March: What I Read

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (4*) - FINALLY, I HAVE CONQUERED THE BEAST.  Yes, fifteen years after my teenage self combed through this book for 'good bits' and nearly lost her lunch, my adult self read it in its entirety and to her surprise, rather enjoyed herself!  This book is not going to be for everyone, or even for most people.  The eponymous Patrick Bateman's relentlessly monotonous cycle of brand names, outfit descriptions, expensive restaurants, pill-popping and bed-hopping will put many off before they even GET to the torture, murder, sadism and frenzied cannibalism - but actually, I ended up finding the repetitive detail quite soothing, and found that not only did this shallow everyday rhythm counter the (incredibly) graphic scenes beautifully, but it also allowed Bateman's black humour and moments of sudden wisdom and humanity to shine through with unexpected brightness.  I got quite fond of him by the end - like somehow as reader and character we had been through the wringer together, each inside the other's psyche - and I still can't quite work out how much of his narrative was 'real' or whether some interactions and moments were purely the product of his increasingly desperate mind.  Now I'm going to allow myself to revisit the (much tamer and more obviously funny) movie, and my mastery of this novel will finally be complete!

Little House in the Big Woods (Little House 1) by Laura Ingalls Wilder (4.5*) - I'm waaaay behind on Bex's 2016 Little House readalong, so this month I finally picked up the first book to get started - and it was wonderful.  Set in the early 1870s in Wisconsin, it's an autobiographical year in the life of four year-old Laura's pioneer family - Ma, Pa, Mary, Laura and baby Carrie - and their log cabin in the woods.  What really struck me was how connected the family is to its surroundings: how the shifting seasons are enjoyed; how the natural world is respected and seen as something to coexist with, not conquer; and how each meal, each foodstuff, each item for the house is carefully planned and created from scratch, often with help from Laura's wider family.  It's a wonderful antidote to modern living, with charming illustrations to add to the reading experience, and I loved every minute.  It's a rose-tinted tale to be sure, and it lost half a star for a couple of slightly muddled descriptions of the objects and processes Laura observed - but they were minor gripes.  Roll on book 2!

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín (4*) - I'm not a massive reader of historical fiction, but when the film buzz first arose (with a bunch of my favourite actors attached to the project) it really whet my appetite for this one.  It's the story of a young Irish girl, Eilis, who travels from Enniscorthy to Brooklyn in the 1950s to start a new life full of expanded opportunities and interesting people.  The novel explores her growth from a timid girl to a poised young woman, and the way she is torn between her Irish roots and American lifestyle.  It's written in a slightly detached tone, and the ending was a bit too abrupt for me (albeit realistic), but I loved Eilis's journey and the many little details that brought her experiences to life, whether it was the rough crossing to New York, working in a department store, Christmas at the local parish hall, or spending the day at the beach with friends.  A compelling, subtle little novel that didn't rock my world, but made me very glad I picked it up and gave it a chance.  Just one word of warning - don't (re)watch the movie trailer if you plan to read it; it spoils (and therefore ruins) one of the most important plot points of the whole novel!

P.S. I watched the movie last night and it was BEAUTIFUL.  The music is to die for, it streamlines some of the fussier strands of the original, and the slight air of detachment in the novel gives way to a deeply emotional screen adaptation that ends on a perfect note.  My only issues with it were that some of the key characters lacked the depth and spark they had on the page, and it skipped over most of the novel's romantic scenes that served to heighten the stakes in Eilis's dual lives and make the necessity to choose between them all the more poignant.


Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (4*) - Yup, I finally read it - which is good, because I was starting to feel like the last person in the universe to pick it up, and it's been on my shelves for TWO AND A HALF YEARS already.  I didn't like it as much as Attachments, but I appreciated the slow-building and refreshingly joyful nature of the relationship between Cath and Levi, and I loved Reagan's sass and Mr Avery's dry wit (I was imagining him as Stanley Tucci all the way through!).  The focus on the Simon Snow fandom brought back some great Potter memories, and given my Carry On purchase last week it's probably a good thing that I preferred Cath's fanfiction to the 'real' Simon book excerpts peppered through the novel.  Overall I think it was maybe a little longer than it needed to be, but it finally succeeded where Anna and the French Kiss (and others) failed for me - it's a fun, bookish college novel full of interesting and multifaceted characters and different types of relationships and issues, and has a self-awareness and charm that help to excuse its more clichéd moments.  Bring on the next Rainbow! 


