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Member: Caroline_McElwee

CollectionsYour library (4,332), 50 books I'd keep if I could have no more (50), Currently reading (6), Dipping - slow reads (12), To read or re-read soon (from my library) (18), 2009 - read (from my own library) (71), Thrice or more! (51), Read (of my library) (1,253), Bloomsbury Group and Friends (65), Dutch Collection (107), Russia (89), Joyce Carol Oates Collection (29), Books I wouldn't want to live without (1,883), Useful self development tools (9), Publications (25), All collections (4,332)

Reviews72 reviews

TagsNovel (1,516), R (1,215), UK (856), US (685), biography (635), autobiography (394), poems (351), 2008 (323), poetry (320), novel (309) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud

GroupsAtwoodians, Bloomsbury Group and their friends, Dutch writing in English - An appreciation, Folio Society devotees, Hornbeam Reading Group, I Lock My Door Upon Myself: Fans of Joyce Carol Oates, Literature of Georgia (Sakartvelo), Project 1929, Slightly Foxed - An appreciation, The Red Room — show all groups , Writer-readers

Favorite authorsPeter Ackroyd, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Karen Armstrong, Elizabeth von Arnim, Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster, James Baldwin, John Banville, Pat Barker, Simone de Beauvoir, Dirk Bogarde, William Boyd, Ray Bradbury, A. S. Byatt, Lord Byron, Italo Calvino, Albert Camus, J.L. Carr, Anne Carson, Raymond Carver, Bruce Chatwin, Anton Chekhov, Michael Cunningham, Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, Karen Blixen, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mark Doty, Carol Ann Duffy, Helen Dunmore, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Penelope Fitzgerald, Janet Frame, Northrop Frye, Tess Gallagher, Maggie Gee, André Gide, Graham Greene, Helene Hanff, Richard Holmes, Janette Turner Hospital, Khaled Hosseini, Fergal Keane, John Keats, Primo Levi, Penelope Lively, Mary S. Lovell, Bernard MacLaverty, Osip Mandelštam, Henning Mankell, Sándor Márai, Philip Marsden, André Maurois, Ian McEwan, Patrick McGrath, Anne Michaels, Marcel Moring, Toni Morrison, Pablo Neruda, Joyce Carol Oates, Michael Ondaatje, John Pilger, E. Annie Proulx, Rainer Maria Rilke, Joseph Roth, Philip Roth, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Jonathan Sacks, Lorna Sage, May Sarton, Bernard Schlink, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Sam Shepard, Carol Shields, Anita Shreve, Marin Sorescu, John Steinbeck, William Styron, Elizabeth Taylor, Lisa St. Aubin de Teran, Dalai Lama (His Holiness the), Claire Tomalin, Rose Tremain, Jane Urquhart, Salley Vickers, Alice Walker, Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams, Landford Wilson, Jeanette Winterson, Jan Wolkers, Virginia Woolf (Shared favorites)

Favorite bookstoresLondon Review Bookshop

About meAfter reading Susan Hill's 'Howards End is on the Landing' I have started a '50 Books I'd keep if I could have no more' collection. Of course this will change as I read, although it already includes books I have only dipped into and one or two I haven't read yet. As well as one or two multi-volume sets, and I am cheating and counting them as one! How on earth can I choose from the art books? An interesting exercise though, and it might need to be attacked with more discipline at some stage. There needs to be a brown paper bag icon I think, for panic attacks!

The photo: At Kew, Oct 2009(c) C J McElwee

Currently Reading

I'm in drift mode, dipping in lots of volumes of essays mostly.

Also:
The Years (Virginia Woolf) [re-read]
Presence: Collected Short Stories (Arthur Miller)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button & Other Stories (F Scott Fitzgerald)
The Philosopher and the Wolf (Mark Rowlands)
A Room of One's Own and other Essays (Virginia Woolf)
The Moonstone (Wilkie Collins)
Rereadings (Ed. Anne Fadiman)
Darwin's Garden (Michael Boulter)

{also see 'Currently reading' category above}

(* Ratings below are against books of a similar type, rather than a comparitive between each other).

