DOOMED

So.

It was a little over a year ago that I decided to find a purpose for this blog. With that in mind, I started The Reading the Library Challenge, with the stated aim to read one book per letter of the alphabet from our general shelves in the library.

2020 did not cooperate, y'all.

Instead of 26 books, I managed the grand total of 8. Which, y'know, isn't too bad when you consider there's a pandemic and the world is generally on fire. (Also I was reading other things as well.)

This is still a project that I'd like to pursue, because many of the issues I raised (I don't read widely enough, I am comfortable in my comfort zone, there are whole swathes of authors I've never read) are still relevant. With that in mind:

Let us continue reading the library.

I believe we got up to the I-shelves, so I immediately went to this book, which has caught my eye several times while I've been shelving:

The copy we own also has the following disclaimer on the cover: "WARNING: This book may restore your faith in human nature", which honestly nearly put me off the whole business. I'm quite glad I read it anyway, because it's really very good. And worryingly topical.

PLOT SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

An investment banker, who specialises in short trading (which, conveniently, we all learned about recently due to the Gamestop saga), accidentally predicts the end of the world by a deadly flu pandemic, and flees to a tiny Cornish village. He swims off into the sea but is rescued from drowning by a whale. The village take him (and the whale) into their hearts.

So, yeah, weirdly topical. There's also a passing reference to buying shares in AstraZeneca.

It's interesting to read this sort of book while living through a genuine pandemic, to see where the author's predictions go awry (for example, in the book, the UK Government shut the borders as soon as the first cases of the deadly virus appear) (*satirical laugh*).

It's also difficult to categorise, because it's a fairly realistic, straight-forward story, but with an added element of Mystery Whale Syndrome. It is, however, nice to read peri-apocalypic fiction which isn't constant doom and gloom and people being horrid to each other. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say it restored my faith in human nature, but it was a nice, fun story, which stayed just on the correct side of pretentiousness.

Now, off I go into the J-shelves, in search of more treasure. Wish me luck.

Reading the Library returns!

It feels like a heck of a long time ago that I started this reading challenge. It’s weird how everything now is divided into “before lockdown” and “after lockdown”. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s been struggling to focus on reading (or writing, or anything) while the world is a flaming garbage fire.

But the good news is, I’m back in work now, which means I once again have access to our book collection and can restart my Reading the Library challenge. Now I just need to rediscover my ability to read for fun… (no joke, I’ve found it incredibly difficult to relax and enjoy any book during these last few months, which is upsetting on a lot of levels.)

Before the break, we’d got up to the letter E. So, in a bit of a hurry, I went and grabbed the first book in the F section that snatched my fancy:

THE BEST AWFUL by Carrie Fisher

As it turns out, it’s a sequel to POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE, which I also haven’t read. And of course I didn’t realise it was a sequel before I started reading, because that would’ve involved me doing a modicum of research. Having said that, it didn’t really impact on my enjoyment, or lack of. Oooh, that sounded bitchy. I mean, it wasn’t terrible. I just didn’t enjoy this as much as I was expecting to – it’s pretty funny, with lots of dry humour, and fairly unflinching in it’s subject matter. If someone told me this book changed their life, I would completely understand. Sadly it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Next up, it’s the turn of the Gs, and we’ve got this:

THE ARCANUM by Janet Gleeson

Okay, full disclosure: this was filed in the fiction section and, at first glance, it could be fiction. I was expecting some kind of historical court drama. Turns out it’s mis-shelved non-fiction, and details the history of European porcelain. I only realised this halfway through the first chapter. Yes, I’m unobservant.

Anyway, rather than picking a different book, I’m sticking with this one, because it’s a lot of fun. Apparently, the quest to turn clay into porcelain ran concurrent with the doomed attempts to turn lead into gold, and involved just as much deceit and chicanery. The whole book is full of people lying to monarchs, fleeing cities in the dead of night, selling their secrets to the highest bidder, being poisoned by terrible working conditions, and/or refusing to share their research even on their deathbeds.

I’ve probably mentioned that my favourite type of non-fiction is Obscure-Specific-Topic-Written-About-By-Someone-Who-Loves-The-Subject, with bonus points if it’s a topic I’ve never had even a passing interest in before. THE ARCANUM certainly ticks those boxes. I’ve been regaling my family with pithy anecdotes about 17th Century Poland all week (they’re notably less impressed than me, natch).

As soon as I’ve finished THE ARCANUM, it’s on to the H shelves, and I’ve already picked this:

THE TASTE OF APPLESEEDS by Katharine Hagena

(Apologies for the lack of choice in these matters, btw, but I kinda rushed in and grabbed whatever I could take, since I didn’t know how long it’d be till I’m back at work full time. Also, it must be noted, the library shelves are particularly bare right now, because just before lockdown we issued as many books as we could to our borrowers to tide them over. So, currently, more than 3,000 of our books are on loan, which equates to about 8% of our total stock, hence there’s far more space on the shelves than I’ve ever seen before. Plus we’ve been using the lockdown to weed out books that haven’t been borrowed in ages and remove them from stock. A librarian’s work is never done, and all that.)

Writing With Rakie: Episode 3

On the Subject of Hats

How to Keep Writing During An Apocalypse

So we are still in the Upside Down. Hope everyone is doing okay, staying indoors, and staying safe. Also hope y'all have enough books to last you through this weird, weird time.

