Micro-blogging: age-appropriate reading matter

For his ninth birthday we gave LittleBear a book that had been recommended by one of my colleagues. Said colleague also had an only boy-child, about 15 years older than LittleBear, but one who'd been very similar to him in his younger years. So, I took the recommendation. It was a mighty tome of mythology - Arthurian legends, Ancient Greek, Norse, Roman, the Mabinogeon and the legends of Charlemagne. And, being written in the mid-nineteenth century, it didn't really pull any punches in its language or contents. And LittleBear hoovered it up, and continues to return to it. 

We have many family jokes from it now - such as on the frequent appearance of fountains in forests in romantic legend, or the use of the old "bag of wind" ruse in Greek and Roman myths. (Our personal favourite, however, is Rogero being "distracted by an adventure" on his way to the cathedral to marry the long-suffering Bradamante. That's quite some distraction.)

Today, LittleBear was required to dress up as an Ancient Greek for a history day at school, so I made some casual throwaway remark about being wary of Greeks bearing gifts...

LittleBear: Actually Mummy, the quote is that, "I fear the Greeks, even when they are bearing gifts." Laocoon said it.

Me: Was that in Homer? <desperately trying to salvage something from the conversation>

LittleBear: No, it was in the Aeneid. By Virgil.

And now I wish I'd never given him the damn book. Being corrected on a quote from Virgil when I studied the Aeneid at school is pretty bad. Having LittleBear assume that he needed to tell me that it was Virgil who wrote the Aeneid was just a step too far.

April Reading List

 Somewhat late for the deadline this month, but really, who's counting? 

The Dark is Rising series - Susan Cooper

Technically five books, Over Sea, Under Stone; The Dark Is Rising; Greenwitch; The Grey King and Silver on the Tree. More books that I haven't read for a long time, although despite being children's books I don't think I read them as a child. I think perhaps my mid-twenties? And, as with so many of the other books I'm re-visiting I remembered almost nothing from them. One character had stuck in my mind, but only one. And one location. Nice to be absorbed in a good fantasy with just enough peril but not too much.

Espedair Street - Iain Banks

Mostly I'd remembered enjoying the non-sci-fi Iain Banks books and yet found this one surprisingly joyless. I didn't really like any of the characters, I wasn't particularly interested in what became of them, and it all left me feeling rather flat. I had been planning to re-read some more Iain Banks, but now I'm not sure. Perhaps this will be an opportunity to purge the shelves of something I don't really enjoy? Or perhaps it depends upon my mood and I should give another one a go some other time.

An Aside...

Why, you might ask, would I think my mood is having such an impact on my reading? Well, since the schools re-opened and LittleBear finished with home-learning and went back to the classroom, his sleep patterns have gone out of the window. He struggles to get to sleep. He struggles to stay asleep. The only source of comfort and reassurance is Mummy-cuddles. And heart-warming though it is that my presence is enough to lull my poppet to sleep, I do not function well on broken sleep. 

Most nights LittleBear now spends in a bed with me, because I simply stopped being able to operate as a vaguely normal human being when spending an hour or more every night trying to reassure him enough to go back to sleep in his own bed. And now, sleeping with Mummy is a habit that he is either unwilling or unable to break. Meanwhile I feel broken. It currently feels as though parenthood is a choice between my child's well-being and my own, with no path that allows for both. Naturally this isn't actually true, as it's only my own psyche that is telling me that the world judges me for my nine-year-old son needing me with him to sleep. But my own psyche is a harsh mistress, and spends a lot of her time telling me I'm a failure, a bad mother, incompetent and a whole host of other negative things. The kind of things I would never dream of thinking, let alone saying, about a friend, but with which I allow my psyche to berate me.

So, with my own mental health seemingly spiralling deeper into the mire of self-flagellation, I am finding that it is only by reading lightweight fluff, or looking at pictures of cats on the internet that I am able to find a semblance of inner calm. I don't need angst, or betrayal, rage or recriminations. I need comfort. Which leads me on to the next wave of books that I am compulsively consuming...

Artemis Fowl; Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incident; Artemis Fowl and the Eternity Code - Eoin Colfer

I treated myself to the entire set of Artemis Fowl books, having read the first 4 when they were published. They're fun, silly, entertaining, and just what my battered psyche needs. The peril is not too perilous, there are fart jokes and fairies. What more could I ask for?

March reading list

March turned, at first inadvertently, and then deliberately, into a month of only allowing myself to re-read books. It also provoked me into having a mild purge of the bookcases, evicting books that I wasn't prepared to re-read. If I have no desire to read it, and more than a decade has passed, I think it's fair to send it to a better home. Currently "better home" translates to "sitting in a pile and getting in the way in the hall", but I aspire to improve upon that. Perhaps when charity shops are open again. Meanwhile, here is the selection of books that featured last month...

