Planning My Reading Stacks for Novellas in November 2021
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?
Coming Soon … A New “Love Your Library” Meme
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.
October Reading Plans and Books to Catch Up On
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?)
Library Checkout, September 2021
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?
Book Serendipity, July to August 2021
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?
Library Checkout, August 2021
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.
READ
- Autumn Story by Jill Barklem (a children’s book – these don’t count towards my year total)
- Second Place by Rachel Cusk
- What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition by Emma Dabiri
- Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse by Dave Goulson (for Shelf Awareness review)
- The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a human-centered planet by John Green
- The Rome Plague Diaries: Lockdown Life in the Eternal City by Matthew Kneale
- Nothing but Blue Sky by Kathleen MacMahon
- When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain
- Heartstoppers, Volume 3 by Alice Oseman
- Heartstoppers, Volume 4 by Alice Oseman
- Earthed: A Memoir by Rebecca Schiller
- Forecast: A Diary of the Lost Seasons by Joe Shute
- August Folly by Angela Thirkell
- The Lost Soul by Olga Tokarczuk (a mostly wordless graphic novel, so I didn’t count it towards my year total)
- Ice Rivers by Jemma Wadham
SKIMMED
- I Belong Here: A Journey along the Backbone of Britain by Anita Sethi
- Plague: A Very Short Introduction by Paul Slack
CURRENTLY READING
- Medusa’s Ankles: Selected Stories by A.S. Byatt
- Fathoms: The World in the Whale by Rebecca Giggs
- Anarchipelago by Jay Griffiths
- Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
- Everyone Is Still Alive by Cathy Rentzenbrink
- Cut Out by Michèle Roberts
- Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel by Anya Ulinich
- The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
CURRENTLY SKIMMING
- 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
- September 11: A Testimony (Reuters)
- Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 by Mitchell Zuckoff
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- Winter Story by Jill Barklem
- The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx by Tara Bergin
- Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler
- Barn Owl by Jim Crumley
- Kingfisher by Jim Crumley
- Otter by Jim Crumley
- Darwin’s Dragons by Lindsay Galvin
- The Cure for Good Intentions: A Doctor’s Story by Sophie Harrison
- 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
- The Sea Is Not Made of Water: Life between the Tides by Adam Nicolson
- Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven
- Before Everything by Victoria Redel
- Yearbook by Seth Rogen
- A Shadow Above: The Fall and Rise of the Raven by Joe Shute
- The Performance by Claire Thomas
- A Walk from the Wild Edge by Jake Tyler
- Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim
- A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds by Scott Weidensaul
ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP
- Notes from a Summer Cottage: The Intimate Life of the Outside World by Nina Burton
- Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE
- The Echo Chamber by John Boyne
- Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It by Oliver Burkeman
- Spike: The Virus vs. the People – The Inside Story by Jeremy Farrar
- Mrs March by Virginia Feito
- Matrix by Lauren Groff
- 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
- Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations by Kathryn Mannix
- I Give It to You by Valerie Martin
- Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
- Something out of Place: Women & Disgust by Eimear McBride
- Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan
- Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
- Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
- Sheets by Brenna Thummler
- The Disaster Tourist by Ko-Eun Yun
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- August by Callan Wink – The first few pages were about a farm boy working out how to kill all the cats. No thanks.
RETURNED UNREAD
- Who Is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews – Luckily, I remembered that Laila said it was awful!
- The Summer before the Dark by Doris Lessing – I should have learned from Memoirs of a Survivor that I don’t get on with her vague dystopian stuff.
What appeals from my stacks?
Lana Bastašić for WIT Month 2021 & September Reading Plans
My literature in translation statistics for 2021 have been abysmal so far, but here’s my token contribution to Women in Translation Month: Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastašić, originally published in 2018 and translated from the Serbo-Croatian by the author herself.
Sara has made a new life for herself in Dublin, with a boyfriend and an avocado tree. She rarely thinks about her past in Bosnia or hears her mother tongue. It’s a rude awakening, then, when she gets a phone call from her childhood best friend, Lejla Begić. Her bold, brassy pal says she needs Sara to pick her up in Mostar and drive her to Vienna to find her brother, Armin. No matter that Sara and Lejla haven’t been in contact in 12 years. But Lejla still has such a hold over Sara that she books a plane ticket right away.
Alternating chapters, with the text enclosed in brackets, dive into the friends’ past: school days, losing their virginity, and burying Lejla’s pet white rabbit, Bunny. Sara often writes as if to Lejla: “I can’t beautify those days, I can’t give them some special, big meaning. You would despise me for it. Besides, I don’t know how to write those two kids: you keep shrinking and growing in my memory, like illusive land to desperate sailors.”
