Charlotte's garden of reading in 2024 #3

Hi, I'm Charlotte, based in the north of England. I like to read (like all of us here, I'm sure) and enjoy using the categories to try and nudge my reading along a bit out of the usual tracks.

Plants are starting to flower in the garden.


I'm recycling categories from last year:
Familiar Faces
New to me
Prizewinners
Women in translation
Graphic novels / manga
African Writers
History / Memoirs
Reading my own books
Plus books bought / books given away

Familiar Faces
I've got foxglove seedlings I planted a couple of months ago, hoping they will survive to be successful in 2024


1. How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with it (fantasy)
2. Two Masquerades and a Major (romance)
3.The Vaster Wilds (Historical fiction)
4. Double or Nothing (romance)
5. The Bookseller of Inverness (Historical fiction)
6. Normal Rules Don't Apply (short stories)
7. Strictly Business (romance fiction)
8. Strictly Pleasure (ditto)
9. The Wake-Up Call (romcom)
10. Chenneville (Historical fiction)
11. Held (lit fiction)
12. The Fall back plan (romcom)
13. Julia (literary fiction)
14. Dear Roomie
15. Lady Violet Pays a Call
16. Disturbing His Peace
17. Wifedom
18. The Home Child
19. A Side Character's Love Story 17
20. Canadian Boyfriend
21. Mrs Gulliver
22. Bad Blood
23. To swoon and to spar

New to me (authors I've not read before)

I do like it when the first bulbs come up.
1. The Pit (crime fiction)
2. Girlhood (poetry)
3. Persephone in bloom (romance fiction)
4. Devil's Breath (crime fiction)
5. The Invisible Web (crime fiction in translation)
6. Reykjavik (crime fiction in translation)
7. The Lazarus Solution (crime fiction in translation)
8. Wound (autofiction, in translation)
9. The Tattoo Murder Case (crime fiction in translation)
10. Love in the time of serial killers (romcom)
11. The Dead Romantics (romance/ magical realism)
12. River East River West (literary fiction)
13. In Defence of the Act (ditto)
14. Death in the Blood (journalism / politics)
15. Returning to Reims (memoir / theory)
16. Nightbloom (literary fiction)
17. The Blue Beautiful World (speculative fiction)
18. The Maiden (Historical fiction)
19. With Love from Cold World (romance fiction)
20. Soldier Sailor (lit fiction)
21. Brotherless Night (lit fiction)
22. Clinch (crime)

Prizewinners (and nominees)

If I was going to give a prize to anything in my garden, I think it might be this miniature apple tree. If anyone has any unusual apple recipes, I'd love to hear them.

1. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (Pretty sure James McBride has a few awards on his shelf!)
2. The Treasure of the Spanish Civil War French original won Boccace Prize
3. Cahokia Jazz Author won the Costa First Novel Award, the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Desmond Elliot Prize and was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, the Rathbones Folio Prize.
4. River East River West (Women's Prize longlist)
5. In Defence of the Act (Women's Prize longlist)
6. The Years (Nobel)
7. Nightbloom (Women's Prize longlist)
8. The Blue Beautiful World (ditto)
9. Enter Ghost (ditto)
10. The Maiden (ditto)
11. Wifedom (Women's Prize for NF longlist)
12. Soldier Sailor
13. Brotherless Night

Graphic novels / manga
I love the vivid colour of these geranium


1. Hungry Ghost (YA)
2. Monica (horror?)
3. Insomniacs After School 2 (manga, YA)
4. Asadora 6 (manga)
5. Aya: Claws Come Out (GN)
6. Tsubaki Chou: Lonely Planet 6
7. Disaster Dates and Lucky Escapes
8. A Side Character's Love Story 17

African Writers
This kniphofia did not last long in the garden. I think too damp. But maybe this year?


1. So Distant from my Life (Burkina Faso)
2. Season of Migration to the North (Sudan)

To read from my shelves in this category:
The House of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera
The First Woman
Palace Walk
The Cry of Winnie Mandela
Three Strong Women
Going Down River Road
Beyond The Rice Fields
Season of Crimson Blossoms
Segu
Tales of the Metric System
This Mournable Body
House of Stone

History / Memoirs / Politics
I love these sweet peas. They smell amazing.

