Soupdragon's 999 challenge

These are my categories. I'm waiting until I've completed a book before I enter it otherwise I'll feel too restricted! Will start with books finished after Jan 1, though may have started them earlier.

1. Books about counselling or psychotherapy
2. Virago Modern Classics
3. Orange Prize winners and nominees
4. YA and childrens fiction
5. Crime fiction
6. Short story collections
7. Memoirs/diaries
8. WWi and WWii fiction and non-fiction
9. Fiction by women not covered by another category

Books about Counselling or Psychotherapy

1. Practical Counselling and Helping- Philip Burnard- Jan
2. Counselling Skills for Dummies- Gail Evans- Jan
3. The Skilled Helper- Gerard Egan- January
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

Virago Modern Classics

1. Loitering with Intent- Muriel Spark
2. The Crowded Street - Winifred Holtby
3. The Return of the Soldier- Rebecca West
4. Blaming - Elizabeth Taylor
5. The Eye of Love -Margery Sharp
6. The Curate's Wife - E. H Young
7. The Old Man and Me - Elaine Dundy
8. No Fond Return of Love - Barbara Pym
9. Dusty Answer- Rosamond Lehmann

Orange Prize winners and nominees

1. The Idea of Perfection- Kate Grenville
2. In the Dark-Deborah Moggach
3. The Household Guide to Dying -Debra Adelaide
4. Molly Fox's birthday- Deirdre Madden
5. The Flying Troutmans - Miriam Toews
6. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
7. The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
8.
9.

YA and children's fiction

1. Oath Breaker - Michelle Paver
2. The Eternity Code - Eoin Colfer
3. The Artemis Fowl Files - Eoin Colfer
4, Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
5. Frozen in Time - Ali Sparkes
6. A Long Way from Verona - Jane Gardam
7. Broken Sky: Communion - Chris Wooding
8. Broken Sky: the Twilight War - Chris Wooding
9. Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox - Eoin Colfer

Crime

1. Death in Summer by William Trevor
2. The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale
3. Nocturne by Graham Hurley
4. The Heavens May Fall by Unity Dow
5. The Grave Tattoo by Val McDermid
6. Wings over the Watcher by Priscilla Masters
7. The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
8.
9.

Short story collections

1. Tea with Mr Rochester - Frances Towers
2. An Elegy for Easterly - Petina Gappah
3. The Love of a Good Woman - Alice Munro
4. Going into a Dark House - Jane Gardam
5. Showing the Flag - Jane Gardam
6. Love me tender - Jane Feaver
7.
8.
9.

Memoirs and diaries

1. Stet by Diana Athill
2. The Mistress's daughter by A.M Homes
3. The Importance of Music to Girls by Lavinia Greenlaw
4. Our Hidden Lives by Simon Garfield
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

WWi and WWii fiction and non-fiction

1. Saplings by Noel Streatfeild
2. In the Dark by Deborah Moggach
3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
4. The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby
5. The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West -- February
6. Regeneration by Pat Barker
7. The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker
8. The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
9. Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski

Fiction by women, not covered by any other category.

1. A House and its Head by Ivy Compton-Burnett
2. Martha in Paris by Margery Sharp
3. Martha, Eric and George by Margery Sharp
4. The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer
5. The Birds of the Innocent Wood by Deirdre Madden
6. Remembering Light and Stone by Deirdre Madden
7. Past Mischief by Victoria Clayton
8. Moonshine by Victoria Clayton
9. Ghost Girl by Helena McEwen

It's good to see you here. Nice categories! I'm also doing VMCs, letters/diaries and short stories, so I will definitely be back to see if I can pick up some good tips.

Hi soupdragon,

I'll be stopping by periodically to check out your short story collections!

Hi you two!

My short story collections may turn out to have an Alice Munro bias. I read Runaway a few months back and was completely blown away by it. I have since gone on to acquire four more of her collections through book swaps. All as yet, unread!

That's okay because she's an author whose books I intended to read anyway.

