Six in six!

July 12, 201411 Comments

Two years ago Jo of The Book Jotter came up with this fun and simple meme to help us reflect on the books we’ve read in the first six months of the year. The idea is to pick six different categories and then for each one list six books or authors that you’ve read so far this year. Jo has provided lots of category headings to choose from if you need inspiration or you can be creative and think of your own. This time I’ve used some of the same categories that I’ve used in previous years, as well as one or two new ones. I’ve only listed each book once, though some could have been included in more than one category.

Six classics read in 2014

1. Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope
2. Stoner by John Williams
3. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
4. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. Coming Up for Air by George Orwell
6. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Six novels based on the lives of real people

1. Sisters of Treason by Elizabeth Fremantle (Katherine and Mary Grey)
2. The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick (Eleanor of Aquitaine)
3. Crippen by John Boyne (Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen)
4. Empress of the Night by Eva Stachniak (Catherine the Great)
5. Girl on the Golden Coin by Marci Jefferson (Frances Stuart)
6. Falls the Shadow by Sharon Penman (Simon de Montfort)

Six books with an element of mystery and suspense

1. The Second Duchess by Elizabeth Loupas
2. Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart
3. Tropical Issue by Dorothy Dunnett
4. A Dark and Twisted Tide by Sharon Bolton
5. Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie
6. Watch the Wall, My Darling by Jane Aiken Hodge

Six books that took me to six different locations

1. Beatrice and Benedick by Marina Fiorato (Sicily)
2. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie (Nigeria)
3. The Long Song by Andrea Levy (Jamaica)
4. The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed (Somalia)
5. One Night in Winter by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Russia)
6. Ghostwritten by Isabel Wolff (Java)

Six authors new to me this year

1. Jenny Barden (The Lost Duchess)
2. Paul Doherty (Roseblood)
3. Laurie Lee (Cider with Rosie)
4. Deborah Harkness (A Discovery of Witches)
5. Octavia Butler (Kindred)
6. Margaret Irwin (These Mortals)

Six books I loved but didn’t manage to fit into another category above

1. The Moon in the Water by Pamela Belle
2. Insurrection by Robyn Young
3. Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton
4. The Fortune Hunter by Daisy Goodwin
5. Little Man, What Now? by Hans Fallada
6. The Convictions of John Delahunt by Andrew Hughes

How has your reading been in 2014 so far? Have you or will you be posting your own six in six?

Classics Club March Meme: Literary Periods

March 8, 201412 Comments

It’s been a while since I last answered one of the Classics Club’s monthly memes, but this one appealed to me and I thought I’d join in. The question this month is:

What is your favorite “classic” literary period and why?

This is a very easy question for me to answer. My favourite literary period is, and always has been, the Victorian period (1837-1901). I love the style of Victorian writing and while I do also enjoy reading books from other periods, I usually feel much more comfortable with a Victorian classic than with a classic from the 20th century. The reasons people sometimes give for disliking Victorian novels – the length, the wordiness, the long descriptive passages, the habit of directly addressing the reader – have never really been a problem for me. And some of the greatest characters and most memorable plots in literature can be found in Victorian fiction too.

One of the first Victorian novels I remember reading was A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, which I was given as a Christmas present as a child. It was a lovely illustrated hardback edition which I still have and sometimes re-read at Christmas. This was followed several years later by Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, both of which I read as a young teenager and loved. It took me a lot longer to get to Anne Bronte’s novels but when I eventually did I enjoyed those as well, particularly The Tenant of Wildfall Hall.

Despite enjoying A Christmas Carol when I first read it all those years ago, it’s only more recently that I’ve come to appreciate Charles Dickens’ other work. Our Mutual Friend found its way onto my books of the year list in 2011 and A Tale of Two Cities did the same in 2013.

Dickens and the Brontes are probably the first names that come to mind for most people when they think of Victorian novelists, but there are so many others that I love too. As the Victorian period covers several decades, it obviously encompasses a wide range of different types of books and authors from Gothic novels such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Sheridan Le Fanu’s Uncle Silas to the wonderful Victorian sensation novels of Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Ellen Wood (The Woman in White, Lady Audley’s Secret and East Lynne are some of my favourites) and the comedy of Jerome K. Jerome who wrote the hilarious Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel.

Anthony Trollope is another of my favourite Victorians (I have now read all six of his Chronicles of Barsetshire and am currently in the middle of his first Palliser novel, Can You Forgive Her?) and so is Thomas Hardy – I’ve loved all of his books that I’ve read so far, especially Tess of the d’Urbervilles and A Pair of Blue Eyes.