My 2020 reading challenge has well and truly stalled, because reading has become yet another casualty of this quarantine. My attention span is terrible, I can't seem to focus on anything for any length, and, on top of that all, I'm frozen with the panic that I should be making the most of this unique opportunity but instead I'm wasting all this time. I suspect I'm not alone in this.

One of the other things that's on hiatus is our writing group. I was supposed to be running a couple of workshops for them, so I've opted to video record them to post on facebook. This is the second I've done, on How to Keep Writing During An Apocalypse:

[enforced pause]

Well. In terms of things I expected to derail this reading project, a worldwide pandemic was not one of them. It's never the apocalypse you expect, is it?

So, looking back to the beginning of March, approximately five hundred years ago, I was looking for something from the E-Shelves in our library. I started reading a couple of possible choices, but abandoned them after a few pages. I know, I shouldn't be judgmental, but I have almost zero-tolerance for cringe comedy, and if in the first few pages of a book there's a woman fumbling her important job interview in a way that'd make Daisy Steiner blush, then I'm out, sorrynotsorry.

Instead I picked up this:

It's a collection of short stories by Jenny Eclair, who by coincidence was on Celebrity Bake Off Stand-Up to Cancer the night before I had to choose a book. I don't normally read short stories because I have a short attention span (if I commit to a story, I need it to last for more than a dozen pages; do you have any idea how difficult it is to learn a whole new set of characters and plot ten times in a single book?) (for me anyway, I understand that this is my problem not a failing of the genre).

But I gave this a go, and it was very pleasant. Some of the stories had an unexpected mean streak in them. Others were the nice sort of distracting that you find in Women's Weekly. Overall, Jenny Eclair has a real gift for observing character and drawing you into an imaginary life in the space of a few short pages, and I enjoyed reading this. It's definitely the pick of the bunch from my random library shelves so far this year.

Speaking of which... the library is now closed, officially, so I'm at a bit of a loose end in terms of this project. I can't even get into the building to raid the shelves. Obviously, as soon as I can, I'll get back into things, but for now...

I think the best thing for me to do is tackle the (rather daunting) stack that is my to-read pile. This week I will weed out all my to-read books, put them in a big, alphabetical heap, and decide where to start with them.

Until then, everyone stay safe, take care of yourself and others, and go read. Because now more than ever, reading is fundamental.

noble assassins and ignoble witches

Honestly, you wait ages for a book about 17th Century court intrigue, then two show up at once.

(Having spent quite a lot of February without a car, I’ve decided the old saying about buses needs updating – in my experience they either show up when they’re supposed to, or not at all.)

This month I’ve got back into audiobooks, for a number of reasons. Firstly, I forgot to cancel my subscription to audible (I reactivate it about once a year, whenever an author I love releases an audible-exclusive book) (yes, Peter Clines, I’m looking at you) so I’ve got some free credits to use up this month. Secondly, I’ve been walking/bussing a lot more than usual due to the aforementioned lack of car, so it’s been helpful to use that time constructively. Thirdly, I hate my brain. All that time spent walking gives me far too much time to think, which doesn’t sound a bad thing unless your brain is prone to unhelpful spiralling and/or rehearsing arguments you intend to use online someday. Audiobooks are a proper godsend sometimes.

So, as well as browsing my way through the fiction section of our stacks at the library, I’ve also been perusing the audiobook selection. I’ve found I much prefer non-fiction to fiction, because it doesn’t matter so much if my concentration wanders. Specifically, I love love love gentle informative non-fiction where someone with a reassuring voice tells me about their deep affection for a particular subject. Two of my recent favourites have been SPIRALS IN TIME and THE SOUL OF AN OCTOPUS, and someone recommended BRAIDING SWEETGRASS to me, which is so definitely my thing that I’m saving chapters as a special treat for myself each day.

I also picked up an audio copy of WITCHES: A TALE OF SORCERY, SCANDAL AND SEDUCTION by Tracy Borman, because why wouldn’t I. It’s a pretty good non-fiction introduction to the witch hunts of the late 1500s / early 1600s, with a focus on one particular case involving the children of the Earl of Rutland. Since I don’t know anything at all about this period of history, I can’t vouch for how accurate all the information is, but it was entertaining enough. Although the narrator did keep putting on accents every time she quoted someone.

At the same time, I’ve been reading THE NOBLE ASSASSIN by Amanda Dickason, which is about courtly intrigue in the early 1600s and, by a fun coincidence, features some of the same characters as WITCHES. The only surviving child of the Earl of Rutland, Katherine Manners, married the Duke of Buckingham, who was the favourite of the king and crops up a fair bit in both books. It was nice to reference back and forth between the two books and learn more about the characters from each.

THE NOBLE ASSASSIN is probably the most enjoyable randomly-selected book I’ve read so far this year, although the plot meandered a little bit and the most interesting bit (a “fake” scheme to murder the prince) felt almost like a side note, slotted in when the main character got tired of mooning over poets.

Onwards, therefore, into the E-Shelves:

The letter E is much more restrained. Not 20+ shelves for them, oh no. Instead, a nice, manageable five shelves to choose from, which means for the first time this month I don’t feel overwhelmed.