For your short story collection, I have a great recommendation. Read anything by Etgar Keret. His books have been translated into English from Hebrew. In Israel, he's a wildly popular short stroy author. I'm now reading The Girl on the Fridge by this author. It's my second book by Keret. If you like strange and very short, these are his books are *the* books to read! :)

Strange and short sounds good to me. I have added The Girl on the Fridge to my wishlist.

Thank you!

Today I started The Idea of Perfection for my Orange Prize list. The trouble is I've got masses of work to do for my counselling course, so don't have much time for reading for fun )-:

On the upside, I should be able to add some books to my counselling books category soon! (-:

Hi Soup! I just found & starred your thread. I'm looking forward to following your progress.

Hi Lindsacl!

I'm on chapter 3 of The Idea of Perfection and love it already. Kate Grenville certainly can write!

--> 15

I changed my mind. You should change your wishlist request to The Nimrod Flipout by Etgar Keret as I liked that book better. i'm finding The Girl on the Fridge a little more grim and am liking it a bit less. I don't think "Fridge" is the best introduction to this author.

Glad you're loving The Idea of Perfection! :-)

I discovered Kate Grenville last year and she is now one of my favourite writers!

#15,

Have edited wishlist accordingly but having now read up a bit on Keret, I am intrigued and will look out for whatever I can find by him.

I have just finished The Idea of Perfection and loved every word!

Here is my review...

The story alternates between two central characters, Harley and Douglas and occasionally a third one, Felicity. All three are trying to run away from something and have ended up in a little town in rural Australia. They find, however, that in Karakarook there can be no hiding from themselves. In the small, open town where everybody knows everybody, the things they are scared of become ever more exposed.

Grenville takes the reader right into the inner worlds of the three characters, none of whom are comfortable in their own skin. Harley's past has left her feeling she is bad and dangerous, Douglas yearns to be a 'real Australian man' and Felicity is a perfectionist who doesn't kiss her husband for fear of getting wrinkles.

The town of Karakarook is also drawn in perfect detail. I could almost feel the heat and sense the dust as I was reading. The town's bridge serves as a metaphor for the characters feelings of inadequacy and imperfection. It is battered and crooked but Harley and Douglas find a beauty in it. He sees the engineering skill and work involved. She sees the artistic beauty.

There is a wry humour to the book, but it is a gentle one. I found the book to be an exceptionally well-written, perceptive and moving read.

Well, I should be choosing another Orange Prize list book as it's Orange January on the Girly Books thread. But... I finally have a copy of Saplings from the library and am very keen to start before it gets recalled or something.

I will rejoin Orange January when I've finished- hopefully it will still be January by then!

Soup, I enjoyed your review, I'd forgotten about Felicity and her wrinkles:-)

Now that sounds good - I'll try to round up a copy for Orange July!

Great review of one of my 2008 Top 5, Soup!

#27,I can see The Idea of Perfection being one of my top 2009 reads despite the earliness of the day. I am very grateful that my secret santa has such good taste!

#26, Judging by the reviews and star ratings, this seems to be a book you either love or are left cold by. I think you would enjoy it though, Jane, being another person of good taste!

#25, Thanks for reading my review, Valerie. It was good to have some positive feedback for my first one!

>28 Soupdragon:: :-))

I've just finished Saplings.

Noel Streatfeild was one of my favourite authors as a child, so reading an adult book of hers was a real treat. To begin with I felt as if I was reading a children's book. We begin by being introduced to the English, middle-class Wiltshire family through the eyes of the four children who are having an awfully jolly time, swimming and 'prawning' on their holiday. However, there is talk of war and it soon becomes clear the idyll is not to last.

WWii breaks out and initially the children appear to be in a relatively advantaged position. Rather than being evacuated they are sent to live with their grandparents in a lovely country house. However as the book takes us through the following war years the book the situation becomes darker. Our sympathies remain focussed on the children who suffer increasingly from the consequences of war and from the weaknesses or lack of understanding of the adults around them.

There were flaws to the book. The adult characters were rather two dimensional and occasionally the tone felt a little judgemental. However, I found it a very moving and enjoyable read.

