PAUL C and 25 Twelves

EDITED FOR REALISM

Whilst I am more commonly found in the 75ers group I wanted to put to use my enthusiasm for the new year by setting myself a challenge I am pretty sure that I will fail spectacularly with.

Since I joined LT in 2011 I have never got to 200 books in a single year (although I did it a few times in university years) and I want to go and aim for 300!240 BOOKS 20 categories with 12 months in the year one complete category a month is 240 books.

Here are my Categories :

1. European Grand Tour Challenge (1/12)
2. American Author Challenge (1/12)
3. British Author Challenge (2/12)
4. Non-Fiction Challenge (2/12)
5. 1001 Book Entry - (1/12)
6. Fiction written before I was born (1/12)
7. A book a bought within the last year (1/12)
8. Mystery Prince - (1/12)
9. Mystery Princess (2/12)
10. Ruth or Rhona (1/12)
11. Pot Luck Fiction (2/12) -
12. SF/Fantasy - (1/12)
13. International Poetry (3/12)
14. Poetry by British Male - (1/12)
15. Poetry by British Female - (1/12)
16. The Plays of the Bard of Avon - (1/12)
17. Memoir / Biography - (1/12)
18. General Non-Fiction (2/12) -
19. Current Affairs -
20. Travel and the Natural World - (1/12)

CATEGORY 1 - The European Grand Tour Challenge



A link to the challenge is here : https://www.librarything.com/topic/366794#8706526

January : Colonel Chabert by Honore de Balzac

CATEGORY 2 - The American Author Challenge



January : The Cold Millions by Jess Walter

CATEGORY THREE - The British Author Challenge



January : Lost Empires by J.B. Priestley
February : Take it Back by Kia Abdullah

CATEGORY 4 - The Non-Fiction Challenge



January : The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane
February : The Power of Geography by Tim Marshall

CATEGORY 5 : 1001 BOOK First Edition Entries



January
February : Silence by Shusaku Endo

CATEGORY 6 : Fiction written before I was born



January : The Great Fortune by Olivia Manning

CATEGORY 7 : Contemporary Female Authors



January : Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

CATEGORY 8 : Contemporary Male Authors

CATEGORY 9 : Added to the Shelves Exactly a Year Ago



January :
February : Nagasaki by Eric Faye

CATEGORY 10 : Mystery Princes



JANUARY
FEBRUARY - Night Blind by Ragnar Jonasson

CATEGORY 11 : Mystery Princesses



January : The Hunter by Tana French
February : Our Fathers by Rebecca Wait

CATEGORY 12 : The Ruth Galloway Books



January : Dying Fall by Elly Griffiths

CATEGORY 13 : The Rhona MacLeod Books



January : The Reborn by Lin Anderson

CATEGORY 14 : Pot Luck



January : Fen by Daisy Johnson
February : Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin

CATEGORY 15 : Science Fiction Fantasy



January :
February : Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson

CATEGORY 16 : Male Non-British Poet


Billy Collins

January - Forest of Noise by Mosab Abu Toha

CATEGORY 17 : Female Non-British Poet


Sharon Olds

January : Stag's Leap by Sharon Olds
February : Alphabet by Inger Christensen

CATEGORY 18 : Male British Poet


Simon Armitage

January :
February : God's Gift to Women by Don Paterson

CATEGORY 19 : Female British Poet


Alice Oswald

January : After You Were, I Am by Camille Ralphs

CATEGORY 20 : The Bard of Avon



January :
February : Macbeth

CATEGORY 21 : 30 DAY RULE (Books acquired in the previous month)



January :
February : The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane

CATEGORY 22 : Memoir / Biography



January : The Junior Officers' Reading Club by Patrick Hennessey

CATEGORY 23 : General Non-Fiction



January - Now Then : A Biography of Yorkshire by Rick Broadbent
February - In the Land of the Cyclops by Karl-Ove Knausgaard

CATEGORY 24 : Current Affairs

CATEGORY 25 : Travel & Nature



January :
February : A Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks

Hi Paul! Nice to see you here!
I decided not to join the 75 Club - it gets too busy- but I'm glad I'll be able to follow your reads here.
All great categories! Dropping a star for sure :)

Glad to see you here, Paul!

I'm happy to see you here and am looking forward to seeing what you read this year! Happy 2025 reading!

Happy New Year and good luck with your 300 book challenge.

