Bedside Book Pile Update

At the beginning of 2019 I took a photo of the pile of books by my bed, with the hope that I would have an entirely different stack by the end of the year. At the beginning of 2020 I took another picture. Readers, I did it!

I've peaked too early, with the conclusion - it's like turning to the last page before continuing with the story (people who do that blow my mind) - but for those who would like to play along with the moves of the game, they began in this post, and they follow below:

Bedside book pile July 2019

In July I only read one book from the book pile, and it was Kerry Young's Gloria, which I admit I chose because of the cover and the plaudits - from The Guardian ('a vivid portrayal... heartfelt, sparky and affecting), Independent on Sunday ('A punchy tale of pungent characters and impassioned entanglements'), and The Observer ('A blindingly good read'). The author was born in Jamaica and has mixed Chinese and African heritage; she is hailed as 'stand-alone talent in the new emerging generation of writers from the Caribbean region'.

This is Kerry Young's second novel; the first was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, and apparently many of the characters are the same - I haven't read it but it would appear to be almost the same story told from a different viewpoint. There is violence, prostitution, illegitimacy, class conflict, prejudice and redemption. I enjoyed it up to about half-way through, and then I began to get bored - it had nothing fresh or original to say and the pidgin English style became tiresome. Many others disagree, so maybe I should try another of her novels, but I'm not really in any hurry to do so.

Other books I read in July that were not on the list were The Bus on Thursday by Shirley Barrett (easy-to-read part thriller; part supernatural; part comedy novel about a primary school teacher's issues with mental illness in a rural NSW town), Ghost Milk by Iain Sinclair (a damning critique of grand projects; from urban developments and shopping malls to the structures involved in the London Olympics), and Rocky Road by Robert Wainwright (subtitled 'The Incredible True Story of the Fractured Family Behind the Darrel Lea Chocolate Empire', it covers the 'experiment' of a woman adopting children to be playmates for her 'natural' children and the consequences thereof).

Books read from pile: 17/25

Bedside book pile August 2019

In August I read two books from the pile and two not. John Irving's Last Night in Twisted River covers much of his usual ground - bears; large-breasted women with largely undefined personalities; wrestling; writers; running and being attacked by dogs. It is brightly written with an eye for detail (the logging industry is well represented) and a fair bit of fourth wall breaking.

I also read Today I Am A Book by xTx, because my peculiar reading scheme dictated that I needed to read a book by an author beginning with X. All of the short, poetic segments (it feels wrong to call them stories, and, besides, they have the tart juiciness of an orange) in this collection are introduced with the words ‘Today I am a…’ It is a great creative writing exercise, and a way to express thoughts and feelings, but a lot of them are complicated and negative.
 
Bonus reading (books not on the list) were the graphic novel adaptation of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (each chapter illustrated by a different illustrator gives it a sort of disjointed feel) and The Book of the Heathen by Robert Edric, which has a heart-of-darkness feel to the nineteenth century Congo explorations undertaken by a European mapmaker and anthropologist companion.
 
Books read from pile: 19/27

Bedside book pile September 2019

In my rules, it counts if you add a book to the pile and read it in the same month. Hence Someone Like Me by M.R. Carey counts. It has a good, creepy cover, and the novel has overtones of Stephen King, rooted in reality with strong doses of popular culture, and the central theme of split or multiple personalities. 

I also read Boys Will Be Boys by Clementine Ford, which is excellent. While it has less of the explosive passion of Fight Like a Girl, it features more cohesive arguments and channels the rage of gender injustice in a more constructive flow.

Not on the list, but I read it anyway, was a new version of The House f Bernarda Alba by Federico Garcia Lorca, this time adapted by Rona Munro. It was suggested to me by a friend that I might like to direct it, but I am not keen, as the story still basically just features a bunch of women sitting around waiting to get married and hating each other because they are not the chosen one. The modern translation may try to bring out the injustice of the situation, but it is still a gender nightmare. 

I also added An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma, because it was shortlisted for the 2019 Booker prize. It may be dressed up with classical mythology and Igbo traditions, but it is basically a patriarchal tale of a man behaving badly when he doesn’t get what he wants from a woman.

Books read from pile: 21/29

Bedside book pile October 2019

October was a great month for reading for me, with Harvest by Jim Crace, shortlisted for the 2013 Booker Prize, being one of the highlights of the year. It is glorious, beginning in a bucolic vein (like Hardy’s pastoral interludes) but rapidly becoming much darker and more claustrophobic. Set against the movement from common land to enclosures; wheat crops and cattle to sheep it asks questions about private ownership of public land, when there are changing masters who is in charge of themselves, and how easy it is to blame women as witches to provide easy scapegoats.

Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet began with Autumn, published last year, and continues here with Winter. The subject is quite different but many of the themes are familiar. It is written in a continuous fluid style, but with short sentences and without irksome stream-of-consciousness. The novel embroiders snatches of literature and legend into a rich tapestry: a retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for our times. This is a novel of stories and interpretations. We are given tales of fertility; the Green Man, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and defenders of past rituals and natural bounty. Smith combines the richness of the past with the frustrations of the present and a glimmer of hope for the future, believing that communities and compassion can overcome division and isolation.

Mum gave me a copy of The Salt Path by Raynor Wynn, which I read and left with Scarey Sis, who I thought would enjoy it as much as I did. The author loses her home for financial reasons, and her husband is diagnosed with a terminal illness. With no ties to bind them, and very little money to support themselves, they set off to walk the South West Path. The tale is as much about the 630-mile trek as it is about homelessness, compassion and the state of the nation.

Books read from pile: 24/31

Bedside book pile November 2019

I practically devoured The Testaments by Margaret Atwood; a thinly-veiled polemic against totalitarianism. In her acknowledgments at the end of the 2019 Booker-Prize-winning novel, Margaret Atwood thanks “the readers of The Handmaid’s Tale; their interest and curiosity has been inspiring.” If my desire to know what happened after The Handmaid’s Tale is in any part responsible for the writing of this book, 35 years after its predecessor, you’re welcome. It’s been a long time coming, but it is certainly worth it, and after all this time, it still has a clear directive: “We must continue to remind ourselves of the wrong turnings taken in the past so we do not repeat them.”

For something completely different, I read The Cat who Sniffed Glue by Lilian Jackson Braun - it was on my bookshelf so why not? It's a light-hearted mystery featuring an eligible bachelor, and two Siamese cats. It positions itself firmly in the category of 'cosy mysteries', subsection; if you know what to expect from this genre; you won't be disappointed. 

A friend recommended that I read Brothers by Yu Hua. It is a sprawling and picaresque epic focussing on step-brothers Baldly Li and Song Gang. The first half of the novel concentrates on their childhood and adolescence during the Cultural Revolution, and the second half features their adulthood, successes and otherwise during the early period of China's Opening-Up. It is wry, ribald and Rabelaisian with plenty of sex and violence delivered as farce and satire.

Books read from pile: 25/34

Bedside book pile December 2019

I was quite busy reading in December; one of my favourite pastimes so no complaints here! I also polished off four books that were on he list, and one that wasn't. Starting with the one that wasn't,  A Universe of Sufficient Size by Mirian Sved was a recommendation from a friend. Spanning continents and three generations, this rich novel of mathematics, politics, friendship, family, sexuality and love, features numerous time and narrative shifts. And I loved it.

Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao also details an incredible friendship, also across continents and decades. But the persecution in this one derives from sexism rather than fascism and the women in this novel (Savitha and Poornima) are variously raped, abused, starved and mutilated because they are female and they are poor. It becomes a touch stereotypical, which is a shame, because it could have a lot to say beneath the layers of cliche.

The Girl Before by JP Delaney is supposedly an erotic thriller, but it feels a little predictable and formulaic. It's not about a girl, before, after or present; it is about a house and a man’s viewpoint of manipulation and control. It is an entertaining read, but it is not earth-shattering. Shock value isn’t everything, and its veneer wears off very quickly - maybe it's time to give this style of book (girl in the title = unreliable narrator) a rest.

If it is not already apparent, let me state that I love books and books about books, so Ex Libris by Ross King, which purported to be about a whole library, should have really stocked my shelves. But it felt flat, partly due to the confusing plot, which was all over the place (and not in a good way), and partly due to an over-indulgence in historical research - I know it's set in the 1600s and the author is very knowledgeable about the period, but I didn't feel as though he needed to shoehorn those facts in at every available and inopportune gap in the narrative. 

Where I was overwhelmed with insight and anecdote was Anthony Holden's biography, Olivier. He was a theatrical colossus and he made as many right as wrong choices of production and partner, but he remained dedicated to a craft that changed rapidly from stage to screen. It's also fascinating because it was written 40 years after Olivier's acting heyday and 40 years before today's judgmental generation. Holden, therefore, manages to review Olivier's towering performance of Othello without once mentioning the awkward issue of blackface. Those were different times indeed.