-
Library book

Thank you for that very lucid review Soupdragon.

I have that book on my TBR and now I feel that I will like it but I shouldn't expect to love it quite as much as I did her books as a child.

#31, I have happy memories of being curled up with a Noel Streatfeild book as a child. My favourites were Thursday's Child and (of course) Ballet Shoes.

Did you ever read Pamela Brown when you were young? She was another favourite with similar theatrical themes, though some of her books were aimed at a slightly older, teenage readership.

I don't think I'd ever re-read Streatfeild's children's books as it just wouldn't be the same. However I did re-read Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer last year and it was wonderful and still special. I recommend it whether you read it as a child or not, but especially if you did!

Yes, I loved Pamela Brown and I read The Swish of the Curtain many times. I recall someone mentioning that Persephone stock it in their bookshops .....

Like you, I am wary of re-reading many of the books I loved as a child. I did reread Tom's Midnight Garden a while ago though, and loved it all over again.

In the Dark by Deborah Moggach.

This sounded promising enough- following a family and their lodgers during the First World War- but I couldn't get into it at all and it was a relief to finish.
Possibly it clashed too much with the sensibilities of my last read, Saplings.

The book has a snappy, irreverent style which didn't seem to suit the subject matter, various 'comic' moments that I didn't find amusing, the occasional minor character talking about the War for educational value and an underlying, not very attractive, physicality. The son is obsessed with Victorian soft-porn, the maid is having sex with the blind lodger whom she doesn't find attractive, because he can't see how ugly she (thinks she) is and the mother has an affair with the fat butcher amidst numerous metaphors regarding sausages, wash-basins mottled like meat and so on.

I think it was supposed to be poignant and amusing but it just didn't work for me!

--
bought from charity shop

I've read these recently as part of my counselling certificate course:

Counselling for Dummies- Gail Evans
Ignore title which is demeaning to book and reader. This is the best introduction to counselling skills I've read. It is clear, includes all the necessary basics and the writer has a very readable "voice".

Practical Counselling and Helping- Philip Burnard (no touch-stone)
Not an essential text but quite interesting reading. I liked the chapter on 'looking after yourself'.

The Skilled Helper- Gerard Egan
Classic text on a still well-used model for guidance work. I wouldn't have attempted to read it all, if I hadn't had an assignment based around it but found it surprisingly readable. Lots of case studies helped!

Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark

What a delicious book! I was charmed by page one, where "one day in the middle of the twentieth century" narrator Fleur Talbot sits on a gravestone, writing a poem and offering to share her sandwiches with a passing policeman. I was, however, a little concerned at this point, that Fleur might turn out to be a too charming ingenue who would end up irritating me but of course, this being Muriel Spark, Fleur is a lot darker and cleverer than that!

Fleur needs a job to clear her debts with local booksellers and ends up working for Sir Quentin, head of a group of well-heeled members of the "Autobiographical Association". She becomes concerned that Sir Quentin's motives in encouraging his autobiography-writing colleagues "to be frank" are sinister and yet more concerned that members of the group and subsequent events bear a spooky similarity to the book she is currently writing. Meanwhile Sir Quentin and his cronies have their own suspicions about Fleur...

A delightfully eccentric and witty book.

--
Library book

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

I don't really have much to add to the 142 reviews that already exist on this book! I'll just agree that it was a charming, gentle little read and yes, I too, am now curious about a part of recent history I had not been aware of before: the German occupation of the Channel Islands. The only quibble I had was it's similarity in style to 84 Charing Cross Road and this was probably only a problem because I'd read 84 fairly recently. It took me a while to accept Juliet as a real character and not keep thinking, now here's an author who has been influenced by Charing Cross Road! It wore off by the time Juliet arrived in Guernsey however!

--
Library book

Soupdragon, may I suggest for your WWI category the wonderful Return of the Soldier, by Rebecca West. I'm currently reading it and loving it. It is probably the earliest literary treatment of shell shock.

It's also available in a Virago Modern Classics edition, so if you can find it and you embrace the overlap, you can use it in two categories.