>27 Cecilturtle: Thanks for stopping by, Cecile and it is good to see some familiar faces. xx
I will go and look for your thread.

>28 Tess_W: Glad to be here, Tess, and nice to see you here likewise.

>29 MissBrangwen: Thanks for looking me up, Mirjam - long time no "see". I will go and find and star your thread too.

>30 lowelibrary: Thank you, April and the very same to you.

So glad to see you here, Paul! Good luck with your categories, I'll be following your reading.

>33 VivienneR: I would be disappointed for sure if you didn't, Vivienne.xx

Likewise I have you starred.

Hi Paul. I was surprised and overjoyed when I saw that you have set up a thread in the Category Challenge this year. I'm dropping a star and hope to be a regular visitor!

Very ambitious. I will be following along!

Nice to see you over here too! I hope I can keep up with you at one place and/or the other.

>35 DeltaQueen50: Yes, I must admit that I have missed your company dear Guru. Likewise I will keeping up with your thread.

>36 sturlington: Nice to see you Shannon. I will go and try and find your thread. I hope I can keep up myself!

>37 thornton37814: Lori, likewise!
I didn't want to so obviously follow my 75er friends here as I don't want to be accused of being a stalker! Obviously though I will touch base with you here too!

Always so ambitious! Good luck and happy reading.

Just dropping by to say hi! Look forward to watching you read.

>39 majkia: Hahaha and almost always disappointed, Jean. It is extremely early but I am a day ahead of schedule thus far!

>40 mysterymax: Nice to see you, Max, I will go and look for your thread.

BOOK #1



Colonel Chabert by Honore de Balzac
Date of Publication : 1832
Origin of Author : France
Gender of Author : Male
Pages : 101 pp
CATEGORY : 1 - European Grand Tour : (1/12)

I had almost forgotten what a great storyteller Balzac was. An officer was left for dead on the battlefield after his heroics ensure victory. But when he returns and finds his wife remarried and his wealth gone with her, he seeks the aid of a solicitor to right his wrongs.

Balzac casts a typically agued eye on proceedings and the novella is as delightful as it turns tragic.

BOOK #2



Forest of Noise by Mosab Abu Toha
Date of Publication : 2024
Origin of Author : Gaza / Palestine
Gender of Author : Male
CATEGORY : 16 - Poetry by Non-British Male (1/12)

This is an incendiary piece of writing.

As most people will know here I am both a Muslim and Pro-Israel but one cannot help but be affected by the suffering of civilians caught in the middle of the troubles in that beloved but somehow cursed region. At the chaos, at the carnage, at the needless deaths and the displacement.

All of this and more is brilliantly encapsulated into this fine but painful collection of poems. Who would have thought that you could put seemingly innocuous words together and make them collectively so powerful.

This writer is one to watch for sure.

I could quote from money of the poems but this is "Before I Sleep"

Before I sleep,
Death is always
sitting on my windowsill,
whether in Gaza or Cairo.

Even when I lived
in a tent,
it never failed
to create a window
for itself.

It looks me in the eye
and recounts to me
the many times
it let me live.

When I respond, "But you
took my loved ones away!"
it swallows the light in the tent
and hides in the dark to visit next day.

Recommended.

BOOK #3



Now Then : A Biography of Yorkshire by Rick Broadbent
Date of Publication : 2023
Origin of Author : UK
Gender of Author : Male
Pages : 433 pp
CATEGORY : 23 - General Non-Fiction (1/12)

"Now then" is a form of Yorkshire greeting pronounced slightly depending on where in my county you hail from and is something between a statement of intent and a question.

I have a lot to be proud of in my life and prominent amongst them is being a Yorkshireman. Like John Simpson I am proud of my Wakefield roots - I come from a county that has often stood up against authority - sometimes successfully and sometimes we have valiantly failed. I think of Marston Moor, Stamford Bridge, Orgreave and Towton as a witness to our martial past, Headingley, Elland Road and Hillsborough as testament to our sporting prowess and its often tragic shortcomings. A best Yorkshire XI of my lifetime would probably beat any cricket team in the world.

Boycott, Vaughan, Bairstow (J), Root, Brook, Close, Illingworth, Old, Gough, Trueman, Sidebottom (R)

It is also a dark place of mills and factories, of pits, forges and foundries. Of the exploration of Captain Cook and Helen Sharman (Britain's first spacewoman), of Dick Turpin, Robin of Loxsley and the Yorkshire Ripper. Of William Wilberforce, Herbert Asquith and Harold Wilson.

