mrs de winter is reading...

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...

mrsdewinter

54. The Constant Princess, by Philippa Gregory

A fiction treatment of the life of Henry VIII's first wife, Katherine of Aragon. She speculates that this Spanish princess married the young monarch because of a deathbed vow she made to her young husband. Whatever about all that, in my new fascination with English history, it hit the spot.

mrsdewinter

55. Shakespeare, by Bill Bryson

Bryson has pulled together everything we know about Shakespeare into one slim volume. Unfortunately, historians know very little about the Bard of Avon, so one comes away from the book with not a whole heap of knowledge about him. So... a bit meh - apart from the insights into England in the late 16th century.

mrsdewinter

56. The Boleyn Inheritance, by Philippa Gregory

I know. What can I say? But I really enjoyed this entertaining romp through another chapter of Henry VIII's life. And Ms Gregory is so easy to read, I'm sure I'll be reading more works by her soon.

mrsdewinter

57. The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory

I'm sorry: I loved it! But I'm taking a break from Miss Gregory now...

mrsdewinter

58. The Year Of The Flood, by Margaret Atwood

It's a brave new world for me: sci-fi, and despite all my expectations, I really enjoyed this taster. I see from Wikipedia, that this is a companion book to Oryx And Crake, but it stands on its own two feet extremely well. The book opens at some point in the middle-distant future, just after a plague - the waterless flood - has swept the world. Two women have survived: one middle-aged hippie who's barricaded herself on a rooftop garden, and a young woman trapped in a sex club. Have to say that I found myself looking forward to the bus journey to work when I was reading this, and I can see why people - sane, intelligent, rational people - get hooked on science fiction. Time to boldly go...

mrsdewinter

59. The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen

Terrific read. Brilliant observations of modern family life - some a little too close to the bone for comfort...

mrsdewinter

60. The Hour I First Believed, by Wally Lamb

Adored his first two books, but only picked this up on a whim when I spotted it in the local library. If you like his dense writing, his fully formed characters, his Fairly Happy Ever After fiction, you'll appreciate this. The reviews, I see now, were pretty lukewarm but - and it could simply be because I'm still in the warm afterglow - I enjoyed this.