Books of the Year

I haven't written a book post since March so instead of my usual The Year in Books entry I'm going to do a summary of my reading year in the way they do in newspapers.  I've been inspired to do this because I've signed up to a blogging workshop next Sunday run by Simon Savidge who writes a book review blog called Savidge Reads.

So here's the list.  I've decided to give each a mark out of 10, according to how much I enjoyed them..

On Kindle:
The Light Years: Book 1 of The Cazalet Chronicles Elizabeth Jane Howard  9
Hard Times Charles Dickens   (Reread) 6
Thomas and Mary -A Love Story Tim Parks  6
History of the Rain Niall Williams (Reread) 9
O Come Ye Back to Ireland  (NF) Niall Williams   8

Bookclub Choices
A Spot of Bother Mark Haddon         7
Four Letters of Love Niall Williams   6  (My choice)
The End of the Affair Graham Greene 5
The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead 9
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine Gail Honeyman  9
Good Me, Bad Me Ali Land  7

From library/school/own bookshelves:
Bad Dreams Tessa Hadley (Short Stories) 7
A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled Ruby Wax  5
On Writing Stephen King 9
The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini (Reread) 9
The Essex Serpent Sarah Perry 8
The Road Cormac McCarthy 8

Waverton Good Reads
The Things We Thought We Knew Mahauda Snaith  7

I've recently been taking part in The Waverton Good Read. Every year since 2003 the residents of Waverton, a village not far from Chester read novels published in the last 12 months and make an award for to the one they judge to be the best.  I don't live in Waverton, but have been allowed to take part.  It's great as I get to read new hardback books for free.

Listing the books like this reveals quite a lot to me about my preferences.  My favourite kind of book is a family saga with strong characters I can identify with and a good plot.  If I was to nominate my top read for the year in terms of sheer enjoyment it would be The Light Years - The Cazalet Chronilces.  I'm looking forward to reading the other four books in the series. Eleanor Oliphant made me laugh out loud. I'd like to think that other Eleanors in the world would have a similarly happy ending but I suspect they won't, which is why the ending is a little unconvincing hence 9 out of 10 rather than full marks.  I do enjoy a book with humour and Eleanor's observations about office life are hilarious.

The 'best' books here are The Underground Railroad and The Road, both of which were very powerful but actually not great bedtime reading because of the horrors they relate.  You can read the Simon Savidge review of The Underground Railroad  here.  I read The Road because we are using it as a coursework text for A Level.  It is a bleak account of the attempts of a father and son to survive in a world destroyed by the effects of climate change.  Very powerful but not easy to read with only glimmers of hope through the portrayal of the father/son relationship.  I suppose these are the 'best' books because they are ultimately more memorable and have something to say.

I'm now reading another Waverton Book 'The Pinocchio Brief'  which is a kind detective/court drama, not my usual kind of thing.  Bookclub book of the month is 'Surfacing' by Margaret Atwood.  I'm looking forward to this as I've read quite a few Margaret Atwood books and always enjoy them.  I also would like to try a Stephen King novel as I read his book 'On Writing' and found it fascinating.  I reserved a copy of 'The Stand' through the library but it's an expanded edition which is over 1000pages so I think I'll return it and read the original.

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Choices

This little girl turned 18 last weekend and yesterday passed her driving test.  It seems no time since I was organising her 5th birthday party, where the photo above was taken.  I'm sure she won't be happy with me publishing this picture of her with a mouthful of jam sandwich, but I think she looks so cute.  Where does the time go?  At present she is making big decisions about her future.  She has visited universities in Sheffield, York, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Nottingham and Warwick.  I went with her to some of the open days and was amazed by the way universities are now selling themselves and competing for students. As we were looking around both Warwick and York, Kate spotted Andy Burnham with his son who seems to be interested in the same kinds of courses as Kate. She was very excited about this but not brave enough to talk to him.  I hadn't spotted him in his casual gear and no one else seemed to recognise him either, even though he was presumably surrounded by A Level  students of history and politics. We also had a look at Oxford and Cambridge, as she'd been encouraged by teachers to consider them. That was an interesting experience - I liked getting the chance to look around - there were some beautiful gardens - but the comment from a girl showing us around Christ's College in Oxford about being allowed to play croquet on the lawn in summer kind of illustrated how far away from any kind of student experience elsewhere these colleges are. And they seem to eat their meals in halls which look like Hogwarts.  Her UCAS form is now in and she's applied to study History and Politics at York, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Sheffield.  She's had some offers so now she just needs to get the grades.   Exciting times but hard work ahead.

She certainly seems to have had more advice than I did when applying for university.  I felt I ought to do some kind of vocational course as people kept asking me what I wanted to do.  I insisted at that stage that I didn't want to be a teacher.  I like books, I thought, and so applied for some librarianship courses, changing my mind after the form went in as a helpful careers' officer said he thought librarians were bitchy( !!!!! I'm sure he didn't use this word but this is how I remember it)  and I would be best to do a more general degree in subjects I liked and then a postgraduate course.  This left me with only a couple of options.  I had an offer from Queen's in Belfast and one from Salford over in England.  I thought I might like to go to England so I chose it first, not having a clue about where it was or anything at all about it -  I'm not sure there were open days then.  I couldn't even say the name properly. I didn't real expect to get the grades they were asking for so it was a bit of a shock when I headed off on the ferry to Liverpool, then a train to Manchester and found myself in Coronation Street. It was a bit grim in Salford (it was the 1970s) but I didn't really mind as I was too busy enjoying myself. I'm not sure I made a wise choice but it turned out fine in the end.

Other news since my last post ( I only seem to manage about one  month) is that our building work is progressing so we hope to have a new kitchen for Christmas.  The old one is now completely demolished.  This has made life difficult this week as we only have a microwave to cook with and are existing on ready meals and toast.  But at least we have hot water and central heating again now the boiler is operational.

That's it for now.  Need to go and vacuum up the layer of dust left all over the house after builders' knocked out a new window yesterday.