All are encapsulated in this engaging book.

BOOK #4



The Hunter by Tana French
Date of Publication : 2024
Origin of Author : Ireland
Gender of Author : Female
Pages : 467 pp
CATEGORY : 11 - Mystery Princess (1/12)

This is the second book featuring Cal Hooper. He is now settled in the small West of Ireland community in a loving relationship with widow, Lena and has young Trey learning carpentry and becoming a model citizen.

Then Trey's father returns after four years disappearance in London and she is thrown off kilter.......but things get worse when a plot is hatched to uncover gold in the hills.

I really like this series which is slow burning and thought provoking. There is little action so to speak in the typical thriller format but the plot is propulsive nonetheless.

Recommended but only if you have read the first book.

BOOK #5



Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
Date of Publication : 2023
Origin of Author : Australia
Gender of Author : Female
Pages : 293 pp
CHALLENGE : 7 : Contemporary Fiction by a Female Author (1/12)

I have heard good things about Charlotte Wood but hadn't yet tried her. Since this one was in both the Women's Prize and Booker reckoning, I was always likely to read it.

It is a thoughtful, introspective and very well considered book set around a religious retreat (rather than a nunnery) and involves our first person protagonist who is escaping a failed relationship and life burn out.

A few issues impinge on the solitude she seeks and bring into focus for her the travails she faces internally.

Not mind-blowingly brilliant but a good book nonetheless and I am pleased to add it to my done list. She is an author I shall return to.

A book a day..........

>47 Tess_W: So far Tess. To be fair two of the books were in excess of 400 pages but I normally start well and can't keep going!

>43 PaulCranswick: Thank you for quoting Before I Sleep. I need to read this poet.

>42 PaulCranswick: One of my favourite authors! I haven't read this one but it's on my list. I fell in love with Balzac after reading Le père Goriot.

>49 mysterymax: There are a number of poems the equal of that one, Max. I would strongly recommend it.

>50 Cecilturtle: Indeed, Cecile. He is my second favourite French author and not far behind Zola who is probably my favourite author bar none.

BOOK #6



The Great Fortune by Olivia Manning
Date of Publication : 1960
Origin of Author : UK
Gender of Author : Female
Pages : 318 pp
CATEGORY : 6 - Before I Was Born (Shared Read)

The first episode of the author's six part Fortunes of War series and the first in her Balkan trilogy which I am reading as a shared read with Mark, Katie, Rhian and others.

Manning is good in details, she is good in descriptions of place - her open air restaurants in Bucharest comes to life and she is especially good in dialogue as it invariably feels real and unforced.

Her characters whilst not exactly likeable are also not unduly annoying - Guy and Harriet, Sophie, Inchcape and the wonderfully named Foxy Leverett all add to the richness of this novel but the star is possibly the often endearing but rather inept Yakimov.

This is set against the first year of the war and the fall of France and Dunkirk pass the characters by as they are busy with their own concerns.

I am not always the sharpest knife in the draw but even I could see that the closing scenes were allegorical!

On to part two in February.

Oh, how lovely to see you here. Now I can follow those enticing challenges vicariously. And all the best luck for making it to 300!

>53 MissWatson: Likewise it is lovely to see you here Birgit. I am currently still on my target with 7 books done in 8 days.

I will go and look for your thread and drop a star. xx

Happy New(ish) Thread!

>43 PaulCranswick: What a powerful poem! I am definitely adding this book to my (never-ending) wish list! It is my goal to read more poetry and I failed last year, but am trying again.

>55 SilverWolf28: Thank you, Silver

>56 MissBrangwen: I added another of his books, Mirjam, already because I was so impressed by that one.

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/368071

>58 SilverWolf28: Thanks Silver

BOOK #7



Stag's Leap by Sharon Olds
Date of Publication : 2012
Origin of Author : USA
Gender of Author : Female
Pages : 89 pp
Category 17 : Poetry by Non-British Female (1/12)

Sharon Olds writes almost always in free verse. It is often plain spoken with common-place words but it is invariably and recognizably poetic.

I didn't think that her marriage break up was enough to sustain a single and quite full volume and I still think that the subject palled occasionally but this is a successful work nonetheless.

