A Quick Reads quick update

 

Quick Reads from the Reading Agency

I've talked about my love for this initiative a few times here and I've been picking up one of the Quick Reads each time I visit my local library - mostly from this year's selection but I've also been catching up on ones I've missed from other years.

As ever not all of the books are the type of book I usually go for, in fact books like M. W. Craven's Cutting Season is just the type of book I actively go out of my way to avoid!

I surprised myself by quite enjoying both The Swimmer and Blind Spot and also by how much I really enjoyed The Kiss and Sofia Khan and the Baby Blues -  not authors I normally pick up but if I'm wandering around the library looking for something to read these are authors I'll search out.

It has to be said that the inclusion of Cutting Season surprised me as it is obviously a book that is mid series and the references to books I'd not read was a little off putting - it felt a bit like I was being excluded from a club and I'm not sure that is a good thing from a book that is encouraging a reluctant or returning reader.

Kate Mosse's The Black Mountain strikes me as another odd choice - don't get me wrong I really liked the book, and I loved finding out a new piece of history about a place I've visited. However if a new reader found this one and decided to read more of Mosse's books they might be in for a big shock as they are real doorsteps and much different in feel from this, great books but a huge leap from this slim tale.

As ever these are just my thoughts on the books and as an avid reader I did enjoy them all (even the gruesome one!) and I think that this initiative is brilliant.

Championing books

Quick Reads Return

Back in 2018 when I was at my poorliest I was kindly gifted some of the wonderful Quick Reads titles (I wrote about them here). After a break of a year, and some funding woes, the scheme is back and this time I get to tell everyone just how special these books are thanks to the Reading Agency featuring my story as part of their promotion of the scheme.

It was pure serendipity that on the day my story was published four of this year's titles came in to the library for me and carried them home with great excitement. I have just spent an intense month dipping into piles of books (fiction and non fiction) for various projects and the chance to relax with some shorter books by fabulous authors was a real treat.

So far I've finished A Fresh Start - which was a wonderful collection of 10 brand new short stories from well known authors, all with the loose theme of 'a fresh start'. Some of the stories were incredibly funny, some poignant but unlike many short story collections I enjoyed them all. They were the perfect length for reading at bedtime - just a few pages each - and all were thoroughly satisfying.

Next up was Notting Hill Carnival by Candice Carty-Williams. This was subtitled A Westside Story and was a contemporary love story using the plot of Romeo & Juliet / Westside Story as a starting point. Again I loved the writing style and I've instantly put a request on Carty-William's full length novel Queenie.

I've now moved on to Milly Johnson's The Little Dreams of Lara Cliffe - and as the characters are taking a trip to Amsterdam, a city that I love visiting, it all bodes well. After this will come Clare Mackintosh's The Donor which looks like a gripping thriller. As After the End by this author made my top reads of 2019 list I'm hoping I like this one as much.

As I say in my piece for the Reading Agency these books really are for everyone - the plots are great and the authors incredibly talented. These aren't just simplified books for new readers they are just gripping shorter reads - and at only £1 (or free from your local library) you really should give them ago.
Another bonus - they are ever so light and compact in size so they'll fit in your bag/pocket easily meaning you're never without a book!

Books of the Year 2019

My top rated books of 2019.

After the shocking discovery yesterday of just how many books I've read in the past decade it is time to look more closely at the list from 2019 and pick my top reads from this smaller set.

It was an interesting book year, I am by no means back to where I was for reading stamina and plot retention and so to be honest looking over the past 12 months worth of books I was very thankful for the one line synopsis I do write for each one as an aide memoir.

The books on these two lists (fiction and non-fiction) needed no prompts for me to remember how much I enjoyed them!

Fiction (in no particular order)

• If I Could Tell You by Hannah Beckerman
• A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
• Those Who are Loved by Victoria Hislop
• Vintage 1954 by Antoine Laurain(trans. Jane Aitkin)
• Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts
• Umbrella Mouse by Anna Fargher
• A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier
• The Flat Share by Beth O'Leary
• Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (trans. Geoffrey Trousselot)
• After the End by Clare Mackintosh

Nonfiction (in no particular order)

• The Eastern Most House by Juliet Blaxland
• Chasing the Sun by Linda Geddes
• Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
• The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es
• Between the Stops by Sandi Toksvig

Somewhat unusually for me I think that the majority of the these books were published (in English at least) during 2019. I know that I read a lot of them through Net Galley or thanks to projects with the Reading Agency or of not that they came from the library.

