Someone asked today if there is a book club, so I thought I'd try starting one. Not the usual type of club where everyone reads the same book - I thought we could write a synopsis of a book we've recently read, to give each other ideas for new books to read.
I have a Kindle subscription, so all of mine will be available on there for people who also subscribe.
Never heard of Olivia Laing. Could you give a bit of an idea of what kind of writer she is/what her books are like please?
I'm reading Olivia Laing books lately, currently this one and recommend all 3 I've read ( Maybe_Sally ) 
I love this poem by Branwell, which is particularly poignant considering his early demise:
'So seize we the present
and gather its flowers
for mournful or pleasant
'tis all that is ours
whilst daylight we're wasting
the evening is hasting
and night follows fast on the vanishing hours...'
I can't find that online to confirm that I've remembered it correctly.
I'd forgotten it was told from Nelly's recount!
Currently re reading Wuthering Heights - read it for AS English literature and decided to re read it
I hope you enjoy it.
I think it's quite a shocker ... Healthcliff really isn't a very nice man and it really isn't a 'romance' but something much darker.
What imaginations those sisters had (and Branwell).
I studied it at school too and re-read it a couple of times since.
I have also made a 'pilgrimage' to Haworth, having enjoyed Emily and Charlotte's writing.
I used to be an avid fan of Emily's poetry too.
Yeah the first one I tried, I wasn't keen on that choppy style. I think he must have had a very visual brain as he'd suddenly just start talking about other characters, as if there was a scene change in a film, but not even a line break to indicate that to the reader.
Normally these days, there's some sort of visual indication the scene is changing mid-chapter. Pratchett doesn't seem to do that so it's very confusing. At least with Mort there was less of that going on!
I tried these books but failed to follow them
Oh I finished Mort last week. I enjoyed it more than Colour of Magic, as the latter book kept jumping around too much for me. I hadn't read Pratchett when I was younger, I was put off by the covers, but reading them now as we got them on kindle for my son (and covers now look less sexist).
Currently re reading Wuthering Heights - read it for AS English literature and decided to re read it
Im presently reading D.J.Enright’s Under The Circumstances (1991 pub. Oxford Poets). It is a mix of poetry and prose and Im thoroughly enjoying it so far. He is accessible yet clever at the same time, in this volume the pages I have seen so far are challenging “groupthink” and the rewriting of (revisionism) of history. This latter point is something I feel strongly about (ie we shouldn’t do this and it is Orwellian) so it is good to read a writer coming from my own point of view. The book is long out of print, I found it second hand on Abe Books online.
This is his introductory paragraph in Wikipedia
Dennis Joseph Enright OBE FRSL (11 March 1920 – 31 December 2002) was a British academic, poet, novelist and critic.[1] He authored the novel Academic Year (1955), an autobiography, Memoirs of a Mendicant Professor (1969), and a wide range of essays, reviews, anthologies, children's books and poems.[2]
dependably soothing and irreplacebly generous atmosphere exactly as I'd always found it from childhood up to and including he last time I'd been there. Also, as great way to affordably try and up one's reading quotient. For someone who loves books,
Yes, a wonderful time-served service which ought to be widely recognised and better funded. I spent a great deal of time in libraries as a child, which staved off loneliness and introduced me to many subjects I would otherwise never have heard about, let alone enjoyed - like mythology and poetry.
This reminds me to give libraries in general a shout-out. After years of dormancy in using public libraries (though I work in an academic one), I recently stepped back through the doors to find the dependably soothing and irreplacebly generous atmosphere exactly as I'd always found it from childhood up to and including he last time I'd been there. Also, as great way to affordably try and up one's reading quotient. For someone who loves books, I don't get to or through them fast enough, and a ticking clock on a loan helps a little with discipline there!
