Will's Reading World 2024

I tend to be a bit of a listaholic when it comes to books, so for me, I'm actually being restrained with tne lists here! Firstly are the two main reading projects I'm currently undertaking - a Read around the World, and a Tour of the United States. This is followed, for reference, by an English Counties list, which I've actually completed. I've also included a virtual book pile, to encourage me to read books in my library that aren't part of a project, and which can otherwise get overlooked!

I do keep a longer term record of my reading, and grade those books read (for good or ill!), which system is explained below. My library is in my LT catalogue, as are books that I've read, at least in recent years (these are all those with a star rating). Books 'To Be Read' (ie books that I own that were bought for reading but haven't yet been) are listed in the 'To Read' collection, which at year end 2023 numbers just under 1400 - so, given I'm in my mid-sixties, they are unlikely to all get read, but then my library is based on Umberto Eco principles, so don't have to be! I'd still like to reduce that number though.

Main aims this year are thus to make progress on the reading tours, and to reduce that TBR number. I'm also reading my way through Emile Zola's Rougon-Macquart sequence, so that will be another. That's enough!

Reading grades:
* Positively disliked: almost certainly unfinished. Most of these books do tend to be book group choices! LibraryThing rating 0.5 - 1
** Disappointing or not particularly liked even if I can recognise its merits: likely to be at least skimmed, often unfinished. LT 1.5 - 2
*** OK, a decent read, functionally useful if read for education. Books I want to finish, even if I don't feel the need to! LT 2.5 - 3
**** Good, compulsive reading that, whilst putdownable, demands to be picked up and finished LT 3.5
***** Very good, into the realms of 'unputdownable' LT 4
****** Excellent. Some of these may even be 'pending' as favourites, as I usually only decide after a while. LT 4.5
******(F) Favourites: books which, for whatever reason, have something particularly special about them, even if only personal to me. LT 5

I suppose I could have just made Favourite's 7-stars, but that just didn't seem quite right! Usually, they are no 'better' than other 6 star 'excellent' books - there's just something about them that strikes a particular chord. There are around 140 at present.

Reading 2024

January
01. A Passage to India by EM Forster, G *****
02. York Advanced Notes to A Passage to India by Nigel Messenger ***
03. Strong Female Character by Fern Brady ****

February
04. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot G *****
05. Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh **
06. The Bone Readers by Jacob Ross W *****
07. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout U ***
08. The Marriage Question by Claire Carlisle ****
09. The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh W **
10. The Offing by Benjamin Myers *****

March
11. Not A River by Selva Almada W *****
12. The Perfect Golden Circle by Benjamin Myers G ****
13. The Years by Annie Ernaux R *****

April
14. Caroline by Richmal Crompton G **
15. Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo W ****
16. Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton G ***

May
17. The Plague by Albert Camus G *****
18. Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco W ***
19. The Collini Case by Ferdinand von Schirach G *****
20. Why We Get Sick by Benjamin Bikman ***

G = book group read
R = reread
U = Tour of the US
W = Reading the World
X = unfinished

Reading The World
Full details of this project are in this thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/342855

Constituent countries are:
the 193 members of the United Nations
its 2 observer members (Vatican City, Palestine)
one ex-member (Taiwan)
the four home nations of the United Kingdom (I've read plenty from England, some from Scotland but very little from the other 2)
plus a book to represent the only continent with no country - Antarctica.
making a total of 200 books (although all this may change!).

The only strict criteria is that I mustn't have read the book previously. Otherwise, the rule is aims rather than rules, my main aim being to read an example of adult literature set in the country with an author born in or a citizen of that country (or resident as next best), written in past 100 years (ie post 1922, the year of Ulysses, or later) - books regarded as 'classics' generally preferred. I will normally go for fiction, but, non-fiction is allowed; it may even, on occasions, be preferred if I think it gives more insight into the country and/or its literature. On occasions (Antarctica for instance!) it will need to be a book about the place written by someone who is neither from there nor a resident, but that will generally be a last resort.

Books read so far (38/200)
Books read this year are in bold

Europe (13/48)
Austria: Chess Story by Stefan Zweig *****
Bulgaria: Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov ***
Czech Republic: Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal ****
Finland: The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna ****
Germany: Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann ******
Iceland: History. A Mess. by Sigrun Palsodottir *****
Italy: The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa *****
Northern Ireland: Travelling in a Strange Land by David Park *****
Norway: The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas
San Marino: The Republic of San Marino by Giuseppe Rossi ***
Scotland: O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker ****
Ukraine: Death and the Penguin by Andrij Kurkov ***
Wales: One Moonlit Night by Caradog Prichard ******(F)

Africa (9/54)
Angola: The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa *****
Congo, Republic of: Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou *****
Cote d'Ivoire: Standing Heavy by GauZ ******
Djibouti: In the United States of Africa by Abdourahman Waberi ****
Ghana: The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah ****
Kenya: A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong'o ******
South Africa: The Promise by Damon Galgut *****
Sudan: Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih ******
Togo: Michel the Giant, an African in Greenland by Tete-Michel Kpomassie ******(F)

Asia (6/48)
Japan: Tokyo Express by Seicho Matsumoto ****
South Korea: The Vegetarian by Han Kang *
Malaysia: The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo ****
Pakistan: The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad *****
Turkey: 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak **
Vietnam: The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh **

North America (5/23)
Antigua and Barbuda: Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid ***
Grenada: The Bone Readers by Jacob Ross *****
Mexico: Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo ****
Trinidad and Tobago: Minty Alley by CLR James ****
United States: Beloved by Toni Morrison *****

South America (3/12)
Argentina: Not A River by Selva Almada *****
Colombia: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez *****
Uruguay: Quien de Nosotros? (Who Among Us) by Mario Benedetti ****

Oceania and Antarctica (2/15)
Nauru: Stories from Nauru by Bam Bam Solomon and others ****
New Zealand: Potiki by Patrica Grace *****

Tour of the United States
Full details of this project can be read on this thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/260906

The list of books to date. My criteria are: post-1900 fiction (preferably) or narrative non-fiction; no children's books; I mustn't have read the book before; no more than one book per author.

34/51
Books read this year are in bold

Alabama: The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau *****
Alaska: To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey ******(F)
Arizona:
Arkansas:
California:
Colorado: Plainsong by Kent Haruf ****
Connecticut: The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin **
Delaware:
Florida: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston ****
Georgia: The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers ******
Hawaii:
Idaho: Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson ****
Illinois:
Indiana: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields *****
Iowa: The Bridges of Madison County by Robert Waller ****
Kansas:
Kentucky: Nathan Coulter by Wendell Berry ******
Louisiana:
Maine: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout ***
Maryland: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler ***
Massachusetts: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton ***
Michigan: Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison ******
Minnesota: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis ***
Mississippi: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner ******(F)
Missouri: Mrs Bridge by Evan S Connell *****
Montana:
Nebraska:My Antonia by Willa Cather *****
Nevada: The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark *****
New Hampshire:
New Jersey: The Sportswriter by Richard Ford ****
New Mexico:
New York: Another Country by James Baldwin ******
North Carolina: Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier *****
North Dakota: The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich *****
Ohio: Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson ***
Oklahoma: True Grit by Charles Portis *****
Oregon:
Pennsylvania: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara ******
Rhode Island: The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike ***
South Carolina: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd ***
South Dakota:
Tennessee:
Texas: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry ******(F)
Utah:
Vermont:
Virginia:
Washington: Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson ***
Washington DC: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury *****
West Virginia: Rocket Boys by Homer H. Hickam ******
Wisconsin: American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld ****
Wyoming: The Virginian by Owen Wister *****

Around the English Counties
This is a list I put together with some fellow online book group members a few years ago. The idea was to include what we thought was the most 'famous' book set in each of the English Counties - we decided to use the ceremonial counties as defined by the Lieutenancy Act of 1997 as being (in our opinion) the best balance between tradition, geography and the multiplicity of modern counties. We spent a lot of time discussing some of these, and in a few cases couldn't agree on one book, so allowed a choice of two; one or two others we struggled to find a well-known book! In several cases, only part of the book was set in the county, sometimes a small part, but we felt the connection was sufficiently strong to count. We then read our list as a challenge. The list below is the one I read. Counties with alternative books are asterisked, and the additional book is added below. A final note - this list was put together a few years ago, and there will probably be now be more recent books that should be included in some cases.

