mrs de winter is reading...

mrsdewinter

I'm trying to get back into reading after a stretch away from the books. In the last couple of weeks, I've been fairly productive and this morning finished A Dry White Season by Andre Brink. Gotta say that the only thing that kept me reading this horror tale from Apartheid-era South Africa was knowing that the system was finally dismantled. However, it's a brilliant read, and will certainly stay with me...
Anyway, starting with the most recent book, here's what I've read in the past two weeks

* A Dry White Season, by Andre Brink
* Maggie: The First Lady, by Brenda Maddox
* The Secret Man, by Bob Woodward (Watergate journalist's 2005 account of his relationship with Deep Throat Mark Felt)
* Leviathan, by Paul Auster

mrsdewinter

* Veronika Decides To Die, by Paulo Coelho

My first Coelho, so I'm new to his brand of philosophy. Nice pacing, atmosphere and writing style though you can see the end a mile off. Overall, I liked it, though I can't see myself becoming an obsessive fan.

mrsdewinter

* The Strangers At The Palazzo d'Oro, by Paul Theroux

Extremely disappointing novella and collection of short stories. The title novella, describing a young American's affair with an older German countess at a quiet Italian hotel, is intriguing, but veers into tacky Tales Of The Unexpected territory. The stories which follow are patchy, at best. There's a schoolboy quest to avenge a paedophile's attack, a middle-aged lawyer who harbours an erotic fascination for his cleaning lady and her daughter, and an Afrikaner writer who sacrifices everything for a black, one-armed schoolteacher. It says a lot that the Afrikaner writer's books short stories sound a lot more interesting than anything I read here.
I'm quite heartbroken about this. I read and loved The Mosquito Coast a few years ago. That book still lives on in my imagination. What happened?

mrsdewinter

* Daphne, by Justine Picardie

This is a very obvious choice, but I spotted it in the library the other day and couldn't resist. Neither could I resist sitting down for hours at a time to finish this. Ms Picardie has stitched together the narrative of Ms Du Maurier's middle-aged fixation on Branwell Bronte and the modern-day obsession of a young Second Mrs De Winter-esque bride who feels overshadowed by her new husband's former husband. Yes, it's a bit obvious, and it's certainly not as compulsive as Ms Du Maurier's work but it is terribly more-ish. And it's given me a bit of a thirst for more books by the lady herself. I've already started The House On The Strand. It's no classic but I'll see how it goes

mrsdewinter

* Jamaica Inn, by Daphne du Maurier

Erm, not really sure why it took me so long to finish this. The House On The Strand was a crashing bore. Written in the Sixties, it's about a publishing executive who's enlisted by an old university chum in an experiment on a new halllucinatory drug. By taking it, he's plunged into a 13th century world of murder and intrigue. Sounds good, doesn't it? Somehow, it fails to live up to its promise. The flashbacks are possibly the least vivid hallucinations ever committed to paper and the cast of characters he encounters are as dry as dust. The whole thing felt like something an ageing adventuress cobbled together after reading about this LSD lark in the Sunday Times...
Anyway, I wasn't in a good frame of mind to tackle Jamaica Inn, and slogged my way through it with a heavy heart. So for the best part of it, I read it as a period novel, skipping down through the bits about crises of consciousness and the heroine fretting about propriety... always a mistake with du Maurier. The final 20 pages are thrilling, with a twist that hints at a world of debauchery and sin well beyond the imaginings of this prudish reviewer. Sigh. I'm off to read My Cousin Rachel. I'll be back after I cool down...

raah!

mrsdewinter wrote: »

it's about a publishing executive who's enlisted by an old university chum in an experiment on a new halllucinatory drug. By taking it, he's plunged into a 13th century world of murder and intrigue. Sounds good, doesn't it?

That sounds terrible!

mrsdewinter

Erm, yeah... I don't really sell it all that well, do I... What's kinda interesting is the relationship between the boring executive and his college chum, who's clearly fancied him for years, and the exec's American wife who knows well that there's a strange bloke after her hubby's tail. Maybe it's all teased out later in the book, but I abandoned it. Life's too short.

raah!

heh heh, I don't think anyone who reads your interview will be picking it up any time soon, regardless of how certain positive story aspects may or may not be teased out later in the book

mrsdewinter

* What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami

This is Murakami's non-fiction musings as he prepares for his umpteenth marathon. Well into middle age, the body is slowing down but he's determined to put in a good showing in the NYC marathon. While racking up the miles, he looks back at why he started running in his thirties, what he gets out of it, and why, staring 60 in the face, he is hooked. I'm a newcomer to Murakami (I'm pretty sure the person who recommended his writing did not have this book in mind) and found the writing considered and insightful. For instance, his thoughts on how running and writing are alike are quite interesting. I'm a bit of a sucker for inspiring reads, love my sports biographies, and liked the anti-heroic tone. Even after twenty-plus years of running, it's still tough to put on the running gear, he asserts over and over again. I like him.