Intriguing name--where does "Soupdragon" come from? Do you like making soup? I do, and I'm always looking for new recipes.

Thanks Nickelini,

I have The Fountain Overflows but nothing else by Rebecca West. Return of the Soldier sounds great. Another one for the wishlist!

I think you'd have to be a Brit of a certain age for the name Soupdragon to mean anything to you! It's a character from a 1960s television programme called The Clangers (picture on my profile!) Dylanwolf (who is British and of a certain age) described The Clangers as the leading edge in crocheted animation!

I'm not sure exactly why I chose the name though. I think I fancied being a dragon at the time and liked having a domestic sounding prefix in front of a not very domestic sounding creature. Oh, and I do like making soup. My favourite is carrot and ginger, sometimes with the secret ingredient of my husband's personally ground spice blend. This is a secret, even to myself, as I'm not sure what he puts in it! I really should find out!!

Edited to say I do have another Rebecca West. I'd forgotten about Cousin Rosamund!

Hey, Soupdragon, I have you starred now. Great reviews! I really must read The Idea of Perfection, and I have had Alice Munro on my list for ages. Shall add her to my 2009 list now. Btw, if you haven't already read them, I think the Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker is the most powerful WWI fiction I have read. It is a period I find very moving.

Hi Kambrogi, thanks for stopping by!

Also thanks for the reminder about Regeneration. This has been on my wish-list so long I'd almost forgotten about it. I'll have to be more active about seeking the books out.

Alice Munro is fab. Enjoy!

The Crowded Street- Winifred Holtby

I really enjoyed this book. In many ways it is a familiar story- the pain of a young unmarried woman, growing up in a society where for women marriage is all. However I found Muriel's story particularly moving.

The social life of a Yorkshire village at the turn of the 20th century, is perfectly drawn with all the usual little snobberies and anxiety to keep up standards. Holtby does not mock however. She understands how and why this is all so important to Mrs Hammond (Muriel's mother) and her cronies.

Life in Marshington goes on without change until "the War came right in the middle of the tennis tournament"! Marshington is not greatly affected but the changes which do occur are very believable.

Muriel, by the end of the War feels she hasn't changed enough. When we originally meet Muriel, she is hapless and naive. We feel for her as she loses opportunities to more confident friends. After leaving school, Muriel rejects a friend's advice to leave Marshington and do something with her life. Staying results in life becoming so bleak that she is jealous when a friend's husband dies...
"I would give all that I possess to share her tears if I could have her memories. I am hungry for her pain".
Muriel has been brought up to believe that love and marriage is all. Local landowner Godfrey Neale acts as love interest in the book for Muriel. Unfortunately he is also love interest for every other girl in the village!

Eventually it is Muriel's friendship with independent Delia (apparently a character loosely based on Vera Brittain) which shows Muriel what she really wants from life.

I found the portrayal of Muriel very poignant and believable. Apparently Holtby said there was a part of her in Muriel and I think there was a part of me which identified with her too! There were other strong characters, though their stories served mostly to further our understanding of Muriel.

The part of the book which lets it down a little, is a section where Muriel's sister ends up living in a Cold Comfort Farm type scenario resulting in some over-blown melodrama! This didn't quite fit in with the quiet sensitivity and perceptiveness of the rest of the book! However, overall I loved this book and have given it five stars.

--

sent to me by Fabrile-heart

Oath Breaker - Michelle Paver

This is the fifth book in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, which I have been reading to my ten year old son at bedtime.

Paver must be doing something right because we both love these books. There's a great mix of characterisation and action, based in a world six thousand years after the Ice Age. The ancient beliefs of the different tribes add a magical element but it doesn't feel fantastical. One of the main characters is a friendly wolf, which gives it added ten-year-old appeal.

However, the books would suit anyone of an age that enjoys Harry Potter. Like Harry Potter, the main characters develop from children to adolescents throughout the books, so if a child is following the series as it is published and buys a new book each year they will grow with the characters! This is not quite what we've done and I think the new "frisson" between Torak and Renn may be lost on my ten-year old but it hasn't stopped him loving the book!