Books read from pile: 29/35

Bedside book pile January 2020

And so I begin again...

Friday Five : The Evolving Book Pile

At the beginning of the year I took a picture of the pile of books on my bedside table. By the end of year, I expect I shall still have a pile of books, but I would like them to be different ones. This is the six-monthly record of the evolving nature of that pile.

Bedside book pile January 2019

In January I read My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, and All in the Timing by David Ives from my pile. I picked up the former while in Powell's City of Books in Portland. I was considering reading it over Christmas, but Christmas is supposed to be cheery and this book is anything but, so I waited until afterwards to embark upon it. A fourteen-year-old girl grows up dealing with nature and approaching adulthood through adventure and grit; like a female version of Huckleberry Finn with an added whack of abuse that is agonising to read. Happy New Year! 

The Symapthizer was lent to me by a friend who claimed the prose is beautiful. He's right. Mind you, it won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, so he's not alone in thinking that. It covers a range of genres from espionage thriller to darkly comic political commentary, and, because it deals with the Americanization of the Vietnam War, it nods somewhat vigorously towards Graham Greene. 

David Ives' All in the Timing is a collection of fourteen short plays set in surreal situations. Overlapping scenes, non-linear time, multi-faceted characters, literary allusions and fluid language make these a thoroughly entertaining cerebral challenge. David Ives is a comic genius who has put the play back into playwright. 

I also read Wicked Sisters by Alma de Groen, which was not in the pile. I am part of a committee which is producing this fantastic play in a couple of months in which four women meet up after the death of one of their husband's and learn more about him and themselves in the space of a wine-fueled evening than they ever knew or wanted to know.

Books read from pile: 3/11

Bedside book pile February 2019

In this month I read The Overstory by Richard Powers from the pile, and several others that weren't in it. The Overstory was shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize - it considers the narrative of life above ground, while maintaining that everything is connected beneath it. There are diatribes upon trees; growth; concentric circles; timelines; length of time taken to replace and regenerate; the fact that we have missed our opportunity and are now all doomed.

I also read The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner, which was similarly shortlisted - set in a women's prison and told in the first person through flashbacks, it details the lives of the inmates with a combination of mind-numbing boredom and bone-crunching brutality. We learn that these women are largely incarcerated due to poor choices made in the face of so few opportunities.

In keeping with the theme I read the winner of the 2017 Man Booker International Prize, A Horse Walks into a Barby David Grossman (translated by Jessica Cohen). It is a very short but very complex novella about a comedian who falls apart on stage. It is set in Israel and packed with lines that are certain to offend, but it presents a clever comparison between the individual and society, and how disease spreads from within to become all-consuming. 

The plays I read were Melancholy Play by Sarah Ruhl, which is admirably bonkers and addresses the issue of why we find sadness so attractive, and A Doll's House Part 2 by Lucas Hnath. I've never been a fan of people penning sequels to the works of others, but I have been asked to audition for this play, so I thought I should at least read it. I like the ideas and concepts about the need for equality in all things, but I'm yet to be convinced of its necessity.

Books read from pile: 4/14

Bedside book pile March 2019

March's reading was quite varied and included a few from the pile. Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince, the Selfish Giant and Other Stories is full of tales of practical characters in fairy-tale situations where beauty is admired above all, which leads to bitterness and anger when youth fades. I read it as a child and dug it out again after seeing both the film The Happy Prince and the play The Judas Kiss in the space of a couple of weeks.

Silent Women: Pioneers of Cinema edited by Melody Bridges and Cheryl Robson is a collection of essays about the women who helped to shape the film industry: actors; directors; editors; marketers; producers; managers - there is a lot of historical content explaining how roles were not so strictly delineated (many women had creative control but were not called directors) and how various movements in the past affected their status in Hollywood and elsewhere. More recently, 1995 was “the peak of female director hires in the United States. For the next twenty years, women directors would face stasis and decline in employment.” In fact, only 1.9% of directors of the top-grossing one hundred films of 2013 and 2014 were women.

I'm not usually a fan of stream-of-consciousness novels (James Joyce and Virginia Wood test my patience to the limit), but the self-obsessed need to express every tiny thought no matter how banal, fits the teenage narrator of Milkman perfectly. Anna Burns' 2018 Man Booker Prize winning novel is set in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, (or 'the problems') as they are called here: it is almost comical (in a Monty Python People’s Liberation Front sort of way), but people are killed for these minor details, so the humour is very dark.