Great idea for a thread. The most recent fiction book (I mostly read non-fiction these days but that could change) I completed was 'Strange Pictures' by Uketsu. It's translated from Japanese, and I found its format a very compelling one. Basically the book is made up of four mysteries, where a picture, or series of pictures is actually given to you among the text on the printed page (so I doubt they could ever do this as an audiobook? Not sure, maybe highly detailed descriptions could make it work for the patient - maybe autistic levels of patience!- listener), which are in their own way self contained... and yet also connect in an ingenious way. I wasn't quite clever enough to work out the complete solutions before they arrived, but had deduced fractal elements of that... which was pleasing enough in itself. It also gives you a rewarding sense that you're learning the 'what to spot' skills as you go, slowly building your skill levels while you try to work things out alongside the protagonists' attempts at doing the same. Though the eaxact nature of the 'game' shifts just enough each time to mean that you never get *too* good at it. Well, I didn't.
There is death involved (and a couple of murders) and it is very fleetingly graphic a few times so that you get a sense of the stakes and need for justice... but don't let that put you off if (like me) you're somewhat squaeamish, as the main tone is often light, even regularly humorous, and some of the protagonists are just good people with a social conscience and desire to make things right. The writing is very simple, plain-speaking rather than flowery (nothing wrong with the latter), pretty conversational all in all.
Maybe that's a popular modern Japanese style, as it felt strongly reminiscent in the elegance/simplicity balance that was effortlessly present in 'Convenience Store Woman' (different writer, and a book I read a couple of years back). Incidentally, the main character in that is almost certainly autistic, though that is never explicitly stated, she's just strongly coded that way and clearly intentionally so. I liked it. Oh, and similar thing with 'Before the Coffee Gets Cold' (which my fiancee introduced me to)... which also has that free and easy style in the telling to some extent, even as it casually lays out some extroardinary things tucked away among the everyday...
Strange Pictures is one in a series (Strange Houses, Strange Buildings etc.) - thematically linked rather than a matter of retained characters as far as I know. So I'm going to read the others too, if spared.
Anyway... recommended. :-)
I finally finished the book I had just started when the thread was created (it being fairly large and not having a lot of reading time), it was the close of the first phase of the Stormlight archive by Brandon Sanderson. (He's planned it as a grand epic of 10, split into two sections).
Though I'd read the other 4 in the series, it had been a while since the last one, and picking up the 5th installment I suddenly realised one of the characters is autistic (I didn't know about autism when I read the others, and looked it up and yes the author confirmed it as cannon). A lot fo the characters have mental health issues, but in the last book they were dealt with in a bit of a heavy handed way.
On the whole though, it wasn't the 'end' to the set I was hoping for, as the last books in the set especially seemed less about what makes a good story and more setting up the next set of books.
I always liked the different worlds Sanderson created in his books, they all felt like a different substance and colour, but now he's doing stuff to link them all together now, and when you mix lots of colours together, it's not a rainbow, but murky paint water. Maybe that's me and being autistic, but I don't like when different stories and 'magic systems' get all folded in together. I prefer them seperate, so not sure if I want to read the later books he plans. I'd still reccommend the start of the series though (the first 3 are brilliant).
Finished 'the one dollar horse' by Lauren St John - it's a trilogy and I'm into the second book
Not too spoil anything it in but the bases is it follows a girl who's dad buys a horse for one dollar and her dream I if bring in badminton and other races after that
I recommended if you like horses
Ive recently read and loved this book too!!
I do understand what you mean about the pleasure of a book in hand. Im reading ok now but have had bleak spells when it has depressingly impossible. A way I found to work my way back to reading novels and biograpies was to chose a book of short stories by an author I enjoy.
Some examples of famous authors who have also published short story collections include: D H Lawrence, Graham Greene, or more recently Ian Rankin, Ruth Rendell. I also found books of essays a good way to read short pieces by great writers. One of the 20C’s best essay writers was Joan Didion, Hilary Mantel has also published books of essays and stories, Virginia Woolf can be hard going but as well as her famous novels there are several volumes of essays and reviews. Or simply just good quality magazines depending on your tastes often have short prose pieces.
Best wishes
Alice
