Debbie Robson's Blog - Posts Tagged "reviews"
The Book Has Arrived!
Of course I knew it was 600 pages but when you actually see it and hold it and feel the weight, well that's something else. I can't wait for bookcrossers, particuarly the ones featured, to see the book.
The journal entries look amazing and I hope my readers like the way 52 books are reviewed and journalled in the pages of Crossing Paths.
I'm like a kid at Christmas. I can't stop looking at the book!
a very excited
Debbie Robson
The journal entries look amazing and I hope my readers like the way 52 books are reviewed and journalled in the pages of Crossing Paths.
I'm like a kid at Christmas. I can't stop looking at the book!
a very excited
Debbie Robson
The books in the book
Crossing Paths has eight main characters who, obviously, cross paths with each other but there are also 52 books that are journalled and do a lot of travelling too. For those who are interested, here are the 52 books. I have put a star against the three starring books that really clock up some miles.
In order of appearance:
Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain Fournier
How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton
One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty
If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino *
A Closer Look at Ariel by Nancy Hunter Steiner
The Loving Spirit by Daphne du Maurier *
The Door in the Wall & Other Stories by H. G. Wells
Belonging by Isobel Huggan
Tell Me the Truth About Love by W.H. Auden *
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee
Socrates Café by Christopher Phillips
1979: A Big Year in a Small Town by Rhona Cameron
Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery
Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe
Dreams of Elsewhere by June Skinner Sawyers
The Truth About My Fathers by Gaby Naher
A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor
I’ll Never Be Young Again by Daphne du Maurier
Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time edited by Leslie Pockell
The Forgetting Room by Nick Bantock
The Long Sigh the Wind Makes by William Stafford
E.E. Cummings Complete Poems 1913-1935
Essays on Love by Alain de Botton
Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Walk to the Paradise Gardens by Charmian Clift
Sunlight on Cold Water by Francoise Sagan
Lost Profile by Francoise Sagan
A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr
There Are No Accidents by Robert Hopcke
The Day We Cut the Lavender by Jill Neville
The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster
The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier
Being Enough by Leigh Sanders
A Book of Answers by A.D. Hope
To the Islands by Randolph Stow
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
First You Have to Row a Little Boat by Richard Bode
My Michelene by Patrick Drevet
The Light in the Piazza by Elizabeth Spencer
Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster
The Missing Reel by Christopher Rawlence
Jigsaw by Sybil Bedford
With Fondest Regards by Francoise Sagan
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
Disappearances by William Wiser
The World My Wilderness by Rose Macaulay
If With a Beating Heart by Jean Bedford
A New Path to the Waterfall by Raymond Carver
A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
The Letters and Journals of Katherine Mansfield edited by C.K. Stead
In order of appearance:
Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain Fournier
How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton
One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty
If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino *
A Closer Look at Ariel by Nancy Hunter Steiner
The Loving Spirit by Daphne du Maurier *
The Door in the Wall & Other Stories by H. G. Wells
Belonging by Isobel Huggan
Tell Me the Truth About Love by W.H. Auden *
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee
Socrates Café by Christopher Phillips
1979: A Big Year in a Small Town by Rhona Cameron
Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery
Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe
Dreams of Elsewhere by June Skinner Sawyers
The Truth About My Fathers by Gaby Naher
A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor
I’ll Never Be Young Again by Daphne du Maurier
Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time edited by Leslie Pockell
The Forgetting Room by Nick Bantock
The Long Sigh the Wind Makes by William Stafford
E.E. Cummings Complete Poems 1913-1935
Essays on Love by Alain de Botton
Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Walk to the Paradise Gardens by Charmian Clift
Sunlight on Cold Water by Francoise Sagan
Lost Profile by Francoise Sagan
A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr
There Are No Accidents by Robert Hopcke
The Day We Cut the Lavender by Jill Neville
The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster
The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier
Being Enough by Leigh Sanders
A Book of Answers by A.D. Hope
To the Islands by Randolph Stow
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
First You Have to Row a Little Boat by Richard Bode
My Michelene by Patrick Drevet
The Light in the Piazza by Elizabeth Spencer
Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster
The Missing Reel by Christopher Rawlence
Jigsaw by Sybil Bedford
With Fondest Regards by Francoise Sagan
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
Disappearances by William Wiser
The World My Wilderness by Rose Macaulay
If With a Beating Heart by Jean Bedford
A New Path to the Waterfall by Raymond Carver
A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
The Letters and Journals of Katherine Mansfield edited by C.K. Stead
2012: My reading year or fiction vs. poetry vs. non-fiction vs. memoir
The last week of the year or in my case, the last day of the year is often a time of looking back and saying what was the best book, the best photograph, the best film etc . My favourite photograph of 2012? Easy peasy. A quick scroll down my camera roll on my iphone and there we go – the image above, Warners Bay, Lake Macquarie at dusk. Last year's was trees again - my current gravatar. My son took my favourite photo of my grandchild. My favourite film was the French film The Intouchables. My favourite book – well that’s an entirely different matter and one that I can’t make a quick response to.