After a small amount of consideration, I’ve picked shelf number 4, mostly because it contains a copy of THE BLOOD PRICE by Jon Evans, who once wrote a screenplay version of my book TERROR ISLAND and therefore holds a fond place in my heart:

But this shelf also contains almost too much choice. Now I’m not limited to just two or three authors, I’m dithering. I reckon it’s a choice between Harriet Evans (gentle romance), Pam Evans (historical romance, with dancing), or Lissa Evans (funny romance, I think? Possibly involving cats and snails?):

I’m also going to throw a wildcard into the mix: THE HORSE WHISPERER, on the basis I should probably read it at some point in my life:

While the Lissa Evans book looks like the most attractive option, I think I might’ve read something else by that author (if she’s the same Lissa Evans who wrote WED WABBIT, which she might not be) (no, I’ve not googled it, what do I look like a person who ain’t lazy). So I’ll throw it open to comments again, in case anyone has any strong opinions one way or the other. Or indeed, if there’s another gem on the shelf that I’ve overlooked.

cold comfort

The thing about a comfort zone, right, is that it’s comfortable.

Reading outside your comfort zone is great *in theory*but in practice, well...

I mention this only because I have found myself outside my zone for the third fortnight in a row. Which is great – that’s what this project is about, I’m supposed to be finding new books that I otherwise would overlook, books that fall outside what I would normally read. The trouble is... they’re outside what I would normally read. And that makes me uncomfortable.

This isn’t to say there’s anything intrinsically wrong with literary explorations of sibling rivalry and moths, sprawling epics about Irish family life, or gritty urban dramas where everything is always terrible. Whatever floats your boat, lady. It just doesn’t seem to be my thing.

Which brings us neatly enough to this fortnight’s book, WHAT THEY DO IN THE DARK.

Reviews for this on Goodreads are, ehhh, mixed at best. People are apparently put off, not by the unrelentingly grimy feel to the whole narrative, but to the (spoiler alert) sickening, horrendous swerve the plot takes in the last thirty pages. And honestly I have to agree with them a little. The story follows two young girls, about 11 years old, from very different backgrounds, who become unlikely friends and eventually do something almost-inexplicably terrible. Throughout the book, there’s violence and child abuse and racism and a lot of other stuff that sits uneasy with the reader. It’s all very real, don’t get me wrong, the author obviously has a talent for describing people and events in squirmingly accurate detail. But then, like I say, in the last few pages the horrible, irreversible thing happens, then it just... ends. Almost none of the plot strands are tied up at all. We don’t find out for definite what happens to the two main girls, or their families, or the victim, or any of the characters in the sub-plot about a movie that’s filming at the girls’ school. One character, who narrated at least a half dozen chapters, doesn’t even get a mention in the summing-up.

So it’s difficult to tell what everyone reacted badly to – the grim, grubby realism; the swerve into the final act of horrendousness; or the fact we don’t get proper closure about any of it. I can see why the author made the choices they did but still... it all leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Which, honestly, was probably the intention.

Anyway, onwards and onwards, into the C-section (... may need to rephrase that):

12 shelves of C authors, and the Random Number Generator picks number 6:

(I may need to find a new way of choosing these shelves, because right now it seems to be either too random or not random enough...)

And again I’m left with a choice of two authors, neither of whom I’ve read before, neither of which is anything like my usually (comfortable) reading material:

So... which should it be? Regency historical fiction (which literally has a bodice on the cover) or WWII historical fiction?

If anyone has any kind of preference, please leave a comment below. I’m gonna give myself a few days to think about this one.

busy busy busy

Before we do anything else, I need to tell you about this:

My next book has just been announced from One More Chapter, and I am quite giddy with excitement. LITTLE GIRLS TELL TALES is available for preorder now. Please do check it out.

ALSO! Me and a few friends have teamed up to make a podcast. It's called WELL RED and involves us drinking wine and chatting books. This month we're discussing FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC (the 40-year-old classic that I am ashamed to say I've never read until this year), and trying to decide which wine you should drink while reading it. If that sounds like your sort of thing, give it a listen on Anchor.fm or find us on Spotify. Ta.

Anyway, last week for Reading the Library, the book was THE GLASS LAKE by Maeve Binchy and, honestly, it was quite good.

It’s a big community-saga, following the ebb and flow of life in a small village in Ireland as people fall in love, fall out of love, fall in the lake, run away with shady men, and question whether true love is really all it’s cracked up to be. It’s got a perfect sheen of ‘real-life’ all over it – people occasionally make ridiculous decisions, things don’t always work out neatly, people have the same name as each other (I’m certain there were two Kevins), sometimes fate is cruel and random: just like in real life. This does become annoying sometimes (just like in real life) because there are loose ends which don’t fit with the story (did we really need the whole subplot about the fella who breaks into the car shop?), but that’s not really the point. This book is essentially a soap opera. You can cut it a lot of slack for that.

Plus the main(ish) character, Kit McMahon, has some wonderful moments – for example, when some boy starts telling people she slept with him, she promptly sues him for impunity her virtue, and wins. Hats off to you, missy.

Next week, we’re looking at the C-shelves:

25 of these buggers, including three that belong exclusively to Catherine Cookson.

The random number generator gives us shelf number 9:

Hmm. So it looks like my choice is Harlan Cohen or Jonathan Coe or... oh hey, what’s that?

