Total: 62
Male author: 17
Female author: 46
Non-fiction: 10
Fiction: 50
Re-read: 5
1. Children of Men, PD James (pb)
Not quite as clever or lit-fic geniusy as she (and most reviewers) think it is. Main character is like Adam Dagliesh without any of his (supposed) redeeming features (this one actually ran over his own child accidentally, rather than it being a car crash). Quite depressing, generally. And her usual lack of interest in women. The three main women in this are: a mother, a midwife, and a pregnant woman the main character is falling in love with.
2. Wine of Angels, Phil Rickman (k)
First of the Merrily Watkins series. Very readable, though some bits slightly squicky when you remember it's a male author (mainly about how awful male parishioners are/were about female vicars).
3. Midwinter of the Spirit, Phil Rickman (k)
Second Merrily Watkins book. Still very readable, though more sexual squick here (understandable and related to the plot but he chose the plot, so). Supernatural/exorcism elements were v well handled.
4. The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins (Jan bookclub, k)
Obvious, but well-done thriller. Dropped too many obvious hints that could easily have been much nastier. Very much on the theme of men being terribly poor stuff.
5. Evil Intent (Callie Anson 1), Kate Charles (k)
Not terribly good. Anglican murder mystery that gets neither the Anglican nor the murder mystery bits very right. Written by an 'American anglophile' so what can you expect really.
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (k)
Brilliant. Rare occasion of reading something that a) everything thinks is amazing and b) everyone read at 13 and still thinking it's great. I would give this to any teenager I know and insist they read it. Obviously there are some ~issues~ and parts where it hasn't aged as well as well as it might.
7. The Telling, Ursula le Guin (k)
Religion, history, and libraries. On an alien planet. I hadn't actually read this one before (it's become available on kindle for cheap recently) and it's as good as you'd expect from le Guin.
8. The Penelopeid, Margaret Atwood (k) (Feb bookclub)
Not her very best, I don't think, but interesting. I wonder how much it's deliberate that the slave girls who keep going on about their rape and murder are actually quite irritating/annoying? Great success with the rest of bookclub, so win for me choosing it.
9. The Group, Mary McCarthy (paperback, Jem's copy)
Great. Like Stella Gibbons or other mid-century women's fiction but bitchy New England American instead. High levels of Men Are Terribly Poor Stuff, and more detail on how grim child-rearing can be than I needed, but excellent. Would re-read.
10. Miss Pym Disposes, Josephine Tey (k)
Great setting, really obvious crime/murderer but psychologically nicely grim.
11. Modern John Buchan: A Critical Introduction, Nathan Waddel (hardback, nf)
I'm less interested in modernism even than I thought I was, but I'm very interested in Buchan, so this was a good read. Particulaly interesting about Buchan's views/interest in pathology and paranoia. Written by one of J's colleagues and borrowed from Nott library.
12. Four Ways to Forgiveness, Le Guin (paperback; re-read)
Much-loved re-read.
13. The Groves of Academe, Mary McCarthy (paperback, Jem's copy)
Excellent novel set in a 'progressive' college in the throes of McCarthyism. Rather like if one of the Great American Novellists (TM) actually realised what a repellent human being their self-insert main male characters were.
14. The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood. (kindle, April bookclub)
Bleak, but great. (Long)
15. The Franchise Affair, Josephine Tey (paperback, Arcadia find)
Detective/Thriller. Extremely obvious and quite misogynist, but enjoyable. Would re-read. (Arcadia pb find.)
16. H is for Hawk, Helen MacDonald (Hardback, nf)
One of our wedding list books. Harrowing and an unsympathetic author, but really excellent writing. Will dip and out of again.
17. Benefits of Passion, Catherine Fox (kindle)
Total fluff, and very obviously an early work, but hugely enjoyable. It's basically just a string of good scenes and one-liners put into some semblance of an order, but I read it all the way to London and back on the hateful Oxford Tube so it served a purpose.
18. Three Daughers, Consuelo Saah Baehr (kindle) (May bookclub)
Story of 3 generations of Palestinian Christians, growing up in the early 20th century. Not very well written but fascinating setting.
19. Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel (kindle)
Beautifully written and gripping story about a travelling theatre company after the apocalypse.
20. The People in the Trees, Hanya Yanagihara (hardcopy, Blackwells book token)
Kept expecting the undercutting of the unreliable narrator to be done more explicitly. Could have done with a narrative counterpart to the story of him and his amazing cruelty. Good on why mid-century white male scientists are The Worst. Made interesting reading alongside the Tim Hunt stuff, though obviously what the narrator here did is much worse.
Would be interested in picking up her second book if it was cheap on kindle.
21. The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter (hardcopy, Blackwells book token)
Should have read this when I was 17, I think. Very like Poe in tone/style, with less FEMINIST SUBVERSION than I'd been led to expect.
22. The Old Man and his Sons, Heðin Brú, trans. John F. West (hardcopy, Blackwells book token)
Set in the Faroes in the 50s. Short story of how old ways (basically unchanged from Viking settlers?) are being phased out.