I read a lot of nature writing books/memoirs in 2019 but it was the Easternmost House that has remained lodged the strongest in my memory - not least for the sad, newsworthy end it had in real life. 

A friend challenged me last night to whittle this list down to just my top books but even though I gave her three titles (kidlit/fiction/non fiction) under 24 hours ago this has already changed and in all honesty I don't think that I can get it any lower than these 15 titles.

Here's to another year/decade of reading pleasure!

Stretching myself

Oooops - another long gap in posts to the blog, but again for good reasons I think...

We've been visiting family over the summer weekends and generally having a good time relaxing, I've been to a couple of cricket matches and I've started going to the theatre more often - all good things and an indication that I am getting better. I don't think I'm up to the "three shows and an exhibition weekends" that I was doing before but I am picking what I see with more care and enjoying my outings a lot.

I still haven't returned to my previous levels of reading, nor even the heights I reached on holiday but I am restarting some of my former reading projects which feels promising.

Currently I have six very varied books supplied by the Reading Agency to get through before the end of the month, I feel proud of myself as I have already read 3 cover to cover, and 100 pages of a fourth (the historical errors just kept throwing me out of the book) and am about to start the fifth.  As ever these generally aren't books I'd have chosen myself so making progress with them is certainly encouraging.

I did abandon these books yesterday as I was approved for a Net Galley proof of book I've been longing to read over the weekend and for the first time since the start of December I did spend an entire day just reading and finished the book in one go. More about this soon but I know it is going to feature highly in my top books of the year in a few months...

It is important to keep reminding myself of these gains as I am still definitely suffering the after effects of the brain hemorrhage every day and it is easy to forget the progress I'm making.

Books of the Year 2017

As is my tradition I've not even looked back at my 2017 reading journal until 2018 has started.

2017 ended up on a bit of low reading note as for a good two weeks in December I wasn't able to read more than about a page at a time due to being ill. This was a new experience for me as my usual default when poorly is to turn to books as comfort.

It wasn't all bad news however as when everything was counted up I discovered that I had read 254 books in 2017. Unlike the past few years I have tried to review more books here on the blog, and the monthly reading round-ups have helped with this, as did taking part in the Reading Agency /Baileys Women's Prize shadowing and also reading for the Radio 2 fiction and non fiction book selection panels,

Now without further ado here are my top Childrens/YA reads, adult fiction and non fiction selection. Some of these have featured on the blog before but others are ones that jumped out at me as I re-read my book journal.

Children and YA
Piglettes written (and translated from the French) by Clementine Beauvais.
Smell of Other People's Houses - Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock
A Galaxy of her Own - Libby Jackson
A Change is Gonna Come - short stories by various BAME authors
Things A Bright Girl Can Do - Sally Nicholls

Adult Fiction
Stay With Me - Adabayo Ayobami
White Chrysanthemums - Mary Lynn Bracht
Circe - Madeline Miller (read in July 2017 but not published until spring 2018)
Do Not Say We Have Nothing - Madeleine Thien
These Dividing Walls - Fran Cooper

Adult Non-Fiction
Balancing Acts - Nicholas Hytner
Reading Aloud - Chris Paling
Ask an Astronaut - Tim Peake
From Source to Sea - Tom Chesshyre
Take Courage - Samantha Ellis


Picking my overall book of the year has been a nightmare but I think that once more a book aimed at the younger audience wins and Things a Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls wins out as my top book of the year.

I did fail completely with the challenges I set myself back in March which doesn't hugely surprise me, but the projects with the Reading Agency more than made up for this.

I'm already reading lots of articles and blog posts about books to look out for in 2018 and to be honest thanks to Net Galley(and other projects) I've read quite a few of these already but there is a new book from Kate Atkinson coming in 2018 and also the sequel to last year's book of the year (The Apprentice Witch) by James Nicol is due out on 1st March.

Book of the year already?

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani

Way back last November I attended a Reading Agency development day held in Peterborough. Lots of publishers got to present themselves and their forthcoming books to a group of library staff from around East Anglia.  At the same time we got to 'sell' our libraries to the publishers as venues to consider for events a promotions.

At the end of the day after chatting with lots of lovely people we all staggered home with piles of exciting books and proofs to read.

Because I spent much of October, November and December reading through the Writers' Centre Norwich Summer Reads long list helping to pick the books we'll be championing all summer my own personal reading got put on hold for a while.