Okay, this looks interesting. I’ve never heard of this book or this author (the inside flap says she was a scriptwriter on Shameless). Let’s give it a go then.

neat things

A bunch of neat things I found this week while withdrawing old books from the library shelves.

This pithy review, tucked into the flap of a hardback:

Secret codes, used by readers so they’d know at a glance whether or not they’d already read a certain book:

Many author pictures of Catherine Cookson, each of which made me think for a moment she was Carrie Fisher:

This wonderful sentiment in some of the ancient large print books:

And THE TINFISH RUN, published 1979, with its five full pages of issues, suggesting this copy may have been read by up to 200 people in its forty years of circulation:

Week 2: B Shelves

Today in the library, someone made me cry (in a good way, this is a happy story).

A local group, who assist adults with learning difficulties, come into our library fairly regularly on a Friday morning. They always manage to time it for our busiest period, when we also have a toddler group doing music time, so they often wander into the middle of a group of twenty toddlers and their grown-ups doing the hokey-cokey.

(As a side note, yeah, I think we’re quite a non-traditional library. We almost never shush people. The only time I’ve ever told someone off was when one grandpa ignored the sign saying DO NOT TOUCH THE LOBSTERS.)(That was the day we had lobsters visiting the library.)

So anyway, one of the women who comes along with the care group is super-keen on the royal family, especially Princess Diana. She has already read all the books we have on the shelves about the Royals. I always feel a bit sad when we can’t find her anything knew to read. Plus she needs a specific type of book – preferably one with less writing and more pictures. So I ducked out to the stacks in the other room, where we keep our thousands of home library service books, and had a quick rummage in the Royal section. Long story short, I came up with three nice big picture books, including one of Charles and Diana that predated Diana’s death.

I figured this was a fairly average, everyday thing to do – I mean, it’s literally my job to find books for people. But this woman was so happy to see this new selection of books that she got completely overwhelmed and on the verge of tears. She had to ask her carer whether she could borrow all three books instead of the one she usually gets (obviously the carer said yes). Usually the woman gives me a high-five before she leaves; today I got a hug. Hence why I was crying like an eejit at lunchtime.

(Also, the Charles and Diana book had not been borrowed since 1997, and I’d just been reading this thread on Twitter about neglected library books, so that set me off again.)

At the risk of sounding super-pretentious, it turns out distributing a hundred books to a hundred people isn’t necessarily as important as getting one particular book to the right person at the right time.

Anyway. Back to my 2020 reading project.

The first book of the year was THE BEHAVIOUR OF MOTHS by Poppy Adams. You can check out my less-than-comprehensive review here.

We now move on to the B shelves.

There are NINETEEN of these buggers. Nineteen. I haven’t even counted how many separate authors that includes. So, with the help of a random number generator, I picked shelf number 10:

Which is... hmm. Well, I guess this was bound to happen. Quite a lot of these shelves are taken up by just two or three authors (and sometimes just one – Danielle Steele has two full shelves to herself) so sometimes I won’t have a huge choice. This fortnight we’ve got Maeve Binchy, Tim Binding, and Charlotte Bingham. I’ve not read any of these people. None of these books look like my usual comfort zone.

I eventually settled on Maeve Binchy:

It’s a solid, hefty tome of a book.

I’ll post an update at the weekend to see how I’m getting on. At that time, I will hopefully also have SOME EXCITING NEWS about another new project we’re working on. It’s gonna be awesome.

It’s been noted that, rather like Rizzo in MUPPET’S CHRISTMAS CAROL, I am not suited to literature. Or, more accurately, I’m not suited to literary fiction.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read smart books, I’ve enjoyed smart books, and I think I’ve understood smart books (they’re about girls, right?), but the older I get, the less tolerance I have for capital-L Literature. There’s only so often I can cope with a story about ennui and aging and the sheer thinginess of life.

(This is obviously a broad, sweeping generalisation. Literary fiction can be about so much more than the weight of life, just like genre fiction doesn’t have to be devoid of heavy themes to be enjoyable.)

The book group I currently attend was formed (in part) because everyone was fed up of reading books about middle-aged professors who are consumed with ennui and therefore absolutely must start an affair with their nubile young secretaries. If you personally happen to like those sort of books, good on you, whatever floats your boat. But speaking for myself, there’s only so much of that I can take before I start wishing the author had written in a salty dragon or a car chase or something.

Anyway, in my 2020 quest to read the library, it occurs to me that I’m going to run into more Literary Fiction than I usually consume.

Which brings us nicely to THE BEHAVIOUR OF MOTHS.

From her lookout on the first floor, Ginny watches and waits for her younger sister to return to the crumbling mansion that was once their idyllic childhood home. Vivien has not set foot in the house since she left, forty-seven years ago; Ginny, the reclusive moth expert, has rarely ventured outside it.

But with Vivien's arrival, dark, unspoken secrets surface. Told in Ginny's unforgettable voice, this debut novel tells a disquieting story of two sisters and the ties that bind - sometimes a little too tightly.