Bedfordshire: My Uncle Silas by HE Bates
Berkshire: The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Bristol: Evelina by Fanny Burney
Buckinghamshire: The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
Cambridgeshire: The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L Sayers
Cheshire: Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
City of London: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Cornwall: Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier
Cumbria: Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
Derbyshire: Year of Wonder by Geraldine Brooks
Devon*: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Dorset: Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Durham: The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
East Riding of Yorkshire: South Riding by Winifred Holtby
East Sussex*: Winnie-the-Pooh by AA Milne
Essex: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Gloucestershire: Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee
Greater London*: Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Greater Manchester: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Hampshire: Watership Down by Richard Adams
Herefordshire: On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin
Hertfordshire*: Howards End by EM Forster
Isle of Wight*: Wish You Were Here by Graham Swift
Kent: The Darling Buds Of May by HE Bates
Lancashire: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Leicestershire: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend
Lincolnshire: The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Merseyside: An Awfully Big Adventure by Beryle Bainbridge
Norfolk: The Go-Between by LP Hartley
North Yorkshire*: Dracula by Bram Stoker
Northamptonshire*: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Northumberland: The Stars Look Down by AJ Cronin
Nottinghamshire*: Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence
Oxfordshire: The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
Rutland: Set In Stone by Robert Goddard
Shropshire: Summer Lightning by PG Wodehouse
Somerset: Lorna Doone by RD Blackmore
South Yorkshire: A Kestrel For a Knave by Barry Hines
Staffordshire: The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett
Suffolk: The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
Surrey: Emma by Jane Austen
Tyne and Wear: Another World by Pat Barker
Warwickshire: Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes
West Midlands: Middlemarch by George Eliot
West Sussex: Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
West Yorkshire*: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Wiltshire: Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
Worcestershire: The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

Alternatives
Devon: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
East Sussex: Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
Greater London: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Hertfordshire: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Isle of Wight: England, England by Julian Barnes
North Yorkshire: All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
Nottinghamshire: Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence
West Yorkshire: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The Book Pile
I am very acquisitive when it comes to books, buying (or receiving) far more than I can actually read in short order. I'm happy with that - I like to have a library of books to choose from and follow whims - but it also means that books that I intended to read pretty soon after buying can get lost! So, I've decided to create a virtual book pile. This will consist of such books, with the aim that I will now read them in the near future!. The pile needs to stay manageable, so I will limit it to around a dozen, and will generally only add books to it as books already on the pile get read. Hopefully, this, appealing as it does to my passion for lists, will help me work through the bigger long term reading list. We'll see how it all works!
Books that are ineligible to be added include any that are included in another reading project* or being read for a book group - these are meant to be all books that could otherwise get overlooked because I'm so focused on these other areas. I'll also keep a record of which book pile books I have actually read!

Fiction
The Marriage Portrait - Maggie O'Farrell
Great Circle - Maggie Shipstead
Harlem Shuffle - Colson Whitehead
The Bee Sting - Paul Murray
Light Perpetual - Francis Spufford

Non-fiction
Thunderclap - Laura Cummings
Walking the Bones of Britain - Christoher Somerville
The Burgundians - Bart van Loo
Ten Birds That Changed the World - Stephen Moss
Politics on the Edge - Rory Stewart

Book Pile read this year
The Marriage Question by Claire Carlisle

=========

* These include:
Reading the World
Tour of the United States
Emile Zola's Rougon-Macquart series (in the order suggested by Zola)
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin sequence
Charles Dickens novels

Previous year's awards
For the past few years, I've done my own personal awards for each year in another forum. Those for the past year will be posted further down, but for the record, these are those from previous years. Books marked with an asterisk in the first 2 categories were my overall book of the year (2022 I couldn't decide!). More details of short lists etc for last year in post below, but I've added the winners here for completeness.

Fiction Book of the Year
2013: *David Copperfield - Charles Dickens. Runner-up: The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell
2014: *Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy. Runner-up: Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
2015: *Middlemarch - George Eliot. Runner-up: The Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian (first 5 vols read this year)
2016: The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry. Runner-up: Howards End - EM Forster
2017: *To The Bright Edge Of The World - Eowyn Ivey. Runner-up: The Old Wives' Tale - Arnold Bennett
2018: A View Of The Harbour - Elizabeth Taylor. Runner-up: Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
2019: *Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo. Runner-up: Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
2020: *Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell. Runner-up: A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
2021: The Mermaid Of Black Conch - Monique Roffey. Runner-up: The Great Level - Stella Tillyard
2022: *As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner. Runner-up: One Moonlit Night - Caradog Prichard
2023: The Dictionary of Lost Words - Pip Williams. Runne-up: Captain Hazard's Game - David Fairer

Non-fiction Book of the Year
2013: Letters To Alice On First Reading Jane Austen - Fay Weldon; Runner-up: The Real Jane Austen - Paula Byrne
2014: Pursuit Of Glory: Europe 1648-1815 - Tim Blanning. Runner-up: Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain - Charlotte Higgins
2015: Waterloo - Tim Clayton. Runner-up: Shackleton's Boat Journey by Frank Worsley
2016: *The House By The Lake - Thomas Harding. Runner-up: The Outrun - Amy Liptrot
2017: The Seabirds' Cry - Adam Nicolson. Runner-up: Love Of Country - Madeleine Bunting
2018: *East-West Street - Philippe Sands. Runner-up: Wilding - Isabella Tree
2019: Daughter Of The Desert - Georgina Howell. Runner-up: The Five - Hallie Rubenheld
2020: Island Stories - David Reynolds. Runner-up: Home - Julie Myerson
2021: *The Stubborn Light Of Things - Melissa Harrison. Runner-up: Orchard - Benedict Macdonald & Nicholas Gates
2022: *The Invention of Nature - Andrea Wulf. Runner-up: Cottongrass Summer - Roy Dennis
2023: *Rocket Boys - Hiram Hickam. Runner-up: The Flow - Amy-Jane Beer

Duffer of the Year
2013: Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
2014: The Dinner - Herman Koch
2015: Divergent - Veronica Roth
2016: Us - David Nicholls
2017: Two Brothers - Ben Elton
2018: I Am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes
2019: I See You - Clare Mackintosh
2020: Gold - Chris Cleave
2021: Body Surfing - Anita Shreve
2022: The Department of Sensitive Crimes - Alexander McCall Smith
2023: Fates and Furies - Lauren Groff

Most Disappointing
2017: Jacob's Room Is Full Of Books - Susan Hill
2018: I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
2019: The Making Of The British Landscape - Nicholas Crane
2020: A God In Ruins - Kate Atkinson
2021: How To Argue With A Racist - Adam Rutherford
2022: The Instant - Amy Liptrot
2023: Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver

Best Reread (up to 2015, these were eligible for books of the year, after I've hived them off in a separate category)
2016: Emma - Jane Austen. Runner-up: Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
2017: Flood Warning - Paul Berna; Winter Holiday - Arthur Ransome (jointly)
2018: Coot Club - Arthur Ransome
2019: Paddington Helps Out - Michael Bond
2020: Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf in combination with The Hours - Michael Cunningham
2021: Waterland - Graham Swift
2022: A Maigret Christmas - Georges Simenon
2023: none

Biggest Discovery
2019: George Mackay Brown
2020: Wendell Berry
2021: Gilbert White
2022: JB Priestley
2023: African literature

Welcome to Club Read William! Hope you enjoy your time here. Good luck with reading down your TBR.

Lovely to see you here on Club Read, Will! I love lists too, and I like how clearly organized yours are. Congrats on completing your English counties challenge. I'm glad you included it here, as it is a nice resource for the rest of us. Btw did you see the thread dedicated to lists here on Club Read?

Awards for 2023
As it's the last day of the year, and I've actually finished my last book, I can make my awards for 2023, something I've been doing for the past decade or so. These awards are based simply on the books I've read in the past year. In 2023, they totalled 67 in number, the lowest for a few years, but not short on quality! Of these 46 were fiction, 21 non-fiction, a 69%-31% split, a very similar proportion to last year (71:29), but much lower non-fiction to the 3 previous years when the split was almost exactly 50-50. Male:female proportions were 58:42, not dissimilar to previous years.

Fiction Book of the Year
Winner: The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Runner-up: Captain Hazard's Game by David Fairer
Shortlist: Another Country by James Baldwin; Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih; Standing Heavy by GauZ

The top two almost certainly weren't the 'best' books I read, but they were the ones I enjoyed the most! Great stories well told, both.

Non-fiction Book of the Year
Winner: Rocket Boys by Hiram H Hickham (later republished as October Sky to tie in with the film)
Runner-up: The Flow by Amy-Jane Beer
Shortlist: Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken, The Years by Annie Ernaux, The Restless Republic by Anna Keay

Overall Book of the Year: Rocket Boys by Hiram H Hickham.

Duffer of the Year: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Shortlist: Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Most Disappointing Book 2023: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Best Reread: unusually, I only reread one book this year. It was one done for a book group, and I didn't rate it sufficiently highly either time for it to be award-worthy, so no award this year.

Biggest discovery: African literature
No one author really grabbed me as a discovery this year, but, starting last year as part of my Reading the World project, I've found myself reading more and more African literature. It has, almost literally, blown me a way! Obviously very diverse, perhaps too much so to warrant being classified as a category of reading, but books from this continent have transformed my reading over the past couple of years!

Other 2023 awards (most of these were done in response to discussions with another group):
Favourite cover: Tokyo Express by Seicho Matsumoto in Penguin Modern Classics (see below)
Favourite classic: La Curee (The Kill) by Emile Zola
Favourite book in translation: jointly Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih and Standing Heavy by GauZ
Favourite history/geography book: The Restless Republic by Anna Keay
Favourite biography/memoir: Rocket Boys by Hiram H Hickham
Favourite bookish website: A Year of Reading the World - Ann Morgan's website, including her blog when she did her year of RTW in 2012, and subsequent reviews and thoughts. A treasure trove of information and reading suggestions.
Favourite bookish podcast: The Book Club Review with Kate Slotover and Laura Potter - one of the very few bookish podcasts I really engage with - consistently interesting and eclectic.
Favourite publisher: Penguin Modern Classics I've just found myself reading so many of their book this year. I've got others I subscribe to and love, but these have just dominated my 2023 reading, including Chess Story, Season of Migration to the North, Potiki, The Ice Palace, The Year of the Hare, The Book of Chameleons, Tokyo Express, and others.
Favourite bookshop: my local indie is obviously top of my list every year, (it's The Bookshop on the Square, in Otley West Yorkshire), so this is really an award for the next best! This year, it goes to The London Review of Books - it's just so much a 'must visit' shop when I'm in London, as I was in September. Brilliant cafe too, and they do an excellent podcast too (one of those few mentioned above)!

