What Katie is reading 2012

[Abcinthia]

I have decided to review the books I am reading. I have been trying to do it on Goodreads but I thought it would be nice to put them here too. They won't be long reviews - I only ever write long reviews on books I despise and luckily, I usually read books I like It's probably hugely boring and self indulgent but meh, I don't care. It interests me

Feel free to add any comments and to disagree with my assessment of books and to throw in recommendations. But as I usually buy my books second hand and I already have a box of over 100 books to-be-read, it might be a while before I get round to buying any recommendations.

All the books I have read so far this year:

1. The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut
2. Wedlock: How Georgian Britain's Worst Husband Met His Match - Wendy Moore
3. The Talisman - Stephen King and Peter Straub
4. The Time Machine - H. G. Wells
5. First Love And Other Novellas - Samuel Beckett
6. The Night Strangers - Chris Bohjalian
7. The Invisible Man - H. G. Wells
8. Kill Me Once - Jon Osborne
9. A Closed Book - Gilbert Adair
10. Popcorn - Ben Elton

11. The Identity Man - Andrew Klavan
12. The Hidden Child - Camilla Läckberg
13. If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History Of The Home - Lucy Worsley
14. Jude The Obscure - Thomas Hardy
15. The Boys From Brazil - Ira Levin
16. Exposed - Liza Marklund
17. 9th Judgement - James Patterson with Maxine Paetro
18. Courtiers: The Secret History Of The Georgian Court - Lucy Worsley
19. The Gunslinger - Stephen King
20. High Windows - Philip Larkin

21. State Of Fear - Michael Crichton
22. A Vist From The Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
23. Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions - Lucy Hughes-Hallett
24. The Weaker Vessel: Woman's Lot In The Seventeenth-Century England - Antonia Fraser
25. The Darkest Room - Johan Theorin
26. The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards
27. Rules Of Civility - Amor Towles
28. The Paris Wife - Paula McLain
29. The Sisters Brothers - Patrick DeWitt
30. The Princes In The Tower - Alison Weir

31. The Executioner - Chris Carter
32. Hungry Hill - Daphne Du Maurier
33. Call The Midwife - Jennifer Worth
34. The Somnambulist - Essie Fox
35. When God Was A Rabbit - Sarah Winman
36. Started Early, Took My Dog - Kate Atkinson
37. The Confessions of Katherine Howard - Suzannah Dunn
38. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie
39. The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson
40. Eve - Anna Carey

41. Destination Unknown - Agatha Christie
42. Perdita: The Life Of Mary Robinson - Paula Byrne
43. The Winter Ghosts - Kate Mosse
44. The Drawing Of Three - Stephen King
45. I Know This Much Is True - Wally Lamb
46. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
47. Girl With A Pearl Earring - Tracy Chevalier
48. Never Knowing - Chevy Stevens (abandoned)
49. Lucky Break - Esther Freud
50. The Waste Lands - Stephen King

51. The Hound Of Death - Agatha Christie
52. Doomed Love - Virgil
53. The Man Who Was Thursday - G.K. Chesterton
54. The Devotion Of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino
55. Into The Darkest Corner - Elizabeth Haynes
56. Shiver - Maggie Stiefvater
57. Wizard And Glass - Stephen King
58. Forbidden Fruit - From The Letters Of Abelard And Heloise
59. Half Of The Human Race - Anthony Quinn
60. Pure - Andrew Miller

61. The Eaten Heart: Unlikely Tales Of Love - Giovanni Boccaccio
62. Of Mistresses, Tigresses And Other Conquests - Giacomo Casanova
63. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
64. The Mysterious Affair At Styles - Agatha Christie
65. Your Heart Belongs To Me - Dean Koontz
66. Cures For Love - Stendhal
67. The Seducer's Diary - Søren Kierkegaard
68. First Love - Ivan Turgenev
69. Wolves Of The Calla - Stephen King
70. Courtesans - Katie Hickman

