Nickelini's Booker Lists

I didn't think I'd read many Booker winners and nominees, but now that I made a list, I see I"ve done okay.

Here are the winners I've read:

1. Midnight's Children (1981) Booker of Bookers 25th anniversary, Booker of Bookers 40th anniversary
2. Remains of the Day (1989)
3. Possession (1990)
4. The English Patient (1992)
5. Ghost Road (1995)
6. God of Small Things (1997)
7. Amsterdam (1998)
8. Disgrace (1999)
9. The Blind Assassin (2000)
10. Last Orders (1996)
11. The White Tiger (2008)
12. Hotel du Lac (1984)
13. The Sense of an Ending (2011)
14. Moon Tiger (1987)
15. The Inheritance of Loss (2006)
16. Offshore (1979)
17. Life of Pi (2002)
18. Life & Times of Michael K (1983)
19. Heat and Dust (1975)
20. The Testaments (2019)
21. The Sea (2005)

Here are the winners that I own but haven't found time to read yet:

Troubles (Lost Booker) (DNF March 2022)
Heat and Dust (1975)
The Sea, the Sea (1978)
Offshore (1979)

The Life and Times of Michael K (1983) (May 2016)
Hotel du Lac (1984)(September 2012)
The Bone People (1985)
Moon Tiger ((1987) (June 2013)
Oscar and Lucinda (1988)

Paddy Clarke Ha ha ha (1993)
Last Orders (1996) (May 2012)

True History of the Kelly Gang (2001)
Life of Pi (2002) (April 2014)
Line of Beauty (2004)
the Sea (2005)
Inheritance of Loss (2006)
Wolf Hall (2009)
Bring up the Bodies (2012)

Here are the short listed books I've read:

1. Eva Trout
2. Who Do You Think You Are (aka The Beggar Maid)
3. Loitering With Intent
4. Shame
5. The Handmaid's Tale
6. Cat's Eye
7. Black Dogs
8. Reef
9. The Story of Lucy Gault
10. Alias Grace
11. A Fine Balance
12. Family Matters
13. The Hiding Place
14. Atonement
15. Unless
16. Oryx and Crake
17. The Master
18. The Accidental
19. Never Let Me Go
20. The Secret River
21. Mister Pip
22. On Chesil Beach
23. the Reluctant Fundamentalist
24. Parrot and Olivier in America
25. The Stone Diaries
26. Flaubert's Parrot
27. Room
28. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
29. Comfort of Strangers
30. The Beginning of Spring
31. A Month in the Country
32. The Children's Book
33. Stranger's Child
34. Fingersmith
35. Harvest
36. The Birds on the Trees
37. England, England
40. Scar Tissue
41. Dirt Music
42. A Tale for the Time Being
43. The Bookshop
44. Amongst Women
45. The Little Stranger
46. Fraction of the Whole
47. Autumn
48. Small Things Like These

Here are the short listed books waiting in Mnt TBR:

Birds on the Trees (Lost Booker)(August 2014)
St Urbain's Horseman (1971)
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (1971) (November 2012)
Bottle Factory Outing (1974)
Children of Dynmouth (1976)
Quartet in Autumn (1977)
The Bookshop (1978) (June 2016)

A Month in the Country (1980) (July 2012)
The Comfort of Strangers (1981) (December 2012)
Waterland (1983)
Flaubert's Parrot(1984)(June 2012)
According to Mark (1984)
Empire of the Sun (1984)
Small World (1984)
Circles of Deceit (1987)
Utz (1988)
Beginning of Spring (1988) (February 2013)
The Satanic Verses 1988
Restoration (1989)

Gate of Angels 1990
Amongst Women (1990) (November 2016)
Solomon Gursky Was Here (1990)
Scar Tissue (1993) (December 2014)
The Stone Diaries (1993) (May 2012)
Morality Play (1996)
The Essence of the Thing (1997)
England, England (1998) (August 2014)

English Passengers (2000)
When We Were Orphans (2000)
Dirt Music (2002) (May 2015)
Fingersmith (2002) (April 2012)
Brick Lane (2003)
Cloud Atlas (2004)
I'll Go to Bed at Noon (2004)
Arthur and George (2005)
Night watch (2006)
Darkmans 2007
Fraction of the Whole 2008 (March - October 2018)
The Clothes on Their Backs (2008)
The Children's Book (2009) (September 2013)
The Quickening Maze (2009)
the Little Stranger 2009 (February 2017)

Room (2010) (June 2012)
Jamrach's Menagerie (2011)
A Tale for the Time Being (2013) (October 2014)
Us 2014
Autumn (2016)
The Testaments (2019) (January 2022)

Small Things Like These (2022) (December 2022)

And finally, here are the long listed books:

That I've read:

1. Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Mark Haddon
2. Saturday, Ian McEwan
3. Seven Lies, James Lasdun
4. February, Lisa Moore
5. The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas
6. Testament of Jessie Lamb, Jane Rogers
7. Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Marina Lewycka
8. The Romantic, Barbara Gowdy
9. The Stranger's Child, Alan Hollinghurst
10. A Cupboard Full of Coats, Yvette Edwards
11. Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel
12. Cooking With Fernet Branca, James Hamilton-Paterson
13. My Sister the Serial Killer Oyinkan Braithwaite
14. Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid
15. Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

and that I own:

The Amber Spyglass (2001)
The Romantic (2003) (Dec 2012)
Blade of Grass (2004)
Purple Hibiscus (2004) (Feb 2021)
Beyond Black (2005) (August 2015)
Maps for Lost Lovers (2006)
The Lost Dog
Cooking with Fernet Branca (2004) July 2017
Still Here (2002)
According to Queeny (2001)
How to Be Good (2001)
the Bone Clocks (2014)

In May I read one winner, Last Orders, and one short listed nominee, The Stone Diaries. Both were worth reading.

I also bought several Booker winners and nominees to add to my TBR. My goal is not to read them all, but to read all that interest me.

I'm going to slowly add reviews of my Booker books (as I've already posted on LT), starting with my most recent ......

Hotel du Lac, Anita Brookner, 1984 WINNER


This cover is perfect for the book. (NOTE: somewhere along the line, LT swapped out my cover I was commenting on and replaced it with one I've never seen before)

Comments: Oh, Anita Brookner. What colour is the sky in your world? Are you writing from an alternate universe? Your wonderful settings capture our planet, but who are these people? Who talks and acts like this? Who holds a cocktail party on a Sunday morning and sends their guests home to get their own lunch? That is just one example of the bizarre behavior in this novel. The biggest being the premise that results in the protagonist, Edith, ending up at the Hotel du Lac in the first place. As many others have asked, when exactly is this story set? The details feel 1980s, but the values and actions are more 1938, or even 1908.

This is what I like to call a "quiet novel." It's the type of book that many will loathe because of its complete lack of action, and for its lack of apparent point. However, there is something deeper going on that is quite interesting and lovely.

I enjoyed Hotel du Lac because of the wonderful writing, and because for the most part I couldn't tell where it was going. This is my second Brookner novel, and now I know that if I consider her alternate universe world view, I'm in for a decent read. Not sure that this was Booker Prize worthy, but it was definitely worth reading.

Recommended for: people who like quiet novels.

Why I Read This Now: I have four Brookners waiting on Mnt TBR, so it was time to read one.

Rating: 3.5 stars

The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga, 2008 WINNER
audiobook read by John Lee


This fun-feeling cover suits the book.

Comments: The first person narrator, Balram, is the White Tiger who crawls out dire poverty and into middle class India. Born into a life with no choices, he watches and listens to those he serves, and eventually rebels against the system. The novel is written in the form of letters to the prime minister of China, who is visiting India to learn about "entrepreneurs"--something Balram feels he has special knowledge about. The White Tiger won the Booker prize in 2008, and although I haven't read the other books listed, I think this deserved a prize. It had a great blend of subject, story, humour, and message. While listening to it, I really felt like I was in modern day India. One of the better books I've read this year, for sure.

This audiobook version is excellent. I'm not sure that I would have liked this book quite as much if I had read it. The reader (John Lee) captured just the right tone between humour and seriousness that made this really special. And I had to laugh out loud when he pronounced double-O words ("booze," "boobs," "Google," etc.).

Recommended for: Most reviews of this book are very positive, but from reading some negative reviews, it seems that some readers don't click with the humour, and then the book doesn't work for them. With that in mind, I recommend this book for everyone (as long as they can handle some bad language and bad behavior from their characters).

Rating: why not? I'm giving it a full 5 stars. Very entertaining and thought-provoking read.

Why I Read This Now: same reason I read all my audiobooks--because there is little else to choose from. This one wasn't on my wishlist, but I picked it anyway because it won the Booker and I had heard good things here at LT.

A Month in the Country, JL Carr, 1980 NOMINEE


This cover is a detail from the painting Dining Room in the country by Pierre Bonnard. Although I rather like this cover, it doesn't really suit the novel. It has a very hot, interior feel, and the book has a fresh outdoor feel.

Comments: The narrator is a WWI veteran, looking back on the summer of 1920, when he traveled to the north of England to uncover a Medieval painting on a church wall. The writing is lovely and the author's strength is capturing the summer atmosphere of an English village 90 years ago.

This is what I call "a quiet novel." I read most of the book, and then unfortunately had to put it aside for a few days. When I picked it up again, I had broken the spell of its charm. Therefore, I recommend reading this one all in one go, if possible.

Why I Read This Now: it seemed to fit my mood. Also, it is a Booker Prize nominee.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Recommended for: a reader in the mood for a quiet, atmospheric short novel.

Flaubert's Parrot, Julian Barnes, 1984, NOMINEE
audiobook


Lovely cover -- that's a close up of green parrot feathers, if you can't see from this image. Not that I saw it much since I listened to this on my iPhone.

Comments: Oh, what a strange book, indeed! But great fun. It's a charming work of postmodern fiction, historical fiction, biography, philosophy, academic novel, metafiction and humour. Not really a novel, but then, what is it exactly? I have no idea, but Madame Bouvary has moved up my TBR pile.

Why I Read This Now: needed an audiobook, this one was nominated for the Booker Prize and is also on all versions of the 1001 books list.

Recommended for: people who like odd books with a scholarly twist.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Room, Emma Donoghue, 2010 NOMINEE


This cover suits the book perfectly.

Why I Read This Now: it's my book club's selection for June. I was dubious, but since it was nominated for the Booker and the Orange prizes, I thought it might not be terrible.

Comments: This is another one of those highly popular books that I didn't expect to like. I thought it would be compelling, but ultimately vacuous. Something along the lines of The Help, or The Lovely Bones. But instead, it pleasantly surprised me, much in the way that I was surprised by We Need to Talk About Kevin earlier this year.

Room is written in two parts--when Jack and Ma are held captive in Room, and after their escape. Predictably, many readers prefer one section over the other. I liked the second half better. Seeing Jack finally experience the world, and seeing Ma trying to readjust, was fascinating.

I had a few problems with the first section. One was Jack's voice. His speech habits just didn't work--they didn't feel right. I know the author put a lot of thought and observation of kids into his voice, but it still felt inaccurate to me. My second complaint was that this section was too claustrophobic. I kept flipping pages to see how much more I had to read about their world before we could move on (and out of it!).

Otherwise, I really enjoyed the novel. It had a subtle sophistication that was unexpected. I will definitely read more Donoghue in the future, and I trust this book is very different from her others.

Rating: I'm going to give it 4 stars. I understand why some readers didn't like this book, but it was a good read for me.

Recommended for: pretty much everyone--it's a straight-forward narrative, interesting topic, and has garnered a lot of deserved attention from critics and award committees.

A Short History of Tractors Ukrainian, marina Lewycka, 2005

Comments: I was drawn to the quirky title of this book when it was first published, but didn't commit to reading it until it was nominated for both the Booker and the Orange prizes.

In short, the narrator, who is the English daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, is alarmed when her elderly widowed father announces he's marrying a 36 year old bombshell, newly arrived from Ukrainia. She, of course, turns out to be a nightmare who is in search of a British passport and as much material wealth as she can grab. Or is she just trying to pull herself out of a culture run by criminals, and trying to make a better life for herself and her teenage son?