Her point of view is sad, wistful and grieving for loss but always generous and never spiteful, incendiary or blaming.

This is her poem "The Healers" from the Pulitzer Prize and TS Eliot Prize winning collection.


When they say, If there are any doctors aboard,
would they make themselves known, I remember when my then
husband would rise, and I would get to be
the one he rose from beside. They say now
that it does not work, unless you are equal.
And after those first thirty years,
I was not the one he wanted to rise from
or return to - not I but she who would also
rise, when such were needed. Now I see them,
lifting, side by side, on wide,
medical, wading-bird wings - like storks with the
doctor bags of like-loves-like
dangling from their beaks. Oh well. It was the way
it was, he did not feel happy when words
were called for, and I stood.

BOOK #8



The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane
Date of Publication : 2007
Origin of Author : UK
Gender of Author : Male
Pages : 321 pp
Category 4 : Non-Fiction Challenge (1/12)

Evokes wonderfully the natural loveliness in some of the British Isles most untamed landscapes. He also laments much of its loss whilst doing so.

Macfarlane is a writer of tremendous descriptive powers whose capability to recreate the places he visits sometimes astounds.

Highly recommended to those who enjoy reading about nature and landscape.

BOOK #9



The Reborn by Lin Anderson
Date of Publication : 2010
Origin of Author : UK
Gender of Author : Female
Pages : 424 pp
Category 13 : Rhona MacLeod Series (1/12)

At a Glasgow funfair a pregnant teenager is murdered and the baby removed from her by her killer.

Is the killer being manipulated by another psychopath remotely?

I like this series and I definitely enjoyed the sub-plot here which relates to an incident in the previous mystery.

BOOK #10



The Cold Millions by Jess Walter
Date of Publication : 2020
Origin of Author : USA
Gender of Author : Male
Pages : 337 pp
Challenge 2 : American Authors Challenge (1/12)

I'm not sure what I expected but I really enjoyed this novel.

It is 1909 in Spokane, Washington. A place of inequality, a place of tension between employers and workers, a place of snow, trains, flophouses and knuckledusters.

The labor unions are agitating as two young brothers roll into town with dreams in their hearts and trouble brewing over the cloud strewn horizon.

BOOK # 11



Lost Empires by J.B. Priestley
Date of Publication : 1965
Origin of Author : UK
Gender of Author : Male
Pages : 308 pp
Challenge 3 : British Author Challenge 1/12

Priestley was a sort of Northern Industrial Somerset Maugham. Rougher round the edges and less urbane, but a great storyteller nonetheless.

It is 1913 and Richard Herncastle joins his uncle's magic troupe in music hall variety travelling around the towns and cities of England and Scotland. He looks at the life and loves of a lost world - the Last Empires are the Empire Theatres dotted around the nation which hosted these music hall bills back in the day.

A good read.

BOOK # 12



After You Were, I Am by Camille Ralphs
Date of Publication : 2024
Origin of Author : UK
Gender of Author : Female
Pages : 71 pp
Challenge 19 : Poetry by British female (1/12)

Is anyone else writing poetry like Camille Ralphs today?

Much of this written in Elizabethan style and telling the stories variously of Doctor Dee and the Pendle Witches, she achieves this with apparent authenticity and the stamp of tremendous stylistic accomplishment.

That said I didn't care for it much. Subject didn't grab me and while I appreciated her qualitative skills I wasn't touched emotionally be its reading. Some of the other incidental poems are more interesting.

This is "after George Herbert"


Come, my Motorway, my Equals Sign, my Higher Race,
such a Motorway as wheels with stars,
such an Equals Sign as time plus space,
such a higher race as cable cars.

Come, my Bedside Lamp, my Takeaway, my Calloused hand,
such a Bedside Lamp as lanternfish,
such a Takeaway as takes a stand,
such a Calloused Hand as makes a wish.

Come, my Costume Play, my I Will Yes, my Organ Note,
such a Costume Play as none can dress,
such an I Will Yes as none can quote,
such an Organ Note as plays in yes.

BOOK #13



The Junior Officers' Reading Club by Patrick Hennessey
Date of Publication : 2009
Origin of Author : UK
Gender of Author : Male
Pages : 327 pp
Challenge 22 : Memoir/Biography

I am, so I consider myself, a patriot. I am inordinately proud of the men and women who serve to defend our country and our way of life in furthering our national interest (whatever the hell that is). I am inordinately proud of them even when they are sent to places and into situations I profoundly disagree with - Iraq would be one such.