1. Still Pictures (essays / memoir / photography)
2. Shakespeare's Book (books about books)
3. Black Spartacus Biography
4. Some People Need Killing Memoir
5. Death in the Blood (Journalism / politics / history of medicine/ memoir)
6. The Years (Memoir / French history)
7. Wifedom (Memoir / feminism / literary history)
8. Diary of an Invasion (Journalism/ politics)

Plus
Women in translation


1. What you are looking for is in the library (fiction, Japanese)
2. The Postcard (autofiction, French)
3. Deep Dark Blue (crime fiction, German - Switzerland)
4. Almond (YA, Korean)
5. Wound (Autofiction, Russian)
6. The Years (Memoir / history, French)
7. I Went to See My Father (fiction, Korean)
8. Un Amor (fiction, Spanish)
9. The Details (fiction, Swedish)

Reading my own books
Plus books bought / books given away

Restarting this category as I've kind of got lost with it over the past few months.


My own books read:
Diary of an Invasion
Books bought:

Books given away:

Books by month read (for an overview so I don't miss adding them to the categories)

April 19 (94)

1. Season of Migration to the North
2. Dear Roomie
3. Lady Violet Pays a Call
4. Clinch
5. Disturbing His Peace
6. The Blue Beautiful World
7. Enter Ghost
8. The Maiden
9. Wifedom
10. With Love from Cold World

11. The Home Child
12. Soldier Sailor
14. A Side Character's Love Story
15. Canadian Boyfriend
16. Mrs Gulliver
17. Bad Blood
18. Brotherless Night
19. To swoon and to spar

Library books read: 6

May 20 (114)
1. Three Little Words
2. Address Unknown
3. Next of Kin
4. I Went to See My Father
5. The Maid
6. Un Amor
7. The Lover of No Fixed Abode
8. In Which Margo Halifax Earns her Shocking Reputation
9.Romancing the Grump
10.Thirty Days of Darkness
11. Diary of an Invasion
12. The Details
13. The Rule Book
14. The Drowned City
15. Less than a Treason
16. Funny Story
17. The Russian Detective
18. A Flat Place
19. Human Rights, Robot Wrongs
20. Lost and Found Sisters

Library books read this month: 5

Favourites so far this year:

Familiar Faces Wifedom
New to me The Dead Romantics
Prizewinners Brotherless Night / Soldier Sailor
Women in translation I Went to See My Father
Graphic novels / manga Aya: claws come out
African Writers Season of Migration to the North
History / Memoirs Some People Need Killing
Reading my own books Enter Ghost

Bookshops from my recent visit to Portugal



From L-R, Top to bottom.
Almedina bookshop, Bookish bag for sale with De Beauvoir quote, Sanzaia bookshop, A copy of 'Art e Feminismo em Portugal no contexto post-revolucao' (sadly not available in translation in the shop!)
Livros Escolaires (I think an academic bookshop, sadly not open each time I passed), below that shelves in one of the more 'commercial' shops I dipped into, the view from the mezzanine floor across the reading room's lighting display in Serralves, an art musem / sculpture park / culture centre, a display of books in Portuguese translation I recognised in a branch of FNAC, a second-hand bookshop display.
A second-hand bookshop interior, plus three more window displays.

Waiting for the women's prize winner announcement (due 13th June).

https://womensprize.com/prizes/womens-prize-for-fiction/

Happy new thread, Charlotte.

Happy new thread Charlotte. Love all the book ideas here!

Happy New Thread, Charlotte. I'm just waiting for my turn with Soldier Sailor.

Happy new thread,

Happy new thread, Charlotte. I'm hoping to get through the shortlist before the announcement. We'll see. I love your flowers.

I just finished Soldier Sailor, Charlotte, and I liked it, but I think Brotherless Night is the best of the bunch so far. I just have to read River East, River West and then I will have completed reading The Women's Prize Shortlist for this year. I haven't created any review for Soldier Sailor so far. Like you , it took me a while to get into it. but about 1/2 through it grabbed me.

Happy new thread, Charlotte!

Happy new thread, Charlotte.

>13 katiekrug: Thanks Katie.

>14 mdoris: Thanks Mary.

>15 RidgewayGirl: Look forward to hearing what you make of it!

>16 lowelibrary: Thanks April.

>17 BLBera: Thanks Beth. I tried to do some gardening this weekend but even just doing a bit of editing the plants that have overgrown others was exhausting.

>18 vancouverdeb: I loved the humour in Soldier Sailor. I'm not sure what else she's written, or if this is a first novel. I should find out.

>19 FAMeulstee: Thanks Anita.

>20 Helenliz: Thanks Helen. Hope you've recovered from the bellringing extravaganza.

Well, the cold flu thing I thought would be cracked by the weekend has not, so I had today off work and slept for most of it.
I thought it might be covid but the test came back negative, so...

>18 vancouverdeb: and >21 charl08: According to LT, Soldier Sailor is Claire Kilroy's 5th novel. I've read All Names Have Been Changed but can't tell you much more about it and I have a copy of Tenderwire.