Many people, including the critics that wrote the blurbs used on the book's cover and marketing materials, rave about how hilarious it is. I really didn't find it very funny, in fact, a lot of it made me quite uncomfortable. There were some horrible things going on, and they weren't funny. There is one point around three-quarters of the way through where the narrator says she can't take all the aggression, and that's exactly how I felt about the whole book. Too much bickering, too much unpleasantness. The only character I actually liked was Mike, the narrator's husband, and his role was minor.

Okay, there was one thing I found funny. A newborn baby is named after Margaret Thatcher. That was funny.

Rating: 3 generous stars. Although this isn't a terrible book, and I can see some of its merits, I just didn't like it.

Recommended for: Readers who follow the Orange and Booker prize nominees, people interested in the issues of immigration in the UK.

Oh, here's the cover:


Sort of a charming, but simple, cover. I've seen worse.

Last Orders, Graham Swift, 1996 WINNER


You can't really see the picture in the middle of this cover, but it's a lit up bar with four beer glasses on it. . . . not only is this cover boring, but it put me off reading this book since I got it 9 years ago! That said, it does fit the story (especially clever that the amount of beer in the glasses represents the characters in the novel.)

Comments: Several old codgers from South London agree to take the ashes of their friend to the seaside, while the widow chooses to visit her severely disabled daughter instead.

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THE BOOK: It's very well written, and very literary. Divided into many short chapters, it was easy to pick up and read and make progress. Lots of different points of view and time periods make for a full picture of the story.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: This book was heavy on the colloquialisms of WWII British veterans, and their interests. Which aren't really mine. Pubs, urinals, horse racing, checking out women, fighting, . . . . not really my cup of tea.

Rating: 3.5 stars, most of that based on the craft of the writing.

Why I Read This Now: this book came to me for free back in 2003 and I kept it only because of the "Booker Prize 1996" sticker on the front. I could never make myself interested in it, so it was now, or to the charity bin. Even though it wasn't style, I'm glad I read it, and I will definitely read more Graham Swift in the future. I just hope his other books aren't so extremely androcentric.

Note: This book beat Alias Grace (and A Fine Balance) for the Booker Prize. I disagree with the judges.

The Hiding Place, Trezza Azzopardi, 2000

Rating: 5 stars

Comments: This has been a lesson in reading for me. I attempted to read The Hiding Place in 2010, but chucked it at page 50. I couldn’t get into the story, and I found the writing style odd. I was bored, and despite all the rave reviews, and despite the Booker Prize and Orange Prize nominations, I just couldn’t get interested enough to make more effort. I gave the book away. But the person I gave it to brought it back and told me it was really very good, so I thought I’d better give it one more chance.

What a difference a change in mood and frame of mind makes. This time the story and the writing grabbed me right away. Azzopardi uses a complex structure and sophisticated style that demands the reader’s careful attention. But for that reader , the book is highly rewarding.

The main part of the story is set in 1960 in the Maltese immigrant community of Cardiff (who knew there even was one?), and most of the story is narrated by Dolores (Dol), the youngest of six daughters. Her mom was a working class Welsh girl who ran away and then met Dol’s father, who had jumped ship in Wales at the end of WWII. He’s ne’er do well, a gambler, and an all-round nasty individual. Theirs is an extremely dysfunctional family. Dad gambles away the rent money, Dol is disfigured in a house fire, one daughter is given away to settle a debt, one daughter is a pyromaniac, and mom suffers bouts of crippling depression (hmmm, I wonder why!). At age five, Dol’s family disintegrates permanently and she goes into foster care.

Most of the story is told by the now-adult Dol, as she tries to piece together the events of her traumatic early childhood and make sense of the bits of memories. This, of course, makes her a highly unreliable narrator, and I see Azzopardi using this as an experiment in memory. Part of this, and what is key to the novel, is the use of silences—what is not said is usually more important than what actually is said. With each revelation that Dol uncovers, the story shifts a little, building toward a version of what really happened . In the end, some questions are left unanswered, because, well, sometimes life’s like that.

Recommended for: This is a fabulous book for the reader who can pay attention and pick up on the subtleties. Also, you have to be in the mood for this grim world of grinding poverty (I know sometimes I’m not). Despite their bleak lives, Azzopardi treats her characters with dignity. And although the ending isn’t particularly depressing, it’s also not a hopeful feel good story. Because, well, sometimes life’s like that.

Great reviews Joyce! I have the Brookner, Adiga, Carr and Lewycka books sitting on my TBR bookcase. No time this year, but I might make time next year to dive into the Booker books. ;-)

Great reviews, Joyce! I felt somewhat like you about Room. I think I gave it 4 stars, and it was not bad, but somehow the voice of the young boy did not ring true for me, and the actions of the mom and the child after they left the room also did not ring true for me.
I read Purple Hibiscus this past July and really enjoyed it. I think you would too.

Thanks for posting your excellent Booker reviews here, Joyce. I liked Room a bit better than most people, and The White Tiger was a very good but not spectacular book for me.

The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields, 1993


This incredibley boring cover stopped me from reading this book for years.

Comments: Considering that this won the 1993 Governor General's Award, was nominated for the Booker Prize that same year, and won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize, and furthermore has been in all three editions of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, I'm going to guess that a lot of people have already read this book. So I'll save you the book report and summary.

What I really liked the most about this was how Shields called it a "diary" in the title, but it really wasn't at all. In fact, the only section written in a strong first-person voice was the opening bit about her birth and details about her mother that the narrator wouldn't know. Most of what you put together about Daisy Goodwill's life is what other people say (or don't say) about her. And her name constantly changes (in one section she is referred to as Mrs Flett). Terrifically clever. Great writing.

Recommended for: lovers of good writing. Some people call this a "woman's novel," but I think that sells the novel, and intelligent men, short.

Why I Read This Now: It's been in my TBR for a very long time. I read most of Shield's novels about 10 years ago, but missed this one.

Rating: 4.5 stars

I'm now copying my Booker reviews from previous years, starting with:

The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood

2000


Love this cover.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Comments:

After an unavoidable distraction, I was able to return to The Blind Assassin. I finished it this morning. I love the nested stories (as someone wrote somewhere, the stories within the story are like a set of Russian dolls). I also liked how Atwood slowly revealed little details that twisted the story.

I just realized that this is my 11th Atwood book, and the final one from the original 1001 list. There are a couple I liked better, but this one was very, very good indeed.

Recommended for: I can see how this book isn't to everyone's tastes, but if you're looking for an interesting and meandering book to get lost in for a while, give this one a try.

Why I Read This Now: There were 6 Atwood books on the 2006 1001 list, and I've been reading one a year. This was the last. I read it this month for Orange January because it was also an Orange finalist. Of course!

February, Lisa Moore

2009

Rating: 4.5 stars

“And all that remains is the faces and the names/of the wives and the sons and the daughters.” (The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Gordon Lightfoot)

Lisa Moore’s February is a novel about a family—the wife, the son, and the daughters—of Cal, their husband and father, who perishes one stormy February night off the coast of Newfoundland. He is a fictional crew member on the real life Ocean Ranger, an oil rig that sank on Valentine’s Day 1982, killing all 84 men aboard. Helen is left to raise her three young children, and soon finds out that there is a fourth on the way.

Moore’s writing is astonishing in both her word play and the structure she chose for the book. All together, her take on the excruciating suffering of grief and loss was achingly beautiful. Sounds depressing and maudlin, doesn’t it? Some readers think so—the Quill & Quire even said the book was “tedious” and “overly sentimental.” Well, I didn’t find it depressing, sentimental or tedious—I found it haunting and stirring. There are several three-star “meh” reviews here at LT, and when I first started reading I thought I’d be in that crowd too. But by page twenty I had changed my mind and was loving it. Others have found it wonderful too—after all, it was nominated for last year’s Booker Prize.

Why I Read This Now: because it’s February, of course.

Recommended for: readers who appreciate gorgeous writing and don’t mind a contemplative novel that jumps back and forth through time.

cover:


I have mixed feelings about this cover. Once again, it's yet another of those shots where we only see part of a woman, and we don't see her face. What is up with that? However, if we're going to do one of these cut up faceless women covers, I think this is rather lovely. The black dress, earrings and barrette contrast nicely with her milky skin and beautiful strawberry blonde hair and the grey-blue ocean in background. She looks like a beautiful Newfoundland widow to me.

The Master, Colm Toibin

2004

Rating: 4 stars

Comments: I enjoyed this fictionalized biography of Henry James immensely. Although the author focuses on James's life during the last five years of the 19th century, the book meanders back in time through his earlier years.

The James family and the people they knew were a fascinating group, so Toibin had a lot of great material to work with. It's interesting to see how James used them and their experiences in his novels. I particularly liked Lady Wolseley, who is character right out of Jane Austen. I also loved the whole section about the drunken servants.

But my favourite part was when his brother criticizes his writing: "Harry, I find I have to read innumerable sentences you now write twice over to see what they could possibly mean." You too, huh! If the eminent William James has trouble unpacking Henry James's sentences, how do I have any hope? No wonder my editions of The Ambassadors and Wings of the Dove are collecting dust. (One day I'll have the time and courage to tackle them).

edited to say: I've now added James's home, Lamb House, to my list of must-see sites for my next trip to England.

Recommended for: Well, obviously fans of Henry James, but also anyone who is interested in life amongst the educated and wealthy in 19th century.

Why I Read This Now: I've owned it for a few years and it's really been calling to me since I started reading more Henry James. Also, it's on the 1001 books list and it was nominated for the Booker Prize.

>20 Nickelini:: I loved that book. I knew nothing about James before reading it and didn't realize until I was well into it that it was written in James' writing style. It also inspired me to read some actual James, and am now a fan.

The Testament of Jessie Lamb, Jane Rogers

2011

Comments: Really, rather than read my review, I suggest you go to the work's page and read the one written by Avaland. She said everything I want to say, but says it better.

If you're still here, I'll add:

Set in England in the near future, the major change in the world is that everyone is now living with a MDS (Maternal Death Syndrome). This disease, which is a result of bio-terrorism, is harmless to its hosts unless they are female and pregnant. In that case, the victim and baby suffer a horrific death. And hence, the future of all humans on the planet is in jeopardy.

Enter our hero, Jessie Lamb. Jessie is a teenage girl who wants to get involved with making the world a better place, but doesn't quite know how to go about it. And I'll leave the rest of the story up to you to discover what it is she does . . .

I found this a compelling read. Had I had the luxury, I would have read it in one sitting. I have to say that I preferred the build up of the story to the resolution. Once I figured out Jessie's plan, I wasn't as invested in the book. Part of that is because I disagreed with her choices. The ambiguity of her motivation, however, is very interesting.

When I started reading the Testament of Jessie Lamb, I thought it seemed like something Margaret Atwood would come up with, and then someone mentioned that it reminded them of Never Let Me Go. So a bit of a combination of the two. Though the world Jane Rogers creates is probably simplistic in a scientific sense, in a literary one it's complete and feels authentic. Outside of the author's control but adding to the authenticity for me, were all the scenes of English youth rioting (although the ones in this book at least had a reason).

Recommended for: I think this could appeal to a broad audience.

Why I Read This Now: I received this as a gift a few months ago, and because I am a little tired of dystopian fiction, I put it aside. However, because it made the Booker Prize long list, I thought it would be fun to read it before the short list announcement. Glad I did, because it was an enjoyable read.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

Updated note: This book has very mixed reviews here at LT. I also gave it to my 15 yr old daughter, who thought it was pretty dumb.

21 It also inspired me to read some actual James, and am now a fan.

Big smile over here! I'm always happy to find another Henry James fan.

Possession, by AS Byatt

1990, Booker Prize winner


I love this cover.

Comments: I'm not going to give a book description or plot summary, because I think I'm the last person on LT to read Possession. It's been high on my TBR for years, and I finally fit it in. As an English major, I expected to absolutely love this book.

In the end though, I have mixed feelings about it. I think a lot of that was the timing--a bunch of academics competing over some century-old letters just seemed a bit frivolous for the mood I've been in.

What I didn't like: I had been warned that this book takes some people one-, two-, or even three-hundred pages to get into. I didn't think I'd be one of them, but I was. I was actually doing okay but then I hit chapter 10--forty-eight pages of mid-nineteenth century letters, written in italics with lots of lots of em-dashes (on one page, chosen at random, I counted 41). This made for some extremely tedious reading, and I wanted to poke my eyes out. Overall, I found the whole thing excessively wordy, and at times very show-offy and pretentious. At one point a "gentlemanly civil servant" criticizes that "they do go on so, don't you think, those Victorian poets, they took themselves so horribly seriously." My sentiments exactly. It all made me a little cranky.

