On Thursday, as part of a conversation about dogs, my employer said “we should have a dog in the office”. I said “Okay, I will bring Lucy in tomorrow.” And I did. It was a  lot of fun to have her there, but there were enough anxieties associated with it that it wasn’t the unalloyed joy I was hoping for. Most office space leases do not allow animals so I was worried that building management would see her. And I was worried there may be someone who has issues with dogs. But Lucy was super well behaved and those that like dogs liked having her around. Still, I don’t think I will do it again.

Well, Trollope’s 200th birthday was last year so I could say that my completion of the six Palliser novels in January 2016 is a bit of a day late a dollar short. But on the other hand, I just finished almost 5,000 pages of Trollope, so who cares if I am 20 days late. I suppose I should also point out that I didn’t read all six of them in 2015 but I did read four of the six last year.

Overall I still prefer the Barsetshire novels over the Palliser novels mainly because I prefer Church of England gossip over parliamentary gossip. And there were moments in the Pallisers where the political talk got a little boring because I didn’t understand enough about the issues being discussed to get really interested. Small point though. I love Trollope.

Now that I am finished. What did I think? Will I always ask myself questions? Just a cheap literary cheat when I don’t have the energy to be clever? Even lazier, I am going to make a list.

Ranking the Pallisers

6. Phineas Finn (Book 2)
5. Phineas Redux (Book 4)
4. The Duke’s Children (Book 6)
3. The Eustace Diamonds (Book 3)
1. (tie) Can You Forgive Her? (Book 1)
1. (tie) The Prime Minister (Book 5)

This was way harder then I thought it would be. The Prime Minister tied for the top spot because I loved how awful Ferdinand Lopez was. Without him, Can You Forgive Her? would not have t share number 1.

Favorite character names: Sir Gregory Grogram (appears in Books 1, 4, and 5) and Samuel Cheesacre (Book 1).

Favorite meta moment: When one of the characters talks about putting a letter in a pillar box–the mail receptacle Trollope helped introduce  into usage in the Channel Islands and ultimately mainland UK.

Recently I blogged about my reading resolutions for 2016. One of them was to spend some time in my library. As I mentioned, we have been back in the house of over a year and I hadn’t spent much time in the library at all. I not entirely sure why that was, but since I made the resolution I have taken steps to rectify the situation. I’m happy to say a few simple steps have unblocked whatever mental blocks I may have had that were getting in the way of enjoying this great room.

Joan, who blogs at Planet Joan, commented on my New Year’s post that she sometimes finds herself distracted by all the books in her library, as if they were whispering to her and breaking her concentration. In my current mood I have found that my books appear to be whispering encouragement, almost egging me on to read. Sometimes when I am at a bookstore I get so excited about books that I feel the need to run home and read something. That’s kind of what’s happening right now with my library. I’m finding them inspirational rather than distracting.

The first thing I had to do was a bit of organizing. In general my books were pretty well organized but I had kind of stuffed John’s books every which way. That muddle, along with the stacks of books I bought this summer were keeping me from feeling relaxed enough to read in the room. Thankfully it wasn’t a wholesale organizing effort that was necessary (like the one in the picture. That would have kept me from reading for a week. But I did weed out about three bags of books, get my recent acquisitions on the shelves and sort out John’s books.

The second thing was to get some music in the room. I don’t need music to read, but I definitely needed something that would allow me to listen to my neglected classical CD collection. That option has warmed up the room and made it much more of a destination for me.

The third thing I did was reassess the comfort of the one chair in the room. It really does work pretty well for reading but less so for napping. Turns out not being able to nap in the chair is actually conducive to reading, but somewhere I got it in my head that the chair wasn’t comfy for reading.

With these simple changes in place I have actually been reading in my library. It helped that John was out of town one night this week so instead of being cozy with him on the couch in the family room I was cozy in the library instead.

One morning I had 20 minutes before I needed to leave for work so I thought I would go in the library and read. I found myself distracted by a book on the shelf, but in a really good way. I saw a volume that I had zero, and I mean zero, recollection of buying. I was intrigued enough to take it off the shelf and sit and read it for 20 minutes. That’s my definition of a good distraction. The book was…

An Evening with Brahms
Richard Sennett

Although I couldn’t remember buying this book, I wasn’t surprised that I did. I’m always on the look out for novels that depict classical music in an interesting and intelligent way and this book certainly looked like it might fit the bill. With lots of wonderful detail about cello pedagogy, the world of classical music making, and descriptions of various pieces of music the novel tells a fascinating family and marriage tale that encompasses the U.S. immigrant experience, the Chicago business world of the 20s-50s, the U.S. Communist Party, race relations, and New York in the 1970s. It was almost as if my favorite sociology, history, and music professors had gotten together and wrote an interesting novel. Incidentally, Sennett wrote about three novels in the 1980s but has spent the rest of his career teaching and writing (since at least 1969) in the field of sociology. And his sociology texts look as interesting as his novels.