Read 2009 (the emboldened entries are the books that most stood out for me this year):

The Sorrows of an American (Siri Hustvedt)[US][novel] **** 05/01/09
The Almond Picker (Simonetta Agnello Hornby){France][Novel] *** 07/01/09
Experience Beyond Thinking (Diana St Ruth) [Meditation]*** 07/01/09
The Twin (Gerbrand Bakker) [Dutch][novel] ***1/2 10/01/09
The Blue Manuscript (Sabiha Al Khemir) [Tunisian][novel] ***1/2 16/01/09
Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles’(Richard Dowden) [[history/current affairs/Africa] **** 27/01/09
Answering Back, ed Carol Ann Duffy *** 01/02/09 [Poetry]
Northern Lights (Philip Pullman)[novel] ***1/2 10/02/09
Guests of Eternity (Larissa Miller) [Russian][Poetry] ***1/2 13/02/09
Mill on the Floss (George Eliot) [novel] ***1/2 (18/02/09)
Red Bird (Mary Oliver)*** (18/02/09)[US][Poetry]
Lost Souls (Poppy Z Brite) *** (24/02/09) [US][novel]
Croton Elegies (Antonio Barolini) **** (01/03/09)[Italy/US] [Poetry]
The Last Jews of Kerala (Edna Fernandes)*** (08/03/09)[history/India]
The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth (Frances Wilson) *** [Biography](15/03/09)
Making an Elephant: Writing from Within (Graham Swift)[Essays] ***1/2 (17/03/09)
Women Poets of Japan (ed Rexroth, K) (22/03/09)***1/2 [Poetry]
Where I've Been, and Where I am going (Essays) (Joyce Carol Oates) (28/03/09)***1/2
Cossacks and Bandits (Katia Kapovich) (29/03/09)[poetry] ***1/2
My Driver (Maggie Gee) (04/04/09) ***1/2 [novel]
Weeds and Wildflowers (Alice Oswald/Jessica Greenman) [Poetry/Etchings] (05/04/09) ****
Journal of Solitude (May Sarton) [Re-read] (06/04/09) **** [journal/autobiography]
The Diary of a Provincial Lady (E M Delafield) (08/04/09) ***1/2 [novel]
Mudbound (Hillary Jordan) (09/04/09) **** (US) [novel]
Testimony (Anita Shreve) (10/04/09) ***1/2 (US) [novel]
To Siberia (Per Petterson) (12/04/09) *** (Norway) [novel]
The Natural History of Unicorns (Chris Laver) (14/04/09) ***1/2 [non-fiction/natural history/mythology]
The Thing Around Your Neck (Chimamanda Ngosi Adichie) (18/04/09) ***1/2 [short stories] (Nigeria/Americ]
Colored People (Harry Lois Gates Jnr) (19/04/09) **** [autobiography]
The Wise Virgins (Leonard Woolf) (01/05/09) ***1/2 [novel]
The Children's Book (A S Byatt) (10/05/09) **** [novel]
The Year of No Money in Tokyo (Wayne Lionel Aponte) {Essays/autobiography][16/05/09) **1/2
The Winter Vault (Anne Michaels) (17/05/09)****1/2 [novel](Canada)
Gaudy Night (Dorothy L Sayers) (24/05/09)*** [novel]
Amenable Women (Mavis Cheek) (25/05/09)*** [novel]
Blindness (Jose Saramago) (29/05/09)***1/2 [novel] (Portugal]
A Life in Poetry (Du Fu) (31/05/09)[China] [Poetry] ****
The Moreville Hours (Katherine Swift) (02/06/09) ****
Books of Hours - miniature edition (02/06/09) **** [art/religion/spirituality]
Fugitive Pieces (Anne Michaels) [Re-Read] (Canada) (07/06/09) ***** [novel]
Molly Fox's Birthday (Deirdre Madden) [Ireland] [novel] (09/06/09) *** 1/2
50 is the new Fifty (Suzanne Braun Levine) [Psychology/Health] (13/06/09) ****
The Dutch Table (Gillian Riley) (14/06/09) **** [History/Art/ Cookery]
The Frozen Thames (Helen Humphreys) (13/06/09) short stories (Canada) ***1/2
Voss (Patrick White) [Australia] (novel] (17/06/09) ****1/2