mrsdewinter

10. My Cousin Rachel, by Daphne du Maurier


I'm definitely done with du Maurier for now with this. Hysterical heroines I can deal with, hysterical heroes are a bridge too far. Young Philip has been living a fairly sheltered life on his cousin's farm. His life is turned upside down when a distant cousin, the recently widowed Rachel, swings by the Cornwall estate, bringing her strange continental ways and uber-feminine wiles with her. I have to say I kind of admired Rachel. In her mid-thirties and with 'a past', she twists Philip around her little finger. At one stage, I found myself casting around for a pen to make notes on how she had persuaded this boy to give her everything she's ever wanted. In the end, as she must, it all goes sour for Rachel. But I defy anybody to find Philip a character they would identify with, the creepy, pathetic drip...

mrsdewinter

11. Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill

I fairly galloped through the first two-thirds of this. Written as a memoir of the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on New York, it traces the relationship between two cricket lovers who bond over their love of the game. The narrator Hans is a laid-back Dutchman whose marriage is on the brink of divorce, while his new friend is Chuck, an older ethnically Indian Windies man who fancies himself as a bit of an entrepreneur, a bit of a visionary. I started out not liking this book at all. Hans is so boring and buttoned-down, I could see why his wife would be sick of him. And he's secretly condescending towards Chuck, who is a bit of a pain but is twice if not three times as colourful as his 'friend'. Chuck's passion is what kept me going - that and the book's third great character, NYC. Once I got into it, I began to enjoy it more. So, overall, it's a rewarding read, but I feel there is a better book in Mr O'Neill

mrsdewinter

12. Prezza, by John Prescott

You gotta love John Prescott. In a political landscape dominated by bland focus group-led Men in Suits, Prezza is old school. Rather like our own Jim Kemmy, his intervention in a political debate is always guaranteed to be memorable. Even if it's not for the right reasons. His book, ghosted by Hunter Davies, is just like the man. Reading it is like sitting down for a pint with the man. Sure, it's not great on specifics and he makes an awful lot of excuses for giving up much of his working class lifestyle but for its insights into how Brown's relationship with Blair deteriorated and how crooked the unions were, it's interesting. And you would have to be impressed by Prescott himself - and his wife. It's clear that Prezza is or was dyslexic, yet by sheer dint of willpower, he got a master's degree and plugged away during the years in opposition, writing a series of policy papers and championing a number of causes. All without a whimper of self-pity. The real credit, though, goes to Hunter Davies whose writing voice is so spookily like Prezza's persona that I'm convinced he's a genius. I'm off to feed my new Prezza crush. Good day

mrsdewinter

13. Oh Play That Thing, by Roddy Doyle

Reading this felt like gate-crashing a party and not knowing the host. The hero of A Star Called Henry has prudently decided to leave Ireland, shaking off the dust of 1920s Dublin, a wife and a child. New York offers a wealth of opportunities for a young charismatic man with vision. However, it is not too long before he is stepping on toes in the Big Apple and has to hit the road again, heading for Chicago. Aspects of this book are superb. The energy with which Doyle writes about Prohibition-era New York and the early Jazz Age in Chicago is breathtaking. But I found Henry thin and unsympathetic. Suppose I'd better read the first instalment before I make up my mind...

mrsdewinter

14. Mrs S And The Secrets Of Andorra's Box, by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

I must confess that I've grown a little tired of RO'CK and his south Dublin life. It's all too easy to forget that it's been almost a decade since he set out on his quest for glory on the rugby pitch. And his transfer to the Irish Times is just a little too much for me. I mean, how sick is it that the Old Dears of his contemporaries get to read about his antics over their Saturday morning Starbucks cappucinos in the Dundrum Centre? *shiver* So it was with more than a little apprehension that I picked up the latest instalment last week. However, by shunning his pitch in the Paper of Record, I had been denying myself the sheer joy and genius of Paul Howard's creation.
The characters - every one of them - are drawn with wonderful precision and skill, from new girl Immaculata, the African girl Sorcha has sponsored for years, to the bombastic Charles O'Carroll-Kelly whose stretch at Mountjoy is coming to an end.
Even better, Ross has come a long way too. Despite himself, he has matured in the past decade, with his long-lost son and daughter bringing a new dimension to the kicker.
Altogether, after an absence of a few years, I was pleasantly surprised. All the old jokes are there - but there's also enough depth to draw a tear or two (maybe it was just me...). Plus the inevitable set-up for the next book.
Maybe I'm just getting soft in my old age. Next thing I know, I'll be buying the Times just to read about Roisin Ingle's pregnancy...

mrsdewinter

15. At My Mother's Knee... And Other Low Joints, by Paul O'Grady

I always imagined that the person who created Lily Savage had to have had a tough upbringing. Perhaps Lily did. Certainly Paul O'Grady did not. For what strikes you about At My Mother's Knee is that although the dapper O'Grady may not have been born into wealth or grandeur, he certainly wanted for nothing as he grew up, the apple of his parents' eye, at the centre of a sprawling extended family full of the strong-minded matriarchs that informed his Lily. Really, this book traces the lineage of Lily and even O'Grady's teatime show persona, the grannies' favourite. But the reader is left with the distinct impression that O'Grady himself will always be a closed book.

