Baswoods books part 1

Year 2025 round up

I read 68 books last year, which must be one of my lowest ever reading years I had a reading slump in the hot summer months and only made the total respectable because of the 29; mostly science fiction books, I read in November and December.

5 star reads
Shakespeare - King Henry IV part 1
Shakespeare - King Henry IV part 2
James Baldwin - Another country
James Baldwin - Giovanni's Room
Richard Seymour - Disaster Nationalism
Adrienne Rich - Diving Into the Wreck
Victor Serge - Memoirs of a revolutionary
Edmund Spenser - The Faerie Queen
Richard Beck - Homeland : The War on terror in American Life
Alice Munro - Selected stories 1968-1994
Peter Carey - True History of the Kelly Gang
Homer - Iliad (translation by Richmond Lattimore)

That is over 17% of my reads this year.
Three classics from the Elizabethan era: the two Shakespeares featuring Sir John Falstaff, (but he could not quite pull it off again in the Merry Wives of Windsor which I rated at 4 stars) and Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen which is quite extraordinary. Homer's Iliad as translated by Richmond Lattimore took me back to the 8th century BC and what an experience. Peter Carey managed to transport me to a life of a 19th century bushranger in Australia with his many layered story of the Ned Kelly gang. James Baldwin's marvellous prose and evocation of Paris in the 1950's is a real winner, but the power of his writing manifests itself in the uncompromising Another Country. Alice Munro's selected short stories, shows a writer who can pack so many thoughts and ideas in the short story format that you think each one is a novel in itself. Adrienne Rich's 25 poems contained in Diving into the wreck (of her life) are living testimony of the oppression of women and lesbians. Richard Seymour' disaster Nationalism, Richard Beck's Homeland and Victor Serge's Memoirs of a revolutionary are non fiction books that got five stars because I could agree with almost everything that was said.

2 Star reads (the lowest rating I would give a book; one star is something unreadable)

Thomas Lodge - A Margarite of America
David Goodis - Cassidy's Girl
John Brunner - Galactic Storm
Gerald Heard - Is another world watching: the riddle of the flying saucers
Manley Wade Wellman - Devil's Planet
Poul Anderson - Witch of the Demon Seas
Vargo Statten - Cataclysm

Thomas Lodge's Elizabethan cut and paste job A Margarite of America is almost unreadable. The alcohol infused violence in Goodis' Cassidy's girl left me begging for no more. John Brunner's Galactic storm reads like a science fiction novel written by a 17 year old, which it was. Hiding yourself under a pseudonym like Vargo Statten does not mean that you will write a coherent novel. Manley Wade Wellman's Devils Planet and Poul Anderson's Witch of the Demon Seas should have remained buried in the pulp magazines and Gerald Heard managed to make the riddle of the flying saucers as dull as ditchwater.

I hardly made any progress with my Elizabethan literature project and that was probably caused by getting into too much detail of what was available to read. Trying to read all that was available became an exercise in boredom and so this year I am going to take a more general approach and read the highlights and hopefully make more progress.

I did complete a couple of projects one of which was to read all the unread books on my shelves whose authors surnames began with C

John le Carré - A Perfect Spy - 4.5
Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness - 5
Peter Carey - Illywhacker - 3.5
Cervantes - Don Quixote - 5
Colette - Claudine at school - 4
Orson Scott Card - Speaker for the dead - 3.5
Angela Carter - The Passion of New Eve - 4
John Le Carré - The Russia House - 3.5
Wilkie Collins - The Woman in White - 4.5
Michael Collins - The Ressurectionists - 4
Raymond Carver - Where i'm calling from - 4
John Le Carré - Our Game - 4
Joseph Conrad - Lord Jim - 4
Arthur C Clarke - A fall of Moondust - 4
Andre Camilleri - The Shape of water - 3.5
Colette - Cheri and the Last of Cheri - 4
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood - 4
Truman Capote - The Grass Harp - 3.5
John Le Carré - The Tailor of Panama - 3.5
Peter Carey - The Tax inspector - 3
J M Coetze - Disgrace - 5
John Le Carré - Absolute Friends - 4.5
Jonathan Coe - The Rotters Club - 3.5
Joseph Conrad - Nostromo - 4
Orson Scott Card - Xenocide - 3
John le Carré - the mission song - 3
Raymond Chandler - The Chandler Collection volume 2 - 4
John Le Carré - A most wanted Man - 4
Wilkie Collins - The Moonstone - 4
Peter Carey - The history of the Kelly gang - 5
Colette - Collected stories - 4
Joseph Conrad - Victory - 4.5
Robert Coover - Geralds Party - 3

The Other Project was to read all available science fiction books published in 1951

5 Stars
Ray Bradbury - The illustrated Man
John Wyndham - The Day of the Triffids
H P Lovecraft - The Haunter of the Dark
Arthur Koestler - The Age of Longing

4 Stars
Hal Clement - Ice World
Philip Wylie - The Disappearance
Jack Williamson - Dragon's Island
Frederic Brown - What Mad Universe
Cyril Judd - Sin in Space
Eric Frank Russell - Sentinel's from Space
Arthur C Clarke - The Exploration of Space
L. Ron Hubbard - Fear