As I come to the end of this post I realise I haven’t even mentioned George Eliot or Elizabeth Gaskell – or any of the non-British authors who I’m never quite sure whether to class as ‘Victorian’ or not but who wrote during the same period. And there were some classic children’s novels published during the Victorian era too. I think Black Beauty may actually have been the very first Victorian novel I ever read!

Do you enjoy reading Victorian literature or is there another period that you prefer?

If you do like the Victorians, do you have any favourite authors or books that I haven’t mentioned here?

Classics Club August Meme: Forewords and Notes

August 11, 201322 Comments

I haven’t taken part in the Classics Club Meme for a while, but August’s topic is one I feel quite strongly about! This month’s question is:

Do you read forewords/notes that precede many classics? Does it help you or hurt you in your enjoyment/understanding of the work?

I do sometimes read the forewords and notes but I’ve learned from experience to read them at the end rather than the beginning! I’ve never understood why so many publishers think it’s acceptable to give away the entire plot of a novel in the introduction just because it’s a classic. It’s true that many classics have become such a big part of popular culture that most of already know what happens, but that’s not always the case and I hate to think of anyone unsuspectingly reading the introduction first and having the story completely spoiled for them. When I read the Penguin English Library edition of Far from the Madding Crowd recently, I was pleased to find that the ‘introduction’ had been placed at the end of the book as an afterword instead of at the front. I think it would be nice if all publishers could either do the same or at least print a spoiler warning at the beginning the way Wordsworth Classics do.

Personally I like to go into a book knowing as little as possible about the plot and whether it’s a classic or a contemporary novel makes no difference. I might go back to read the introduction after I’ve finished the book, though not always as sometimes I either forget or decide that I’m happy with my understanding of the book and am ready to move straight on to another one. I read classics simply because I enjoy them so I’m not necessarily interested in analysing every little detail. I like to read the information on the author and their life, if any is given, or information that places the story into historical context, but apart from that I don’t usually find the introduction particularly helpful and prefer to interpret a book the way I want to interpret it.

What are your opinions on forewords? Do you like to read them or not?

Six sixes…again!

July 4, 20136 Comments

This time last year Jo from The Book Jotter came up with a fun way for us to look back at the books we read over the first six months of the year. I was hoping she would bring the meme back again for 2013 – and she has!

The idea of the meme is to choose six categories and within each category list six books or authors that you’ve read so far this year. Here are my six sixes:

***

Six books from my Classics Club list:

1. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg
2. The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope
3. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
4. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
5. The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
6. The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola

***

Six books with King or Queen in the title:

1. The Forgotten Queen by D.L. Bogdan
2. The King’s General by Daphne du Maurier
3. King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett
4. Queen’s Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle
5. The Forbidden Queen by Anne O’Brien
6. The Iron King by Maurice Druon

***

Six authors new to me this year:

1. Guy Gavriel Kay
2. Barbara Pym
3. Kate Atkinson
4. E.M. Forster
5. Robert Goolrick
6. Bee Ridgway

***

Six books set in six different centuries:

1. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (17th)
2. The Poisoned Island by Lloyd Shepherd (19th)
3. The Memory of Lost Senses by Judith Kinghorn (20th)
4. Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick (12th)
5. The Agincourt Bride by Joanna Hickson (15th)
6. She Rises by Kate Worsley (18th)

***

Six series I’ve started, continued or finished:

1. Anne Zouroudi’s Greek Detective series (continued)
2. Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series (started)
3. Anthony Trollope’s Chronicles of Barsetshire (finished)
4. Maurice Druon’s Accursed Kings series (started)
5. Philippa Carr’s Daughters of England series (started)
6. Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel series (continued)

***

Six books filled with mystery or suspense:

1. The Moonspinners by Mary Stewart
2. The Chalice by Nancy Bilyeau
3. The White Cottage Mystery by Margery Allingham
4. Like This, For Ever by S.J. Bolton
5. The Scent of Death by Andrew Taylor
6. Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

***

Those are my choices! How has the first half of 2013 been for you?

Classics Club May Meme

May 7, 201320 Comments

I haven’t participated in the last few monthly memes from the Classics Club but I thought I would join in this month as it’s a nice, easy question to answer.

Tell us about the classic book(s) you’re reading this month. You can post about what you’re looking forward to reading in May, or post thoughts-in-progress on your current read(s).

Before I start to discuss this month’s books, I should probably mention the three books from my Classics Club list that I read in March and April and still haven’t found time to write about yet! They are:

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope
The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola

I’ve been behind with my reviews all year, but I hope to post my thoughts on these three in the next couple of weeks.