mrsdewinter

16. The Poe Shadow, by Matthew Pearl

This is crying out for a movie adaptation. With Johnny Depp as the uptight 19th-century lawyer who becomes obsessed with the death of a little-known writer Edgar Allen Poe whose work he came to admire in the years before his drink-sodden premature death. It's gothic, slightly bizarre, with a cast of characters that Richard Griffin could easily shoehorn himself into... Everything, really. I felt I couldn't do it justice as I've never read Poe. So I'm hoping to grab a few of the Dupin stories and reread eventually.
However, Mr Pearl is no Mr Poe. This is a slightly more classy Da Vinci Code. Enjoyable but better not expect too much.

mrsdewinter

17. Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer

I've been meaning to read this for years but it always somehow slipped through the net. Now that I'm a fan of Dublin City Library's reservation scheme, I'm catching up on my must-read list. And this was well worth the wait. I know nothing about mountaineering and have an aversion to those Touching-The-Void type documentaries but this first-hand account of the disastrous 1996 season on Everest is amazing. I suppose that if you can tell your crampons from your carabiners, you'll appreciate the technical detail which Krakauer brings to the tale. But what gripped me was the background of the mountain, and the dynamic between the various teams which set off on the hike to the roof of the world. There's the South Korean team led by a delusional nut, the South Africans whose English-born leader masquerades as an ANC veteran and goes so far as to make death threats and the NYC socialite who insists on having a sherpa haul a hefty satellite phone up the mountain so that she can keep in touch with Manhattan. That's before you get to the real heroes, the American postman who works two jobs to fund his mountain-climbing, the Kiwi career climber under pressure from a rival outfit. . . Quite simply un-put-down-able.

mrsdewinter

18. Speaking For Myself, by Cherie Blair

I came to this book with a lot of sympathy for Mrs Blair. I felt she never got a fair shake-out from the British press, and that her background and lack of conventional glamour were held against her. But the more I read, the more convinced I became that she is as clueless as she is often portrayed. Firstly, to be fair to her, she does come across as a terrific wife and mother, and somebody who will be loyal to her friends through thick and thin. But her undoubted intellectual gifts seem to desert her when she moves to Downing Street. Complaining about Gordon Brown's proposal that the entire cabinet will turn down a pay rise. Maintaining a friendship with Carole Caplin. Blindly accepting that Tony knows best when it comes to Iraq. As a reader, I found the over-sharing a bit too much to take (there's two paragraphs relating to the birth of her first son which should never have gone beyond bonding sessions with other new mums) and the prose is less than inspiring.
In fairness, the years before May 97 are quite interesting. I came away with a better idea of what drives Blair's politics but if you want a closer look at the late Nineties and the run-up to the Iraq invasion, you might be better off reading Alastair Campbell's Downing Street Years.

mrsdewinter

19. Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates

This is the perfect book for those lazy days between Christmas and New Year. Well written, no complicated plot, sharply observed characters all add up to something that kept me gripped during those periods of seasonal down time over the holidays. Set in the USA of the Fifties, the novel features April and Frank Wheeler, a couple of would-be beatniks who've somehow found themselves living in suburbia. Frank's dream is to swap his Madison Avenue job for something more creative or intellectual and for himself and April to leave their hopelessly bourgeois and empty lives behind them. April has always lent him a supportive ear but when she decides to actually realise 'their' fantasy, their relationship quickly lurches towards crisis.
Usually, I make a point of avoiding anything recommended by Ryan Tubridy for his book club, but I caught the show's discussion of this book last week and was intrigued. And I'm so glad I picked it up when I spotted it in town. It is tremendous fun, in a Mad Men kinda way. Drinking at lunchtime! Pregnant women smoking! But even better are the sideswipes at self-styled intellectuals who are simply clever to *really* fit in with the squares (or take their lead on their reading material from silly Radio 1 shows). Most discomforting of all are the barbs aimed at an oh-so-sophisticated society shaking off its naff old values and past. It all adds up to a brilliantly entertaining read that is just chewy enough to make you think. Mostly to ponder, does it make me middle-aged if I've come round to thinking that Tubridy's book choices are almost as good as Ray D'Arcy's taste in vaguely alternative pop rock?

