Holiday Reading, or the Lack Thereof

Part of my US book haul

Usually, holidays are a delightful excuse to do All The Reading. When I went home for two weeks in the middle of this month, though, I… didn’t. There are a couple of reasons for this, I think. One is that I read a lot for my actual job, and I would read at least as much if I weren’t a bookseller, anyway. Another is that I was having a really hard time focusing: my parents live about ten miles outside of Charlottesville, Virginia; I went to school there. The intersection where Heather Heyer was murdered by a Nazi is the same intersection where my dad used to pick me up from my weekend job. My best friend was punched in the face by a Nazi that Saturday. It’s one thing to see this in the media; it’s another to see, in the background of the news photos and footage, landmarks as familiar and dear to you as your own hand. A third reason is that, perhaps in order to distract us all from that heinous shit, my parents had me on a heavy schedule of visiting old and new friends, drinking wine in central Virginia’s many vineyards, going to restaurants and art exhibits, and generally Keeping Busy. Reading fell by the wayside a little.

I did read some books while I was there—more on those in August Superlatives at the end of the month. Perhaps more importantly, my dad and I had a Grand Day Out near the end of my visit, which consisted of a ridiculously delicious meal, complete with dessert wine, followed by a tour of downtown Charlottesville’s many bookshops. (I even managed to introduce him to some he’d never been into!) Herewith, a rundown of purchases:

Coding Freedom by E. Gabriella Coleman—from Blue Whale Books (secondhand fiction and general nonfiction; modern first editions; antiquarian Virginiana and maps[!]) I’ve wanted to read this ever since I read The Idealist, Justin Peters’s biography of Aaron Swartz. Coleman writes about the ethics of hacking, free culture, and free/open source software. It’s not particularly technical, so my low code-reading ability is no handicap; it’s heavier on legal and philosophical arguments. It’s also actually on my Goodreads TBR.

Roughing It by Mark Twain—from Read It Again Sam (secondhand general fiction, children’s, huge thriller and sci-fi sections) My dad adores Mark Twain. He has previously told me to read both Roughing It and The Innocents Abroad, Twain’s American and European travelogues. Read It Again Sam’s copy of Roughing It was slightly smaller and in paperback, so the choice was obvious. I’m reading this now and it is simply delightful: detailed, observant, and dryly funny as hell.

Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor—from Daedalus Books (If you ever go to Charlottesville, you must go here. It is owned by Sandy McAdams, who has had MS and been in a wheelchair for at least as long as I can remember, and who yet continues to run this three-storey townhouse on the corner of 4th and Market, crammed to the literal rafters with secondhand paperbacks. The place is a labyrinth of treasure.) I’ve loved Flannery O’Connor since I wrote a paper on her short stories at the end of my junior year in high school. That paper got me into Oxford. Since then, I’ve moved from uncritical adulation to a kind of baffled fascination—you can never quite tell what O’Connor thinks, and I’ve started believing that she’s far less healthy and/or generally correct than I previously thought—but her voice is undeniable and addictive. This is a collection of her essays and lectures; irresistible.

The Devil In Silver by Victor LaValle—from New Dominion Bookshop (I worked at New Dominion all through high school. The proprietor, Carol Troxell, was a beloved mentor and role model; when I went to university, she took me to lunch, gave me a pair of pearl earrings and told me never to open a joint bank account with a man. She died very unexpectedly earlier this year, and for a while the shop’s future was in doubt. As of my visit, her husband Robert had hired a manager, Julia, who has done amazing things with the shop stock and generally modernised some of its more antiquated aspects. It’s in good hands.) The best thing to do in a bookshop if you have no particular agenda, but want to buy something, is to go straight to a bookseller, ask them to recommend you one paperback book, and then buy it—no questions asked, no arguments. This is what happened at New Dominion; Robert (not Carol’s husband, a different Robert) recommended The Devil In Silver, an allegorical horror novel set in an insane asylum. I’ve heard of LaValle and I love how Robert described him: as someone working in a Lovecraftian tradition, but whose motivating horror is the fear of institutionalised racism, as opposed to Lovecraft’s fear of the racial Other. Sign me up.

Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun, by Sarah Ladipo Manyika—from New Dominion Bookshop Because Naomi loved it, and described it as being about “a woman in her 70s who’s lived a varied life, unafraid to dress as she pleases, contemplate tattoos, read voraciously and discuss sexuality and how she’s found life as a woman and as a person of colour.” Uh, YES.