Firstly though I thought I’d start by doing an update on my blog from October. It’s the one with a picture of 14 books on it. The blog was entitled “What I’m Currently Reading”. I have since dispensed with most of the books, some summarily in the manner of a reader in a top publishing house with an enormous submissions pile -Singleton’s Mill being one of those. The White Peacock by D.H. Lawrence didn't suit my purposes but from Sons and Lovers I was able to glean a line or two of discussion for one of my character’s - Clary, a young doctor and also enough details for my main character Phyllis to decide not to read it:
“Today Clary came to the main lounge where I was having afternoon tea armed with two books. He offered me Sons & Lovers. I opened the first page & came to the opening lines about Hell Row, colliers & gin pits, whatever they were. The book was dreary & long-winded by the looks of it.”
She choses the Buchan instead. I’m with her on that as I also decided not to read the Lawrence. But here's my review of The Thirty Nine Steps . Around the same time I officially abandoned Fifty Shades of Grey.
For insight into nurses' lives during WWI and general conditions of Australian servicewomen caught in the frontlines, I would highly recommend Nightingales in the Mud by Marianne Barker. Although I only read the section on the Aussie girls in Serbia it seemed to me excellently researched and well written.
The River Baptists I thoroughly enjoyed and now have another Belinda Castles on my shelf to read . I also enjoyed Early One Morning, Robert Ryan's very painstakingly researched book on two famous operatives of WWII. I really admired Jan Bennett’s book The Facing Island when I finally let myself settle between the pages and get used to the fact that I was reading the words of a dying woman. However, I decided not to read the very much alive Ivana Lowell’s Why Not Say What Happened? memoir. Why? Now that's a good question!
It seems I really don’t enjoy memoirs unless they are by a woman who has served in Serbia during WWI or an elderly man from 200 years ago (Jean-Jacques Rousseau) and then they do get read! Why Not Say What Happened wasn’t set in Serbia so was dispensed as quickly as Singleton’s Mill – just not interested, although I thought I might be when I borrowed it. Reveries of the Solitary Walker on the other hand was a gem!
Moving through the pile, the Florence Scovel Shinn and the Dessaix essays are still on my bookshelf to read but during the last two blogs some other books have snuck in and demanded my attention and I’m very pleased they did; a book of poetry in particular beating a few of the fiction titles to the post. Peter Bakowski's Beneath Our Armour is a wonderful example of simple, clear and precise poetry where every single word counts and after reading the collection I decided I definitely need to read more poetry to feed my fiction writing, if that makes sense.
The other four books that skipped the queue are:
Pandora's Bottle by Joanne Sydney Lessner which I read on my iphone.
The Music of Chance by Paul Auster, a 1001 book that had to be read quickly for a BookCrossing virtual book bag.
