Books of the Month - June thru August

June Book of the Month
The Other Hand by Chris Cleave
I was lured in by the vague, air of mystery blurb on the back of the book from the publisher, about not telling us what it is about. It may seem like a pretty silly tactic but to be honest I probably wouldn't have bought it if it had said "this is a story about a middle-class English woman's friendship a Nigerian refugee". That is what it is about, but if I had ignored it on that summary, I would have missed out on a wonderfully written book, that was beautiful and moving. I may have also been put off by a story told from the perspective of two women that was written by one man, but again this was done brilliantly. It has some very bittersweet bits of humour in here.


July Book of the Month
Willard and His Bowling Trophies by Richard Brautigan
A short, surreal story from Brautigan who most famous works (In Watermelon Sugar and Trout Fishing in America) I wasn't so impressed with. But I loved this one. It is about two couples living in the same apartment block, and three brothers who are looking for their stolen bowling trophies. The Willard of the title is a papier-mache bird - its that kind of book!


August Book of the Month
Riven Rock by T C Boyle
My new favourite Boyle book. This one is loosely based on the true story of Stanley McCormick who spends most of his adult life locked away from society due to his mental illness. The book charters his treatment by various doctors, which at times descends into farce, but other parts of the book were genuinely moving. I was reduced to tears by the end.

999 Challenge Update: End of August

I've not posted in ages due to a new job and various other stresses. I've also lapsed on the 999 challenge reviews over on the challenge website, so this update is merely a list for now. I'm quite close to completing the challenge with four categories completed, although it now getting tougher to get hold of books to fit the categories.


1001 Books to Read Before You Die
1. Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates
2. The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
3. Slow Man by J M Coetzee
4. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain
5. Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
6. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
7. The Successor by Ismail Kadore
8. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
9. Mr Vertigo by Paul Auster


Fiction Authors that are New to Me
1. Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann
2. Underground Man by Mick Jackson
3. The Flood by David Maine
4. The Man who was Thursday by G K Chesterton
5. Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
6. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
7. The Girls: A Novel by Lori Lansens
8. When I was Five I Killed Myself by Howard Buten
9.The Other Hand by Chris Cleave


Crime and Detectives around the world (each one from a different country)
1. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg (Greenland)
2. Real World by Natsuo Kirino (Japan)
3. Ice Moon by Jan Costin Wagner (Finland)
4. Right as Rain by George Pelecanos (Washington DC, USA)
5. Messenger of Athens by Anne Zouroudi (Greece)
6. The Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri (Sicilly)
7. Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (Soviet Union)
8
9.


Theme: Dystopia
1. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
2. The Declaration by Gemma Malley
3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
4. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
5. Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
6.Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
7.The Giver by Lois Lowry
8. We by Yevgenry Zamyatin

Retro: Beats, Hippies, 1960s and Counter-Culture (fiction and non-fiction)
1. Retro Retro: Fictional Flashbacks by Amy Prior
2. 1968: the year that rocked the world - Mark Kurlansky
3. Hippie by Barry Miles
4. Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan
5. I think therefore who am I by Peter Weissman
6. When I Was Cool - Sam Kashner
7. In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan
8. Willard and his Bowling Trophies by Richard Brautigan
9. Hippie Hippie Shake by Richard Neville


Around the World (fiction set outside of the UK and USA - each one from a different country)
1. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton (Australia)
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini (Afghanistan)
3. Distant Star by Roberto Bolano (Chile)
4. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Dominican Republic)
5. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
6. Tropical Fish: Tales from Entebbe by Doreen Baingana (Uganda)
7. Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe)


Non-Fiction
1. Shakespeare by Bill Bryson
2. Los Angeles without a Map by Richard Rayner
3. The Natural History of Unicorns by Chris Laver
4. The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale.
5. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
6.The Last Shot by Darcy Frey (sports related book picked by my OH)
7. Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
8. Hippo Eats Dwarf by Alex Boese



Complete Works of - T C Boyle
1. East is East
2. Inner Circle
3. A Friend of the Earth
4. Talk Talk
5. Budding Prospects
6. Riven Rock
7. World's End


Themed Titles - Animals (a different animal in each title)
1. The Boy Who Kicked Pigs by Tom Baker
2. White Tiger by Aravinda Adiga
3. Giraffe by J M Ledgard
4. Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks by Christopher Brookmyre
5. The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
6 The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa
7. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
8. Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
9. Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman

Books of the Months - March thru May

I forgot entirely about this. (I pretty much forgot about the whole blog). So to catch up:

March Book of the Month
The Road by Cormac McCarthy - absolutely amazing. A deceptively simple narrative about a man and his son, making their way through a post-apocalyptic world. Sparse text, with minimal punctation, but genuinely moving and disturbing. I had to stop reading it on the train because I was going to cry - recommendations don't come higher than that!


April Book of the Month
Talk Talk by T C Boyle - A woman, who is deaf, is the victim of identity theft and takes the law into her own hands to seek revenge on the criminal. This is a book about identity and communication, thought-provoking and with great characters.


