The Books of 2010

I hadn’t intended to write a favourite books post for the year end, because I’ve written so many posts with lists of books over the last few weeks that I thought it might be too much.

But I’ve read some wonderful books of the year posts over the last few days, and when I did put my own list together I realised that a few of my favourites hadn’t appeared in any of my other lists.

And so here, in no particular order, are my top ten books of the year.

Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks by John Curran

“I find myself reminded of books I’d quite forgotten. Happily recalling others. noting a few that I don’t think I’ve read yet. I want to read and re-read every single one. And then I want to look again at what this book had to say – I’m definitely going to need a copy of my own!”

Rambles Beyond Railways by Wilkie Collins

” And I love my native Cornwall. So imagine my delight when I found a book by Wilkie Collins in the library’s Cornish room. Joy!

Rambles beyond Railways: Notes in Cornwall taken a-foot. A travelogue visiting so many places I know so well. Bliss!

And it gets better. The book I picked up was the original 1851 edition. And a bookplate at the front advises me that it was found, in tatters, in 1933, restored and then presented to the library. What a wonderful thing to do! And so I was holding the same edition that the author himself must have held. Wow!”

Martha in Paris and Martha, Eric and George by Margery Sharp

“Her story is strangely charming. And strangely charming is something that Margery Sharp does particularly well. This book, and indeed the whole of Martha’s story, is populated with wonderful human characters, who maybe didn’t behave and talk quite how I might have expected, and yet what they did and what they said was exactly right. I couldn’t help warming to them, understanding them, those ordinary, but somehow very special people.”

Love in the Sun and Paradise Creek by Leo Walmsley

“It is impossible not to care: the man and the woman are utterly real, and every detail rings true.

We make life complicated, when it could be so simple.

Love in the Sun is simply lovely.”

Flowers for Mrs Harris by Paul Gallico

“The storytelling is lovely. I read about Mrs Harris’s adventure in the same way that I read the books I loved as a child. I was completely captivated, living every moment, reacting to everything, wishing and hoping…”

Marjory Fleming by Oriel Malet

“Oriel Malet creates a child -  a bright child, but a child nonetheless – so beautifully, with such empathy, with such understanding that you really can see what she is seeing, feel what she is feeling.

The quality of the bigger picture is  just as high. Every detail that makes up a child’s life – people, places, events - in such lovely descriptive prose.”

Joanna Godden by Sheila Kaye Smith

“I have met many remarkable women between the covers of green Virago Modern Classics. And now that I have met Joanna Godden I have to say that she is one of the most remarkable of them all.”

Beside the Sea by Veronica Olmi

“It is a quite extrordinary piece of writing. I reacted to it physically and emotionally, and it made me look at the world differently.

Several days after I finished reading it is still in my head, and I am utterly lost for words.”

I wish you books that you love as much in the new year.

A Little Year End Housekeeping ….

…. just a few reading challenges to wind up.

10 books from 10 consecutive decades ..

I’ve been reading the 20th century, and I’ve had a wonderful time.

Here are the books …

1900s – Sanctuary by Edith Wharton (1903)
1910s – The Third Miss Symons by F M Mayor (1913)
1920s – The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkley (1929)
1930s – Love in the Sun by Leo Walmsley (1939)
1940s – The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey (1948)
1950s – Flowers for Mrs Harris by Paul Gallico (1958)
1960s – Martha in Paris by Margery Sharp (1964)
1970s – The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark (1973)
1980s – True Deceiver by Tove Jansson (1982)
1990s – Snapped in Cornwall by Janie Bolitho (1997)

And I think I see another 20th century reading project of my own on the horizon …

Reading library books to support libraries …

No problem at all. I read 89 books, some new, some old, some that I might not have discovered on the library shelves, some that I wouldn’t have been able to read had wise librarians not held on to out of print books.

My list is here.

Reading books about books…

I saw so many wonderful possibilities, but I didn’t manage to read quite as many books for this challenge as I’d hoped.