Hide and Seek - Ian Rankin

The second Inspector Rebus novel. Again only vague recollections of it. Again not the Rebus I remember from the later novels. I'm rather enjoying re-reading them as new though, and currently prefer the character of Rebus that I am (re)discovering more than I remember doing either first time round, or in the books that I have a stronger recollection of. Either the odd decade has changed my outlook on grumpy middle-aged characters, or my memory is flawed. Or both.

Sweet Danger - Margery Allingham

Due to a catastrophic failure in the internal library system, what I was expecting to be the second of the Albert Campion books turned out not to be, but I was committed and didn't want to abort a few chapters in once it dawned on me that there was a chunk of chronology missing. I more-or-less remembered the plot of this, as it can only be five to ten years since I started reading Allingham. Rather silly, and fun, but horribly, horribly sexist and racist, so occasionally difficult to fully enjoy the silliness.

Faceless Killers - Henning Mankel

Ah, Scandinavian crime novels, a great way of depressing oneself. BigBear introduced me to the Wallander books sometime round about 2005/6 ish. And I think I've only read them all once, so this was another foray into realising how little of the plot of a murder mystery I remembered. The characters were at least familiar, unlike with Ian Rankin, so it would seem that I have some ability to hold onto the essence of who I'm reading about, if not what I'm reading about.

Ash, A Secret History - Mary Gentle

A proper, epic historical-fantasy set in a not-quite real Burgundy of the 15th century, with many battles and much bloodshed. I last read this when BrotherBear spent a year on sabbatical in Japan and deposited his books with me while he rented out his house. This gave me the chance to read large quantities of books that I didn't own without even having to go to the library. This one stuck with me as a rollicking adventure, so I have recently bought myself a second-hand copy, and now seemed a good time to tackle it again. At 1,100 pages, "tackle" feels like an apt term. Curiously, though I did remember quite sizeable chunks of the plot, it was all chopped up and swapped around in my head, so events that I thought occurred a good half way through were actually in the first couple of chapters.

At 550 pages in I was wondering how it was going to fill another 550 pages. Most of what I recalled had happened, bar (obviously) the exciting denouement, so I genuinely couldn't fathom how it could be stretched out even further. But it could. And not all of it was descriptions of armour. Though there were a lot of those. I suppose if you've gone to all the effort of researching 15th century mercenary armour in Western Europe, you want to make sure you shoehorn all that research into your masterwork.

Armour aside, it was still as entertaining a read as it was fifteen years ago, though I had forgotten how irritating I found one of the literary techniques used. The entire book is presented as though it is a translation of a newly discovered text, and thus is interrupted every few chapters by the email correspondence between the supposed translator and editor. Both of whom I wished to throw out of the nearest window.

Tooth and Nail  - Ian Rankin

I am absolutely convinced I've never read this book before. But since all the Rankin's are mine, not BigBear's, this seems unlikely. Curiously, though only the third book in the series, it opted for the old chestnut of taking the protagonist to a new location for a bit of variety. Which the series didn't really need yet. But it worked, and I enjoyed reading it for the first(!) time. I'm beginning to wonder if the Inspector Rebus of my memory actually exists, as he's not the one who's appeared in the first three novels.

44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith

I have loved these books, though not returned to them recently. The cast are primarily the residents of a single building in Edinburgh that is divided into flats, and the series of books simply explores their lives, loves, foibles and minor domestic adventures. The books was originally written as a newspaper serial, with a new chapter appearing every day. The compilation of very brief episodes that manage to hold together as a single narrative is unusual nowadays, but captivating. There is very little in the way of actual plot, it's all character-driven, which interestingly meant it all seemed a lot more familiar than any other books I've re-read after a similar length of time away - the nature of the characters has stayed with me far more than anything mundane like who killed whom. The downside of this is that it repaid a return visit somewhat less than the rest of this month's offerings.

February Reading List

Look at me go! I'm managing the second month of maintaining my reading list!

Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters

As with January's list, a comforting foray into a somewhat parodic Edwardian murder mystery. The second of my new Christmas Amelia Peabody books, and one that threw me slightly, as I'm acquiring them in publication order, but the author went back and filled in some of the story's chronology as she progressed, so this one jumps back in time 9 years prior to the one I read in January. My feeble mental state was not ready for his and I felt quite put out. Particularly as it returned to a point in the story filled with unresolved sexual tension that I'd been happy to see the back of.

Godsgrave - Jay Kristoff

Second part in a trilogy and a thoroughly entertaining fantasy romp with magic, gladiators and assassins. Extremely violent and no holds barred in killing off favoured characters to advance the plot, or sometimes just to kill them. Slightly irked by the obvious male gaze exhibited - the main protagonist is a girl, but the male author spends a fair tranche of time on her sexual desires and exploits, including an utterly gratuitous threesome. Admittedly the man involved did end up swiftly and unsympathetically murdered, but it felt very much like male-fantasy fulfillment, as did the heroine's discovery of lesbianism. Isn't the idea to "write what you know"? I was unconvinced by this being what the author knows particularly well, but very much convinced it was written by a man for other men.