3.5 stars
Robert A Heinlein - The Green Hills of Earth
Robert A Heinlein - The Puppet Master
Clifford Simak - Time and Again
Lewis Padgett and C L Moore - Tomorrow and Tomorrow & Fairy Chessman
Stanley Mullen - Kingsmen of the Dragon
Raymond F Jones - Renaissance
Edmond Hamilton - City at Worlds End
Groff Conklin - Possible worlds of Science fiction
Arthur C. Clarke - The Sands of Mars
Manley Wade Wellman - Twice in Time
John Taine - Seeds of Life
Mack Reynolds - The Case of the Little Green Men
Wilson Tucker - The City in the Sea
Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories No.13 1951
L. Sprague du Camp - The Undesired Princess
Wallace West - The Memory bank (Dark Tower)
Leigh Brackett - Starmen of Llyrdis

3 Stars
Isaac Asimov - Foundation
L Sprague du Camp - Rogue Queen
Arthur C. Clarke - Prelude to Space
Robert A Heinlein - Between the Planets
Leigh Brackett - People of the Talisman
Fritz Leiber - Gather Darkness
Robert Spencer Carr - Beyond Infinity
Jack Williamson (Will Stewart) - Seetee Ship
L. Ron Hubbard - Typewriter in the Sky
Sam Merwin Jnr - The House of Many Worlds
Jack Vance - Son of the Tree
Raymond F Jones - The Alien
Groff Conklin - In the Grip of Terror
August Derleth - The Outer Reaches
John D Macdonald - Wine of the Dreamers
George O. Smith - Pattern for Conquest
Clifford D Simak - Empire
James Blish - The Warriors of Day
Vargo Statten (John Russell Fearn - The Devouring Fire
Vargo Statten ( John Russell Fearn - The New Satellite
E. E. Doc Smith - The Grey Lensman
Daniel R Gilgannon - Stopwatch on the World
S. Fowler Wright - The Throne of Saturn
Raymond Z Gallun - Passport to Jupiter
Kendell Foster Crossen - Adventures in Tomorrow
Fletcher Pratt - The Seed from Space


2.5 stars
Austin Hall - The Blind Spot
Malcolm Jameson - Bullard of the Space Patrol
Lord Dunsany - The Last Revolution
John Brunner - Galactic Storm
Poul Anderson - The Virgin of Valkarion

2 Stars
Isaac Asimov - Stars Like Dust
Sterling Noel - I killed Stalin
Hal Annas - The Longsnozzle Event & Maid-to-Order
Gerald Heard - Is another World Watching
Manly Wade Wellman - The Devil's Planet-
A A Craig Witch of the Demom Seas
Vargo Statten - Cataclysm

Since October 2019 I have been steadily reading science fiction books published in 1951. A year selected at random, but it came within the so-called golden age of science fiction writing, when many of the American science fiction magazines were still doing good business. I managed to find 67 books, easily available, most of which were free to read on the internet. Most of the writers had stories or novels serialised in the pulp magazines such as; Amazing stories, Astounding Science Fiction, Galaxy science Fiction, Planet Stories, Startling Stories and others. Some of the novels serialised in the pulps were later tidied up for publication in book form and some of the books published in 1951 were collections of stories from an earlier era. I decided not to be too precious about this and used the internet speculative fiction database as my guide.

Most of the books were quite short; 1951 was well before the advent of the sometimes overly long fantasy novels and most fell in the range of 120 - 250 pages. They covered many of the sub genres of fantasy and science fiction such as: space operas, invasion from and visits to planets in our solar system, earthbound stories, time travel, alternative time lines, fantasy adventures including sword and sorcery and short story collections. There was a noticeable absence of hard science fiction which was not surprising because of publications in the pulp magazines. I was quite surprised by the lack of dystopian novels, but then again many stories were pessimistic in outlook, there were certainly no utopias.

I rated and reviewed all the books that I read and did this with an eye to the genre in which I was reading, so although four of the books got a five star rating they could not be considered as literary masterpieces. The average rating was three stars which I thought was good enough for publishing in the pulps and so anything above that was worth a read in book form. So here is the list:

Two of my five star reviews were re-reads which did not disappoint: Ray Bradbury was a master of the short story and the Illustrated man is a very good collection of some of his inventive tales. I read The Day of the Triffids during the world wide covid pandemic when nothing was moving on the road outside and Wyndham creates a perfect scenario with his Triffids. H P Lovecraft's the Haunter of the Dark is a collection of horror stories written in the 1920's and 1930's, but I loved the atmosphere of impending doom that permeates this collection, Arthur Koestler's The age of Longing is the most literary of the books read and is an alternate time line story, which imagines that after the second world war, Western Europe is in danger of being swallowed up by Russia.