The year ends with me at Bookworm level, with three wonderful books:

• Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks by John Curran
• Talking About Detective Fiction by P D James
• Paperboy by Christopher Fowler

I see lots more books about books in my future … 

Reading 10 books published in 2010…

Mission accomplished! I’ve done more than 10 I’m sure but in some cases the dates are hazy.

Here’s a list of 10 I’m sure about and happy to recommend:

1. The Missing by Jane Casey
2. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
3. A Room Swept White by Sophie Hannah
4. Even The Dogs by Jon McGregor
5. Secret Son by Laila Lailami
6. The Wilding by Maria McCann
7. The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller
8. Sex and Stravinsky by Barbara Trapido
9. The Ninth Wave by Russell Cellyn Jones
10. Florence and Giles by John Harding

Books from and about Wales …

I read 4 books and so I finish the year with a silver medal.

The Ninth Wave by Russell Cellyn Jones and White Ravens by Owen Sheers were wonderful contemporary retellings of tales from The Mabinogion.

Diamond Star Halo by Tiffany Murphy was a wonderful contemporary novel from a young author to watch.

And Winter Sonata by Dorothy Edwards was a beautiful, sad tale from the 1920s.

With a little more time it could have been a gold medal, but the year is nearly done.

Yes, tomorrow we will be in a new year, full of wonderful possibilities …

What’s in a Name Challenge: An Ending and a Beginning

Two years ago “What’s in a Name” was the very first challenge I signed up for via this blog. It was also the first challenge I completed.

Beth at Beth Fish Reads is the host, and there’s a dedicated blog for this year’s challenge here.

It’s a lovely challenge, and of course I signed up for a second year.

It’s really simple. Just read one book from each of six categories. And now I’ve done it for a second time

Here are the categories and the books I’ve read:

• A book with a food in the title:

The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkley

• A book with a body of water in the title:

Murder at The Flood by Mabel Esther Allen

• A book with a title (queen, president) in the title:

The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller

• A book with a plant in the title:

Flowers for Mrs Harris by Paul Gallico

• A book with a place name (city, country) in the title:

Martha in Paris by Margery Sharp

• A book with a music term in the title:

Winter Sonata by Dorothy Edwards

Not the books I’d planned, but I was very happy with my final sextet.

And am I signing up for another year? Of course!

The new challenge blog is here.

Here are the new categories, and the books that I have in mind:

• A book with a number in the title:

One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes

• A book with jewelry or a gem in the title:

Miss Garnet‘s Angel by Salley Vickers

• A book with a size in the title:

My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time by Liz Jensen

• A book with travel or movement in the title:

Miss Ranskill Comes Home by Barbara Euphan Todd

• A book with evil in the title:

Evil Under The Sun by Agatha Christie

• A book with a life stage in the title:

A London Child of the 1870s by Molly Hughes

A couple of those categories were tricky, but I got there in the end and I had a great time trying to track the right books down.

Wish me luck!

Winter Sonata by Dorothy Edwards

“He had arrived only the night before. It had been cold, rainy and depressing, but now on the first day here it was beautiful, as if to welcome him. Everywhere the trees were nearly bare, but a few golden leaves still clung to the black branches. The black curving lines and the gold leaves looked as if they were painted on the cold, grey sky. The sun shone quite warmly through thin clouds, but the earth had already hardened itself for winter, and did not respond.”

Winter Sonata, Dorothy Edwards’ only novel is simple, quiet and utterly beautiful.

The story opens as Arnold Nettle, who is in poor health, escaping winter in the city and arriving in a quiet village to take up a new job, as a telegraph clerk. 

On his very first day he sees Olivia Neran through the window, and he finds himself quite besotted.

Olivia and her sister Eleanor are orphans and the live with their aunt, Mrs Curle – a woman at the very centre of village life – and their younger cousin, George.

Mr Nettle lodges with a Mrs Clark, who has a flighty teenage daughter, Pauline and a young son, Alexander.

Mrs Curle discovers that Mr Nettle plays the cello and invites him to her home. His love for her niece grows, but he is too frail, to shy for Olivia to think of him as anything more than a visiting neighbour.

