Category Archives: Reading habits

Love Your Library Begins: October 2021

By Rebecca Foster on October 25, 2021 | 22 Comments

It’s the opening month of my new Love Your Library meme! I hope some of you will join me in writing about the libraries you use and what you’ve borrowed from them recently. I plan to treat these monthly posts as a sort of miscellany.

Although I likely won’t do thorough Library Checkout rundowns anymore, I’ll show photos of what I’ve borrowed, give links to reviews of a few recent reads, and then feature something random, such as a reading theme or library policy or display.

Do share a link to your own post in the comments, and feel free to use the above image. I’m co-opting a hashtag that is already popular on Twitter and Instagram: #LoveYourLibrary.

Here’s a reminder of my ideas of what you might choose to post (this list will stay up on the project page):

Photos or a list of your latest library book haul
An account of a visit to a new-to-you library
Full-length or mini reviews of some recent library reads
A description of a particular feature of your local library
A screenshot of the state of play of your online account
An opinion piece about library policies (e.g. Covid procedures or fines amnesties)
A write-up of a library event you attended, such as an author reading or book club.

If it’s related to libraries, I want to hear about it!

Recently borrowed

Stand-out reads

The Echo Chamber by John Boyne

John Boyne is such a literary chameleon. He’s been John Irving (The Heart’s Invisible Furies), Patricia Highsmith (A Ladder to the Sky) and David Mitchell (A Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom). Now, with this Internet-age state-of-the-nation satire featuring variously abhorrent characters, he’s channelling the likes of Jamie Attenberg, Jonathan Coe, Patricia Lockwood, Lionel Shriver and Emma Straub. Every member of the Cleverley family is a morally compromised fake. Boyne gives his characters amusing tics, and there are also some tremendously funny set pieces, such as Nelson’s speed dating escapade and George’s public outbursts. He links several storylines through the Ukrainian dancer Pylyp, who’s slept with almost every character in the book and has Beverley petsit for his tortoise.

What is Boyne spoofing here? Mostly smartphone addiction, but also cancel culture. I imagined George as Hugh Bonneville throughout; indeed, the novel would lend itself very well to screen adaptation. And I loved how Beverley’s new ghostwriter, never given any name beyond “the ghost,” feels like the most real and perceptive character of all. Surely one of the funniest books I will read this year. (Full review).

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

I was one of those rare readers who didn’t think so much of Normal People, so to me this felt like a return to form. Conversations with Friends was a surprise hit with me back in 2017 when I read it as part of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award shadow panel the year she won. The themes here are much the same: friendship, nostalgia, sex, communication and the search for meaning. BWWAY is that little bit more existential: through the long-form e-mail correspondence between two friends from college, novelist Alice and literary magazine editor Eileen, we imbibe a lot of philosophizing about history, aesthetics and culture, and musings on the purpose of an individual life against the backdrop of the potential extinction of the species.

Through their relationships with Felix (a rough-around-the-edges warehouse worker) and Simon (slightly older and involved in politics), Rooney explores the question of whether lasting bonds can be formed despite perceived differences of class and intelligence. The background of Alice’s nervous breakdown and Simon’s Catholicism also bring in sensitive treatments of mental illness and faith. (Full review).

This month’s feature

I spotted a few of these during my volunteer shelving and then sought out a couple more. All five are picture books composed by authors not known for their writing for children.

Islandborn by Junot Díaz (illus. Leo Espinosa): “Every kid in Lola’s school was from somewhere else.” When the teacher asks them all to draw a picture of the country they came from, plucky Lola doesn’t know how to depict the Island. Since she left as a baby, she has to interview relatives and neighbours for their lasting impressions. For one man it’s mangoes so sweet they make you cry; for her grandmother it’s dolphins near the beach. She gathers the memories into a vibrant booklet. The 2D cut-paper style reminded me of Ezra Jack Keats.

The Islanders by Helen Dunmore (illus. Rebecca Cobb): Robbie and his family are back in Cornwall to visit Tamsin and her family. These two are the best of friends and explore along the beach together, creating their own little island by digging a channel and making a dam. As the week’s holiday comes toward an end, a magical night-time journey makes them wonder if their wish to make their island life their real life forever could come true. The brightly coloured paint and crayon illustrations are a little bit Charlie and Lola and very cute.

Rose Blanche by Ian McEwan (illus. Roberto Innocenti): Patriotism is assumed for the title character and her mother as they cheer German soldiers heading off to war. There’s dramatic irony in Rose being our innocent witness to deprivations and abductions. One day she follows a truck out of town and past barriers and fences and stumbles onto a concentration camp. Seeing hungry children’s suffering, she starts bringing them food. Unfortunately, this gets pretty mawkish and, while I liked some of the tableau scenes – reminiscent of Brueghel or Stanley Spencer – the faces are awful. (Based on a story by Christophe Gallaz.)