The Ancient Shore: Dispatches from Naples by Shirley Hazzard - an excellent book bought from Maclean's bookshop at Hamilton.
And an Erotica anthology by Skive Magazine, lighthearted and a lot of fun unlike that other book!
So it seems I need to read more poetry, memoirs of Serbia beat other memoirs simply by subject matter. The non-fiction I choose to read depends pretty much entirely on the setting and time frame of my WIP and lastly fiction wins hands down! No suprises there, really. And my favourite book and most respected read of 2012?
Nikki Gemmell's With My Body. Beautiful writing on a powerful theme! Highly recommended.
Firstly though I thought I’d start by doing an update on my blog from October. It’s the one with a picture of 14 books on it. The blog was entitled “What I’m Currently Reading”. I have since dispensed with most of the books, some summarily in the manner of a reader in a top publishing house with an enormous submissions pile -Singleton’s Mill being one of those. The White Peacock by D.H. Lawrence didn't suit my purposes but from Sons and Lovers I was able to glean a line or two of discussion for one of my character’s - Clary, a young doctor and also enough details for my main character Phyllis to decide not to read it:
“Today Clary came to the main lounge where I was having afternoon tea armed with two books. He offered me Sons & Lovers. I opened the first page & came to the opening lines about Hell Row, colliers & gin pits, whatever they were. The book was dreary & long-winded by the looks of it.”
She choses the Buchan instead. I’m with her on that as I also decided not to read the Lawrence. But here's my review of The Thirty Nine Steps . Around the same time I officially abandoned Fifty Shades of Grey.
For insight into nurses' lives during WWI and general conditions of Australian servicewomen caught in the frontlines, I would highly recommend Nightingales in the Mud by Marianne Barker. Although I only read the section on the Aussie girls in Serbia it seemed to me excellently researched and well written.
The River Baptists I thoroughly enjoyed and now have another Belinda Castles on my shelf to read . I also enjoyed Early One Morning, Robert Ryan's very painstakingly researched book on two famous operatives of WWII. I really admired Jan Bennett’s book The Facing Island when I finally let myself settle between the pages and get used to the fact that I was reading the words of a dying woman. However, I decided not to read the very much alive Ivana Lowell’s Why Not Say What Happened? memoir. Why? Now that's a good question!
It seems I really don’t enjoy memoirs unless they are by a woman who has served in Serbia during WWI or an elderly man from 200 years ago (Jean-Jacques Rousseau) and then they do get read! Why Not Say What Happened wasn’t set in Serbia so was dispensed as quickly as Singleton’s Mill – just not interested, although I thought I might be when I borrowed it. Reveries of the Solitary Walker on the other hand was a gem!
Moving through the pile, the Florence Scovel Shinn and the Dessaix essays are still on my bookshelf to read but during the last two blogs some other books have snuck in and demanded my attention and I’m very pleased they did; a book of poetry in particular beating a few of the fiction titles to the post. Peter Bakowski's Beneath Our Armour is a wonderful example of simple, clear and precise poetry where every single word counts and after reading the collection I decided I definitely need to read more poetry to feed my fiction writing, if that makes sense.
The other four books that skipped the queue are:
Pandora's Bottle by Joanne Sydney Lessner which I read on my iphone.
The Music of Chance by Paul Auster, a 1001 book that had to be read quickly for a BookCrossing virtual book bag.
The Ancient Shore: Dispatches from Naples by Shirley Hazzard - an excellent book bought from Maclean's bookshop at Hamilton.
And an Erotica anthology by Skive Magazine, lighthearted and a lot of fun unlike that other book!
So it seems I need to read more poetry, memoirs of Serbia beat other memoirs simply by subject matter. The non-fiction I choose to read depends pretty much entirely on the setting and time frame of my WIP and lastly fiction wins hands down! No suprises there, really. And my favourite book and most respected read of 2012?
Nikki Gemmell's With My Body. Beautiful writing on a powerful theme! Highly recommended.