I also had a Grand Day Out with my younger brother Nick, which resulted in some book purchases. Three of them came from Telegraph Comics, a new art and comic shop downtown which has a great, highly curated graphic novels section: I bought volume 3 of Saga, Brian K. Vaughan’s intergalactic love-story-against-great-odds that features my beloved Lying Cat (and some more naked people), volume 1 of Y: the Last Man by the same writer, which posits a world where all men but one—Yorick—have been killed by a gendered virus, and The Case of the Team Spirit by John Allison, the first collected Bad Machinery story (which you can read here, as well as Allison’s other [brilliant] work). Oh, and I also found a pristine copy of the Arden Shakespeare edition of King Lear for $4 in a junk shop in Ruckersville. Score!

I’ve already read Saga vol. 3 and The Case of the Team Spirit, and am working my way through Roughing It right now—which shall I choose next?

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Down the TBR Hole, #3

Time for another round! This is a meme started by Lia, and it goes as follows: set your to-read list on Goodreads to “date added” in ascending order, then go through five to ten books in chronological order to decide which ones are keepers and which ones you’re really, for whatever reason, never going to read.

(My Goodreads TBR, by the way, isn’t like a real-world TBR. It only represents books I’d like to read—they’re not necessarily books I already have. It does, however, often guide my purchasing decisions.)

Book #21: Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter

Why is it on my TBR? It looked like cool, reasonably accessible writing about maths and music and pattern. Sold.

Do I already own it? No, although I have Hofstadter’s (massive) book on translation, Le ton beau de Marot.

Verdict? Keep, or at least keep to try. Ton beau is written—at least to begin with—in a half-rhyming, almost spoken-word style; if GEB is the same I may have a hard time with it, since I need maths writing to be a bit more straightforward.

Book #22: English Food, by Jane Grigson

Why is it on my TBR? Quite superficially, because I liked the look of it in a shop.

Do I already own it? I did. I’ve already gotten rid of it, because…

Verdict? …if I’m ever going to have the time, energy and technique to prepare dishes like devilled hare’s kidney in marmalade (only a little bit exaggerating), it will be very far into the future.

Book #23: A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

Why is it on my TBR? Read a good review of it while trawling through the archives of a books blog I’d just discovered and really adored, I think. Can’t recall which one—perhaps Eve’s Alexandria.

Do I already own it? Nope.

Verdict: Keep. It’s a classic of speculative fiction and I’m fascinated by the idea of monks preserving civilisation post-apocalypse, like late antiquity all over again. (Plus, the title is terrific for charades.)

Book #24: Blue Highways, by William Least Heat-Moon

Why is it on my TBR? Americana. Nostalgia. Travels on the forgotten byways of the continent. (A weakness for road-trippery.)

Do I already own it? Nope.

Verdict: I have heard not-so-good things about this one, in the interim. I might not bother.

Book #25: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt

Why is it on my TBR? Southern Gothic nonfiction. Eccentricity and Spanish moss and heat. Duh. Also, my cousin bought it for me for about $4 at a secondhand bookshop when I was seventeen; you remember things like that.

Do I already own it? Yes!

Verdict: Keep. So obviously.

Book #26: Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, by Andrew Solomon

Why is it on my TBR? I was bought it by a dear friend who thought I should read it.

Do I already own it? Yes. But I lent it to another dear friend who seemed in need of it, and then she moved a long way away, and long story short, I think she might still have it but I don’t know where.

Verdict: Keep, if I can ever find the damn thing again.

Book #27: Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain

Why is it on my TBR? Not sure. After I added it, though, it was made into a film, which is apparently amazing and surreal, and I would really like to read the book first.

Do I already own it? Nope.

Verdict: Keep, I think.

Book #28: The Common Stream: Two Thousand Years of the English Village, by Rowland Parker

Why is it on my TBR? Piqued an interest in English social history, especially over centuries. I might have just finished Ulverton by Adam Thorpe when I added it.

Do I already own it? Nope, but there’s a very attractive Eland edition in the bookshop.

Verdict: Keep. I’ve just read a Thomas Hardy and remembered why I like rusticity.

 Book #29: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Why is it on my TBR? Read Plath’s Collected Poems, thought they were amazing, had a shufti at some of her journaling and found it as compelling and personal as Woolf’s.

Do I already own it? Nope.

Verdict: Keep.

Book #30: All Change, by Elizabeth Jane Howard

Why is it on my TBR? I read the first four Cazalet Chronicles books and really, really loved them. All Change is set ten(?) years after the last one.