And so on to 2024........!

I love your awards and 2023 summary. I may have to borrow some of your categories.

Welcome to Club Read! It’s good to see you here. I only hope you’ll be more successful at keeping your thread here alive than I am with my Round-the-World thread! (I do hope to get back to it soon). Looking forward to following your reading.

>8 markon: >11 labfs39: >12 rachbxl:
Thank you all. I'm looking forward to it all!

>1 Willoyd: Welcome Will

It's good to see another reader going through the Rougon Maquart series. There are a handful here who have done it. I see you're following Zola's suggested reading order, which I think flows better than the chronological reading.

I like the organisation of your lists. We seem to have a reasonable amount of overlap in our reading, so I'll be following your thread with interest.

>7 Willoyd: George Mackay Brown and Swallows and Amazons in one post - all right!

I'm doing the Rougon Maquart series too, and have been since about 2010 or 2011 (I took a lot of years off after a strong start). I've been reading them in the order published though. I think I have 4 or so left to read. In any event up next for me is The Dream.

Welcome to the club, Will. Your awards are fun. I have your 2022 runner up on tap for this year. Wish you a great 2024.

I have book one of the Rougon Maquart series. Maybe this is the year I'll start it!

I too am a fan of Swallows and Amazons, and Eowyn Ivey, and Seasons of Migration. Others look intersting—your thread is going to be dangerous for my wishlist.

>14 SassyLassy: >17 labfs39:
I very much grew up with the Swallows and Amazons series - they were probably (I can't fully remember that far back!) the first books I ever bought myself, as second hand hardbacks (no dustcovers!) for 2/6d, or 12.5p in 'new' money. I still have the full hardback set, although not the original ones I bought, including a couple of first editions (cheaper ones)! One was a gift from my wife who is a fan too. We've visited most of the sites featured in the books too - including a goodly hunt for Swallowdale and swimming out to Wild Cat Island - with the Lakes only a couple of hours drive away, and the Broads just a bit further, as well as a trip to Arthur Ransome's grave (beautiful spot in one of my favourite parts of the Lakes). We've even taken the ferry to Zeebrugge (no longer running) to explore We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea! Yet to get down to Secret Water country though. Ransome himself, if you haven't explored his life, was a fascinating man - I can thoroughly recommend the Hugh Brogan biography, and Christine Hardyment's book, but didn't get on with the Chandler biography at all - turgid.

>18 Willoyd: I've read the Brogan, as well as The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome. For some weird reason, the man intrigues me. Chandler turgidity noted!

Periodically I'll discover a book from Rupert Hart Davies The Mariners' Library series. Ransome's seamanship appears in some of them.

>19 SassyLassy:
The Chandler I referred to is that biog: The Last Englishman: The Double Life - perhaps you didn't find it so? Not to be confused, BTW, with the very enjoyable Byron Rogers biography of the author of my favourite novel (and a good number of other excellent books, and maps!), A Month In The Country - JL Carr, The Last Englishman

Here's to a great reading year in 2024. Love your lists. Cheers!

Hi Will. Happy to see a new face in CR.
I love your lists, there are some titles I know, some that are part of my TBR and many I don't know but seem interesting. We seem to have some reading interests in common (reading around the world, the Rougon-Macquart...) and I will follow your thread, so I will have to be carefull, I feel you have a potential to increase my TBR pile...
Welcome, and looking forward to following your reading!

Hello Will, thank you very much for your bike tour impressions on my thread.
I wish you an exciting reading year.

>10 Willoyd: Welcome! I was about to comment on what a great cover this on and then realised it was your best cover of 2023. Great lists!

01. A Passage to India by EM Forster *****
Read for one of my book groups. I've previously read other Forsters, and enjoyed them enormously (especially Howards End), so was looking forward to this, and was not disappointed. Written in 1924, and very much an examination of the interaction between British and Indian in the India of the time, some twenty years before independence. On the whole we British don't come out of it very well! The full range of attitudes is represented in early chapters where both British and Indians discuss the 'other side' in some depth, the attitudes then examined under the stress of the incident involving Mr Aziz and Adela Quested in the caves midway through the book. To cover all those viewpoints, Forster uses a surprisingly wide cast of characters, which I have to say I did find a bit confusing at times (plenty of referring back to character introductions to be sure who was who!). This width did mean that some characters didn't feel to be drawn in any great detail, and the odd bit of stereotyping reared its head, but the central characters, their ambiguities and the dilemmas they faced, did come to life for me. As ever with Forster, he proved a far easier read than anticipated (I always expect these earlier 20thC books to be harder than they are, perhaps scarred a bit by some of Henry James's denser writing!), and I happily cantered through this first book of the year. It's also a book that I look forward to discussing in the group later this month - and one that I've also ordered a study guide for to try and tease out some more coherent thoughts.
A final note - I found this particularly interesting because one line of my own family lived and was brought up under the Raj, if a bit earlier than the book is set - my grandfather was born in Delhi at the end of the 19thC and, whilst he came back to Wales at a young age, at least the two previous generations back to the early 19thC were out their all their lives (one great grandfather was in the Indian Army, another a teacher in India - which made the Cyril Fielding character all the more personally interesting).

Moved on to Daniel Deronda, which I'm reading for my other group. I suspect I might leaven it with some other reading, but, given its size, need to give myself time to get going!

>25 Willoyd: Yes Passage to India must have been interesting to you with your family connection to the time India was part of the British Empire.

The Brits are getting a hard rap re the colonies right now, with many forgetting the British were not the only colonizers. I’m from Australia so British colonialism has been a hot topic since the 1960s, especially as we are part of the Commonwealth and there’s a big Republican movement there.

It’s been years since I read Passage to India and I found it an easy and enjoyable read.

Thank you for review and the information around your reading it.

I see your are from West Yorkshire. I spent some weeks travelling around Yorkshire and Derbyshire- a delightful area of England.

>25 Willoyd: I really enjoyed your review and very interesting about your family history. I haven't read Forster, but I actually have a copy of A Passage to India on my shelves.

Seems we have quite a bit of overlap in our reading including reading Zola's opus so I'm starring your thread for the year!

>25 Willoyd: Interesting that you found Passage to India an easy read. I agree his status as a serious author should not put people off.

I'm a big E.M. Forster fan too, and loved Howard's End when I read it a few years ago (the movie with Emma Thompson was pretty good too). I last read A Passage to India while I was in the hospital when my oldest daughter was born. Since she will turn 44 this year, I think it's time for a reread. I do remember contemplating naming her Adela, but I didn't. :)

I am another devotee of Zola, reading through the Rougon Maquart series. I have 4 more to go (I think) but I have been stalled on picking the series up again for a few years. Better get a move on.

Interested to see what you think of Daniel Deronda. I read it a long time ago, and I don't remember much about it, but I've seen references to it having issues/themes of Judaism. Not sure if I'm remembering wrong.

You've piqued by interest with your review of A Passage to India. I also loved Howard's End, and also Maurice, but I was really disappointed with A Room With a View so haven't picked up anything else by E.M. Forster since. Sounds like I should give that one a go.

A read my first Zola last year and loved it, so looking forward to your reviews this year.

I have had A Passage to India on my TBR shelves since before I knew they were TBR shelves, but I’ve always shied away from it because like you I assumed it would be heavy going. You’ve made me want to read it - thanks!

A Passage To India looks very interesting. The only Forster I read was A Room With a View and I enjoyed it. I don’t know why I haven’t read more by him.

>25 Willoyd: A Passage to India would be a "good first book of the year". I remember really liking it when I first read it, but rereading it later left me feeling at times uneasy.

Daniel Deronda is an interesting selection for a book club. Looking forward to hearing how that goes!

>30 arubabookwoman:
I have 4 more to go (I think). Well ahead of me, even if you have stalled (which I've done with my Dickens reads!).
but I've seen references to it having issues/themes of Judaism. Not sure if I'm remembering wrong. No, I think your memory is absolutely spot on!

>34 SassyLassy:
Daniel Deronda is an interesting selection for a book club. Looking forward to hearing how that goes! It's certainly that! I'm finding it quite challenging, not least because (as I think I said in an earlier post) since lockdown I've struggled to really get to grips with any longer fiction - just don't seem to be able to settle. I'm about 100 pages in, and finding just that. Middlemarch is one of my all-time favourite reads, and I used to love a bigger book, so not sure quite why. Currently reading it in 30-40 page bites to try and build some momentum. It might be a while before I post an awful lot on this! Am interspersing it with some quicker reading, but need to get a move on as the meeting is early Feb.

Happy new year, Will whom-I-know-from-elsewhere!

THE place to come to for Anglo classics, I see. :)

>36 LolaWalser: Good to meet up with you again! I've really only just started venturing beyond FSD in the last couple of years, and am delighted to have found this place.