The four star reads were well worth the time spent on them. Hal Clements Iceworld was an imaginative look at a totally alien world. Philip Wylie imagines that all the women disappear from the world in the blink of an eye and explores psychological themes and ideas. Jack Williamson's novel is a story about mutants and genetic engineering on earth in the near future and has a strong female character. Frederic Brown's short story collection is full of fast paced inventive stories. Cyril Judd's luridly titled Sin in Space tells a story of the hard work of setting up a new colony on another planet. Eric Russel's Sentinels of Space is another mutant story where mutants on Venus and Mars combine to free themselves from Earth's colonial rule. L. Ron Hubbards Fear is a psychological horror story with a good twist at the end and Arthur C. Clarke's exploration of Space manages to induce a sense of wonder as he explores the solar system and beyond.

So thats most of 1951 in science fiction, there are a handful of books that I found too expensive or unavailable for me to read and I drew the line at reading all 16 of John Russell Fearn's books published that year. It was an interesting experiment in reading, but I am not sure I learned much from limiting myself to one particular year. Some acknowledged masters of science fiction were just getting going that year: Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, Clifford Simak and Leigh Brackett and so their best books were still ahead of them. I did uncover a few gems, but there were too many disappointments. I don't want to read any more.

Reading Project 2026

Elizabethan and Stuart Literature
Shakespeares plays:
Much Ado About Nothing
As You Like It
Julius Ceasar
Henry V
Hamlet

Works by:
Michael Drayton
Emilia Lanier
John Donne
Robert Burton
John Barclay
Francis Bacon
Thomas Dekkar
Ben Johnson
George Chapman
John Marston

Unread books from my shelves

Charles Dickens - David Copperfield
Robertson Davies - The Salterton trilogy
Lawrence Durrell - Prosperos cell
Frederic Dard - Crush
Charles Dickens - The Pickwick papers
Dostoevsky - The Gambler/Bobok & A nasty story
Stephen Donaldson - A Man rides through
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - The Tragedy of Korosko
Marguerite Duras - Hiroshima Mon Amour
Charles Dickens - Barnaby Rudge
Robertson Davies - The Cunning man
Lawrence Durrell - The Dark Labyrinth
Stephen Donaldson - The Mirror of her dreams
Don Delilo - Libra
Fyodor Dostoevsky - The idiot
Virginie Despentes - Cher Connard
Charles Dickens - Martin Chuzzlewhit
Margaret Dabble - A Natural curiosity
Alexander Dumas - The Count of Monte Christo
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - The Complete Illustrated novels
Robertson Davies - Whats Bred in the Bone
Charles Dickens - Bleak house

Books published in 1951
L P Hartley - My fellow devils
W Somerset Maugham complete short stories volume 1
John Dutourd - A Dog's head
Hana Arendt - The origins of totalitarism
Theodore Adorno - Minima Moralia
I Compton Burnett - Darkness and Day
James Ramsey Ullman - River of the sun
John Gerard - autobiography of a hunted priest
Helen McCloy - Alias Basil Willing
Eric Hoffer - The True believer
Stephen Rogers Peck - Atlas of Human Anatomy of the Artist
Enid Bagnold - The Loved and Envie
Cyril Hare - An English murder
Frederich Durrenmatt - The quarry
Maurice Herzog - Annapurna
Georgette Heyer - The Quiet Gentleman
Taylor Caldwell - The Balance wheel
Robert Van Gulik - The Chinese Maze Murders
Annemarie Selinko - Desirée I
Erich Fromm - The Forgotten Language

Science Fiction from 1970
R A Lafferty - Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Adrian Mitchell - The Bodyguard
Roger Zelazney - Nine Princes in amber
J G Ballard - Vermillion Sands
Jack Finney - Time and again
Jack Vance - The Pnume
Ira Levin - This Perfect Day
Joy Chant - Red moon and Black Mountain
Larry Niven - Ringworld
Adrian kobo Abe - inter ice age
Katherine Kurtz - Deryni Rising
Michael Moorcock - The eternal champion
Transmigration - J T McIntosh
Josephine Saxton - Vector for seven
Robert Silverberg - Downward to earth
Fritz Leiber - Swords and Deviltry
James Blish - Nebula awards 5
Harry Harrison - The stainless Steel rats revenge
Isaac Asimov ED - The 13 crimes of science fiction
J G Ballard - Atrocity exhibition
Strugatsky Bros - Dead mountaineers hotel
Philip K Dick - A maze of death
Poul Anderson Tau Zero

Recommendations from Fellow Club read members
The Hard SF renaissance - David C Hartwell & Katherine Cranmer
Algospeak - How social media is transforming the future of language
Seascraper - Benjamin Wood

I read Giovanny's room in December, and was blown away by it. Definitely a 5-star read!

>3 edwinbcn: yay! Me too, not so long ago. It lingers

>2 baswood: this is beautiful, but also, bring on Hamlet! Wish you a wonderful, dry-spell-free, reading year, Bas.

I wish you better luck with David Copperfield this time. I listened to it on audiobook last year and loved it. I'm now engrossed in Nicholas Nickleby.

Happy New Year!

Ha! So you're doing Ds too. But I'm doing mostly titles, where you're doing authors. I am focusing a bit on Dickens. Would like to read Robertson Davies, too, but have never gotten around to him. And I should read at least one by Dostoevsky!

Will enjoy following you in 2026!

>6 WelshBookworm: Yes it's the 'D's this year.