In the road trip scenes, we have to shake our heads at how outrageous Lejla is: peeing in a cornfield, throwing her used tampons out the window, and orchestrating a farcical situation when she lies and tells their host that Sara only speaks English. A lovable rogue, she drives the book’s action. Indeed, Sara realizes, “both the car and I were nothing but an extension of Lejla’s will, she moved us with her words, and we followed obediently.”
This offbeat novel struck me, bizarrely, as a cross between Asylum Road and When God Was a Rabbit. I sometimes find that work in translation, particularly Eastern European, has too much quirkiness for the sake of it. That’s probably true here, and although the nostalgia element was appealing the emotional payoff wasn’t enough to satisfy me. However, I did love a late scene where Sara gazes at Albrecht Dürer’s famous Young Hare painting, and keep an eye out for how the ending connects back to the beginning.
(Simon appreciated this European Union Prize for Literature winner more than I did: his review compares the picture of asymmetrical female friendship favourably to that in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels.)
With thanks to Picador for the free copy for review.
Did you do any special reading for Women in Translation month this year?
September Reading Plans
Each September I make a bit more of an effort to read short stories, which otherwise tend to sit on my shelves and Kindle unread. Last year I managed to read eight collections for this challenge. How many will I get to this year?! Here’s my shelf of potential reads:
I’ll reread selections from the Byatt anthology (I’ve read all of her published short story collections before and own two of them, one of which I reread last year) and will otherwise focus on books by women. I’ve had good success with Amy Bloom and Helen Simpson stories in previous years, so I’ll definitely plan to read those plus Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler (from the university library).
Since I own THREE unread collections by Alice Munro, it’s time to tackle one, probably Dear Life since I’ve owned it the longest – it’s a review copy that arrived before her Nobel Prize win and I’ve (oops) never reviewed it. The World Does Not Require You is also a long-languishing review copy, so might be my one male-penned title.
What are your September reading plans? Any short story collections you’ve read recently and would recommend to me?
Library Checkout, July 2021
As seems to happen every few months, I felt the urge to cull my library stack and only keep out the books I’m actually excited about reading right now. So you’ll see that a lot of books got returned unread in July. I did manage to read a handful as well, though, with the list looking longer than it really is because of a lot of undemanding children’s and YA material. My summer crush is the super-cute Heartstoppers comics series.
As always, I give links to reviews of books not already featured, as well as ratings for reads and skims. 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.
READ
- Summer Story by Jill Barklem (a children’s book – these don’t count towards my year total)
- Heatstroke by Hazel Barkworth
- What If We Stopped Pretending? by Jonathan Franzen
- The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
- Heartstoppers, Volume 1 by Alice Oseman
- Heartstoppers, Volume 2 by Alice Oseman
- Cicada by Shaun Tan (a children’s book – in length, at least)
- Dog by Shaun Tan (ditto)
SKIMMED
- Consumed: A Sister’s Story by Arifa Akbar
CURRENTLY READING
- Second Place by Rachel Cusk
- What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition by Emma Dabiri
- All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto by George M. Johnson
- The Rome Plague Diaries: Lockdown Life in the Eternal City by Matthew Kneale
- Nothing but Blue Sky by Kathleen MacMahon
- When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain
- Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel by Anya Ulinich
- Ice Rivers by Jemma Wadham
CURRENTLY SKIMMING
- I Belong Here: A Journey along the Backbone of Britain by Anita Sethi
- Plague: A Very Short Introduction by Paul Slack
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- Autumn Story by Jill Barklem
- The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx by Tara Bergin
- Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler
- The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
- The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich
- Gardening for Bumblebees: A Practical Guide to Creating a Paradise for Pollinators by Dave Goulson
- The Summer before the Dark by Doris Lessing
- Jilted City by Patrick McGuinness
- The State of the Prisons by Sinéad Morrissey
- Stiff by Mary Roach
- August Folly by Angela Thirkell
- August by Callan Wink
ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP
- The Easternmost Sky: Adapting to Change in the 21st Century by Juliet Blaxland
- The Sea Is Not Made of Water: Life between the Tides by Adam Nicolson
- Heartstoppers, Volume 4 by Alice Oseman
- Earthed: A Memoir by Rebecca Schiller
- Forecast: A Diary of the Lost Seasons by Joe Shute
- The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE
- Who Is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews
- The Echo Chamber by John Boyne
- Medusa’s Ankles: Selected Stories by A.S. Byatt
- Darwin’s Dragons by Lindsay Galvin
- Fathoms: The World in the Whale by Rebecca Giggs
- Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse by Dave Goulson
- The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
- The Cure for Good Intentions: A Doctor’s Story by Sophie Harrison
- An Eye on the Hebrides: An Illustrated Journey by Mairi Hedderwick
- Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny
- The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
- The Premonition: A Pandemic Story by Michael Lewis
- Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
- His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
- Heartstoppers, Volume 3 by Alice Oseman
- Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven
- Before Everything by Victoria Redel
- Everyone Is Still Alive by Cathy Rentzenbrink
- Cut Out by Michèle Roberts
- Sheets by Brenna Thummler
- The Lost Soul by Olga Tokarczuk
- A Walk from the Wild Edge by Jake Tyler
- 12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next by Jeanette Winterson
- The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
- The Disaster Tourist by Ko-Eun Yun
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
- My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley
- Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
- Still Life by Sarah Winman
None of these captivated me after 10–30 pages. I’ll try the Shipstead and Winman again another time.