03. Strong Female Character by Fern Brady ****
Well, I said I would probably need to leaven Daniel Deronda a bit, but I didn't expect this! Picked up on a whim in my local independent, having been grabbed by the first couple of pages, this proved an utterly compelling memoir. Fern Brady is a best known as a stand-up comedian, but the focus here is very much on her experiences growing up as an autistic female, undiagnosed until well into adulthood. It's a ferociously vivid read, doesn't pull any punches, and really shows up how far society as a whole has to go in this aspect of life - we are not good at 'different'. I must admit, as an ex-primary teacher who taught two autistic girls in my last three years (one diagnosed, the other not, but blindingly obviously so) I wish I'd had the chance to read this beforehand!! It was an eyeopener, and particularly so where the author related her experiences / behaviour to the research into and recognised 'symptoms' of autism - and where she showed how those who should have known better missed the signs completely. What's really worrying is the strong implication that little has changed. I hadn't realised when I bought the book that it had been shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards Non-Fiction prize, but found out as I finished it, that it had actually won. I'm not surprised. Once or twice I felt it could have done with some stronger editing (a minor comment I hasten to add), but I am so glad I picked it up!

(Book 02 this year was the York Advance Notes study guide to A Passage To India - which served its purpose well).

>38 Willoyd: This sounds very interesting. I'll keep an eye out for it.

>38 Willoyd: Wanna read that!

>38 Willoyd: sounds interesting. I don’t know much about the Nero Book Award.

> Hello, I'm new to CR and am just catching up on your thread. Your organized reading is very impressive (and inspirational). Wish I could be this sorted! Fern Brady is a wonderful comedian, I really enjoyed her on Taskmaster.
>41 dchaikin: the Nero Book Award was just launched, and Fern Brady is the first to win the non-fiction prize. Paul Murray won the fiction prize for The Bee Sting. I think the award was launched to fill the gap left by the Costa Book Awards, which were shut down last year after having been awarded for 50 years previously.

>42 rv1988: thanks for that info on the Nero.

04. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot *****
Read for one of my book groups. Having said that, this has long been on my to read list, and I was grateful to be kickstarted to actually read this huge tome - by far and away the longest book I've read in the past few years, coming in at 900 pages in Everyman Classic edition (and just over 1000 pages and 2 volumes in my 1930s Collins Clear Type Press edition!). Right from the outset, I would say that it's not (IMO!) quite in the same league as Middlemarch, but it is a powerful, intricate, fascinating read, that never lost my interest in the 3 weeks or so that it took me to read. In many respects (and it's often claimed to be as such) it's almost two books rolled into one: the story of spoiled, almost childlike, Gwendolyn Harleth and her marriage to perhaps one of the nastiest characters in fiction, Henleigh Grandcourt, and that of Daniel Deronda, foster son of Grandcourt's uncle, Sir Hugo Mallinger, and his search for self-identity. Indeed, it has been argued that the book(s) would have been better if separated, one critic (FR Leavis) in particular arguing that if it wasn't for the burden of the latter story, the former would be one of the great classics. Hmmm. I can see where this comes from, but the fact is that the two parts are integral to each other for the whole book. Gwendolyn and Deronda are foils for each other's development (although Gwendolyn is initially so self-centred that she barely notices anything else Daniel might be doing or thinking), and Gwendolyn and Mirah are important foils to each other in their relationship with Deronda. And how would Leavis handle Daniel's 'journey' if cutting out his relationship with Mordecai? On the other hand, there have been many (mostly interested in the Zionist aspects) who would discard the Gwendolyn thread. Ridiculous!
But, I can understand where these arguments come from. With two major plot lines, each in itself worthy of its own book, it's not surprising that this novel is so big. It's thus all too often encumbered (and yes, I'm afraid it does feel that way at times) with having to cut away from one narrative thread to deal with the other: the two only really come fully together in the final hundred and fifty pages or so (when the action transfers to Genoa), only nudging up against each other at varying points in the previous 750! But, having said that, I did find watching the development of these two very different characters absolutely fascinating.
What I think is easy to forget is how radical this book must have been at the time of publication, with Eliot's Jewish plotline, a time when anti-semitism was almost engrained in English society - it was certainly not appreciated by a fair proportion of her readership. My biggest regret though on this side is that Mirah, so central to the novel, is so thin as a character, particularly alongside the superbly developed Gwendolyn. We see into the heart of the latter, whilst we barely scratch the former's surface - too good and sweet by half. It often seems that way in Victorian fiction: it's the flawed, or worse, characters who are best developed, whilst the 'goodies' (especially the women) are so often left to be mildly uninteresting or at best over-sentimentalused. One of the strongest characters in this book is Grandcourt - the portrayal of his subjugation of Gwendolyn is brilliantly delineated, a classic case of isolation abuse, exploiting to the full all the advantages of the husband in Victorian society - a fair amount left to be read between the lines.
Daniel Deronda was not an easy read, but it was gripping. I initially found myself having to plan to read a set number of pages each day to ensure I finished the book in time. In the event, as the book progressed, I didn't need to worry with that, as I found momentum building up. There were one or two sections where I found myself gliding over some of the more detailed discussion, especially on philosophical or religious topics, but on the whole I actually found myself hanging on to the words. With so much to discuss (I've barely scratched the surface above!) it'll make for a good evening.
(And why is it, whenever I try to write a review of a half decent book, I really struggle to make sense? These reviews never turn out the way I envisage them, and I never seem to be able to write coherently about all the issues and questions these books raise).

I read this back in 2008, just before I started writing reviews so I unfortunately can't look back to jog my memory. I remember Gwendolyn's story pretty well, but I don't remember Daniel Deronda's story very well at all. Maybe I will reread this some day. Sounds like a good candidate for rereading. Enjoyed your review!

>44 Willoyd: very nice review! While not my favorite book of hers, it was still an excellent read. I'm glad you enjoyed the entire behemourh.

>44 Willoyd: Congrats! That sounds like a giant of a book, not for the faint of heart.

Great experience and review. I read Middlemarch last year, the first time i’ve read Eliot. I would like to read this one too. I feel like your review provides an introduction for me.

>44 Willoyd: Congratulations on finishing, and great review. I may even consider a reread!

(And why is it, whenever I try to write a review of a half decent book, I really struggle to make sense? These reviews never turn out the way I envisage them, and I never seem to be able to write coherently about all the issues and questions these books raise).

I often feel this way too, but I've decided that these books present so much to think about, that it's difficult to encapsulate everything they engender in the reader (me) into a CR review, when what you (me) would really like is a sit down discussion with others about the book. Then, if you were really lucky, you could take those ideas away, think about them, and come back and meet again.

>49 SassyLassy:
I often feel this way too, but I've decided that these books present so much to think about, that it's difficult to encapsulate everything they engender in the reader (me) into a CR review, when what you (me) would really like is a sit down discussion with others about the book. Then, if you were really lucky, you could take those ideas away, think about them, and come back and meet again.
Exactly! We had our book group meeting tonight, and it was one of the best discussions we've ever had about a book - there was so much to discuss, and some fascinatingly different takes on various issues. I'm almost inspired to read again (but not quite, at least yet)! Perhaps most interesting of all for me was the idea that came up of elements of Deronda being an extension of Middlemarch: Rosamund a precursor to Gwendolyn and Casaubon leading into Grandcourt. Now that is a book I could reread, but I also want to get stuck into (for the first time) Adam Bede. In the meantime, alongside another book, have started Claire Carlisle's The Marriage Question.

Your review and this discussion make me want to reread Daniel Deronda. I read it so long ago I can barely remember it. I have a much clearer memory of Middle March.

05. Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh **
I picked this up in our local bookshop as the premise intrigued me, being (apparently) based on a real incident in 1950s France, when an entire village (including animals!) succumbed to some form of (never identified) mass poisoning. On this, the author bases a 'darkly erotic mystery'. There was certainly a lushness, an elegance of writing that initially drew me in, giving the book an instant appeal, but after the (promising) first twenty pages or so when the two principal couples are introduced and developed (baker and wife with non-existent sex life, he obsessed with the 'perfect loaf'; metropolitan 'ambassador' and wife Violet, interesting sex life, a source of increasing obsession for the baker's wife Elodie) things started to deteriorate. The whole sexual aspect felt increasingly unlikely and contrived (and disjointed), whilst the the only mystery for me was a growing sense of confusion, wondering what on earth was going on, and had the author lost the plot (literally)? The story, mainly told in the first person by Elodie, interspersed with letters to Violet from Elodie written long after the events being described, felt increasingly disjointed and engendered irritation rather than intrigue (morsels of the outcome being dripped into the story by these letters). Relationships and plot progression just became more and more obscure, especially as one was never sure if Elodie was fantasising, recounting fantasy, or actually giving us the reality; there's unreliable narrator and unreliable narrator! To be honest, I found this easier and easier to put down and harder and harder to pick up; in short, I was bored, this coming over increasingly as more an exercise in style than a piece of narrative fiction.

I finally forced myself to sit down and read the last 60 or so pages (it's only 180 pages long) in one sitting, as I realised I simply wasn't going to reach the finishing line otherwise. And when I got there? Nothing, or at least little of any consequence or interest to this reader. In fact, a thorough anti-climax, particularly in relation to the mystery that wasn't - because the mystery I was interested in is what happened over the mass poisoning (touched on throughout), and that really wasn't what the author was interested in after all. Yes, the 'darkly erotic' bit was resolved, but then I'd never found that interesting (and certainly not 'erotic'). In one phrase? Elegantly tedious. Not sure whether to give this one star, or allow a second for the writing, because strictly speaking the ending took it beyond being just 'disappointing' (2 stars) into the genuinely unlikeable (1 star).