71. The Marriage Plot - Jeffery Eugenides
72. The Report - Jessica Francis Kane
73. One Day - David Nicholls
74. Hell Gate - Linda Fairstein
75. The Slap - Christos Tsiolkas
76. A Mere Interlude - Thomas Hardy
77. Prey - Michael Crichton
78. How To Lose Friends & Alienate People - Toby Young
79. You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik
80. Song of Susannah - Stephen King

81. The ABC Murders - Agatha Christie
82. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
83. Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
84. Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
85. The Kreutzer Sonata - Leo Tolstoy
86. Night Waking - Sarah Moss
87. Long Lankin - Lindsey Barraclough
88. Blood Harvest - S. J. Bolton
89. The Playdate - Louise Millar
90. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

91. A Russian Affair - Anton Chekhov
92. Eleanor Of Aquitaine - Marion Meade
93. The Dark Tower - Stephen King
94. Deviant Love - Sigmund Frued
95. A Visitor's Companion To Tudor England - Suzannah Lipscomb
96. No Time For Goodbye - Linwood Barclay
97. Magnetism - F. Scott Fitzgerald
98. A Perfectly Good Man - Patrick Gale
99. The Silence Of The Lambs - Thomas Harris
100. The Queen's Confession - Victoria Holt

101. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
102. The Stepford Wives - Ira Levin
103. Something Childish But Very Natural - Katherine Mansfield

 

[Abcinthia]

103. Something Childish But Very Natural - Katherine Mansfield

Pages: 110

A collection of short stories: Something Childish But Very Natural, Feuille d'Album, Mr And Mrs Dove, Marriage á la Mode, Bliss, Honeymoon, A Dill Pickle, Widow.

The stories were nice but overall I just felt something was lacking. They all had a samey feel about them and there was not really anything that will stick in my mind. Out of all the stories, my favourite was probably Something Childish But Very Natural. It's a sweet story about Henry who is very naive, inexperienced and falls in love with Edna. Despite their feelings, Edna doesn't want to move on and to leave her childhood behind. I thought it was a nice tale of first love and that Mansfield captured the intensity of feelings well.

Random Quote (from the story Honeymoon): It was too much for George. Know his Fanny? He gave a broad, childish grin. "I should jolly well think I do," he said emphatically.
(I just couldn't resist it. One of the main characters is called Fanny and I was sniggering at a few lines in this story. I'm not very grown up lol )

Rating: 3/5

 

[Abcinthia]

I've finally gotten round to finishing another book. I have barely read anything lately because I've been busy doing a cross stitch instead.

104. Mary Anne - Daphne Du Maurier

Pages: 385

I am a massive Du Maurier fan, so this is going to be very biased and no surprise that I really enjoyed it.

Mary Anne is a historical novel based on Du Maurier's great-great-grandmother, who was the mistress of Fredrick, Duke of York. Later on when the relationship fizzled out, she testified against him in the House of Commons that she had sold army commissions and that he knew all about it. This is the main focus of the story although it charts both her life before the Duke and touches on her being prosecuted for libel (which she was imprisoned for) and her time in France.

There's no doubt about it, Mary Anne Clarke is a fascinating woman and makes for a wonderful main character. Du Maurier brings her to life and makes her into a feisty, independent woman and portrays all her bad attributes as well as her good. She is probably the most feminist of all the Du Maurier characters I've read. She doesn't need a man and is determined to make it herself. Her precarious position as mistresses meant that she could be cast off at any time, a fate which not only happened to her but many many mistresses of the nobility.

The only downside is that after part 3, the writing style changes and it starts to read more like a newspaper. Du Maurier herself criticized the book for this very reason (Mary Anne was one of her least favourite novels). It really gives the novel a disjointed feel and it's a pity because we start to lose Mary Anne's character and the well written pace of the previous two parts. It never fully recovers although the ending comes close.

Random Quote (from page 13): Words fascinated her, the shape of the curling letters, how some, by repeating themselves more often had importance. The had difference of sex too. The a's, the e's and u's were women: the hard g's, the b's and the q's were all men and seemed to depend on the others.