--
Bought for son as Christmas present

An excellent summing up of The Crowded Street Soupdragon - isn't it wonderful?!

A House and its Head- Ivy Compton-Burnett

This is the first I C-B I've read and I found it unlike anything I've ever read before! It's dark, slightly disturbing and really rather wonderful!

From reading other reviews the book sounds typical of Compton-Burnett with its themes of power within a family and trouble over inheritances and also in its unusual structure, where the story is told almost entirely in dialogue. There is a third person narration going on to, but its voice is a respectable, middle-class Edwardian one . Listen to the voices of the characters and a different darker reality is revealed. For example, the narration tells us that "a complete and simple tragedy fell on the house". It is the characters' own voices who first hint at and then reveal the true and not so simple cause of that tragedy.
At first I rejected the dialogue as unbelievable. Every character, including the maid, speaks with intelligence, wit and thought. All the dialogue is dense with meaning. After a while I just accepted and soaked in the pleasure of reading it!
And it is a complete pleasure. There is something dark and awful about this book but there were also moments when I laughed out loud.

Strange...and wonderful!

--
library book

Some great reviews, Soupdragon. You do make a book sound interesting, even when it is not exactly my "type." Wishlist growing.

If/when you read Regeneration, I suggest you read all three books in the set as one book in rapid succession (they are short).

Loitering with Intent doesn't fit into any of my categories ... but it's on my to find/to read list nonetheless. Thanks for the great reviews!

Thank you!
Kambrogi, Ivy Compton-Burnett certainly was interesting. I wouldn't have thought her books were my sort of thing before joining Library Thing but it's introduced me to all sorts of "new" authors, particularly those often out-of-print, middle-class, middle-brow women who may sound frumpy but can produce absolute gems.

I was planning on ordering Regeneration next time I went to the library. Sounds like I should order all three. Hope they all turn up together...or in chronological order!

Tracy, I've just visited your 999 thread. You have some fascinating looking books lined up. Have now starred you and am looking forward to seeing how you get on. Loitering with Intent is a very quick read. Maybe you could use it for light relief when you're in the middle of one of your more serious reads?!

Thank you, you have sold me Ivy-Compton-Burnett !!!

I am horribly guilty of buying a couple of her books beause they were green Virago Modern Classics and then putting them at the end of the TBR queue.

They are now heading forwards - as is Loitering With Intent !

#49,
I'm looking forward to reading your reviews! I'll be particularly interested in what you say about Compton-Burnett, because I wasn't really very happy with my review. I think there's some weird quality about the book that I was unable to put my finger on exactly...

Loitering with Intent features a Fleur and a Miss Fisher! And also (Valerie, if you're out there) a couple of English Roses!

Ooh - I knew there was a Fleur, but a Miss Fisher too is an unexpected bonus !!!

I am lurking about and as I love Muriel Spark as a rule I shall be putting that one on my list to buy or mooch especially as she has given us a special mention:-))

#52, I knew you were there!!!

If you love Muriel Spark you should definitely read Loitering with Intent.

Narrator, Fleur Talbot is not particularly kind about the English Roses, but given her behaviour I think all respect is due to them! I will say no more..

Thanks Soup.

Stet- Diana Athill

This is a memoir of Athill's long career as editor with Andre Deutsch publishing. As she admits, there is little here of the history of publishing in general. There is also little very personal autobiographical detail, though there are several other memoirs which presumably tell more.

What the book does do is give us a personal little history of a publishing house set up after the war including office politics and in-house fighting.

There are also interesting stories about authors that Athill met at the time. Some are only mentioned in passing, such as Stevie Smith. It appears Athill and Smith never really "connected". Molly Keane and Jean Rhys get whole chapters to themselves. The Molly Keane chapter is well worth reading for an understanding of how Keane came to write Good Behaviour, a novel I now feel much more inclined to read. The Jean Rhys chapter was a little disappointing as we hear mostly about the difficulties in becoming babysitter to an ageing, alcoholic author. There were a couple of interesting insights into Rhys' early life though.