>52 Willoyd: There was a real case in France in 1951 in Pont Saint Espirit. It was ergotamine poisoning from rye flour (maybe that's why Mackintosh introduced the baker).
An older book The Day of St Anthony's Fire (1969) is a non fiction account of it.

Too bad the novel was so disappointing. The whole event could have made a great bit of fiction.

>52 Willoyd: I finally forced myself to sit down and read the last 60 or so pages (it's only 180 pages long) in one sitting, as I realised I simply wasn't going to reach the finishing line otherwise. you sound like a finisher-completer and if so welcome to the club.

>53 SassyLassy: I had not heard of this

>52 Willoyd: well, interesting premise anyway. I’m glad for your sake that it was short. And wish you a better next book!

>52 Willoyd:, >53 SassyLassy:

Tacking onto Sassy's recommendation, there's also Leo Perutz's fabulous Saint Peter's Snow from 1933. If you've never read Perutz, you're missing out.

>38 Willoyd: This sounds interesting. I have enjoyed a couple of short videos I've seen of Ms. Brady's comedy. I've added it to my (rather long) list at the library.

Also, much admiration for getting through Daniel Deronda!

>52 Willoyd: I don’t remember everything but weren’t the darkly erotic bit and the poisoning related? It was a year ago but that’s how I remember it. I gave it 4 stars. I’d reread the end but it’s not available right now.

>58 dianeham:
I don’t remember everything but weren’t the darkly erotic bit and the poisoning related?
There was certainly some deliberate poisoning going on - with ground glass at one point - but I really struggled to relate any of the darkly erotic affair with the poisoning - that was part of the disappointment really, how irrelevant the poisoning all seemed to be. But the way it was written, it was hard to work out. Chatting with a fellow book group member who also read it, she found it the same. I'll have a reread myself, and see if can work it out!

>53 SassyLassy:
There was a real case in France in 1951 in Pont Saint Espirit. It was ergotamine poisoning from rye flour (maybe that's why Mackintosh introduced the baker).
An older book The Day of St Anthony's Fire (1969) is a non fiction account of it.
Yes, there is a note in the book that says it relates to that outbreak. I understand the most likely cause is regarded as ergot poisoning, but it was never actually solved for sure. I'll try and track a copy of that book down (I've several times found the non-fiction book more interesting than the fiction: last time it was Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch, which I thought was OK but little more, whilst The Astronomer and the Witch, on which EKYMIAW was based, was absolutely fascinating).

Just caught up on your thread, some good reading so far this year! The George Eliot and the Fern Brady books are both ones I've been intending to read, and I've been meaning to read something by Forster though haven't decided what book to start with yet.

06. The Bone Readers by Jacob Ross *****
The book for Grenada in my Reading The World project. I don't often read crime fiction, although I am a fan of both Simenon (Maigret) and Leon (Brunetti), and have enjoyed a fair few others (admittedly usually historical fiction, like CJ Sampson). However, this appealed from the word go, and in the event didn't disappoint. As with all the best crime fiction, it's so much more. Yes, it has a good plot (and this is not cosy crime, having corruption, child abuse and statutory rape at the heart of the problem), but that's not what makes a book for me. What I enjoyed were the strongly drawn characters (both male and female), the sense of place (a major part of why I so enjoy Simenon and Leon), and the insights into island culture and politics. The author tries to reflect the local patois in his dialogue, and yet still manages to leave it eminently readable and understandable, only demanding a couple of rereads when I realised I'd misunderstood something!

In short, I find this pretty much unputdownable, reading into the early hours to finish off last night - that doesn't happen often with me! And, as a confirmation of how good I thought this was, I've already ordered Ross's other two novels from my local bookshop. Whether it gets upgraded to 6-star/favourite status later, time will tell, but in the meantime, this is an easy 5-star grading.

>61 Willoyd: sounds fun. Grenada…hmm. Wonder what other books are associated with the island.

>62 dchaikin:
Ann Morgan mentions Tobias Buckell as an author, and The Ladies are Upstairs by Merle Collins, the latter being the book she read for her world tour.

>62 dchaikin: well, if you want very loosely associated there is this:
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/grenada

(The crowd-sourced "shelf" naming on goodreads is not especially reliable, but with a little investigation can turn up what you're looking for)

>63 Willoyd: thanks
>64 ELiz_M: that’s fun. The Ladies are Upstairs Upstairs is first on the list.

07. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout ***
My book for Maine in my Tour of the USA. I originally had Richard Russo's Empire Falls down for this, not least because I'd been somewhat underwhelmed by my previous effort at a Strout novel, My Name Is Lucy Barton, but a book group discussion (where I was in a minority of one in my views on the author's work!) encouraged me to give her another go - and given the success of this book (Pulitzer Prize winner) it seemed the obvious one. It's construction is also one that intrigued, the novel being formed from 13 short stories.

Well, I'm very glad to have read Olive and, whilst I can't say I have been completely converted, it was certainly a far more rewarding experience than the one with Lucy Barton. Or, perhaps, 'appreciated' would be a better word, as books as downbeat as this are rarely 'enjoyable'! It's certainly beautifully written: I was caught up in the writing from the outset, and loved the little details, the turns of phrase and the internal monologues; characters and place were strongly wrought. I found the development of Olive herself particularly intriguing, the way she ran as a thread through the 13 stories, sometimes the main character, rather more often introduced sideways, almost a cameo on occasions. The themes of older age, personal isolation (even when surrounded by others) and contrasting perceptions and experiencing of the same events also added to the coherence and interest, making me sit back after each story and reflect on what I'd just read. Characters were not necessarily likeable (far from it - there weren't many that were in fact, including Olive herself), but they were interesting.

And yet, and yet...whilst this worked for me as a collection of connected short stories, it didn't quite make it as a novel in the same way that, for instance, Jonathan Escoffery's If I Survive You did. Whilst there were elements of connection, in the end the stories themselves were just too fragmented to create the coherence that a novel needs. That fragmentation was created in a a number of ways, none enough on their own, but together too much.

Firstly, the story chronology is out of sequence. This in itself isn't a major issue, but when you read in the first story that Olive's husband Henry has retired, and then in the second story that he's thinking of retiring, it just jolts one out of immersion, prompts checking and questioning before settling (slightly uncertain) back in, and leaves one never quite trusting the thread of the narrative after that. It might be a set of short stories, but it's also a novel, and whilst plenty of novels use time shifts etc (often to advantage), there's a reason, and here there seems to be no good reason for doing so.

Secondly, the characters are too fragmented, or at least isolated. The Kitteridge family provide some continuity, with Olive, Henry and son Christopher appearing throughout. One or two other characters appear in more than one story, but in general, once a person has been written about, they largely vanish. Given that this is meant to be a relatively small community (or at least that's the impression), that just didn't work for me - I'd expect people to appear and reappear. It also proved unsatisfactory. If you're going to have a dramatic event in a novel, then one expects, indeed wants, to learn something of the outcome of that event. You just don't have one, and then no mention of it or those involved ever again.

Finally, there's the repetition. In several later stories we are told things that we already know about: we've read all about them only a story/chapter or so earlier. The copyright page tells us that several of the stories have been published previously (over a 15 year period), which is fine, but if they are now being brought together as a novel, then they need editing and co-ordinating. There was also a feeling of sameness to several of the stories - we are dealing with different people (by name), but rather too similar characters/scenarios?

The disjunct between novel and short stories was also driven home by the fact that for a small community, there's an awful lot of drama: murder, hostage taking, suicide (more than one), accidental killings, along with all the other life threatening natural hazards of life. It's not quite Midsomer* but it still seems a bit OTT, and maybe lent to that sameness feeling? Never mind being downbeat about old age, I think most of those inhabitants of Crosby, Maine, would be grateful, even relieved, to make it that far. I think that's partly because one piece of such drama in a short story is fine - it works, it's what the story is centred around. But drama after drama, in each chapter, is too much for a novel. The result was that, whilst some of the drama worked well for me early on, by the second half of the book I was grateful for the stories focusing on the domestic.

However, whilst I feel I've focused rather on the negatives, in the greater scheme of things they are rather more blemishes than deep-seated faults. I found so much of this compulsive reading, not least the character of Olive herself. She's obviously not immediately likeable, if at all, but there's a humanity to her that gives her depth, and makes you wonder quite what you would make of her yourself. There's an ongoing thread around her relationship with Christopher that raises all sorts of questions, discussion points, issues of witness reliability etc worthy of a whole book on its own, never mind everything else - it's superbly handled by the author, and is one of the most thought provoking threads I've read in fiction for some time (not least because it's so relevant to aspects of my life).

So, an involving, interesting book (I rarely write as much as this in review), stronger if treated in its raw form as a collection of individual short stories. I certainly intend to try out more of Elizabeth Strout, and more specifically re-examine Lucy Barton. She may not be a 'favourite' author, but is one that has made me think here, and I'm interested to see what I make of some of her other work.

*For non-British: Midsomer Murders is a long running TV detective series in the UK, set in a rural part of England. It's notorious for the incredibly high murder rate given the size of population!