It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini (5*) - This book's been on my radar for the longest time (you know how much I love a good mental health novel) and HOORAY, it was so worth the wait!  First of all, let me say that it's quite refreshing to read one of these stories from the perspective of an average guy; not a painfully innocent or shy boy, or a kooky girl, but a regular, testosterone-driven, vaguely worldly fifteen year-old who likes video games, pot and jerking off.  Craig's description of his five days in a mental hospital, which he checks himself into after a long battle with depression and a night of suicidal crisis - is not only pithy, warm and very realistic (it is drawn from Vizzini's own experiences), it is also, as the title suggest, really kind of funny.  It's filled with wonderful characters and it's possibly the most relatable mental health novel I've read yet; I've scrawled so many notes and hearts and stars in the margin to mark passages to go back to next time I need to feel that I'm not alone and that other people have had the same weird thoughts as I'm having.  I also watched the movie adaptation, which is quite faithful to the book and put a big smile on my face by the time the credits rolled.  Highly recommended!

Gold by Dan Rhodes (4*) - This is an odd little book.  Nothing much happens, and yet it completely won my heart back in 2009 with its mixture of small-town characters, gentle charm and earthy British flavour.  It opens with three friends - short Mr Hughes, tall Mr Hughes and Mr Puw - chatting idly in their local pub.  Septic Barry is sitting across the room with his band, and Mr Edwards is pulling pints behind the bar.  All is as it should be.  And then a Japanese-looking girl walks in, orders a pint and sits down in the corner.  "Welcome back," everyone says.  But who is she?  Every year she arrives in this little Welsh coastal town and stays for a fortnight, alone, walking and drinking and reading.  Why is she here?  The book meanders through each day of her stay, adding little by little to the quirky tapestry of the town and the people in it as their stories unfold, and reaching deeper into Miyuki's life back home.  It's funny and delightful and strangely beautiful, and I loved reconnecting with it - and its sweetheart of a protagonist - all over again!

Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction by Tom Raabe (4.5*) - Another reread for me - and one I would wholeheartedly recommend to a large swathe of my fellow book lovers, be they LibraryThingers, GoodReaders, bloggers, BookTubers or just die-hard lifelong readers.  It could have been written for us - or by us, for that matter!  In short, this is a comprehensive guide to biblioholism and all the various quirky traits and habits that go along with it.  It is evident that Raabe is 'one of us' and he drives right to the heart of our affliction with humour and insight.  Alongside chapters on book buying, reading, collecting and storage, he also includes a hilarious alternative history of the book and a section on the extremes of bookish behaviour - eating books, stealing them, burying them and even destroying them.  With a wealth of interesting and amusing examples of biblioholic behaviour drawn from literature and history, this is a definite keeper for me - and I was delighted to find that when it came to the self-help-esque quiz (just how bad DO you have it?) I had actually increased my score a few points since my last reading; I can now rest assured that I'm still on my chosen path to eventually dying happily under a collapsed bookcase.  Good to know.  :)

 

 

Aaaaand that was my March...  Hope you all enjoyed your reading this month too!

A trip down (bookish) memory lane

This post was originally conceived as a wander through a few choice books from the span of my reading career, linking each one to tangible objects that have been spun up with them over the years to form the web that is my literary life.  A kind of bookish show-and-tell, if you like.  When I started thinking about it, however, I realised that most of my favourite and most memorable reads have been tied to places and experiences, not things - and certainly not things I still have around me now.

 

Reading On the Island by Tracey Gravis Graves, for example, immediately conjures up memories of reading it on a sunlounger in Fuerteventura during my first holiday in years, when my agoraphobia had been beaten into submission juuuuust far enough for me to get on a plane and go sit by the pool in a pretty resort for a week, alternating between reading my books and staring happily at the ocean.  Which is a wonderful memory, but hard to actually show you now, four years and many miles away!