First book finished this year and it was hard going. I read the Biographical edition of David Copperfield which was published in 1903. It had some nice illustrations by Phiz, but the print was fairly small and it had faded a little in some parts. It is a long novel.

>8 baswood: congrats. I think i remember most those emotions, frustrations and amusing. And I’m interested because you imply Dickens gets much better. Did I read that correctly? I’ve only read two Dickens.

“and his exploration of his own thoughts and feelings in the first person narrative as his own character develops and matures is convincing” - this was my favorite part of the novel.

Bonne année, bas! Out of the gate with heavy tomes!

My one persistent recollection of DC is that Peggotty had cheeks red and hard like apples. Beautiful image.

Happy new year!
>8 baswood: How timely! I just don't take to Dickens much, but France Culture radio serialised David Copperfield over the holidays, and I caught a few episodes while doing the washing up. I was tempted to pick it up again...

>9 dchaikin: Well my own two favourite Dickens novel are the last two he completed before his death Our Mutual Friend and Great Expectations, but I have not read them all. I have read critics say his writing became less flabby as he got older

>10 LolaWalser: Ha! yes Dickens does refer to Peggotty's cheeks hard and red like apples a few times. The first time when he is searching for his first memories of her when he was an infant he says:

"and Peggotty with no shape at all, and eyes so dark they seemed to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, and cheeks and arms so hard and red that I wondered the birds didn't peck her in preference to apples."

>11 Dilara86: Be prepared for the long haul - I find Dickens quite hard work

Double post

Oh the C and D authors. Whenever I'm in a second hand bookstore, and start fiction at A, I never get beyond the Cs and Ds because there are so many good authors there and my arms won't hold any more books.

Libra is one of my all time favourites. I recommend it to people again and again, and watch their eyes cross.
I'll be reading / rereading Dickens again this year, as the nineteenth century, my favourite, was sorely neglected last year.

It's amazing how much David Copperfield changes as you reread it through the years.

Happy New Year and congratulations on getting through, and enjoying, David Copperfield. I don't think I've read any Dickens since my high school reading of A Tale of Two Cities. All the best.

I've been on a classics binge on audio lately. Last year I listened all six of Austen's novels, then switched to David Copperfield in preparation for reading Demon Copperhead. Then I listened to Bleak House. Now I'm on The Life and Times of Nicholas Nickleby. I find that I'm quite enjoying listening to Simon Vance read them to me.

>8 baswood: I was not too excited by my high school reading of Dickens, but was reintroduced to him by a friend/English professor (since deceased) through in-depth group discussions of Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend. I found the former quite difficult, but loved the latter. I'm almost afraid to try another without his expert guidance!

>17 Linda92007: Great Expectations gets off to a great start so a good one to try.

I do like Dickens. I think my favorites are Little Dorrit and Great Expectations, but David Copperfield is up there. The only Dickens I haven't cared for is The Pickwick Papers, and of course there are several I have yet to read. At my age, I better get moving.
>14 SassyLassy: Agree with Sassy re Libra.

Michael Drayton 1563-1631 was an English poet and playwright. He was successful and widely read in the Elizabethan and Jacobean era, but has since suffered some obscurity. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature says:

Michael Drayton was a major poet of his age; but neither the present nor any future age will believe that a complete knowledge of his very extensive poetry is a necessity of intellectual life.

A bit of a put down, but the Cambridge History certainly does not take any prisoners when discussing authors outside of the elite canon. At the end of its summary of Drayton's works it concludes that "Drayton is a kind of poetical epitome. There is something of almost every kind of poetry in him. Drayton may not be read, but he is delightful to read in". There is little doubt that Drayton was a popular poet and his popularity was based on his printed work. He was disdainful of those gentleman poets who did not publish their work, referring to them as 'Cabinet Poets'. He had trouble finding a patron either due to bad luck or his ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time and so he needed to get into print.

The extent of Drayton's popularity is reflected in the sheer number of his publications in the various poetical forms of the period: pastoral, sonnet paraphrase, Ovidian Fable, narrative chronicle, legend and panegyric. Not only did he publish new works but he continually revised existing works. Idea his celebrated sonnet sequence was originally published in 1594 and there were subsequent reprintings with revisions and additions and subtractions until a final version hit the streets in 1619 with only 20 of the original sonnets surviving and 43 additions.

This week I read:
Micheal Drayton: A critical study - Oliver Elton (1905)
England's Heroicall Epistles - Michael Drayton (1597)
Idea - Michael Drayton (1619)
Nymphidia, The court of fairy (1627)




Michael Drayton pictured after his magnum opus Poly Oblion which was an attempt to immortalise England in Verse failed to stir the nation.

>20 baswood: (and followups)

I've always known of Drayton but I don't think I had ever read him. Great reviews and thanks for the introduction (your thread sometimes serves the same function as LRB for me - I know I will never read all the books out there so a well done review of some will have to do instead) :)

>17 Linda92007: Agreeing with >18 baswood: that Great Expectations would be a good re-entry point.

>20 baswood: Re: The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature and Michael Drayton - ouch!

