August Books

[slemslempike]

Juniors Will Be Juniors - Nancy Breary
She Went All the Way - Meggin Cabot
The Semi-Attached Couple - Emily Eden
Sixsational - Meg Cabot
The Inimitable Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse
The Bad Girls' Club - Rhian Tracey
Mulliner Nights - P.G. Wodehouse
The Pirates! in an Adventure with the Scientists - Gideon Defoe
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
How I Live Now - Meg Rosoff
The Art of Murder - Jose Carlos Somoza
The Clicking of Cuthbert - P.G. Wodehouse
The Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman - Sue Townsend
Doctor Sally - P.G. Wodehouse
Carrie Pilby - Caren Lissner
Tempest-Tost - Robertson Davies
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
The Lower Fourth Excels Itself - Nancy Breary
Mainly About the Fourth - Nancy Breary
No Peace for the Prefects - Nancy Breary
Jeanette in the Summer Term - Alice Lunt
Well Done Denehurst - Gwendoline Courtney
Random Access Memory - Hattie Hayridge
A Little Universe - Pamela Brown
The Semi-Detached House - Emily Eden
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Cathedral Wednesday - William Mayne
Second From Last in the Sack Race - David Nobbs
The Drunken Forest - Gerald Durrell
The Penguin Searle - Ronald Searle
Fifth Business - Robertson Davies
The Manticore - Robertson Davies
World of Wonders - Robertson Davies
The Love-Child - Edith Olivier
Delta Wedding - Eudora Welty
Doves of Venus - Olivia Manning
The Third Miss Symons - F M Mayor
The Master of the Shell - Talbot Baines Reed
Sanctuary - Terry Moore
Trumpet - Jackie Kay
Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood
Mr Fitton's Commission - Showell Styles

6 rereads, out of a total 42 books. I've been on holiday twice this month, so I've had a lot of time to read, and there have been a lot of train journeys as well.

I really liked the two Emily Edens I read - The Semi-Detached House was my favourite of the two, although the anti-semitism was rather jarring. It's nineteenth century, and very funny indeed. On the strength of that, and also pisica linking a complete list of Virago books, I sought out some more reprints - Delta Wedding, The Love-Child, Doves of Venus and The Third Miss Symons. I preferred Doves of Venus of these, which is the story of a young woman moving to London to try to escape becoming nothing in her home town. It was pubished in 1960, but felt much earlier to me.

By far the worst book was She Went All The Way. I should have realised it was going to be dire, as I'd hated her last romance, but I like The Boy Next Door so much that I thought I would give it a try. Ugh. But The Master of the Shell was truly excellent! I will have to start looking out for more Baines Reed. I love Fifth Form at St Dominic's greatly, but I don't think I'd read another one of his.

Comments

[carmine-rose.livejournal.com]

What did you think of the Durrell? And the Atwood, if they are both new to you? They're two of my favourite authors, and it seems quite rare for someone of out generation to read Durrell, I think.

That's an impressive list. My own reading has rather fallen down lately, because of the hateful thesis sapping my time (and of course the time spent on the internet, which I really need to cut down on). It doesn't help that I'm trying to finish a book that hasn't really captured me (Murial Spark's The Girls of Slender Means) and so it doesn't have the power to draw me away from other things, but I don't want to start anything else til I've got it finished.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

The Durrell was enjoyable but not outstanding - I'm not overly keen on animals, and I much prefer the books about his earlier life. The Atwood was excellent, thought I find her a very distancing author.

I enjoyed The Girls of Slender Means, though it was a while ago that I read it. I usually have at least two books on the go at once, bedtime book, travel book, random book I pick up and suddenly find I've read half of.

[gair.livejournal.com]

Which one is She Went All The Way? It's Cabot's first one, isn't it, about George Clooney and some journalist being lost in the snow? I liked it it, though perhaps mostly because it shows how much better she's got at writing since then (I love The Boy Next Door and its companion one with the similarly unmemorable title).

Sticking with the Megs, what did you think of How I Live Now?

[carmine-rose.livejournal.com]

I often have two books on the go too, usual a novel and saomething on graphic design or art. But recently, I've just let everything lapse. I think it's the first time since I could read that I haven't been getting through a book every couple of days - I don't know what's wrong with me a the moment. And I don't know exactly what it is about Girls; it's not that I dislike when I'm reading it, so maybe it's just that I don't hugely want to know what happens next.

I tend to like the human drama/humour in the Durrells more than the animal stuff, too - have you read Fillets of Plaice, Marrying Off Mother or The Picnic and Such-like Pandemonium? They're all collections of short stories in which animals figure rather more incidentally, and some of them are simply hilarious. And there's a really scary ghost story at the end of Picnic, plus a pretty spooky one in Mother, if you're into that sort of thing.

The Atwood was quite an uncomfortable read for me - I was never bullied to that extent at school, but I think practically all solitary and studious types have some experience with that kind of thing, and it's not something I especially like to think about. I guess one of the things that makes her a good author is her ability to evoke those feelings.

Yay! Book discussion!

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Yep, George Clooney and being lost in the snow, people trying to kill him. Absolutely hated it. Is the other title Girl Meets Boy? I was also disappointed in the third in that pseudo series, which I can't remember the title of but read earlier this year.

I liked it a lot. I got it because lots of people were terribly enthusiastic about it, but I didn't know what it was about, really. I found the end terribly sad, but it was really interesting with the eating disorder sideline.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I've read Fillets of Plaice and The Picnic, but not Marrying off Mother. I'll have a look for it once I get my library card reinstated at Lancaster.

The distance thing I mentioned I think works against Atwood for me - I find her writing excellent, and creepy, but it doesn't feel very deeply at all for the characters.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Would be v interested in your Robertson Davies thoughts...

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I found the Deptford trilogy utterly intruiging. I had them in one book, and I ended up reading it all one after the other in the space of a few days. I really liked the different stories in each book and the ways of telling them, although it was rather exhausting having to explain the intricacies of it to enquirers. I cired at the last book, when Sir John is turned away from the theatre. I would quite have liked to know Caroline's story, but the three men is more effective. I plan to grab the other books they have in the library too.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

They really are quite hard to explain to people - I remember listening to somebody on the Tube once and I could tell that he was trying to describe Fifth Business before he even named it.