Of course, all the insights are subjective and I felt sorry for some of the individuals whose "defects" are revealed by Athill. Athill, comes across as a sane, sensible and intelligent judge, however and was also warm and charming enough to keep my interest even at the points where I was less interested in the subject matter.

A worthwhile read though probably not an essential one!

--
received in a book-swap

Death in Summer - William Trevor

I went through a William Trevor phase a few years back when I was in love with the perfection, beauty and perception of his writing. Then the relentless bleakness got to me and I stopped reading him, leaving this one to collect dust on my shelf.

Finally picked it up this week and found Trevor's writing to be everything I remembered with its damaged characters, underlying sadness and wonderful writing. The plot revolves around a damaged gentleman from an upper-middle class family, whose wife has recently dies leaving him with their baby and a damaged girl who has escaped from a care home. Their two, very different lives, coincide when Pettie applies for the job of the baby's nanny. There is something Ruth Rendall about the plot, but it's more literary and slow-moving than Rendall and there's less suspense! You know from the beginning something bad is going to happen, and what it is and who does it is not a surprise!

Recommended but not when you're in the mood for a laugh (though there is light relief in the form of the servants, Maidment and Zenobia and they did make me smile!)

--from a charity shop

#38 & 40,

Got a bit pro-active on ReadItSwapIt yesterday and managed to snag/blag/acquire a copy of The Return of the Soldier and the first two Regeneration books. And what with the Vera Brittain book which my grandmother said I should read when I was 17 and I still haven't (yes, I am ashamed), it looks as if my World Wars category is just about wrapped up...

Just lurking about soup and dropped in to say how much I enjoyed Return of The Soldier - great choice - similarly the Regeneration trilogy. I am just about to begin A Fine of Two Hundred Francs by Elsa Triolet - Virago with Juliette, a female resistance agent set in France for my Women and War category. I think Fleur recommended it.

Have you thought of adding All Quiet on The Western Front to your WW1 category? It is a profound yet apparently simple book – it transcends nationality and gave voice to the common soldier.

I am enjoying your thread!

ET change spelling slip.

Nice to know you're lurking around there, Juliette and thanks for dropping in!

I hadn't thought of adding All Quiet.. to my category (assuming it was a military based boys book) until this morning when I read your review and it is now firmly placed on my wish-list. I liked the piccies too, what an wonderful edition you have!

Great reviews. Your insights are so interesting, and you really make a book's qualities clear (pro and con) without giving too much away. Well done.

Thank you for your encouraging words, Kambrogi.

This is the first year that I've had the confidence to write reviews so I appreciate the positive feedback!

Life a little hectic as I am applying for a job and the kids are on half-term holiday. I've read these books but don't have time to review at mo. Hope to return to them later when things have calmed down!

Tea with Mr Rochester- Frances Towers
The Return of the Soldier- Rebecca West
Artemis Fowl and the Eternity Code- Eoin Colfer, with my son

I am very attached to The Return of the Soldier. It was my introduction to Rebecca West and the first VMC that I owned. I'll be interested to read your thoughts.

And Tea With Mr Rochester is on my TBR so I'll be watching for your review of that one too.

Life is still hectic, although half-term is over. I still seem to be reading though and am getting so... behind. Here are a few thoughts on the books I've been reading.

Tea with Mr Rochester - Frances Towers

Lots of cups of tea, beautiful drawing rooms and early C20th virgins looking for love. Yes, it's all been done before (and after) but there is something special about these stories. The quality of the stories do vary but the best ones are exquisite, some of the imagery has stayed with me, weeks on. There's an slightly spooky/ethereal quality to them. There are older women who possess an unnatural knowledge, men with whom a spiritual link is desired. There is also something a little virginal and adolescent about the less successful stories. I would love to read a Freudian interpretation! I would also like to know a little more about the author. Perhaps the Persephone edition has a helpful introduction but my 1940s penguin paperback didn't tell much more than that she was a teacher and had an 100% exam pass rate. I'm guessing she didn't marry...