Where Snow Angels Go by Maggie O’Farrell (illus. Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini): The snow angel Sylvie made last winter comes back to her to serve as her guardian angel, saving her from illness and accident risks. If you’re familiar with O’Farrell’s memoir I Am, I Am, I Am, this presents a similar catalogue of near-misses. For a picture book, it has a lot of words – several paragraphs’ worth on most of its 70 pages – so I imagine it’s more suitable for ages seven and up. I loved the fairy tale atmosphere, touches of humour, and drawing style.

Weirdo by Zadie Smith and Nick Laird (illus. Magenta Fox): Kit’s birthday present is Maud, a guinea pig in a judo uniform. None of the other household pets – Derrick the cockatoo, Dora the cat, and Bob the pug – know what to make of her. Like in The Secret Life of Pets, the pets take over, interacting while everyone’s out at school and work. At first Maud tries making herself like the others, but after she spends an afternoon with an eccentric neighbour she realizes all she needs to be is herself. It’s not the first time married couple Smith and Laird have published an in-joke (their 2018 releases – an essay collection and a book of poems, respectively – are both entitled Feel Free): Kit is their daughter’s name and Maud is their pug’s. But this was cute enough to let them off.

Posted in: Library Checkout, Love Your Library | Tagged: children's books, Christophe Gallaz, Cornwall, Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini, Ezra Jack Keats, Helen Dunmore, Holocaust, Ian McEwan, John Boyne, Junot Díaz, Leo Espinosa, library books, Love Your Library, Magenta Fox, Maggie O’Farrell, Nick Laird, picture books, Rebecca Cobb, Roberto Innocenti, Sally Rooney, Zadie Smith

Planning My Reading Stacks for Novellas in November 2021

By Rebecca Foster on October 21, 2021 | 46 Comments

Not much more than a week until Novellas in November (#NovNov) begins! I gathered up all of my potential reads for a photo shoot. Review copies are stood upright and library loans are toggled in a separate pile on top; all the rest are from my shelves.

Week One: Contemporary Fiction

Week Two: Short Nonfiction

Week Three: Novellas in Translation

A rather pathetic little pile there, but I also have a copy of that week’s buddy read, Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima, on the way. (The Pigeon by Patrick Süskind would be my token contribution to German Literature Month.)

Week Four: Short Classics

Last but not least, some comics collections that don’t seem to fit in one of the other categories. Of course, some books fit into two or more categories, and contemporary vs. classic feels like a fluid division – I haven’t checked rigorously for our suggested 1980 cut-off date, so some older stuff might have made it into different piles.

Also available on my Kindle: The Therapist by Nial Giacomelli, Record of a Night too Brief by Hiromi Kawakami, Childhood: Two Novellas by Gerard Reve, and Milton in Purgatory by Edward Vass. As an additional review copy on my Nook, I have Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg by Emily Rapp Black, which is 140-some pages.

Plus … I recently placed an order for some new and secondhand books with my birthday money (and then some), and it should arrive before the end of the month. On the way and of novella length are Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns, Bear by Marian Engel, The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy, and In the Company of Men by Véronique Tadjo.

I also recently requested review copies of Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (128 pages; coming out from Faber today) and The Fell by Sarah Moss (160 pages; coming out from Picador on November 11th), so hope to have those in hand soon.

Remember that this year we have chosen a buddy read for each week. I’m again looking after short nonfiction in the second week of the month and short classics in the final week. We plan to post our reviews on the Thursday or Friday of the week in question. Feel free to publish yours at any time in the month and we’ll round up the links on our review posts.

Superman Simon is thinking of reading a novella a day in November! Taken together, I’d have enough novellas here for TWO per day. But my record thus far (in 2018) is 26; since then, I’ve managed 16 per year.

I have no specific number in mind this time. Considering I also plan to read one or two books for Margaret Atwood Reading Month (and perhaps one for AusReading Month) and have a blog tour date, as well as other review books to catch up on and in-demand library books to keep on top of, I can’t devote my full attention to novellas.

If I can read all the review copies, mop up the 4–5 set-aside titles on the pile (the ones with bookmarks in), maybe manage two rereads (the Wharton plus Conundrum), make a dent in my owned copies, and get to one or more from the library, I’ll be happy.

Karen, Kate and Margaret have already come up with their lists of possible titles. Cathy’s has gone up today, too.

Do you have any novellas in mind to read next month?