Happy new thread, and get well soon!

I hope you feel better soon, Charlotte!

>23 elkiedee: Thanks, although that wasn't meant as a hint someone should answer my question! Sorry.

>24 Jackie_K: Thanks Jackie.

>25 katiekrug: Thanks Katie.

I finished Diary of an Invasion the book of Andrey Kurkov's columns (and personal writing) from the point of Russia 's invasion of Ukraine. It has suited my not-very-with-it brain over the past week as it is organised by date and each section is short. At points it clearly is partisan and at others limited by word counts into generalisation (and the limits of information in wartime). But he's mostly sceptical or even gently mocking about his own government (President Zelensky in post-war James Bond films). It felt the strongest when he is talking about the impact of conflict on himself, his close family and friends. The daily grind of decision-making about safety and then living in exile.

On February 24, we were awakened at 5.00 a.m. by the sounds of explosions. They will forever remain in my memory. We walked around the historical centre of Kyiv, near to where we live, to find the nearest bomb shelters. They are also old, almost ancient - Soviet-made, built in case of war with N.A.T.O. Before this, we had not thought about leaving Kyiv. We could not imagine that Russia would bomb the Ukrainian capital. But it had already happened. I do not think we were naive. Our shock at the actions of our eastern neighbour is evidence of modern people's unpreparedness for horrors that have no place in contemporary life. I admit I should have known better. My own compatriots, those living in the eastern areas of the country, have been experiencing attacks like these for eight years. I even wrote about it in Grey Bees. But still I was unprepared. And now here we are, refugees in the foothills of the Ukrainian Carpathians.

Feel better soon, Charlotte.

I've just added Diary of an Invasion to my wishlist.

Happy new thread, Charlotte, and I hope you feel better soon!

Thanks Beth, Jackie and Birgit. I just can't seem to throw off this bug, it's driving me up the wall. No energy, headache, brain fog, breathlessness, coughing fits, sore throat, sinus pain, fever. Just grim.
Although clearly in comparison to >27 charl08: even conplaining about such a common thing feels ridiculous.

In between naps finished The Details, one of the Booker international shortlist for this year. Some lovely writing but a bit too much young-person-angst for my taste. It did feel very Swedish, I could have done with some cardomon buns whilst reading. The (fictional) narrator describes her own life through four people close to her, her first girlfriend Johanna, unpredictable Nikki, stage dancer Alejandro and finally her own mother, Birgitte. This comes in at 158 pages (including the translator's note) so one of those books that feels like you can finish it without too much commitment! There's lots of discussion of books here, from first reads to those covers that take you back years and years later to a certain time and place.

Literature was our favourite game. Johanna and I introduced each other to authors and themes, to eras and regions and singular works, to older books and contemporary books and books of different genres.

We had similar tastes but opinions divergent enough to make our discussions interesting. There were certain things we didn't agree on (Oates, Bukowski), others that left us both unmoved (Gordimer, fantasy), and some we both loved (Klas Östergren, Eyvind Johnson's Krilon trilogy, Lessing). I could tell how she felt about a book based on how fast she worked her way through it. If she was reading fast (Kundera, all crime fiction), I knew she was bored and rushing to be done, and if she was going too slow (The Tin Drum, all sci-fi), she was equally bored bur had to struggle to reach the last page. She thought it was her duty to finish a book she'd started...

Sorry you are still suffering Charlotte. I had a cough and throat infection for 4 weeks. Apparently must lurgies are taking longer to shrug off these days.

Take care of yourself, Charlotte. A lingering illness is no fun and it's far too easy to think that it's time to get things done and over-extend oneself. Take the time to heal.

Dang. I hope you feel better soon. Happy new thread!!!

Happy New Thread, Charlotte!

>31 charl08: My husband and I have been feeling like that on and off for weeks, and many people at our school have the same thing. Sometimes only half of the students are there, something that usually only happens in the winter months. Many of our colleagues have it, too. I don't know what it is with this bug/infection!

I hope you are soon feeling much better, Charlotte.

Thanks Caroline, Kay, Kim, Mirjam and Deborah. I just about started feeling human again so went out into the garden to try and make a start on making things tidy. I overdid it and my back went again. So now I'm coughing with an added "ouch"! But I'm back in the office and feel like I can at least string a sentence together, which is a step forward.

I finished a book The Drowned City, a historical crime novel set in Bristol during the reign of James 1st. A young man is freed from prison in London on condition he goes and investigates a supposed catholic plot. There's been a catastrophic tidal wave at the port and the city is reeling.
Lots of atmosphere (cockfights! Anti-catholic riot! Whorehouse! Den of thieves!) but at 400 pages plus I thought I would have appreciated it even more with 50 less.

