“Pleasure and action make the hours seem short”

Othello, Act 2, Scene 3

William Shakespeare

You can find part one of my 100 book challenge questions here. Hope this gives you a couple of good recommendations for 2014, especially if you’re taking up your own challenge!

9. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2013?

‘Before I Go To Sleep’ (S.J. Watson) easily wins this prize aka the I-Went-To-Sleep-So-Late-It’s-Actually-Ridiculous-And-Was-Grumpy-All-The-Next-Morning-Because-I-HAD-To-Find-Out-The-Ending-Of-This-Book Prize. Needs some editing I admit.

The thriller tells the story of a woman who wakes up every day with her memory reset to a point in her life around twenty years ago, with no recollection of her age, her life now, how she got here, who and what she knows and what she has done. Her husband has to fill her in on all the details. But how do you know the man you rely on entirely is the man he says he is? It’s a completely gripping read, recommended for virtually anyone. Just don’t start if you’re planning to get anything at all done.

 

10. Book you read in 2013 that you are most likely to re-read next year?

‘Vile Bodies’ (Waugh) or one of the trashier books which I find much easier to re-read. I mean, I hope to re-read most of these at some point, but I’ll let them work upon my mind for a couple of years first. (For my thoughts on re-reading see here).

 

11. Top three covers of books you read in 2013?

I completely love the Vintage Classics editions of books, exemplified in the cover of ‘Brighton Rock’(Graham Greene):

 Virago Modern Classics are also gorgeous:

 And I really like the 60^th anniversary edition of ‘Fahrenheit 451’:

 

12. Three most memorable characters in 2013?

I don’t think I can limit myself to three here actually!

·       Thursday Next, the eponymous heroine of Jasper Fforde’s books, is fun and completely believable, even if she does have a dodo for a pet and a time-traveler for a father.

·       I think I’ll always be a bit in love with Robert Frobisher from ‘Cloud Atlas’ (David Mitchell), especially since he’s played by one of my favouritest actors ever, Ben Whishaw, in the movie (which I still haven’t seen!) Why won’t he write me a symphony or something?

·       Flora Poste from ‘Cold Comfort Farm’ (Stella Gibbons) and Muriel Sparks’ Nancy Hawkins (‘A Far Cry From Kensington’) fall under the same bracket here, because I like them both for their incredible practicality and the incredible small amount of fuss they make over their own lives. They both simply sort other people’s lives out, and don’t make a huge song and dance over their love affairs (ahem, Jane Eyre, Catherine Earnshaw, I’m looking at you here). True heroine role models.

·       Lady Sophia Garfield (‘Pigeon Pie’ Nancy Mitford) is just divine, darling. In a strange way, she actually reminds me of Flora and Nancy above; even though she has little interest in other people and is pretty self-centered, she too doesn’t moan about her own life all the time. She just gets on and sorts it out, or at least has fun doing other things until they sort themselves out. No sweat, no stupid fuss, and everything’s fine in the end.

13. Most beautifully written book read in 2013?

I’ve already mentioned the incredible writing in ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ (John Steinbeck) and ‘The Marlowe Papers’ (Ros Barber) in Part One of my questions. However, in ‘Out of the Dust’, Karen Hesse combines two great elements of these novels together and weaves her own shimmering web of language. The heat and tragedy of the dust bowl in ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ and the poetry of ‘The Marlowe Papers’ – ‘Out of the Dust’ is written entirely in free verse – make for a brilliant pairing in an extremely evocative and beautifully written book.

14. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2013?

‘Brave New World’ (Aldous Huxley) still has me pondering the answer to the question: Happiness or Knowledge? To be honest, I tend to just choose whichever the person I’m arguing against rejects. How can one decide between eternal ignorant contentedness and tortured awareness and understanding of Shakespeare, Beethoven, Van Gogh, Fontain, Plath and all the greats? It’s a terrifying decision either way.

 

 15. Favorite passage/quote from a book you read in 2013?

Arnold Bennet provided some very witty observations in ‘The Old Wives’ Tale’:

“On a recent visit Mr Baines had remarked that the parson’s coat was ageing into green, and had commanded that a new suit should be built and presented to Mr Murley. Mr Murley, who had a genuine medieval passion for souls, and who spent his money and health freely in gratifying the passion, had accepted the offer strictly on behalf of Christ, and had carefully explained to Mr Povey Christ’s use for multifarious pockets.”

Linking nicely to this is a great quote from ‘Decline and Fall’ by Evelyn Waugh:

“‘I couldn’t understand why God had made the world at all…’ I asked my bishop; he didn’t know. He said that he didn’t think the point arose as far as my practical duties as a parish priest were concerned.”

And then, from one of my favourite books of the year ‘Neither Here Nor There’ (Bill Bryson):

“I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.”

16. Shortest & longest book you read in 2013?

‘The Testament of Mary’ (Colm Toibin) came in as shortest at around 101 pages. Hopefully it’ll stretch out longer in the play I’m going to see of it at the Barbican later this year, starring Fiona Shaw.

‘Our Mutual Friend’ (Charles Dickens) clocked in at 822 pages – the longest by far!