Do I already own it? Nope.

Verdict: Actually, discard. I loved the Cazalets so much because of the way that the children interacted with one another, and with the adults; now that the children are young adults in their own right, I don’t feel quite as compelled by it.

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Conclusions: Three books out of ten discarded, each for a good reason, I think. Going through these books is, if nothing else, reminding me of how much I’ve been “wanting to get to” for a long time, and how silly it is to put off reading interesting things you’ve been aware of for a while in favour of titles that you’ve seen more recently.

What do you think—is William Least Heat-Moon actually a genius whom I should read immediately? Is Sylvia Plath not worth it? How difficult is Douglas Hofstadter’s mathematical writing?! Comments much encouraged, as always.

Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts

1. Today I went to the hospital for a diabetes clinic appointment. I have them every three months or so. I try not to think about them too much. I try not to think about being diabetic too much. It’s been the case for twenty-one years, so there’s not much point in dwelling on it. Clinic appointments stress me out, especially in a large hospital instead of the smaller outpatient centre I attended as a kid. They’re often embarrassing or frustrating, or both: navigating the brusque guy on the ward desk; peeing in a cup; answering inane NHS questionnaires on an iPad; waiting in an ugly, humid room with a bunch of other broken humans; all these things make me want to claw my skin off. That’s even before we get to the part where I have to be weighed, or where a diabetic nurse has the chance to scold me for lax attitudes to medicating, or where a dietitian tells me, for the seven thousandth time, about food groups.

This time, I didn’t get a nurse; I got a consultant. She was young, and kind, and smart, and she didn’t push me. At some point, when she went away to check something with the phlebotomist, something new happened: I started crying. When she came back, I tried to stop, and to apologise. “I’ve had this for twenty-one years,” I said. “I should be able to—” and then stopped. The doctor looked at me and said, gently, “Do you know how common depression and anxiety are amongst diabetics? Especially ones who’ve had it since they were children? I see this all the time.”

And to my own surprise, I looked up and said, “I’m so angry.”

The long and the short of it is that there’s counselling available, and I’ve asked for a referral. The NHS may be cumbersome and bureaucratic, but it came through for me today. It’s taken me this long, but it’s time to sort some things out. If you feel the same way, but you’re scared or uncertain, take this story as a good omen. People pay their taxes for this; for you; for me.

2. Relatedly: I hope you all voted Labour.

3. You know that “one like = one fave book” Twitter meme that’s been going around? I did it through my work Twitter account (@HeywoodHill). It was what you might call successful.

4. I did one from my personal account too. You know, if you want to.

5. Many congratulations to Naomi Alderman for winning the Baileys Prize with The Power! I can’t say that I’m surprised, or indeed disappointed, although my personal favourite was Do Not Say We Have Nothing, for the sheer high-level thinking that it displays at every turn. But The Power is a terrific, deserving, and very timely winner.

Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts is hosted by Christine at Bookishly Boisterous. Pop in, say hi.

Down the TBR Hole, #2

This is a meme started by Lia, and it goes as follows: set your to-read list on Goodreads to “date added” in ascending order, then go through five to ten books in chronological order to decide which ones are keepers and which ones you’re really, for whatever reason, never going to read. (My TBR, by the way, only represents books I’d like to read—they’re not necessarily books I already have.)

Book #11: Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense, by Francis Spufford

Why is it on my TBR? Look at that subtitle, and consider that I was raised in the Episcopal Church by a Christian mother and an atheist father, that music kept me in churches and chapels for most of my early adulthood, and that my crisis of faith started when I was eight and continues unabated to the present day, such that I now find it impossible to talk about religious belief with anyone at all, so complex and snarled is my relationship to it.

Do I already own it? Nope.

Verdict? Keep. I go through phases of reading around this topic – liberal theologians trying to sort their own heads out – and I’ll get to Spufford.

Book #12: Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace

Why is it on my TBR? I’m both pretentious and ambitious.

Do I already own it? No.

Verdict? Oh, keep, I think. I really do want to read it.

Book #13: The Flavour Thesaurus, by Nikki Segnit

Why is it on my TBR? Because the concept is fantastic: a compendium of how flavours relate to one another, the idea being that if you understand flavour relationships, your own cooking can be both more inventive and better quality.

Do I already own it? Nope – I’ve come close a few times though.

Verdict: Surprisingly, discard. It is still a brilliant idea and a gorgeously produced book (and the Chaos knows the author and her husband, which makes me feel guilty) – but my cooking at the moment isn’t at the experimental level that would make this book indispensable. If I ever start working from home again (aka writing half the day and pissing about in the kitchen the other half), maybe.

