World Book Night 2021: Thoughts

 

Reading Challenge Complete

Thanks to the third Covid-19 lockdown I have had more time for reading that I anticipated when I started my challenge, I thought that I would be hard pushed to finish the 21 books before the event, especially with other reading projects & non challenge books were taken into consideration.

However the lockdown meant more time at home, and the libraries being closed for a couple of months limited my access to new books a little (although I'm not quite sure that Mr Norfolkbookworm or our postman would agree!).

Reading books for a challenge like this is always interesting and a good way to be taken firmly out of my comfort zone, and this year was full of surprises - who'd have guessed that a book about football and a footballer would have been so interesting to a non-footie fan?

The choice of books overall was interesting. I did get frustrated that the teen appeal novels were both North American in setting - we have some great YA authors here, and in my opinion we should be supporting them more.

I liked the number of non fiction books on the list, and how many books featured short chapters or stories. 

I also liked how varied they were in exploring so many social aspects of life in the UK. I am guessing that the books were mostly picked in advance of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the  resurgence of the #MeToo but so many of the books tied into these themes that I felt I really gained an insight into these issues, but in a very natural way.

I found it interesting that there were some 'harder' books on the list - Shakespeare & Austen are not the easiest of authors to read, and so promoting audio books is great even if they aren't for me - one day I'll grow out of falling asleep as soon as someone reads to me - the bath, book, bed routine has stuck fast!

 A couple of the other books were also quite literary and this is a good reminder that World Book Night is about fostering a love of books - even good readers can get out of the habit and a free book is a good way to kickstart this again.

While on a personal level I was happy that there were no crime novels on the list, I find this a little odd - crime as a genre is incredibly popular in libraries and on the television after all.

Anyway these rambling thoughts are all things that have occurred to me as I've completed the challenge and they really aren't very profound at all!  

In the main I have enjoyed the variety of books and hope that many people discover a new favourite, or have the right book pressed in to their hand at just the right time.

World Book Night 2021: Book Twenty-one

 

To Sir With Love by E R Braithwaite (Vintage Books)

Own eBook

I took quite a gamble leaving this book for my last. I'd read it before many years ago and it is a novel that left a big impression, and even a good twenty years on I could still recall lines from the book. Would a reread tarnish my memories, should I just stick to my 'book shadow' thoughts?

In this case I am really pleased that rereading the book was a pleasure, it was still the incredible book that I remembered. I had forgotten many details but as I read through the book it was a little bit like meeting up with an old friend after many years. I definitely had remembered the big themes.

Although the book is now over 60 years old I was struck by how little has actually changed in the world in so many ways. It is also interesting to think that this book is a contemporary to the setting for the Call the Midwife books, in so many ways the books complement each other and create a window back to the London East End of the 1950s

What Braithwaite has to say about education, racism, gang culture and London is still horribly accurate and in many ways A Dutiful Boy, which is also a World Book Night book this year, is the same story just about more recent times.

I am glad that I left this until last, and I am glad that my challenge did give me the opportunity to reread the book and fall in love with it all over again. 

World Book Night 2021: Book Nineteen

 

Much Ado About Nothing - William Shakespeare (Penguin)

Own book (and DVD)

This play is always going to hold a special place in my heart as it was the first play I saw at the Globe Theatre and the one that made me fall in love with Shakespeare - to the extent I ended up taking an MA!

I did reread the play again for this challenge rather than listening to the audio book and it still makes me smile lots. The squabbling couple are brilliant and like so many of Shakespeare's plays the plot is frankly bonkers at times.

Once I'd finished reading it I did watch my DVD of that important 2011 Globe production and despite all the restrictions in daily life I was back at the Globe, in the summer, utterly immersed in the show. I'm not sure I will be back in London or at the Globe for a while but without this challenge I'd have left it far too long before reading/watching this again.

World Book Night 2021: Book Eighteen

 

Emma by Jane Austen (Penguin)

Own eBook

I came late to reading books by Jane Austen (and in fact only read Pride and Prejudice after the reimagining treatment it got in Longbourn!) but I have enjoyed them. I did think that Emma was going to be my nemesis however!

I found it very hard going, and none of the characters particularly likeable, but on researching the book I discovered that perhaps this was the point... Austen herself is supposed to have said "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like" 

I am pleased that I stuck with it, and although it took me a long time to get to the end I came away in the end feeling that I had enjoyed the story, just not as much as some of her others. 

It must be said that for a while as I was reading the book all I could think of  was what Mr Woodehouse would have made of the pandemic. He doesn't like socialising that much, is a fan of plain food and enjoys boardgames so lockdown/shielding/social isolation would have been fine for him - especially if he could have had his elder daughter & her family home in the countryside rather than London. However I'm not sure that as a valetudinarian he'd have been in the best mental health for the last year...

Once my mind stopped taking off on these flights of fancy I'm pleased to have read Emma. I realise that as a WBN book this will be in audio form but as I have a bad habit of still falling asleep pretty much instantly to being read to I stuck to the print form for this one. I might even now look out a film or TV adaptation...