Mr Nettle fades into the background as Pauline’s singing talent is discovered and another newcomer makes a much stronger impression on the village.

Life goes on.

Winter Sonata is a simple story, not too much happens, but it is a lovely book to spend time with.

It speaks clearly of how lonely the human condition can be, of how important family, friends and communities are.

And it works so well because the small cast is beautifully drawn, and the portrayal of their quiet lives is pitch perfect.

Yes, it is sad, but it is also beautiful and emotionally true.

And it is wrapped up in quite wonderful pictures of the village and the surrounding countryside, with winter overtaking autumn and then, in time, the winter fading as spring begins to emerge.

Yes, Winter Sonata is simple, quiet and utterly beautiful.

I didn’t mean to go book shopping …

… but we happened to be walking past our local second-hand book shop. We hadn’t expected it to be open on a Bank Holiday, but it was. The door was open even though the weather was cold, and so we went it. It would have been rude not to go in!

And there was new stock!

A title by E F Benson that I had never seen before in a lovely edition nearly 100 years old: The Book of Months.

I read the first paragraph and fell in love:

“Thick yellow fog and, in consequence electric light to dress by and breakfast by was the opening day of the year. Never, to anyone who looks at this fact in the right spirit, did a year dawn more characteristically …”

The book came home!

I looked closely at the Penguin shelves. I’ve always loved Penguins, but my interest has been heightened since I met Karyn at A Penguin a Week and perused her lists of the three thousand books published in numbered editions.

There were so many book that I loved on those lists. I noticed many books from my Virago collection. And sprinkling of Persephone authors. And Angela Thirkell!

I suspected that there might be gems among the titles and authors that I didn’t know too.

And so I pulled out a quite a few books, and I think I may have found some gems among them.

Death and The Pleasant Voices by Mary Fitt 

The title attracted me. An interesting synopsis spoke of a young man caught up in strange events at a country house and that appealed. But, strangely, it was the first paragraph of the author biography that hooked me:

“It is, I think, the writer of fiction who is of interest to the public, not the person of whom the writer is a part. Therefore I  do not propose to give details of where i was born, where educated, and so forth. In my character as Author, I was born some years later than Myself, in that part of the world which lies between classical Greece and Elizabethan England.”

That set me to wondering where the reader in me was born. Here in Cornwall I think, some years before Myself.

Where was the reader in you born?

A Well Full of Leaves by Elizabeth Myers

Another lovely title, and the author’s name rang a distant bell. The opening paragraphs, beautifully describing a visit to the park sold another book.

The Ladies’ Road by Pamela Hinkson

Another intriguing title, and the synopsis drew me in:

“Here is a novel firmly planned, a story of England and Ireland during the war, in which beauty is made out of bitterness and agony, in which all the great issues of those tremendous years are seen, as most of us remember them, as they affected the private lives of men and women.”

The Green Lacquer Pavilion by Helen Beauclerk

Another irresistible title. This time I was hooked by the table of contents:

BOOK I
AT TAVERBRIDGE HALL
I	OF WOMEN AND HOUSES IN GENERAL AND TAVERBRIDGE HALL IN PARTICULAR
II	WHERIN VIRTUE IS DISCUSSED AND A GOOD DINNER EATEN
III	MR CLARE HAS SOME CURIOUS EXPERIENCES AND MEETS WITH AN ADVENTURE
IV	WHAT THE TRAVELLERS SAW IN THE GREEN LACQUER PAVILION

My hopes are high.

Barnham Rectory by Doreen Wallace

I could never resist a book with a vicarage or a rectory in the title, and so this one came home too.

… it’s wonderful what you can find when you’re not really looking!

The Third Miss Symons by F M Mayor

The story of a Victorian spinster. A surplus woman. A life unlived.

It doesn’t sound compelling, and yet it is: The Third Miss Symons has tied me up in knots.

Henrietta, known to her family as Etta, was a fifth child and a third daughter, and was to be followed by more children.