mrsdewinter

20. A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini

It's unlikely I would ever have read this if a friend hadn't handed it to me as a Christmas presents. I have a great aversion to reading books just because the subject matter is a hot topic. And books about the subjugation of women in modern-day Afghanistan sounded like the kind of thing that would have a Dublin 6 reading group salivating. But I have to say I enjoyed its readable style, its accessible retelling of recent Afghan history and the believable characters at its heart.
Mariam is the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy businessman who marries her off to a vile shoemaker. She's a gentle soul but when it becomes clear that she will never bear her older husband a son, her life becomes a living hell. Living just a few doors from her marital home, little Laila is growing up in another dysfunctional home. With her older Mujahid brothers away, fighting the Soviets in the mountains, Laila's mother can barely care for her, and her only comfort is playing with her next-door neighbour, Tariq.
The novel traces their relationship as they are thrown together and, as such, is another female buddy tale.
But as somebody who is tired of reading about Afghanistan as a strife-ridden trouble spot, Splendid Suns provides some welcome context.
I'd recommend it for : Dublin 6 reading groups; middle-aged would-be feminists, someone looking for something slightly more weighty than a chick-lit book, people with a passing interest in history and world politics.
You'll hate it if you're: a serious reader or historian, you're not braced for a 'Thelma & Louise take on the Taliban' tale.

mrsdewinter

21. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy

I am so out of condition. So used to contemporary fiction and nonfiction, this proved to be a bit of a slog - mostly because I do most of my reading when I'm tired or looking for distraction. Anything that requires concentration is off my list for the time being... Until I can be shamed into picking up another classic. Having said all that, as tiring as it was, Tess was a pretty enjoyable read. You've heard the story before. Tess Darbeyfield is an innocent abroad whose beauty, honour and naivete make her a target of the dastardly Alec D'Urberville. Of course the cad drops her like a hot potato as soon as he's had his wicked way with her. But can a girl who has fallen from grace go on to find true love? And will D'urberville get his comeuppance...? I'm sure you can predict the outcome, but it is still 500 pages of superb writing. Every chapter or so, you're hit with a wonderfully crafted sentiment or observation about human character which is as true today as it was in the 1890s.

mrsdewinter

22. America Unchained, by Dave Gorman

Happened to catch the documentary of this on Channel 4 a few weeks ago and when I mentioned it to a friend, it turned out the same girl owned the book and was willing to lend it to me. I think Gorman, the British comedian who set himself the task of crossing America without throwing any cash in the direction of the major corporations, would have approved. Buying goods and services only from old-fashioned Mom and Pop stores, gas stations and motels, he finds himself encountering a different side of America to the one usually encountered by tourists. Or J1 students I suppose. For the first time in my life, he made me want to undertake a road trip across the states and see what life is like in those flyover states. And it's obvious he has great regard and warmth for almost everybody he meets (apart from the weirdos in the crazy cult). But, as with so many comics, the reader tires of the incessant one-liners. Note to comics-turned-writers. There's only one Raymond Chandler, you know...

mrsdewinter

23. Remember Me, by Melvyn Bragg

I must declare an interest here: I have a bit of a crush on Mr Bragg. Something to do with the extravagant hair and his gorgeous north of England accent. So when I heard that his latest novel betrayed certain parallels with his own private life, and I saw Remember Me lying on a friend's bookshelf, I was all over it. That was a few months ago, and I must confess that it failed to hold my attention (yawn, a humble north of England lad who meets a breathtakingly exotic - though dangerously mercurial - French artist at oxford, jesus mary wept) and the book was parked for a few months. By the time I picked it up, I was in a better frame of mind. The story of Joseph and Natasha's doomed love affair is being relayed by the middle-aged Joseph to his daughter more than three decades after the suicide of Natasha. I returned to the novel at the point where the couple are negotiating the Sixties in suburban London where Joseph is making good progress at the BBC and Natasha is disappointed at her stalled artistic output. The final tragedy looms over the entire book but there are some wonderful touches, mostly the fun Joseph pokes at his younger self, and the ghastly people who are drawn to the media. However, overall, I found it slow enough going. If I wasn't equipped with my crush, I'm not sure I would have stuck with it. I can't imagine a man reading this, certainly not a man my own age. Definitely one for the middle-aged mammies with a romantic sense of what might have been. and a crush on Melvyn Bragg

mrsdewinter

24. Eleven Kinds Of Loneliness, by Richard Yates

I was really impressed by the writing in Revolutionary Road so when I spotted this in the library, I leapt on it. I'm not a great fan of short stories - I just don't see the point - but this sat very well with me. Mostly set in the Manhattan of the 1940s and 1950s, these stories mostly focus on young, middle-class men who are vaguely dissatisfied with their lives without the rather boring self-flagellation we begin to see in the 1960s and 1970s. Even better, these prose pieces are simply good short stories... My biggest gripe with short stories is that they seem to be long preambles to a clunkingly obvious point. Yes the tales in Eleven Kinds are thought-provoking but Mr Yates is not a cruscader. No complaints here...