>22 baswood: >23 baswood: >24 baswood: That's quite a range Drayton has.

The cup overruneth. No less than four terrific reviews pour out today. And they have given Drayton an existence in my head. Love quotes. Love how “satify” flies out of that opening poem. How Nymphidia plays with A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s mythology

>8 baswood: I used to enjoy Dickens’s novels when I was much younger. One I really liked involved lawyers with amusing names, but I can’t remember its name. Those of his that I’ve tried to read lately, I just can’t get into.

>28 baswood: this is a very good review of a novel you didn’t like. Not even a rant. You were nice. Left me interested.

>28 baswood: Nice review, Bas.

The first of my reads from Science fiction books published in 1970 and this one has got the highest ratings on LibraryThing and Goodreads

>32 baswood: I've enjoyed the occasional Lafferty story when they've turned up in anthologies and have always wanted to read more. I remember wanting to get hold of this book many years ago but couldn't find it. You've put it on my radar again and I might have to get it now it's more easily available.

I can happily recommend The Best of R. A. Lafferty as a superb introduction to his work. I've been thinking about re-reading it sometime this year.

This one was from my collection of unread books from my shelves and was the first time I have read anything by Robertson Davies

>35 baswood: Thank you for the introduction to Robertson Davies, an author I have not read either.

>35 baswood: Great review, Bas. Thanks for reminding me about Robertson Davies; I read Fifth Business, the superb first novel in The Deptford Trilogy, some years ago, so I'll have to return to the subsequent two books.

>35 baswood: I really enjoyed your review and was inspired to find the trilogy. I can only read one of Robertson Davies’ books because of my lack central vision and lack of audio availability. I was surprised he written so many trilogies as I used to really like trilogies, and I had never heard of Davies. The ones I found were. Salterton Trilogy, Deptford Trilogy, Cornish Trilogy, and the Toronto Trilogy. So I have settled the one I can read, which is the Deptford Trilogy which I have put on my list. Thank you for steering me to this writer.

Sometimes when you are reading books as a project you discover something surprising as I have done with Aemilia Lanyer. I have to admit that her poetry would not be to everyones taste, but when you find something out of the ordinary it is easy to get carried away and so a five star review.

First french novel of the year and its an old one of course:

>39 baswood: Fascinating!

Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing is a play that I have seen on film and at the theatre and reading the text was an interesting experience

>42 baswood: I enjoyed your review Baz. I refuse to see film adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays as they ruin them for me. I do not want those versions in my brain. I appreciate your notes on the context and Elizabethan terms in Much Ado. I’ve always wondered about the title.

>43 kjuliff: West Side Story is pretty good, though. :)

>44 rocketjk: I agree, but West Side Story used the theme of Romeo and Juliet, and did not pretend to be an on-screen version of the play.

>39 baswood: Very interesting! How about Elizabeth Cary, will you read her too?

>42 baswood: Great and informative review. Thanks! It might change the way I approach it next time I watch it (and yes, I've watched the Branaugh version. Disappointed to learn he has cut so much of Benedick and Beatrice lines!)

>46 FlorenceArt: I have Elizabeth Cary stored on the computer so maybe.

The Bodyguard: Another one of those books that just about fits into the science fiction genre

Fabulous review of Much Ado About Nothing, bas. Hopefully I can see it in person relatively soon.

>49 baswood: Looks interesting but not a good time for me to read, as it’s too close to home.

>40 baswood:
Yes, a quaint, fun, and well-written story but quite simple and cliche in its premise. But an excellent read for younger readers, I feel. I still had fun with it though.

>35 baswood: Your review of The Salterton Trilogy was a great reminder of an author that I am aware of but have never read. I am undecided which of his trilogies to start with, but Fifth Business does look interesting.

Super-Infinite won the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction 2022

>54 baswood: Such an enticing review. I’m hoping to read this soon. Thank you for steering me to this book which I could have otherwise missed.

>56 baswood: This sounds interesting. I had no idea that Donne was ever considered an “obscure poet”. In regard to the readership of publications coming from The British Council, I always thought it was a front for MI6 last century, and thus offered opportunities for erudite young men from Oxbridge who would otherwise have had difficulty making a quid. This is not to slight the work these scholars did. They were luckier times back then, and many interesting works saw the light of day.

Another novel collected in the Tout Maigret omnibus volume 1
Le pendu de Saint-Pholien

The first book of The Amber Chronicles; a popular fantasy series that began in 1970

Here is my next book on my shelves that I was surprised I had not read before - least I don't think so

>60 baswood: An enjoyable review. As a former. smoker I appreciated the bit about measuring distance units by cigarettes smoked.

I was reminded of my parents talking about Australian writer George Johnston who abandoned his journalism in the fifties, and moved with his lover Charmaine Clift to the island of Hydra, where he began writing to semi-autographical fiction and was part of a bohemian colony of international artists which included Leon J Cohen and Scandinavian novelists Axel Jensen and Göran Tunström.

My parents so admired these people who broke with the conservative values of Australia back then.

Back to 1951 for this next book:

>54 baswood: >65 baswood: Two great reviews of books about Donne, and I'm currently looking at my own copy of Super-Infinite. I think it's time!