 

Part three coming up very soon! Plus a review of the Michael Grandage Company’s excellent ‘Henry V’, starring Jude Law… If that doesn’t tempt you back, you have very weird tastes.

 

“A lovely thing…

“A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.”

Garrison Keillor, Leaving Home

“Of Nature’s gifts thou mayst with lilies boast, And with the half-blown rose”

King John, Act 3, Scene 1
William Shakespeare

More of my New York escapades… So on Monday (Columbus Day so off work!) I went to Central Park in the gorgeous sunshine and basically couldn’t believe my luck. It’s just so incredibly beautiful.

But obviously, being an English nerd, my number one port of call was the Shakespeare Garden:
Apart from being lovely in terms of flowers, I really got excited about finding the Shakespeare quotations hidden among them. Sad? Cool? Call, it what you will, but I have all these photos and no one to show them to so… you get to be my audience! Yay for you…

AND if that weren’t enough, I also have a picture of the Bard himself (well, the statue). Be warned, my photography, as you can see, is not the best. I blame the camera.

“Outside of a d…

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

Groucho Marx

 

“I divide all readers…

“I divide all readers into two classes; those who read to remember and those who read to forget.”

William Lyon Phelps

I most definitely fall into the second category of readers here, and, to be honest, originally couldn’t conceive of anyone just reading ‘to remember’, but having spoken to some of my friends about this, apparently people really do purely read to increase their factual knowledge! Who knew?

Still, the categories can’t be quite so clear-cut as all that, surely?

“What fine chisel could ever yet cut breath?”

The Winter’s Tale, Act 5, Scene 3
William Shakespeare

Some of my favourite quotes about books and reading made into artwork 🙂

“O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book”

As You Like It, Act 5, Scene 4

William Shakespeare

I’m sure all of us have been inspired at some point by a particularly impressive or evocative quotation that seems to put its finger on exactly what we feel. Yet having seen a new piece of art incorporating all sorts of quotes at the Affordable Art Fair in Hampstead, I got to thinking about those that I simply don’t agree with.

For example, P.J. O’Rourke once advised:

“Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” 

P.J. O’Rourke

The idea of reading something simply to make yourself look good is naturally not incomprehensible to me, since writing a personal statement and interviewing for university places is all about making yourself look well-read. But whilst I’ve tried to read quite a few of the so-called  ‘canonical works’, the well-respected authors, like Dickens, Austen, Bronte, Trollope, Hardy, etc., I’ve also read my fair share of chick-lit. If I died in the middle of reading ‘Christmas at Tiffany’s’ (Karen Swan), I certainly wouldn’t be ashamed; at least I died reading something that makes me happy. Yeah, you can totally guess who the heroine ends up with from the first chapter; yeah, it’s inconceivable how many over-dramatic things happen to her in just one year; yeah, it doesn’t really have a deep and meaningful message and the writing isn’t the best I’ve ever read, but who cares? I’d rather die in the middle of that than perish by over-straining my brain trying to read George Eliot.

Haruki Murakami reportedly said:

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

Haruki Murakami

Just… no. Absolutely not true. The heated debates in book forums, the varied reviews in newspapers and blogs and simply talking to your friends should be enough to show how wrong this is. Everyone has a different interpretation of a book; as Edmund Wilson said: “No two persons ever read the same book”. And just to back my argument up further (and to show off my literary nerdness), look at Roland Barthes’ theory of ‘The Death of the Author’, which maintains that the authors’ intentions when writing a book don’t matter; English isn’t about reaching a certain point where we can all agree on what the author meant, it’s about examining all the different interpretations there can possibly be and then choosing which one you personally believe to be true. Naturally, you have to back your theories up with something, like in Science, but the same piece of evidence can be used to prove about a gazillion different interpretations. So a whole book group might read ‘Madame Bovary’ (Gustave Flaubert – I’ve just finished it!), and one could view the eponymous heroine as a passionate woman restricted by society, one might completely disapprove of her adulterous actions and condemn her; one possibly will see the moral of the story as you should be satisfied with what you have, another that we must strive for true love above all else… The possibilities are endless, even though they have all read the same book.

 

And finally…*whispers* J.K.Rowling.

J.K.Rowling: Not always right

Now, Potterfans, let it be understood I am in no way disrespecting your queen. I just find it hard to totally agree with her idea that:

“Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.”

Now, obviously this is, to an extent, the truth.  I don’t believe any book can so dramatically make someone wiser, even if it’s the best and most intelligent novel around. However, I do think that books do have an impact on intelligence. I’m not saying people who don’t read are stupid, and I’m not saying a person who reads ridiculous amounts is necessarily any the wiser.

Saying this, I feel personally that reading has definitely helped me become cleverer, if not wiser. Books have given me characters to aspire to be like, characters that can’t let me down, because they’re always there, and they’re always perfect. Books have shown me the error of so many heroes’ ways and let me learn from their mistakes without having to make them myself (although some of them I probably will). Books have proven that every character has a flaw; that some change and some don’t; that we are all completely different, and yet at the same time very similar; that failure doesn’t necessarily mean the end; that success is only the beginning.

I would hope at least some of the time I’ve spent reading has made me a better person. I may not be a genius, but I’m confident that I’m not a complete fool either.