 

How about the books from my schooldays?  For some reason everything we read at secondary school was quite clearly going to make everyone cry (frickin' sadists) so I got really good at sneaking my class copies into my rucksack at the end of the lesson, rather than depositing them back in the box as it went round.  I'd take them home and devour them right to the end, so that when the next English lesson rolled around I'd know exactly the right points to drift off and think happy thoughts so I didn't end up sobbing into my shirt like the rest of the students.  :)

 

 

Then there's my old favourite Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs by Jeremy Mercer, which is tied up with so many events in my life that I wrote an entire blog post about it.  I bought and read it at university, so its bohemian vibe is inextricably linked with the bookish good cheer of student life in York.  After I read it I discovered pictures, videos and documentaries to draw me further into the world of Shakespeare and Company.  Then came books about its history, films in which it makes an appearance, volumes written by literary greats who became linked to the bookstore over the years...  It helped shape my bookshop and my own approach as a bookseller, and that led to appearances in Jen's books - which also featured Shakespeare and Company, who invited her to speak there and stay at the bookshop herself.  FULL CIRCLE, BABY.  One big sparkly cloud of inspiration and books and wine and generosity and everything good.

 

Finally, I thought about The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, a lifelong favourite of mine.  I had already read and loved it as a very little girl, so one Christmas my parents bought me the audiobook version on tape.  It was read by a single narrator, but it had little musical interludes and she did all the voices, from the strict Mrs Medlock to the broad Yorkshire accent of young Martha and Dickon. 

I will always link that listening experience to my 'Nature Club', a youthful endeavour to raise money for Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital down in Aylesbury.  I watched their children's TV show, read their books and subscribed to their newsletters, and being a keen little nature lover and wildlife watcher I wanted to raise money to help the animals there. 

To do that I started a Nature Club for my primary school friends (I was only about 9 or 10 at the time), making little things to sell and producing a club magazine every few months.  I'd carefully write and draw each page, with puzzles, letters, pictures, wildlife information, recipes and all sorts of other things, then Mum would sneak the pages into work and photocopy them all for me. 

Back home, I'd carefully assemble and staple my batch of magazines, get out my bumper tub of felt tips, then put my Secret Garden tape into the old cassette player on the living room floor and lie next to it for hours, colouring in each individual magazine and making it pretty.  Sometimes I could listen to the whole book two or three times over before all the magazines were finished.  The next day I'd take them to school and sell them to my friends.  We didn't exactly make a fortune (a 9 year-old's disposable income being on the meagre side and all), but we managed to sponsor a pair of baby bunnies (Poseidon and Neptune), and I got myself featured in the Tiggy's magazine and found pen friends in two sisters whose mum worked in their offices, so I was more than happy!

 

All these years later my family still supports Tiggywinkles, and a couple of years ago we even surprised my grandmother with a trip there for her 80th birthday.  When I was little there was nothing but a small shop open to the public; now there's a beautiful landscaped area to walk round, lots of gardens and animal enclosures for the residents that can never be released back into the wild, a museum, nursery, Red Kite centre, plus refreshments and the gift shop - it's a really lovely place to go for an hour or two and enjoy the sunshine and the wildlife.  My grandmother literally didn't twig what was going on until we turned into their driveway, and she was so happy that she burst into tears as soon as we walked through the door.  The staff all wished her a happy birthday and treated her like visiting royalty; it was just the loveliest day.

 

Soooo, there we have it.  A few books from my reading life and the memories and feelings that sit quietly on the bookshelf right alongside them - as opposed to the physical objects and souvenirs that have long since dropped away.  There's a life lesson in there somewhere...

A Book a Day in July: 25th-31st

It's time for my last Book a Day post, based on a Twitter project called #BookadayUK, where bookish types tweeted their responses to a series of daily prompts.  Talking about the books here on the blog instead means I haven't had to worry about the 140-character limit, and I've been able to group days together; click on the links to read my answers for Days 1-6, Days 7-12, Days 13-18 and Days 19-24.  This post also contains the second 'lucky dip' day, in which Doubleday invited prompt ideas and then Tweeted the chosen question on the day itself.  :)

 

Here we go!  And don't forget to head over to Twitter to see what other people have been recommending...