Book #14: Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon

Why is it on my TBR? Haven’t any idea.

Do I already own it? Nope.

Verdict: Discard – if I can’t remember why I wanted to read it… It looks interesting enough, but life is short.

Book #15: Gravity’s Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon

Why is it on my TBR? Hmm. There must have been some kind of Pynchon-fever going on at some point, given this and the above.

Do I already own it? Nope.

Verdict: Keep. A classic of post-war literature, something I should have under my belt.

Book #16: Independent People, by Halldor Laxness

Why is it on my TBR? I read about it in Jane Smiley’s Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel and thought it looked fantastic. Also, taciturn Icelandic farmers are auto-approved.

Do I already own it? Yes, there’s a copy in my room at my parents’ house.

Verdict: This is a hard one. I’ve tried to read it three times and failed every time. I know Victoria loved it, though. I want to try again.

Book #17: Oscar and Lucinda, by Peter Carey

Why is it on my TBR? I think I read the blurb and thought it sounded magical – card tricks and floating glass palaces in Victorian Australia! – and perhaps a bit like Possession.

Do I already own it? My parents have a copy with the (unforgivably ugly) Faber cover pictured. 

Verdict: Yeah, keep.

Book #18: The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James

Why is it on my TBR? Acquired a copy for a quid at an Oxfam during university, put it on Goodreads in a vague attempt to keep myself accountable

Do I already own it? Not anymore.

Verdict: Discard, in this particular sense. I’d still like to read it, but I’m not going to try very hard.

Book #19: Landscape and Memory, by Simon Schama

Why is it on my TBR? See previous TBR Hole post for an explanation of my former obsession with Simon Schama, but I got this one in particular because of an interest in the connection between landscape and cultural history.

Do I already own it? Yes, hurrah.

Verdict: Keep, although it’s difficult to imagine when I’ll have the time to read it—it’s very long and the physical book is huge, as well, so it’s hard to carry.

Book #20: Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country, by Andrew J. Bacevich

Why is it on my TBR? Not at all sure. I must have read a review.

Do I already own it? Nope.

Verdict: Discard, unless it turns out to be the most important book ever written on the subject. There are a couple of similar titles further down the list, anyway.

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Conclusions: A little more success in discarding this time, mostly because I’m either no longer interested in a book’s subject or because it no longer has the relevance to the way I’m living that it used to. This project is helpful, too, in allowing me to realise that being open to reading something without actually making a plan to do so is legitimate.

What do you think—is Henry James indispensable? Should I give up on Halldor Laxness? (I doubt it, but you never know.) How much of Pynchon is worthwhile? Comments much encouraged, as always.

Down the TBR Hole, #1

I’ve had a hard time focusing enough to write criticism recently. I’ve had a hard time finding enough time to read; it’s halfway through the month and I’ve just started the month’s sixth book, which, given monthly totals so far this year, is glacial. So to fill the gaps here, I’m turning to this meme, which I spotted on Jillian’s blog (originally created by a blogger called Lia) and which has the virtue of actually being mildly productive.

It goes as follows: set your to-read list on Goodreads to “date added” in ascending order, then go through five to ten books in chronological order to decide which ones are keepers and which ones you’re really, for whatever reason, never going to read. (My TBR, by the way, only represents books I’d like to read—they’re not necessarily books I already have.)

Book #1: Nicholas Nickleby, by Charles Dickens

Why is it on my TBR? Obviously, I want to read all of Dickens’s novels (and I’m getting there! 9 out of 15), but they’re not all listed on my Goodreads TBR. Given the date I added this—February 2013—I suspect I was impelled by a viewing of the film of Nicholas Nickleby. You know, the one with that pretty boy.

Do I already own it? Nope.

Verdict? Keep—I’ll own it one day, probably when I decide I’m sick of having mismatched paperback editions of Dickens and just buy a complete set that’s actually attractive.

Book #2: The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse, 1509-1659, ed. David Norbrook

Why is it on my TBR? David Norbrook was one of my favourite lecturers. Also, there was a time when I thought my academic interest was almost precisely one hundred years earlier than it actually is.

Do I already own it? Nope.

Verdict? Keep—I really like Renaissance poetry, its vocabulary of allusion and the tensions between public and private that are inherent in a literature composed mostly by horny courtiers under constant surveillance. Plus it’s at its best when anthologised, and I suspect Norbrook’s is the best of those.