23. The Magus of Hay, Phil Rickman (kindle daily deal)
Merrily Watkins series. Very readable, though not hugely memorable. Excellently creepy ritual magic, though less of the fun social observation bits others have. Another one bought in the same deal and on TBR pile.
24. Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee (kindle)
Much-hyped, and much more interesting as a companion read to To Kill a Mockingbird than as a standalone novel. More ambitious, more complex ideas and a flawed hero instead of an incorruptible one but I can see why her editor asked to redraft and concentrate on the childhood bits. She's really best as a chronicler/observer of a certain slice of Southern life. Reminded me strongly of The Little Friend, which is odd because Donna Tartt can't have read GSAW. But I imagine what she did was try to make TGAM more complex and grittier...
25. The Secrets of Pain, Phil Rickman (kindle, amazon daily deal)
Another Merrily Watkins, this time with Mithraism (which... no one in the book seems to have heard of? If I heard the local SAS guys had started a very weird initiation-based ritual religion, I think 'Mithraism' would have been my first thought after WTF. But perhaps I read a strange range of books as a child.)
26. Mist Over Pendle, Robert Neill (amazon secondhand)
Finally acted on all the recommendations and read this. Highly enjoyable and I think I will put in the same bracket of comfort re-reads as Cold Comfort Farm and Frenchman's Creek.
27. A Very British Coup/Secret State, Chris Mullins (kindle, re-read)
Enjoyable re-read amidst the Jeremy Corbyn excitement. Always hard to work out whether Mullins meant it as a satire or a cri de coeur or something in between.
[Bloodchild, Octavia Butler - short story]
28. Unseen Things Above, Catherine Fox (kindle)
29. The Chalet School and Barbara, Elinor M Brent-Dyer (reissue paperback, Oxfam find, £2)
30. The Shepherd's Crown, Terry Pratchett (kindle)
As the afterword says, this book has a beginning, middle, and an end, and yet feels unfinished. Pratchett would certainly have gone through and filled in things and added bits had he had longer to write. Still, hugely enjoyable to read. I enjoyed [spoiler]'s death and how it was handled, but I thought the final battle scene was a bit too short and easily done. The men in sheds section also seemed a little tacked on and lacked the usual nuance (haha old men are henpecked their wives don't let them do anything boohoo give them a shed) of TP's glances at humanity.
31. The Real and the Unreal: Vol. I, Ursula Le Guin (Blackwells with book token from OUP)
Short story collection; almost all new to me.
32. The Real and the Unreal: Vol. II, Ursula Le Guin (Blackwells with book token from OUP)
Short story collection; almost all new to me. Lovely re-read of Solitude though. Lovely re-read of Solitude though. I definitely prefer her fantasy/sci-fic/spec fic type short stories.
33. The Help, Kathryn Stockett (Kindle, Amazon 99p sale)
Less obvious fail (to me as a white English reader anyway) than I was expecting. Gripping and great to read after the Harper Lee stuff too. Can't help wishing it had been by a black woman, tbh.
34. A Woman of the Iron People, Eleanor Arnason (kindle)
Excellent earnest feminist sci-fi. Anthropologist-flavoured sci fi where a team discovers a new planet and its inhabitants. Full of THOUGHTS on colonialism, etc. I was amazed to find it was written in 1991 - I assumed it was much earlier; it has that very earnest feminist 70s/80s feel.
35. Principal Role, Lorna Hill (paperback edition, charity find, 25p)
Batshit later installment of the Wells series, which has taken the (mistaken) view that the ballet bits are dull and has instead included lots of derring-do when a princess joins the Wells. Not half as good as Princess at the Chalet School but enjoyable tosh.
36. Alone of all her sex: the myth and cult of the Virgin Mary, Marina Warner (wedding list, hardback)
Totally fascinating, not least because of Marina Warner's own fairly conflicted views on the subject/Catholicism more generally. And a great mix of anecdotes and plates and breadth/depth of research. A bit of a tendency towards what I think is now (book was originally written in the 70s??) a naive attitude towards syncretism and a tiny bit of mother goddess woo. But fascinating. Bits made me incredibly sad we've largely lost a lot of these traditions, and then the next paragraph would make me all OH MY GOD HAVE THE REFORMATION ALREADY THIS IS DANGEROUSLY NUTS.
37. Fludd, Hilary Mantel
I preferred the bits that were waspish satire on religion/religious people to the bits that were about the ~angel~devil~nun storyline. I'm sure it was mind-bendingly deep. This was about the right length for a Mantel book for me; her prose is brilliant but a bit cold for more than 200 pages.
38. The heart goes last, Margaret Atwood
39. Rhetorics of Fantasy, Farah Mendlesohn (wedding list book, nf)
Thematic/schematic look at types of rhetoric observed in fantasy, which are then used to create certain 'types'. Non-prescriptive description of the main possibilities and v interesting. Bad side effect of suggesting lots more books to read.
40. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, John le Carre (kindle - though we have at least 2 paper copies too, re-read)
Subtler and better written than I remembered. Excellently autumnal re-reading.
41. Convent Girls, eds. Jackie Bennet & Rosemary Forgan (pb, 99p Oxfam find )
Series of short reminiscences by a variety of convent schoolgirls. Germaine Greer's predictably good (but batshit) and interesting comments from Marina Warner (mainly reiterations of stuff from Alone of All Her Sex). Good spread of other novelists/journalists, etc. Did not know Anne Robinson was a convent girl, except of course she was.
42. The Year of Our War, Steph Swainston (kindle)
I read this based on the section on it in Rhetorics of Fantasy and it didn't entirely live up to expectations. Quite unpolished, with occasionally clunky dialogue and characterisation, and the plot rushed a bit towards the end. Interesting world-building, so I might pick up the others in the series if I'm at a loose end.
43. Sisterland, Curtis Sittenfeld (kindle, October Beeston book club)
Fairly forgettable beach/bookclub fodder, but enjoyable.
44. Herland, Charlotte Perkins Gilmour (present from Jem because I had flu, Oxfam find)
Brilliant but hilarious (sometimes deliberately but I suspect usually not) feminist sci-fi/fantasy ish rant from 1915, about 3 men who find a land of parthogenetic women. Turns (surprise!) Freudian at the end.
45. The Anchoress, Robyn Cadwalladr (birthday present from Fliss, hb)
This was excellent. Definitely one for the re-read pile.
46. Witches, Druids and King Arthur, Ronald Hutton (birthday present from Jem)
Collection of essays, of varying interest. The survey of ritual nudity in modern Wicca was very good, as was his discussion of the 'paganism' of Tolkien and Lewis, and the essay that he culled from Triumph of the Moon. The Druidry chapter felt a little short (but I have a whole book on that to read soon).
47. A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, Ursula le Guin (pb, re-read)
48. London war notes, Mollie Panter-Downes (Persephone bookclub, birthday present from Jem, pb)
A collection of stories written during WWII for the New Yorker. Less bleak than I'd expected, but obviously not exactly cheerful - she is very g
49. We are all completely beside ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler (kindle, work bookclub)
Much better than expected, and a happier ending.
50. Crown of Lights (Merrily Watkins), Phil Rickman (kindle)
Halloween read. Unnecessary and unpleasant evil-vicar-exorcism-rape scene, but good stuff with Robin and Betty Thorogood and limited Merrily-has-sexual-assault-invasion-of-the-EVOL scenes. Jane escapes with only one near-death experience, and there is some great Irene stuff too. Also brilliantly heroic Sophie-from-the-cathedral who is the best thing.
51. I Capture the Castle, Dodi Smith (paperback)
Much-loved re-read.
52. After the fall, Charity Norman (Kindle, Beeston November bookclub)
Reasonably enjoyable tosh, with the most contrived happy ending.
53. A short history of fantasy, Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James.
Fascinating
54. The Dark Lord of Derkholm, Dianne Wynne-Jones (kindle)
My first Dianne Wynne-Jones. Amazing. Why did no one sit me down and force 11-year-old me to read it?
55. Blessing, Andrew Davison (paperback)
Another in the 'Faith Going Deeper' series. Very good - definitely worth re-reads in the future.
56. The Prayer of the Night Shepherd, Phil Rickman (kindle)
57. The Year of the Griffin, Dianne Wynne-Jones (kindle)
58. Round About a Pound A Week, Maud Pember Reeves (Persephone bookclub, birthday present from Jem, pb)
Depressing but great book - very like Polly Toynbee's more recent survey/experiment, written by an early Fabian.
59. The Edge of the World: How the North Sea Made Us Who We Are, Michael Pye (wedding list, hardback)
Some of this was a bit generic mediaeval life-ish, but generally interesting. I would have preferred more about the actual sea, sailing, trade routes, etc. Quite broad-brush and accepts/repeats uncritically things that I have read more nuanced accounts of elsewhere (e.g. Rus burial ceremony as related by Ibn Fadlan)
60. Potterism, Rose Macaulay (Project Gutenberg/kindle)
Somewhat slight novel, but very enjoyable and acerbic. Worth a re-read.
61. The Trouble with Lichen, John Wyndham (paperback find 50p)
Excellent, and more 'feminist' than I expected.
62. Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie (kindle)
Excellent thinky sci-fi. I must now and read all the reviews/meta.
63. A London Child of the 1870s, Molly Hughes (Persephone bookclub, birthday present from Jem, pb)
Excellent fun, particularly the trip to Cornwall and the religious aspects.
64. Five Wounds, Katherine Edgar (kindle)
Written by a friend-of-a-friend. Held my interest throughout, but quite YA and first-novelly.
65. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Alan Garner (kindle, re-read)
66. The Prayer of the Night Shepherd, Phil Rickman (kindle)
More Merrily Watkins comfort-reading.
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