>59 baswood: I read four of them, before stopping. Always meant to continue, but it has been decades now!

John Donne - I have read a modern biography >54 baswood: and a critique >56 baswood: and so its now time for the real deal :

>65 baswood: Such a lovely review.

>65 baswood: Wonderful review as always! Love your exploration of Elizabethan literature, which I will probably never read.

More on John Donne

Not finished a book this last week. The warm sunny weather after a wet spell has made everything shoot up in garden and there is so much to do. I am still reading The origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt

>69 baswood: The warm sunny weather after a wet spell has made everything shoot up in garden I am dreaming of that time! No explanations needed.

Durrell is one of those people, I find, whose beauty of language outclasses their ideas. Somewhat like Lawrence...

Lots of good stuff, bas.

This one lingered longer than usual:

>73 baswood: Sounds very different from San Antonio, his best known books.

>72 baswood:

You may want to read some leftist critiques of Arendt. For my part, I find "totalitarianism" to be a perfectly empty, meaningless term. It only enables bourgeois liberals to feel good about themselves, while hiding that literally every thing they describe as a "totalitarian" sin has been engendered and committed first in so-called "liberal democracies".

Territorial conquest? Genocide? Enslavement? Exploitation unto death, including of children? Persecution of political opponents? Concentration/extermination camps? Rationalization of all of the above through ideology/philosophy/religion selectively applied?

Nazi Germany was more like the US than it ever was like the USSR, even Stalin's USSR. And Arendt was more of a disciple of the fascist Heidegger than liberals like to contemplate.

>75 LolaWalser: interesting Lola.

!970 science fiction from Jack Finney, who makes a good case for going back in time rather than living in 1970's Manhattan.

>77 baswood: Happy to see your enthusiasm for this novel. I loved it when I first read it, although I never did figure out where the science fiction aspect came in, because after all, time travel is definitely not science fiction, in my mind at least.
Somewhere I have other books by Finney and must find them.

>77 baswood: Interesting review! I don’t think I’d ever heard of Finney. I’m not sure I would appreciate this book, as visual descriptions rarely do anything for me, but I might try it some day.

Catching up, Barry. Enjoyed all the Dunne commentary. And other reviews too.

>42 baswood: wow very intereting we did the play in HS so I suspect it was the short version seeing the Brannagh version was an eye opener and we were never told about the title ....its been a long time since i read it, might be fur to read it again

>72 baswood: wanted to read that; i know many think we are on our way there, I think we already are. and having social media is not helping

I consider myself an intelligent reader of news, and how to notice whats real or memorex. on FB, i tuned into what I thought was rachel maddox as she taught her audience about amenment 25. as the discussion continued suddenly she is talking about this actually taking place in real time and talking about trump calling out his fans to save there president, it got rather frightening but something in the back of my head said check the news. no one was talking about the this I showed to David and he said it has to be IA . which made sences to me. then i thought how many people took this at face value annd thought it true, and so there we see how fake theories evolve and how people fall for them

sorry, rather unreadable Ill fix it!

Back to the early 17th century and the next featured author in The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature is Robert Burton

>84 baswood: great review not so sure id like to meet the man, nor his book for I have known melancoly and dont desire to know more

>84 baswood: how interesting. He does sound like tough reading

>84 baswood: Intriguing! I’m glad you will read it for us and report, because I certainly won’t. I’m very curious as to how you go from self-help book for melancholics to repository of knowledge.

>87 FlorenceArt: Yes thats interesting and I think there are two answers, one is that melancholy was a much bigger issue back in the 17th century. Many people were aware of the black bile which they thought was in their blood and which was a cause of melancholy, it was in most people to a certain extent. The second answer is that because melancholy was a part of everybody it allowed Burton to branch out into all aspects of 17th century life. He followed his trails of knowledge as far as they could go.

Reading Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy at more than 1200 pages was too daunting a task for me and so I turned to Lawrence Babbs selections.

>89 baswood: fascinating. You have tempted me despite your warnings, but i feel i can resist. 🙂

>89 baswood: What Dan says! I feel curious but not enough to delve.

>89 baswood: Great review of The Anatomy of Melancholy and congratulations on getting through it, BAs. I have a newly purchased stack of books that are eagerly waiting to be read so I won't plan on reading this, despite my great interest in the History of Medicine.

>89 baswood:

Burton never married, never travelled and spent most of his waking hours in his own library and the reopened Bodleian library...

There's no one I envy more.

I can't remember, have you read Thomas Browne (of Religio medici and other fame?) He was a know-it-all and bookworm along similar lines, but quirkier than Burton, a real eccentric.

>93 LolaWalser: Sir Thomas Browne is on my to read list

My second Dickens of the year is a road movie of a book

>95 baswood: this review was lovely. Gives me a great sense of the book and what to expect when i read.

>95 baswood: Interesting ! I know something about travel in that period from regency romances, but they don’t describe debtors prisons or industrial cities.

>95 baswood: This is one Dickens I have not read, although I own two nice editions of it. I'm taking a break from Mr. D, but I might try this one when I get back to him.