This month I’m planning to read these:

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

I received a beautiful Penguin English Library edition of this book in a giveaway from Heavenali last year and feel bad that I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. This will definitely be the next classic I read and I’ll probably start it this weekend. I’ve only read a few of Thomas Hardy’s books but I loved them and am really looking forward to reading more of his work.

Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

I re-read The Three Musketeers recently and mentioned that I want to continue with the other books in the Musketeers series. Twenty Years After is the second one and I can’t wait to read it as I’ve loved everything else I’ve read by Dumas. This is a very long book, though, so I might not finish it before the end of the month.

And those are my plans for May! I also need to read this month’s section of War and Peace (Book 2, Parts 3 and 4) for the readalong I’m taking part in.

Are there any classics you’re looking forward to reading this month?

Turn of the Century Salon: January – An Introduction

January 15, 201312 Comments

During 2013 I am going to be taking part in the Turn of the Century Salon, hosted by Katherine of November’s Autumn. The idea of the salon is to read and discuss classics from the late 1880s to the early 1930s.

This month Katherine has asked a few questions to help us introduce ourselves…

What era have you mainly read? Georgian? Victorian? Which authors?

I’ve definitely read more classics from the Victorian era than any other period. I love Wilkie Collins, the Brontë sisters (all three), Thomas Hardy, Anthony Trollope, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Alexandre Dumas.

What Classics have you read from the 1880s-1930s? What did you think of them?

When I first saw this question, I could think of very few classics I had read from this period (the only one that came instantly to mind was The Great Gatsby). Then I had a look back at my list of books read since I started blogging and discovered that I had actually read a lot more than I thought I had! Here are some of the books from the 1880s-1930s that I’ve read in the last few years (I haven’t listed all of them):

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (published 1889)
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (published 1895)
Ann Veronica by H.G. Wells (published 1909)
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (published 1911)
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West (published 1918)
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (published 1922)
Orlando by Virginia Woolf (published 1928)
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (published 1929)

Name some books you’re looking forward to read for the salon.

I don’t really like making reading plans in advance as I never manage to stick to them, but here are some books I would like to read for the salon, listed in order of publication. I won’t necessarily read all of these and will almost certainly also read other books I haven’t mentioned here.

Germinal by Emile Zola (published 1885)
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy (published 1886)
The Odd Women by George Gissing (published 1893)
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (published 1905)
A Room with a View by E.M. Forster (published 1908)
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (published 1915)
The Painted Veil by W Somerset Maugham (published 1925)

Is your preference prose? poetry? both?

Definitely prose!

Memories of A Christmas Carol: a Classics Club meme

December 23, 2012December 23, 20127 Comments

The Classics Club monthly meme question for December asks us for our thoughts and memories of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens:

What is your favorite memory of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol? Have you ever read it? If not, will you? Why should others read it rather than relying on the film adaptations?

I was given a copy of A Christmas Carol as a Christmas present when I was a child, though I don’t know exactly how old I was. I can’t remember who gave it to me either, but I suspect it was probably an aunt or uncle. I remember taking the book with me to my grandmother’s a few days after Christmas and reading those famous opening lines for the first time:

Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.

The last time I re-read the book was in 2009, shortly after I started blogging, and it was still a pleasure to read – both the story itself and this particular edition. It’s a beautiful hardback book with colour illustrations and black and white line drawings by Arthur Rackham. Reading a book that looks and feels beautiful can really enhance the experience! Rackham’s twelve colour plates, originally published in 1915, can be seen here. I’ve always liked the one of Bob Cratchit sliding down the icy street.

I received a different edition of the book a few years later from another family member (again I’ve forgotten who it was). I’m not sure where I’ve put this one, though I know I must still have it somewhere. After a lot of searching online – which wasn’t easy, as there are literally hundreds of different versions of A Christmas Carol and I couldn’t recall the names of either the illustrators or the publisher – I managed to find a picture of the front cover for you:

This edition, which I’ve discovered was published by Viking, was illustrated by Peter Fluck and Roger Law (who were also the creators of Spitting Image) with pictures of grotesque puppet-like caricatures, like the one of Scrooge pictured on the cover.

There have been so many adaptations of A Christmas Carol, but although the story and the sentiment might be the same, if you only watch them instead of reading the novel you will be missing out on so much. As I said in my 2009 post on the book, even if you already know the story it’s still worth reading it for the richness and humour of Dickens’ writing and for his wonderful descriptions and imagery.

You can see how other Classics Club members responded to this month’s meme here.

Have a great Christmas and I’ll be back later in the week with my Best Books of 2012!