mrsdewinter

25. The Third Woman, by William Cash

Cash's book purports to tell the 'real' story of the affair that inspired Graham Greene's The End Of The Affair. Reading it was a bit of a throwback to a phase I went through in my teens, when I tended to read 'books about...' instead of the books instead. So, I read a biography of Simone de Beauvoir rather to save myself the bother of actually reading the Female Eunach. In this instance, I had actually read The End Of The Affair before I picked up The Third Woman to read. I couldn't remember it making much of an impact but always thought Greene was such an odd fish that this sliver of a biography might be of interest. And it is - utterly immoral and self-regarding, Greene (a long-married compulsive adulterer) falls under the spell of this vivacious American woman who asks him to be her godfather when she converts to Catholicism. It is the late 1940s and England is still a fairly dreary place to live. Greene is just about tolerating his wife and a long-standing mistress when he is bowled over by Catherine Walston. Married to an English lord, Ms Walston has a colourful love life of her own (including, according to Cash, Irish republican hero Ernie O'Malley and a clutch of adventurous Irish priests) and adds this dry very British writer to her roster of lovers. Inevitably it ends badly for Greene... but while I started out hating him and his messy private life, excerpts from his papers and letters bring a human dimension to a quite repulsive character. Whether Cash - who is too much in awe of his subject - has actually a good job in telling the story is another issue. For me, it's the nuggets of Greene's writing - and the delicious gossip - that kept me going. In any case, it's also been enough to seek out Greene in the local library, so perhaps the Greene estate will thank him...

mrsdewinter

26. Travels With My Aunt, by Graham Greene

Really excellent comic novel set in the late 1960s. Henry is a retired bank manager who meets his Aunt Augusta for the first time at his mother's funeral. Before too long, he's smuggling gold to Istanbul, falling under the spell of impressionable young hippie chicks, and uncovering secrets about his past.
It sounds ho-hum but the writing is excellent, and the asides are hilarious. Definitely recommend it as a light, intelligent read

mrsdewinter

27. The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher, by Kate Summerscale

Having read so many good review of this true-crime account of a 19th century murder, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this. It is Summer 1860 and legendary London policeman Mr Whicher has been sent to the far reaches of western England to investigate the bloody death of a three-year-old boy in the large house of a tax inspector. The Kent family wake up one morning to find their son, Saville dumped in the outhouse latrine with his throat slit. Mr Whicher encounters a deeply dysfunctional family and battles to separate rumour and hearsay from fact. Sounds like the makings of a great book doesn't it? Just a pity the author takes such a dry approach. We learn that it was a poor summer in weather terms, how much a policeman would expect to earn, etc, but there's no effort to enter the mind of anybody at the heart of the case. Instead, we get drawn into classic Victorian fiction - I lost count how many times Ms Summerscale took a break from the story to reel off a few passages from, say, The Woman In White. Honestly, read the first few chapters at speed. Skip the bits that relate to the hearings and go to the final spooky coda, an anonymous letter received by a crime writer years after the murder...

mrsdewinter

28. Provided You Don't Kiss Me, by Duncan Hamilton

Caught the movie of The Damned United a few weeks ago and loved Michael Sheen's portrayal of Brian Clough. However, I felt it failed to answer the question of why the football manager who spent so much time on the airwaves in the Eighties was a good coach and mentor. Provided You Don't Kiss Me is written by a local sports journalist who covered Notts Forest games for more than 20 years, including a good brace of seasons interviewing and shadowing Clough. And his account of the ageing post-Leeds Clough is brilliant. From bailing out the club as a 'mysterious benefactor' to jokily grabbing rival managers' balls, Clough's every move was calculated to have the maximum impact and get his club back into the top flight - and ensure that his own nest would be adequately feathered when the time inevitably came for him to leave. It's clear that Hamilton had a lot of regard for Clough, and is interpreting the manager's greater outrages to soften the blow, but there's no doubt that Clough had a gift for reading people and getting the best out of his players. I have zero interest in sport, but Clough the man leaps off the pages.

mrsdewinter

29. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh

I think I'm experiencing withdrawal symptoms since finishing this book this morning. Having recently watched the Eighties TV series on DVD, I found myself falling for Waugh's strange little world, and when I reached the end of the DVD set, I made straight for the local library to pick up a copy of the original text. It's absolutely extraordinary. Charles is a solidly middle-class Oxford student who is drawn into the world of the charismatic Sebastian Flyte, the second son of an aristocratic English Catholic family, in the Roaring Twenties. Before too long, Charles has fallen under the spell of Sebastian's family, his own destiny and happiness bound to their own doomed fates. If you like Waugh's Scoop, there are flashes of his humour here (the Jesuit priest's bemusement at Rex Mottram's lack of intellectual curiosity, for instance) but it's much more weighty stuff. Utterly bewitching. Now, on to the dry New Jersey landscape of The Sportswriter. It's just not the same...

randomguy

mrsdewinter wrote: »

Now, on to the dry New Jersey landscape of The Sportswriter. It's just not the same...

Enjoy The Sportswriter - it's not easy-going but it is really rewarding. It's one of the hardest reads I have ever trawled through, but it was definitely worth it.

Usually I'd say that heavy writing is bad writing, but with Ford it is great writing.