What I did like: In the end, I did come away with a mostly favourable impression of the book. I love the layers of complexity. There was outstandingly beautiful imagery. The short postscript set in 1868 was pure genius. And I just loved the symbolism of all the bathrooms. I'd love to write a paper on the bathrooms in Possession.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Based on what I've said here, I know it sounds like I didn't like it all that much--I really did. I just have some reservations. I expect I'll reread this one day, and I hope that I'm not in such a grumpy mood and I won't see it as dealing with trivial things, but instead it will be grand and fabulous and important.

Recommended for: lovers of intricate, recondite, hermetic writings; lovers of literary mysteries; lovers of Victorian poetry. Also people who want to read all the Booker Prize winners.

Going back in time here . . . these are the Bookers I read in 2010:

The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas

2008, Australian lit

Rating: 4/5 stars ... at times I thought his might go up to 5 stars, at other times I thought it was more like 2.

Comments: Crikey! This was one of the most engaging books I’ve read in a long time. "At a suburban barbeque, a man slaps a child who is not his own." The novel is divided into eight sections, each covering the point of view of one of the characters who was at the barbeque. But it is soon clear that there are many, many issues besides the slap. I thought about giving up after the first page because the introductory character is so despicable. I continued on and soon found myself swept up in the story. About ¾ of the way through, it really tanked, but got more interesting again with the final section.

What I liked: the best thing about this book is that it is a compelling a read. The almost 500 pgs flew by. I also liked the strong hit of Australian culture. Finally, I liked how the story was structured around eight different characters and their various points of view.

What I didn’t like: Although the judges that awarded this book the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize obviously disagree with me, I thought this book needs a ton of editing. The Slap should not have gone a page over 300. They could have saved trees and trimmed out 50 pages just by deleting all references to smoking cigarettes. Next, the language used by every single character was ridiculous. Adults really say the F-and C-words in front of children? Really? Also, everything the author knows about sex was apparently learned from watching porn. There are too many characters in this book, and I disliked all of them (except perhaps Anouk—not sure about her. And maybe Richie). The rest of them have to be the most despicable citizens of Australia.

Why I Read This Now: it’s the April book for my book club.

Recommended for: Book clubs. This is NOT a typical book club, but is definitely great for sparking discussion.

Not recommended for: readers who dislike gratuitous swearing, sex and drug use and books with nasty characters.

**Maybe it was the reactions of so many others who read or tried to read this book, but my memories of it are more negative than the comments I wrote here. And I don't think it was Booker-worthy.

Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood

Canlit, 1988

rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Comments: Atwood is really a fabulous writer. She is able to describe people, places and events that is absolutely crystalline (by that I mean both clear and sparkling). There were many brilliant moments in this book. I especially liked the parts about the protagonist's brother, especially when he is an adult. However, there were also some repetitive boring bits in this book--I think it should have been about 150 pages shorter.

I guess that I was a little disappointed because based on the book's description, I expected this to be my favourite Atwood yet (art! memory! bullies! What could be better?). It was good, but not my favourite.

Why I Read This Now: I'm reading an Atwood a year, and there was an Atwood group read happening this month.

Recommended for: a broad audience . . . people who appreciate well-written contemporary literature.

** in retrospect, I have good memories of this one. I know it's not my fav Atwood, but still very good.

Loitering With Intent, Muriel Spark

1981, BritLit, Audiobook

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Why I Read This Now: I had never heard of this book when I downloaded it from my library's website on to my iPod. There was almost nothing available, and desperate for something, I went on Spark's reputation alone.

Comments: I wasn't sure what to expect when I started this. The tag "autobiography" was prominent on the book's page, and I knew little about Spark. It was soon clear that this was no straight biography, but a novel about a young writer in mid-20th century London. Highly amusing, at times laugh-out-loud funny (which is always fun when one is listening to her iPod in public). If Fleur Talbot is Muriel Spark, then I think she's just fabulous (and much nicer than that strange Miss Jean Brodie!). This made the Booker shortlist in 1981 (lost to Midnight's Children, which keeps winner the Booker after all these years).

Recommended for: people who like books about writers, Anglophiles.

The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy, Booker WINNER 1997

1997, Indian literature

Rating: 4/5

Comments: I think I'm the last person to read this one, so all I'll say is that I thought this was a beautifully written book. When I started it, I thought it was about half-way between A Fine Balance and Midnight's Children, but I soon realized it was a lot more like the Rushdie book. Arundhati Roy uses magical, evocative language to describe horrific things and events (rather than Rohinton Mistry's depressing stark realism).

I couldn't give this book five stars, however, because I thought the author overused the non-linear narrative technique. The novel is a puzzle that jumps back and forth in time, necessitating the use of heavy foreshadowing to help make connections for the reader. A little less of this would have made it a stronger book.

Why I Read This Now: this has been on my wishlist since 2004 and my sister-in-law had a copy to lend me.

Recommended for: readers who like beautifully written books, readers who like books about India, readers of Booker Prize winners.

the Ghost Road, Pat Barker WINNER 1995

1995, Historical fiction

Why I Read This Now: to complete the Regeneration trilogy, which I'm reading as part of my WWI theme read this November. This book is also a Booker award winner and on the 1001 books list.

Rating: 4/5

Comments: I think this one is probably the best-written of the Regeneration trilogy--I think the symbolism was particularly sharp. Interesting story, and I think it would stand on its own, but I'm glad that I read the other two books first. I suspect the Booker Prize was really for the whole series and not just this one book. I know some readers didn't like the sections where Rivers remembers Melanesia, but I didn't mind them--possibly because I've been there and think Barker captured it quite well.

Recommended for: Obviously anyone who has read the earlier two books, but also anyone who likes war stories that are different from the usual.

Parrot and Olivier in America, Peter Carey

2010, audiobook

Why I Read This Now: I've actually been listening to this audiobook since I think September. I needed something to download to my iPod for when I do mindless chores, and this was all that was available at the library. Although I do like historical fiction, this isn't set in one of my time periods and the subject matter didn't interest me. However, I had heard wonderful things about Peter Carey, so thought I'd give it a try.

Comments:

1. The book itself: Although the story isn't one I'd normally select, Peter Carey is such a fabulous writer that I was drawn in right from the beginning. I think his talent is really for great characters and great dialogue. Both the French Olivier and the English Parrot made quips and observations about the USA of the 1830s that could easily still apply today, and I found those particularly funny. I'd say that this book was just a little bit Dickensish.

2. Audiobook: the reader was Humphrey Bower, and he was excellent. The book was written in the first person by both main characters, and he did appropriate accents for each. His particular reading made Parrot an extremely sympathetic and somewhat loveable character, and I think he nailed the lower class English accent. But his real talent was getting Olivier just right--I've heard a number of readers criticize this book because they find Olivier too much. Bower's French aristocrat accent is pompous and silly, but just restrained enough so that he doesn't cross the line into farce. You can just hear that despite all his self-importance, Olivier is a short-sited, asthmatic little twirp. Instead of being too much, he's really quite funny.

3. Listening to books on the iPod: I must take a minute to disparage the iPod as a device for listening to audiobooks. The controls are extremely crude and I ended up listening to the same parts twice because it's impossible to mark your place, and it's almost impossible to get to where you left off. I'm so looking forward to the technology that will replace the iPod!

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Recommended for: fans of quality historical fiction.

** A couple of years after reading this one, I still remember it and have good memories, but I think a lot of that has to do with the reader, who had a perfect tone and accent throughout.

Amsterdam, Ian McEwan WINNER 1998

1998

Rating: 4/5 stars.

Comments: What an odd little book. A lot of readers have disparaged this one, and I can understand their criticisms. However, I really like McEwan's way with language, the strange twists and turns he steers the reader through. Further, I think he makes some interesting observations about our culture. While many found the ending preposterous, I found it amusing.

Overall, a quick, well-written, interesting read.

Why I Read This Now: I wanted to read something short that I knew I could finish this year, and also, I like Ian McEwan and hadn't read him in a while.

Recommended for: readers who can enjoy a book even though they don't particularly like the main characters. Also, anyone trying to read the Booker Prize winners.

** Well! I didn't say much, did I! I do remember liking this one, and a couple of years later, I don't get all the hate over this book. However, I must say I don't remember all that much about it. Which is odd. So good book, short, quick to read, but, yeah, I guess it shouldn't have WON the Booker. Off to see what was nominated that year....

I love it when I read an older Booker nominee and it sends me off to compare it with others nominated that year. I just finished Dirt Music, from the 2002 Shortlist. It didn't do a whole lot for me, and I'm not surprised that it didn't win the prize. And the winner? Life of Pi. Puh-leeze! Fingersmith and Unless were also nominated that year, and I liked them a lot more.

The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes, 2011, audiobook WINNER 2012


Lovely cover

Rating: 5 stars

Comments: Well, I'm really not going to write a review at all, because ....where to start? And I also don't want to give too much away. What a terrific book. I listened to it in audiobook, which was great, but when it was done I thought I'd really like to get a paper copy and read it over just to luxuriate in some of the wonderful sentences and paragraphs. But then I read in a review that says, because of the unreliable narrator and what happens at the end, everyone who reads it wants to reread it. I'm a huge fan of the unreliable narrator--it makes figuring those novels out as fun as solving a puzzle. As the reviewer in Forbes magazine says, "Nearly every paragraph in this book has multiple interpretations." Love it. This one definitely deserved its Booker win.

This is my second Julian Barnes book this year, and I'm now adding him to my favourite authors list. Looking forward to reading more of his work.

Recommended for: Just read it.

Why I Read This Now: same reason I listen to most of my audiobooks--it was available at the library.

Here are a few more reviews of books I read earlier, along with any comments I have now:

Black Dogs, Ian McEwan, 1992

Comments: My favourite thing about Ian McEwan is that his books are all so different from each other. You never know what you're going to get. Sure, there is always the one harrowing event on which everything else turns, but otherwise, you just don't know. This is a good thing, because based on Black Dogs, I would never want to read McEwan again. Talk about BORING. Although I must say the end of this short book was less boring than the beginning.

There are all sorts of positive comments about Black Dogs on LT, and I do appreciate what the book's fans say about its deep meaning and profound insights. However, I personally was too bored to care.

Recommended for: Well, I don't really recommend it, but others love this book, so decide for yourself if it may be for you.

Rating: 2 stars. This is my least favourite of the seven McEwan novels I've read.

** although this was my least favourite of his books, I'd consider rereading it in the future. Maybe it was my mood.

The Story of Lucy Gault, William Trevor, 2003, audiobook

Rating: 4/5 stars

Comments: The Anglo-Irish Gaults see the writing on the wall when the Troubles hit their area of Ireland--and their home--in 1920. So they decide to pack up the house and leave the country. Eight-year old Lucy has other plans, however, and through a series of unfortunate events, she is believed to be drowned. Of course, that couldn't be true, because it's early in the book, and look at the title. Anyway, her parents believe it and flee the country.

I really enjoyed the writing, and the mood, and the sense of place, and basically the whole feeling of the novel. But as the story progressed, I found myself saying "hey!" and getting frustrated. "What do you mean no one can locate the parents?" "What do you mean the landowners never once check on their property . . . in TWENTY years? Really?" I guess you could chalk this up to my 21st century sensibilities in a world of passport checks and the digital recording of every aspect of our lives, which I realize didn't exist in 1920. But still. Really? At this point, I started thinking of the book as an Irish Home Alone.

But still, I really did like the book, and for those of you who don't think Home Alone, there's lots of sad stuff about wasted opportunity and missed chances and such.

Why I Read This Now: Needed an audiobook, this one was available, and I picked it because it's on the 1001 list, which has recommended some pretty interesting books to me that I wouldn't have otherwise read.

Recommended for: a broad audience.

**I have great memories of listening to this one.

Disgrace, JM Coetzee, WINNER 1999

Why I Read This Now: I wanted to read something completely different from what I've read that past few months. The other morning I was listening to Paul Simon's Graceland album, and I thought "Africa! I need to read something African." Disgrace was the first book that I found in my TBR pile that fit the African & Completely Different description.

Comments: This book had a lot to say, but I don't have much to say about it. This is my first Coetzee, and I think he's a gifted writer. I thought the characters were very real, although they weren't particularly likable. I really wanted to like Lucy--I can see her point, but she frustrated me.

