Read This Book Now: My source for audiobooks is drying up and pickings are slim. I've had a paperback copy of this in my TBR for about 15 years and I know it's unlikely that I'll ever actually read it, so I thought I'd give this seminal work on environmentalism a listen instead.

Comments: Silent Spring is an enormously influential book. However, it was published the year before I was born, so I've lived my whole life in a world with this knowledge. I quickly saw that there were no big ideas for me to learn from this book, so I thought I'd focus on its rhetorical technique to perhaps see how it earned so much influence. I made it half way--to page 150, before pulling out my paper copy and skimming the rest.

So although I see how Silent Spring is an important book, I don't think it's important that readers in 2015 need to actually read it.

Recommended for: Archives and footnotes.

>140 Nickelini: Hi, Joyce. Interested in your comments on War Of The Worlds. While there was indeed as subset of paranoid invasion fantasies off-setting the partying Edwardians, what they all have in common is their absolute conviction of British unassailability, and their belief that if anyone was foolish enough to start anything, Britain would put them in their place within a month - because they're only foreigners, you know... The Battle Of Dorking was as you say the beginning of the genre, though Louis Tracy's The Final War: A Story Of The Great Betrayal is probably the most typical example, with France and Germany teaming up against England (and being put in their places inside a month...)

#147, isn't it interesting that in light of all that, in The War of the Worlds, the British mostly just run away from the Martians. I was surprised by that.

That's Wells for you! Here's what it's REALLY like to be invaded...!

2014 Reading Year in Review

This time last year I had just finished rereading Pride and Prejudice, and joked that it was the best book ever written and I was ruined for everything else. Turns out not to be that much of a joke after all--2014 will go down as a solidly mediocre year in reading for me. Not one single 5 star read. Here's to a better 2015!

In total, I read 75 books, which is at the low end of my usual range. However, it's actually worse, as 19 of those were actually audiobooks. I think my reading less was a combination of being busy with other things, wasting too much time on the internet, and just not being that excited with what I was reading.

More stats:

20 non-fiction, 55 fiction
41 female authors, 30 male authors, 4 mixed

12 Canadian authors
34 UK
2 Australian
4 Irish
14 US
1 French
1 UK-Sri Lankan
1 Algerian
1 Italian
1 Scottish (I know, should go in with the UK, but the book was just strongly Scottish)
1 Iranian
1 French Polynesian
1 Swedish

Different authors - 72

New to me authors - 54

Author discoveries: Tana French, Jim Crace, Maggie O'Farrell.

Best Non-Fiction:

Being Wrong:Adventures in the Margins of Error, Kathryn Schultz
Without You, There is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite, Suki Kim
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, Barbara Demick

Best Fiction:

Broken Harbour, Tana French
Life After Life, Kate Atkinson
Harvest, Jim Crace
Chocky, John Wyndham
Before I Go to Sleep, SJ Watson
The End of the Affair, Graham Greene
Bear, Marian Engel
Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Maggie O'Farrell
The Edwardians, Vita Sackville-West

And finally, I did much better this year with my TBR pile--I read 51 TBR books, and bought only 53 (a significantly lower number than the past several years). That's a TBR increase of only 2 books (and doesn't include the smallish purge of the pile I did midyear). Let's see if I can read more than I bring in for 2015.

Well, I'm sorry you didn't have your best reading year, but just wanted to say that I enjoyed your thread anyway! I always come away with interesting ideas of books to read and I like how you format your reviews. Looking forward to 2015!