Hmmmm, would it count as HTBC if I take my phone into the bath and read this thread? I suspect not
Waterbird, I read Godot last month - you definitely don't read or watch it for the plot, I can tell you that! The first time I read it, I was completely underwhelmed but going back to it, I appreciated it much more. I think reading the Jo Baker book about Beckett helped me to appreciate the actual Beckett more - I'd recommend it if you can bear to read something bleak at this time of year.
Here are my updates:
9. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
Read this so that I can discuss with DS1 who is studying it for GCSE. Compared to other classics that I've read, I found this underwhelming. There wasn't enough tension to make me care about the solution to the mystery and Mr Hyde, rather than being frightening or sinister, seemed rather ridiculous. Agree with a PP who said that it would be interesting to read it not knowing what the "twist" is
10. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Barbara Ehrenreich
In 1999, Ehrenreich, an American journalist, had a conversation about how hard it must be to live on minimum wage, and this resulted in her taking on an experiment - to take a series low paid jobs and see whether she could make ends meet. During this period (a couple of months I think?) she lives in three different cities in the US and does a variety of jobs including waitressing, cleaning, working in a care home and shelf stacking at Walmart.
Ehrenreich is a lively writer and the book is full of telling details about the physical and emotional toll that low paid work can take. She quickly learns about some of the enormous but unforeseen challenges of a low pay life - the difficulties of finding accommodation when your work isn't guaranteed, the difficulties of matching work at location A and cheap accommodation at location B when you can't get between the two. While none of this seems particularly ground-breaking (although maybe it was at the time), these still seem to be issues that elude politicians when they talk about the choices that poor people make - celebrity chefs, for example, banging on about lentils and cheap cuts of meat when many people don't have cooking equipment or access to a kitchen where they can leave a pot bubbling for hours.
My complaint with this book is that Ehrenreich is a big character, and there is too much of her in this book - it's not a book about what it's like to be poor, it's a book about what it's like to be a journalist pretending to be poor. She acknowledges very early on that, even apart from the choice she has to walk away at any point, she has many privileges that make the challenge easier - good health, a car, no dependents - but even given that, it was a shame not to hear more from the characters that people the book, the ones who are REALLY living this life.
11. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
This classic novel tells the story of Okonkwo, an ambitious self-made man in pre-colonial Nigeria. Okonkwo's father was a man of low status, and he is determined that things will be different for him, and that he will rise to become a respected man in the village. He's hardworking but proud and angry, and he rules his three wives and assorted children like a tyrant.
The first half of the book introduces us, through a set of stories about Okonkwo and his family, to the society of their village and the surrounding villages - the social, political and religious structures, the way that justice is done, the way that marriages are arranged and the interactions between husband and wife, parent and child. This is not an innocent prelapsarian paradise (as you can get in other portrayals of pre-colonial communities) but a coherent society with rules and values, virtues and vices.
Then two things happen - Okonkwo and his family are exiled from their home village, and a group of white missionaries arrive in the area. It is at this point that things start to fall apart, and we see how things will start to unravel.
This is a very subtle book - a lot happens, and some of it is absolutely heart-breaking, but it doesn't mess about pulling on your heartstrings with overly emotional scenes. The author's tone is calm and measured and for me it was only when I finished the book that it hit me just how devastating the story is that it tells.
12. The Bloody Chamber and other stories, Angela Carter
Sexy, transgressive, feminist retellings of fairy stories, what's not to like? I kept away from Carter for years as she was a darling of many of the less interesting English Lit students at Uni who would bore on about her and Virginia Woolf at length, but she's a great writer. Probably best in small chunks so these stories were perfect.