The Housekeeper and the Professor (Yoko Ogawa) (20/06/09) [Japan] (novel) ***1/2
Cannery Row (John Steinbeck) (novella) (25/06/09)*****
The Occupied Garden: A Family Memoir of War-Torn Holland (Kristen Den Hartog and Tracy Kasaboski) (memoir) Dutch/Canadian) (27/06/09) ****
Chinese Ceramics: Highlights of the Sir Percival David Collection(Regina Krahl) (27/06/09) ****
The Architecture of Happiness (Alain de Botton) [Architecture/Psychology/Philosophy](28/... ****
The Whole Day Through (Patrick Gale) (30/06/09)***
The Diabetes Revolution (Dr Charles Clark & Maureen Clark) (04/07/09) ***1/2
Reading Matters: Five Centuries of Discovering Books (Margaret Willes) (10/07/09) ****
The Behaviour of Moths (Poppy Adams)(12/07/09) [novel] ***1/2
Stevenson under the Palm Trees (Alberto Manguel)(17/07/09) [novella]***
Passage to India (E M Forster) (20/07/09) [novel] ****
The Transit of Venus (Shirley Hazzard) (26/07/09) [novel] ****
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Murial Spark) (27/07/09) [novel] ***1/2
The Piano Teacher (Elfriede Jelinek) (31/07/09) ***1/2 (novel)
The Harrowing (Robert Dinsdale) (05/08/09) ***1/2 (novel)
Dancing Backwards (Salley Vickers) (06/08/09) ***1/2 (novel)
The Indian Clerk (David Leavitt) (09/08/09) **** (novel)
West End Final (Hugo Williams) (14/08/09) *** (poetry)
Virginia Woolf (Hermione Lee) (19/08/09)****1/2
To the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf) [novel] (re-read) (21/08/09)****
The Pendragon Legend (Antal Szerb) (novel) (24/08/09) ***
Voices in the Garden (Dirk Bogarde) (novel) [re-read] (25/08/09) ****
Monkey in the House (Peggy Barnard) *** 1/2 (autobiography) (01/09/09)
Common Reader - Series One (Virginia Woolf) **** (Essays) (03/09/09)
Silas Marner (George Eliot) ***1/2 (07/09/09)
Miss Garnet's Angel (Salley Vickers) (novel) (re-read) **** (08/09/09)
The Other Side of you (Salley Vickers) (novel) (re-read) **** (12/09/09)
Biography (Hermione Lee) **** (14/09/09)
Diaries of Virginia Woolf - Vol 1 ****1/2 (14/09/09)
Seven Houses - my life with books (Bettina Hurlimann) **** (autobiograph7) (15/09/09)
The Tattoed Girl (Joyce Carol Oates **** (20/09/09) (novel)
Travels with my Aunt (Graham Greene) ***1/2 (23/09/09) (novel)
Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel)(novel) **** (28/09/09)
Sowing (Leonard Woolf) (autobiography) **** (29/09/09)
Growing: 1904-1911 (Leonard Woolf) (Vol 2 of Autobiography) ***1/2 (02/10/09)
Beginning Again: 1911-1918 (Leonard Woolf) Vol 3 of Autobiography) ***1/2 (05/10/09)
Downhill All the Way (Leonard Woolf) Autobiog Vol 4 (09/10/09) ***1/2
The Journey, Not the Arrival: 1939-1969 (Leonard Woolf) (Autobiography) Vol 5 ***1/2 (11/10/09)
Howards End is on the Landing (Susan Hill) **** (15/10/09)
The Glass Room (Simon Mawer) ***1/2 (19/10/09)
Evidence (Mary Oliver) ***1/2 (28/10/09) [poetry]
A Writer's Diary (Virginia Woolf) ****1/2 (01/11/09) [Autobiography/Writing]
Selected Poems of Edna St Vincent Millay ***1/2 (01/11/09)
The True Deceiver (Tove Jansson) ***1/2 (02/11/09)
Tirra Lirra by the River (Jessica Anderson) **** (05/11/09)
Murial Spark: The Biography (Martin Stannard) ***1/2 (15/11/09)
Loitering with Intent (Muriel Spark) ***1/2 (16/11/09)
Lolly Willowes (Sylvia Townsend Warner)***1/2 (19/11/09)