Posted in: memes, Reading habits | Tagged: novellas, Novellas in November

Coming Soon … A New “Love Your Library” Meme

By Rebecca Foster on October 11, 2021 | 23 Comments

I know that lots of my readers are dedicated library users. Some of you even work or volunteer in a library, too. Whether or not you blog about books yourself, you’re welcome to join in this simple meme designed to celebrate libraries. Use ’em or lose ’em, after all.

This challenge is entirely open-ended, but here are some things you might consider posting on your blog or to social media:

Photos or a list of your latest library book haul
An account of a visit to a new-to-you library
Full-length or mini reviews of some recent library reads
A description of a particular feature of your local library
A screenshot of the state of play of your online account
An opinion piece about library policies (e.g. Covid procedures or fines amnesties)
A write-up of a library event you attended, such as an author reading or book club.

(Image by StockSnap from Pixabay)

If it’s related to libraries, I want to hear about it. I’ll post on the last Monday of each month (unless a holiday interferes), but feel free to post whenever you wish. Do share a link to your own post in the comments of my latest one, and use the above image, too. I’m co-opting a hashtag that is already popular on Twitter and Instagram: #LoveYourLibrary.

Get thinking about what you might want to post on Monday the 25th!

Love Your Library has grown out of the monthly “Library Checkout” meme – created by Shannon of River City Reading and previously hosted by Charleen of It’s a Portable Magic, I then hosted it for four years starting in October 2017. Here’s an archive of my past posts.

If you want to continue using this framework to keep track of your library borrowing, the categories are Library Books Read; Currently Reading; Checked Out, To Be Read; On Hold; and Returned Unread. I sometimes added Skimmed Only and Returned Unfinished. I usually gave star ratings and links to reviews of any books I managed to read.

Posted in: Love Your Library | Tagged: blogging, libraries, library books, Love Your Library, memes

October Reading Plans and Books to Catch Up On

By Rebecca Foster on October 4, 2021 | 37 Comments

My plans for this month’s reading include:

Autumn-appropriate titles & R.I.P. selections, pictured below.

October releases, including some poetry and the debut memoir by local nature writer Nicola Chester – some of us are going on a book club field trip to see her speak about it in Hungerford on Saturday.

A review book backlog dating back to July. Something like 18 books, I think? A number of them also fall into the set-aside category, below.

An alarming number of doorstoppers:

Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson (a buddy read underway with Marcie of Buried in Print; technically it’s 442 pages, but the print is so danged small that I’m calling it a doorstopper even though my usual minimum is 500 pages)
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki (in progress for blog review)
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead (a library hold on its way to me to try again now that it’s on the Booker Prize shortlist)
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles (in progress for BookBrowse review)

Also, I’m aware that we’re now into the last quarter of the year, and my “set aside temporarily” shelf – which is the literal top shelf of my dining room bookcase, as well as a virtual Goodreads shelf – is groaning with books that I started earlier in the year (or, in some cases, even late last year) and for whatever reason haven’t finished yet.

Setting books aside is a dangerous habit of mine, because new arrivals, such as from the library or from publishers, and more timely-seeming books always edge them out. The only way I have a hope of finishing these before the end of the year is to a) include them in challenges wherever possible (so a few long-languishing books have gone up to join my novella stacks in advance of November) and b) reintroduce a certain number to my current stacks at regular intervals. With just 13 weeks or so remaining, two per week seems like the necessary rate.

Do you have realistic reading goals for the final quarter of the year? (Or no goals at all?)

Posted in: Reading habits | Tagged: Amor Towles, Ash Davidson, autumn, buddy read, doorstoppers, Maggie Shipstead, Nicola Chester, R.I.P. challenge, reading goals, review copies, Ruth Ozeki, seasons, set aside

Library Checkout, September 2021

By Rebecca Foster on September 27, 2021 | 49 Comments

My library has been closed for a few weeks while a new lighting system is being installed, so I’ve had fewer opportunities to pick out books at random while shelving. Still, I have quite a stockpile at home – a lot of the books are being saved for Novellas in November – so I can’t complain. Meanwhile, I’m awaiting my holds on some of the biggest releases of the year.

This will most likely be our last September in our current rental place as we’ve started house-hunting in the neighbourhood, so I’m trying to appreciate the view from my study window while I can. I’m taking one photo per day to compare. The first hints of autumn leaves are coming through. (Look carefully to the right of the table and you’ll see our cat!)

As always, I give links to reviews of books not already featured, as well as ratings. I would be delighted to have other bloggers – not just book bloggers – join in with this meme. Feel free to use the image below and leave a link to your blog in the comments if you’ve taken part in Library Checkout (on the last Monday of each month), or tag me on Twitter and Instagram: @bookishbeck / #TheLibraryCheckout & #LoveYourLibraries.