Book #3: The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene

Why is it on my TBR? I went on a bit of a Graham Greene kick in the summer of 2012; I presume this is a hangover from then.

Do I already own it? I don’t think so.

Verdict? Keep. It’s Graham Greene, for heaven’s sake.

Book #4: Brighton Rock, by Graham Greene

Why is it on my TBR? See above. I’ve had a thing about Brighton Rock for a while, though; it occupies this space in my mind as being about someone properly evil, although I’m not sure that’s actually true.

Do I already own it? Yes! The Chaos has a copy on his shelves.

Verdict? Slightly tricky, this. I tried it last year and simply couldn’t get the hang of it at all. But, again, it’s Graham Greene, and perhaps I wasn’t trying hard enough. KEEP!

Book #5: A Place of Greater Safety, by Hilary Mantel

Why is it on my TBR? Adored Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, enjoyed Beyond Black and Fludd, thought this was worth a go.

Do I already own it? Nope.

Verdict: Keep, obviously, oh God this isn’t going well as a culling exercise

Book #6: The Last Chronicle of Barset, by Anthony Trollope

Why is it on my TBR? I read the entire Palliser series, and the entire Barsetshire series except for this last installment, between 2012 and 2014. I’m a completist, and the Penguin English Library cover is gorgeous.

Do I already own it? Yes! Although it is in my grandparents’ garage in West Sussex.

Verdict: Keep, but maybe this particular version of it can be given away—the entire Barsetshire series was released as Penguin Clothbound Classics and I stare at them daily from my desk at work, wondering how long it will be before I just snap and buy them so that all my Trollopes match and look nice, like adults’ books, instead of the awful mismatched copies that I have now. (It is exactly the same sitch as with Dickens and I do not enjoy it.)

The FACE on him. #sideeye

Book #7: Essays, by Michel de Montaigne

Why is it on my TBR? I first encountered Montaigne in a high school class called Humanities, which is probably responsible for saving the lives of several hundred bright, desperately bored kids in my hometown (Charlottesville, Virginia). I came across him again as an undergrad. The idea of writing essays—literally, “attempts”—to explore your own soul was hugely appealing.

Do I already own it? Sort of. I own a selected edition, but not the big-ass Penguin paperback that represents the complete version.

Verdict: Sigh. Keep, obviously. I’ve read a few of them and I really like him, as a writer, as a person. It’s just that there are so many.

Book #8: A History of the World in 100 Objects, by Neil MacGregor

Shiny covers are a bastard to photograph, I guess

 

Why is it on my TBR? My dad got it one Christmas, and it looked comprehensive and interesting.

Do I already own it? No—the plan would be to read it when visiting my parents.

Verdict: Finally, a firm no! I’m sure it’s great, but MacGregor did it as a podcast originally, and I think this is basically just a print tie-in. Unnecessary.

Book #9: The Embarrassment of Riches: an Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, by Simon Schama

Why is it on my TBR? 1: I used to fancy the pants off Simon Schama. (It was an early manifestation of a clear preference for older fellas.) 2: This is precisely the period I’m interested in. 3: Dutch paintings make me want to swoon with joy. 4: Material culture is fascinating.

Do I own it? Nope.

Verdict: Of the four reasons to read it given above, three are still applicable and legitimate, so keep, duh.

Book #10: Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

Why is it on my TBR? Astonishingly, I escaped American public high school without ever having read this.

Do I own it? The Chaos might have a copy somewhere, but I don’t think so.

Verdict: I have to keep this, really. There is no reason in the world to decide I’m never going to read it. It’s just one of those books—like The Picture of Dorian Gray and A Tale of Two Cities—that has mysteriously never quite been compelling enough to be next. (But I read A Tale of Two Cities in January, so I bet I’ll get round to this.)

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Conclusions: The very earliest stuff on my TBR is stuff I still want to read, either because it’s classic or canonical or because it’s about subjects I’m still interested in. This is kind of a nice thing to know. As we get closer to the present day, however, I fully expect to see the influence of increased exposure to bookish media—blogs, review sites, Twitter, etc.—and a trigger-happy index finger.

Am I wrong about any of these? Is Vonnegut not worth the hassle? Is Graham Greene a waste of time? (No.) Is Neil MacGregor’s book 1000% worth reading? Comments welcomed.