Four Seasons in Rome
Anthony Doerr

In 2004 the writer Anthony Doerr was awarded a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. The Academy awards about 30 fellowships each year to artists, architects, historians, writers, and other scholars so they can spend a year living at the Academy and pursuing independent projects. Given an apartment in Rome and a $1,3000  stipend per month, fellows are allowed to really do whatever they want and aren’t required to produce anything to satisfy the terms of their fellowship. In the case of Doerr, that’s a good thing. He essentially spends his year with writer’s block managing to squeeze out a short story, some book reviews, and completely ignoring the novel he is writing about World War II, which I am guessing is All the Light We Cannot See which took him about another eight years to finish.

Did I mention that he moved to Rome with his wife and 6-month old twins?

What Doerr gives us is a thoroughly enjoyable but pretty standard travelogue of Rome studded with stories of his rapidly developing twins, the Iraq War, and the death of John Paul II. The narrative falls into the fish out of water memoir that reminds me of A Year in Provence and Under the Tuscan Sun. But Doerr doesn’t attempt the kind of humor found in those books, and his writing has  a more poetic quality with plenty of interesting Roman and Italian history thrown in to good effect. In fact, there was a section of the book that I found completely fascinating and beautiful where Doerr opines about what Italian village life would have been like hundreds (thousands?) of years ago with no noise except for birds and the sound of the wind. And he poignantly describes how insular the villagers’ lives would have been in a way that found fascinating and beautiful but also kind of sad giving the kind of global lives we live today. I really did find it moving and wanted to quote it here, but alas I can’t find the section.

As I looked for photos to illustrate this post, I was surprised at how idyllic the Academy and its park-like neighborhood is. I’ve spent maybe a total of two months of my life in Italy and have stayed in Rome a few times so I know how crazy and frenetic the city can be. Doerr writes about this as well–especially given that he and his family moved from the quiet of Boise–but his descriptions made me think that his life at the Academy was in the midst of all that hubbub. But after looking at the images online I see that the Academy itself and its immediate environs are positively sylvan in comparison to the rest of the city. As I dug deeper into the Academy’s website, sure that there must some more urban location where Doerr stayed, I was also struck by the fact the Academy looks like a much more impressive, lively place than Four Seasons in Rome had me thinking. I don’t want to ding Doerr for not writing the kind of memoir I think he should have written, I’m always a little annoyed by blogger reviews who do that. But I do feel like perhaps he missed an opportunity or two, either in his real life/actual experience or in the telling of it. Maybe too much about twins and troubles buying groceries? And definitely more than I cared to read about the death of the Pope, even though when in Rome it is hard not to feel the impact of the Pope’s presence. But overall I did enjoy Doerr’s slice of Roman life. Different than the one I would have lived, but enjoyable nonetheless.

 

At Hawthorn Time
Melissa Harrison

One of the books Simon Savidge gave me when he visited the U.S. in September for our road trip to Booktopia was a signed copy of Melissa Harrison’s second novel At Hawthorn Time. Given the excitement of the trip and the heaps of books I acquired along the way, it is no surprise that I didn’t pay much attention to this book until I picked it out of my TBR pile last week.  What I discovered as I began reading is that the novel is almost like two books in one. On the one hand there is a compelling narrative revolving around four people: a disaffected, somewhat estranged married couple who have recently moved from London to try their hand at rural life; a socially awkward 19-year old village boy; and a itinerant laborer who feels more at home in nature and just wants to be left alone. On the other hand there are brief, but beautiful pastoral descriptions of florae and faunae threaded throughout the story. Sometimes these descriptions have a direct relationship with the story and at other times they serve as background, but they never seem out of place or superfluous.

As I sit back and think about the devastating conclusion to the book I am struck by how deeply the nature theme is layered throughout the action and lives of the people in the book. Without being obvious or cloying or in any way cliche, the natural world serves as metaphor for everything the humans experience. Seasons, new beginnings, the passage of time, decay, violence, sudden death, uncertainty, fragility. Perhaps I belabor this point because it didn’t feel that way as I read it, thankfully. Nothing worse than feeling like an author is trying to be clever.

On a more surface level I was drawn into the lives of the characters and the community they inhabited. And, although you don’t need to to love the book, I loved the descriptions of the natural world. At some point over the past decade I began to really appreciate the natural world in a way that I had ignored previously. I think part of it was meeting my husband who is an avid gardener and who brought me back into contact with growing things. Part of it was seeing the Masai Mara in Kenya. Part of it was seeing an English hedgerow up close and really noticing the biodiversity it contains. Part of it is seeing how much wildlife there is in our DC neighborhood. Harrison taps into all of this in a wonderful way. In addition to weaving it throughout the story, she begins each chapter with brief notes about what is in bud or bloom and what the birds and insects are up to. I found myself Googling a lot. This is what I mean about two books in one. I could see Harrison taking those same headings and writing a wonderful garden/nature memoir at some point. I hope she does.