I am also immensely grateful to have been spared the trudgery and danger of National Military Service or the ignominy of being turned away for some minimum height restriction or due to asthma.

Hennessey describes what it is like to serve as a modern soldier - the danger, the boredom, the comradeship, the pride for being part of one of the greatest man-for-man (person-for-person) fighting forces known to humankind. He does so with a martial humour that takes time to take a grip but eventually does get you.

Oh and the books; here are some of the ones he mentions getting through (or in one instance not):

Dispatches by Michael Herr
Books Do Furnish a Room by Anthony Powell
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Kingdom of Fear by Hunter S. Thompson
Saddam : An American Obsession by Andrew Cockburn
Chickenhawk by Robert Mason
Utility of Force by Rupert Smith
On War by Carl von Clausewitz
Ice Cold in Alex by Christoper Landon
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (UNFINISHED)
A Confederacy of Dunce by John Kennedy Toole
Glamorama & Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis
The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne

BOOK # 14



Dying Fall by Elly Griffiths
Date of Publication : 2013
Origin of Author : UK
Gender of Author : Female
Pages : 390 pp
Challenge 12 : Ruth Galloway 1/12

We move away from the saltmarshes of Norfolk to the North West coast in this episode as Ruth's university makes a potentially groundbreaking discovery but is killed in horrific circumstances shortly afterwards.

Possibly the most satisfying yet of the series - far fetched but enjoyable.

BOOK #15



Fen by Daisy Johnson
Date of Publication : 2016
Origin of Author : UK
Gender of Author : Female
Pages : 190 pp
Challenge 14 : Pot Luck Fiction (Short Stories) 1/12

Last minute substitution so that I would get a cycle done before the end of the month.

Some of these stories are bat-shit crazy but Daisy Johnson can sure write. I would not feel comfortable necessarily falling to sleep in her presence but I would hazard she would make a great dinner guest!

Set in and around the Fenland of England (Ruth Galloway country) we meet an assortment of oddities. Ladies who turn into eels and houses that come alive and eat their visitors in a fit of jealous pique.

All very strangely but strangely recommended.

BOOK #16



In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
Date of Publication : 2009
Origin of Author : USA / Pakistan
Gender of Author : Male
Pages : 237 pp
Challenge 14 : Pot Luck Fiction (Short Stories) 2/12

This book has been secretly withholding its considerable charm from my shelves for a few years.

A series of eight short stories which are interlinked and purvey various aspects of near feudal Pakistani society based around Lahore and how it faces up to a changing world. This is Pakistan in all its innate contradictions - its tawdry splendour. The author brings the people and the places wonderfully to life and does a great service to the art of the short-story in the process.

Please read this book. It is wonderful.

BOOK #17



The Power of Geography by Tim Marshall
Date of Publication : 2021
Origin of Author : UK
Gender of Author : Male
Pages : 356 pp
Genre : Non-Fiction
Challenge 4 : Non-Fiction Challenge (2/12)

Nobody does this sort of thing better than Tim Marshall.

He looks at 10 maps/locations and considers the past, present and future achievements and challenges associated with the place. He looks at the changing role of Australia and understands the Islamic world more cogently than most.

He is reflective and predictive but in an eminently readable and well considered manner that is devoid of obvious bias. That is some achievement.

For anyone interested in geopolitics but who doesn't particularly want to be preached to by opinion instead of analysis.

BOOK #18



Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Date of Publication : 1606
Origin of Author : UK
Gender of Author : Male
Pages : 97 pp
Challenge 20 : The Bard of Avon (1/12)

Macbeth is the shortest of the great Shakespearean tragedies but it is also one of the most impactful and dramatic.

It is a play with the dramatist in his articulately loquacious pomp and I marveled at the use of language and the images brilliantly cast. I will not go into huge detail on plot save to say we renounce and abjure the brittle art of kingship - from a weak king to one (Macbeth) consumed by a lust for power for its own ends to one prevaricating over the means to overcome the evils wrought upon his nation.

We cry with MacDuff, the weird sisters give us the freaks, we shudder for honorable Banquo and we marvel in horror at the machinations and depths of Macbeth and his scheming Lady. But most of all we wallow in the brilliance of the language and its influence on literature. For example in Macbeth's short "tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow" soliloquy how many titles to famous future works can we find?:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.