Rating: 4/5

 

[Abcinthia]

105. The Submission - Amy Waldman

Pages: 385

The Submission starts with a jury selecting a memorial for the victims of 9/11, two years after the attacks. All the designs are anonymous and after fierce deliberations, they decide that a garden would be the best memorial, the designer's name learnt: Mohammad Khan (Mo to his friends). This opens debate into Islam, what art is and grief.

The story focuses on the aftermath of Mohammad Khan's win and tells the story in 3rd person, focusing on different characters. The 3 main characters are Claire, a widow who was the biggest supporter of the garden design until it starts to throw up opposition from other people who lost loved ones in the attack and is hounded by journalists. Asma, a Bangladeshi illegal immigrant who is also a widow but also the mother of a child born on American soil. Lastly, Mo, the winner who is isolated and caught up in the debate despite no strong feelings towards Islam and being a born and bred American. I found these three characters the best developed. The raw emotions of both widows was very well captured and I really felt for Mo.

The other characters whose stories we learn, just do not feel so well developed and feel quite flat at times. But they all had important parts to play in the story and I suppose Waldman felt she could not write the story without giving us their backgrounds, thoughts and fears.

I liked the book. It was thought-provoking, well written and very easy to get into. Waldman captured a tragedy bringing America together but also bringing out the best and worst in people. It is written quite well and the subject area handled with care.

4/5

 

[Abcinthia]

106. Shakespeare's Landlord - Charlaine Harris

Pages: 218

Lily Bard has a secret past. So she settles in the small American town of Shakespeare, Arkansas, working as a cleaner. But her peaceful existence is shattered when she stumbles onto the body of her landlord and into the suspicion of the local cop.

This book was enjoyable, light reading. The plot is engaging and you just want to find out who the murderer is. Harris is never going to win awards for her writing style, which is simplistic and at at times a bit annoying with her explaining long words (fans of Sookie Stackhouse: think of her explaining that word of the day thing at least once a book. I cannot be the only one who found it frustrating!), but she spins a good yarn and her books are an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours reading.

Random Quote (page 43): I recognized the tone, the words. I had to fight panic hard for a second.

4/5

 

[Abcinthia]

I haven't been reading much lately - I just have not been in the mood. So today I made up for it by finishing not one but two books.

107. Shakespeare's Champion - Charlaine Harris

Pages: 232

Lily Bard has been trying and failing to have a quiet life. Her workouts at the local gym are a great release of all the anger and hurt in her life; a safe haven from the daily grind. Until one morning she stumbles onto the body of a local body builder. There is also racial tensions in area and Lily Bard has either stay in Shakespeare and fight or start her life all over again.

I didn't enjoy this book as much as the previous one. There was a massive jump between the events of both books, which let it down. Firstly, the relationship with Claude, a local cop, has changed in dynamic. Secondly, there were multiple references to massive brawl that happened inbetween the books and resulted in some people not wanting to hire Lily as a cleaner. The brawl was finally explained about halfway through the book but it was frustrating that it took so long to understand what was going on and spoiled my enjoyment.

The main plots were interesting enough and a new love interest is introduced: Jack. He's perfectly suited to Lily and has a past as murky as hers. I found the story really started to pick up after Jack was introduced and it was definitely more action packed.

Rating: 3/5


108. The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood

Pages: 637

I don't really know how to sum up this plot. I don't think I could ever quite do it justice. It starts with Iris Chase remembering her sister Laura's mysterious death 50 years ago. She was the author of a book, The Blind Assassin, which was published posthumously and gained notoriety. So Iris starts to write her autobiography and chronicles the life of two sisters against the backdrop of the 30s and 40s.

The Blind Assassin is actually a novel within a novel. It jumps between Iris' autobiography; Laura's novel, The Blind Assassin; and newspaper articles about various things essential to the plot. It took me a while to actually enjoy it because of the jumps but I found the plot captivating and mysterious. My favourite parts were probably the extracts of The Blind Assassin. It was a sci-fi/love story and I really enjoyed it.

The ending was predictable, I figured out what the twist would be some time before hand. Despite that I really enjoyed it. Atwood is a wonderful writer and just brings the novel to life.

Rating: 5/5