2016’s Dishonourable Mentions

I was really lucky with my reading this year. Maybe it’s because as I get older, I have a better sense of what I’m going to like; maybe it’s the opposite and I’m just developing the ability to appreciate a wider range of writing. Whatever the reason, most of the books I read this year were not just good but really good, worth rereading at the very least—even the ones that didn’t make my Best Of Year list. But…no year is perfect. Here are the few books that just completely misfired for me in 2016. (This is all, of course, highly personal and subjective. What didn’t work for me may work brilliantly for you! And vice versa. I’ll still try to explain, succinctly, why I felt these books faltered, but don’t feel you need to take my word for it. All links are to my reviews, if you want to read more.)

The Expatriates, by Janice Lee

What’s it about? The intertwined lives of three women living in Hong Kong: Hilary Starr, the childless stay-at-home-wife of an expat lawyer; Margaret Reade, whose youngest child went missing last year; and Mercy Cho, the childminder who was meant to be looking after the lost boy at the time of his disappearance.

Why didn’t it work? From my review: “Over the course of the novel, all three women will come to understand and accept motherhood as the highest possible goal of a life—a conclusion which, couched as it is in a foreign setting and an occasionally melodramatic plot, could be overlooked on first reading, but which becomes increasingly uncomfortable the more you think about it.”

Shylock Is My Name, by Howard Jacobson

What’s it about? It’s the second entry in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, which novelises and updates some of the Bard’s most famous plays. Jacobson resets The Merchant of Venice in Cheshire’s Golden Triangle, throwing celebrity footballers into the mix.

Why didn’t it work? From my review: “It’s not just the gross dehumanisation suggested by the use of the word “Jewesses” (though [the characters] Plury and D’Anton use it frequently); it’s also that, basically, they’ve pimped a teenager, and none of the resulting brouhaha treats that as a big deal. Combined with Strulovitch’s original pervy possessiveness, and the many approving references to Philip Roth, it just all made me hideously uncomfortable.”

Ten Days, by Gillian Slovo

What’s it about? The development of riots over the course of ten days in south London, as a result of a death in police custody. There are some clear parallels to the Tottenham riots of 2011.

Why didn’t it work? From my review: “The problem may be that I’ve seen all of this before, and not too long ago at that, and done with greater flair: in House of Cards, obviously, but also in The Politician’s Husband. (I hope other people remember that show. It starred David Tennant and Emily Watson, and aired in 2013. It was fucking devastating.) It’s suggestive, I think, that both of those instances are television shows. I suspect that this is material we don’t actually expect to read anymore; political machinations and back-room deals are the domain of the small screen now, and a good actor can raise a thinly written politician stereotype to a higher level, whereas a novel…well, a novel has to rely on its writing. The writing is all that a novel has.”

The Improbability of Love, by Hannah Rothschild

What’s it about? A down-on-her-luck woman working as a private chef finds a priceless Watteau painting in a junk shop; everyone from a Saudi sheik to a shady art dealer decides they want it.

Why didn’t it work? From my Superlatives post: “It’s a sweet idea but executed in a very Eat-Pray-Love sort of way. The main character’s mother is an alcoholic and the conversations they have are so full of psychological jargon that I wasn’t at all convinced two people would talk to each other like that. Also, Rothschild doesn’t get contractions: all of her characters say things like ‘I will’ or ‘You do not”, instead of ‘I’ll’ or ‘You don’t’. It’s not for emphasis, either, and it happens for 404 pages, first to last.”

Raw Spirit, by Iain Banks

What’s it about? Banks, a famous science fiction writer but also a well-known lover of whisky, takes a road trip with several of his old drinking buddies to visit, and sample the wares of, every single-malt distillery in Scotland.

Why didn’t it work? From my #20booksofsummer roundup: “This book suffers appallingly from two interrelated things: an excess of privilege, and a deficit of self-awareness. …There were times when so very little of this book had anything to do with whisky that it honestly felt like he was taking the piss. Like the five pages about a Jaguar he once had, followed by a cursory page and a half on a distillery’s history and product. Or the long anecdotes about his friends and what they’re like when they’re drunk. Real talk: no one is a hilarious drunk to a stranger.”

The Many, by Wyl Menmuir

What’s it about? Timothy buys an abandoned fishing cottage in a tiny Cornish village and sets out to restore it, temporarily leaving his wife behind in London. But the village has its own secrets: the fate of the man who lived in the cottage before Timothy, the bizarrely etiolated fish being pulled from the sea, the identity of the mysterious grey-coated woman who buys every catch…

Why didn’t it work? From my review: “The reality of reality, and the sanity of sanity, have long been uncertainties for authors to engage with. But the strength of a book lies in how satisfactorily it deals with those questions—it doesn’t have to answer them, but it has to deal with them—and The Many doesn’t deal with anything. It just shrugs and leaves. It’s a mark of my frustration that, after finishing it, I realized I still had not the slightest clue what the title meant. The many what? Fish? Deaths? Portentous pronouncements by old Clem the winchman? I don’t mean to sound bitter, but reading this book felt like being ghosted by someone on Tinder. There was so much promise here! What happened?!”

