Five in October

I read five books in October.

Foreign Correspondence by Geraldine Brooks

As readers here will know, Geraldine Brooks is one of my favourite novelists (March and The Year of Wonders highly recommended). 

Foreign Correspondence is a memoir of her childhood in the 50s and 60s in Sydney before it was the multi-cultural city it is today. She dreamed of a life far away and so, to find out more about the world, acquired various pen friends from the United States, France and Israel. As these things tend to do, the pen-friendships petered out after a few years. She grew up to get her wish, becoming an award-winning foreign correspondent in the Middle East. Then she had the idea of tracing her former pen friends …

Murder Underground by Mavis Dorelia Hay

A classic whodunit first published in the 1930s and recently reissued by The British Library

Maximum Exposure by Jenny Harper

This is the third in the Heartlands series of novels – all set around the town of Hailesbank in East Lothian. It follows Feel the Wind and Fly and Loving Susie. Maximum Exposure’s heroine Daisy Irvine is a photographer with The Hailesbank Herald. I do like a story based around a newspaper.

The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White

E. B. White wrote very prolifically for the New Yorker but he is best known for his children’s novels Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little. His third novel for children The Trumpet of the Swan is less well-known but equally good. A friend lent me this lovely copy but it’s available in various versions.

The Signature of all Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

Read for book group. Actually this spilled over into November – it’s a page-turner but there are 588 pages to turn. It begins with the birth of Alma Whittaker in Philadelphia in 1800, the daughter of Henry, former London vagrant, now a very rich botanical explorer and businessman. Alma wants nothing more than to learn her father’s business, and to make her own investigations into mosses as she figures out the part they play in evolution – until events lead to her sailing across the world to Tahiti and then to Holland. An enjoyable great sweep of a novel (although I did feel my red editorial pen twitching towards the end). 

I have never read Eat, Pray, Love by the same author, nor seen the film. The person suggesting this book for reading by the book group said it was nothing like EPL, a statement that will either encourage or deter you from reading it.

Prize-giving

Tonight, 14 October, this year's winner of the Man Booker Prize will be announced.

The short-listed titles are:

How to be Both by Ali Smith

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

How to Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris

J by Howard Jacobson

The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee

We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

I have not read any of them (yet … ).

I thought I would look back at twenty years of the prize and see how many of the winners I’ve read (and if I liked them or not). There were more than I’d expected:

2010 The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson x

2009 Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel √

2007 The Gathering by Anne Enright -

2002 The Life of Pi by Yann Martel √

2000 The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood √

1997 The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy x

1995 The Ghost Road by Pat Barker √

(2012 Bring Up the Bodies, I have a lovely hardback copy and look forward to reading, suspecting though that I might have to skim through Wolf Hall again first)

2013 The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, bought, signed by the author, as yet unread)

  

The American equivalent is the Pulitzer Prize and my reading of those is:

2011 A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan √

2010 Tinkers by Paul Harding √

2006 March by Geraldine Brooks √

2005 Gilead by Marilynne Robinson √ (coming to Edinburgh on November 16th)

1995 The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields √

1994 The Shipping News by Annie Proulx √

Not so many – but they include titles by three of my top ten authors, Geraldine Brooks, Marilynne Robinson and the late lamented Carol Shields. Another winner, Anne Tyler (in 1989 for Breathing Lessons) is also a favourite. Donna Tartt won this year with Goldfinch, yet another title on my wish list.

So little time … so much to read.

In which I acquire twenty-five books

I went to the Christian Aid book sale in May with a long wish list. I took home twenty-five books, only two of which were on the list …

A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear

Maisie Dobbs is a private investigator. Love this series which begins just after the end of WW1.

A Quiet Year by Derk Tangye

Heard an interesting radio programme about him the other week

Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty

Was on wish list; the reviews have been brilliant

At Times Like This by Catherine Dunne

Irish writer; haven’t read her before

Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

I blogged about Geraldine Brooks here. This one is set in Martha’s Vineyard in 1650.

Cross Country with Grandma by Karen Testa

Great title

Dear Life by Alice Munro

After reading The View from Castle Rock I’m looking forward to this

Every Contact Leaves a Trace by Elanor Dymot

Sounds very intriguing

Girls will be Girls by Arthur Marshall

Arthur reviews girls’ school stories and other titles in his own hilarious way. The other title I’ve read of his was called Giggling in the Shrubbery.