Rating: 3.5/5 . . . I feel I should rate it higher, but I just can't.

Recommended for: Readers who like their fiction literary and dark.

**Well, for a book I didn't really care for, and read all the way back in 2009, I have to say I really remember this one. I think it was fabulously written--I just didn't like it particularly. I would consider rereading it in the future. I can see why it won the Booker.

Mister Pip, Lloyd Jones, 2009

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Comments I spent two months in Papua New Guinea, and my brother lived there for eight years, so I was excited to read this novel right from the time it was published. Perhaps I anticipated it too much, because now that I finally had time to read it, all I can say is that it was "okay."

I think what bothered me the most is that it didn't capture the feeling of Papua New Guinea at all--granted, it takes place on Bougainville, but I still expected to feel like I was visiting PNG. After all, the reason I like to read books set in other countries is to take an arm chair journey.

I also felt that one event in the book was overly harsh, and clashed with the tone of the rest of the book.

In coming up with my 3.5 rating, I took at least one star off for lack of PNG atmosphere, but added half a star for writing a book about PNG in the first place. Don't see many of those, and I'd like to read more.

My, that was a lot of words for a review that basically said "it was okay."

**Three years later, I don't have good memories of this one and wouldn't recommend it.

Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro, WINNER 1989

Rating 4 out of 5 stars

Comments This is they type of book that I like to refer to as "a quiet novel." Almost completely no action, but things happening all the same. It was better than okay, but didn't really grab me the way I expected it too. I saw the movie at the theatre when it came out and was mystified by the nothingness of the film. I hoped the book would clear out that feeling, but it didn't really. Still, I did like the book, and it has a certain appealing charm.

Why I read it now: I had wanted to read it for my Prize Winner category in the 999 Challenge, and during my trip to England was the perfect time for it. Parts of the book are set in Salisbury and Dorset, and I read those chapters while I was in those same places. I could really relate to what he said, especially the hedgerows so dense and high that they blocked the countryside.

Recommended for: lovers of literature. Not recommended for readers who need action in their stories.

**although I thought this was a good book, and well-written, I'm just not one of those people who loves it.

The Accidental, Ali Smith, 2006, audiobook

Rating: 4.5 /5 stars

Comments: I picked up this audiobook on sale for $2, and I really didn't have a clue what I was getting, other than that it had been on the Booker shortlist. I actually had some vague idea that it was about Indian immigrants in London. Wrong! I guess I confused Ali Smith with Monica Ali, another writer who I've heard of but know nothing about. Anyway, knowing nothing about this book, I had no expectations, and so it was a very pleasant surprise.

In case you're like me and don't know the story, The Accidental is about an English family (mom, step-dad, teenage son, preteen daughter) on holiday in Norfolk, where a mysterious stranger comes into their holiday home and their lives. It is told by multiple narrators, each self-absorbed and distant from the other members of their family. The mysterious stranger is a catalyst for change with each family member.

I loved the free flowing narration, and the tangents each character went off on; I loved the multiple points of view of the same event; I just all round found this a pleasure to listen to. I'm not sure how I would have reacted to this book if I'd read it--this audio presentation was superb, with an ensemble cast reading the different narrators (I know someone will ask, so here are the names: Heather O'Neill, Stina Nielsen, Jeff Woodman, Simon Prebble, Ruth Moore). Some day I'd like to read this book. I listened to the last big chunk of this on my iPod in my garden while doing a marathon weeding session, and I had no idea that I was near the end (it's not like a book where you can tell you're running out of pages!). I was so disappointed that it was finished--I could have continued listening to this family and their odd experiences for hours more.

I'm really surprised at all the negative comments and reviews here at LT--are we talkin' about the same book? Many people dissed the ending, but it really made me laugh. Out loud, out there weeding my herb patch. I'm sure my neighbours thought I was daft!

Recommended for: Well, I would have thought this book had broad appeal, but based on the negative comments on the review page, maybe not so much!

**great memories of reading this one

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, Elizabeth Taylor, 1971


I was disappointed when the book with this cover arrived from the Book Depository, as this was not the edition I ordered! I like Joan Plowright, but I am not a fan of this movie tie-in cover. That is about my only disappointment with this book, however ......

Rating : 5 stars -- this will definitely go on the list as one of my top reads of 2012.

Comments: On the opening page of this book, we find Mrs Palfrey--a widow whose only daughter lives in Scotland--moving into the Claremont Hotel in London. There she meets a cast of widows and widowers, each with their quirks and quibbles. One day while out walking, Mrs Palfrey strikes up an unusual friendship with a young penniless writer, Ludo, who she then passes off as her grandson.

If I were to describe this book in one word, it would be "poignant." I've never read a better book about the experience of aging. She also wonderfully shows people struggling with isolation, memory, and friendship. Although this book is sad, it's also funny, and sharply observant. Taylor has been compared to Jane Austen, and I can see why. There is not a wasted word in this 205 page novel--her writing is just superb. This was nominated for the Booker Prize, and I think it deserved to win. Can I add Elizabeth Taylor to my favourite authors list based on this one novel? Okay, I'll stop gushing now.

Recommended for: everyone, although not for every mood. It is a sad book, so if you're currently being treated for clinical depression, leave this one until your doing better. This would also make a fabulous book club selection (there is a reader's guide at the Virago Press website), though I think it might not be that easy to get a copy.

Why I Read This Now Over at the Virago group, they're having a year of reading Elizabeth Taylor. This is the only book of hers that I owned, and it was their November selection.

I'm really glad you enjoyed this so much, Joyce. This was my introduction to Elizabeth Taylor a few years ago.

>11 Nickelini:: i listened to this as an audio book and thought it was hilarious but it definately seemed to work better than on the page

The Comfort of Strangers, Ian McEwan, 1981


This cover isn't horrible, but if you're working with the setting of "Venice" and the theme of "menacing," I think you could come up with something better than this. (edited to add that someone has pointed out that Venice isn't actually mentioned in the novel, although it's clear that's were it's set.)

Comments: This novel has an atmosphere of great menace. As with all McEwan novels, everything relies on one brief moment near the beginning, and as with all his novels, the ending surprises me. Colin and Mary are a middle aged couple who are slightly bored with each other and with life. Then they meet Robert, an outwardly charming man who is domineering and had me yelling "run, run!" right from when we first meet him. But maybe that's because I've read McEwan before and know what he does with these chance encounters.

Anyway, it's a creepy short book and I feel like I've already said too much.

Recommended for: readers who like tight, suspenseful literary novels.

Why I Read This Now: I usually read a McEwan a year. Also, this was a Booker nominee and was on the 2006 1001 Books to Read Before You Die List.

Rating: 4 stars

Oh yeah, that one is really creepy.

Oh yeah, that one is really creepy.

Once in a while, creepy is fun. ;-)

>43 Nickelini: I thought I knew all his books but now I see that one slipped me by. Another title to add to the ever increasing list

The Romantic, Barbara Gowdy, 2003


Not much to say about this cover. There are a series of Gowdy novels with similar covers, and all together they do look rather nice.

Why I Read This Now: I have several Gowdy novels in my TBR pile, and this one was nominated for a slew of awards, including the Booker and the Commonwealth, so this is the one I read.

Comments: Sometime in the early 1960s, when Louise is nine, her beauty-queen mother leaves her and her father. Soon after, new neighbours arrive and Louise longs to be part of their family. At first she develops a girl-crush on the mother, and after a few years, she falls in love with the troubled son, Abel, who becomes her obsession over the next 15 years or so.

The story is told in an extremely jumbled time line, jumping back and forth through a 20 year time span. This works though because Gowdy keeps the story tightly focused on Louise's point of view and because she seamlessly weaves in time markers. The Romantic left this reader with the question: who is the Romantic? Is it alcoholic Abel, or "Hell-Louse" (playing off the great medieval romantics Abelard and Heloise).

Rating: A compelling, enjoyable read, but I didn't love it. 3.5 stars.

Recommended for: readers who like books with young protagonists and books set in the 1960s and 1970s.

I put a little focus on the Booker books in my TBR pile this year, and I'm pretty happy with my list of checked off books -- 4 winners, 6 short listed books, 2 long listed books. Looking forward to continuing with this challenge in 2013.

I read that creepy McEwan novel during a Venice in February event and it was so creepy. Actually a number of the books set in Venice had creepy overtones. Didn't make me want to visit.

Good effort on your Booker books this year. A dozen! It feels so good to cross so many of your own books off a list.

Yes, there are quite a few creepy Venice books out there, aren't there! I visited in 1992 and it wasn't creepy at all. I thought it was magical.

Venice is one of the most fabulous places ever.

The Beginning of Spring, Penelope Fitzgerald, 1988


Cover comments: I love this cover, though I'm not sure why. I find it beautiful--I guess it captures a mood. I was surprised to learn that it is not a painting, but a photograph. This reproduction is a bit dark, but it's an image of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow with what looks like snow falling (although it may just be the graininess of the image)

Comments: It is 1913, and Frank Reid is an Englishman who was born and raised in Moscow, and now runs his family's printing business. His English wife has suddenly up and left him and he is left to raise their three children. He also has to negotiate the capricious business and social world of per-revolutionary Russia.

Fitzgerald is an amazing writer in both her gift at crafting beautiful sentences, capturing bits of humour, and in creating an astounding world. How does an Englishwoman writing in the 1980s know this level of detail about Russian life at the beginning of the century? This is my first encounter with her, but I own a few others and want to read them right away.

The Beginning of Spring is one of those books that require reading between the lines to figure out what is going on, and where it often feels like there is a bit missing that the reader must puzzle out. But for the reader who enjoys that type of reading experience, it's a rewarding novel. And this is what historical fiction should look like.

Why I Read This Now: Because it's late February, which is the beginning of spring here in Vancouver.

Recommended for: readers who love rich detail, gorgeous writing, and nuance in their novels. Not recommended for those who like a straight-forward story with no complexity.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

Loved reading all your Booker book descriptions and recommendations!

Mdoris - thank you! Glad I could entertain.

Moon Tiger, Penelope Lively, 1987


Cover comments: This is a 1989 edition and reflects the fashion of that time. Looks dated now, but it's really not bad, actually.

Comments: Here is the summary of Moon Tiger: it is a 76 yr old woman’s reflections of her life as she lies on her deathbed.

Even if she had an interesting life (which Claudia did indeed), the premise is still bo-ring! But the catch is that one doesn’t read Moon Tiger for the story. Instead, one reads it for the writing and technique—this is a book for literature lovers. Claudia is a feisty and sometimes abrasive character that some readers won’t warm to, but I rather liked her determination and independence. Mostly though, what I really liked is her narrative voice, whether she’s speaking in the first person or being described in the third. The narrative point of view is what makes this novel special. Many scenes are told two or three times, from different viewpoints, some of which Claudia wasn’t aware of. I also loved how Lively subtly repeats details that seem insignificant yet symbolize the important points of the story—for example, the moon tiger of the title, which is a mosquito coil that burns down while Claudia lies in bed with her lover (and doesn’t protect her from coming down with malaria fever anyway).

I didn’t fully embrace the book, however. About a third of the way through, Claudia shares her memories of her time in Egypt as a journalist during WWII. This is the pivotal point in her life, but after 30 pages of it, I put Moon Tiger aside and read three other books. When I picked it up, I went back to where Lively had lost me and started again. Part of it might be that I’ve read my fill of WWII stories, but even knowing this section was important, I didn’t enjoy the book again until she went back to life in Europe. I also found her WWII lover’s diary at the end pretty boring. I trust this is just my aversion to WWII stories, and won’t have anything to do with other reader’s tastes. Despite finding the book uneven, I still think it was worthy of the Booker Prize in 1987.

Recommended for: fiction writers, who need to study her point of view techniques, literature lovers and people who want to read the Booker Prize winners, and readers who like non-linear, subtle novels.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. I look forward to reading more from Penelope Lively.

Why I Read This Now: I’m reading all the new-to-me authors in my TBR pile who are named “Penelope.” (Penelope Lively, Penelope Fitzgerald, and Penelope Evans—check!) and I’m reading all the Bookers in my TBR pile.

