Category Archives: Reading habits

Library Checkout, July 2021

By Rebecca Foster on July 26, 2021 | 38 Comments

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?

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

Book Serendipity, May to June 2021

By Rebecca Foster on July 9, 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.

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?

Posted in: book serendipity | Tagged: Ann Hood, Anne Lamott, Anne Tyler, Ashley Nelson Levy, autism, book serendipity, Brenda Miller, Brit Bennett, Charlie Gilmour, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Chloe Shaw, Daphne du Maurier, E.J. Levy, Elizabeth Berg, Emma Jane Unsworth, Jan Grue, Jeremy Bentham, Katherine Heiny, Maggie Shipstead, Maylis de Kerangal, Michael Rosen, Michel Foucault, Paul Auster, Pragya Agarwal, Sarah Sands, Sonia Overall, Sufjan Stevens, Sylvia Plath, T.S. Eliot, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Will McPhail, Zakiya Dalila Harris, Zara Slattery

Classic of the Month & 20 Books of Summer #5: A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy (1873)

By Rebecca Foster on June 29, 2021 | 18 Comments

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:

Posted in: Classic(s) of the Month, Fiction Reviews, Reading habits | Tagged: antiquarian books, classics, Devon, Lars Mytting, reviewing, social class, summer reading, Thomas Hardy, Victorian literature, Wonder Book

Library Checkout, June 2021

By Rebecca Foster on June 28, 2021 | 21 Comments

I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things after my trip to the USA plus 10 days in quarantine. I sent my husband to pick up my latest pile of library reservations, and tomorrow I’ll get the chance to go in for one volunteering session before we’re off to Northumberland for 10 days (our major vacation of the year). It looks like Maggie Shipstead’s Great Circle, at over 600 pages, will form the bulk of my holiday reading.

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.