Reading

It’s been quite a while since I posted anything here. I am still regularly updating the reading page however. When I look at what I have been reading, and what remains on Mount TBR (currently about fifty books or so) it is the usual mix of historical fiction and older ‘classic’ novels and literature, with a bit of modern crime and non fiction thrown in.

This year it is both the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species, so I treated myself to reading it, which I hadn’t done before. Anyone interested in doing so could do worse than to read Blogging the Origin a most excellent blog that takes you though it chapter by chapter. I also have a couple of other books that discuss Darwin in Mount TBR and I might get around to them later this year.

I still have one Louise Gerard left in the pile from my great grandmother, and I hope to read that soon too. Aside from that there remain a couple of other 19th century romances on the pile, but they look heavy going, so I might not get there these year. We shall see!

Reading 2007

This is the list of books I read in 2007. Links are to posts where I have discussed to book or author, either here or elsewhere online. I also note where reviews I have written have been published in print magazines.

1. Equinox by Michael White.
2. Scribe’s Ascent by Blake Willey (external link)
3. The Road to a Hanging by Mike Kearby (external link)
4. All Good Things Begin ed. Yvonne Cullen
5. Penhallow by Georgette Heyer.
6. Wild Mary by Patrick Marnham
7. The Death of the Red King by Paul Doherty
8. The Truth about Food by Jill Fullerton-Smith
9. Assassin’s Touch by Laura Joh Rowland
10.Crusader Gold by David Gibbens
11. The Malice Box by Martin Langfield
12. Word of Honour by ‘Sapper’
13. Rough Crossings by Simon Schama
14. Parliament House by Edward Marston
15. A Stranger in Burracombe by Lilian Harry (reviewed in May edition of Historical Novels Review)
16. Winter in Madrid by CJ Sansom
17. Christine Falls by Benjamin Black
18. Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer
19. Miscarriage of Justice by Linda Sole
20. Lucifer’s Shadow by David Hewson
21. Struggling Free by Margaret Penfold (external link)
22. Villa of Mysteries by David Hewson
23. In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant
24. A Man’s Man by Ian Hay
25. Something Fresh by PG Wodehouse
26. Saturnalia by Lindsey Davis
27. Past Caring by Robert Goddard
28. Echo Park by Michael Connolly
29. Stalky and Co by Rudyard Kipling
30. The Man who was Thursday by GK Chesterton
31. Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon by MC Beaton
32 Leaf Storm by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33 The Lost Luggage Porter by Andrew Martin
34 A Moment towards the end of the play by Timothy West
35 The Collectors by David Baldacci
36 King’s Priory by David Hough
37 Absolute Power by David Baldacci
38 The Necropolis Railway by Andrew Martin
39 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
40 Die Fasting by David Carriel (external link)
41 The Door through Space by Marion Zimmer Bradley
42. The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry
43. Me and Mr Darcy by Alexandra Potter
44. The Thirteenth Apostle by Michel Benoit
45. Oscar Slater by Thomas Toughill
46. The Tower by Valerio Massimo Manfredi
47. Scandal by Cosmo Hamilton
48. Simple Genius by David Baldacci
49. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
50. Trilobite by Richard Fortey
51. White Fang by Jack London
52. A Certain Want of Reason by Kate Dolan (external link)
53. The Brother Keepers by Ted MacNintch
54. The Prehistory of the Mind by Stephen Mithen
55. Rome Burning by Sophia MacDougall
56. Detection Unlimited by Georgette Heyer
57. Dubliners by James Joyce
58. Molesworth by Ronald Searle
59. Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin
60. The Act of Roger Murgatroyd by Adair Gilbert
61. Reivers by George MacDonald Fraser
62. London Pride by Joanna Canaan
63. The Giant Under the Snow by John Gordon

Updated 30th December

Sigh

My writing still seems to be stuck – so many other things to do that somehow seem more important. At least now I have an idea where I’m going with the novel. For a long time I had lost even that. I’ve done a lot of thinking about what I write and how I write it, and I think there’s been a huge change there. It was coming anyway – the current WIP is quite different from things I’ve written before, but has been precipitated by things going on in RL. I have confidence I will get there eventually, just not quite yet.

The other reason there has not been as much activity in this blog as I would like is that recently I’ve been reading a lot of books for review elsewhere, and I can’t publish the reviews here, yet. That pile is at last getting smaller. I have also now finished all the brand new library books that were on Mount TBR, so I may even get back to the sort of books that were the original impetus for this blog in the near future. There are some interesting ones in the pile – another Ian Hay, a couple of Louise Gerards, a Cosmo Hamilton and many more.

It’s that time of year again

I work in a library. This is the time of year, when the last of the book budget is being scraped, and new books are coming in. Quite a few of them have been of interest to me, and consequently I have been reading them. Unfortunately, most of them aren’t historical novels, so I won’t be reviewing them here. Also unfortunately, several of the historical novels I have read lately, I have done so because I am reviewing them elsewhere, which means I can’t post the reviews here, or at least not yet.

This is quite annoying as I’ve got a few interesting old books in my to read mountain, that I bought in a second hand book shop recently, but have yet to get to. Still, I have a couple of posts brewing, but they may not appear for a few days.

Reading review of the year, 2006

I haven’t read as much this year as I did last year – I’ve been seriously distracted for the last couple of months and my reading as well as my writing has suffered. Having said that, my total for the year is still averaging out at over a book a week. The grand total for the year is eighty-two, with another two that I started and never finished, although I will eventually, I promise. There was only one I threw away in disgust after the first few pages, and that was Labyrinth by Kate Mosse. Sixty-six of the books were fiction, and of the rest, as with last year, the vast majority were history. There were even fewer re-reads than there were last year – only nine.

I discovered a rich seam of writing in a collection of early twentieth century romance fiction owned by my great grandmother. I also started to read books my mother had owned as a child, plus some other, related books, and in all, these comprised twenty-four of the novels. By far and away the largest novel category is historical fiction, with a fairly even split among other categories.

Adventure – 9
Crime – 8
Fantasy – 10
Historical – 25
Thriller – 4
Literary – 3
Romance – 12
YA – 12

Of course some books are in more than one category.

Best book of the year was The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, John Boyne’s wrenching tale of innocence in wartime.

Worst book of the year was The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Over-rated, overwritten and overlong.

Most unexpected read was Ulysses, something I confess I never expected to read. I suppose technically, I still haven’t read it as it was an audio CD, but it still takes some listening to.

Out of print book that shouldn’t be – Barnaby by Rina Ramage.