The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai, 2006


What a terrible cover! I asked my husband what he thought the book was about based on it, and he said "sex," to which I said, "not three people in northern India trying to survive the Nepalese insurgency while a fourth character is struggling to get a foothold in NYC?" There's a faint little Mendhi sort of design at the bottom, but otherwise there is nothing remotely Indian about this. Probably the worst cover I've come across this year.

Comments: It is 1986 and in the foothills of the Himalayas lives a retired Judge, his granddaughter, and his cook. The cook's only son is trying to scratch out a better life in NYC. They get caught up in the unrest as the Nepalese in the area attempt to break away from India.

Desai's writing is absolutely gorgeous. She crafts her story in vignettes, and I found each of these interesting, although together they added up to a somewhat plotless novel. As with every story of India, there is disturbing unfairness and sad events; however, The Inheritance of Loss was not as distressing as some other Indian books I've read. She paints a rather enchanting picture of this corner of the country--full of exotic butterflies, colourful flowers, and oriental spices. Overall I found this a romanticized view of India.



Recommended for: readers who like books set in India have to read this one for sure.

Rating: No doubt this is a quality novel, so I'm giving it 4 stars. I have to admit though that I was never really in the mood to read it and had to make myself pick it up--this, however, is because my mind is elsewhere, and not a fault of the book itself.

Why I Read This Now: It won the Booker, was nominated for the Orange, is on the 1001 Books list, and was loaned to me in 2010.

You are doing so well with you Booker reads. I have so many still to read, winners that I collect, and also short and longlisted books.
PS we agree completely on Moon Tiger and The Sense of an Ending!

Offshore, Penelope Fitzgerald, 1979


Cover comments: Okay, but doesn't capture the feel of the book--it reminds me of the sunny and charming Regents Canal instead of the grey, smelly Thames. Also, it doesn't draw me in. But it's not hideous or anything.

Rating: 4 stars

Comments Offshore is Penelope Fitzgerald's Booker-winning short novel about an eclectic group of nice people who live on houseboats, or barges, moored along the Battersea Reach of the Thames in the 1960s. This novel's strongest asset, to me, is all the characters, especially six-year old Tilda, who is probably unrealistically adult, but delightful anyway. I found all the characters and their liminal lives to be well-drawn and interesting.

Offshore is one of those controversial Booker winners, as described in this worth-reading article in the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/mar/13/booker-prize-fitzgerald-o... It may not have been the best book nominated in 1979, but it certainly has depth and shows Fitzgerald's talent at saying something meaningful with only a few words.

Recommended for: readers who like books with strong, unusual characters.

Why I Read This Now: all the talk about Bookers on LT made me want to read one of the winners that I have in my TBR pile.

The Stranger's Child, Alan Hollinghurst, 2011, audiobook (read by James Daniel Wilson)


I like this cover well enough. The colours are lovely, but I find the subject a bit ho hum.

This cover, however, speaks to me:


Yes, it's the cliched "figures running away," but it make me want to read the book and find out what these fabulously dressed people at this fabulous setting are doing.

I also rather like this cover, as it symbolizes the maze-like nature of the story:


Rating: First off, I want to say that I loved this book, so I'm giving it 4.5 stars. It may not have been the best choice for an audio book, as there were many times I had to stop and relisten because I missed a nuance, or sometimes just a lovely phrase. I probably ended up listening to it 1.5 times. Anyway, I will look out for a used or bargain copy of this one in paper so I can reread it some day and really luxuriate in the story and the writing. I think if I had read this, it may have been a 5 star read.

Comments: The Stranger's Child has an interesting structure of five parts, starting in 1913 and jumping forward in time to 2008. The opening scene is set over one weekend when George comes home from university with his covert lover Cecil, an aristocratic minor poet. Cecil also flirts with George's teenage sister, Daphne, and leaves behind a poem, Two Acres, in her autograph book. Over the years this poem enters the British canon, is taught at schools, and comes to represent the pre-war English pastoral and imperialism. There is also the intrigueing question of whether the poem was written about Daphne or George. This section is probably my favourite, since it is set at a large English home during the Edwardian period.

The book then jumps to 1926 where we find that Cecil was killed at the Somme, Daphne has married his brother, and, well, I feel like I'm giving to much of the story away. The next jump is to 1967, where we meet Paul, who works at a bank under Daphne's son-in-law. He meets Peter, who introduces him to Cecil's poetry, and they have a short affair. Paul also begins to know Daphne and Cecil's family. The next jump is to 1980, and Paul has become a writer who is trying to write a biography of Cecil, and not having very much luck getting the family's cooperation. The final section is set in 2008, and opens at Peter's memorial service, where we see a much older Paul and meet a young book seller named Rob, who will wrap up the story.

In an interview, Hollinghurst said that he used these jumps in time to show the "unknowability of the future." With each time change, the story begins in medias res, and it's up to the reader to figure out what has happened in the years between. It was never what I expected, and this clever technique made The Stranger's Child fun and interesting. I also loved all the elegant details throughout the book. I look forward to rereading this book someday. I have two other Hollinghurst novels in my TBR--The Swimming Pool Library and A Line of Beauty, and I hope to get to them sooner rather than later.

Why I Read This Now: available audiobook that was on my wish list

Recommended for: readers who like English literary novels.

Fingersmith, Sarah Waters, 2002, audiobook read by Juanita McMann


Cover comments: no real opinion, but this doesn't do anything for me.

Comments: Sue Trinder grew up in the mean streets of Victorian London under the guidance of mother-figure and baby farmer Mrs Sucksby and her informal group of petty thieves. A conman who she calls Gentleman enlists Sue to help him defraud a young heiress named Maude Lilly, and off Sue goes to pose as a lady's maid at a country house. But Maude Lilly is not who she seems, and her relationship with Sue is not what anyone expects. The story makes several sharp twists, and slowly winds through an estate, a madhouse, south London, and then a satisfying conclusion. Fingersmith was nominated for the Orange Prize and was on the original 1001 Books list.

In places, Fingersmith pays homage to Oliver Twist, and apparently also The Woman in White (although I haven't read the later).

Overall, I enjoyed Fingersmith very much. None of the characters were completely likeable, but I did care to find out what happened to them. I found the novel interesting and well written, but I also thought it was too long.

The reader Juanita McMann was one of the best audiobook narrators I've ever heard--she did a vast number of distinct voices for the huge cast of characters, and they were all perfect for the character. I hope I come across other books narrated by her.

Note: please excuse any names I've misspelled--I only ever heard them.

Why I Read This Now: always need an audiobook.

Recommended for: Well, there is a lesbian aspect to it, so anyone who is interested in lesbian characters will want to read this. Anyone interested in the Orange prize or 1001 list, anyone who likes the Victorian setting, anyone who likes a book to get lost in . . . lots of readers will like this.

Life of Pi, Yann Martel, 2001


Cover comments: I really like the sea and the flying fish at the bottom of the picture. The rest of it is okay, but I find it sort of choppy looking.

Comments I'm sure every bookish person has an idea of what this novel is about: Indian teenager named Pi is shipwrecked while immigrating to Canada with his family. He finds himself sharing a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger as they float eastward across the Pacific. In the end, people don't believe his story, but everyone agrees that the story with the tiger is a better story than the story without, and this is a metaphor for a belief in God.

Life of Pi won the Booker Prize in 2002 and is included in the 1001 Books list, so of course many people have enjoyed it. Some readers don't like that after a realistic beginning, the story gets more and more improbable, particularly when it gets to the blind Frenchman and then the algae island. I thoroughly enjoyed these scenes, along with the rest of the book. To me, the story is a sort of fairy tale or fable, although one that is told in a realistic style. I also enjoyed Pi's optimistic character, and the narrative voice.

Other readers have complained that this book is pro-religion at the expense of reason, and I completely disagree with that--the book is full of reason, particularly scientific facts about zoology and survival at sea. I understand this book to say that both spirituality AND reason are important. As for the pro-religion, I actually find that aspect of it sort of wishy-washy. Despite protests from his elders, Pi insists that he is Hindu, Catholic, and Muslim all at the same time. I was worried that Life of Pi might be preachy, but I didn't find it so at all.

Recommended for: I enjoyed this very much, and I think many others would too.

Why I Read This Now: I bought this for my TBR pile back in 2008 because I thought it would be a good read for any future tropical vacations I might take (I find it tricky to find the right book for those sorts of holidays). My recent trip to Maui was the perfect opportunity to pull Life of Pi from Planet TBR, and it was a good call. While I read about Pi bobbing up and down with sea turtles in the Pacific, I too was bobbing around the Pacific with sea turtles! A great vacation read--sunny and bright, but not vacuous.

Rating: 4.5 stars.

I just realized I missed a review from last autumn:

The Children's Book, AS Byatt, 2009


I LOVE this cover--the blue colour is scrumptious, and the art work is beautiful. The main figure is a Rene Lalique broach, and it plays a part in the story. The back cover is also lovely. Well done, Stephen Parker (book designer)

Comments: To summarize this huge book in one sentence, it is the story of the Wellwood family of Kent, and their friends, neighbours, and relatives, from the late Victorian period through to the end of WWI.

I've wanted to read this book every since it was published, but was daunted by its size and suspected density. I have to be in the right place to give these sorts of books justice. And now was the time. I loved the Edwardian setting, the millions of details, and the rich visuals of Byatt's writing. I loved the Bohemian and fairy tale world building. I loved its charm, and its worlds-within-worlds, and its secrets. I preferred this to the author's Booker winning Possession.

While reading, I often went off on research tangents with the author's intriguing details. I found The Children's Book to be such a yummy visual delight that I was compelled to create a Pinterest board to store the images that arose while reading it (note that because of the way Pinterest sorts pictures, the top of the board shows images from the end of the book and they roughly follow chronological order downwards): http://www.pinterest.com/nickelini/the-childrens-book-as-byatt/

In her reviews, a LT friend, Amaryann21, always includes a sentence or two where she compares the book to food. This novel lends itself nicely to a food comparison: If The Children's Book were food, it would be a sumptuous seven course meal, served in an elegant dining room with mahogany furniture, starched white linens, and the best china. There would be summer pea soup to start, and entrees would include roast beast, poached salmon, truffles, partridge, et cetera and so on. Dessert would be Belgian chocolates and layered cream cake. Each dish of course would be served with the appropriate accompanying wine.

Recommended for: Readers who like their historical fiction rich on details. People who didn't like this book complain of "too many": too many historical facts, too many characters, too many descriptions, too, too, too.

Rating: My first 5 star book this year.

Why I Read This Now: I was finally able to devote my time and concentration to it.

Harvest, Jim Crace, 2013, audiobook


No cover comments as my audiobook cover isn't available on LT. It was similar to this one.

Comments: At the beginning of Harvest, the people of The Village are going about their lives as they have done since forever, but in the space of one week, their lives are abruptly changed and their way of life is destroyed forever.

This brief novel, which was shortlisted for the Booker prize, was a real pleasure to listen to. I loved the menacing tone, the details about rural life in pre-industrial England, and the beautiful writing. The unreliable narrator, Walter Thirsk, tells the story from his interesting viewpoint of being both an outsider and an insider. And I especially liked the ambiguous time and place that Harvest is set in--probably the 16th century, but the setting often feels much earlier.

Rating: one of the better books I've read this year--4.5 stars. I plan to reread this one day when I find a used paperback.

Recommended for: This book is different from anything I've read before, and I'm not sure who to recommend it to, although I could probably say a wide audience (based on the many positive reviews here at LT).

Why I Read This Now an available audiobook from my wishlist.

A Cupboard Full of Coats, Yvette Edwards, 2011, audiobook


Cover comments: as is often the case with the audiobooks I get from OneClick, the covers I get are not available at LT. This one is sort of kind of a little bit like my cover (it's a tighter shot of the same woman's neck, and from a different angle. I like my cover better in terms of suiting the book)

Comments: It's 14 years since teenage Jinx's mother was brutally killed by her fiance in Hackney, London. Now the murderer's best friend, and Jinx's former inappropriate crush, shows up on her doorstep. They spend a weekend talking and drinking, while he cooks Caribbean comfort food, and reveal to each other their (unwarranted) feelings of culpability in the murder.

Although this wasn't the most fascinating or compelling of books, for the most part I enjoyed listening to A Cupboard Full of Coats and having the story disclosed, bit by bit. I particularly commend the reader, Adjoa Andoh, who smoothly transitioned between a pretty straightforward British narrator, a working class/East End London accent, and various Caribbean voices. Between her skill here, and the well-rounded characters, A Cupboard Full of Coats felt fresh and different.

