Following on from the 'How many books do you read in a year ?' thread - A first quarter review

[Wheelybug]

Following Poseys thread at the start of the year, some of us decided to keep a record of what we read. So, at the end of the first quarter how many have you read and how does it compare to your estimate (extrapolated of course !).

I said about 50 nowadays.

So far this year I have read 9. So extrapolated that would only make approx 40.

These were:

Can Any Mother Help Me ? Jenna Bailey
Gates of Fire Stephen Pressfield
Ballet Shoes Noel Streatfield
On Chesil Beach Ian McEwan
The Mitford Girls Mary S. Lovell
Playing With The Moon Eliza Graham
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive A McCall Smith
The Virgins Lover Phillipa Gregory
Daughter of Fortune Isabel Allende

Anyone else been a saddo like me ?

Wheelybug, I was reading 'Two Lives' late into the night last night, I can't put it down. I think it's partly to do with VK's writing, which is so beautiful, it just draws me on and on into the story. Dd2 has just amazed me by recalling that I read 'A Suitable Boy' when we were in Bali, when she was only 7yo - how on earth did she remember that??

I'm also reading 'The Family From One End Street' to dd, but that probably doesn't count.....

Chica, Thomas Keneally wrote Schindler's Ark (later 'List' for film purposes) - only one I've read, but I stuck with it without too many problems. But maybe that was the one you're having trouble with..?

Here are mine from this year. I don't include poetry, I might read a book of it over a month or so but not at one gulp, and I don't include e.g. pregnancy books (at the moment!) or other similar. And I don't include abandoned books (like Jonathon Strange, etc) or publications like Slightly Foxed, Granta, etc.

January
Asking for Trouble - Patricia Craig
Seizure - Erica Wagner
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee - Rebecca Miller
The Dublin Review Reader - ed. Brendan Barrington
Wednesday's Child - Shane Dunphy

February
Patrimony - Philip Roth
Paris Review Interviews Vol 2 - ed. Philip Gourevitch
Completely Unexpected Tales - Roald Dahl
Saturday - Ian McEwan
Arthur Conan Doyle a life in letters - ed John Lellenberg & ors
On Royalty - Jeremy Paxman

March
Experience - Martin Amis
Clover - Susan Coolidge
The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
The Kitchen Congregation - Nora Seton
Something to Tell You - Hanif Kureishi

April
Selective Memory - Katharine Whitehorn
Taking Pictures - Anne Enright

Though I am not ashamed to include children's books if I have read them for myself - viz. Clover. I don't include what I read to DS obviously!

Updating my list:

Danny Scheinmann 'Random Acts of Heroic Love'
Doris Lessing 'The Grass is Singing'
Doris Lessing 'The Cleft'
Doris Lessing 'The Golden Notebook'
Margaret Atwood 'Alias Grace'
Anne Enright 'The Gathering'
Zora Neale Hurston 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'
Samuel Selvdon 'The Lonely Londoners'
Graham Greene's 'Our Man in Havana'
Anne Enright 'The Gathering'
Louise Doughty 'Stone Cradle'
Nicola Barker 'Darkmans'
Indra Sinha 'Animal's People'
VS Naipual 'The Enigma of Arrival'
Daphne Du Maurier 'Jamaica Inn'

er haven't kept a record but from memory
Far From the mAdding crowd - T Hardy (perennial fave)

One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson (loved)
The Island - V Hislop (ok)
Chesil Beach - ian McEwan (ok)
Playing with the moon - Eliza graham (enjoyed)
Witches Abroad - T Pratchett (old fave)
Oryx and Crake - M Atwood (old fave)
The steep approach to Garbadale - Ian Banks (engrossing)
The Thunderbolt Kid - Bill Bryson (LOL)
Notes from an exhibition - Patrick Gale (Very good)
The Girls - Lori Lansens (very good)
Good Wives - Louisa M Alcott (comfort food)
Labryrnth - Kate Mosse (didn't bother to finish though, yawn)
Good Women of China: Hidden voices - Xinran (harrowing)
A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon (good)

what's the new joanne Harris like, those who have read it?

Sue - perhaps you made her carry it . I too love Vikram Seth's writing in general - loved A Suitable Boy and Equal Music. Haven't read the one thats all in poetry - have you ?

MrsMattie, you must have really enjoyed the Gathering then

VintageGardenia, what do you think of Slightly Foxed? And what did you think of Seizure?

Do most of you do much more reading than anything else in your spare time? Interested how people fit it in, I have so many books I want to read, and find it a struggle to find enough time.

Well to Anne Enright fans: I heard her read last night at Trinity (I'm in Dublin), and she signed a book for me too. She read from her new collection of short stories, Taking Pictures, and it was so absorbing and funny. Much as I love hearing writers read I quite frequently find my attention straying at these things, but I was hooked on every word, she really performed it.

BBisBB, I must confess I am thinking of cancelling Slightly Foxed - I haven't so far because I have a fondness for its quaintness, but usually there's only one piece in an issue that I find worthwhile. I do love love love Granta (the photography as well as the writing, the non-fiction more than the fiction) and I get the LRB (though thinking of changing for better value in the TLS) and a couple of more specialist things like the Charles Lamb Bulletin (a bit geeky) and the Penguin Collectors' mag. Irish mags I get are the Stinging Fly (poetry & prose) and the Dublin Review (sameish but with non-fiction). And I read in all the bits of the day, I suppose, I'm pretty busy, like everyone, but always carry a book in my bag, always have the next thing lined up. I probably read more than any other pastime - I mean after sleep, work, DS, DP. I always want more reading time.

I did enjoy Seizure - a fairy tale, really - and I don't normally like books which are so themey, less plotty. (Note my highbrow language.)