Incidentally, you can tell I read too much YA, because I was completely caught off guard on page 1 by the protagonist being an old woman (I didn’t read the blurb before I started). When was the last time I read a book about proper grownups?? But apart from that, okay, we’ve got a crumbling gothic house (lovely), dark family secrets (even better), and an unexpected wealth of information about moths (perfect!). Honestly, the level of details about moths, pupal soup, parasites and larvae might put off some people. When the narrator starts cutting open chrysalises to examine the soupy goo inside, or when she finds a caterpillar that’s being eaten alive from the inside by the parasitic larvae of another creature... it’d probably be too much of an ick-factor for many readers.

But, predictably enough, the forensic details about moths were my favourite bits of the book. The rest of it was a bit... literary for me. There are flashbacks to Ginny’s childhood, involving trauma and death and alcoholism and neglect. There’s an insistence on skipping over explanations and salient plot-points: Ginny has a habit of tuning out anything she’s not interested in hearing about, which leaves the audience to fill in a lot of gaps. And then there’s some stuff that happens at the end, explained away with a bit of hand-waving about free will (or the lack of it), and then the book finishes.

It was okay. I liked the stuff about moths. But it does make me worry that I’m going to struggle with other Literary books this year...

So, onwards into the Bs! Our library has 19 full shelves of authors beginning with B, so I’ll need a random number generator to pick a shelf for me. Update on Friday.

Welcome to week 1 of my 2020 reading challenge, Reading the Library!

Here is a summary of what I intend to do this year, and why.

(TL;DR - I'm planning to read one book every two weeks off the General Fiction shelves in the library where I work, starting at A and working through the alphabet, in an attempt to fill in some shocking gaps in my reading education.)

This fortnight, A is for:

There are six shelves of authors beginning with A, and, in a completely arbitrary fashion which will probably become the hallmark of this challenge, I've gone for the very first shelf, right at the top.

One book in particular popped out at me:

So, book number one of this year's challenge is THE BEHAVIOUR OF MOTHS by Poppy Adams. I know nothing about this book, or this author, and I don't intend to look at the blurb before I start reading. Let's see how this works out.

Progress update next Friday!

There’s nothing like working in a library to make you realise the gaps in your education.

I started at the Mobile Family Library six months ago. It’s delightful. For my first week, there wasn’t a spare desk for me, so I had to work in the stacks, alongside 37,000 books, which was, as you can imagine, a terrible hardship.

One thing that became abundantly clear was how little I’d read. I like to think I read quite a lot, and quite widely, but here I found whole shelves of authors I’d never even heard of. A glance at the loan records showed how popular some of these authors are (anecdotally, the library used to have a copy of a Barbara Cartland novel that was loaned out over 300 times). So why haven’t I read them?

The obvious answer is a lack of time, I suppose. And, also, I am very comfortable in my comfort zone. I like reading the books I like reading. Who has time to expand their horizons when there’s so many wonderful books and authors that you’re already familiar with?

This year I turned 40, which is nice, but it brought with it a realisation that I will never read all the books I want to. Isn’t that dreadful? If there are 37,000 books in our stacks at the library, and if I could read a hundred a year, it would take... *counts on fingers* ... 370 years for me to read them all. And that’s just the books here in this one bit of the library, never mind the Family Library next door with its shelves full of YA and MG, or the Douglas Library downtown, or my own stupid house which is full to bursting with books I haven’t yet read.

If I’m fortunately enough to live to a hundred, and I keep up my reading pace, there are only 6,000 more books that I could realistically read in my lifetime.

That’s quite a sobering thought. How on earth can I narrow down which books to exclude?

I think it’s time to start being realistic about my reading habits. I should accept that I will never read Martin Amis, or Jeffrey Archer. I should come to terms with never ploughing through all of Nora Roberts’ back catalogue. I have been trying and failing to read Ulysses for twenty-five years – perhaps it’s time to give up on it?

With that in mind, I would like to announce my reading plan for 2020. I call it READING THE LIBRARY.

Here’s the deal. Every two weeks I will read one book from the fiction section of the library stack, going alphabetically by author name from A to Z. In this way I will (hopefully) read 26 books (one from each letter of the alphabet) in 2020, while leaving me plenty of space to read books from other sources as well. I will pick a shelf within each letter at random, and choose the book that interests me the most.

A selection of rules:

1. I must read one book off the chosen shelf every two weeks.
2. I will restrict myself to the “General Fiction” section of our library, which excludes Crime, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Large Print, and Non-Fiction. If I included those shelves as well, this project would fast become unworkable.
3. Shelving is arbitrary and sometimes books get moved around or issued to other borrowers. We are a library, you know.
4. I will show a preference for authors I haven’t read over authors I have read.
5. I will show a preference for female authors and/or authors of colour (sorry not sorry).
6. Every two weeks I will post a review or an update on this blog.
7. I reserve the right to refuse to read (or continue to read) a particular book or author for any reason at all, including extremely petty reasons.

Are these rules arbitrary and restrictive and probably unfair? You betcha. There will be books and authors who get missed out, through no fault of their own. I can’t read everything.

But, hopefully, this project will help me fill in some gaps.

Check back here in the first week of January, for a random book off the “A” shelves! Who will it be??

Want to keep up to date with the latest news, releases, skeet, and random pictures of cats from me? I now have a mailing list:

Sign up to my shiny new mailing list here

Obviously I promise not to spam anyone with constant messages, because if you know anything about me, it's that I do not do frequent updates...