“A large family should be a specially happy community, but it sometimes occurs that there is a boy or a girl who is nothing but a middle one, fitting in nowhere.”

And so it was with Etta. Partly because of her position in the family. Her two elder sisters were close, her brothers were another group, and the younger ones were too much younger. It happens. 

It was impossible not to feel for the little girl who so wanted just a little more acceptance, a little more understanding, a little more importance.

But it was easy to see that Etta didn’t have the social skills, the understanding of the small details and interactions that relationships are built upon. That wasn’t helped by her family situation or the strictures of the society that she was born into, but surely Etta herself had to take some of the responsibility.

“Why was it that people did not love her? She was not uglier or stupider or duller than anyone else … Why had God sent her into the world if she were not wanted? She found the problem insoluble.”

She has no insight, no empathy with other people. She wants to be loved, but too often she confuses that with being important. She tries, but she just doesn’t understand. And others see her as difficult and bad-tempered, so difficult and bad-tempered was what she becomes.

Ultimately she did not crave a husband, or children, or companionship. She just wanted a role and some status. But in her heart she knew that she would never have the life she wanted.

I found it painful watching the decline of a woman, brought up in an age when having a husband, children, a household of her own, was perceived as the only route to happiness and success, when there was no other way that was not perceived as failure for women who could not achieve, or maybe even did not want, that.

And I thought just many other possibilities there would have been for Etta if she had been born even one generation later.

But then I thought a little more. I wondered if she would have taken chances offered to her, when she couldn’t find any joy in small things. She had nieces and nephews. She was able to travel. She had chances to do good works …

Yes, she had a narrow and restricted life, but there were possibilities, opportunities that she either failed to notice or failed to appreciate.

But maybe that is too much too ask when someone is fundamentally unhappy … Yes, I think it is …

Etta didn’t understand her world, but I’m not sure that her world ever took the trouble to understand Etta.

Although …

So many questions that I am still turning over in my mind.

And, although Etta lived in a very different world, many of the questions that her story raises still resonate today.

And I am asking them because F M Mayor has created an utterly believable life. She tells Etta’s story simply and clearly, with real understanding and compassion.

The portrait she paints is most definitely psychologically true.

The Third Miss Symons is not a happy book, but it is a book with much to say.

Bookish Thoughts on Boxing Day

In our house, Boxing Day is a day for fun, relaxing, and a little contemplation.

And I’ve had a little fun contemplating this year’s reading, with the help of a set of questions that I borrowed from Verity, who borrowed from Stacy, who found it at The Perpetual Page Turner …
 

Best Book of 2010

I read many wonderful books this year, but if I have to pick out just one it must be Love in the Sun by Leo Walmsley. Daphne du Maurier wrote an introduction to her friend’s book, and she can convey its charms much better than I ever could:

“”‘Love in the Sun’ will make other writers feel ashamed. And, curiously enough, old-fashioned too. It is a revelation in the art of writing and may be one of the pioneers in a new renaissance which shall and must take place in our time if the novel is to survive at all. While we struggle to produce our complicated plots, all sex and psychology, fondly imagining we are drawing modern life while really we are as démodé as jazz and mah jong, Leo Walmsley gives the reader a true story, classic in its simplicity, of a man and a girl who possessed nothing in life but love for each other and faith in the future, and because of these things, were courageous and happy…”

Worst Book of 2010

Luckily I didn’t read anything this year that was bad enough for me to give it the label “worst book.”

Most Disappointing Book of 2010

There were a few that I didn’t finish, but their names escape me now. The most disappointing book that I did finish was Trespass by Rose Tremain. Not a bad book by any means, but it didn’t live up to its potential or to the high expectations that Rose Tremain’s earlier work created.

Most Surprising (in a good way) Book of 2010

The cover of Diamond Star Halo was eye-catching, but it really didn’t look like my sort of book. That title rang a bell though, a tune lodged in my head, and the next line just wouldn’t come. I only picked it up to look for an answer, but the synopsis grabbed me, I remembered that I had really liked Tiffany Murray’s previous novel, and so the book came home. It proved to be a gem.