The Wrong Side of the Sky - Gavin Lyall

Returning to another book I haven't read in decades. A proper rollicking adventure thriller from the 1960s with full complement of beautiful women and hard-drinking, wise-cracking, damaged men. Didn't remember any of it and couldn't put it down.

Darkdawn - Jay Kristoff

Concluding part in the trilogy, and the author redeemed himself by mocking his own writing style in a curious plot device that involved the characters finding a copy of the books that they themselves appear in. Which worked a lot better than it sounds. Really enjoyed the series, despite my caveats about the sex scenes.

Knots and Crosses - Ian Rankin

I've been acquiring the Rebus novels since about 2001, but realise (as with many of my collections of detective novels) I don't often re-read them. And it turns out I'm not sure I have ever re-read this one, the first of the series. Aside from the fact that I'd forgotten the plot, I'd also forgotten the character that Rebus started as in this book. I'm much more familiar with late-era Rebus, and had forgotten both his origins and how much he changed. I may have to gradually work my way through them all again to see how his character develops. 

So there we are, another mix of returning to books that haven't been read in years, and new books. My major revelation is that after sufficient years buying and reading books I have now reached the stage where it's very definitely worth re-reading some of them, even if they're not works of high art that will reveal new facets of themselves upon repeat visits. My memory is now faded enough and I've filled it with so many books, that I can go back and discover old books almost as if they're new. Which should save me a fortune.

January reading list

In an attempt to find something to focus on that is neither pandemic nor politics related, I'm going to try keeping a monthly record* of not only what I've read, but vague thoughts on what I've read.

So here goes for January

The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman

Part 3 in the His Dark Materials trilogy.  I'd decided to re-read the trilogy in December, and the final part fell in January. I had loved these when they first came out, and every now and then have thought about re-reading them but for some reason they still seemed quite recent. It turns out they're over twenty years old, and it came as something of a surprise to discover just how much I didn't remember of the details. In fact, I barely remembered anything beyond the odd vague story arc, and who the main characters were. And I didn't even remember all of them to start with. Which just goes to show there is a benefit to getting older and forgetting stuff. It becomes possible to re-read books and enjoy them almost as much as first time round. 

The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters

Amelia Peabody mysteries are a comfort blanket, a hot water bottle and a cup of cocoa; they're a soothing balm against the cold and grey. Possible to read without taxing the faculties too much, but entertaining, silly and enjoyable. For those who haven't read them, they're murder mysteries set in the late 1800s to early 1900s in Egypt with a redoubtable archaeologist heroine and her family. Firmly tongue-in-cheek. I hadn't read this one before, so it was a particularly enjoyable treat.

The Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett

First in a set of six books, the other five of which will not be troubling my bookshelves. This book slowed me down enormously as, despite having a reasonably entertaining plot, it was bogged down with too many characters, too much double-triple-quadruple crossing, a tedious habit of quoting Latin and French and, finally, unnecessarily florid prose that would have required frequent dictionary-consultation if only I could be bothered. Oh, and a transparently derivative hero - the Scarlet Pimpernel was implausible enough, without being copied and embroidered upon to a point of utter absurdity.

I blame the third of these for the fact that I only read three books in January, which is below average. Apathy and exhaustion may have played a role as well. But two hits and a miss is an acceptable ratio.

* Given my current mental and emotional fortitude, I can imagine this attempt lasting at least a month.

Ahead of my time

A little over twenty years ago, BrotherBear gave me a book. Though I've only read it once, it has stayed with me, as has the memory of my own reaction to it. It was called "Into the Forest" and was written by Jean Hegland. It was a post-apocalyptic novel with two sisters attempting to fend for themselves after the total breakdown of society and technology. They lived in a rural area of the US and were accustomed to their family growing their own fruit and vegetables and bottling some at the end of the summer. But then, as food became more and more scarce, and they lacked the seeds or plants to grow everything they needed, they even resorted to making acorn flour to bake bread from.

It was this that tipped me over the edge, and thus it was that I sat sobbing to Piglet that I was going to die because I didn't even know how to turn acorns into flour, and I have no usable survival skills whatsoever. Being a very understanding Piglet, she humoured me in this total meltdown, and we hatched a Cunning Plan.

Our Cunning Plan hinged upon the fact that at that time friend Tigger's parents lived in a rural(ish) area, in a very large house, with very large grounds, and they grew lots of things, and Tigger's mother was one of those immensely competent women who knew how to pickle things, and made her own mayonnaise. So we decided that when the apocalypse came, we'd retreat to Tigger's parents' house and they'd already know how to preserve fruits, and we could work out how to make acorn flour.

And now here we are, more than twenty years later. There's no flour in the shops and I still don't know how to make flour out of acorns. And Tigger's parents have retired, and moved to a smaller and more manageable home. They might not even want me, BigBear, LittleBear, four Piglets, four Tiggers, and their other three children and families to descend upon them. Besides which, that probably wouldn't count as social distancing.