World Book Night 2021: Book Seventeen

 The Anxiety Survival Guide by Bridie Gallagher, Sue Knowles, Phoebe McEwen and illustrated by Emmeline Pidgen (Jessica Kingsley Publishers)

Library book

As Norfolk's Libraries start to reopen with a limited service I thought that I really should get round to this book - I borrowed just after Lockdown 2 finished after all!

This book isn't aimed at me at all, it is for young people just leaving school and about to start uni or their new careers. That being said I found it full of interesting facts and case studies and I really liked that there was a real 50/50 split on the number of stories from men and women. It felt very inclusive and friendly to read, so much so that you don't realise how much good advice you are absorbing.

For me there were two big downsides. I loathed the font it was presented in - this to me felt like it was almost dumbing the book down to a tween/early teen level.  The other big downside for me was the title - this is a book that should be handed to every school/college/uni leaver as a positive book and not something that only people who admit they're struggling turn to. It is a guide to coping with life in general not just for people who confess to feeling anxious, more should be made of the sub-title!

I hope that the people who've applied to give this out on World Book Night will hand it to everyone and that it helps to break down more walls that see people trying to carry on regardless,

World Book Night 2021: Book Sixteen

 

The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary (Quercus publishing)

eProof

I had the chance to read this in advance format a few months before it was first published and after reading it I couldn't wait to be able to share it with other readers - in fact along with one of the other people who got an advance copy I think we tried pressing copies in to all of our colleagues' hands.

I started this thinking it was going to be another book about a woman breaking up with a long term partner and struggling to make life work in a dream job based in London.

In some ways this is what the book is about, but it turns in to so much more. Rents are expensive in London for those on a low wage so Tiffy and Leon (two strangers) have to share a flat. So far so normal...however it is a one bedroomed flat so they have to share a bed. Luckily Leon works nights and Tiffy in the daytime so they essentially flat share with an invisible person.

Through notes we learn how the two become friends and all about their back stories and this is where things get interesting as there are some incredibly powerful plot strands here and some very serious topics are covered. Unlike We Are All Made of Molecules however these are integral to the plot rather than the devices the story is hung on and (far more importantly) they are handled sensitively and realistically.

I've become a real fan of Beth O'Leary and am eagerly awaiting her third novel to come out. Don't dismiss this book as a story for Millennials or as a mindless romcom - give it a whirl...

World Book Night 2021: Book Fourteen

 

 We Are All Made of Molecules - Susan Nielsen   (Andersen Press)

 Own eBook

Warning there are spoilers in this review

I don't know where to start with this one, it made me so cross on so many levels. My first gripe is why does this 2nd YA fiction book have to be North American? Surely we have a plethora of great YA writers who are British?

The other gripes are to do with style and content. This book is very much in the vein of Wonder but comes no where near the brilliance of that book. There are so many issues in this book and off the top of my head here are just a few of them: death of a parent (from long illness), divorce of parents because father is gay, blended families, intelligent child but with no social awareness, child obsessed with fashion and friendship but not academic, bullying, peer presssure - oh and yes the biggie attempted date rape.

Phew, once all those are covered there wasn't much room for the writing, which may have been just as well because the style was all over the place. With themes as outlined above you'd think that this was a read for older teen, but in style and language this was pretty much a middle grade/upper primary  - way too junior for the content.

Oh and as for the content - by the end they basically all live happily ever after. I could handle that with the blended family coming together but the way the sexual assault was dealt with is shameful - as an adult reading this I could see that something was building but I never dreamt it would go as far as it did nor that there were no repercussions for either the victim  (and indeed it could be read that she was victim shamed) nor for her attacker.

I feel that I read this book so you don't have to and so far I think it is the worst book I've read for this project. 

World Book Night 2021: Book Thirteen

 

Up in the Attic by Pam Ayres (Ebury)

Own book

I've been dipping in and out of this book for a couple of weeks  and this is how I normally approach poetry books not a reflection on the quality or the ability of this volume to capture my interest.

As is to be expected not every poem in the book is to my taste but certainly enough were to mean that I did read them all and laugh mightily at some of them.

I think my favourite was the series about long haul travel - I recognised every stage of that cycle and it was a way to remember that the pandemic and not being able to travel does have some plus sides!

The one thing I couldn't quite capture with this was Ayres' own voice - she has a great accent and her work does sound best (to my ears at least) when she is reading them and I'd have loved this even more as an audio book.

As a World Book Night introduction to poetry I think it is a brilliant choice and I'm not sure that I will be passing my copy on to family as I initially thought.

World Book Night 2021: Book Twelve

 

Elevation by Stephen King (Hodder and Stoughton)

own copy (eBook)

This was another book that I was dreading reading, I am not a horror fan and Green Mile/Shawshank Redemption excepted I only know King as a writer in that genre.

The first bit of good news about this book was that it wasn't a horror novel. The second bit of good news was that it was short - only 160 pages so definitely a novella.

However that's where the positives stopped for me. I found the writing clunky, the message didactic and patronising and as for the 'mystery'...words fail me.

Unlike many of the books I've discovered through this challenge and others similar to it there was nothing in this book that made me want to read more by the author but at least now I can say I've read a King novel and he isn't for me at all!

Thinking about WBN as a project I can't help but feel a little sorry for people who are gifted this book on the back of saying they liked recent films based on King's books. I guess it might introduce them to new genres but I don't think they'll be expecting what they get!