January
- Billy Budd and Other Stories – Hermann Melville
- The Complete Maus – Art Spiegelman
- Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy
- Generation X – Douglas Coupland
- Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
- To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee (Read aloud to kids)
- Suttree – Cormac McCarthy
- Jack the Bear – Dan McCall
February
- Wolf Totem – Riang Jong
- Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
- A Respectable Trade – Phillipa Gregory
- Life of Pi – Yann Martel
- The Sandman – Preludes and Nocturnes – Neil Gaiman
March
April
- We Need to Talk About Kevin – Lionel Shriver
- Oystercatchers – Susan Fletcher
- Elsewhere – Gabrielle Zevin
May
- All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
- Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
- Generation Kill – Evan Wright
- The Uncommon Reader – Alan Bennet
- Homage to Catalonia – George Orwell
- Loitering with Intent – Muriel Spark
June
- The Yacoubian Building – Alaa Al Aswany
- Crash – JG Ballard
- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
- Mortal Engines – Philip Reeve
- Close Range – Wyoming Tales – Annie Proulx
- Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami
July
August
- John Christopher – The Death of Grass
- Mick Jackson – Bears of England
- Flann O’Brien – The Third Policeman
- JG Ballard – Empire of the Sun
- Elise Blackwell – Hunger
- Blink – Malcolm Gladwell
- Colony – Hugo Wilcken
September
- The White Guard – Mikhail Bulgakov
- The Book of Chameleons – José Eduardo Agualusa
- Disgrace – JM Coetzee
- Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
October
- Death at Intervals – José Saramago
- The Magic Finger – Roald Dahl
- Old Filth – Jane Gardam
- George’s Marvellous Medicine – Roald Dahl
- Dracula – Bram Stoker
- Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon (Not finished)
November
- The Music of Chance – Paul Auster
- Transition – Iain Banks
- Never Never – David Gaffney
- Home – Marilynne Robinson
- Anthem – Ayn Rand
- A Lost Lady – Willa Cather
December
- Little Dorrit – Charles Dickens
- On Beauty – Zadie Smith (Not finished)
- Ring of Bright Water – Gavin Maxwell
- The Pearl – John Steinbeck
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley Jackson
Am eclectic collection of books. Have read a lot of them.. Have you read and of A S Byatt, Penelope Fitzgerald, Zoe Heller Elizabeth gaskell. What about poetry? What kind do you like -male, female old new. Have you read Chr istina Rossetti?
Not as eclectic as it might be! I haven’t read any of the authors you mention, although I do have Gaskell’s North and South on the shelf. And aim to read it one day.
I noticed that poetry is your speciality, but I am not in a strong position to have any kind of an opinion at all.
Read Shakespeare and Donne many years ago, since then only the odd anthology. (I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but Anne Fine’s anthologies for children,”A Shame to Miss,” are very good. Pitched at a level easily accessible to a rusty adult!) Ultimately, it comes down to laziness and fear. There are so many alluring novels out there; I hesitate to venture into an area which might not be immediately rewarding.
t be afraid of poetry
Don’t be afraid of poetry. have you tried dipping into Palgrave’s Golden Treasury. A huge mixture which could get you going. Trad poetry is probably easier to start with and gives you a feel for the genre. I wouldn’t say i was an expert but did my PhD thesis on the Rossettis which sparked off an interest in all things Victorian. However i read novels avidly from all eras. Instead of North and South why not try Ruth by E Gaskel. l It is shorter and easier to get on with as I find her very ‘wordy’. You didn’t mention Jane Eyre-have you readit? Very different from Wuthering Heights but a must for all who are interested in the margiunalisation of women. like you I have always been a frenetic reader and as a child I always insisted on giving everyone books for Christmas so that I could read them first! Speak soon
I think “dipping in” might be the crux of the matter. (In addition to the undeniable fear.) The long time reader of novels is conditioned to read from cover to cover, and the idea of doing that with a book of poetry is quite intimidating. Time to break the conditioning!
I did enjoy the Goblin Market very much, despite reading it on-line. Can’t help thinking it would be even better on the page. I can feel another book order coming on…
I started reading Jane Eyre pre-teens and it has evolved with me. Horrified when I came to do it at O’level to discover that I had been reading an abridged copy. It had never occurred to me that such a thing was possible.
Latterly Jane Eyre had become uncomfortable reading as it seems to reveal an almost unbearable sorrow on the part of the author. I haven’t read Jane Eyre at all since Wide Sargasso Sea, because I can’t reconcile the two.
Nice range of books, I do like diversity in reading. How did you find The Yacoubian Building, and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. I liked the first, adored the second, did you write them up?
What’s Mortal Engines? I don’t think I know that one, fantasy?
Mortal Engines is a young adult novel, and it stands alone, although part of a series. A dystopian, ruined earth scenario. I bought it ostensibly for my daughter, but it is noticeable that I then proceeded to buy the following three books of the series, which I read and she did not.
I wasn’t going to reveal the whereabouts of The Yacoubian Building, given my lukewarm comments, but you seem to have found it anyway. My thoughts on The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
You have highlighted that it isn’t that easy to find specific reviews on my blog. I shall look into it; thanks for the hint.