 

A Few Green Leaves
Barbara Pym

As big a fan as I am of Barbara Pym—indeed she may be my favorite author of all time—I have yet to finish all of her novels. Now that I have finished A Few Green Leaves, I think I only have one left, Civil to Strangers. And that one is only an unfinished fragment I think. Part of the reason I am so unclear on some of these points is that I have been keeping myself from knowing too much about her and her work. As if keeping myself in the dark will somehow make it seem like there are reams of her work still to discover. I really shouldn’t worry. I’ve already discovered that re-reading Pym novels is even better than reading the for the first time.

From it’s opening line, A Few Green Leaves sets the reader smack in the middle of Pym’s universe.

On the Sunday after Easter—Low Sunday, Emma believed it was called—the villagers were permitted to walk in the park and woods surrounding the manor. She had not been sure whether to come on the walk or not. It was her first weekend in the village, and she had been planning to observe the inhabitants in the time-honoured manner from behind the shadow of her curtains.

What follows is the comings and goings of village life centered around the rectory and the doctors’ surgery. Potential love interests both local and imported, flower rosters, pubs, the Church Times, The Archers, and Women’s Hour. It’s as observant as E.F. Benson but without the sting and snark.  Perhaps more so than Pym’s other novels, A Few Green Leaves is more about the journey and less about the destination.

Coming Up for Air
George Orwell

I’m always a fascinated by novels set before or during World War II that were actually published before or during WWII. It is interesting to see what authors had to say about the conflict without the benefit of hindsight. In Coming Up for Air George Orwell reminds us just how clear it was for most of the British public that war was inevitable. It’s probably wrong of me to focus on this point since so much of this book really has less to do with the War and more to do with how society and life had changed since the first world war.

Coming Up for Air is the story of 45-year old George Bowling who, on the occasion of taking delivery of his new dentures, reminisces about his childhood in the Thames valley. Idyllic days of fishing in contrast to his somewhat loveless marriage and life as father and insurance salesman. Eventually he decides to take a surreptitious week to visit his childhood village only to find things different than he expected. What most interested me about that was how Bowling was upset in 1939 at how much things had changed since his Edwardian childhood. The way that Orwell writes about it, you would think the sprawl and ugliness of the 1970s and 1980s had already happened. I guess everything is relative.

Although Orwell includes a few more fishing scenes than I have the ability to appreciate, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and always had the sense that I was in the hands of a master. Orwell shows how well he can spin a tale with humorous, subtle, social commentary. George Bowling’s adult life is pretty depressing but I found myself chuckling at his buffoonery at the same time I was rooting for his success.

Eons ago–August 2014 to be exact–Simon Savidge visited Washington, DC after attending Booktopia in Asheville, North Carolina. We had plans to record lots of episodes of The Readers while he was in town so that we could have some back-up episodes for when we didn’t have time to record. Well you know what they say about the best laid plans:
“Simon ignores them and runs around Washington instead.” It’s an oddly specific bit of folk wisdom that seems to be entirely true.

One of the episodes we were going to record then was to choose seven books that each of us wanted the other one to read. Not necessarily our favorite books, but books we thought the other one would enjoy but probably not pick up on his own. (I think the initial thought was five books, but then I wanted to do 10 so we had to split the difference.)

Well, we finally got around to recording the episode about 18 months later and it went live recently. Before it was recorded I wanted to do something nice for two women who had done something very nice for me and who are listeners of The Readers, so I sent them each a copy of my seven books. I wrapped up each book and affixed book-specific labels that gave clues to the contents of each package.

High on my list of things I love to do is wrap gifts. Especially firm, rectangular gifts. Such a joy.

See if you can match the books with the labels.

I know that a lot of us love a bookish list and love to make, read about, and break bookish resolutions for the new year. But I am also guessing that about now many of you may be beginning to tire of reading those new year’s lists. Which is why I didn’t use that language in the title of this post, but the reality is, I am about to give you my list for the year. (Cue Kermit the Frog waving his arms and saying “yaaaaaay!”) That’s right, I just cat-fished you into reading one more list of reading resolutions for 2016. Let’s see how many of you hang in there to the end.

Get back to 100
I think it has been a couple of years now since I made it to a 100 books in a year. Last year was a respectable 81, but 2014 was a measly 63. I need to up my  game. The only way this is going to be possible is if I read really short books watch less TV. And here it is January 4th and I still haven’t finished a book. I am already behind. But let’s make this more interesting. Instead of 100 books, how about the equivalent of two books a week and make it 104 books for the year? Sounds good, 104 it is. Now I am even further behind.