Another slow reading month has nearly gone, but I managed to finish this collection of short stories

>99 baswood: how interesting. I have a dusty old two volume copy of Maugham stories unread on my shelf. So, I’m quite curious.

Any chance this collection had The Casuarina Tree, the basis of the novel The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng?

>100 dchaikin: No it didn't have The Casuarina tree

Continuing with Simenon's earliest Romans Durs.

>102 baswood: Sounds very busy! Reading your review was fun, but I am not sure I'd enjoy the book itself :-D

Science fiction from the early 1970's and this one was a bit of a find. It fitted with my mood at the time and so a generous 5 stars.

>104 baswood: Very tempting!

Still with 1970 science fiction I started Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure series

>104 baswood: terrific review of Vermillion Sands. If I revisit Ballard, perhaps I’ll start here.

>102 baswood: Sounds like classic Simenon subject-matter. Fun!

>104 baswood: This review reminds me that I have the audiobook of Ballard's collected stories. I have only listened to the first nine, and haven't picked it up for years. Because I knew that I'd likely take long breaks between the stories I have kept short notes about each one. Sadly after all this time the notes don't call up any memories of the stories, but they are intriguing enough for me to want to listen again.

"After a revolution in which time has been destroyed. A man is convicted for setting clocks going again. There is a clock in his cell."

"insurance man can cause deaths by writing in his notebook"

>104 baswood: I checked out Vermilion Sands by J.G. Ballard after reading your review, but unfortunately I couldn’t find it in audio format.
But fortunately the complete short stories are, so thank you @wandering_star for pointing this out. I’ve added it to my to my list.

>109 wandering_star: Sorry I have no suggestions for the J G Ballard books that your cryptic notes might refer to, intriguing though they are. It is a shame that Mark (thorold) does not read science fiction, because if he did I am sure he would make the connections.

>110 kjuliff: Good that you found them in an audio format

>106 baswood: Book 2 Servants of the Wankh
I can imagine how many young (and perhaps not so young) readers have giggled over the title of book 2 in Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure series.
In this one Adam Reith, and his two companions Tranz (an emblem man) and Anacho (a dirdir man) come to the conclusion that the only way that Adam can get back to earth is to steal a spaceship of some kind. Both Tranz and Anacho do not believe that humans originated from planet Earth and this forms part of the ongoing mystery of the series. How did this planet (Tschai) come to be inhabited by humans many of whom seem to have been enslaved by the four alien species. The Wankh who are supported by the Wankhmen have a few spaceships and the trio with some help from the Lokhars another human tribe attempt to steal one of them. There is also the problem of the human slave girl Ylin Ylang; the flower of Cath who has attached herself to Adam after her rescue and wants him to take her back to Cath where her rich father will reward him generously.

Book 2 picks up the story directly from book 1. It does spend a little more time in explaining motives and there are brief conversations about why people behave the way they do. It certainly enhances the mystery of the planet Tschai and the alien and human species who live there. There is an uneasy truce between alien species and their human counterparts and they think nothing of killing each other. Much of the scientific equipment related to transport; for example air ships seem to be in a poor state of repair. Everything on this planet has its price and characters spend much time haggling and bargaining. The story is told in a linear fashion, all from the point of view of Adam Reith, who must match his wits and his guns and sword arm with his many enemies. This second book in the series has a little bit more about it than the first one, but still a 3 star read.

>106 baswood: Jack Vance Planet of Adventure Book 3 The Dirdir & Book 4 The Pnume

This series is a good example of an adventure story written to fascinate and perhaps intrigue the younger reader of science fiction. It is a step up from Edgar RIce Burroughs 'Mars' series in that the world building is more thoughtful and the human relationship aspects are handled in a more adult fashion. Dedicating each book to one of the four alien races that the hero Adam Reith must tackle and overcome gives the story telling some depth. In the first book of the series Reith manages to ferment a revolution of some kind amongst humans who are subject to the alien race the Blue Chaisch and in the second book the Wankh and the Blue Chaisch are at war, however interactions of humans and the alien races are not part of books 3 and 4 as Vance largely avoids solving the mysteries of the Planet of Adventure.

Adam Reith is the seemingly indestructible hero of the four books with amazing powers of recovery and a solution to every problem. He is of course a male chauvinist with only a hint of a more tender and thoughtful side. Stubborn with a powerful sense of his own worth is a requirement of hero's in these adventure stories as the reader follows his tracks through an alien world where he must overcome all obstacles to find a spaceship to transport himself back to earth.

An alien world where humans are the sub species is interesting, especially as they have either accepted the situation or become completely enslaved. They have reverted to type in the way that they have organised themselves with every man out for himself. One of the most fascinating parts of this book is their addiction to money and power, which is not always the way with the aliens on the planet. In the human societies everything has its price and Adam Reith must not only be a supreme athlete and problem solver, but must also be a wily negotiator as he haggles for everything. I have never read an adventure series where obtaining money is of such importance. I am tempted to think that Jack vance has featured this aspect of the story not only for realism, but also to highlight an essential feature of human society. It is however easy to read too much into a pulp fiction series. All in all this is an entertaining series of books with a good story which I would rate as 3 stars.

