Category: Books

Booking Through Thursday – Books that Change Your Life?

Published on by Margaret9 Comments

Today’s Booking Through Thursday question is:

Which Book Changed Your Life?

I’ve seen this question before and wondered about it, so I can say with confidence that there is no one book that has changed my life. Books as a whole have influenced my life. Reading is a way of life for me. It began a long time ago when I was a little girl, listening to my Dad reading to me before I went to sleep. Books are a wonderful resource, whether you want entertainment or information. Books are part of me, I’ve always loved them. When I had to decide what to do when I left school it was my Dad who suggested that I might like to be a librarian, because he knew I loved books. So books steered me into going to Library School and working in libraries for a few years.  I’ve had a few different jobs since then, but books have always been central.

Without my love of books I would never have started to write a blog. It was whilst I was trying to find more information about a book that I stumbled into this world of book blogs and began my own – life changing!

Attacking the TBR Tome Challenge – result

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Emily’s challenge Attacking the TBR Tome is coming to an end. The challenge was to read or attempt to read 20 books from your TBR pile and to post on each one. And it was also not to buy any new books, or borrow any books from the library until you had read the 20 TBR books. I knew at the outset that I couldn’t do that and I didn’t.

I did, however, read  25 books during the year, all of which I owned before December 1st 2009. I only read two of the books on my original list (the first two listed below), but I did give myself the option of reading other books from my TBR piles and I read the following books. I’ve written about all of them except the last one, which I only finished reading yesterday.

  1. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
  2. Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan
  3. Drood by Dan Simmons
  4. Let it Bleed by Ian Rankin
  5. Black and Blue by Ian Rankin
  6. The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie
  7. Can Any Mother Help Me? by Jenna Bailey €“ see also here
  8. The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin
  9. The Warrior’s Princess by Barbara Erskine
  10. The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey
  11. Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie
  12. Hearts and Minds by Amanda Craig
  13. Faithful Unto Death by Caroline Graham
  14. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
  15. The Falls by Ian Rankin
  16. Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin
  17. Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
  18. Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky
  19. Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett
  20. Fleshmarket Close by Ian Rankin
  21. The Naming of the Dead by Ian Rankin
  22. The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie
  23. Exit Music by Ian Rankin
  24. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
  25. Reflex by Dick Francis

I’ve signed up for a few challenges for next year that should help me reduce my TBR piles even further – except, of course, that I have added more books to the piles this last year.

Teaser Tuesday

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by MizB where you share ‘teasers’. I’ve adapted it a bit to include more information about the book and longer teasers.

Yesterday I finished reading Where Three Roads Meet by Salley Vickers. I borrowed it from the library simply because I’ve enjoyed other books by Salley Vickers –  in particular Miss Garnet’s Angel and Mr Golightly’s Holiday.

Where Three Roads Meet is different, but just as good. It’s one of the Canongate Myths series, modern versions of myths told by a number of different authors. I’ve read others in the series – A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong, Weight by Jeanette Winterson (the myth of Atlas and Heracles) and The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (the myth of Penelope and Odysseus).

It’s the Oedipus myth as told to Sigmund Freud during his last years when he was suffering from cancer of the mouth. Under the influence of morphine he is visited by Tiresias, a blind prophet of Thebes who tells him his version of the Oedipus story. In between telling the story, Freud and Tiresias discuss language and the origins of words. The point where the three roads meet is the place Oedipus and his father had their tragic meeting, setting in motion the sequence of events that led to his downfall and to the fulfilment of the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother.

In Tiresias’s version Freud’s interpretation wasn’t quite right:

Because, if I may say so, here in all the world was the one person you could safely say didn’t have the complex you dreamed up for him. He was Oedipus, plain Oedipus. But not simple. What was complex about him was not that he wanted to sleep with his mother (as she herself said, that impulse is not so uncommon) nor even that he killed a man who had once threatened his life. Tit for tat, some might say. What was so remarkable was that his own safekeeping was usurped by the need to know what he needed not to know. (page 169)

This is a book with multiple layers, not a simple book. Although it’s easy enough to read it straight through, it is complex, with many ideas about life and death, and truth and ambiguity to ponder. Even if you know the story of Oedipus it seems fresh and new in this version. I found the details of the operations Freud had, their effect upon him and the terrible pain he suffered was quite shocking. All in all, a satisfying, entertaining and challenging book.

New-To-Me Authors Read in 2010

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

The other day I read Bernadette’s post about books by authors new-to-her, which of course made me think about the books I’ve read by new-to-me authors. There are 43, out of the 97 books I’ve read so far this year. Some I found by reading other blogs, some by browsing in bookshops and some from the library. Some have become favourite authors and I’ll be reading more than one of their books. Others were less to my liking and I doubt I’ll read any more by those authors. Some are début authors and some are well established authors who I’ve just never got round to reading before.

I don’t put my ratings on my reviews but just do it for my own records (and on LibraryThing too), but I’ve left them on this post for once. The asterisks indicate crime fiction. Three of the books get my highest score (I am quite generous with my ratings; I often give 5/5 and very rarely go below 3, because if I really don’t like a book I don’t finish it and don’t mark it). If you want to read my reviews I think I’ve indexed them all in my Author and Title Indexes (see the tabs above).