(not sure if you want people commenting on your reading list but you have read some really good stuff, and I am a bit of of an evangilist for the Frank Bascombe trilogy for people who are seriously into reading.

And while I'm at it, I'll recommend My Secret History by Paul Theroux, just to prove that Mosquito Coast wasn't a once off. My Secret History is a lot better, and that's coming from someone who went to the actual Mosquito Coast because that book was stuck in his head for 15 years).

mrsdewinter

randomguy wrote: »

Enjoy The Sportswriter - it's not easy-going but it is really rewarding. It's one of the hardest reads I have ever trawled through, but it was definitely worth it.

Now you tell me! I picked it up because I thought he might be like Paul Auster and I kept wondering why I was having to backtrack all the time...

Anyway, since you posted that, I've been taking a little more care in reading it. So far, however, the narrator seems a fairly strange fish... and I have a bad feeling about where this nurse is headed... but I'll keep going.

And I will give Paul Theroux another chance. In fairness, his output seems to be quite high and to range far and wide. It'd be unfair to write him off because of one pass-remarkable experience. Not sure I'll make it as far as the Mosquito Coast though...

Thanks for your comments, Random - and keep the tips coming!

M

mrsdewinter

30. The Sportswriter, by Richard Ford

Sorry RandomGuy and Ford's other fans, I just couldn't get into this at all. It's been a few weeks since I finished it so all I can remember about reading it is wondering why I was wasting hours of my own life living through this guy's midlife crisis. Quite liked the writing - the encounter with the former football star and the young girlfriend's father were superb - but the mid-1980s Middle America cultural references were exhausting to wade through.

mrsdewinter

31. The Soldier's Return, by Melvyn Bragg

It's been a few months since I read 'Remember Me', the latest instalment of Mr Bragg's series of semi-autobiographical novels, so when I spotted the paperback version of this in my mother's house, I pinched it as light reading material for a short holiday I took last month. It is 1946 and Sam Richardson has just returned home to the north of England from fighting in the Far East. But not everybody is pleased to see him home. His young wife's overbearing aunt has become accustomed to having her niece at her disposal in the boarding house she runs. His young son has become used to being the man of the house and doesn't take too kindly to this rough interloper taking his place in his mother's bed. And even his old employer can't seem to fit him back into the roster. It has all been done before, and if it didn't carry Melvyn Bragg's name on the cover, I doubt I would have stuck with it. But as a man of his time, Sam Richardson - awkward, emotionally closed, only vaguely aware of an inner life - is superbly written.

mrsdewinter

32. The Godfather, by Mario Puzo

Amazing gripping read. Even more satisfying than the movie.

mrsdewinter

33. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

This year's Da Vinci Code - and that's not a criticism. All I mean is this is definitely something you could hand to non-reading friends, or people who've got out of the habit of reading, because it really does carry you along. The ending is a little too pat for my liking but Kalle and Lisbeth and the unfolding story of a business dynasty that is rotten to the core makes for very entertaining reading. So tempted to book a flight to Stockholm and see Sweden for myself.

mrsdewinter

34. Cleaving, by Julie Powell

Grr. A huge disappointment. Back in 2006, I picked up a charming book about a young married New Yorker who was as inept in the kitchen as myself but who'd set herself the challenge of cooking her way through a seminal tome written by the US version of Delia Smith. And as a comic series of pratfalls and an inevitable voyage of self-discovery, Julie & Julia worked. As a once-off. So I should have known better when I saw Julie Powell's Cleaving, the author's account of how she embraced... butchery in a bid to find herself and, this time, save her marriage. She lands an internship in an upstate butchers staffed by - yep - a colourful cast of characters. I'm sorry. I just found it difficult to get excited about how to prepare a rack of lamb. And the one storyline I was intrigued by - her straying on her apparently perfect husband - was as dismally dissatisfying as any real-life affair. Thanks Julie, but I won't be back for thirds

mrsdewinter

35. Don't You Want Me? by India Knight

Curiously dated chick-lit wannabe. Feels like it was written by a woman who had to desperately prove how easy it is to churn out a lightweight potboiler that would knock spots off Cecilia Ahern and Sophie Kinsella. Well, I've never read Ms Ahern or Ms Kinsella. Having read this, I hopefully won't have to read anything else written by Ms Knight. Some over-privileged thirtysomething is put out because she doesn't have a boyfriend. She messes around with loads of people's heads and hearts and finally settles down with... will I spoil it for you? Oh, you don't care. No, neither did I in the end.

mrsdewinter

36. The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff

This is a bit of a mishmash of historical research and fictional murder mystery. In the fictional strand, Jordan, a young man who was driven out of town by his father a handful of years before, returns home after his mother is charged with murdering his dad, a member of an underground sect of the Mormons which continues to practise polygamy. Jordan's mother was the 19th wife taken by his drug-taking, abuser father and it appears that his eye had begun to wander again. Which is why the local police believe she is guilty. Woven into the story, however, is the story of a real-life 19th-century anti-polygamy campaigner who was herself the 19th wife of Mormon pioneer John Brigham. For a good two thirds of the book, the historical element is more interesting than the faintly trailer-trash contemporary tale. But - and this is something that frustrates me about so much writing and movies - I felt like I had to go straight to Google to find out which elements were real and which had been stitched in to make it more user-friendly for a 21st-century reader. And as a friend pointed out... 'Sure, if we could all throw in entire documents from years back, wouldn't we all be novelists?' In any case, apart from the sexy Mormon-bashing stuff, it's all rather dreary.