>113 baswood: Interesting point about money. Now that I think of it, it’s probably one of the practical hurdles that is overlooked in most SFF fiction. Either almost absent, or there is somehow an infinite source of it.

I’m not a young reader, but I do giggle every time you mention the Wankh ☺️

Still reading science fiction and here is a classic from 1970. I had plenty of time to read it as our train from Lac d'Annecy was held up for nearly five hours. Ho-hum

A bit of a find this one:

>116 baswood: This is very intriguing.

>116 baswood: Yes, very intriguing! I’m sorry you had such a rotten train journey, but it seems you put the time to good use.

“that still can astound, having that sense of wonder that can keep an elderly reader like me thoroughly entertained”

>115 baswood: >116 baswood: lovely to see these reviews

As a sci-fi origin explorer, I thought you might like this. (~1533)

>120 dchaikin: Yes canto 34 from Orlando Furioso. I love that epic poem, fantasy, magic realism even science fiction are all wrapped up in that romance.

It reminded me of my review.
https://www.librarything.com/work/1208361/book/103392378

Yes anybody interested in the origins of science fiction should read that poem. Which reminds me of the books I am reading at the moment >59 baswood: I am continuing with the Nine Princes of Amber fantasy series.

>121 baswood: nice. I enjoyed your review. And I should have searched out that Penguin edition instead of my 1983 used Oxford edition with a 1974 prose translation. But by now I’m thoroughly attached to my flawed edition. We have spent 32 hours together so far.

>59 baswood: I read the first volume of Roger Zelazny's fantasy series The First Chronicles of Amber earlier in the year and recently completed the remaining four.

>123 baswood: I loved the first few volumes of this series, but if I remember correctly the last ones were not as good. I lost interest after a time.

An Apartment on Uranus - Paul B. Presciado
Uranus is what astrophysicists call a ‘gas giant’. Made up of ice, methane and ammonia, it is the coldest planet in the solar system, with winds that can exceed 900 kilometres per hour. In short, the living conditions are not especially suitable. So Dominique was right: I should leave the Uranus apartment.

So quips Paul in his introduction to a collection of his essays.

After reading an Apartment on Uranus it was only natural that my next book would be Red Mars

>126 baswood: I could not finish this book. 100 people stuffed together in a spaceship is too close to my idea of hell.

I remember my mom recommending Red Mars and then I never got round to it. Must actually put it on my to-read lists this time. Great review!

My next novel was another well thought of Science fiction novel from 1970. Ira Levin's This Perfect Day which immediately reminded me of Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go

>129 baswood: fun and interesting sci-fi history. I liked Never Let Me Go, but “overblown” is the right word.

I have this feeling I’m toying with - that there was a style around 2000 to 2010 that decorated simpler books and that hasn’t aged well. It’s an emotive style, designed to make you feel empathy. But it feels off today, and that exposes what’s under the style. A writer like Coetzee holds up because the ideas and complexity are so interesting and disconcerting. But Ishi’s ideas in that one book are not that complex, if you strip off the style.

>130 dchaikin: Yes I agree Dan

Looking back it was such an innocent decade.

>132 kjuliff: ha! Relatively, maybe. (Bush’s election was my optimistic to deeply worried turning point.)

>133 dchaikin: You make a valid point. 9/11 was a bit of a downer too.

>125 baswood:

It's great that you were willing to read this, so few people seem to want to make an effort. I watched a documentary he made (published by the Criterion Collection), but was underwhelmed by it. The book sounds much more engaging to me. Thanks for the review.

>123 baswood: read all of them and remember liking them but not why

A three in one book of novels by Ira Levin ended with The Stepford Wives which is really too short (85 pages) to be called a novel, but I had enjoyed This Perfect Day which preceded it so I quickly read it.

>137 baswood: Your review brought me back to the book which I think I read in the late 70s. Is the derogative term “Stepford Wife” still used to describe a cookie-cutter stereotype of a young married woman? I’m thinking that I recently read another term for this sort of woman. It’s a term for the type of homemaker women who post their life experiences on Instagram. It’s creepy, but Stepford Wives will always be amongst us.

ETA: Just came to me. The new word is “tradwife”.Yesteryear by Claire Burke is about one of them.

Back to 1951 and Theodor Adorno's Minima Moralia. This influential book in academic circles proved to be a difficult read and I was pleased to have finished it.

>139 baswood: Great review, thank you. Adorno is a name I have seen time and again, of course. Maybe I should give it a try. The form of short essays makes it seem approachable.

>140 FlorenceArt: Agree!

I bought Isabelle Callis-Sabot's Le Roman de Banyuls in the local supermarket when I was stocking up with provisions for a week's holiday in Banyuls-sur-mer. Always a bit of a risk tossing a book into the supermarket trolley, but this one was excellent.

>129 baswood: Thank you for pointing me to towards this book. I am about to read This Perfect Day. I am interested in how similar it will be to Never Let Me Go, especially as Ishiguro never acknowledge it. Unlike Ian McEwan who acknowledged Atonment as being inspired by L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between.