Wonderful.
I supplemented my reading by watching the RSC production from the late 1970s with Ian McKellen and Judy Dench as MacBeth and his wife and with an excellent Bob Peck as MacDuff.

>67 PaulCranswick: I also thought that Dying Fall was an excellent installment of the series!

>69 PaulCranswick: I'm adding this one to my never-ending wishlist.

>61 PaulCranswick: I was considering this for later in the NatureKIT. I’m adding it to my TBR to make sure I don’t miss it.

>69 PaulCranswick: Best thing I have read this year so far without doubt.

>70 PaulCranswick: I really enjoy his powers of description.

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/368250

Here's the Valentine's Day readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/368424

>75 SilverWolf28: & >76 SilverWolf28: Thank you, Silver.

BOOK #19



Night Blind by Ragnar Jonasson
Date of Publication : 2015
Origin of Author : Iceland
Gender of Author : Male
Pages : 210 pp
Challenge 10 : Mystery Princes (1/12)

For Icelandic noir, I automatically conjure Arnaldur Indridason and Jonasson is considered his successor. At this rate he will be Edward II to Longshanks and I found this pretty formulaic and underwhelming.

Decent sense of place but I find Ari Thor the main character as more than a bit whiny and the concerns relating to his on off relationship with Kirsten is becoming a bit irritating.

For all that there is a good sense of place and this is not entirely devoid of merit; it is just that it is a pale imitation of Inspector Erlendur.

BOOK #20



Take it Back by Kia Abdullah
Date of Publication : 2020
Origin of Author : UK
Gender of Author : Female
Pages : 367 pp
Challenge 3 : British Author Challenge (2/12)

I didn't like this one half as much as I had hoped to do.

Despite a very topical subject mixing race and gender rape there was a juvenile quality to the prose that irked me tremendously for much of this. I say for much of this because the narrative drive did eventually take over but not in time to save this completely for me.

I appreciated the subject matter and the quandaries it placed a number of the characters, and there is certainly the germ of a very good author in there somewhere when her writing is less driven by cliche.

BOOK #21



Nagasaki by Eric Faye
Date of Publication : 2012
Origin of Author : France
Gender of Author : Male
Pages : 109 pp
Challenges 9 : One Year Ago (1/12)

This is a quirky, sublime little novel.

Shimura realizes someone is sharing his small home as he notices small portions of food going missing. He sets a trap for the culprit and the implications of doing so are profound on both hunter and hunted.

Possession and sense of belonging are explored from both perspectives and it is in turns creepy and then fascinating.

A must read and I dare you not to read it in one sitting.

BOOK #22



The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks
Date of Publication : 2015
Origin of Author : UK
Gender of Author : Male
Pages : 287 pp
Challenge 25 : Nature & Travel

I didn't know anything about being a Shepherd and very little about sheep. When I bought this on the strength of Rebanks' reputation post English Pastoral, I wondered how such a subject could hold my attention for the best part of 300 pages.

That he succeeds is a testament to a writer able to convey feeling in simple, direct but beautifully descriptive prose and this book is a joy from beginning to end.

Rebanks takes us through the seasons on his tough little farm and as he does so reveals much about himself, his love of place, family and his homage to ancestry. His stories of his beloved Grandfather are, in particular wonderfully done.

If like me you a not familiar with farming practices, don't worry about it. Give this book a try and you will love it, hopefully as much as I did.

BOOK #23



Alphabet by Inger Christensen
Date of Publication : 1981
Origin of Author : Denmark
Gender of Author : Female
Pages : 77 pp
Challenge 17 : International Female Poet (2/12)

Does experimental poetry work in translation.

This might be amazing in the vernacular Danish it was composed in but rendered into English it veers between the inane and gibberish.

The first poem:

"1"
apricot trees exist, apricot trees exist>

Mmm.

There are for all that little flickers that indicate that the mind is brilliant even if the translation doesn't quite give justice to her thoughts.

Overall though - and this from a convinced lover of poetry - to be avoided.

BOOK #24



Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson
Date of Publication : 2012
Origin of Author : USA
Gender of Author : Female
Pages : 427 pp
Genre : Fantasy
Category 15 : Sci-Fi/Fantasy (1/12)

Despite there being times that the author displayed a callowness that approximated to this being sort of hybrid between YA and adult fiction / fantasy, it was a thoroughly enjoyable romp featuring djinns, fable and demons in an unnamed Arab emirate/city state.