Announcing: THE FLOOD

Oh my gosh, I have been waiting to shout about this for so long. I am literally giddy with excitement to announce the impending publication of THE FLOOD, coming this September from Avon:

A gripping, atmospheric crime novel about a town on the edge of collapse, and a murder that shakes the community. Perfect for fans of THE DRY.

When Daniela Cain returns to her small hometown after seven years’ absence, she finds that flooding has left the village all but deserted. She’s there to collect something she left in her childhood home, then she plans to leave. But upon entering the old house she discovers her younger sister’s body half-submerged in the water.

As Daniela tries to work out what happened to Auryn, she uncovers dark secrets from her childhood as one of four sisters in the household, when the Cains and another local family begin to turn on each other with devastating results.

Anyone who knows me IRL may recognise this book under its working title, FOURTH TO THE DEVIL, aka That Sodding Book I've Been Working On For The Last Five Hundred Years. It's crazy to think it's actually going to be a real book and not just a jumble of files on my computer.

You can check it out on Goodreads or PRE-ORDER THE EBOOK FOR ONLY 99p at Amazon, or of course contact your local independent bookshop for more details of the paperback (which is due for release in November, I believe).

I am going to be shouting about this for days. Y'all may want earplugs.

As usual at this time of year, imma look back over my spreadsheet for the last twelve months and provide a short breakdown of what I've been reading and why, mostly for my own amusement:

Sooooo, in 2018 I read a total of 103 books (including graphic novels but not including books I read to my son), which is the exact same number as in 2017, conveniently. Like 2017, the majority of the books were Young Adult (18 books) but that's a really sharp drop from last year, when about half the books I read were YA. Non-fiction clocked in at the next highest (16) and literary fiction surprising me with 15. I've upped my game with reading more sci-fi (11) and crime/thrillers (13), and I've had to add a separate category for feminist dystopia (4) because it's apparently a new feature of my reading pile.

Disregarding co-authored books, about 60% of what I read was written by women.

Approximately one third of the books I read were by authors I'd previously read. Which means a respectable two-thirds were from authors I'd never checked out before. From those two-thirds, the highest number (13) were chosen at random from the library. Others were recommended to me either in person or online (or by a very enthusiastic librarian), or I picked them up because they were authored by our amazingly talented local author community, or they were being discussed at our book group (hence the rise in feminist dystopian fiction). I made an extra effort to read books I considered as "classics", including three from pre-1900 (the most I've managed in any year since high school).

I'm making an effort to read ebooks (in quiet moments when I'd otherwise be trawling twitter) but I've still not renewed my dalliance with audiobooks. I've also joined Netgalley, just in case I don't have enough books.

My book resolutions this year are to read more crime/thriller, since it looks like it's my area of interest now (oh, yeah, I have news to share in a later blogpost, check back for that), and to avoid bringing more books into my house unless I have an exit strategy in place for them (because hoarding).

2018 top booky picks

It's been surprisingly difficult to pick my top books of the year for 2018, because there's been such a wodge of very fine reading material, even though none of my Big 5 Authors (the ones I shall defend unto death) have released new books this year. Having said that, my definite favourite book of the year is:

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers
And I know this is a cheat, because it came out a few years ago, but the second sequel (Record of a Spaceborn Few, following A Closed and Common Orbit) came out this year so it totally counts, shut up. It's a marvellous trilogy - gentle and thoughtful and clever and often hilarious and occasionally heartbreaking, like all the very best sci-fi. My only criticism would be if you're looking for a fast-paced, plot-based romp, this might not be for you. But if you love spending time with characters then you'll heart this.

In no particular order, this is what else floated my boat this year:

Fir - Sharon Gosling
Came across this by accident in the library and it scared my pants off. Tight and claustrophobic and a lot more unnerving than you'd expect from its innocuous YA tag.

Call of the Curlew - Elizabeth Brooks
Our Elizabeth! So very, very proud of her and this marvellous time-slippy gothicky drama. Cannot wait for her next one.

Keep You Safe / Love You Gone - Rona Halsall
And our Rona too! In an apparent attempt to make the rest of us look sloth-like, Rona had not one but two amazing books published in 2018. Both are taut, fast-paced, twisty-turney thrillers, although if I had to pick a favourite I'd probably say I enjoyed Love You Gone the best. But they're both well worth your time.

Folk - Zoe Gilbert
Retelling of a bunch of folk tales, expertly capturing the dreamlike tone and feel. I'm really looking forward to reading this for a second time.

Paperbacks from Hell - Grady Hendrix
There's nothing quite so delightful as finding someone who shares your enthusiasm for a particular subject, especially if the subject is pulpy horror novel covers. I've bought three copies of this book so far this year (one for myself, two for presents) and am considering buying a fourth so I have a lending copy.

Force of Nature / The Lost Man - Jane Harper
OH MY GOD. I have a new favourite author. No, I haven't read The Dry yet (I got it for a Christmas present so it's next on my list) but based on these, her second and third books, Jane Harper is someone I'm going to talk about a LOT from now all. Her books are full of family secrets and sneaky motivations and the weather as an almost physical presence on the page. Glorious.