 

 

July 25th: Book that is your guilty pleasure

I don't have guilty pleasure reading - just pleasure reading (or not-such-a-pleasure reading, as the case may be).  For the sake of this question, however, I'm going to assume 'guilty pleasure' means froth and fun, something light and super-easy to read when you need a pick-me-up.  This is actually quite seasonal for me; in summer my go-to is something like Jenny Colgan's 'food novels', and in winter maybe the Hannah Swensen mysteries by Joanne Fluke (also food-related, with Hannah running a cookie café and all!).

 

 

July 26th: The novel you wish you'd written

It's got to be the Harry Potter series, hasn't it?  It made reading cool, got kids immersed in books, changed people's lives, spawned massively popular tourist attractions, moved onto the big screen...  Just about everybody in the entire world knows the name of the Boy Who Lived, and it all started with one woman having an idea on a train, writing in cafes and a dingy Edinburgh flat, with no money and a baby daughter sleeping beside her, bringing this epic magical story into the world.  Amazing.

July 27th: For National Parents' Day - the best/worst parents in fiction

Ooooh, this is a difficult one!  I think the 'best parent' award has to go to the iconic Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird (my double review).  He's a hero in every sense, and perfectly treads the fine line between helping Scout and Jem find their way in the world and allowing them to work things out for themselves.   The 'worst parent' award is trickier, but in the end I went for Eva Khatchadourian from We Need to Talk About Kevin.  Not only did she play a significant part in turning her son into a monster by quite blatantly detesting him from birth, she THEN had a second golden child and fawned all over her, rubbing her lack of affection in Kevin's face every day for years.  Ugh.  Special mentions go to Margaret White from Carrie (my review) for being a crazy child-beater, and Mr and Mrs Wormwood from Matilda, who quite frankly just shouldn't have been allowed to reproduce.

July 28th: Favourite animal character
I'm going properly old-school with this one: I absolutely adore little Plop, from The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark by Jill Tomlinson.  He's a baby owl who gets frightened when his parents go off hunting every evening, so he goes on an adventure to find out all the cool things about night-time.  He meets all kinds of people and creatures, and by the end he isn't scared any more!  Our teacher read us this book in Year 2, and when it came into the shop nearly twenty years later it was so lovely reading it again and looking at all the beautiful illustrations.  :)

 

July 29th: Favourite likeable villain
Shiiiiiit.  Another prompt where I just can't settle on an answer!  Okay... I'm going to have to go with Dexter Morgan, from the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay (my review of the first book), because 'serial killer who channels his instincts into destroying bad guys and has a wonderfully playful dark sense of humour' is about as likeable-villain as they come.  Outside of Tom Hiddleston's Loki anyway, and he doesn't count because FILM.

 

July 30th: LUCKY DIP - A book you've been inspired to read by #bookadayUK
For the first time, I actually don't have a single thing to contribute to this one!  To be honest, I haven't been keeping up with the Twitter feed that diligently, apart from occasional days when I've checked out other people's responses for inspiration.  It's been more fun being reminded of characters and books I already love, and books I definitely want to read sometime, rather than discovering new ones.

July 31st: The book that reminds you of someone special
I'm going to mega-cheat on this one, because I have three that immediately spring to mind.  The Life of Birds by David Attenborough was a Christmas present when I was a little girl because I was always mad-keen on birds and loved the TV series; my mum is a life-long Attenborough fan, so every time I see this on my shelf I think of her.  Dolphins by Jacques-Yves Cousteau was actually her book when she was younger and is now mine, and really speaks to my love of the ocean and sea creatures; I actually seriously considered pursuing marine biology at one time!  And finally, The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy, which my dad bought for me on a birthday trip to Scarthin Books years ago, where he let me loose for several hours and bought me a pile of books at the end as my birthday present.  I loved this TV series (with Damian Lewis and Rupert Graves), sailed through the novel, and the Wordsworth edition of the book is about the only one that keeps all three volumes of the saga together so I still have the same copy on my shelves all these years later.  Every time I see it, it reminds me of that birthday!