All my deranged plans have fallen apart. Why oh why didn't I learn to make acorn flour in the twenty years I had available to me??

Footnote: this is a joke. I am not worried that I am going to need to make flour out of acorns. Let's be calm and stop buying All The Food.

Books, books and books

Books are a major feature of my life. I am currently contemplating ripping out the fitted wardrobes in the spare bedroom to make more space for books.* I've kept lists, or even written reviews, of every book I've read in some years. Except when I didn't.

I don't, this time, have any Major Thoughts, or even Great Revelations, about books today. Instead I have a series of minor moments in my book-life.

Some people, especially those with children, will have been aware that it has been World Book Day recently. As is always the case, this involved LittleBear dressing up as a character from his favourite book. So far, so good. It also, this year, involved making a potato into a character from a favourite book. Because nothing says "books" like a potato. And it was a competition. Competitive potato-ing. Nothing says "books" like competitive potato-ing. So LittleBear and I turned  a baking potato into Winnie the Pooh-tato and a new potato into Piglet. Obviously I helped. I wielded the pipe cleaners with which to form arms and legs (and Piglet's head) and I sewed sleeves on Pooh's little red coat. But I bit my tongue, and sat on my hands, and let LittleBear do all required drawing, colouring and afixing of limbs, coats etc. And I was very proud of out joint effort.

Winnie the Pooh-tato

Then there was a display of all the entries in the school hall. And it became clear that the parents at LittleBear's school span the full spectrum when it comes to "helping" with homework. There were potatoes that were clearly entirely the work of a five-year old child. Or an adult with a Picasso-esque approach to the human form. There were potatoes that were clearly joint efforts. And then there were potatoes that no child had been allowed in the room during the construction of, that made me feel rather sad. Yes, they were beautiful, and clever, and creative. But so what?

On the plus side, World Book Day also results in LittleBear receiving a book token. And since today was Mothering Sunday, I chose my treat for the day - to be allowed a trip to the bookshop, and to be allowed the opportunity to purchase books for me. LittleBear could be persuaded that this was an admirable idea by assuring him that we would also be buying him a book. So we had a lovely time in Waterstones, and BigBear and I came away with five new books, and LittleBear with two new books. I excused this profligacy because I have a little card that gets stamped every time I spend £10 in Waterstones, and once it's been stamped 10 times, I get a £10 discount. And today was "free" £10 day, as we toppled over the 10 stamps mark**. BigBear seemed excessively keen to point out that this was not in fact a "free" £10, as I had spent at least £100 in obtaining it, but I was not going to allow the tedious minutiae of facts to get in the way of my frisson of excitement at receiving it.

The most exciting bit (for me) was the fact that LittleBear was taken by the idea of a new work of fiction, that he had not read before. Admittedly it's a rather clichéd "boy wants to be a premiership footballer" story, but nonetheless, it's a story, and not an encyclopedia of dinosaurs, sea creatures or volcanoes. We did buy a book about volcanoes as well, obviously. To maintain the momentum of having bought a new work of fiction, we started reading said clichéd football book after dinner. And carried on, and on, and on until bathtime. The tension was unbearable as Small Boy in Book faced bullying, and upset, and risk, and LittleBear clung on, desperate for a happy ending. Which is how BigBear ended up undertaking 50 minutes of bedtime reading, instead of 15 minutes, as there was absolutely no way that our LittleBear was going to go to sleep without knowing what happened to Small Boy in Book. For anyone who was concerned, there was a happy ending. Phew.

Meanwhile, I have been reading what is, I would say, the best popular science book I've ever read. It's interesting, well-written, stretches me to think without vanishing into overly technical jargon and without dumbing everything down. It's funny, it's entertaining and it's illuminating. So I shall issue forth a big thank you to my dear aunt, who recommended it to me over a year ago. I have rather parsimoniously waited until I could buy it in paperback instead of hardback. And besides which, my bookcases are all carefully crafted to house paperbacks as densely as possible, and hardbacks both don't fit and mess up my filing system. So I shall recommend to everyone else that they read "A brief history of everyone who ever lived" by Adam Rutherford. It's brilliant.


* This is not as absurd a bibliophilic step as it at first seems. The fitted wardrobes currently completely enclose a chimney. If they didn't, then the chimney could be face with books instead. I would have more bookcase space, and no longer have a pair of doors that open onto a blank, brick chimney breast. A win-win situation.

** I was delighted that the man at the till asked me if I had a new, plastic rewards card, or an old stamp card, and when I asked if I should move to the new system he said, "No, the old one's better, I'll give you another of those." Honesty from someone who is supposed to upsell you onto a scheme whereby they harvest your name, personal details, contact information and purchasing habits is a breath of refreshing air.

Reading List 2016

...has been cancelled.