RETURNED UNREAD
- Misplaced Persons by Susan Beale
- This Happy by Niamh Campbell
- Heavy Light: A Journey through Madness, Mania and Healing by Horatio Clare
- Lakewood by Megan Giddings
- The Master Bedroom by Tessa Hadley
- A More Perfect Union by Tammye Huf
- Joe Biden: American Dreamer by Evan Osnos
- The Dig by John Preston
- Dreamland by Rosa Rankin-Gee
The last of these was requested after me; I (at least temporarily) lost interest in the rest.
What appeals from my stacks?
Book Serendipity, May to June 2021
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.
The following are in roughly chronological order.
- Sufjan Stevens songs are mentioned in What Is a Dog? by Chloe Shaw and After the Storm by Emma Jane Unsworth.
- There’s a character with two different coloured eyes in The Mothers by Brit Bennett and Painting Time by Maylis de Kerangal.
- A description of a bathroom full of moisturizers and other ladylike products in The Mothers by Brit Bennett and The Interior Silence by Sarah Sands.
- A description of having to saw a piece of furniture in half to get it in or out of a room in A Braided Heart by Brenda Miller and After the Storm by Emma Jane Unsworth.
- The main character is named Esther Greenwood in the Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story “The Unnatural Mother” in the anthology Close Company and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Indeed, it seems Plath may have taken her protagonist’s name from the 1916 story. What a find!
- Reading two memoirs of being in a coma for weeks and on a ventilator, with a letter or letters written by the hospital staff: Many Different Kinds of Love by Michael Rosen and Coma by Zara Slattery.
- Reading two memoirs that mention being in hospital in Brighton: Coma by Zara Slattery and After the Storm by Emma Jane Unsworth.
- Reading two books with a character named Tam(b)lyn: My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier and Coma by Zara Slattery.
- A character says that they don’t miss a person who’s died so much as they miss the chance to have gotten to know them in Featherhood by Charlie Gilmour and In by Will McPhail.
- A man finds used condoms among his late father’s things in The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster and Featherhood by Charlie Gilmour.
- An absent husband named David in Open House by Elizabeth Berg and Ruby by Ann Hood.
- The murder of Thomas à Becket featured in Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot (read in April) and Heavy Time by Sonia Overall (read in June).
- Adrienne Rich is quoted in (M)otherhood by Pragya Agarwal and Heavy Time by Sonia Overall.
- A brother named Danny in Immediate Family by Ashley Nelson Levy and Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler.
- The male lead is a carpenter in Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny and Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler.
- An overbearing, argumentative mother who is a notably bad driver in Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny and Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott.
- That dumb 1989 movie Look Who’s Talking is mentioned in (M)otherhood by Pragya Agarwal and Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny.
- In the same evening, I started two novels that open in 1983, the year of my birth: The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris and Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
- “Autistic” is used as an unfortunate metaphor for uncontrollable or fearful behavior in Open House by Elizabeth Berg and Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott (from 2000 and 2002, so they’re dated references rather than mean-spirited ones).
A secondary character mentions a bad experience in a primary school mathematics class as being formative to their later life in Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott and Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler (at least, I think it was in the Tyler; I couldn’t find the incident when I went back to look for it. I hope Liz will set me straight!).
- The panopticon and Foucault are referred to in Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead and I Live a Life Like Yours by Jan Grue. Specifically, Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon is the one mentioned in the Shipstead, and Bentham appears in The Cape Doctor by E.J. Levy.
What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?