Come to terms with platform confusion
I keep track of books I read in at least four ways: 1.) A handwritten list in a notebook that I started keeping in 1994; 2.) An Excel spreadsheet; 3.) Goodreads; and 4.) This blog has tabs for books for recent years and then alpha lists by author. This is going to take some thinking. There are redundancies and things that are annoying and time consuming and there are also new possibilities afforded by my conversion to WordPress. Not sure how this will resolve itself, but I have resolved to resolve it.

Limit book purchases to newly published books
I bought a LOT of books last year and most of them used. When Simon Savidge was here in September I vowed that my resolution for 2016 would be to only buy books published in 2015 or later. I still want to do this, but I’ve also resolved that I am going to break this resolution whenever I want. This may seem like no resolution at all, but there is a nuance in it that oddly makes sense to me. Besides, NW DC is getting a new used bookstore and I consider it my civic duty to support that venture.

Spend some time in my library
I’m not talking about the public library, I’m talking about the beautiful room in my house that was completed over a year ago, is chock full of books, but almost never gets used. In fact, I have really only used it to store books. Lucy often curls up on the chair, but due to less than adequate seating and lighting, I haven’t spent one minute (seriously, not one) in there reading. This means I really only read in bed. How have I gone so long without a reading spot? Must make seating and lighting for that room a priority.

Figuring out the ineffable
There is something else I want to achieve in 2016 relative to reading, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. As I sit here thinking about it, I think it may boil down to feeling like I frittered away far too much time that could have been used for reading. There were many times during the year when I wanted to go read and then an hour or more later I would still be futzing around not doing much of anything. So I think carving out longer spans of time to read it definitely part of it. And I think maybe I just need to shut-up and read.

LOS ANGELES – The awards for best reads of 2015 were awarded last night by the Academy of Reading Arts and Sciences during a live telecast from Dorothy Chandler pavilion in Los Angeles. This year’s ceremony brought out the usual mix of gowns and glamour as the world’s literati arrived to recognize the achievement of the books that most moved, enthralled, and entertained over the past year. Thomas Otto, president of the Academy reflected on what the awards mean to the reading community “This is one night of the year where we can look past all that separates us and forget about all the troubles in the world, and just come together to celebrate the best in fiction.” When asked about the exclusion of wildly popular work by Lana Danagihara and anything actually published in 2015, Otto pointed to Rachel Cusk’s novel Outline. After reporters pointed out that Outline was actually published in 2014,  Otto seemed momentarily deflated, but defended the Academy’s decisions “Look, the Hoggies shine a light on the best and brightest. Without the Academy’s work the reading public really doesn’t have a clue.”

Controversy of another kind spilled onto the red carpet when Margaret Atwood excoriated E! News reporter Giuliana Rancic on-air for asking probing questions about her books while failing to ask even one question about her outfit. “Would you ask me such deep questions if I was a man? One of these years I wish one of you bottom feeders in the press would ask me who made my gown.” Later, Rancic defended her red carpet questioning “I ask the questions our viewers care about most and they are much more interested in alternative interpretations than they are in Atelier Versace.”

Despite the red carpet encounter, the ceremony went off without a hitch. Host Neil Patrick Harris wowed the audience with a stunning musical opener about subject/verb agreement, but more importantly kept the pace of the awards moving. At a brisk 9 hours and 14 minutes, this year’s telecast was the shortest ever. Harris’s secret? Waving boxes of Franzia wine and cubes of supermarket cheese just off stage but in sight of the the evening’s winners. When asked where he got the idea, Harris grinned “I know what authors like.”

Last night’s winners

BEST NOVEL – FEMALE Ben, In the World by Doris Lessing

BEST NOVEL – MALE Any Human Heart by William Boyd

BEST AUDIO RECORDING (tie) The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht and Any Human Heart by William Boyd

BEST RE-READ – FEMALE Consequences by Penelope Lively

BEST RE-READ – MALE The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht

BEST NOVEL – DEPRESSION ERA Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell

BEST NOVEL – SLIGHTLY VINTAGE EURO/MIDDLE EAST Minotaur by Benjamin Tammuz

BEST NOVEL – CLASSICAL MUSIC WITH LESBIAN TWIST Chamber Music by Doris Grumbach

BEST THOUGHTFUL, INTERESTINGLY TOLD, SLIGHTLY ANITA BROOKNERISH NOVEL Outline by Rachel Cusk

BEST SHORT STORIES Mr. Loveday’s Little Outing and Other Sad Stories by Evelyn Waugh

BEST CRIME NOVEL Gang of Lovers by Massimo Carlotto

BEST NEW DISCOVERY – John Wyndham (The Day of the Triffids, The Chrysalids, Chocky, and The Midwich Cuckoos)

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD – Barbara Pym