It's March already, and I have failed to keep note of the books that I have read so far this year. I don't feel inclined to start now, or to stare, bewildered, at the bookshelves and wonder which things I read when.

And I feel a strange sense of relief at not keeping track. What started as a matter of interest for me became a source of stress once I decided to make it public.

I began to worry about what other people would make of my reading choices.

I started choosing what to read next based upon what other people might think.

I stopped gorging on one author for weeks on end in case people thought I was odd.

I feared that BrotherBear would look down upon anything that sounded dangerously like chick-lit. (He wouldn't, and even if he did... so what?)

I was anxious that my English-teaching cousin would condemn my failure to read Works of Great Literature. (She wouldn't, and even if she did... so what?)

I wondered whether my friends who are published authors would think my choice of reading matter was tediously mainstream and boring. (They wouldn't, and even if they did... so what?)

I chose books that I thought I "ought" to read, instead of books that I wanted to read.

I felt guilty if I didn't read "enough" books in one month.

In short, I found a way to make something that had been a whim to satisfy my own idle curiosity into a stressful endeavour in which I attempted to prove myself in some way worthy or good to other people, when reading is the one genuinely utterly solitary activity that I undertake. The one activity that really is absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what other people think. My joy, pleasure and escape. My chance to immerse myself in a different world and a different life, just for a few hours at a time. And in 2016, that's what it's going to be again. If you want to know what I've been reading, what I've been enjoying, what I've discarded in disgust... ask away. Have a chat in the pub. Compare notes over tea and cake. But don't look for An Impressive List at the end of the year. There won't be one. Reading isn't about Impressive Lists.

2015 Reading List

In 2014, for the first time, I kept a record of every book I read throughout the year, mostly as an interesting exercise for myself, to see how many books I read and what types of books they were. By the end however, I found that all I had was a list, with no real recollection of which ones I'd loved or which ones I'd hated. So in 2015, I had a go at making a few notes about each books. And this is the result. My 2015 Reading List.

In addition to the official list,  which follows, I have to put in an honourable mention to a graphic novel published in 5 parts: "Surface Tension" by Jay Gunn, who I am delighted to say is a friend of mine. I wasn't sure which month it belonged in, as it was read over such a wide time period. It is a genuine work of art - beautifully drawn and with a gripping and engaging plot. It revealed a (slightly embarrassing) weakness of mine - my visual mind appears to switch off when it perceives I have entered "reading mode" and its services are no longer required. I kept finding myself gazing at panels in the novel thinking, "wait, hang on, have I seen this character before? Which one is it? What's happening?" Because my "reading" mind had taken over and was doing its damnedest to read the words alone and ignore the pictures. Which really, really, doesn't work with a graphic novel. I had to actively re-train myself to read in a different way to be able to follow, understand and appreciate the story. Sorry Jay!

The second honourable mention has to go to the countless (and I mean that in it's literal sense - I genuinely cannot count them) dinosaur books that I have read to LittleBear. Very, very large, very, very long, very, very detailed dinosaur books. We were assembling a model velociraptor skeleton yesterday and examined the pelvic bones. LittleBear announced "it's a lizard-hipped dinosaur Mummy, a saurischian, not an ornithischian. The saurischians split into theropods and sauropods, and this is a theropod." Which told me. I clearly should have been paying more attention to the books I was reading to LittleBear. I think I paid more attention to the books I chose to read than I paid to all those dinosaur books...

January

The Mystery Mile - Margery Allingham

Gentle, witty and manages to leave a lot unsaid and unexplained without being irritating whilst doing so. No sense of “what? wait? what happened?” and yet a pleasant sense of “hmm, I wonder…”

The Mystery at 31 New Inn - R Austin Freeman

A proper Holmesian whodunnit, of its time and outrageous in its attitude towards women, but still romps along. Thorndyke’s assistant/narrator is just a bit too slow on the uptake and I found myself harumphing at Jervis a few times “oh for goodness sake, it’s obvious!” when once again he couldn’t piece together the blindingly obvious. Still leaves me wanting to read some more, if only to see if Jervis manages to learn a bit under Thorndyke’s tutelage!

Whispers Underground - Ben Aaranovitch

Fun, silly, fast-paced adventure. Not exactly high-art, but I can't resist a murder mystery with some magic thrown in. Really enjoying this series.

I Will Repay - Baroness Orczy

Aaagggghhh! I've enjoyed the daft romps of the other Scarlet Pimpernel books, but this was just cloying, overblown, romantic twaddle with weak, pathetic women with mysterious, complex, unfathomable hearts and strong, noble, devoted men who could merely worship their beloved's perfection. Bleugh.

Winnie the Pooh - A A Milne

OK so I read it aloud to LittleBear, but it's still a proper book, and I love it. Making myself do all the voices and reading it slowly made me enjoy it all the more.

The House at Pooh Corner - A A Milne

The final chapter still makes me weep, and is the only one I haven't read aloud to LittleBear. I took into a corner to be private with it.