Book Recommended Most in 2010

I was a little disappointed when I saw The Winds of Heaven listed as one of the new Persephone Books for autumn. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Monica Dickens, but I already had The Winds of Heaven and many of her other books on my shelves , and I had hoped to discover a new author or two. I read The Winds of Heaven on holiday, loved it, and saw that it fitted into the Persephone list perfectly. And I’ve been saying that ever since!

Best Series You Discovered in 2010

I met Gussie just a few weeks ago when I read The Burying Beetle, and I fell in love with the gravely ill but wonderfully alive twelve-year-old, who so loved books, films, the whole world around her. I am so pleased that Ann Kelley continues her story in three more books, and the next one has already found its way home from the library.

Favourite New Authors in 2010

It has to be a writer from the first half of the century who is only new in that she if new to me: Sheila Kaye-Smith. I read Joanna Godden in the summer, and it pushed her creator on to the “I must find all of her books” list.

Most Hilarious Read in 2010

I am not a great lover of comic writing, but there are one or two authors who combine wit with intelligence and warmth who I love dearly. L C Tyler is one of them and his most recent book, The Herring in the Library, was a delight.

Most Thrilling, Unputdownable Book of 2010

Poem Strip by Dino Buzzati, an Italian graphic novel that retold the classical story of Orpheus and Euridyce, was unsettling and utterly compelling. I read it in a single sitting.

Book Most Anticipated in 2010

Aran Knitting by Alice Starmore was the Holy Grail for knitters for a long time. Copies were so scarce and changed hands for ridiculous sums. I could only dream of finding a copy and being able to knot some wonderful designs that had been in my Ravelry queue since day one. But then a reissue was announced and I am pleased to be able to report that I now own the new, updated edition, with wonderful patterns and so much information about Aran knitting, and that it every bit as wonderful as I had expected.

Favourite Cover of a Book in 2010

I was completely captivated by the cover of The Still Point by Amy Sackville as soon as it caught my eye. Now I just have to get past that cover and read the book!

Most Memorable Character in 2010

There are a few contenders, but I think it has to be Martha. I met her in The Eye of Love a couple of years ago and I read more of her story in Martha in Paris and Martha, Eric and George this year. Martha is both ordinary and extraordinary, and completely her own woman. And the incomparable Margery Sharp tells her story with such warmth and wit that it is quite impossible to not be charmed.

Most Beautifully Written Book in 2010

The Sculptor’s Daughter by Tove Jansson was just perfect.

Book That Had the Greatest Impact on You in 2010

Beside the Sea by Veronica Olmi still makes me catch my breath whenever I think about it.

Book You Can’t Believe You Waited until 2010 to Read

I fell in love with Colette’s writing years ago and read everything of hers I could lay my hands on. How did Gigi slip through the net? Why did I wait until this year to meet her? I really have no idea!

Merry Christmas!

My head is full of music and my eyes are full of stars, so not too many words tonight, just the warmest of wishes.

Merry Christmas!

Reading Cornwall: Past, Present and Future

Twelve months ago I set off on operation “Read Cornwall”, because there were so many wonderful books from and about my own particular corner of the world that I wanted to read and celebrate.

I set myself a target of twelve books a year, and I am pleased to say that I have done it and that I loved it.

I knew that I would, but I had to set the target so that I wouldn’t be distracted by other things.

Here are the books I read:

Rambles Beyond Railways by Wilkie Collins in a restored Victorian edition was heaven, and a book that I could quite happily read over and over again.

Snapped in Cornwall by Janie Bolitho was a mystery built on classic lines, and it captured West Cornwall perfectly. A very solid start to a series.

Bell Farm by M R Barneby was a family tale, simple but very effective, and it painted wonderful pictures of the countryside and a seaside farming community.

Archelaus Hosken’ Dilemma by F J Warren was a little comic gem, cleverly constructed and a masterful piece of storytelling.