 

If you've enjoyed all this, the good news is that #BookadayUK has been taken up for another month, this time by the Siobhan Dowd Trust.  Check out their Twitter feed or follow the project hashtag to join in for August!  The first prompt is "most arresting opening line"...

Aaaand that's it!  I hope you've enjoyed my #BookadayUK posts this month!
 

A Book a Day in July: 19th-24th

It's time for my fourth Book a Day post, based on a current Twitter project called #bookadayUK, where bookish types can tweet their responses to a series of daily prompts.  Talking about the books here on the blog instead means I don't have to worry about the 140-character limit, and I can group a few days together; click on the links to read my answers for Days 1-6, Days 7-12 and Days 13-18.

 

Here we go!  And don't forget to head over to Twitter if you fancy taking part in the original project...

 

 

July 19th: Most memorable plot twist (no spoilers please)

The huge twist in We Need to Talk About Kevin would probably have been my most memorable if my sister hadn't spoilered it for me several years before I read it (not that it really ruined the book, it was still amazing) - so instead I'm going for The Bertha Revelation in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.  Hopefully that's vague enough not to spoiler anything for people who haven't stumbled across it before - but seriously, the book was published in 1847 and most people pretty much know the deal by now, right?

 

July 20th: Your Desert Island novel

It's got to be something long and rereadable, hasn't it?  I've already mentioned The Count of Monte Cristo in a previous prompt, so instead I'm going to take a gamble on a classic I HAVEN'T read yet, and go with Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.  That way I'd be able to enjoy it for the first time AND get rereading value out of it!

July 21st: The novel you expected to hate, but turned out you loved

This was actually quite a hard prompt to answer, because as a rule I don't pick up books I expect to hate.  Why would I read something if I think I won't enjoy it?!  The closest I've ever come is with my first Stephen King novel, Pet Sematary.  King's reputation for horror (which I'd never really read before) meant that when things started getting scary I panicked and decided I wasn't reading any more.  In the bright sunshine of the next day I realised I was being a bit ridiculous and carried on, and guess what?  It was excellent, and underneath the horror there was so much more to the novel that I would have missed if I hadn't kept reading.  I'm now a big Stephen King fan! (my review)

July 22nd: The novel you most like to give to friends
This is a tricky one because every friend is different, and something I would happily throw at one person might go down like a lead balloon with another.  My go-to recommendation for most of them (and therefore also the one I'm most likely to give them myself) would be The Secret History by Donna Tartt, just because it's got a bit of everything - it's bookish, beautifully written and teeming with murder and secrets, romance and academia, friendship and manipulation.  It's one of my favourites!

 

July 23rd: Favourite novel with exotic background
Hmmmm.  I can't really think of many, but one of the stand-outs is probably Nefertiti by Michelle Moran, a historical novel about Nefertiti's marriage to Akhenaten and the rise and fall of the city of Amarna.  Moran's such a wonderful writer that not only do these powerful historical figures come alive on the page, but the Ancient Egyptian setting, under the blazing sun on the banks of the Nile, almost becomes a character in its own right.

 

July 24th: A book that most reminds you of your English teacher
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, in particular the Prologue, which we studied for our A-levels.  Our teacher, Ms Stanley, read it aloud to us in the most wonderful rolling Middle English, which made it somehow MORE comprehensible.  She also devised a class game to match up each of the pilgrims with their descriptions, which was a good way to help us get our characters straight.  The group was small, lively and full of clever, witty, enthusiastic students who got along with each other - and her - very easily, so every lesson was fun, no matter how hard we were working!

 

That's it for this installment!  My last #BookadayUK post will be up at the end of the month.
 

