As We Get To The End Of The Year...

So naturally I have started to go through what I think are the best books of the year which I will announce on the 30th of December, in the lead up and looking at other people blogs everyone is working out how many books they have read and by male or female authors like Simon Stuck in a Book. I liked this idea of as well as blogging your favourites of the year you do something a bit different too. However I thought of a few extra questions I would ask people, so here we go…

How many books read in 2008?
I think the one I am reading now will be the last one of the year as after that am reading Anna Karenina and don’t think could read that in less than three days and finish this one so “When Will There Be Good News” will be my 102nd book of the year beating last years 69.

How many fiction and non fiction?
In total 94 fictions and 8 non fictions.

Male/Female author ratio?
50 male and 52 female which really shocked me as I thought I had read much more books by women than men, odd.

Favourite book of 2008?
I have a pretty sneaky suspicion but you’ll have to wait until the end of the year!

Least favourite?
Midnight Cowboy by James Leo Herlihy was incredibly boring though I finished it, I didn’t finish Iain Pears ‘An Instance of the Fingerpost’. I also thought that ‘Son of a Witch’ by Gregory Maguire was poor; I don’t think anything he has done has been as good as ‘Wicked’ though. I refuse to mention Abby Lee. I was also underwhelmed by Emily Bronte sadly.

Any that you simply couldn’t finish and why?
I didn’t finish the aforementioned ‘An Instance of the Fingerpost’ just because after realising that I was going to have to read the same boring storyline four times from different people I gave up during the second. My Gran read this and struggled on through but said she wished she’d given up. The other was ‘Company of Liars’ by Karen Maitland which I really wanted to read but just wasn’t in the right mind frame for, maybe in 2009!

Oldest book read?
Emily Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ which I thought didn’t live up to expectations at all.

Newest?
I have read a fair few new ones of which isn’t out until January, so a few pre-publication.

Longest book title?
I read quite a lot of long titled books such as any of the M.C. Beaton ‘Agatha Raisin’ novels but it was Mary Ann Shaffer’s ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ is officially the longest.

Longest and shortest books?
Nicola Barker’s ‘Darkmans’ was easily the longest; shortest I think is ‘The Tales of Beedle the Bard’ by J.K. Rowling.

How many books from the library?
None, which is shameful isn’t it!?

Any translated books?
‘The Reader’ by Bernhard Schlink, ‘Strangers’ by Taichi Yamada and ‘In The Miso Soup’ by Ryu Murakami.

Most read author of the year, and how many books by that author?
Stella Duffy, I managed to devour three of her books this year!

Any re-reads?
Not this year.

Favourite character of the year?
Julie Ashton the narrator of ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ just completely and utterly stole my heart this year, either her or Atticus from Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’.

Which countries did you go to through the page in your year of reading?
England and America through the ages, Italy, China, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, France, Africa, Afghanistan, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, The Netherlands, Guernsey, Mexico, post apocalyptic somewhere, and of course the land of Oz.

Which book wouldn’t you have read without someone’s specific recommendation?
‘The Reader’ by Bernhard Schlink.

Did you read any books you have always been meaning to read?
Five classics; Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’, Emily Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Heights’, Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, Henry James ‘Turn of the Screw’ and John Buchan’s ‘The Thirty-Nine Steps’.

The Perfect Christmas Read

Only a really quick blog today as am in a mad panic to do all of my last minute Christmas shopping, okay change that, I am in a mad panic to do all of my Christmas shopping full stop.

Quite a few people have asked me in the lead up to Christmas what makes the perfect Christmas read. In all honestly I don’t actually know. I suppose people would automatically say Charles Dicken’s Christmas Stories which of course includes the famous ‘Christmas Carol’ and Scrooge who everyone thinks of at Christmas. I personally don’t tend to read themed books unless I am going on holiday and then like to read a tale that’s set where I am going. I do like a good guilty pleasure read over Christmas though.

I mean you are filled with lots of gorgeous food, you have possibly gotten up really early if there are kids in the house, everyone is off watching The Sound of Music, Doctor Who or some Christmas Special I love to sit and read a good M.C. Beaton and of course one of my favourite characters from my guilty pleasure series of ‘Agatha Raisin Mysteries’. When I was looking up Christmas books I fell across a new Agatha Raisin I hadn’t seen before ‘Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye’ which looks simply wonderful. I can’t begin to imagine what madness, murder and mayhem happens to Agatha in the festive season. I would have bought this for myself for tomorrow on my manic shopping spree later only as you know I have to read everything in order.

For those of you who don’t here is the blurb. During the dark, grey days of early December, Agatha is obsessed by only two things - Christmas, and her ex, James Lacey. Although she says she feels nothing for James now, she feels sure that landing the perfect Dickensian Christmas for all her friends will somehow reanimate her love. Even the murder of a Mrs Tamworthy, poisoned with hemlock at the local manor house, does little to distract Agatha from organizing her perfect yuletide celebrations. And yet it should do, as Mrs Tamworthy had written to Agatha, telling her that one of her family wanted to see her dead before the year was out. Slightly guiltily (and belatedly), Agatha sets out to solve the case with the help of her new recruit, young Toni Gilmour. You have got to admit that sounds like the perfect book to curl up in a cosy chair somewhere and read for a few hours full of delicious food and festive cheer, maybe I will get round to this one next year.

Have a wonderful Christmas!

Agatha Raisin & The Wellspring of Death

I am sure I have blogged about the fact that M.C.Beeton’s Agatha Raisin novels are one of my guilty reading pleasures. It’s the comedy in the characters and the fact that they are genuinely a really good ‘whodunit’ that so far I have only managed to guess one of the murderers of. Agatha Raisin is a formidable character who I have grown to treasure and the never ending ‘will they, wont they’ of her and James Lacey is brilliant. So what would the seventh instalment of Agatha entail?