The Story of My Life - Helen Keller

A really extraordinary insight into learning, language and life. A genuinely inspirational woman and book.

Sweet Danger - Margery Allingham

Exciting, funny, fun, sweet. What's no to like?

February

Medusa - Michael Dibdin

Fantastic writing and gripping plot. I'm always in two minds about how I feel about Zen, as he's such a morally ambiguous character. I can't help feel I'd get more from the books if I knew more Italian history and more of the way life is there. Still brilliant books though.

Flowers for the Judge - Margery Allingham

More Campion. Another good 'un.

The Truce - Primo Levi

Hard to know what to say about this. Beautifully written and immensely moving.

March

The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

No pastiche or impersonation quite gets close to the genuine Philip Marlowe. Great.

The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling

Bought to read to LittleBear, but gobbled it up myself first. Quite surprised how much I don't remember from my childhood.

Sir Percy Leads the Band - Baroness Orczy

An early one and a proper rollicking adventure again

Broken Homes - Ben Aaronovitch

Great fun, but let down by assuming you remember the details of the plots in the previous books. A bit more recap would help.

The Big Short - Michael Lewis

As gripping as a thriller and yet it's a book charting the course of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco. Brilliant and depressing at the same time.

April

The Hour of the Donkey - Anthony Price

Brilliant, as always. Why these books are out of print is a mystery.

The Dead in their Vaulted Arches - Alan Bradley

I've been waiting over a year for this to come out, and it was as fantastic as I hoped. Read it in one day, and wanted it to last so much longer.

Every Day is Mother's Day - Hilary Mantel

Beautifully written. But. But. But. A dank, depressing, miserable book about grubby, dank, miserable lives. I won't be reading the sequel. There's only so much murder, adultery and child abuse I can handle.

The Envoy - Edward Wilson

I read this on a friend's recommendation and was sorely disappointed. The blurb quoted a reviewer as saying "the thinking man's le Carre" which should have warned me. Le Carre is the thinking man's le Carre. The writing was almost Dan Brown-esque, the plot lurched from twist to twist with no justification or plausibility and the details of "local colour" were laughably bad (6 inches depth of hail in June in Suffolk?) Miss.

The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler

Beautiful writing, the best use of simile I think I've read, great plot, and utterly timeless. Fabulous.

May

Christine Falls - Benjamin Black

First time I’ve read a Benjamin Black, and it was almost enough to make me give up writing anything myself. Such beautiful writing. But then, he is actually John Banville, so what did I expect? A depressing story though, despite the amazing writing.

The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy

Short stories and very, very silly

The Case of the Late Pig - Margery Allingham

I still love reading these, and this one was as much like a warm bath with a cup of tea and a hobnob as all the others I’ve read.

The Bleeding Heart - Christopher Fowler

Another outing for Bryant and May. Funny, warm and interesting. I always find these a reliable and rewarding read.

The Night of Wenceslas - Lionel Davidson

A slow start, and not terribly likeable protagonist, but gripping in the end, once I got going. Not as good as Kolymsky Heights.

A Long way to Verona - Jane Gardam

One of my new favourite authors. This one had a lovely protagonist in a thirteen year-old girl who rather reminded me of myself.

June

Farewell My Lovely - Raymond Chandler

Still such fabulous writing. Another corker.

Ghostwritten - David Mitchell

Lovely writing and some interesting ideas, but in many ways a deeply unsatisfactory book. Too much left untold such that it came across as the author not actually knowing the rest of the story, but trying to be deliberately enigmatic to hide his own poor plotting.

Soldier No More - Anthony Price

Another viewpoint onto David Audley, and another convoluted and intriguing plot. Still thinking about it and trying to work out exactly what happened and why...

The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

Not at all what I was expecting, and a cast of largely unlikeable people. Meh.

July

Back to Bologna - Michael Dibdin

Zen is still ambiguous, but I still enjoy reading him.

The Fashion in Shrouds - Margery Allingham

Very silly, with some quite shocking ideas expressed. Campion tells his sister what she really needs is to be raped. Really?

The High Window - Raymond Chandler

Convoluted plot but fantastic writing again

Traitor's Purse - Margery Allingham

Another silly one, falling back on the old “hit on the head and lost his memory” trick, but quite moving as well.

The Silver Swan - Benjamin Black

Dark, a bit depressing, but writing that makes me want to give up writing because it’s so good.

August

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke

Very, very, very long. A good read with some great ideas though. I did stop and wonder quite often what drove the decision to keep it as one book when it had a structure that could have easily given itself to being more than one. Couldn’t help feeling she may have lost readers by creating such a dauntingly long work.

The Lady in the Lake - Raymond Chandler

Still love them.

September

The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan

Lovely writing, depressing, and at the end I felt a bit cheated by the emotional manipulation introduced by the absurd coincidences I was expected to accept. If your subject is the POW camps of the Burma “death” railway you’ve got enough heart-rending material to work with without adding in cliched romantic junk.