Diary of an Oxygen Thief, by Anonymous

What’s it about? The supposedly non-fictional (but, thank heavens, clearly actually fictional) account of an alcoholic Irishman who, after years of recreational cruelty to women, gets a taste of his own medicine.

Why didn’t it work? A lot of reasons, but this, from my review, might give you a clue: “The knowledge that this particular Irishman does not actually exist was, in places, the only thing that kept me reading. He is not very nice. You can gather this from the first sentence, and also from the part where he talks about purging himself of his sins against women. Handy hint: if you’re a man and you want to purge yourself of your sins against women, you will never be able to.”

The Countenance Divine, by Michael Hughes

What’s it about? In 1999, a programmer working on a fix for the Y2K bug becomes entangled with a tradition of British millennarianism involving Jack the Ripper (in 1888), William Blake (in 1777), and John Milton (in 1666).

Why didn’t it work? From my monthly Superlatives post: “The execution is so inconsistent (the sections set in 1999 are written in especially dull tones), and none of the book’s internal logic is really conveyed to the reader. Also, it features what has to be the drippiest Messiah EVER. (Unless the actual Messiah isn’t the character just referred to… Doesn’t change the rest of the book, though.) Oh, and either the Apocalypse in this book actually does rely upon horrific violence against women, or Hughes hasn’t sufficiently explained the reasons a reader should resist this interpretation. Which is such an old, and boring, story.”

The Other World, It Whispers, by Stephanie Victoire

What’s it about? A debut collection of fantastical short stories focusing on transformation, metamorphosis, and literal and figurative identity.

Why didn’t it work? From my review: “I don’t know, it’s just a little too much, or not enough: the casual colloquialisms when the rest of the story is on a higher thematic plane (“didn’t have any more cash on her”; “been sorted”), the tang of cliché (“gulped down”, “lump in her throat”). It didn’t work for me at all. …The story needs, in effect, a more judicious editorial eye. I know I say this a lot about contemporary fiction but I think it’s true; there are many, many competent stories and novels being published which could have been excellent with a little more attention and criticism.”

Did you read any of these this year? What did you think of them? Am I a lunatic fool for missing the point of The Many? Am I a horrid killjoy for wanting to roll my eyes on every page of The Improbability of Love? Let me know…

20 Books of Summer

The wonderful Cathy at 746 Books is running this event: you have from 1 June til 5 September to read a pile of twenty books that you’ve chosen for yourself. I happen to have twenty books (not including pre-pubs) on deck right now, so thought I might as well try to join in the fun! I’m expecting to be able to put these away without difficulty, but I’m also taking the whole endeavour with a pinch of salt: I generally find formalized reading challenges to be Not My Thing. As these constitute the titles I’m trying to read at the moment anyway, though, perhaps I’ll have more success.

Collected Poems (update: I can’t. Sorry, I can’t. I did try to read these all in one go, and it was impossible. I’ll only get through these by going very slowly indeed.) – Dylan Thomas: I love Dylan Thomas. I think he was utterly mad and would have been a hopeless person to know, love or be friends with, but his poetry is magical and I’d like to read it all.

Darwin Among the Machines (finished 20/06/16; thoughts here)- George Dyson: A classic text exploring the possibility of artificial intelligence. The book’s title originates from an essay by Samuel Butler, considering roughly the same question, but from a late Victorian historical perspective.

Celia’s House – DE Stevenson: A stocking pressie from last Christmas; a gentle Edwardian novel about a woman who leaves her house to her nephew and his young family. What my mum used to call “a safe book.”

The Queen of the Night (finished 03/07/16; thoughts here)- Alexander Chee: A Parisian opera star in Belle Epoque France tries to maintain her upward trajectory and keep hidden a dark and secretive past. Yes, of course I was always going to want to read it.