Classic of the Month & 20 Books of Summer #5: A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy (1873)
While going through my boxes stored in my sister’s basement, I came across an antiquarian copy of this lesser-known Hardy novel. I used to place a lot more value on books’ age and rarity, whereas now I tend to just acquire readable paperback copies. I also used to get on much better with Victorian novels – I completed an MA in Victorian Literature, after all – but these days I generally find them tedious. Two years ago, I DNFed Hardy’s The Well-Beloved, and I ended up mostly skimming A Pair of Blue Eyes after the first 100 pages. In any case, it fit into my 20 Books of Summer colour theme. It’s sad for me that I’ve lost my love for my academic speciality, but life is long and I may well go back to Victorian literature someday.
I found similarities to Far from the Madding Crowd, my favourite Hardy novel, as well as to Hardy’s own life. As in FFTMC, the focus is on a vain young woman with three suitors. Elfride Swancourt is best known for her eyes, rapturously described as “blue as autumn distance—blue as the blue we see between the retreating mouldings of hills and woody slopes on a sunny September morning. A misty and shady blue, that had no beginning or surface, and was looked into rather than at.” Her vicar father, suffering from gout and sounding much older than his actual age (40 was a different prospect in that time!), warns her that architects will soon be arriving from London to plan restoration work on the church tower.
The young architectural assistant who arrives at the Swancourts’ coastal parish in “Lower Wessex” (North Devon?) is Stephen Smith, a clear Hardy stand-in, desperate to hide his humble background as he seeks to establish himself in his profession. Stephen emulates his friend Henry Knight, a dilettante essayist and book reviewer. Book learning has given Stephen passable knowledge of everything from Latin to chess, but he doesn’t know how to do practical things like ride a horse. Elfride and Stephen, predictably, fall in love, and she is determined to go ahead with an engagement even when she learns that his parents are a mason and a milkmaid, but her father refuses to grant permission. It’s intriguing that this poor clergyman fancies himself of the class of the Luxellians, local nobility, than of the Smiths.
{SPOILERS FOLLOW}
Elfride’s previous love died, and his pauper mother, Mrs Jethway, blames her still for toying with her boy’s affections. When Stephen takes a position in India and Mr Swancourt remarries and moves the family to London, Elfride’s eye wanders. Time for love interest #3. The family runs into Knight, who is a distant cousin of Mrs Swancourt. There’s another, juicier, connection: Elfride is a would-be author (she writes her father’s sermons for him, putting passages in brackets with the instruction “Leave this out if the farmers are falling asleep”) and publishes a medieval romance under a male pseudonym. A negative write-up of her book needles her. “What a plague that reviewer is to me!” And who is it but Knight?
They begin a romance despite this inauspicious coincidence and his flirty/haughty refusal to admire her fine eyes – “I prefer hazel,” he says. Some of the novel’s most memorable scenes, famous even beyond its immediate context, come from their courtship. Knight saves her from falling off the church tower, while she tears her dress into linen strips and ties them into a rope to rescue him from a sea cliff (scandalous!). Somewhere I’d read an in-depth account of this scene: as Knight dangles from the rock face, he spots a trilobite, which, in its very ancientness, mocks the precariousness of his brief human life. Lovingly created and personally watched over by a supreme being? Pshaw. Hardy’s was a godless vision, and I’ve always been interested in that Victorian transition from devoutness to atheism.
The novel’s span is too long, requiring a lot of jumps in time. I did appreciate that Mrs Jethway becomes the instrument of downfall, writing a warning letter to Knight about Elfride’s mistreatment of her son and another former fiancé. Knight breaks things off and it’s not until 15 months later, after he and Stephen bump into each other in London and Knight realizes that Stephen was her other suitor, that they travel back to Wessex to duke it out over the girl. When they arrive, though, it’s too late: Elfride had married but then fallen ill and died; her funeral is to take place the very next day. As the book closes at the vault, it’s her widower, Lord Luxellian, who has the right to mourn and not either of her previous loves.
{END OF SPOILERS}
As always with Hardy, I enjoyed the interplay of coincidence and fate. There were a few elements of this novel that I particularly liked: the coastal setting, the characters’ lines of work (including a potential profession for Elfride, though Knight told her in future she should stick to domestic scenes in her writing!) and the role played by a book review, but overall, this was not a story that is likely to stick with me. I did wonder to what extent it inspired Lars Mytting’s The Bell in the Lake, about a country girl who falls in love with the man who comes to oversee construction at the local church.
Source: Secondhand purchase, most likely from Wonder Book and Video in the early 2000s
My rating:
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 