Salt is Leaving - J B Priestley

Fun, but the dialogue felt very much of its time. Perhaps because he captured the dialogue of the time so well?

Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy

Daft. Again.

October

End Games - Michael Dibdin

Still the nagging feeling that a better grasp of Italian politics would help

The Weeping Girl - Hakan Nesser

I sort of saw where this was going, but only sort of.

Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson

It’s now longer since BB wrote this than the period of time over which he was looking back and reminiscing, so there were two layers or reminiscences. Still plenty of chuckles.

Coroner’s Pidgin - Margery Allingham

I seem to have not written down what I thought of this, but it's a fair bet that I enjoyed it. Have I mentioned I like Campion?

November

More Work for the Undertaker - Margery Allingham

Campion. Excellent.

The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss

I absolutely loved this. Gripping plot, interesting characters that it was possible to empathise with, very funny and engaging, makes me remember why I used to read fantasy novels. Really, really good. Am now incredibly angry that it’s the first part in a trilogy of which the third part hasn’t been written/published yet.

The Tiger in the Smoke - Margery Allingham

More Campion. Still excellent.

A Clubbable Woman - Reginald Hill

When unsure what to read, Dalziel and Pascoe are always a good choice.

December

An Advancement of Learning - Reginald Hill

Still unsure what to read, Dalziel and Pascoe still don’t let me down.

The Wise Man’s Fear - Patrick Rothfuss

Part two of the incomplete trilogy. More brilliance, more rage that I can’t finish the story.

Ruling Passion - Reginald Hill

I’m not buying any more books before Christmas, so Dalziel and Pascoe to the rescue again

Foxglove Summer - Ben Aaronovitch

Christmas brings new books! Same problem as the last one - it relies on you remembering rather too many details from the previous novel. And thus I was a bit confused at times. Too many police acronyms as well. Funny and engaging though. I’m a sucker for magic.

As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust - Alan Bradley

I adore the Flavia de Luce books, but this one headed dangerously into jumping the shark. With a change of scene, a lot of the brilliant interactions between characters was lost, and therefore some of the fun and charm went too. Good but not as good as the others.

Why reading books is bad for your health

No! Not those books. Not real books, that you actually enjoy reading. You only need to see my house to know I can't possibly mean real books. The room I'm writing this in has floor-to-ceiling shelving either side of the chimney, plus I've re-interpreted the concept of the occasional table to be more of an occasional bookcase. I mean, what's the point of having a piece of furniture that's just for putting a drink on if you can't also store books in it? The room next door? Two bookcases and another wall of built in shelving. The bedrooms? More bookcases. No, I lie, our bedroom has a bookcase deficit and therefore merely has random piles of books on top of every surface. So, rest assured, I don't mean that real books are bad for your health.

Actually, those ones might be bad for your health now I come to think about it, or maybe just my health. I've been known to spend entire holidays in the Lake District, holed up in a cottage reading Dick Francis books rather than doing something improving like Going For A Nice Long Walk. I could try and claim that that was because it was raining and I'm a fair weather walker. But it wasn't always raining. Even in the Lake District it doesn't always rain. Just mostly. And it doesn't explain going out for a nice long walk, with a book, that somehow turns into two short walks punctuated by sitting on a sunny rock reading a book for a few hours. So, I'll admit, even the right kind of books can perhaps have a detrimental effect on the amount of exercise I get. Not to mention the evenings I sort of forget to cook dinner because I'm reading and end up having toast and chocolate biscuits because I can't be bothered to cook anything else. Doesn't happen so much now I'm married to BigBear and have a LittleBear around the house too. They're much less tolerant of meals not appearing.

No, the books that I'm talking about are the ones that tell you how to raise your child. Oh yes, those ones. The ones that are always, always wrong. How do I know they're always wrong? Because unless you wrote it yourself, it's not about your child. It's either about the author's child, or about some mythical ideal child who the author believes should exist or is actually delusional enough to believe does exist. And those other children are not your child. Yes, they might have some things in common. Like having two ears, a nose and a mouth. Or having a predisposition for commenting loudly on the appearance of complete strangers. But once you get down to the detail, they might as well be about an alien. LittleBear, when being put to bed, currently insists that he must point a finger towards his bed as I'm holding him, and that as I lower him towards the mattress, the pointing finger must touch down first. You're not going to find that in any parenting manual on how to have a smooth and hassle-free bedtime now are you? And I wouldn't dream of suggesting anyone else should do it, because it's LittleBear's foible, and it will indubitably vanish as mysteriously as it appeared. It merely highlights the futility of attempting to produce any kind of one-size-fits-all instructions for a child.