Homeland and other stories by Barbara Kingsolver

Love Barbara Kingsolver’s novels and essays but have never read her short stories

If Morning Ever Comes by Anne Tyler

One of my favourite authors

Night Music by Jojo Moyes

Always good for a page turner

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Yipee, another Geraldine Brooks – this time set in Vienna in World War II

Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld

Was on wish list; have loved her other books

Telling Tales by Ann Cleeves

For when I feel like a spot of crime

The Aloha Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini

Anything with patchwork quilts catches my eye

The Beginners Goodbye by Anne Tyler

An Anne Tyler I haven’t read; what a treat

My Antonia by Willa Cather

First published 1918; set in the American West

The Hour Before Dawn by Sara MacDonald

A family mystery set in New Zealand

The House at Sea’s End by Elly Griffiths

More crime. Hope I like it as I see there are other titles with the same main character.

The Long Weekend by Victoria Henry

And a long book to get lost in

The Red House by Mark Haddon

Have started this one; don’t care much for the characters but his writing is stunning

True Grit by Charlie Ports

Loved both the 2010 version of the film and the John Wayne original so will be interested to see how they compare with the book

When the Children come Home by Julie Summers

Non-fiction, about children who were evacuated in WW2

Wild Strawberries by Angela Thirkell

A lovely Virago edition

Plus five girls’ annuals for my collection including one printed in 1948 when paper was still rationed. The board cover is counted as page 1.

I think that will keep me going in reading material for a little while. Have you read any of the titles above?

Six in April

I read six books in April.

The Physic Garden by Catherine Czerkawska, published by Saraband. Set in Glasgow in the 19th century. Young gardener William Lang forms an unlikely friendship with botanist Dr Thomas Brown while working in the university physic garden. Around them, City life is never short of drama: poverty and pollution preys on all but the lucky few and resurrection men prowl the streets to procure corpses for anatomists to experiment on. Atmospheric, full of fascinating historical detail, but above all a great story.

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. I first heard of Geraldine Brooks (Australian-born and now living in the States) when she won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006 with March, the story of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy’s father while he is away as a chaplain on the front line in the American Civil War, which also tells us something of his early life and how he met and married Marmee. March is faithful to the spirit of Little Women while being very much its own self and is one of my very favourite books.

So I was keen to read something else by this author and her first novel (2001) Year of Wonders did not disappoint. It is set in a different century and country from March and is based on a true story, as it is set in 1666, in Derbyshire, when the Great Plague reached Eyam and the decision was taken by the villagers to isolate themselves to prevent its further spread. Events are seen through the eyes of an eighteen-year-old widow, Anna. No less a person than Hilary Mantel said of it ‘It has a vivid imaginative truth, and is beautifully written.’ With which I can only agree and urge you to seek out Geraldine Brooks right now.

Take My Breath Away by Sally Quilford. My Weekly Pocket Novel: a murder mystery on the set of a remake of the film Cleopatra.

Treasures: What do we treasure most? published by Scottish Book Trust to celebrate Scottish Book Week 2013. Contributions from some famous folk eg Richard Holloway, Mairi Hedderwick, Denise Mina and John Barrowman, plus a host of others, ‘these items tell the stories of the people of Scotland’.

Truly, Madly, Deeply, an anthology of stories by members of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, some huge best sellers such as Katie Fforde and Adele Parks, others at various stages of their writing career. Many different settings and eras – I particularly liked the Indian setting of the stories by Jenny Harper (The Eighth Promise) and Louise Allen (Head over Heart). Other favourites were a contemporary story that harked back to ‘Summer '43’ by India Grey, and a contemporary story set in London, The Fundamental Things by Heidi Rice – lots of good reading here. I got the e-version which has eleven more stories than the paperback.

The Hundred-Year-Old-Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson – a good yarn and, along the way, a look at the history of the 20th century as our unlikely hero inadvertently meets President Roosvelt, Mao Tse-tung, Stalin and de Gaulle amongst others. A note on the front of the book says it is soon to be a ‘major motion picture’ – whether this refers to the one made in Sweden which came out at the end of last year I don’t know; it sounds as if a Hollywood one is in the offing too maybe. Very cinematically written so I feel as if I have seen the film already.