Tips, links and suggestions: what are you reading this week?
Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them
Welcome to this week’s blog. Here’s a roundup of your comments and photos from last week, including novels that will take you to spring without you even noticing, books about bookish people, and joyous rereads.
We’ve been seeing a lot of Marilynne Robinson love lately – MsCarey said:
Marilynne Robinson’s Lila is astonishingly good, an extraordinary fusion of content and style which makes one bleat with pleasure. The intensity of feeling coming off the page was such that I sometimes had to close the book and walk away from it. The only reservation I had was nothing to do with Robinson and everything to do with the residual uneasiness I feel when the educated and articulate (in this case the author) attempt to speak for those who cannot. But even this prejudice of mine fell away in the face of the power of Robinson’s creation. Lila is no representative of an entire section of society. She is just herself, a remarkable woman. I can’t not read Gilead now but, due to my constitutional inability to read a series of books at one go, it won’t be for some time.
As usual, Gissing did not disappoint. The narrator is a book person. For example:
It is a joy to go through booksellers’ catalogues, ticking here and there a possible purchase. Formerly, when I could seldom spare money, I kept catalogues as much as possible out of sight; now I savour them page by page, and make a pleasant virtue of the discretion I must needs impose upon myself. But greater still is the happiness of unpacking volumes which one has bought without seeing them. I am no hunter of rarities; I care nothing for first editions and for tall copies; what I buy is literature, food for the soul of man. The first glimpse of bindings when the inmost protective wrapper has been folded back! The first scent of books! The first gleam of a gilded title! Here is a work the name of which has been known to me for half a lifetime, but which I never saw; I take it reverently in my hand, gently I open it; my eyes are dim with excitement as I glance over chapter-headings, and anticipate the treat which awaits me.
Thank you Mr. Gissing.
This is the perfect time of year to read le Carré. There’s something cosy about his books, perhaps the meticulous natures of the spies he writes about. Either way, ten pages in and I’m looking forward to the next 600 taking me through till Spring.
She first came to my attention when Darkmans nearly won the Booker prize in 2007. Since then, I have read three more of her books: she’s always funny, always has something a bit odd or mysterious going on and is very focussed on narrative. For example, Burley Cross Postbox Theft involves the theft of a mailbag: she does her best to create a distinctive voice for each and every stolen letter.
I recently finished her most recent book, In the Approaches. The title has at least two meanings: it is set on the coast near Hastings, and the locals refer to it as being in the approaches. Then there is a distinction between those who live life as if they are centre stage – with full, fulfilling lives – and the others who linger in the shadows (or in the approaches – “kitchen scraps” as one character says). It is possible that the two main characters might end up out of the shadows, by realising that they are in love with each other and acting on it, but this is not the sort of book to tell us so. [...]
I’m pretty sure Nicola Barker had a lot of fun creating this book: it was certainly very funny to read. It took a while to work out exactly what was going on, but that makes sense: a first person narrator is not going to sit down and set out a precise, chronological account. Instead, bits and pieces of the history will come to mind at different times.
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