  1. Drood by Dan Simmons 3/5
  2. Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan 3/5
  3. Losing You by Nicci French 4.5/5 *
  4. The Music Room by William Fiennes 4/5
  5. Can any Mother Help Me? By Jenna Bailey 5/5
  6. Fallen Gods by Quintin Jardine 4/5 *
  7. The Warrior’s Princess by Barbara Erskine 3.5/5
  8. Poetic Lives: Shelley by Daniel Hahn 3.5/5
  9. The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith 5/5
  10. Heartland by John MacKay 3.5/5
  11. A Loyal Character Dancer* by Qui Xiaolong 5/5
  12. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters 4/5
  13. Raven Black by Ann Cleeves* 5/5
  14. Pariah by Dave Zeltserman* 4/5
  15. The Widow’s Tale by Mick Jackson 3.5/5
  16. Hearts and Minds by Amanda Craig 3.5/5
  17. King Arthur’s Bones by The Medieval Murderers 4/5
  18. Semi-Detached by Griff Rhys Jones (library book) 4/5
  19. Faithful Unto Death by Caroline Graham 4.5/5 *
  20. 100 Days on Holy Island: a Writer’s Exile by Peter Mortimer
  21. Revenge Served Cold by Jackie Fullerton* 3/5 (ARC)
  22. The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison 3.5/5
  23. Snapped in Cornwall by Janie Bolitho* 3.5/5
  24. Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days by Jared Cade 4/5
  25. Hector and the Search for Happiness by Francis Lelord 3.5/5
  26. The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths* 4/5
  27. The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono 3.5/5
  28. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre 4/5
  29. The Border Line by Eric Robson 4/5
  30. Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett 4/5
  31. Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty 4/5
  32. The Gourmet by Muriel Barbery 3.5/5
  33. Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer * 5/5
  34. Seeking Whom He May Devour by Fred Vargas *4.5/5
  35. Flodden by Niall Barr 4/5 (scan read part)
  36. The Tent, the Bucket and Me by Emma Kennedy 4/5
  37. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre * 5/5
  38. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman 3/5
  39. A Detective at Death’s Door by H R F Keating *3/5
  40. Missing Link by Joyce Holms* 4/5
  41. All Bones and Lies by Anne Fine 3/5
  42. Seeing Things: a Memoir by Oliver Postgate 5/5
  43. Frozen Moment by Camilla Ceder *4/5

The Victorian Literature Reading Challenge

Published on by Margaret13 Comments

Completed – see end of post.

Following on from my decision to take part in more reading challenges in an attempt to reduce my tbr list I’ll also be taking part in the Victorian Literature Challenge in 2011. This is hosted by Bethany at words, words, words.

Bethany writes: Queen Victoria reigned from 1837-1901. If your book wasn’t published during those particular years, but is by an author considered ‘Victorian’ then go for it. We’re here for reading, not historical facts! Also, this can include works by authors from other countries, so long as they are from this period.

Choose from one of four levels:

Sense and Sensibility: 1-4 books.
Great Expectations: 5-9 books.
Hard Times: 10-14 books.
Desperate Remedies: 15+ books.

Again, I’m choosing my books from my tbr list. All these were written in the Victorian period. I’m aiming for the Sense and Sensibility level and if I complete that I’ll go for the next level and so on.

  • An Autobiography by Anthony Trollope
  • Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
  • Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
  • The Coral Island by R M Ballantyne
  • David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  • East Lynne by Mrs Henry Wood
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
  • Lorna Doone by R D Blackmore
  • Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
  • The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
  • News from Nowhere by William Morris
  • The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
  • Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot
  • Sylvia’s Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell
  • The Tower of London by W H Ainsworth

That’s a lot of books, but I’ll be happy if I read just four of them during the year.

Update:

Teaser Tuesday: Weeds by Richard Mabey

Published on by Margaret9 Comments

I love gardens but I’m not a good gardener and I’ve always thought that I can grow weeds much better than any other plants. I read somewhere that weeds are just plants growing in the wrong place. My experience is that they are extremely hardy, grow exceptionally well and need little if any help from me – leave them to themselves and they’ll quickly fill any spaces and more on any type of soil.

I have spent hours, days, years even trying to get rid of bindweed and ground elder. No matter what I’ve tried – digging them out, which seems impossible, smothering them or dousing them with chemicals, which worked for a while,- they always comes back and kill anything growing in the way. The only benefit I can see is that the flowers are quite pretty.

So, when I was sitting in the café in a bookshop the other week and I saw Weeds by Richard Mabey on display opposite where I was sitting I just had to have a look at it:

I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve dipped into it. Here is an extract that caught my eye as I browsed the pages:

Weeds thrive in the company of humans. They aren’t parasites, because they can exist without us, but we are their natural ecological partners, the species alongside which they do best. They relish the things we do to the soil; clearing forests, digging, farming, dumping nutrient-rich rubbish. They flourish in arable fields, battlefields, parking lots, herbaceous borders. They exploit our transport systems, our cooking adventures, our obsession with packaging. Above all they use us when we stir the world up, disrupt its settled patterns. It would be a tautology to say that these days they are found most abundantly where there is most weeding; but that notion ought to make us question whether the weeding encourages the weeds as much as vice versa. (page 12)

Is he saying we’d do just as well not doing any weeding?

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by MizB where you share ‘teasers’. I’ve adapted it a bit in this post, to include more information about the book and longer teasers.