Mixing modern technology (computer hacking in particular) with the wisdom of the ancients and some of the precepts of Islam, this novel is at one and the same time a love story, a quest novel and a novel of political & social critique.

It didn't always work for me but when it did, I was completely hooked.

I will look for other work by her.

BOOK #25



The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane
Date of Publication : 2023
Origin of Author : USA
Gender of Author : Female
Pages : 379 pp
Category 21 : One Month Rule (1/12)

The Half Moon is a bar and it is struggling as is the owner, Malcolm, as is his wife Jess, who has just left the marital home.

Over the course of seven days the problems of this couple and their marital difficulties and whether they will part for good or be reconciled will be played out.

This breaks no new ground and Ms. Keane has created a story with major characters that do not transmit likeability - they make stupid choices and are both blindingly selfish.

I wouldn't steer you away from this exactly as it was OK, but it wasn't much more than that either. Great cover though.

BOOK #26



Silence by Shusaku Endo
Date of Publication : 1966
Origin of Author : Japan
Gender of Author : Male
Pages : 201 pp
Challenge 5 : 1001 Book (1/12)

Father Ferreira has gone missing in Japan - a man of strong faith - apparently renounced the Catholic church under torture. Two of his disciples travel to Japan to look for him and to carry on his work in his stead.

A grim work of fiction about moral dilemmas. Worthy and quite possibly memorably so but not entirely enjoyable to read either. Doesn't read much like a novel from Japan either but then again he was writing from a different perspective too.

BOOK #27



In the Land of the Cyclops by Karl-Ove Knausgaard
Date of Publication : 2018
Origin of Author : Norway
Gender of Author : Male
Pages : 297 pp
Genre : Non-Fiction
Challenges 23 : General Non-Fiction (2/12)

For those who find his fiction heavy-going this is a digestible collection of essays which demonstrates his wide range of interests.

The more philosophical or metaphysical of the essays (especially the first two) are a bit daunting but he is excellent when dissecting the works of his fellow writers. I was particularly impressed by his writings on Bergman, Houellebecq and Hamsun and his Kierkegaard essay on the Abraham story told on a visit to Beirut gives great perspective.

The collection is rarely if ever political, but the title essay does deal with cancel culture and the judgemental nature of Norwegian society - well its established press/media anyway and that is the gem amongst the essays and rightly the book carries the name of this one.

Recommended.

BOOK #28



God's Gift to Women by Don Paterson
Date of Publication : 1997
Origin of Author : UK
Gender of Author : Male
Pages : 56 pp
Challenge 18 : British Male Poet (1/12)

I had almost forgotten how good Don Paterson is and rate him, along with Simon Armitage as the best living male poets currently still writing.

This is his sophomore collection and it is a little darker than his debut but still has a wonderfully flowing playfulness at times. This collection won the TS Eliot Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and its appeal is obvious.

The title poem is dazzling but is too long to quote here so I will refer you to "The Lover" and its opening verse:

Poor mortals, with your horoscopes and blood-tests -
what hope is there for you? Even if the plane
lands you safely, why should you not return
to your home in flames or ruins, your wife absconded,
the children blind and dying in their cots?
Even sitting quiet in a locked room
the perils are infinite and unforeseeable.
Only the lover walks upon the earth
careless of what the fates prepare for him.

Recommended

BOOK #29



Our Fathers by Rebecca Wait
Date of Publication : 2020
Origin of Author : UK
Gender of Author : Female
Pages : 336 pp
Challenge 11 : Mystery Princess (2/12)

This book was found in the thriller section of the bookstore and purchased for two reasons. Firstly, I loved the cover (a bit shallow, I know) and secondly it won the Guardian Crime and Thriller Book of the Year in 2020.

It was mis-classified though I fear. Whilst it does indeed start with a veritable bloodbath, this is much more a novel about domestic violence, memory, familial ties and the lasting nature of grief.

The small Hebridean island is prominent in the tale (I think it is possibly a fictional one) and adds to a certain claustrophobic atmosphere and one in which everyone knows everyone else's business.

Not a bad effort but not a thriller and not quite literary fiction but close enough to both to make an enjoyable and worthy hybrid.

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