Rating: 4 stars. Good job, Yvette Edwards, in getting your debut novel nominated for the Booker Prize.

Recommended for: If it sounds like it might have potential, give it a go.

Why I Read This Now: Audiobook (I need to listen to something while I water my garden!)

The Birds on the Trees, Nina Bawden, 1970


Cover comments: at first glance, I find this Virago Modern Classics cover very attractive, with its watery foresty colours and silhouettes. But then when I look closely, it kind of falls apart for me, and yes, there is that stereotypical mysterious figure walking away . . .

Comments: Apparently Toby is a troubled teen (I think somewhere in the book it says he's 19, but then why is he getting kicked out of school at that old age?). His parents, Maggie and Charlie, don't really know what to do with him, but they get all sorts of comments and suggestions from their friends and family. This short novel is told from a variety of different character's points of view, but we never hear from Toby himself.

This novel started out very strong, but then fizzled into I don't know what. There are some well written and interesting bits, but overall it seemed rather pointless. Everyone is worried about Toby, but I couldn't see him actually doing anything extreme. I know lots of people who were asked to leave school and who smoked pot but still went on to become tax paying law abiding citizens with jobs and mortgages and children. And unlike Toby, none of them ended up in the psych ward of a hospital being treated for suspected schizophrenia that had been brought on by experimentation with marijuana and LSD.

In 2008, the people at the Booker Prize came up with an award called the Lost Booker so that they could honour some books published in 1970 that had missed out due to a rule change at that time. The Birds on the Trees was one of those Lost Booker nominees. I can't understand why, as I think it's dated, and not in a good Jane Austen-Virginia Woolf sort of way.

Rating A solid 3 star book.

Recommended for: people studying middle class British life around the year 1970.

Why I Read This Now: I wanted to read something by Bawden and I like to try Booker nominated books.

England, England, Julian Barnes, 1998


Cover comments: Finally! A cover I can love. First, blue (just adore blue covers). And a map, because I'm a fool for maps. In the graphics arts sense, it's just a pleasing cover. But that's not all--it's actually meaningful! Highly symbolic of the first part of the novel, and also touches on the last part. Kudos to the designer, Bill Gregory.

Comments: There were parts of England, England that I adored--brilliant observations, fabulous writing, interesting events and characters; and then there were parts that were just too much--too many bits trying to make a whole, too preachy, too many ideas, too much zaniness, too much cleverness (much of which went over my head, I admit). England, England is a humorous novel that satirizes English nationalism, capitalism, tourism, intellectualism, and I'm sure if I think about it a bit more, a whole slew of other -isms.

It is divided into three sections. The first, "England", follows the recent past of Martha, who grew up in a somewhat idealized English village. The main part of the novel is "England, England" where we find Martha a 39 year old career woman starting her high-powered job working for crazy industrialist Sir Jack Pitman. Pitman is launching his plan to take over the Isle of Wight and make it a condensed version of all that attracts tourists to England. He is so successful that the real England goes into a state of decline. The short final section, "Anglia", finds Martha retiring to a future version of England, which has basically collapsed and has reinvented itself as an isolationist rural pre-industrial society.

I very much enjoyed the first and last sections, and parts of the main section were good too, but overall the "England, England" part was too loud and over-the-top for my tastes, and some of his tangents were nothing less than irritating. Barnes tackles a lot here, and some of it works quite well, while other ideas fall flat.

England, England was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Rating: 4 stars

Why I Read This Now: I was in a hurry packing for a holiday and it was physically at the top of my TBR pile.

Recommended for: This is not a novel for everyone. For starters, the reader must be interested in satirizing 1990s English society. And even more, the reader must be fairly erudite--Barnes references and alludes to a wide-range of things and ideas constantly, and if you're not extremely well-read, it won't mean anything. I have to admit that he definitely lost me in places and then I stopped caring. I guess if I was really up on late-90s Britain, I'd have liked it better. That said, all the stuff he alluded to that I did understand was fun to read.

Scar Tissue, Michael Ignatieff, 1993


Cover comments: a truly hideous movie tie-in cover

Comments: This short novel about a philosophy professor's struggles with his parents' deaths was deep, layered, and interesting.

Scar Tissue was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1993. From 2008 through 2011, Michael Ignatieff was the Leader of the Official Opposition and he ran for Prime Minister of Canada in 2011. I just find it interesting that we had a prominent political leader who was also a Booker Prize nominee. That's quite a combination of skill sets.

Recommended for: people who want to read novels about Alzheimer's, people who like novels with a philosophical angle, people who want to read Booker Prize nominees.

Why I Read This Now: needed one more book for my 2014 "Ugly Covers" challenge.

Dirt Music, Tim Winton, 2001


cover comments: not a very interesting cover, but the scene definitely fits the book.

Comments: This is another one of those books that gets either glowing or terrible reviews from readers.

Set in current day Western Australia (well, 2001, anyway), Dirt Music is about three people who are struggling with their lives falling apart; well, maybe their not really struggling but actually pushing things along a bit. Yeah, definitely some self-destruction going on with all three. Georgie is a tough but sexy ex-nurse who has returned to Australia after a life abroad. She has taken up with Jim Buckridge, a highly successful fisherman and widower. Then she meets Luther Fox, a poacher and pretty much the opposite of Buckridge. A fourth important character is the wilds of Western Australia, which Winton displays in vivid detail. There are also scores of unusual, mostly unsavoury, minor characters.

This is a complex novel that at times is beautifully written. I jotted down many phrases and sentences in my writing journal. Unfortunately, it didn't entirely work for me. For one thing, Winton has a habit of burying his action in his paragraphs of rich description. This makes for that effect of reading along and suddenly thinking "huh? what did I miss?" and having to go back and reread. Winton also wrote this with a keyboard that didn't have quotation marks, which wasn't a huge issue for me, but really, I like the quotation mark, so authors--use them please. Don't make your readers work just because. Finally, Winton uses a lot of specialized language. Some of it describes motors and boats and such, and some of it was Australian slang. Now, I lived in Australia for a year, so I have a pretty solid grasp of Aussie slang--better than most non-Australians for sure. But still there were times I read sentences and thought "not a clue what that means."

The worst thing for me is that it just wasn't a compelling read. I have been a little distracted by other things, but this book didn't call me to pick it up. It took me 24 days to read (400 pages), which is really slow for me.

Dirt Music won the Miles Franklin Award and was short-listed for the Booker.

Rating: this is definitely a good book, and I expect my memory will gloss over the sloggyness of it and remember it well.

If you want to read an accurate positive review, go look for Wandering_Star's on the book's page.

Recommended for: readers who admire complex novels with beautiful writing, people who want a little literary adventure in Western Australia.

Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel, 2005


Cover comments: well, isn't this just a great picture. The cover itself is okay.

Why I Read This Now: I have 7 Hilary Mantel novels in my TBR and I'm not mentally ready for Wolf Hall. This one was nominated for the Booker, the Orange Prize, and is on the Guardian 1000 list. Also, I started this last month, so "Orange July at LT".

Comments: Well, this was much better than I expected.

Alison is a medium who really can talk to the dead. She works the circuit outside of London, performing to crowds. She meets the prickly Colette, who becomes her personal assistant and room mate. But Alison is haunted herself by a childhood that would horrify Charles Dickens. Seriously, I don't know if I've ever read a more disturbing childhood. At least since I read Push--although to this book's advantage, Alison doesn't remember much, and doesn't understand a lot of what she sees.

I've only read one other Mantel, An Experiment in Love, which was good but not particularly notable. I have to say that the premise of Beyond Black actually turned me off -- I don't find mediums very interesting due to the fact that I think they are all, 100% of them, frauds. Just not into that whole "woo" thing. Because of all of that, I approached Beyond Black with some trepidation. Right from the start though, the writing grabbed me, and the whole "woo" thing wasn't an issue at all--after all, I told myself, I enjoyed the movie "Ghost" without believing any of it. It's fiction, and anything can happen. Relax, enjoy.

I read this with a pencil because there were so many great snippets of fabulous writing, both on a sentence level, as well as on the level of the entire novel. I particularly loved how Mantel painted such a bleak picture of England--the grey modern suburbs, the bland food, the banal people (that said, my personal experience of England has been much rosier. I've seen interesting cities, towns, and villages, and gorgeous countryside, eaten fabulous food regularly, and met so many "lovely" people. I say "lovely" because people I meet in England seem to use that word more than we do in Canada. Still, I could appreciate this satirical look at England circa 1997-2002).

Now the downside. Too long, too repetitive. My edition was 450-odd pages, should have been no more than 350, maybe a bit less.

Rating: waffling between 4 & 4.5 stars. Had it been 300 pages it would have been a 5 star read.

Recommended for: readers who love dark humour and sharp writing.

A Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki, 2013


Cover comments: At a glance, I find this arrangement pleasing in both its balance and its colours. On closer inspection, I find I'm actually delighted by it--starting at the top with the pop culture Japanese girl, down to the clear blue sky with the kamikaze pilot, then the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean, the diary, and finally the island across the sea in Canada. Well done book designer Jim Tierney.

Comments: A Tale for the Time Being is told in two intercepting stories--the diary of a suicidal teenage girl, Nao, in early 2000s Tokyo, and Ruth, a Japanese-Canadian writer who lives in a desolate island community and finds the diary washed up on the beach in a Hello Kitty lunch box sometime after the 2011 tsunami. Did it float across the Pacific? Or is it more likely that someone dropped it off a passing cruise ship, as others suggest.

This is a complex novel, full of ideas and symbolism. When I first heard about it, I was intrigued. However, many of my LT friends gave it less than glowing reviews, so I forgot about it. But now my book club read it, and I'm glad we did. There is so much going on her that is interesting. Sure, some parts dragged, and some of the philosophy was over the top, but I just sped through those sections. I'd say I really liked 3/4 of this book and the remaining quarter, not so much.

A Tale for the Time Being was nominated for a slew of awards, including the Man Booker Prize.

Rating: 4 stars

Recommended for: people who like books with lots going on.


Cortes Island, where both the character Ruth and the author Ruth Ozeki live.

Life & Times of Michael K, JM Coetzee, 1983


Cover comments: Yawn. I looked at the other covers used for this book, and there isn't a single one that I like. This isn't the worst.

Comments: Life & Times of Michael K begins when Michael K is 31 and ends a year or two later. So much for life and times.

Michael is born with a cleft lip and his single mother, who worked as a maid, abandoned him to an institution in Cape Town. He grows up to become a city gardener, but his mother gets ill and tells him he must take her back to her rural birthplace to die. In this alternate South Africa, civil war is raging, and martial law is imposed. Without travel permits and documentation Michael learns to live under the radar and become as much of a non-person as he can be. Early on their trip, his mother dies. Michael tries to live off the land and hides on an abandoned farm in the veld. He is captured, put into a camp, escapes, lives off the land, captured, repeat. His only goal is to tend his garden.

When I was reading this, I thought "This is unlike any book I've read before," but then I realized that while that is true, it also reminded me of every book set against apartheid for its setting, and Bartleby the Scrivener for the main character, Kafka for the 'K' and also a man lost in a system he doesn't understand, Being There for a deceptively simple man who just wants to garden, the film "The Gods Must Be Crazy" for a man who doesn't value western possessions and also who can't live under society's restrictions, and even "District 9" for the incompetent South African authorities.

One aspect that I found really interesting is that although this novel is obviously a chastisement against South African apartheid, race is never mentioned. There is one sentence that identifies Michael as "CM" (coloured male), but that's it.

Life & Times of Michael K is short, the language is clean and simple, and the story packs a strong punch. It is on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list and won the Booker Prize in 1983. Coetzee also won the Pulitzer Prize.

Recommended for: highly recommended for a wide audience.

Why I Read This Now: I was moving some books and decided to read the first page of each of them. This is the one that caught my attention.

Rating: Although I thought this book was very good, it's not really my thing, so I'm going to give it 4 stars.

The Bookshop, Penelope Fitzgerald, 1978


Cover comments: Love the quietness of this, love the old books, love the typeface, absolutely love the colours. It's also part of a set of Penelope Fitzgerald novels done in this style, and they of course look super together.