READ

Medusa’s Ankles: Selected Stories by A.S. Byatt
Tales from Moominvalley by Tove Jansson
Everyone Is Still Alive by Cathy Rentzenbrink
September 11: A Testimony (Reuters)
Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell [graphic novel]
Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel by Anya Ulinich [graphic novel]

SKIMMED

The Easternmost Sky: Adapting to Change in the 21st Century by Juliet Blaxland
Gardening for Bumblebees: A Practical Guide to Creating a Paradise for Pollinators by Dave Goulson
An Eye on the Hebrides: An Illustrated Journey by Mairi Hedderwick
A Walk from the Wild Edge by Jake Tyler

CURRENTLY READING

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler
Darwin’s Dragons by Lindsay Galvin
Fathoms: The World in the Whale by Rebecca Giggs
Anarchipelago by Jay Griffiths
The Cure for Good Intentions: A Doctor’s Story by Sophie Harrison
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven
Cut Out by Michèle Roberts
Yearbook by Seth Rogen
A Shadow Above: The Fall and Rise of the Raven by Joe Shute
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

CURRENTLY SKIMMING

The Sea Is Not Made of Water: Life between the Tides by Adam Nicolson

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

October, October by Katya Balen
Winter Story by Jill Barklem
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx by Tara Bergin
Barn Owl by Jim Crumley
Kingfisher by Jim Crumley
Otter by Jim Crumley
Victory: Two Novellas by James Lasdun
Jilted City by Patrick McGuinness
His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
Conundrum by Jan Morris [to reread]
The State of the Prisons by Sinéad Morrissey
Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven
Before Everything by Victoria Redel
The Performance by Claire Thomas
Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim

Plus a modest new pile from the university library:

The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers
The Takeover by Muriel Spark (for 1976 Club)
The Pigeon by Patrick Süskind

ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP

The Echo Chamber by John Boyne
The Blind Light by Stuart Evers
Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It by Oliver Burkeman
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
Manifesto by Bernardine Evaristo
Spike: The Virus vs. the People – The Inside Story by Jeremy Farrar
Mrs March by Virginia Feito
Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
Matrix by Lauren Groff
Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny
The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
The Book Smugglers (Pages & Co., #4) by Anna James
The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgaard
The Premonition: A Pandemic Story by Michael Lewis
Metamorphosis: Selected Stories by Penelope Lively
Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations by Kathryn Mannix
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Oh William! By Elizabeth Strout
Liv’s Alone by Liv Thorne
Sheets by Brenna Thummler
The Magician by Colm Tóibín
Still Life by Sarah Winman (to try again)

RETURNED UNFINISHED

Something out of Place: Women & Disgust by Eimear McBride – I hadn’t gotten on with her fiction so thought I’d try this short nonfiction work, especially as it was released by the Wellcome Collection and based on research she did at the Wellcome Library. However, it was very dull and just seemed like a string of quotes from other people.
12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next by Jeanette Winterson – I looked at the first essay to consider reviewing this one, but Winterson’s musings on technology and Mary Shelly feel very familiar – from her previous work as well as others’.

RETURNED UNREAD

I Give It to You by Valerie Martin – I’ll get this suspenseful Tuscany-set novel out again next summer instead.
Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 by Mitchell Zuckoff – I ran out of time to read this before the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, but I wouldn’t rule out reading it in the future.

What appeals from my stacks?

Posted in: Library Checkout | Tagged: library books, Library Checkout

Book Serendipity, July to August 2021

By Rebecca Foster on September 3, 2021 | 17 Comments

I call it Book Serendipity when two or more books that I read at the same time or in quick succession have something pretty bizarre in common. Because I have so many books on the go at once (usually 20–30), I suppose I’m more prone to such incidents. I’ve realized that, of course, synchronicity is really the more apt word, but this branding has stuck. This used to be a quarterly feature, but to keep the lists from getting too unwieldy I’ve shifted to bimonthly.

The following are in roughly chronological order.

I read two novels about the disappearance of a 15-year-old girl at the same time: Heatstroke by Hazel Barkworth and When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain.

Two novels in a row were set on a holiday in Spain: Nothing but Blue Sky by Kathleen MacMahon and The Vacationers by Emma Straub.

I encountered mentions of the removal of the Edward Colston statue in God Is Not a White Man by Chine McDonald and I Belong Here by Anita Sethi on the same evening.

Characters have the habit of making up names and backstories for strangers in Ruby by Ann Hood and Nothing but Blue Sky by Kathleen MacMahon.