Having heard nothing about Of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra, I got it out of the library on a whim due to the title and am so glad I did. The multi-layered story about censorship and art, which covers many decades, nine narrators and a variety of styles, remains absolutely engaging throughout. It is one of those weird coincidences that one of the characters mentioned in the novel is Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, the titular character of Alma de Groen's time-travelling The Woman in the Window, in which anything is possible in a world where quantum physics explains different dimensions.This play, with its dual narrative thread of repressing poetry in the past and future for political purposes will be produced by Canberra Repertory later in the year. It's a great story with powerful themes and plentiful scenes - I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Books read from pile: 8/16

Bedside book pile April 2019

In April a friend lent me Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak, and I liked The Book Thief, so I gave this a go. Big mistake. And I mean big. Huge. It is clearly meant to be an homage to Homer but, while Homeric epithets may work in epic poetry; repetitive descriptors, sonorous syntax and quirky sentence length are tiresome in this novel. The novel revolves around five boys growing up in a rural suburb in New South Wales, and at almost 600 pages, it reads as if Zusak doesn’t know where to start, or finish, or even what to say.

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry was a lot more successful, in which (to copy from a Guardian review), 'An Essex village is terrorised by a winged leviathan in a Gothic Victorian tale crammed with incident, character and plot'. From the book pile I also began to read Every Last One by Anna Quindlen, until I realised that I already had, and so returned it to the library.

Books I read that never made it into the pile were The Mao Case by Qiu Xiaolong (the sixth outing for Chief Inspector Chen, who has to solve a crime in Shanghai and Beijing, which may or may not involve Chairman Mao), The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (which I read to help a student at work with a school project), and The Long Take by Robin Robertson. The latter was another shortlisted nominee for the 2018 Man Booker Prize and is a poetic work of brilliance, historical worth and impermanence, as the noir narrative exposes the black and white cinematic qualities of city developments and PTSD.

I also read Escaped Alone by Caryl Churchill because she is my favourite playwright and I am trying to find plays with strong female characters - this has four of them (all over sixty) who chat in the back garden with dialogue charged with incident and heightened reality.

Books read from pile: 11/18

Bedside book pile May 2019

I persisted with Anna Quindlen in May and read Still Life with Bread Crumbs. It's fine; gentle and comforting although occasionally it can also be a touch clichéd. The novel deals with loneliness, depression, mental illness, and creative temperament. These are big issues, which are important to address, but the treatment at times feels a little superficial. In the Blood by Lisa Unger is a perfectly readable thriller about missing college friends and maniacal children that didn't make me lose any sleep.

You Say Potato: A Book about Accents by Ben Crystal and David Crystal, on the other hand, is an absolute ripper. The father and son combination, with an almost intimidating knowledge of acting, Shakespeare and linguistics between them, riff on the topic of accents: where they come from; how they evolve; how they are influenced by fashion and attitude; and how "we think people should be proud of their accent, whatever it is.”

Not in the pile (but I read them anyway), were How to Talk to Girls at Parties by Neil Gaiman (about which I feel rather conflicted), and Votes for Women and Other Plays edited by Susan Croft - still on the lookout for strong female roles, I thought I could do worse than approach this anthology of plays, sketches and monologues to celebrate the centenary of the Suffragettes. It is, indeed, fascinating in its range and scope. 

Books read from pile: 14/ 21

Bedside book pile June 2019

I managed to read two book from the bedside pile in June, and what wonderful ones to choose. Simon Armitage wreaks amazing magic with his translation of Gawain and the Green Knight, which is funny and modern, while adhering to the style and traditions of the original. I read it and then I read it again out loud, because the words are supremely satisfying and they cry out to be spoken.

I also read Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay, which is a well-written series of essays about feminism and other things: from the traumas of fat camp to the triumphs of scrabble tournaments; good journalism and social responsibility; lessons learned from teaching and the guilt of enjoying reality TV and rap music. 

Because we went for a long weekend to the coast and because I like to read books set in similar habitats to my environs, I finished off the mid-year by reading The Alphabet of Light and Dark by Charlotte Wood (an over-wrought piece about a woman drawn back to her home town after her father - the lightkeeper's - death, which won the Australian Vogel Literary Award in 2002 and readds like it was written by a creative writing graduate. It was.) and Dance upon the Air by Nora Roberts (in which three women represent earth, fire and air, and have brown, red and blonde hair and combine their spiritual powers to defeat men and commune with nature and blah, blah, blah...).

Books read from pile: 16/24

Total number of books still in the pile from the beginning of the year: 3/11