(But this is my standard complaint...)

Ouch indeed Charlotte. Hopefully full recovery from both things soon.

>37 charl08: Putting this on my watch list. Sounds interesting, but I also have a continual problem with books that are slightly too long!

>38 Caroline_McElwee: Think I'm getting better, but probably will have to be a bit more careful in the garden for a while yet.

>39 Tess_W: I do enjoy these immersive historical novels, but with only so much reading time I do sometimes wonder about the role of the editor (but maybe the original was even longer!)

I read Emily Henry's new one Funny Story last night. I think I should just hit autobuy for all her books in future.

Sometimes at night, from the other room, he texts me live updates as he listens to the audiobook of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, things like i want to live w the beavers and wat is turkish delight and edmund needs 2 chill.

Glad you're feeling more human. There's been a lot of coughs going around this year, some really hard to shift. And yes, coughing with a sore back is just double the misery. Hope you feel properly back on form soon.

I'm glad you're feeling better. Take it a little easy!

>40 charl08: Oh, I love the passage you quoted!!! Adding this book to my wish list!

And I'm glad to hear that you are a bit better.

>41 Helenliz: Thanks Helen. Unsurprisingly there has been a lot going round at work too. I'm glad I had the vaccinations last winter.

>42 BLBera: Thanks Beth.

>43 MissBrangwen: I think Narnia is peak childhood book nostalgia for me. It fits: Henry's books feel so warm generally. Thank you for the good wishes.

The Russian Detective
I loved this, a beautiful graphic novel inspired by 19th century Russian crime novels (many of them now lost). Charlotte "Charlie" Fox is removed from her crime beat for a big city paper and sent to cover a big society ball. Instead of covering fancy frocks, she finds herself at the centre of a murder enquiry when an heiress is murdered.

>44 charl08: Looks lovely, Charlotte. Russian, 19th century, prefect and the drawing suits very well.

I do hope you got some better by now. Coughing and backpain are a bad combination :-(

>40 charl08: Oh I like that quote. Emily Henry's Book Lovers is my favorite of what I've read so far, but I'm hoping to get to Funny Story this summer.

>45 FAMeulstee: A really nice one, and with a helpful reminder of her back catalogue listed at the back of the book, so I need to go hunting for the rest of her books. I'm walking to work again, so nearly there back-wise.

>46 bell7: I was impatient and got the kindle version. Although now I'm wondering about a paperback copy for the shelves, as I suspect I'll probably reread at some point. But really no space for this at all!

>44 charl08: This one looks fun! I love the dog!

Hi Charlotte! I've finally found you. I hope you're well on the road to recovery by now.

>40 charl08: I intend reading more Emily Henry books, too; thanks for (another) reminder.

>44 charl08: 'Daily Balalaika' - obviously a serious newspaper :0)

There seems to be more illness going around these days. I never used to get sick after travelling but it happens more often now since we had that time when we stayed away from travel and each other. Hope you are feeling better soon, Charlotte.

>48 BLBera: Yes, it was quirky and entertaining. Recommended.

>49 humouress: Hi Nina, thanks for visiting. I'd missed the Balalaika reference. Now I can't get the music from the Third man out of my head (which is odd, as that's the zither...).

>50 Familyhistorian: It was properly unpleasant, hoping it's a one off for me (and that your future travel is also clear).

I finished two books, both of which have been floating around for some time.

A Flat Place is one I picked up due to the women's prize non-fiction list. It is both a memoir and an exploration of British flat landscapes, from Norfolk to Orkney. Masud weaves in her own experience of growing up in Pakistan with an abusive, controlling father. She describes the way that the flat landscapes speak to her emotional state, often struggling to connect with others due to complex PTSD from her childhood. The book made me want to visit the flat places she describes, with the exception of the Lancashire walk across a bay. That one I don't want to do, as the thought of it rather freaks me out (you're only allowed to walk the route with official guides, as it's so easy to get stuck in unstable sand.)

Human Rights, Robot Wrongs
This was pretty terrifying. The author discusses the way AI is currently used and breaks down the implications of this for human society. From the problems of training models on dodgy internet data to the people in developing countries being paid a pittance to watch horrendous content so that it can be accurately tagged. The amount of water used to run tech to the way chatbots have been linked to crime with vulnerable people. I had no idea that chatbots played a role in crime (eg this story:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67012224 ). Just arghhhhhh.....

>52 charl08: Sounds like the Alegre book is something we should all read Charlotte. Adding to my list.