>66 Willoyd: I disliked Olive Kitteridge and have never been tempted to read anything else by Strout, for many of the same reasons you describe, but also "My lack of enthusiasm stems partly from an inability to be drawn into the lives of quiet desperation that seem to plague everyone over the age of fifty. Is there anyone in Crosby, Maine who has not had a late mid-life crisis? And is there anyone in Crosby who has a normal, emotionally healthy mother?" (quoted from my review back when I read the book in 2011). I found it tiresome.

>67 labfs39: I’ve tried Olive and Lucy and I too can’t get drawn in, yet my best friend in Australia who has almost identical “tastes” in books loves anything Strout. So many see what I’m missing. Glad I’m not alone.

>67 labfs39: >68 kjuliff:
I can't disagree with any of that - I can totally see where you're coming from, and have considerable sympathy with that view, in spite of my 4 stars. Maybe that's where my feeling of sameness came in? TBH I'm not sure quite how or why my interest was sustained through to the end - it certainly isn't my normal style of book - but it was. I think perhaps because it was a series of short stories, so I was able to compartmentalise each 'chapter', and mentally restart each time - pressed the 'refresh' button? I certainly found myself reading it as such - hardly ever moving from one to the other continuously as if they were chapters rather than individual stories. Maybe that's why I couldn't relate to Lucy Barton, that being a purer novel? As I said, I'm intrigued to try her out further, not for my usual reasons (that I liked the book) but more to explore what actually caught my interest this time - as you can see there's an awful lot of question marks in my reply here! I think, though, that I would rapidly get tired of more of the same.

>69 Willoyd: I think Strout is one of the most divisive authors when it comes to popularity here on Club Read. I think you are one of the few people I know who are middle of the road. People seem to either love or dislike her. Interesting!

>70 labfs39: I'm a middle-of-the-roader too, though I've only read the one book by her. I read Olive Kitteridge in December 2022 and while I didn't dislike it, I've never felt much urge to pick up anything else by Strout and just over a year later I find nothing about the book has stuck with me.

>66 Willoyd: well, i agree with all the negative aspects in your review. 🙂 Olive was a book I could kind of appreciate, but left me not wanting to read more Strout. Then I had this Booker compulsion and Oh William! was on the list and a I felt responsible to read Lucy Barton 1st. Well, unlike you, I adored Lucy Barton, her voice and her play with reality, almost meta-fiction and literary ideas. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Great, and thought-provoking and discussion-provoking review.

>61 Willoyd: Thanks for this discovery and review! I've added this to the wishlist and my overall plan of possibilities for global reading.

>72 dchaikin:
Funny how we're opposite of each other. Maybe Strout just needs more than one go! Whatever, I'm really thinking of going back to Lucy Barton at some stage soon - I'm intrigued now to see if I change my mind.

>74 Willoyd: well, we’re each unique readers. That’s good. I admit, I’m not tempted to revisit Olive. 🙂

08. The Marriage Question by Claire Carlisle ****
Read as a follow up to Daniel Deronda, this is a biographical study of George Eliot's life with George Lewes and, to a lesser extent, John Cross after Lewes's death. It's also as much a study of the influence of her 'married' life on her novels. It's an enthralling read, providing considerable insight, and I feel I learned much about both Eliot's life and her writing. Inevitably, I found the chapters covering Deronda and Middlemarch, my most recent and favourite George Eliot books, the most interesting, but the rest was never less so, and I came away keen to both read further and reread (although twice through Silas Marner may be enough already!). Carlisle is a Professor of Philosophy at KCL, and this was transparently obvious in her writing: aside from her extensive discussions on Eliot's philosophy, there's even a chapter so entitled. I have to admit however, that she lost me on occasions, and there were one or two points where I glided rather bemused over the surface for a couple of pages, but the book soon retrieved me the other side. I readily admit that this is almost certainly down to my intellectual failings - I am certainly no George Eliot on that front, as she sounds to have had a formidable mind - the depth of knowledge she insisted on developing on each subject before she wrote on it was remarkable. I was, in contrast, surprised, having long felt that she was something of a feminist icon (she still is IMO, but in a different way perhaps!), as to how much she conformed to the Victorian model of a wife's role with both Lewes and Cross, even if, in Lewes's case, she was strong enough to continue their relationship openly unmarried. Their relationship may not have been acceptable to Victorian society as a whole, but their was still something very upright in the Victorian manner in the arrangements between Lewes and his two partners, once one scratches the surface.
Overall, then, an involving, illuminating read, which has encouraged me to further develop my acquaintance with Eliot's novels (perhaps Adam Bede next?) and to read further on the full extent of her life - I have the Rosemary Ashton biography on my shelves, so that's a distinct possibility later this year.

>76 Willoyd: Okay - you've convinced me - I need this book! Really enjoyed reading your thoughts on it.

Re Silas Marner: I had to reread it a year or so ago, and wasn't looking forward to it particularly, but once I did, I was really happy I had.

>76 Willoyd: great review. Fascinating stuff. At some point I hope to put more time into Eliot. I’m noting this Claire Carlisle biography.

09. The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh **
The book for Vietnam in my Reading The World project. This is a classic of the Vietnamese war I understand, on a par with All Quiet on the Western Front and other war greats. I can see sort of see why, but personally I found this a tough, unrewarding read, boring me rigid before I reached half way, and struggling to make it to the end of what is, after all, only a slim 220 pages or so. Graphic in detail (the even mildly squeamish should be wary), unrelenting in its grimness, it may well be an all too starkly accurate portrayal of what the war was like, but I also found it repetitious and narrow in its language (this, of course, may be a function of the translation), equally repetitious in its narrative, and disjointed in its telling - chronological this is not (I don't normally find this a problem, but on this occasion it just confused). The odd attempt at metafiction just felt clumsy. All of this, for some readers (actually, most readers from the reviews - I'm definitely in a minority here) may well add to the impact, or carry this into the realms of the classic, but I'm afraid it just lost me about a quarter of the way in, and with only occasional remissions, it remained that way to the end, by which time I was really having to force myself not to leave it unfinished (I'm really trying to ensure I read books all the way through for this project, even if it's one I'd normally abandon). I'm sure this is down to inadequacy as a reader on my part, but this was a book I was glad, relieved, to put behind me.

>79 Willoyd: Oh no, Will. Sorrow to hear this was a tough read. It's been on my wishlist for ages. If you ever want to read another book by a North Vietnamese soldier, I would recommend Novel without a name
by Duong Thu Huong. It was excellent.

>80 labfs39:
Thanks for the lead.
The thing I would say (as I often do!) is that I wouldn't want any review I wrote to put anybody else off. As we all know, reading is very personal. I'd take any review as a starting point for discussion, just as, when we discuss a book at book group, the best sessions are the ones where people have differing opinions. So, rather than put somebody off, I'd rather they read it and then can compare notes!
Yes, I did find it a surprisingly difficult read. But then, it's a highly rated book by many. I have found lately that quite a few books that have received great reviews and are widely applauded are ones that I just haven't got on with. One of my groups is discussing Demon Copperhead tomorrow evening. I haven't read it for this meeting, as my other group did it last year when I did read it, and, aside from how recently that was*, I just couldn't have faced it again anyway. Actually, I didn't finish it first time I found it so unrelentingly grim and tedious - not a patch on the original. But, I was in a small minority at the previous group meeting, suspect I will be the same tomorrow evening given the comments on our Whats App group, and it's a Women's Prize and Pulitzer winner (and the New York Times recent podcast on it was so gushing I had to turn it off). So....don't rely on my reviews please!

* OTOH, I'm rereading Annie Ernaux's The Years for that other group this month, having only read it in December. Now that's what I call a great book!.

>81 Willoyd: I wouldn't want any review I wrote to put anybody else off. As we all know, reading is very personal. I'd take any review as a starting point for discussion, just as, when we discuss a book at book group, the best sessions are the ones where people have differing opinions. So, rather than put somebody off, I'd rather they read it and then can compare notes!

Absolutely, Will. I will leave The Sorrow of War on my wishlist, but won't run straight to the library and check it out, which I may have been tempted to do if you had raved about it. I take all reviews with a grain of salt, but we seem to have similar tastes in a lot of things, so I do consider your opinions more strongly than some.

I have not read Demon Copperhead, and it's not on my wishlist. The Years, however, is!

>79 Willoyd: >80 labfs39: I read The Sorrow of War way back when it first came out, and have been recommending it ever since. I can definitely see that it wouldn't work for many people though.

With regard to the repetition, do you think this was a device to reenforce just how unrelenting the horror was for someone who had lived it and was now immersing himself in it once again?

Another one here who likes it best when there are differing opinions on a work.

Also seconding the recommendation for Novel without a Name.

>83 SassyLassy:

With regard to the repetition, do you think this was a device to reenforce just how unrelenting the horror was for someone who had lived it and was now immersing himself in it once again? Probably. But there was other repetition too that, whilst I am sure was deliberate, just annoyed me. I remember sitting back and counting the number of times the word 'lovely' (3) had been used in one short paragraph. It might have been deliberate, but for me it just got in the way and became tedious.

However, here's a review by someone whose views I also respect. Very different to mine, and certainly more informed! : https://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/2012/07/05/vietnam-war-of-words/

In the meantime, I'm in urgent need of some lighter relief!

>79 Willoyd: well, I’m glad you’re past The Sorrow of War. I suspect I wouldn’t take to Demon Copperhead either, but who knows. Glad you liked The Years. I’ll get to that one.