Fleur, I recommend!

Bought from Green Metropolis

The Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West

This wasn't quite what I'd expected, (which was something longer and a bit more of a yarn) but I wasn't disappointed. What I actually got read more as a kind of fable. Very thought provoking on a number of issues without actually saying all that much about them.

Received in a bookswap.

The Eternity Code- Eoin Colfer

Third in the Artemis Fowl series which my son and I are working through together. We both agree this is one of the more original of the children's book series that we've read. Interesting combination of traditional fantasy characters in a modern, high-tech world, told with wit and humour. Recommended for boys from ten upwards.

Passed on to us by my dad!

The Artemis Fowl Files - Eoin Colfer

Two readable short stories and a lot of padding. Recommended only for fans once they've read the rest of the series...

From library

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher - Kate Summerscale.

This is one that you have to be in the mood for and I'm not sure I was! The basis of the book is the murder of a child within a disturbed Victorian family and there are also a huge amount of added details. Details about the investigation of the crime, details about the detectives, details about the Victorian world the crime took place in...I was interested to hear how the murder caught the public imagination of the time and influenced Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Some of the information, however, felt like unnecessary padding.

The story itself was rather predictable and very sad. Beneath all the Victorian melodrama there was a real life tragedy which I found disturbing.

-
A birthday present from a good friend

The Eye of Love- Margery Sharp
Martha in Paris- Margery Sharp
Martha, Eric and George- Margery Sharp

These were my first Margery Sharps and I am very grateful to the Virago Modern Classic forum for introducing me to her!

Very funny, unpredictable, light reads, I enjoyed them a lot.

-
Bought from Amazon and Amazon marketplace

Lots of reading, lovely reviews. It is satisfying just to read them, never mind the books.

>69 Soupdragon:, so many people are talking about the Virago titles, I've got to go check some out!

>70 kambrogi:, HaHa! I so feel that way too! I think I've been reading LT comments for a few hours now--could have read a book in that time, but it's so satisfying to hear what other readers are thinking and reading.

71, Bonniebooks, I wholly recommend Virago's Modern Classics series. I've really enjoyed most of the VMCs I've read and with the few I didn't enjoy so much there was something of interest which made the book worth reading. Have a look around the Virago Modern Classics group for ideas on where to start!

70,71, I can spend hours reading the book comments too. Nice to think mine are being enjoyed too...

However...., I have been away for ages, focussing on getting a job rather than writing reviews. And now, I have the job I wanted! Hooray! More money to buy books, (and pay my bills...) But less time to read books and write about them. I'm not sure how My LT time will be affected by this but if you don't hear from me for a while you'll know why! I will try to catch up for now with a few words on the books I've been reading over the last few weeks!

Ex-libris :Confessions of a Common Reader- Anne Fadiman

Fortunately this book doesn't require a review as I think I'm the last person on LibraryThing to have read it! Now that I've caught up I can see what the fuss is about. Just in case I wasn't quite the last, it's a wonderful, well-written collection of personal short essays focussed around the author's love of books and reading.

- A birthday present to myself!

Through the Looking Glass- Lewis Carroll

Another one that doesn't require a review! I loved this as a child, (much more than Alice's Adventures) and have re-read it several times since. Have just read with my son who also gave it the thumbs up! He appreciated the poetry, was not phased by it's contrary-wiseness and was interested in the chess element!

Folio edition- A previous Christmas present from my dad for my son.

The Curate's Wife- E. H Young

Now that I've finished reading this I am entirely won round by Young. I wasn't sure when I started Jenny Wren, the book to which this is a sequel and which I read in December. Although I appreciated Young's thoughtful style I thought she was a bit heavy handed at times, explaining more about a character's emotional state than really necessary. However, I went on to enjoy Jenny Wren and loved The Curate's Wife. I have now changed my mind and feel that the analysis of Dahlia's marriage and her feelings was subtle and perceptive.