Well all is not well (oh these are apt puns) in the neighbouring village of Ancombe is in uproar, the idyllic rural town is under siege after a corporation wants to bottle and sell its natural spring water. This causes debate and eventually death, and who should find the body and who should become the corporations PR lady, why Agatha of course. Eventually the bodies toll up, how will Agatha make a positive spin out of this, and can she date her toy boy boss or is he just using her for PR and sex? How will James Lacey the love of her life feel about this? Murder, mystery and mayhem once more fall into the life of the crabbiest amateur sleuth.

Once again M.C.Beeton has created another wonderful modern story for our modern Miss Marple. No sooner have I finished one I long to pick the next one up, but I must be sparing and prolong the reading pleasure, maybe for a few weeks anyway. This series I cannot recommend enough and I will keep on and on at you all until you see the light. Was perfect on the plane to Philadelphia as I hate planes and flying and took me somewhere else. Or maybe that was the valium?

Agatha Raisin & The Terrible Tourist

So now I reveal to you one of my guilty pleasure reads… the Agatha Raisin mysteries. I cannot remember how I got into them in the first place, I am sure it was a case of seeing the colourful spines in Waterstones and then seeing one in Cancer Research in Balham which was the second in the series and then decided that as with most books I should read them in order.

Agatha Raisin I believe is the modern updated and comical version of Miss Marple. By comical I don’t mean that it takes the mickey out of Miss Marple or Agatha Christie far from it – I do wonder if the name is in act paying homage to the mistress of mystery and murder? Agatha leaves London after selling her business in book one of the series ‘Agatha Raisin & the Quiche of Death’ to the small idyllic village of Carsely where she is most unpopular and murders start. She is a tough cookie to crack arriving with a rather mountainous chip on her shoulder, and a tongue as sharp as knives. She is fabulous and gives the whole village a bit of a shake up while making some friends and several enemies along the way.

Agatha is now in her sixth instalment which sees her on her travels, for reasons I can’t really go into without spoiling the first five books (and which proves you should read them in order) which will make this an interesting review. Agatha Raisin has ended up abroad far from Carsely and in Cyprus in pursuit of the man she loves and occasionally stalks. Like the mayhem and murder magnet that she is homicide soon happens in this holiday resort and she decides to do some more detective work, making new friends and causing chaos along the way.

I won’t gain credibility for being an Agatha Raisin fan, in fact I am sure some ‘literary’ people will have switched off and barred this blog by now, I care not, everyone is entitled to their guilty pleasure and this is indeed mine. It was another sit down and read in a few hours job, I might try something longer next though I am still in the mood for some more murder.

Great Expectations, Can Readers Expect Too Much?

After reading Son of a Witch and feeling rather let down by the whole novel, I wondered whether I was at fault. I wondered if maybe I had expected too much. Having loved its predecessor so much maybe I had hyped the new novel up far too much in my own head? I don’t think this is the case though, lets take another example of this shall we which we can compare and contrast this with.

Harry Potter. Last year saw the launch of the latest and last Harry Potter novel, and ‘Potter-Mania’ reached a whole new level with the final instalment. People had been guessing for weeks (months and years) would Harry die or survive? I wont spoil the ending for the very few of you who haven’t read it yet. The expectation of the novel was so high a large amount of people who I heard say ‘oh it was such a let down’ or ‘well I had guessed the ending and found J. K. Rowling’s ending below par’. She wouldn’t have been able to win either way. Now Harry Potter is a cult, a series of novels so popular with both adults and children it’s untrue. Was I disappointed by it? Slightly but only because I read the epilogue, if you have read it you might understand why, god this not giving things away is difficult.

Now Gregory Maguire’s novels have a following though not on such a grand scale The Wizard of Oz almost does. So I think I was fair in expecting a lot, I mean if you are going to write a prequel or prequels sequel to a classic tale you have to be bloody good, and Wicked was. However there are factors that a reader should take into consideration after they have read something they feel is poor or below what they expected. These could be…

1. Where you really in the right mood for that book? It’s all very well finishing off a crime novel and saying ‘oh I hated that’ when actually when you started you wanted a light read with some comedy. In that case can I please recommend the Agatha Raisin series by M.C Beeton? This collection hits both nails of crime and comedy firmly on the head every time, in my opinion.

2. Did you give enough of your concentration to the novel? I have been doing all the rehearsals for a Pantomime (don’t ask) so I admit I have been shattered whilst reading this and occasionally felt my concentration waver. This is a 50/50 relationship this writing and reading malarkey. A writer spends hours writing the thing, you should try and spend as much time and concentration on a novel as you can.

3. Did you take too long to read it? Now this sounds a silly question but think about it. If you love a book it’s very difficult to put down. If your not enjoying one you read it slower therefore prolonging what could be a kind of good book into a kind of boring one. This is all dependent on your reading habits, be they 30 minutes before bed when your kids/partner/cat gives you some piece, that 50 minute train/tube/bus journey, or be in a ten minute on the loo number.

4. Peer Pressure/Others Reviews? Now this isn’t applicable to me in this instance but should be mentioned. My Gran can be a nightmare she can rave about a book so much I will read it and find it soulless. She can also dislike and berate a novel I am going to read and I love it. (I am sure this will come up in more detail in another blog one day.) Did you read a glowing or poor review in your favourite store, magazine or paper that’s slipped into your subconscious?

These are all things to be wary of. Yes we should expect a lot from our literature, be it £7.99 in Waterstones or 99p in Oxfam you are spending your spare money but most importantly your spare time on these works and you should be getting something out of it. You need to remember, as the saying goes, sometimes ‘you get out of it what you give it’ at least I think that’s an old saying and not something I have just made up? You get the drift.