mrsdewinter

37. All Names Have Been Changed, by Claire Kilroy

Was feeling guilty about not buying enough Irish writing, and writing by Irishwomen, so picked this up in Chapters and it was a wonderful read. Set in mid-1980s Dublin, the novel focuses on a creative writing course in Trinity College, and Glynn, the legendary man of letters leading his charges - four gilded, middle-class women with notions of writing and the narrator, Declan. Rapt in their regard for the gargoyle Glynn, the five students indulge him his every whim, even if it means sacrificing their own welfare. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's Glynn - petulent, childish **** who toys with the people around him - who leaps off the page. The other stand-out character is Eighties Dublin. If you're feeling nostalgic for the good ol' days, read this to remind yourself just how crap everything was before the much-maligned boom.

mrsdewinter

38. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami

This was an amazing book to read. One of those novels where you actually look forward to the bus commute in the morning if it means you can read a bit more of the story. Very, very dissatisfying in many ways but the brilliance of the writing more than makes up for any gripes I have. There's no point outlining the plot because it veers all over the place, and really it's the tangents which make it but I'd recommend this to anybody. Even now, weeks after I read it, there's so much of it to chew over and think about. Really, really brilliant. Murakami is my new Auster. I'll have to ration his books, keeping one or two back for when I'm stressed or feeling low.

mrsdewinter

39. Tenderwire, by Claire Kilroy

I've been pretty lucky in my reading... Straight after Murakami, I was lent this book. I hate hanging on to other people's property for too long - I've been the victim of paperback kleptos too many times - so I was keen to read this and have it back with its rightful owner before too long. And it wasn't at all difficult. Eva is a young Irish violinist living in NY whose life is a disaster. She has a drink problem, she's busy driving her nice boyfriend away... and just when she hits bottom, a shady Russian character she picks up in a bar offers her a genuine Stradivarius, an instrument which could catapult her into a virtuoso career. I quite liked Ms Kilroy's more recent book, All The Names Have Been Changed, but it's only now that I've realised that I was quite indulgent and forgiving. This is genuinely thrilling with the tension played out superbly. For the first time in a long time, I found myself sticking with a book because the heroine was such an appalling character. Hope Ms Kilroy returns to this form soon

mrsdewinter

40. The Comedians, by Graham Greene

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this book. It's been a few weeks since I finished reading it, and there's still a kind of emptiness where this novel should be in my affections. It also took a few weeks to read - nothing to boast about when it runs to less than 300 pages. But the truth is that as well-written as it is, there's little to keep the reader hooked. A rather cold fish, Brown has returned to Haiti after an ill-fated trip to NY to sell his once-swish hotel on the outskirts of Port au Prince. On the steam ship bringing him back to the hellish Haiti of the mid-1960s, he encounters an idealistic American liberal who is on a campaign to convert the world to vegetarianism, and a shady compatriot Englishman, Jones, whose own reason for visiting a land almost completely destroyed by the excesses of Papa Doc Duvalier is not at all clear. In all honesty, there are many many reasons to dislike this tale. There's the device of involving Brown in all interaction with the regime's bureacracy because he's One Of Us; and there's Brown's own nature as a Very Cold Fish; and the way Greene's women are either mistresses or sex-crazed pensioners... but I can't think of a writer working today who would write so candidly about the horrors of the Duvalier years, and exposing the cynicism of the US in supporting such a crooked regime. This was a Grand Old Man of Letters, not some thrusting young buck trying to be provocative. And if Brown is someone I did not care for, certainly the island and its people - and the horror they faced - is real enough. So my overall impression is that The Comedians is an Interesting Read - and enjoyable in some respects - but not as vivid as other books I've read recently...

mrsdewinter

41. The Family Tree, by Carole Cadwalladr

Fairly grim chick-lit effort which added nothing to my life. Some middle-class woman who is marginally nicer than the twit she is married to feels faintly dissatisfied with her life. So as she she completes her PhD in popular culture (specifically, the TV shows of the late 1970s - look! there's an academic analysis of Dallas!), she looks back over her childhood and family, retreading the path that led up to her mother's death. I did not warm to this book at all, largely because I'm extremely tired of nostalgia. Not a single cliche from the late 1970s/early 1980s escapes. Sodastreams, pageboy haircuts, The Bionic Woman... It's just exhausting - and it all took away from the story.

mrsdewinter

42. The Girl Who Played With Fire, by Stieg Larsson

Drawn-out rubbish. Hated the violence, the lack of style, the narrow focus... Just hated it. Won't be reading the final instalment

mrsdewinter

Wow, can't believe it's been so long. And it's not as if I've been so busy reading either... Well, here are the books I remember reading since I last posted here:

43. White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga. Very colourful - but raised issues about India's socio-political systems which made me wonder if I really wanted to fulfill my lifelong dream of visiting the sub-continent.

44. Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Very colourful - and quashed whatever doubts White Tiger had raised about hightailing it to India to find myself. Thank you, Ms Gilbert - I'll get to India soon... (Actually, I found it wonderfully absorbing, and it's a terrific feel-good book)

[long dry spell as I battled part of the way through Portrait Of A Lady]

45. The Fethard-On-Sea Boycott, by Tim Fanning. Fresh account of the infamous boycott of Protestant businesses in 1950s Wexford. I'm not a history buff, so it was interesting to find out the background, nationally and locally, and to see the different forces at work, locally and nationally. Very well written.

46. Bankers, by Shane Ross. Brilliant recap (brilliant, in that I'm a noob on CFDs, etc., and could understand it all) on how we ended up bailing out the banks. I approached this book with a heavy heart, thinking it would be a chore but it was nothing like hard work. I would actually find myself retiring to bed early in order to read large tracts of it. I'd almost consider buying the Sindo in order to read more of Mr Ross

47. Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin. Thought it was time I got back to the world of fiction. Loved Toibin's The Master but this is much lighter. If you stripped away the brilliant observations, it wouldn't amount to much more than a retro chick lit book. Maybe a Barbara Taylor Bradford transposed to Wexford. Hm. Still thoroughly enjoyable however. Kind of a relief to read a book set in the 50s where the local priest isn't a dangerous lech, or where everybody isn't scarred for life by Awful Catholic Repression. Anyway, time I read some more Toibin. See if there are more gems like The Master there in the canon.

mrsdewinter

48. Man In The Dark, by Paul Auster

Desperately disappointing. Picked this up for a fiver in town, and galloped through it but ended up almost throwing it across the room after I finished it yesterday morning. The premise is pretty cool: an ailing old man who spends his final days daydreaming about a parallel universe, one in which the World Trade Center is still standing, and the war in Iraq never broke out. But even this conceit is flawed because the richness I associate with Auster's characters is completely lacking. I love the way that even the most minor of his characters have amazing back stories. Not in Man In The Dark. And I can't help feeling that he felt under pressure to write Something about The War. Really wish he'd held off for a few years...

mrsdewinter

49. Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel

Excellent historical novel. I've largely avoided novels where an author steps into the shoes of a figure from the past, but relented after the hoopla of the Booker Prize and it doesn't disappoint. Thomas Cromwell is a blacksmith's son who by the early 16th century has somehow worked his way up to a position within the court of Cardinal Wolsey. So he backs the wrong horse when Henry VIII tires of his Queen and starts throwing Anne Boleyn the eye, right? Yes and no... Really, this machiavellian moneylender should be deeply unattractive and not sympathetic at all but somehow we follow his progress to the top of the new world order, rooting for him all the way. My only complaint is that it took ages to read. It was the book equivalent of black forest gateau - too much at one sitting and I felt queasy for the rest of the day. Still a terrific read, and one I will return to.

mrsdewinter

50. Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami

My third book by Murakami: this must make me a bit of a fan girl. As it happens, I think I picked up this book a few years ago in a bookshop - and promptly left it back on the shelf. And I know why I shouldn't like it: more mythologising of the Sixties, free love, a young man in search of his lost love... too tiresome in too many ways. Tokyo university student Toru Watanabe is drawn to his best friend's girlfriend after the best friend kills himself. However his young love, Naoko, suffers a nervous breakdown, just as their own relationship grows serious and disappears to a hospital miles from Tokyo. Disorientated and disillusioned, he finds himself becoming more and more intrigued by the rather silly Midori, a young woman who is far too fond of tiny mini skirts and blurting out the most inappropriate observations about herself, Toru, and the world around them. No, for anybody over the age of 16, it doesn't sound very promising but it's very well written and the young hero, Toru, is a more engaging and dynamic character than the other Toru, the hapless central character of the Wind-up Bird Chronicle. But I have to say I'm glad this wasn't my introduction to Murakami. Onward & upward

mrsdewinter

51. Enduring Love, by Ian McEwan

Erm, it's been ages since I read this, so I don't actually remember all that much about it - apart from enjoying the suspense as the hero tried to persuade his partner that a complete stranger really was pursuing him doggedly, almost as if he were 'stalking' some sort of prey. Aw... the Nineties - they really were a more innocent time...

mrsdewinter

52. The White Queen, by Philippa Gregory

mrsdewinter

53. The Believers, by Zoe Heller

Brilliantly perceptive study of a family falling apart after its patriarch is laid low by a stroke. I can almost forgive Heller for thoses lamentable Sunday Times columns all those years ago...