>84 Willoyd: Great review in the post, which naturally led me to the "10 best books..." list, of which I've read 7. Along the way it made me wonder whatever happened to Philip Caputo (A Rumour of War), who went on to write other excellent books, switching to novels, about other conflict zones. After checking him out, I see there are several more of his books to catch up on.

Will be interested to see what constitutes lighter relief!

10 The Offing by Benjamin Myers *****
We're reading a Myers book for my next book group (The Perfect Golden Circle), but as I've read it before (I may still reread) I decided to try one of his that I hadn't read. My local indie shop owner, knowing I was after something a bit lighter, suggested this. Spot on! It's an elegiac look back by the narrator, Robert, to a time just after the Second World War when, as a young man on the cusp of moving from school to the mines in his Durham coalfield village, decides to 'take off' for a few weeks in the summer to explore the world around him on foot. He lands up in Robin's Hood Bay (on the North Sea coas)t, and meets up with and develops a friendship with an older woman living on her own. It's a Bildungsroman, but aside from that, reminds me very much of perhaps my favourite book, A Month In the Country, as in both the (young male) narrator's character and relationships develop over an English rural summer with a quietly powerful long term impact on their life. - it's not quite there, not being as nuanced, nor with quite the variety of tone and he plot development that was part of what marked AMITC out, but it was a beautifully poetic read with an interesting development, that I can see myself going back to. Benjamin Myers is an author who is gradually growing on me - he's not (so far anyway!) spectacular or showy (although I'm told that a couple of his books that I have yet to read are very different), but quietly gets under your skin. An initial five star read,but could easily get kicked up a level later. (BTW, 'offing' is apparently the name for the distant part of the sea that's in view - the part where the horizon meets the sky).

>86 SassyLassy: Will be interested to see what constitutes lighter relief!
So now you know! Exactly what was needed!

>87 Willoyd: Your touchstone for Offing goes to a P. G. Wodehouse book. I wish I had a local bookseller who knew what I need to read next.

And to think i the offing was where we fell off the earth in a big waterfall. (Sorry, bad discworld moment.) Enjoyed your review.

>88 dianeham:
LOL! Thank you - edited it now.
We're very lucky - two good independent bookshops within 6 miles of us. The one I was referring to is where one of my book groups is based, run by the shopowner, who is brilliant. Good backup wholesalers too - can order a book and nine times out of 10 it's in next day. I understand that, after years of decline, indie shops are on the rise again. Hooray!

>89 dchaikin:
Another LOL! Thank you.

>90 Willoyd: I live in a seasonal tourist area so a year round bookstore is not available. Well, there’s a small one but they didn't seem very friendly.

Currently reading the big one!
Could well not be posting much over the next month or so, as have at last got stuck into a book that have been intending to get to grips with for some time now, my choice for Ireland in Reading the World - the almost inevitable Ulysses*! Am around 150 pages in (Leopold Bloom has just arrived at the cemetery). Am being helped along by Patrick Hastings' The Guide to James Joyce's Ulysses, which has a useful summary of each episode, which I'm reading as a follow-up - and it does help. I've also got one of the annotated versions on my Kindle, and that's been really useful too understanding some of the references, although one could get hopelessly bogged down if checking out each one!

But even before using these, I'm starting to find it utterly addictive. In places it's almost hypnotic in its rhythms. It's particularly picked up since Leopold Bloom appeared (in section 4, Calypso) - his internal narrative is rather more down to earth than Stephen Dedalus's and have almost instiinctively warmed to him. If anything (and only so far!) have found it an easier read than expected, although section 3 (Proteus) left me gasping rather especially at the start.

It's going to need a reread though, I can already see that!! In the meantime, I had expected that I might need to intersperse with some lighter reading and that I would likely have to be quite structured/organised in my reading to get through, but at present, I'm loving the exploration and positively wanting to pick it up and get stuck into the next bit, so we'll see!

*In fact, Ulysses was from the word go, at the heart of the project, as set it as the baseline, the earliest, book that could be read. I started Reading The World in 2022, the centenary year of the book's publication, and it was the first book I chose for a country. Sort of made sense that books should come from the last 100 years - or at least in the years since Ulysses was published.

>92 Willoyd: Good for you for tackling the big one. I read it as a first year college student as the capstone to a two semester course on Odysseus through the ages. I was so overwhelmed! First, I didn't have a lot of life experience and second, I didn't have the internet, only a printed compendium. Lordy! I have no desire to go back to it, although I do wonder what it would be like to read it in this day and age. A different experience, for sure.

>92 Willoyd: If it’s still available, I highly recommend the Re Joyce podcast. Unfortunately Frank Delaney passed away before he could finish, but the episodes he did produce were invaluable to me when I tackled this one. I came away with a much deeper understanding of the novel and what was going on in Joyce’s head when he wrote it.

>94 Yells:
Thanks for the reminder. Now you mention them, I've heard about them, and nothing but good things too. I'll look them out. I seem to be doing as much reading around Ulysses as I do reading it itself. But it's all very interesting stuff.

Have at it, Will. I’m so encouraged by your post. I want to get here some day. Any update posts will be read 🙂

>92 Willoyd: I've been considering reading Ulysses for ages so I'll be interested in how you get on with it. I enjoyed Dubliners when I read it years ago but haven't got round to trying Portrait of the Artist or Ulysses yet (and I'm not going anywhere near Finnegans Wake).

>92 Willoyd: Good for you! I'm in a minority I guess, as understanding (or at least deep understanding) has never been a prerequisite for me to enjoy a book. I plunged into Ulysses without any footnotes, explanation or preconceived notion, beyond the vague idea that it was "too difficult" that had intimidated me away from it for several years. And what an experience! As you say, the rythms, and just the joy of words. There was one chapter that utterly befuddled me, I had no idea what even was going on, but the rest was pure joy.

>98 FlorenceArt:
Intrigued! Which chapter, can you remember?

>97 valkyrdeath:
Have looked at Finnegan's Wake several times. Can only agree with you!

>99 Willoyd: It was one (I learned later) that was supposed to retrace the whole history of English literature, and the language evolved accordingly. Or something like that. I do vaguely remember that the language was very archaic. And the events were very confused, or I was very confused at any rate.

11 Not A River by Selva Almada *****
Much as I'm loving Ulysses, it's a book that I think I'm going to need the occasional break from, and this is the first! Reading various posts in CR24 and articles on publishers of books in translation (particularly a Guardian profile piece on several UK indie publishers), my eyes picked out this book from Charco Press in a tabletop display in my local Waterstones during a browse earlier this week. I've not read any of their books yet, but the name was familiar from both posts and article. A quick glance, and I knew I was hooked, not least by the production values (I'm a sucker, especially, for French flaps!). I've since discovered it's on the longlist for this year's International Booker and, having read it, I'm not surprised.
At only 99 pages (including a fascinating translator's note), this was a short but absolutely compulsive read: two friends are on a river fishing trip with the teenage son of another friend who died on a previous visit. They successfully land (by shooting!) a monster ray, which attracts the attention and the ire of local villagers, in turn threatening to boil over in violence. The story tells of how the relationship pans out, with flashbacks centred both on fishermen's and villagers' lives fleshing out both how they got here, and why things work out the way they do. It's a carefully, tightly woven narrative, made all the tighter by Almeda's very lean language and the spartan use of punctuation and paragraphing. So often this latter makes life harder, but the author's style rapidly grew on me, and it really did add to the atmosphere and my involvement as a reader (I may have been helped by the fact that I'm a few hundred pages into Ulysses, which has similar traits that actually made this feel relatively easy!). Almeda's focus is primarily on aspects of masculinity, much toxic, in a strongly patriarchal society, and some of the fallout from this, with this the third in a thematically related trilogy of books (they each stand alone, with no narrative or character crossover, so don't need to be read in order).
Yet, whilst the questions are asked and themes aired, this is also, in its simplest terms, a brilliantly told story, with a twist that both took me utterly by surprise, and made me go back to reread whole sections (easy enough when there's only 99 pages!) to tease out the clues, indeed large bites of narrative meaning, that I'd missed. This was a book which produced a genuine "Oh I see it now!" moment well after I'd reached the end. Maybe (probably!) I'm just a bit thick, but I did enjoy the revelatory experience!
So, a very happy impulse choice (perhaps not the right word, as this is a very dark book!), and a great one for Argentina, the 37th country to be visited in Reading The World.

I’m really happy to read this review. Very helpful and interesting. I will try to read this soon. I won’t make it through the International Booker longlist, but I’m hoping to make a small dent.

>102 dchaikin:
I won't either by any means (don't even try), but I do find it provides some useful leads - rather more than the standard Booker often does (it was particularly uninspiring last year!).

12. The Perfect Golden Circle by Benjamin Myers ****(*)
A reread for one of my book groups of a book I enjoyed last June. Similar to The Offing in style (see book 10 this year), again set in a sultry summer in the English countryside. This time a study of a friendship between 2 men, creating crop circles in the wheat fields of southern England, each chapter centred on a single creation. I love Myers's almost otherworldly descriptions, although his biggest weakness, IMO, is a tendency to overelaborate simile - trying just a bit too hard. When he keeps it figurative-lite (or not at all), he's superb! His central characters have an interesting depth to them, and there's a lovely thread of gentle humour throughout. Eminently readable, this actually improved on second reading. The Offing still has the edge though, but it is just an edge!