Jean-Étienne Liotard (update: have decided not to worry about completing this one by the end of the challenge date. It’s huge and very difficult to take out of the house, as it won’t fit in any of my normal bags) – the RA: This is the enormous hardback monograph for the Liotard exhibition that we saw at the beginning of spring. He was an Enlightenment-era French portraitist and I absolutely adored everything that we saw. My new favourite painting is his wedding portrait of 23-year-old Julie de Thellusson-Ployard. It’s the contained but genuine joy in her smile, I think.

A Manual for Cleaning Women (finished 29/06/16; thoughts here)- Lucia Berlin: Another party to which I am appallingly late, but the underappreciated-woman-writer-from-the-’60s vibe is one I can get behind. Perhaps a good preparation for Elena Ferrante, whom I’ll probably get to eventually.

Larry’s Party (finished 10/06/16; thoughts here)- Carol Shields: A novel about late-20th-century masculinity, under the guise of a character study: one man, Larry, followed from age 27 to age 47. I don’t know why, but that title makes me feel really sad.

The Idea of Perfection (finished 11/08/16) – Kate Grenville: An unlikely love story set in New South Wales, and winner of the Orange Prize. I have high hopes.

When I Lived in Modern Times (finished 05/07/16) – Linda Grant: In 1946, Evelyn Sert sails from Soho to Palestine, where the new state of Israel is coalescing, to reinvent herself, find love, and (from what the blurb coyly suggests) be a spy?! Excellent.

The Lacuna (finished 08/06/16; thoughts here) – Barbara Kingsolver: Not Kingsolver’s familiar territory here – Harrison Shepherd, a young drifter, becomes entangled with the households and intimate lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in Mexico. I heard an excerpt from it at a Baileys Prize event last fall and was very favourably impressed.

Unintentionally colour-coordinated book pile #1 (peach and green)

Housekeeping (finished 09/07/16) – Marilynne Robinson: Beautiful, phenomenal Marilynne Robinson. Her first book. All about sisters and aunts, family and loyalty. Hurrah.

Raw Spirit (finished 17/07/16) – Iain Banks: Somewhat randomly acquired in September when I visited my godmother and her husband in Glasgow, and we went on a distillery tour; they were selling this in the gift shop. Banks’s account of his attempt to find the perfect whiskey. I’d quite like to read his “real” books (sf and lit fic both), but this’ll do to start.

The Siege of Krishnapur (finished 13/06/16; thoughts here) –  J.G. Farrell: Basically a novel about the Sepoy Mutiny, but from the point of view of English soldiers barricaded into the Residency in a remote north Indian town. An early Booker Prize winner; my copy is secondhand and very tattered.

The Book of Memory (finished 04/06/16; thoughts here) – Petina Gappah: An albino Zimbabwean woman on death row recounts the strange story of her childhood, and the man her parents sold her to as a child. Rumour suggests it’s all right but not the same level as An Elegy for Easterly. Sadface.

The Father (finished 12/07/16) – Sharon Olds: Moar poetry, moar! I am trying to read more, anyway. Apparently this is good. I’ve been wary of Sharon Olds since reading a very dismissive review of her work by William Logan when I was fifteen, and only recently did I think of that review again and realize that it was crazily misogynistic. I hadn’t twigged.

Decreation – Anne Carson: Love Anne Carson. Find her a bit terrifying. Have read three of her collections already, so moving through back catalogue now.

Chronicles (finished 09/07/16) – Thomas Piketty: A more manageably-sized tome from the author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century; a collection of his financial op-ed columns. I’m being brave with this one. Economics tends to lose my attention after a time.

Brief Lives – John Aubrey: A seventeenth-century collection of biographical sketches of public figures. Aubrey is pretty well known for this work, at least among people who care about the seventeenth century; it’s gossipy, lively, and rather entertaining, on folk as diverse as Shakespeare, Edmund Halley, and John Dee.

The Unredeemed Captive (finished 26/06/16; thoughts here) – John Demos: A scholarly study of the early American nonfiction genre known as the captivity narrative, usually written by or about European settlers who had been abducted by Native Americans. Some assimilated, married into the tribe, and raised children; others escaped or were ransomed. I can’t wait for this.

The Violent Bear It Away (finished 25/07/16) – Flannery O’Connor: The last of O’Connor’s fiction that I haven’t yet read, concerning a young boy in the Deep South whose uncle is raising him to be a prophet. I expect it to contain all the murderous misunderstandings and religious wranglings that O’Connor’s work is known for.

Unintentionally colour-coordinated book pile #2 (blue and red)

I do feel rather excited now. It remains to be seen whether I can read all of these AND the nine pre-pubs that I have, at least in theory, agreed to review, but at least I know I won’t run out…