May Book of the Month
The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dream by Darcy Frey - my surprise hit! Borrowed (under duress) from the OH, I wasn't particularly interested in the plight of basketball playing kids from Coney Island before reading this, but was so engrossed in it. Basketball obviously does feature, but it as much about the poverty trap and the ridiculous college sport system. This one made me angry and sad at the same time. I'm not sure if I set myself any rules about the book of the month being fiction, but this one is a non-fiction book.

999 Challenge: Update End of April

I didn't update at the end of March as I was away. My reading has slowed but I'm still on target to finish and not doing too bad a job at keeping the categories balanced.

1001 Books to Read Before You Die
1. Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates
2. Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien
3. Slow Man by J M Coetzee
4. The Postman Always Rings Twice - James M Cain


Fiction Authors that are New to Me
1. Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann
2. The Underground Man by Mick Jackson
3. The Flood by David Maine
4. The Man who was Thursday by G K Chesterton
5. Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
6. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield


Crime and Detectives around the world (each one from a different country)
1. Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg (Denmark and Greenland)
2. Real World by Natsuo Kirino (Japan)
3. Ice Moon by Jan Costin Wagner (Finland)
4. Right as Rain by George Pelecanos (USA)
5. The Messenger of Athens by Anne Zouroudi (Greece)


Theme: Dystopia
1. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
2. The Declaration by Gemma Malley
3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
4. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
5. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham


Retro: Beats, Hippies, 1960s and Counter-Culture (fiction and non-fiction)
1. Retro Retro edited by Amy Prior
2. 1968: The Year that Rocked the World by Mark Kurlansky
3. Hippie by Barry Miles
4. Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan
5. I think therefore who am I by Peter Weissman


Around the World (fiction set outside of the UK and USA - each one from a different country)
1. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton (Australia)
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini (Afghanistan)
3. Distant Star by Roberto Bolano (Chile)
4. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Dominican Republic)
5. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
6. Tropical Fish: Tales from Entebbe by Doreen Baingana (Uganda)
7. Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe)


Non-Fiction
1. Shakespeare by Bill Bryson
2. Los Angeles without a Map by Richard Rayner
3. The Natural History of Unicorns by Chris Laver
4. The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale.
5. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell


Complete Works of - T C Boyle
1. East is East by T C Boyle
2. The Inner Circle by T C Boyle
3. A Friend of the Earth by T C Boyle
4. Talk Talk by T C Boyle


Themed Titles - Animals (a different animal in each title)
1. The Boy Who Kicked Pigs by Tom Baker
2. White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
3. Giraffe by J M Ledgard
4. Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks by Christopher Brookmyre
5. The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa

Charity Shop Watch: April 2009

I'd not been on my charity shop run for quite some time, but came back with quite a haul today. I did my bit for heart disease, spending £10 on four books in the British Heart Foundation Shop. The most expensive of the charity shops on my run, they seem to have upped their prices since my last trip, with many books now on sale for £3 a go. But they do have a good selection and the four I bought could easily have been doubled.

I bought:

The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
You Cannont Live as I have Lived and Not End up Like This - The Thoroughly DisgracefullLife and Times of Willie Donaldson by Terence Blacker
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
The Girls by Lori Lansens

Once more proving that last year's best seller is this year's charity fodder, there were four copies of No Time for Goodbyes in the BHF shop and another one in the YMCA shop. How long before multiple copies of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher start to appear there?

Holiday Reads

I love browsing other people's bookshelves, so I was delighted to find that the apartment we had rented in San Francisco had a small library of books.

It was an eclectic selection, I presume comprising of books belonging to the owners and things left behind by previous holiday-makers.

It included the quintessential San Francisco book "Tales of the City" by Armistead Maupin which I'd been meaning to read so was pleased to discover here. I also read "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell, the poverty and misery providing a nice contrast with Californian sun. I started "A Short History of Nearly Everything " by Bill Bryson but it wasn't short enough and I abondoned it when I realised that I wouldn't be able to read 600 pages in the remaining time.

The collection had something for all tastes:

White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Virago Woman's Guide to San Francisco
Treasury of Poetry
Its Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong
Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulk
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Complete Book of Horse Care
3 books by Anne Rice
Several Alexander McCall Smith books
Multiple books by Nick Bantock (who?)

and my absolute favourite "There and Back Again" by Sean Astin, which I did try to read aloud from once, but found so dull I couldn't continue.

Reading Borges

Jorge Luis Borges is one of the greats. One of those writers that you really must read.

I've been carrying "Fictions" around in my bag for two weeks now. I've managed to read two stories from it.

I just can't read it. Perhaps if I'd come to Borges while I was younger and studying literature then I would have had the mental agility to read it, but not now when I primarily read for pleasure. I do like to feel challenged occasionally in my reading and certainly to learn something new, but this is too much. It is impenetrable.

The note from the translator says it all:
"I have presumed the reader to possess more or less the range of general or world history or culture that JLB makes constant reference to, or to have access to such reference books and other sources as would supply any need there".

It may be worth trying to find my way through, so that I too love Borges, but I'm just not in the right mindset at the moment.

I think Borges in going back to the library unread.