>104 Willoyd: So many writers over do similes. The book I’m reading now - Brotherless Nights suffers from that tendency, but otherwise The Perfect Golden Circle sounds quite lovely.

Great review of Not a River, Will. It isn't yet available in my local library systems in the Philadelphia area, but I hope that it will be soon.

It's a while since I posted on here, so an update. Am now just past p.400 of Ulysses, just under halfway, which is proving a brilliant if challenging read (although part of its brilliance is intertwined with what's challenging, so perhaps no but!). Whilst I am reading other stuff as well, not least for my book groups, I'm not very good at handling multiple reads, and that side of things is feeling thoroughly disjointed, to the extent that I've really struggled to settle the past few weeks. It's not helped by the fact that Joyce needs time and space, and I haven't had much of that lately, or at least not at a time when I'm fresh enough to get stuck in - it's not a book for late night or evening reading!
However, it is proving an outstanding read, far better than I ever anticipated. Ulysses is certainly more full of life than pretty much anything else I've read in recent years, full of colour and utterly immersive. I am finding Patrick Chambers' book 'A Reading Guide to Ulysses' invaluable, particularly the sections involving Stephen Daedalus, whose inner thoughts are way more complex than I could otherwise understand (Leopold Bloom is much more comprehensible!); it's also enabled me to follow the geography, which feels such an essential element- the city is as much a character in the book as any individual. However, even with all this help, I feel as if I'm barely scratching the surface, and I can fully see why this is a book that is read and reread - I can already see a reread coming on!

Other books I've been reading have been mainly Caroline by Richmal Crompton (underwhelming) and Germania by Simon Winder (interesting if sometimes assuming prior knowledge), as well as dipping into others. Unsettled is definitely the word!

>107 Willoyd: Glad you’re enjoying Ulysses. Makes me want to reread it too 😊

Three books to catch up on, whilst reading Ulysses. Just quick notes to record:

13. The Years by Annie Ernaux *****
A reread (last read in December) for a book group. Better than I remember it, because this time I made sure I tracked events recorded, based as it is so much on French cultural and political history, about which I know little beyond a basic list of presidents. The whole approach fascinates, and it generated some lively discussion, pretty much all of which was very positive about the book.

14. Caroline by Richmal Crompton **
Another book group read, and rather underwhelming. Crompton is of course best known for her Just William books, but she wrote a significant number of adult novels too, most of which have disappeared into the print ether, hard to obtain even second-hand. A few have been reprinted, and generally acclaimed, but I have to say if this is an accurate sample, her writing hasn't aged well for me, and this felt badly dated, and very predictable. I'm also reading Family Roundabout in the Persephone Press edition. Similar in style, but hopefully just a bit less so on both fronts (although not convinced yet).

15. Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo ****
A classic of Mexican writing apparently, which is why I chose it for my Reading the World project, included in a list of world's 100 most important works by the Nobel committee, and a major influence on Latin American literature. Slim at only 125 pages but anything but a short or straightforward read with chronological shifts, dead talking to the alive (and other dead!), and a style of writing that sometimes makes it quite hard to workout who is being written about and who is talking. To be honest, half way through I was feeling decidely unenamoured, but it grew on me and is, I think, a book that needs to be read more than once to work out what is going on, and interesting enough that it's worth reading more than once! I was relieved to read that even Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the writer of the Foreword of the translation I read, reckoned it's a difficult one! I'm not going to write a more detailed review, simply because I don't really have a lot more I feel I can say. Maybe once I've given it another go!

16. Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton ***
My second Richmal Crompton in short order, mainly because my book group, rather than designating one book for the month, agreed that we would each read at least one book by Crompton, and see if we can discuss her as a writer, rather than focusing on the one book. I've also had this Persephone Press edition on my shelves for a while, so everything fitted neatly together....

In many respects this represents typical Persephone fair - a mid-twentieth century female author whose writing has been largely overlooked in recent years, telling a story of domestic life. Crompton's adult books haven't just been overlooked, they've virtually disappeared, and until recently even secondhand copies were very hard to come by, unlike her 'Just William' children's novels, which have an almost cult following. Persephone's revival of Family Roundabout saw a reversal of that, and Faber have built on this with the republication of half a dozen or so of her other titles in digital/print to order editions - which is where I sourced Caroline from.

As one would expect from a Persephone book, Family Roundabout is easily read, and generally feels well written. However, in spite of the phalanx of 4 and 5 star reviews online, I have to confess to mild disappointment at the end of this 350-page read. There's nothing inherently 'wrong' about the book, but it all felt a bit run of the mill and predictable. The story centres on the domestic lives of two largeish families over a period of 20 years, 1920-39, each ruled (in very different ways) by the family matriarch: the old-word, slightly faded, genteel Fowlers and the rather brasher, more commercially orientated Willoughbys, linked by the marriage of two of the second generaton (of three covered). The latter family is ruled with a rod of iron, the former is rather more gently supported. And from that, the story follows fairly obvious tramlines. The characters themselves conform to largely straightforward two dimensional patterns, the women showing a bit more variety and depth compared to the men, the latter almost without exception rather mediocre and/or 'wet' - on this evidence Richmal Crompton has a fairly low opinion of the male of the species.

Having now read two of Crompton's adult novels, I think that's probably enough to be going on with. I'm not sure if I'll read any more - i certainly don't feel any particular desire to do so, although Family Roundabout was an improvement on Caroline. In summary, the books came across as pleasant, rather bland, obvious and mildly dated ways to pass the time, so not really my sort of books.

>110 Willoyd: Sorry this was not your cuppa. I hope your next book is a good one.

>110 Willoyd: I'm sorry you didn't enjoy these. I was very interested to read about Cormpton's apart from the William books.

17. The Plague by Albert Camus *****
One of those books where a review by someone like me seems almost pointless, so high up the ladder of acclaim and regard does this sit, and how ignorant I am of the relevant philosophies, but suffice to say that this has all the power and provocation of thought that one would expect from such a classic. It also surprised me in being a thoroughly good read: Camus's language is fairly spare and straightforward, but his evocation of place and atmosphere is so strong, and his characters all too human - perhaps not surprising for such a proponent of existentialism (at least as far as I understand it). Having struggled somewhat with studying L'Etranger at school, this turned out to be a real 'pleasure' (if that is the right word for a book about such a dark subject) to read. Read for one of my book groups.

>113 Willoyd: The Plague would almost certainly be amongst my 10 favorite novels, and it is undoubtedly the only one I've read thrice. I also saw the play based on it in London several years ago, which I also loved.

>114 kidzdoc:
Not sure about it getting into my topmost rankings, but certainly one that needs and deserves rereading. I'll be rereading L'Etranger and reading more of his other work too.
One thing I forgot to say: I was amazed how much of what he wrote directly related to the COVID pandemic and our experience of the UK lockdown - almost prescient, scarily so.

>115 Willoyd: I first read The Plague within a few months after I received my bachelor's degree, as I took a course in Existential Philosophy at Rutgers and read about Camus. I'm not sure exactly why but that novel was one factor that encouraged me to apply to medical school, although it was far from the most important one. I may have read The Stranger for that philosophy course.

Great point about the relationship between The Plague and the COVID-19 pandemic!

Two in fairly quick succession:

18. Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco ***
Read for my World project for The Philippines. Strangely two-dimensional, overly complex, over-written, this was a book that I had really looked forward to reading but ultimately disappointed. Seemed to take forever to finish. I'm not sure quite why I've rated it as high as 3 stars, but credit where credit is due - the idea was clever (and should have been entertaining and intriguing), and there were some great individual scenes. This should have been a great book, but the author seemed to spend too much time trying to impress rather than engage the reader.

19. The Collini Case by Ferdinand von Schirach *****
A book group read that I read in one sitting - utterly gripping. Leanly written, evoking much in surprisingly few words; understated yet packing an emotional punch, with much to say on the impact of its Nazi past on post-war Germany (at least the legal side of things!). This was a book I'd never heard of before being nominated by another member, but so glad to have read, one of the main reasons for joining a book group! We will have much to discuss when the group next meets - another reason.

>117 Willoyd: Never heard of The Collini Case or Ferdinand von Schirach before, but you make it sound like a must read! I see there is a French translation, I will check it out.

>119 Willoyd: I'd be interested in what you make of it. It's less than 200 pages, not many words to the page, and reads almost like a short story, but I felt it had a lot to say to me. I'm a sucker for that sort of book (my favourite book ever is JL Carr's A Month In the Country - barely 100 pages but worth so much more) - I think because i admire anybody who can keep it lean but say as much, being of the rather more verbose tendency myself!

20. Why We Get Sick by Benjamin Bikman ***
An examination of insulin resistance - what it is, how it's caused, how to deal with it. Being prediabetic myself, I found Bikman's take, that prediabetes/diabetes is actually just a symptom of a broader underlying problem, very interesting. I don't know enough of the science to be able to judge how accurate this is, but it generally makes eminent sense based on what else I've read (and my own experience), although I'm wary of some of the stronger strictures. Three stars is my standard grade for a non-fiction book that satisfactorily fulfills a function even if it isn't (and doesn't set out to be!) a great 'read'.

>117 Willoyd: I too was hooked by your review of The Collini Case. I'll keep an eye out for it.