A Book a Day in July: 13th-18th

It's time for my third Book a Day post, based on a current Twitter project called #bookadayUK, where bookish types can tweet their responses to a series of daily prompts.  Talking about the books here on the blog instead means I don't have to worry about the 140-character limit, and I can group a few days together; click on the links to read my answers for Days 1-6 and Days 7-12!  This post is also the first to contain a 'lucky dip' day, in which Doubleday invites prompt ideas and then Tweets the chosen question on the day itself.  :)

 

Here we go!  Feel free to leave your recommendations in the comments, and head over to Twitter if you fancy taking part in the original project...

 

  

July 13th: Best title for a novel

In trying to come up with an answer for this prompt, I decided to consult this Goodreads list of 'most eyecatching or distinctive book titles'.  OH, IT'S WONDERFUL.  Some of my favourites include I Still Miss My Man But My Aim Is Getting Better by Sarah Shankman and Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off by Cara North - but the king of amazing novel titles has to be Robert Rankin.  His offerings include The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse, Armageddon: The Musical, The Sprouts of Wrath and Raiders of the Lost Car Park.  Ingenious.  I don't know why I haven't read any of them yet, except that when they came into the shop they sold again reaaaaally fast.  As for books on my own shelves, I'd have to say either The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (my review) or We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver.  They both have a nice cadence to them, and both perfectly sum up their contents without giving anything away: they're a tiny bit intriguing without being obtuse.  I LIKE THEM IS WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY.  They're also both amazing books, obviously!

 

July 14th: For Bastille Day, your favourite novel about or set in France

Hands down, no contest, it has to be The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.  Not only was it the first book I ever reviewed on this blog, back in 2010, it's also one of my favourite novels of all time.  I read the crystal-clear Penguin Classics translation by Robin Buss, which I highly recommend, and found that once the story and characters were thoroughly built up - about halfway through - I was turning the pages faster and faster through the rest of the book, desperate to find out how everything would play out in the Count's painstakingly meticulous plot for vengeance.  Brilliant.  (My review)

 

  

July 15th: LUCKY DIP - The last book(s) you bought
Last time we went grocery shopping at our local Tesco I ended up buying three books.  I always tell myself I'll "just have a look to see what's out this week" - but I usually end up buying something because... well, that's how addiction works!  On this occasion I came home with How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran (new out in hardback - I've nearly finished it already), The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey (recommended by Katie) and Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan (a summer foodie novel).

July 16th: Favourite book to take to the beach
The last couple of years I've taken beach-or-ocean-related books on holiday, which has felt quite appropriate as packing has commenced each summer.  The most perfect one for sunlounger reading turned out to be On the Island by Tracey Garvis Graves, which isn't the most well-written of novels, but which is PERFECT thematically.  It's about a young tutor and her teenage student who are stranded on an island in the Maldives for several years, learning to survive and eventually falling in love.  It's a real page-turner, and what better place to read it than during a sweltering day by the ocean?  I'll definitely be reading it again sometime!  (My review)

 

July 17th: Novel which surprised you most
One of the most memorable surprises for me was reading King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard, for Hanna's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen challenge in 2012.  It was one of the books I wasn't looking forward to that much - I expected it to be dry and dull and generally outdated - but as it turned out, it was a brilliant adventure novel that got gradually more and more gripping until it hit some amazing setpieces at the end that wouldn't have been out of place in an epic blockbuster movie.  Possibly directed by Peter Jackson.  It wound up being one of my absolute favourite reads of the year! (My review)

 

July 18th: Favourite crime novel of all time - it's the Harrogate Crime Festival!
Ummmm.  My favourite crime book is without doubt In Cold Blood by Truman Capote - but that's not really a novel.  One of my surprise favourites has actually turned out to be Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay.  I haven't read on with the series yet, but obviously the premise is intriguing (as anyone who has ever watched Dexter will know) and I found his inner monologue, with its playful menace, dark humour and flights of alliteration, to be quite addictive.  I still have six more books to read, and six more series to watch, so I've got plenty more Dexter Morgan ahead of me yet! (My review)

 

That's it for this installment!  I'll be back soon with more...