And a quick round up of other good things I read this year: I joined a book group, which directly resulted in me reading a lot more feminist dystopia than usual. Particular favourites were The Power by Naomi Alderman; Feminists Don't Wear Pink (And Other Lies); Circe by Madeline Miller; and Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge. Next year I might vote that we read something less weighty, however. :)

I finally read Northanger Abbey, and Middlemarch, and A Christmas Carol. No one can say I didn't. And I found out why EVERYONE raves about We Have Always Lived in the Castle (it's great, that's why).

our summer kills the sun

Autumn is my favourite season. Sure, it's getting colder and the weather's turning rubbish, and we'll probably not see the sun again until May, but look at all the wonderful things that are on the way. Halloween! Nanowrimo! Bonfire night! The pre-Christmas run up! My birthday! Autumn leaves! Manx Litfest! The start of Bake Off! THE START OF BAKE OFF!

Honestly, I can see why this season overwhelms people. There's a whole bunch of stuff arriving all at once, most of which either costs money or uses up time or both, and it's easy to look at the last four months of the year with dread. (Kendra at The Lazy Genius talks about how to approach this season without being crushed by it; it's definitely worth a listen. I thoroughly recommend Kendra's podcasts, listening to her is like someone putting a blanket round your shoulders and telling you you're doing great.)

ANYWAY. The Great British Bake Off 2018 has started. Let the festival of cakeage begin! This year we're doing a fantasy league at home and a bake-along at work. The bake-along is something I wish I'd heard of sooner - everyone puts £2 in, you draw out a baker, if that baker wins the series you get £24. But, if and when your baker is eliminated, you have to bring in cakes to the office. Why did we never think of this before?? Everyone's a winner, because everyone gets cake.

Manx Litfest is right around the corner and, as usual, I'm super-excited and also super-terrified in fairly equal measures, because there's so much going on and I don't feel the least bit prepared.

And after Litfest we're in the run up to Nanowrimo. I've recently made some RL friends (I know, shocking) who are hopefully organising some meet-ups and write-ins and all sorts of other proper Nano type things, which I'm all enthused about. As usual, however, I'm totally without an idea to write in November. Should maybe think about that over the next month or so.

BOOKS I'VE READ THIS SUMMER:

FOLK - Zoe Gilbert Love, love, love, love. Admittedly, I'm hardly unbiased, since this collection of short stories draws influence from Manx folklore, it's set on an island that looks suspiciously familiar, the author name-checks the Isle of Man in the acknowledgements, and she's attending our festival later this month. I am super-biased. But regardless, honestly, this is a fab book. Myth and legend and fable intertwine through the different stories, weaving a whole atmosphere and sense of place, giving it a dreamlike feel, reminiscent of childhood fairytales that you'd read or tell over and over again. It's the sort of book that'll stay with me for a long time, and which I plan to reread and recommend to everyone I know.

SUNBURN - Laura Lippman This one has been hyped to all get-out, but that's probably because it's smart and twisty and very well written. I didn't enjoy it as much as everyone else in my Twitter feed did, but it's still an excellent read.

THE HANDMAID'S TALE - Margaret Atwood Such a slim-line book for the amount of societal weight and gravitas it holds. I wish I'd read it earlier in life, not least because it feels uncomfortably like non-fiction these days.

MIDDLEMARCH - George Eliot I FINALLY FINISHED MIDDLEMARCH, goddamn that was one hefty tome.

THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL ANGRY PLANET - Becky Chambers A space romp! I've previously overlooked this book because the title made me think it was something else (curse my insistence on judging books by their cover) but I'm glad I picked it up eventually. Not a lot of actual plot happens, so if you're looking for high-octane thrills you might be disappointed, but if you like your space operas to be full of character moments and world building, this is just lovely. It's also the first book in ages that made me want to draw fan art.

always sunny in the desert

This month I've mostly been playing ASSASSIN'S CREED ORIGINS. And it's okay. Certainly not the worst in the franchise, but pretty far from the best either. To be honest, although I've clocked up a decent amount of hours so far, I feel like I've hardly scratched the surface of gameplay, but that might be because I've only just been given a mission that involved any sneaky assassination. I've also only recently unlocked the hidden blade, or found any building higher than two storeys to climb. Now, call me a traditionalist, but the things I associate with ASS CREED are a) climbing buildings and b) stabbing folks, and not being given either of these options at the outset felt a bit strange. No, it felt like I was playing ASS CREED BROTHERHOOD again, and nobody needs that.

Also, I suspect I'm further through the game than it looks. This sneaky assassination mission is the third main target, out of five. So... am I two thirds of the way through? That can't be right. Look at the size of that map! The rest of it can't all be filled with empty desert and weirdly aggressive hippos, can it?

Oh, wait, it can? And you're going to dissuade me from exploring by making some enemies impossible to kill (helpfully marked with a red skull above their heads) until I reach a certain level? Of course you are.

I do like the ability to "borrow" boats rather than stealing them (the rightful owner complains a bit, then settles down in the bow of the boat until you've finished scooting wherever you're going, at which point they'll take their boat back and go on their merry way, which makes a heck of a change from the protagonist randomly throwing people out of vehicles whenever the whim takes him). And I like my camel, Reginald, and the "follow road" option, where you can autopilot your camel to the next waypoint. Although obviously Reginald is not smart enough to stop BEFORE the waypoint if it is, for example, in the middle of a heavily fortified garrison full of unkillable enemies.

Every time, Reginald. Every goddamn time.