Hold on though, that's just pointing out the woeful inadequacies of parenting manuals, and not actually explaining how they can possibly do you any harm isn't it? Perhaps that's true for the secure and confident parents out there, but let's be honest, how many sleep-deprived first-time parents are that secure and confident in knowing what on earth they're doing. (And if you are, please feel free not to tell me so. Really, I don't want to know how splendid you are and how pathetic and useless I am. I've already mastered that one thanks.)

So, picture yourself, unsure about basically every aspect of keeping this new creature alive. How often, how much, what, when, how and where should it be feeding. How often, how much, what, when, how and where it should be sleeping. So, off you go looking for answers, and you read one of these books. And it's so beguiling... simple instructions for a peaceful baby... guaranteed ways of being sure they're feeding enough... sure-fire solutions for sleeping through the night. So you start to follow the instructions, and your child just doesn't respond the way Book Child does. Your child doesn't find a warm bath a soothing wind down before bed. Your child finds being naked the greatest affront to dignity and contentment since the year dot. Your child doesn't want to have a lovely quiet feed in a darkened room before bed. Your child actually wants to feed about half an hour after you've finally fallen asleep, just as you're sliding into blissful deep sleep. And as your addled brain desperately tries to work out where it's all going wrong, you draw the only conclusion that makes any kind of sense: It's all my fault. My baby is perfect, and the book is so calm and sensible and right, so it must be me. I must be a failure.

And so begins the self-doubt, the ego-flagellation, the insecurity and the complete confidence that you still don't have the faintest idea what you're doing. And what is more the entire future happiness of this infant is being built upon the foundations of your own ineptitude. Without these books you might have chatted to your friends, to your own mother, your aunts, cousins, siblings, people you met on the bus, and found that each and every baby was different. You might have found that for every ten people you asked, there were at least twelve different answers. You might have found some helpful tips and tricks that you were prepared to try and happily shrug off if they didn't work. But instead you looked to an "expert" and now all you can hear in your own brain is "failure, failure, failure, failure...." And that's seriously bad for your health. Believe me.

2014 Reading List

I've never kept any kind of record of what I read, or when I've read it, and last year I was interested to see the distribution of my reading, both in my choice of reading matter, and how many books I read in total. The only effect that making the list as I went along had was that I made a little bit of a conscious effort NOT to read lots of books by the same author back to back. Though, to be honest in May and June I went a bit mad on Eric Ambler, Ed McBain, Gavin Lyall and Michael Dibdin, but you can't have everything. The one thing this list doesn't do is give any kind of indication of how much I enjoyed the books, what I thought of them, or whether I'd recommend them to anyone else. So perhaps this year's list will include some thoughts after each book!

January

Beyond Black - Hilary Mantel
Speaking from among the Bones - Alan Bradley
Standing in another man's grave -  Ian Rankin
Espedair Street - Ian Banks
The 44 Vintage - Anthony Price
Carrying the Fire - Michael Collins

February

Complicity - Iain Banks
The Red Thumb Mark - R Austin Freeman
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
Full Dark House - Christopher Fowler

March

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
The Secret Pilgrim -John le Carre

April

Where The Bodies are Buried - Christopher Brookmyre
Tomorrow's ghost - Anthony Price
The Stranger House - Reginald Hill
The Secret Servant -  Gavin Lyall
Bring up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel

May

The conduct of Major Maxim - Gavin Lyall
The Crocus List - Gavin Lyall
Uncle Target - Gavin Lyall
Old Filth - Jane Gardam
Fever Pitch - Nick Hornby
Cosi fan Tutti - Michael Dibdin
The Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
A Long Finish - Michael Dibdin
The Heckler - Ed McBain

June

Cop Hater - Ed McBain
Shooting Script - Gavin Lyall
Epitaph for a Spy - Eric Ambler
Journey into Fear - Eric Ambler
Lady, Lady I did it! - Ed McBain
Blood Rain - Michael Dibdin
Crucible of Gold - Naomi Novik

July

Moon over Soho - Ben Aaronovitch
The Man in the Wooden Hat - Jane Gardam
The Last Runaway - Tracy Chevalier
Stalky and Co - Rudyard Kipling
The Most Dangerous Game - Gavin Lyall

August

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy
The Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
The Elusive Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy
Enigma - Robert Harris
Eldorado - Baroness Orczy

September

And then you die - Michael Dibdin
If this is a man - Primo Levi
We are all completely beside ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler
Police at the Funeral - Margery Allingham

October

Lord Tony's Wife - Baroness Orczy
The Moro Affair - Leonardo Sciascia
Hide your Eyes - Margery Allingham
Miss Garnet's Angel - Salley Vickers
The War of the Worlds - HG Wells

November

Last Friends - Jane Gardam
Living Dolls - Natasha Walker
The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy
Towards the End of the Morning - Michael Frayn
Kolymsky Heights - Lionel Davidson

December

The Wake - Paul Kingsnorth
Saints of the Shadow Bible - Ian Rankin
A Delicate Truth - John le Carre
The Flight of the Maidens - Jane Gardam