A Book a Day in July: 7th-12th

It's time for my second Book a Day post!  As you may recall from the first instalment, this is based on a Twitter project called #bookadayUK, where bookish types can tweet their responses to a series of daily prompts.  After it proved a success in June, it was taken up by Doubleday UK, who have continued it into July.  Talking about the books here on the blog instead means I don't have to worry about the 140-character limit, and I can group a few days together.  Onwards!

 

Here we go!  Feel free to leave your recommendations in the comments, and head over to Twitter if you fancy taking part in the original project...

 

 

July 7th: Most chocolatey novel - it's National Chocolate Day!

Well, this one's a no-brainer.  The clue's in the title - it's got to be Chocolat by Joanne Harris!  I'd already fallen in love with the film (and still prefer the movie, I think) but the book has more of a magical feel, and the descriptions of food (especially chocolate!) are just mouthwatering.  Definitely not one to read without a stockpile of sweet treats on hand to indulge your cravings...

 

July 8th: Favourite Great War novel

I don't think I've ever read one, though I've definitely got a couple on my shelves, including All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, which I've heard is amazing.  I have read novels set in World War II though, my favourite of which is probably Atonement by Ian McEwan.  That book ripped my heart out, stomped on it and gave it back, and had a bit of everything in there - romance, family, war at home and abroad...  Robbie's narrative, in particular, was so evocative of the endless days of fear and exhaustion as the army retreated to Dunkirk - it was amazing. (My review)

 

 

July 9th: Most irritating character in a novel
Absolutely no contest here - it's got to be the vile Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter series.  I just... ugh.  I hate her so much that I literally can't watch Imelda Staunton in anything else now without feeling a wave of revulsion.  But it's a different kind of hate to, say, Voldemort.  With him it's like, "Whoah, this guy's terrifying... I'm just gonna be over here hiding in a corner."  With Umbridge I felt more like when I was at school and a really nasty teacher would humiliate someone in class for no reason.  Definitely more a "THAT BITCH NEEDS TO GO DOOOOOOWN" kind of thing.  All that pink!  All those little coughs!  All that sickly sweet malevolence!  NOOOOOPE.

July 10th: Novel with the most memorable picnic for Teddy Bear's Picnic Day!
The Malory Towers books by Enid Blyton - and most other Enid Blyton series, to be honest!  I particularly remember that whenever parents came to visit the school, there would always be amazing picnics.  Sometimes the girls would go out with their families and friends for a picnic on the clifftop somewhere, or there'd be a Strawberry Tea held at the school for everyone to enjoy.  Let's face it, all Enid Blyton books are MADE by the picnics - bottles of ginger beer, hard boiled eggs with twists of salt, apples, slabs of cake and gingerbread, thick slices of bread...  Okay now I've made myself hungry.

 

July 11th: The book that made you cry
Ohhhh, I'm a real book crier.  One of the worst offenders for me has to be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows...  I mean, I knew going into it that it was probably going to be bad, but I ended up having my heart ripped out over and over again as the pages went by.  I sobbed and sobbed, and then sobbed some more, and I gave myself a crying headache, and had to take naps because I'd exhausted myself.  **SPOILERS** The losses with the strongest emotional ties got me hardest - Fred, obviously, because of leaving a twin brother and a close-knit family behind, and Lupin and Tonks, lying side by side in the Great Hall.  I think that one was bad because they'd finally found happiness, they'd got baby Teddy, AND you didn't see them die, it was just one more wretched twist of the knife at the end as the battle's full body count was revealed.  OH JO HOW COULD YOU?!  Anyway, this is the reason I haven't reread all the books yet, and also why I haven't seen the Deathly Hallows movies.  I need to be feeling strong before I go there.  :'(

 

July 12th: Novel that best conjured a place for you
This was quite hard to choose, but I think the most recent example would probably be The Shining by Stephen King.  Because the Overlook Hotel is pretty much a character in its own right, King brings it alive so that you can almost smell the dankness of Room 237, the liquor in the bar and the wintry leaves of the topiary in the grounds; you can hear the dull echo of sounds in the corridors and the cold howling of the wind outside...  That hotel's definitely going to take some beating as far as vivid settings go. (My double review)

 

That's everything so far!  I'll be back soon with more...