Now I am fully recovered from the lurgy I am enjoying catching up on other things.  The first two books I've plucked out of the pile from November (pictured above) have both been from The Tinder Press and both were fantastic.

Amity and Sorrow reminded me a lot of both the 19th Wife by Ebershoff and Grace by Morris Gleitzman as it is all about what happens when families leave religious cults and just how far indoctrination can go. I raced through the book and think that it will be a great hit, especially with reading groups.

However much I enjoyed this one it was the second book that really blew me away...

 The Yonahlosse Riding Camp for Girls was truly fantastic, I started it at lunchtime on Sunday just had to keep reading until I finished it, poor Mr Norfolkbookworm didn't get a lot of conversation or sense out of me!

The story starts with Thea Atwell being left at the Riding Camp thinking she is there just for the summer. It is clear from the outset that she is there in disgrace but it is only slowly that flashbacks let you see the whole story unfold and reverberate through Thea's life.

As well as the story line being compelling I loved the vivid way the landscape was described.  I've visited some of the more wild central Florida areas that form Thea's home and could instantly visualise the family home.  I'm not a keen horsewoman (that is possibly the biggest understatement I've ever made on this blog) but that didn't matter at all, the love for horses shone through without swamping a reader with details.

I was surprised by several of the twists in the book and by the end I did have to surreptitiously wipe my eyes on more than one occasion. Thea was an interesting lead character for me, at times I felt sorry for the way life treated her but then some of her decisions made me less sympathetic towards her - a sign of a well rounded and 'real' character!

The one downside with this book is that it isn't published until June and so however much I recommend and rave about this one other people won't get to read it for nearly 6 months! New books from DiSclafani will certainly be books I am eagerly awaiting.

Fiction in 2013 has a lot to live up to after these two books  - and I am already bumping the 3rd Tinder Press proof to the top of the to-be-read pile!

Lost in Translation

One of the projects that I started through work was an International Literature Group.

Over the past 5 months a small group of us have attended monthly meetings where a lecturer from UEA has come along and taught us all about translating. Rather than all reading a set book we've all then been reading any book that has been translated into English and thinking about it using the guidelines given in the session. It has been great fun and I've really read my way around Europe this winter and spring. It has also been nice to think in more depth about what I'm reading, rather than just reading for pleasure. I miss studying sometimes.

May's challenge was a little different, our group was shadowing the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. We'd been sent 4 of the six books to read, talk about and then review.

None of the four books was an easy read, and we had only limited time to read the four titles. I managed to get through 3 of them:

Philippe Claudel's Brodeck's Report (translated from the French by John Cullen.)
This was my favourite of the 3 read. On the face of it this was a simple book about a very rural village trying to put itself back together after WW2 and a dramatic event. The more you read however the deeper the story went and it really was like an onion - each layer was good but taken as a whole it was fantastic.
The themes covered were not easy and despite the apparent simplicity this was a book that had to be read slowly so that none of the detail was missed.

Julia Franck's The Blind Side of the Heart (translated from the German by Anthea Bell)
On the face of it this was the most appealing book, from a retail view point it looked like the most commercial too. Sadly it didn't live up to the cover.
The story starts with a most dramatic event - a mother abandons her child on a railway platform in what will become Russian East Germany, and then we go back into the mother's past to find out how she could do such a thing.
The problem with this one was that none of the characters captured me, it was obvious from the subject matter that none of them were nice, but they all remained flat on the paper and never came to life. The writing was also dull and the story stagnant. This could have been so good, and I was disappointed as it had won many prizes in Germany.

Alain Mabanckou's Broken Glass (translated from the French by Helen Stevenson)
This one was really not my cup of tea at all and even though I persevered for about 100 pages I'm still not sure what it was about.
The translation of this one really impressed me for not once in the text is there a full stop. To have the skill to translate a story with only commas for punctuation and keep it readable is a huge talent I feel.

I also had a copy of Rafik Schami's The Dark Side of Love (translated from the German by Anthea Bell) but although I do want to read this one it is a massive 853 pages long and I just ran out of time to read it before the prize was announced.

The prize was announced at a ceremony on Thursday, sadly our shadowing group wasn't picked as one to go to this party, and the winner was...

Brodeck's Report

The next time our group meets, in June, we are going to discuss this one further and with our 'critical translation' hats on, rather than our 'should this win a prize' hats!

Thanks go to the Reading Agency for the chance to participate in this project.