Comments: A short, quiet novel about a widow who moves to a small town in East Anglia in 1959 and opens a bookshop. Unfortunately, no one in the town wants a bookshop, and in fact, the proprietor herself doesn't even seem to be that keen on it. The ending is very sad.

Some stunningly beautiful writing, but overall I didn't like The Bookshop as much as other Fitzgerald novels I've read. It was nominated for the Booker Prize.

Recommended for: people who like sad, quiet novels.

Why I Read This Now: I have several Fitzgerald's on my TBR pile. Needed to scurry back to England after the last few books I've read.

Amongst Women, John McGahern, 1990


Cover comments: Uninspired! But hey, men can also look away, so it's equal opportunity. The monochromatic dull colours fit well though. Makes me ask: Did anyone enjoy life in Ireland in the mid-20th century?

Comments: Michael Moran was once a guerrilla leader in the Irish War of Independence. Now he's a widowed farmer, with five older children and a new younger wife. He's principled and pious, but rather a tyrant, and everyone walks on eggshells around him. McGahern writes with clean, sparse language that rewards the close attentive reader, but will bore others and anyone looking for a strong plot.

The title, Amongst Women, refers to Moran living with his wife (the most likeable character in the novel) and three grown daughters. It also refers to a line out of the Hail Mary prayer that they spend much time reciting every day. I'm not Catholic, so had to have one of my RC friends explain what was going on -- this family spent a huge chunk of their lives on their knees with their rosary beads.

I can appreciate what other readers have said in their 5-star and 2-star reviews, but I fall somewhere in the middle. A few years ago I read McGahern's The Dark and I was blown away (although I don't remember details of it); I didn't like Amongst Women as much even though it is considered his masterpiece. It's 184 pages without chapters, and with few paragraph breaks, which is a structure that I find unnecessarily tedious. Give the reader some little breaks, m'kay?

Amongst Women was nominated for the Booker Prize, is on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and Guardian 1000* lists, along with many other "best ever" lists.

*Guardian 1000 has it under their State of the Nation category, which I can see, but I would have put it under Family & Self for sure.

Recommended for: people who like subtle novels. Readers who raved about it often said that the main character reminded them of their Irish dad, grandfather, or neighbour. I'm not Irish, and I don't know any men like him, so that wasn't a factor for me. Readers who didn't like it often said they were just sick of novels that sympathized with patriarchs who probably needed to get their asses kicked. I paraphrase.

Why I Read This Now: I've wanted to read it since I read The Dark.

Rating: It is well written and all that, but several things didn't mesh with my brain, so for me it's a 3.5 stars. YMMV. If you haven't read McGahern, try The Dark -- the one that got the Catholic Church in a tizzy.

And for your entertainment . . . . since we're talking about Ireland and Catholics . . . in 2013 we flew from Vancouver to London. My family had seats in the centre of the plane. Near the end of the flight, my teenage daughters realized there were two seats by a window a few rows behind, so moved. When I saw on the screen map that we were above Ireland, I stood up and asked my older daughter "hey, we're over Ireland, what do you see?" (yes, stupid question, but after 8 hours in coach, any distraction will do).

She replied: "It's green!" She turned to look out the window, then looked back at me. "I see potatoes!. . . . And Catholics!"

Everyone who heard laughed. But like I said, 8 hours in coach can make you stir crazy.

Cooking With Fernet Branca, James Hamilton-Paterson, 2004


Cover comments: Possibly the most hideous cover of any book I'll read this year. Making note of the book designer, Emanuele Ragnisco. Probably my least favourite shade of purple, and then with the contrasting French's mustard yellow, ugh. Can't decide if I want to barf or just go to bed with a cold cloth over my brow. I covet Europa Editions, but they have some of the fugliest covers around.

Comment: Gerald Sampler is an Englishman planing to hide in his quiet house in the NW corner of Tuscany to ghostwrite autobiographies of minor celebrities, mostly sports figures. Upon his arrival, he meets his newly arrived neighbour, Marta, who has escaped from "one of those vague ex-Soviet countries," where her family still lives and appear to be involved in organized crime. She composes film scores for a ....colourful .... Italian film director. Gerald and Marta clash. Gerry sings loud opera, badly, while creating outrageous recipes that involve something savoury, such as sardines, and something sweet, such as butterscotch. Endless combinations. Some of them include dubious and illegal ingredients, such as otter and Jack Russel terrier. And I learned early on the "Fernet Branca" is a disgusting herbal spirit (which I'm sure my Italian father-in-law made me sample once) that both characters drinking frequently. Silly me, on reading the title, I assumed Fernet Branca was a person.

Very clever satire, mocking the fantasy "memoirs" such as Under the Tuscan Sun and A Year in Provence, and pretentious books about gourmet cooking, and satirizing a zillion other things as well.

Way too many entertaining passages to quote, but if I have to pick one, I'll share his comment on Jane Austen: "Even the witty old fag-hag Jane Austen started one of her incomparable novels--was it Donna?--with the telling sentence 'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a good man in possession of a wife must be in want of a tidy fortune.' And there you have it, memorably expressed."

Cooking With Fernet Branca was nominated for the 2004 Booker Prize. There are two sequels: Amazing Disgrace and Rancid Pansies, which I will eventually track down.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Recommended for: People with a sense of humour and who know a lot of stuff. Hamilton-Paterson packs the narrative with obscure details and goes off on many a tangent. Lots were outside my scope of knowledge and didn't mean much, but all the ones I understood were hilarious. If you're one of those people who take pride in being outside everyday culture -- especially 2004 from a Brit male POV, this novel will be gibberish. Otherwise, if you like clever, fun books, I highly recommend it.

Why I Read This Now: checks these boxes: Europa Editions, Booker Prize, Italy. I was delighted to find that it was set in a part of Italy I know very well, which is the corner of Tuscany north of Lucca.

The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters, 2009


Cover comments: love, love, love this cover. The colour is similar to my favourite red pencil crayon: Faber Castell Polychromos Pale Geranium Lake, with same colour edges. It's an odd choice, however, because I think it makes this look like a girly book, and it most definitely is not a girly book. This edition is one of the Books Are Beautiful series published by Vintage Anchor Emblem Canada especially for Chapters & Indigo bookstores:



It also has a pleasing texture and opens nicely, unlike the visually similar Vintage series that came out of a Britain a few years ago-- their colours weren't as nice, the covers had an oily texture, and the tight binding made the books stiff to open. I like how this publisher took Vintage's idea and improved all aspects of it.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Comments: I finished this a few days ago and have struggled with what to say other than "I really liked this."

Set in 1947 Warwickshire, the narrator Dr Faraday tells of attending to a house call at Hundreds Hall estate -- a place where his mother had once worked as a servant, and where he had visited on Empire Day as a child. This is a nuanced and clever novel of his deep attraction to the house, and it's crumbling demise, and the demise of the genteel family and their class in post-war Britain. Also, there's a poltergeist. Or is there?

Many people describe this book as super creepy, but I'm not easy to creep, so I'd describe it more as "atmospheric."

I found the book long, and a bit slow -- although I was always happy to pick it up and read it -- I just sometimes thought "nothing is really happening here." But it was a purposeful slow build, and the last third was excellent. The last paragraph of the book explains the "who" of the mystery, but now I feel I have to go back and reread it to learn the "how."

Recommended for: a reader looking for an intelligent state-of-the-nation type story set in a decaying spooky mansion. The writing is also lovely.

Why I Read This Now: I've been meaning to get to this Booker and Orange prize nominated book for ages. I also love novels set in country houses.

>74 Nickelini: Sounds great and I'll read it soon - as Kindle if possible so I don't have to look at the cover! :)

Heat and Dust, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala


Cover comments: The individual elements are lovely, but the arrangement is lacking. The main purple colour is very nice (my book is a perfect shade, but my screen shows almost black), and I think there just aren't enough purple books. The painting is fabulous, and was done by the author's husband, C.S.H Jhabvala.

Comments: This beautiful short novel tells the story of Olivia, a young English wife in 1923 India, who is terribly bored and hot while her husband works long days, and who takes up with the local prince, called the Nawab. Woven into this story is another one set in the 1970s, where the granddaughter of the jilted husband visits India to find out more about her step-grandmother, and who's own story mirrors that of Olivia.

The country of India is itself a character in this novel, and the I particularly liked the critique of the western counter-culture travellers who descended on India in the 60s and 70s in search of enlightenment.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was to Polish parents in Germany, and escaped to London when she was 12. In 1951 she married an Indian architect and lived in India for more than 20 years before moving to New York City.

Heat and Dust won the Booker Prize, and the author is the only person ever to have won both the Booker Prize and the Academy Award, which she won twice for her work with Merchant Ivory as screenwriter for the film versions of A Room With A View (one of my all time favourite movies) and Howard's End (also an excellent film).

The year Heat and Dust won the Booker, 1975, there was only one other book short listed: Gossip From the Forest by Thomas Keneally. Apparently of the 83 books submitted, these were the only two that were prize worthy. Hmmmm.

Why I Read This Now: I think the title appealed on a hot day, although this has been in the top 50 of my TBR pile for a while because I adore Merchant Ivory.

Rating: 4.5 stars -- some readers have commented that this is hardly memorable, and it may not be, but I was always happy to pick it up and I found it rather enchanting.

Recommended for: readers who like books set in India and don't mind that the main characters are English. Probably politically incorrect in 2018, but I won't tell anyone if this is you.

Note: The author wrote the screenplay to the Merchant Ivory film of the same name, with Julie Christie playing Anne (the 1970s traveler), Greta Scacchi as Olivia, Christopher Cazenove as her husband, and Sashi Kapoor as the Nawab. I'm off to watch it now . . .

24. A Fraction of the Whole, Steve Tolz, 2008


Cover comments: My edition has a slightly darker olive cover. This is part of the 2012 Books Are Beautiful series published here in Canada. Lovely to look at, delightful to hold . . . but in this case there is text-dense pages with narrower margins and smaller print.

More from Books Are Beautiful:


Comments: Some of my favourite books are Big Books --- Anna Karenina and Bleak House, for example. And I read Stephen King’s The Stand at least four times. So when I say “I hate big books,” clearly I don’t mean ALL big books. Just most of them. I appreciate a tightly written 200 page novel, 300 if the author wants to ramble a bit. My main complaint with long books is that I usually just don’t want to be in the world the author created for that many hours, especially now since life has cut back on my reading time. I like to get into a book, enjoy it, and get out, and then bring on to the next one. The other problem with every long book is full of filler that shows the lack of a strong editor. The upside is that with A Fraction of the Whole, I discovered more about myself and my distaste for long books.

Before we go further, I’ll say that there was a lot to love about A Fraction of the Whole. There were sentences and paragraphs that were among the most beautiful and clever that I’ve ever read. There are sections that tell a great story ---one that is both heartfelt and entertaining. Whether you read critical reviews or reader reviews, you’ll see that people love this book, and deservedly so. But for me, it was just too much. I read and read and read and didn't feel like I was getting anywhere. I’ve been reading this book since March. That’s 7.5 months.

What It’s About: Jasper Dean, living sometime recently in Australia, tells his story growing up with his manic father Martin, who’s lived his life in the shadow of his criminal brother Terry. Terry Dean is the most popular criminal in Australia since Ned Kelly. Individually, these three characters continually try to improve the lives of those around them by gambling on some off-the-wall scheme, but it always turns in to bad (sometimes tragic) unintended consequences.

What I liked: as I already said, great writing and storytelling.

Why I Struggled:
1. The singular voice—definitely my biggest problem with A Fraction of the Whole. Some parts are told by Jasper, some by Martin, but they both have the exact same voice. And it’s always slightly frenzied. Although the voice could be very, very funny, overall, I found it tedious. Note to self: perhaps for long novels, look for 3rd person narration and a variety of characters.

2. My edition was only 561 pages long due to formatting, but normal editions are well over 700 pages. It’s rare that a book needs to be that long. This should have been divided into at least three novels, maybe four. Further pain ensued because the various breaks are random—this book has 7 numbered sections of length varying from 200 to 50 pages. Within these sections there are randomly spaced subsections. Long sections always make any book a slog, in my experience. Give the reader’s eyes and brain a bit of a breather, and often we can’t wait to jump back in. Don’t make us wade through wet concrete.