The main female character says she works out what she thinks by talking in Second Place by Rachel Cusk and The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler.

A passive mother is bullied by her controlling husband in Nothing but Blue Sky by Kathleen MacMahon and Female Friends by Fay Weldon.

Two reads in a row were a slim volume on the necessity of giving up denial: What White People Can Do Next by Emma Dabiri (re: racism) and What If We Stopped Pretending by Jonathan Franzen (re: climate change).

Expressions of a strange sense of relief at disaster in Forecast by Joe Shute (re: flooding) and The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler (re: a car accident).

The biomass ratios of livestock to humans to other mammals are cited in Silent Earth by Dave Goulson, The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green, and Bewilderment by Richard Powers.

Two Booker nominees referencing china crockery: An Island by Karen Jennings and China Room by Sunjeev Sahota (yep, it’s talking about the plates rather than the country).

Teens sneak vodka in Heartstopper, Volume 3 by Alice Oseman and The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer.

Robert FitzRoy appears in The Glitter in the Green by Jon Dunn and Forecast by Joe Shute, and is the main subject of This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson, a doorstopper that has been languishing on my set-aside pile.

Dave Goulson’s bumblebee research is mentioned in The Glitter in the Green by Jon Dunn, which I was reading at the same time as Goulson’s new book, Silent Earth.

Reading two cancer memoirs that mention bucket lists at the same time: No Cure for Being Human by Kate Bowler and Year of Plagues by Fred D’Aguiar.

Mentions of the damaging practice of clearing forest to plant eucalyptus in The Glitter in the Green by Jon Dunn and Forecast by Joe Shute.

Mentions of mosquito coils being used (in Borneo or Australia) in Small Bodies of Water by Nina Mingya Powles and The Weekend by Charlotte Wood.

Different words to the tune of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” in In Every Mirror She’s Black by Lola Akinmade Åkerström and How We Do Family by Trystan Reese.

A brief mention of China and Japan’s 72 mini-seasons in Small Bodies of Water by Nina Mingya Powles: this will then be the setup for Light Rains Sometimes Fall by Lev Parikian, which I’ll be reading later in September.

Beached whales feature in Fathoms by Rebecca Giggs and Small Bodies of Water by Nina Mingya Powles.

A chapter in No Cure for Being Human by Kate Bowler is entitled “Flesh & Blood,” which is the title of the whole memoir by N. West Moss that I picked up next – and both are for Shelf Awareness reviews.

A description of a sonogram appointment where the nurse calls the doctor in to interpret the results and they know right away that means the pregnancy is unviable, followed by an account of a miscarriage, in Flesh & Blood by N. West Moss and How We Do Family by Trystan Reese.

Robin Wall Kimmerer and Robert Macfarlane quoted in Church of the Wild by Victoria Loorz and Small Bodies of Water by Nina Mingya Powles.

What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?

Posted in: book serendipity | Tagged: Alice Oseman, Anita Sethi, Ann Hood, Anne Tyler, book serendipity, Booker Prize, cancer memoirs, Charlotte Wood, Chine McDonald, Dave Goulson, Emma Dabiri, Emma Straub, Fay Weldon, Fred D’Aguiar, Harry Thompson, Hazel Barkworth, Joe Shute, John Green, Jon Dunn, Jonathan Franzen, Karen Jennings, Kate Bowler, Kathleen MacMahon, Lev Parikian, Lola Akinmade Åkerström, Meg Wolitzer, N. West Moss, Nina Mingya Powles, Paula McLain, Rachel Cusk, Rebecca Giggs, Richard Powers, Robert FitzRoy, Robert Macfarlane, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Sunjeev Sahota, Trystan Reese, Victoria Loorz

Library Checkout, August 2021

By Rebecca Foster on August 30, 2021 | 15 Comments

I’ve read a little of everything this month, including a Booker Prize nominee and one from the Wainwright Prize longlist. A few reads were good enough to make it onto my growing “Best of 2021” list. (Full reviews of the Green and Thirkell coming soon.) In September one of my usual foci is short story collections, so I plan to get through the Butler and Byatt next month. Cathy and I have also been plotting about Novellas in November, so I’ve checked out a number of short works in advance.

As always, I give links to reviews of books not already featured, as well as ratings. I would be delighted to have other bloggers – not just book bloggers – join in with this meme. Feel free to use the image above and leave a link to your blog in the comments if you’ve taken part in Library Checkout (on the last Monday of each month), or tag me on Twitter and Instagram: @bookishbeck / #TheLibraryCheckout & #LoveYourLibraries.