Love in the Sun and Paradise Creek by Leo Walmsley were my books of the year, telling stories and catching the magic of real lives absolutely perfectly.

Roots and Stars by C C Vyvyan was a memoir of fascinating twentieth century life. Lady Vyvyan was a writer, traveller and nature lover, and I was charmed. i’ll definitely be reading more of her work.

Sarah Strick by Randle Hurley was lovely collection of comical tales set in my hometown in the 1940s. I was charmed and I could quite believe that my grandparents had known these people.

Manna From Hades and A Colourful Mystery by Carola Dunn were cosy mysteries set in a rather idealised 1960s. That threw me for a while, I liked the cast and the stories (well the first story, the second was weak) and so I kept reading.

An Unsentimental Journey Through Cornwall by Mrs Craik was another wonderful Victorian travelogue. I loved the author and I loved seeing Cornwall through her observant and perceptive eyes.

The Burying Beetle by Ann Kelley was a gem. The day-to-day life of a twelve-year-old girl who is both seriously ill and wonderfully alive, perfectly observed and beautifully written.

I’m delighted with my dozen for 2010 and there will definitely be another dozen in 2011.

I’m going to tidy up my Cornish Reading page too, and, if anyone else is interesting in joining me, I might just set up a Cornish Reading blog. Let me know …

But back to the books. I already have three lined up:

Framed in Cornwall by Jane Bolitho is lined up for letter B in my crime fiction alphabet.

From East End to Lands End by Susan Soyinka is an account of the wartime evacuation of the pupils of the jews’ Free School in London to a Cornish fishing village. There is a wealth of detail and it is so engaging: a book for both head and heart.

The Bower Bird by Ann Kelley has already found its way home, because I so want to meet Gussie again.

And there are many, many more …

A Dog Blogs: My Anniversary

“Hello – it’s me, Briar! Jane is letting me take over the blog for a little while, because yesterday was a very important day. It was my anniversary, exactly five years since I adopted my human family.

I was born on 25th October 2005 in a little village in St Germans, close to the border between Cornwall and Devon. My mother was a border terrier, and my father was a border terrier and I was a little puppy. I had a sister and three brothers and we all lived in a little cottage with my mum, my grandma, some other border terrier relations, and our breeder.

Us puppies knew that when we were a little bit bigger we would be going out into the world to adopt human families. It was very exciting!

One of my brothers left home first. He went over the sea to Jersey.

And next it was my turn.

Early in the morning Jane and her mother got into the car and drove for nearly two hours to St Germans to fetch me.

I said goodbye to my family and then we got into the car to take me to my new home. Jane drove the car and I sat in my new basket in the back next to Mother. (She’s Jane’s mother really, but that’s what I call her.)

Jane told me later that she had been worried that I wouldn’t settle down in the car, but I did. I was a very good puppy all the way to Penzance. I went to sleep for a while, and then I woke up and sniffed my basket and looked around while Mother chatted to me.

When we got to Penzance Jane parked the car on the seafront, opposite the promenade. And then she realised that she had a problem. She had to take me out in my basket and she had to lock up the car, but there was nowhere to put my basket down while she locked up. She couldn’t put it down in the ground in case I hopped out. You see I hadn’t had my inoculations, and so I could have picked up something nasty.

She decided to put my basket on top of the car and keep an eye on me while she locked up quickly. She says that what she saw then was lovely, and she will always remember it. I popped my head up and went sniff, sniff, sniff. I smelled my new home and the sea air, and I liked it.

We went to my new home then. I had a good look around and then I settled down to sleep on Mother’s foot. Well, I was a very young puppy still, and it had been a very exciting day.

When bedtime came Jane thought I might not settle on my own. After all, it was my first night in my own big basket without my sister and my brothers. But I did settle down, and I went to sleep for the whole night. I was a very good puppy.

I had a lovely new home and a lovely family.

And now we have had five happy years together, and I hope we will have lots more.

I had a lovely anniversary celebration, which is why I look so tired in my photograph.

Jane will be back tomorrow, and I will be back again soon …”