Also, who the heck was in charge of animating that poor camel? I salute Ubisoft's commitment to employing "team members of diverse religions, sexuality, and gender-orientation" (as they tell us at the start of every game, in a slightly defensive way tbh) but next time could they employ someone who knows how a camel is put together? Or who at least could look up a video on youtube? But noooo, let's just use the same animation framework as the horses, and make poor Reginald run like a lumpen horse with little-to-no sense of self-preservation, straight into prickly arrow-death.

OTHER THINGS I'VE LIKED THIS MONTH:

BOOKS:

The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons - Sam Kean
Brains are weird. That's the first takeaway from this book. The other is that my absolute favourite kind of non-fiction is Extremely Knowledgeable Expert Talks About Specialist Topic in Super-Excitable Fashion. I'll read pretty much anything that falls under that heading, which this book definitely does.

Middlemarch - George Elliot
WHY IS LITERARY FICTION SO HARD. I'm 20% through this ebook. I suspect this may take a while.

TV:

Oh Asia, baby, what made you think it was a good idea to put live butterflies into a dress? My heart breaks.

regaining focus

This blog has somewhat lost focus over the last couple of years. To be honest, I think this is a wider problem with the internet in general - blogs used to be the best-only place for people to air their random opinions and suchlike. Now, if I've got something I want to show to everyone, I'll shout about it informally on Twitter rather than type it all up as a blog post. I've noticed a few other blogs that I follow have had the same sort of issue.

But anyway, I'd like to keep this blog going as a central place for all my information (since I'm waaaaay too disorganised to run an actual factual website) so imma attempt something different. For a while, I'll post about all the things I've fallen in love with that week. Because the internet has plenty of my opinions already, but can always use more positivity.

BOOKS

This month I've been making headway on my Manx authors to-read list:

THE GOOD THIEF'S GUIDE TO AMSTERDAM - Chris Ewan
Now, I've definitely read this before, which I'd forgotten until I was about halfway through and I remembered how it ended. Thanks, brain. Anyway, Chris Ewan is always a delight to read, and this novel (first in a series) is a slightly lighter and more easy-going book than some of his later, stand-alone books. Also it's only like 99p on kindle right now, and you can't even get an ice cream for that price.

ON MANNANAN'S ISLE - Usha Kishore
This small-but-perfectly-formed book of poetry has been sitting on my shelf for a while now, which makes me feel bad because when I finally settled down with it, I loved it. It's a charming look at the mix of Manx and Indian culture. Like most poetry collections, it's best consumed in small sections, one poem at a time, like Thornton's chocolates.

AN UNCONVENTIONAL OFFICER - Lynn Bryant
An epic wodge of historical military fiction with plenty of gory fighting and swooning romance. Not my usual reading fare, and I gave myself a headache from rolling my eyes at the womanising main character, but if you're a fan of this genre you'll have fun with this book.

And I'm looking forward to:

CALL OF THE CURLEW - Elizabeth Brooks
Oh my gosh. We are all super-proud of Elizabeth Brooks. She's been such a supporter of Manx Litfest, local writing groups, and our writing retreats. She's also (as it happens) an AMAZING writer, which everyone's going to find out when CALL OF THE CURLEW is released next month. I was lucky enough to read an advance copy (which I've had to give back to its rightful owner, boo), but I've got my own copy on pre-order. I predict this one will be a favourite of many, many reading groups.

GUILTY LITTLE SECRETS - Rona Halsall
Due for release in August 2018. Another Manx author, another wonderful supporter of Manx Litfest, another amazing writer. I'm rather in awe of the talent pool we've got on this island right now.

TV

Honestly, I don't watch much TV, so don't expect any revolutionary opinions here. Mostly I've been revisiting THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE-OFF because Netflix have added all the old episodes, and you can never binge-watch too much cake. BAKE OFF: THE PROFESSIONALS (which I'm sure used to be BAKE OFF: CRÈME DE LA CRÈME before it moved to Channel 4) has snuck back to stress-up my Sunday nights. Sugarwork structures? Soooo stressful.

And if you're not watching Season 10 of RUPAUL'S DRAG RACE then honestly what're you doing with your life. I'm currently living for Eureka and Kameron, although I swear they need to stop being up for elimination because my heart can't take it.

Podcasts and Music

I discovered The Lazy Genius some time last year but have just started trawling through the podcasts. Now, I'm not much for self-help and life-hacks, but these podcasts are wonderful in their gentle, reassuring, non-judgemental tone. I'm especially enjoying the episodes about how to clean your house without, y'know, stressing so much that you end up sobbing over the gangrenous state of your fridge. Yes, I know. Me, cleaning the house. That's how revolutionary this podcast has been for me. It's one-half practical, simple solutions, and one-half soft reassurance that you're doing absolutely great and you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. I'm a big fan.

It's been 20 years since the release of Therapy?'s LONELY, CRYIN' ONLY, my favourite ever song by my favourite ever band. Twenty years, man.

EVENTS

It's the first few days of TT Week here on the Isle of Man. Ride safe, citizens, and don't be this guy.

And things are gearing up for Litfest 2018 - so far we've confirmed Chris Riddell (squee!), Ben Haggarty (double-squee!), and the aforesaid Elizabeth Brooks (*passes out from over-squeement*).