A Book a Day in July: 1st-6th

So, over on Twitter last month, there was this thing called #bookadayUK, where bookish types Tweeted their responses to a series of daily prompts.  After its June success, it was taken up by Doubleday UK, who have continued it into July.  Since I'm not feeling much like writing reviews and stuff at the moment - partially due to the summery weather, probably - I thought I'd use the same prompts in blog posts to share some recommendations over here too!

 

Here we go!  And don't forget to leave your responses in the comments, or head over to Twitter to take part in the original project...

 

 

July 1st: A book that made you laugh out loud

I think I'd have to go with a book I read just last month: Boys Don't Knit by T.S. Easton.  It was everything I love about British humour: honest, dry, a bit mad...  It's basically about a boy, Ben, who ends up joining a knitting class as part of his parole after an unfortunate accident involving a lollipop lady, a bike and a bottle of Martini Rosso.  Part Skins, part Shameless, part Adrian Mole, only with more wool!

 

July 2nd: Favourite SF/Fantasy novel for World UFO Day!

Ohhhhh hell.  I've got four to pick from and I can't choose!  If you held a weapon of your choice up to somewhere vital upon my person and threatened to do me grave harm if I didn't settle on one, I'd probably have to go with... ummmm *pained expression* *much wringing of hands*... The Princess Bride by William Goldman.  Just because it's more unique than Good Omens, less icky than Warm Bodies (which is amazing, but has a couple of non-dinnertime-friendly moments) and more concise than Lord of the Rings.  And it gave me that happy 'awesome book' feeling all the way through.  BUT I LOVE THEM ALL.  (My review)

 

July 3rd: Favourite novel in translation

Hmmmm.  My number one choice will actually fit perfectly as a recommendation for a later prompt, so I'm going to have to go for Perfume by Patrick Süskind, originally written and published in German.  At the time I wasn't 100% sure how I felt about it, but as the years have gone by (I read it in 2011) it's turned out to have stayed with me more profoundly than many novels I loved in the moment but have barely thought about since.  It's dark and twisted and deeply enmeshed in the olfactory world, and Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is one of the most memorable characters I've ever come across; I'm very much looking forward to reading it again sometime!  (My review)

 

 

July 4th: All-time favourite American novel for 4 July/ Independence Day

Having finally read it this year and been absolutely blown away, it's got to be To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  It's moving and amusing and thought-provoking and deeply rooted in its southern heritage, and I don't know whether to be annoyed with myself for not reading it sooner, or glad I read it when I did because the timing was obviously just right for me and this book to bond!  (My double review)

 

July 5th: Most delicious novel about food

I think my favourite novel about food (so far - I have more on Mount TBR!) is probably Vivien's Heavenly Ice Cream Shop by Abby Clements.  It was a surprise hit last year - I thought it'd just be a fun frothy summer read, and I ended up absolutely loving it!  Two sisters inherit an ice cream shop on the Brighton coast, and one of them also flies to Florence to attend a course for the business, so between the two locations it has so many delicious descriptions of ice cream, gelato and sorbets, in all kinds of wonderful flavours... It made my mouth water!  (My review)

 

July 6th: Which book will you put down today to watch the Wimbledon final?

I was pretty sure I'd barely end up reading a thing today, because not only was it the Federer-Djokovic Wimbledon final (I really thought Federer was going to triumph for a while there!) but I also discovered that Waddington Air Show was being streamed live on Planes TV.  My entire family set off there at about 6am this morning and had a wonderful day - but I got to enjoy the planes with multi-angle cameras, official commentary (which they couldn't hear, the nearest speaker was too far away), funny internet commentary, full WiFi access for dull moments, my own toilet, plenty of drinks and a Domino's pizza.  All that was missing was the smell of aeroplane fuel and the full roar of the displays (which was particularly noticeable when the Lancaster flew in, I LOVE THOSE MERLIN ENGINES)...  Anyway, the book I set aside to enjoy all of this was The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey.  I've been reading it for waaaaay too long now, I really should settle down and finish it soon.  Maybe tomorrow!

 

That's everything so far!  I'll be back in the week with more!