@bookstodon Just out of curiosity, how close are you to your reading goal for the year? I need to read 12 more books to meet the goal I set for myself. 📚📚📚📚
Not everyone works the same way, of course. We've discussed before that reading goals are counterproductive for many. Having a goal really helps me, but it doesn't work for everyone. Just like reading for pleasure and reading to write a review are very different processes.
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon Totally agree, I don’t set a goal and have only been writing down what I read for 3 years but this year Ive read 15 more books than last year so I’m very happy with that
Dean Street Press is a great independent publisher who are ‘ devoted to producing, uncovering, and revitalizing good books’. Their authors include Stella Gibbons, Brian Flynn and D E Stevenson. This month it’s Dean Street December and I fancy reading a new author to me, Patricia Wentworth, who wrote mystery novels in the mid 20th century. I’ve been having fun looking through their website this morning trying to decide which one to read first #bookstodon#publishing@bookstodon https://www.deanstreetpress.co.uk/pages/author_page/33
Just finished reading Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, 1961, and I absolutely loved it! For a book with a slow pace I found it perfectly plotted with characters who were so rounded. None of them are wholly good or bad and none of them are particularly likeable which appealed to me. I thought I’d seen the film years ago but from the beginning it didn’t feel familiar so I guess it could’ve been one of those Netflix DVDs back in the day that arrived, sat around for a bit and got sent back unwatched! 🤣 So glad about that as I thought the writing was beautiful and devastating and I’m so relieved I didn’t know anything about it before going in, other than it’s considered a modern American classic #bookstodon@bookstodon
On New Year's Eve the 85 year old Lilian takes a long walk in Manhattan. On the way she visits places from her past and talks to people she meets. Meanwhile she looks back on her life as an ad copywriter, poet, wife and mother
You can't help but love her independent, prickly character and her way with words
You can read her as a feminist, but this is not too explicit or preaching, which I liked all the better
Boundary Road by Ami Rao is going straight on my TBR list - a book set on a London bus, with all the possible drama that will likely involve and the glimpses of life outside the window - looks like it’ll be a Kindle read for me as it’s from a very small publisher called Everything with Words #bookstodon#blind#publishing@bookstodon https://www.everythingwithwords.com/books/boundary-road/
#BookReview A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr
Read in Braille
Penguin
Pub. 1980, 104pp
This is a novella I’ve been meaning to read for years and it’s delightful.
Tom Birkin’s a Londoner who’s returned from war with shellshock and he takes a commission to restore a medieval church wall painting in a Yorkshire village. The warm summer days are glorious as he gets to work, with high hopes for the project:
“I willed it to be something good, really splendid, truly astonishing… something to wring a mention from The Times and a detailed account (with pictures) in the Illustrated London News.”
To his relief he’s quickly welcomed into the community:
“In the first few minutes of my first morning, I felt that this alien northern countryside - friendly, that I’d turned a corner and that this summer of 1920, was to smoulder on until the first leaves fell, was to be a propitious season of living”
For a book of just over 100 pages it’s full of fully realised characters; from his neighbour Moon (a fellow veteran who’s also on a contract from the vicarage) to the stationmaster’s daughter Kathy and the vicar’s wife Alice - they all visit him often, interested in him and his work. The vicar’s a miserly character and there’re some very uncomfortable conversations between him and Birkin.
And the description of landscape is evocative throughout:
“For me that will always be the summer day of summer days – a cloudless sky, ditches and roadside deep in grass, poppies, cuckoo pint, trees heavy with leaf, orchards bulging over hedge briars.”
This is a beautifully written story of someone looking back fondly on a restorative period in their youth, with the gradual unveiling of the painting mirroring his own feelings of rediscovering himself. The conversational tone, a hint of romance and poignant moments of reflection on religion and war make it easy to relate to this character from another time.
@bookstodon For anyone interested #backlisted podcast covered A Month in the Country on their very first episode, calling it a rare book that everyone seems to enjoy:
@Likewise@bookstodon I’ve read so many great ones! Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan and Less by Andrew Sean Greer were definitely fiction highlights. And Being Seen by Elsa Sjunneson for non-fiction
Relieved to see this outcome! I was one of the thousands who submitted a passionate response to the consultation #transport#Disability@disability | ‘Transport for All, a disabled-led organisation, called it "the best possible outcome", but added that while the government was "eventually swayed, it is appalling that disabled people's concerns were dismissed for so long".’
#BookReview Less: A Novel by Andrew Sean Greer
Read on audio
Narrator: Andrew Petkoff
Hachette Audio
Pub. 2017, 263pp
Wow, I had a blast reading this book which kept me entertained on a long flight home from holiday. the character of Arthur Less is so vividly realised and he gets up to some great misadventures throughout the story. in fact he reminded me of a friend who I admire as she gets into all kinds of scrapes by throwing caution to the wind in a way I rarely dare to do!
This is a hard book to review because I went into it knowing only that the main character is a middle aged American writer who goes on a book tour of sorts and I’m glad that was all I knew about it. Sometimes it’s best not even to read the blurb.
what I will say is that, despite mixed reviews, I believe Less totally deserved to win The Pulitzer Prize in 2018. it’s brilliantly quirky and I loved the way language is played with. Here’s a little taster:
“Less wears a pair of natural leather wing tips, a paint stroke of green on each toe, black fitted linen trousers with a spiralling seam, a grey inside out t-shirt, and a hoody jacket whose leather has been tenderly furred to the soft nubbin of an old eraser. He looks like a Fire Island super villain rapper.”
Another highlight was that at one point Less thinks he’s fluent in german but the translation of what he’s actually saying to people shows otherwise!
it’s true that the story meanders somewhat so if you like a tightly plotted novel this may not work for you, but I was totally on board with the writing style from the start. This is a very funny book but it’s balanced with poignant and reflective moments that many readers will relate to. And the audiobook narrator was particularly good, easily switching between languages and accents.
Less definitely appealed to my sense of humour and I highly recommend this refreshing book. Witty and insightful, it’s up there in my top 5 reads of the year! #bookstodon@bookstodon