I started a list;

Richard Hammond ? Life On The Edge
Tom Parry ? Thumbs Up Australia
Somerset Maugham ? The Painted Veil
Terry Pratchett ? Wintersmith
Ben MacIntyre ? Agent ZigZag

The Thirteenth Tale

Quinten Van Marle ? Boomerang Road
Simkin ? The Labour Progress Handbook
RJ Ellory ? A Quiet Belief In Angels
Jon Krakauer ? Into The Wild.
Phillippa Gregory - Wideacre

VintageGardenia: noooooooooooooo to the TLS!!!

Which ones did Anne Enright read from Taking Pictures? I heard her on publication night in London (write-up here, no audio sadly at the moment) and she was fantastic.

She signed my rather aged copy of Making Babies as well which I thought was very generous of her.

I can't remember exact title but it's the wife's monologue one The Girl Died or something similar. She just read the one. She said afterwards she was heartily sick of reading it but didn't stop her doing a top job.

You don't think the TLS - you think too populist??!!

oooh....I got a book to keep records in of my 'books I read' on the back of the other thread....must find and cop down.

I am downstairs tho and the book is upstairs and DH is grumpy and I am not allowed up until I am ready for bed, so am goona have to post my list in the morning.

january tho I read 9 books and feb was 4 or 5.....I do know tho that I read 'the book thief' which took over 3wks and severely dented my tally!!!!.

am now reading a few 'chick lit' books tho so I think 'the book thief' broke me!!!

Hello Psychobabble et al,

Do, do, do persevere with Patrick O'Brian. I know exactly what you mean about the nautical jargon. It is tedious.

But it only affects the first book and the rest of the series is so wonderful it is worth ploughing on.

How can you not love a series which has the surgeon's wombat eating the captain's hat, a mother-in-law to rival Jane Austen's most monstrous creations, and so very much more.

Give him another chance, or skip straight to "Post Captain".

After wading through "Master and Commander" I gobbled up the rest of the series, one after the other, and I'm afraid my family had very little sense out of me until they were finished - O'Brian is never going in the Oxfam pile.

Judging by the wobbly pile which have not yet found homes, since Christmas my reading has been:

Something Rotten - Jasper Fforde
Katherine - Anya Seton
Green Darkness - Anya Seton
The One from the Other - Philip Kerr
Starcross - Philip Reeve
The Death of Dalziel - Reginald Hill
The Game - Diana Wynne Jones
M is for Magic - Neil Gaiman
Excellent Women - Barbara Pym
Jane and Prudence - Barbara Pym
Katherine Mansfield - Claire Tomalin
The Sunday Philosophy Club - Alexander McCall Smith
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive - Alexander McCall Smith
The Vesuvius Club - Mark Gatiss
The Morning Gift - Eva Ibbotson
Seizure - Erica Wagner
The Nun's Story - Kathryn Hulme
The Exile - Pearl S Buck
The Call-Up - Tom Hickmann
Resistance - Owen Shears

Do re-reads count? I haven't put them in but if I didn't re-read I would be bankrupt. And if we didn't have an "84 Charing Cross Road" style cull every year we would be living in the garden.

I love "Slightly Foxed" and "Persephone Books" - though I didn't get any for Christmas this year because in the excitement of our new baby everyone forgot.

One of the nicest things about being a parent is introducing a child to the books you loved and seeing their pleasure.

@VG: yes, I'm a terrible literary snob, me . (And that Murdoch person doesn't need any more cash.)

9 books in January psycho!!!! impressed.

OK think this is it, apologies for some without authors

A quiet belief in Angels - RJ Ellory
Playing with the Moon
Agatha Raisin and the vicious vet
Agatha Raisin and the potted Gardener
Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The Wrong Boy - Willie Russell
Starter for Ten
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Charlotte Grey - Sebastain Faulks
The Day of the Scorpion - Paul Scott
Agent Zigzag
To kill a mockingbird - Harper LeeAngels Flight - Michael Connelly
Journey into Darkness - Anthony Faramus

I think I may have left of a couple

And

Atonement

sophiewd, The Secret History is another of my al-time favourite books... hope you enjoyed it!

What was the Ellory like? Someone bought it for my SIL for Christmas - I read the jacket blurb but it sounded horrific!!

I've got the Ellory in my ginormous book pile

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who keeps a list of what I've read. I've done it for years and put a note beside it if I liked it, so I can look out for more by that author/same genre.

Last year I read 78, so far this year, I've read 24 inlcuding:

amazing maurice & educated rodents
Going Postal
Thud
q-S of the alphabet mysteries
Halo (again)
The Eyre Affair + 5 others by same author
ultimate weapon
poet in the gutter
dot Bomb
not on the label
stupid white men

have just started No Logo which looks good

No Logo is good, joyful, but it made me start doing eccentric things like emailing clothing companies before I bought anything from them to enquire as to their factory locations and labour policies... I didn't buy much in the way of new clothes that year

The Ellroy one is good if disturbing, it is currently doing the rounds on one of the books circles and seems to have taken people out of their comfort zones.

So far this year I have read:

Cranford-Elizabeth Gaskell
Th Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox-Maggie O'Farrell
Over-Margaret Forster
The Thirteenth Tale-Diane Setterfield
One Good Turn- Kate Atkinson
Oystercatchers- Susan Fletcher
Candlemoth-Roger Jon Ellory
Somebody Else's Kids-Torey Hayden
I Capture the Castle-Dodie Smith
Moral Disorder-Margaret Atwood

Just about to start A Thousand Splendid Suns-Khaled Hosseini

I loved A Thousand Splendid Suns. Harrowing though.