3. I was around 100 pages in before we heard from a female character. That just bores me. Also, at one point, Jasper and Martin have girlfriends, and I was several pages into a vignette about one of them and thought I was reading about the other ---I came up short when there was a comment about her being in her 30s, and I was all “hold on, she’s 17!” I had to go back and reread with the other character in mind, and I realized that they were basically the same person with a different hair colour. Was this part of the theme of the son reliving the father’s life in every way?, or was it the author’s complete inability to write real female characters? I’m going to say the later.

4. The characters were always desperate for money, but somehow they managed to eat and have a home to sleep at every night without really saying how. I don’t know, maybe Australia just has a robust welfare system. I don’t actually believe that.

Other Things to Say: A Fraction of the Whole was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, which is pretty damned impressive for a first novel, especially when the author isn’t British (no slag against British writers, but instead an observation that we colonies don’t make the list every year, so all the better. Good job, Steve Tolz!).

Rating: Mixed. 3.5 stars. I think that it took me most of the year to read, but that I still finished (I abandon books in a heartbeat), says something. Not sure what it says, but something.

Recommended for: Reviews tell me most people like this more than I did, I despite my protests, I’m not sorry I read it. I just would have been satisfied at any 200 page section.

Why I Read This Now: I had just finished the longish Books Are Beautiful The Little Stranger and thought I’d tackle another long book from that series. I had to take a lot of breaks and read other things in between.

Autumn, Ali Smith, 2016


cover comments: Subtle and beautiful. I like the covers of this whole series -- Winter is suitably icy blue-grey, Spring is a soft green -- what will summer be, I wonder? Sooooo lovely.

Rating: Is it possible to enjoy a novel that you don't really understand? Over a lot of this novel, I really didn't know where it was going, but I was always happy to go along for the ride. 4 stars.

Comments: This is a bit difficult to describe. Set in 2016 England, just after the Brexit vote, this book jumps through time looking at the relationship of Elisabeth -- now a 30-something art history professor-- and Daniel Gluck -- now 101 and (mostly) sleeping in a care home. Their friendship started when Elisabeth was a child and they were neighbours. I found their conversations charming and it really made the book for me. I also found Elisabeth's mom when she was being zany.

I love to learn while reading fiction, and Autumn introduced me to 60s pop artist Pauline Boty. Thanks, Ali Smith!

Ever since I read and loved The Accidental years ago, I've wanted to read something else by Smith. I hope to read the next in this series, Winter, around Christmas.

Why I Read This Now: We were having an unseasonably rainy and cool September here in Vancouver, and I was thinking "autumn."

. My Sister, the Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite, 2018


cover comments: I've seen many online comments that people loved this cover. I'm not sure I do, but I think my problem is more with the book's title than the actual cover. I see on the meta page that an earlier version of this had been published in Nigeria with the title "Thicker Than Water," which I think is a MUCH stronger title. Why did they change it? Anyway, I guess in the end I like the woman's face, but maybe not the bright green blocky text against the dark background. Overall I like it more than I dislike it. I see that the hardcover takes the image to the back page and she's holding a bottle of spray cleaner. That's clever. My trade paperback doesn't show that.

Why I Read This Now: I remember when there was a lot of chatter about this here at LT, probably around it's Booker nomination. I was fairly interested in reading it, but then I forgot about it. Recently I listened to my favourite book podcast while watering my garden ("Overdue Podcast" with Craig & Andrew) and they got me interested. Lucky me, two days later I went to Munro Books in Victoria and picked up a copy. Also, they said it took them 1.9 hours to read, so that sounded good (love a quick book). (It took me more like 4 hours.)

Comments: Korede gets yet another phone call from her sister saying that OOPS! she knifed her boyfriend to death. Help me clean it up. Cleaner-extraordinaire and enabler older sister drops everything to assist her sister, Ayoola. It's an uncomfortable but tenable way of life until Ayoola drops by the hospital where Korede is a nurse, and catches the eye of perfect Dr. Tade Otumu, the same doctor that Korede has been crushing on. Like every other man, the doctor is immediately smitten with Ayoola. Now where do Korede's loyalties lie? This is not a "crime novel" or a thriller, but a kinda crazy look at family and abuse.

I loved the quick pace, the amusing writing (unlike other readers, I can't quite call this "funny"), I love the Nigerian setting, and mostly I liked how this was a unique story, unlike anything else I've read.

Recommended for: overall, reader reviews of this are high. It's a quick read, so not much risk. I hear the audiobook is superb.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid, 2019


cover comments: suddenly this year I've noticed covers like this everywhere. I guess that's what book designers do. Strong colour contrast is very 2020. I'm fairly neutral on it at this point.

Comments: I didn't really know what to think when I finished this. Overall, it was a good read. Going into it, I thought of this one as "that book where the black babysitter gets accused of kidnapping the white child she's minding by some racist by-stander," so I was confused when that happened right in the beginning of the book, and the video of it was kept private. Now what's going to happen for the next 300 pages? It was pretty interesting, fairly quick paced, and much lighter than I expected. Almost like a chick-flick or a romcom. But there were serious tones too - to steal some phrases from other readers' comments: "preformative allyship," "white saviour complex," "the racism of nice people," and "the influence and destructive power of well-meaning white people."

A few things didn't make much sense. For one, why was Emira's white boss, Alix, so obsessed with her? And Alix and Kelley's joint story line was too much of a coincidence to be believable. And also, "Briar"? Is that one of those made up names that rich white people think are cool? I'm surprised the other daughter wasn't named Thorn.

Rating: I'll generously give this 4 stars, but I have to say I was shocked when I found out this morning that this was nominated for the Booker Prize. No wonder I don't follow that award anymore. Really glad I got a library copy and didn't have to shell out $35 for the hard cover.

Why I Read This Now: book club

Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2004


cover comments: I love this cover. My edition is part of the limited Perennial Collection that Harper Perennial published in 2008. I own two others from the set of 15. The magenta colour of the flower and the text is foil, and the spine is the same magenta foil. Since I acquired this in 2012, I've taken up adult colouring books, and I'm very tempted to pull out my Faber-Castel collection and get to work on the black and white line drawing-- it would be fun to colour

Comments: Fifteen year old Kambili is the sheltered daughter of a wealthy Nigerian factory owner. She lives, along with her brother Jaja and her mother, under the tyrannical control of his fanatical Catholic ideology-- this man is desperately trying to out-pious any pope. Eugene is beloved by the community for his generosity and integrity, but at home he punishes the slightest infraction of his rules. This is set against the political turmoil of mid-80s Nigeria. Kambili catches a break and goes to stay with her much poorer aunt and cousins, and their home, filled with love, chatter and laughter open Kambili and Jaja's eyes. And then there's the cute young priest she meets there . . .

Note: I appreciate her nod to Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart with her opening words: "Things started to fall apart at home when my brother Jaja did not go to communion and Papa flung his heavy missal across the room . . . " I do love intertextuality in novels.

Why I Read This Now: I've owned this book for 9 years, but although I wanted to read it some day, that day never seemed to show up. Then last summer, a friend at work told me how he took a mandatory English class as part of his math degree, and read Purple Hibiscus, and did so poorly on his essay that he had to meet with the professor. She accused him of not reading the book, but he pulled out a ream of notes to show he had. The problem was that my friend, who I suspect is somewhere on the autism spectrum, did not understand what was going on in the novel. He thought it was about a nice family in Nigeria, but his professor questioned him about all this abuse that he didn't notice. There's a scene where the father punishes Kambili for "walking into sin" by pouring boiling water on her feet. My friend thought it was an accident until his professor told him otherwise. When I told him I owned Purple Hibiscus he asked me to read it and see what I thought. I popped on to LT and quickly found my LT friend VivienneR's 1-star review, and sent him a screen shot: "Adichie describes a religious fanatic of the worst kind. Although her prose is lovely and she evokes the characters quite well, this simple story has not much more to it than a man who savagely assaults his wife and children if they fail to obey his own twisted version of godliness. It was difficult to endure the book. I cannot recommend it to anyone."

He really is a nice young man, and clearly brilliant with things about numbers and airlines, and he is never malicious. I wonder about the value of forcing a math geek to take an English lit course.

Rating: 3 stars. I get why VivienneR gave this 1 star. I get why people liked this more than I did.

I read Half a Yellow Sun in 2008 and gave it 3.5 stars then, and thought it was over-rated. Maybe Adichie isn't the novelist for me.

Recommended for: people exploring African literature.

The Testaments, Margaret Atwood, 2019


cover comments: it's okay I guess

Comments: The Testaments is the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, set 15 years after that story, and telling about the demise of theocracy of Gilead.

I did not expect to enjoy this one so much, but it wasn't as grim as dystopian novels can often be. Although I think The Handmaid's Tale is an important book and a must-read, I didn't particularly like it, and there are many Atwood books that I prefer. I tried to watch the TV adaptation and it was too dark for me. So this was a pleasant surprise - interesting story, interesting characters, interesting details. A compelling read. And you go into it knowing that Gilead falls.

Why I Read This Now: I bought this soon after it was published because some friends had read it and raved about it, and I meant to read it right away, but then I didn't and it disappeared into my TBR pile. I'm rarely in the mood to read dystopian fiction, so it would have remained lost in the stacks if not for my book club. We will discuss next week.

The Testaments won the Booker Prize 2019 (tied)

Recommended for: a wide range of readers

Rating: 4.5 stars

How I Discovered This: you'd have to be living off the grid to have escaped all the publicity this got when it came out

Troubles, JG Farrell, 1970


cover comments: I think this is terrific

Comments: I made it to page 37 and decided I just didn't care and there was no point in continuing. I'm sure this is a lovely book, but not for me. I've owned it since 2011 and have never felt like picking it up. In the future if I need to read this, I'm sure I can find a copy of Troubles.

Troubles won the Booker Prize and is on both the 1001 Books You Must Read list and the Guardian 1000 list.

Why I Read This Now: there's a prompt for the 2022 Irish Readathon, "A book set in the 1920s or written in the 1920s"

Recommended for: not me

How I Discovered This: the above mentioned lists and prizes

Rating: not applicable

>82 Nickelini: I just read this one too and I see what you mean - also regarding Yellow Sun - but I LOVED Americanah. That one is fantastic.

>83 Nickelini: 4.5 stars! How many did you give to The Handmaid’s Tale? I didn’t enjoy this sequel at all. It lacked depth imo and I think Atwood fell for the commercial success of the tv series. But that’s personal of course!

>86 Simone2: LOL - I generously gave the Handmaid's Tale four stars, and at least one of those stars is because I think it's an important book. Do I think the Testaments is important? No. But I base my stars mostly on my reading experience, and even though I acknowledge HT is a classic and should be widely read, I actually found it pretty boring to read. So I went into the Testaments with very little attachment to the whole project.

Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan, 2021


cover comments: absolutely gorgeous

Rating: 4 stars

Comments: Small Things Like These is a novella set in the days leading up to Christmas 1985 in a small town in SE Ireland. Bill Furlong is a kind, hard working family man who discovers some things about his past and terrible things about the town he's always lived in. His struggle is whether to go along to get along, or to ruffle feathers, risk what he has, and do the right (noble) thing.

Small Things Like These was on the short list for the Booker Prize in 2022

Why I Read This Now: It looked like the most Christmassy book on my TBR pile.

How I Discovered This: probably Jen Campbell, and it was before it was published

Recommended for: lovers of novellas and Irish fiction; people who like to read Booker short listed books

. The Sea, John Banville, 2005


cover comments: nice

Comments: This fairly short novel meanders through Max Morden's memories of his wife's death from cancer, an unusual summer from his youth, and the current day. On the back of my edition, The Sea is described as "luminous," and that is the perfect word to describe the beautiful writing. I expected to abandon this within the first 30 pages, but to my delight it grabbed me and pulled me in. Then it had a flabby middle section, before coming around to an intriguing end.

The Sea won the Booker Prize in 2005 and is on the 1001 Books list.

Why I Read This Now: Every year I like to read an Irish book in March. Unfortunately, all the Irish books in my TBR have been there for ages, my reading tastes have changed, and I'm not all that interested in them. I thought I'd slough some off my TBR pile by abandoning them earlier, but I liked this.

Rating: 4 stars. Although I did enjoy much of this, it is a 193 page book that took me 12 days to read. I'd like to read it again one day.

How I Discovered This: It was a best seller back in its day

Recommended For: Readers who like gorgeous, lush language, who don't need a plot, and who don't mind characters who aren't very likeable.