(93)

My Africa reading project has been temporarily shelved, but I've saved the list of recommendations received.

I'm a compulsive reader and an obsessive book buyer - new or secondhand doesn't matter. I do use the library, but often end up having to add a copy of the good ones to my own library.

I want to begin every book as soon as I get it, and have far too many I am dipping into.

I can't DO 'Top Ten Favourite books' but here are some special ones:

The novels I’ve read the most (the Gatsby 20+ times and the rest 1 to 3+)

1. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
2. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
3. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
4. Beloved by Toni Morrison
5. The Railway Children by E Nesbit
6. Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald
7. The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde
8. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
9. Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker
10. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
11. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
12. Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
13. A Month in the Country by J L Carr
14. Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
15. Shipping News by E Annie Proulx
16. On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin
17. In Custody by Anita Desai
18. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
19. Miss Garnett's Angel by Salley Vickers
20. The Newton Letter by John Banville
21. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
22. Middlemarch by George Eliot
23. Embers by Sandor Marai
24. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Novels I've read once that I KNOW I'll read again:

The Time of our Singing by Richard Powers
Credo by Melvyn Bragg
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
[list in progress...]

Autobiography & Biography

1. A Rage to Live: Life of Sir Richard and Isabel Burton by Mary S Lovell
2. Letters of Vincent Van Gogh by Vincent Van Gogh
3. A Postillion Struck by Lightening by Dirk Bogarde
4. Plant Dreaming Deep by May Sarton
5. Woman in the Mist by Farley Mowat
6. Out of Africa by Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen)
7. Chronicles One by Bob Dylan
8. The Bronski House by Philip Marsden
9. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman
10. A View of Delft: Vermeer Then and Now by Anthony Bailey
11. What am I doing here? by Bruce Chatwin (essays)
12. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
13. 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
14. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
15. Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
16. In Europe by Geert Mak

Non-Fiction

1. The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations by Jonathan Sacks
2. Happiness: A Handbook for Living by the Dalai Lama
3. The Soul of Money by Lynn Twist
4. The End of Poverty: How We Can Make It Happen in Our Lifetime by Jeffrey Sachs
5. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

Poetry

1. Rilke: Selected poems – Raine Maria Rilke
2. Elemental Odes (Odas Elementale) – Pablo Neruda
3. My Alexandria by Mark Doty
4. Waste Land by T S Eliot
5. Dear Ghosts, by Tess Gallagher
6. The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy

SHAKESPEARE of course - for me it is the TRAGEDIES, especially HAMLET!

I've now challenged myself to read The Bible from cover to cover including the Apochrypha, and will follow it with some biblical history and the Gnostic Gospels (but all that is a project for several years). I've read other spiritual books, but only dipped into the Bible very rarely. I don't follow one faith but have a spiritual side that I like to nourish from time to time. And you can't have a discussion about religion if you haven't read the books - and there is a lively God discussion going on at the moment (Hitchins/Armstrong/Dawkins to name but only a few).

I'm also going to begin cataloguing my CDs and DVDs on
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/CJM_...

About my libraryI am about two-thirds through putting my collection on LibraryThing, but it will be a while before I add more, as I have to move things to get at the remaining ones, double stacked,in a small London apartment - it's going to take a while to catalogue them.

Ratings

***** (Can't live without these and probably read several times)
**** (Excellent read, highly recommended, maybe read more than once)
*** (Definately recommended, good read)
** (Disappointing)
* (Really didn't like)
and all the halves appropriately, I like the halves, as often my feeling is between two goal posts, especially between 3-4 and 4-5! At least should I ever downsize my library the list of those that are definately staying will be easy to pull (once my catalogue is complete).

In TAGS the year on its own is the year purchased (starting this year 2007). 'R2007' for example is the year read, and is only my reading from my own collection! DIPPING means I dip in and out, so many art and poetry books get dipped into rather than read from cover to cover, so never appear read!

Homepagehttp://emeraldcity-carolinesreading.blogspot.com/

Membership LibraryThing Early Reviewers/Member Giveaway

LocationLondon

Account typepublic, lifetime

Connection NewsConnection News

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/Caroline_McElwee (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Caroline_McElwee (library)

Common KnowledgeSeries (282), Awards (532), Characters (8129), Places (1484)

Member sinceFeb 21, 2007

Currently readingA Room of One's Own and other essays by Virginia Woolf
The New Buddhism by David Brazier
The Verneys: Love, War and Madness in Seventeenth-century England by Adrian Tinniswood
A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx by Elaine Showalter
THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY by TRANS V E WATTS BOETHIUS
Voyages and Discoveries (Penguin Classics) by Richard Hakluyt
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