I also enjoyed the Bristol connection. My grandmother was brought up in Clifton where the books are based and it helps me understand things she told me about her younger life. Also my own memories of Clifton help me visualise the setting, (although I do have to edit out Habitat and the trendy bistros!)

bought from Amazon marketplace

Blaming- Elizabeth Taylor

A wonderfully understated look at the relationship between a recent widow and the young woman who was with her on holiday when her husband died. There is no spelling out the emotional message in this book but by the end the themes of guilt and blame are very powerfully conveyed.

bought in a charity shop

>73 Soupdragon:: no, I think I'm the last one now Soup! And I, too, gave it to myself!

>73 Soupdragon:,77: Nope! I'm running behind you. Hmmm, too bad my birthday isn't until September--anybody celebrate half-birthdays?

#77. No your not Laura! But I shall have to buy it before I can read it. I also have on my tbr stacks Ex Libris and Rereadings.

And there was me worrying I was "so last season!"

>77 lauralkeet:: Actually, I goofed! The full title of the book mentioned in #73 is Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader. And, I HAVE read it. When I saw post #73, for some reason I thought it was another collection of essays: At Large and at Small: Familiar Essays, which I have on my TBR shelves at home.

My goof, Laura! I will add the full title to #73 to avoid further confusion...

Oh! So I don't have to buy it! I already have it disguised as Ex Libris! Lol:))

Serves me right for trying to write book reviews in a hurry! I really must take some time out and concentrate on preparing for The New Job! I start on Monday...

Great reviews, Soup! Congrats on the job.

I have read both the books of essays by Fadiman, and they are both great although for obvious reasons Ex Libris was my fave. However, even more favorite is her much longer book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. It is a powerful nonfiction book that deals with a cross-cultural breakdown in the US. Not a light read, but brilliant, imho.

Would second that. I don't think I've read a more engaging nonfiction book in which an author has captured multiple points of view so well that I couldn't be mad at anybody--well, except our healthcare system.

Well said, bonnie -- I felt the same way. The lack of blame made it all the more powerful, and heartbreaking.

Soupdragon (and others), did you know that Anne Fadiman has three books in her little-essay-book series? I just discovered the third, Rereadings: Seventeen Authors Revisit Books they Love. They all come from the column she wrote for American Scholar magazine.

>88 kambrogi:: oh nooooo !! More for the TBR pile!

Ooh! I have Rereadings on my tbr pile along with Ex Libris. Got to get Large and Small now!!

The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer

Gordimer focusses on a relationship between a young Arabic illegal immigrant and a young white European both living in South Africa, to illustrate the links between immigration rights and wealth and property. Well written and thought provoking.

-from charity shop

An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah

There are stories in this collection such as the one looking at a woman's desperation with her infertility and a story about a college girl's breakdown which would make bleak reading in any setting. In the context of Mugabe's Zimbabwe they are devastating. Others are more overtly political and throughout the book the problems of hyper-inflation and the AIDS epidemic are ever-present. There is a darkly ironic tone to many of the stories, particularly evident when Gappah focusses on the wives of the men who rule Zimbabwe. These women shop in South Africa, protected from Zimbabwe's financial problems but live in fear of contracting AIDS because of their husband's mistresses.

Highly recommended.

- an Early Reviewers book, very gratefully received!

The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy

A darkly comic tale of a young American woman who comes to London to track down the portly, middle-aged gentleman who ended up with her father's fortune after his death. It has lost the ability to shock that it probably had when first published in the early 60s but is still readable and entertaining. I particularly enjoyed "Honey"'s attacks on London and the upper-classes, a refreshing antidote to the misguided nostalgia that can result from reading too much English fiction of a certain age!

- from charity shop

Nice array of different sorts of things. I really must read that Gordimer; it has been on my "to read" list forever. The Gappah sounds very good, and heartbreaking. I used to live in South Africa, so both have special appeal. Thanks for the reviews; I always trust your judgment.

OK, I need to spend more time in the 999 group - I've only just found your thread and you have so many great books in here! I'm about 15 posts in and will be back when I've had breakfast...

Hi you two, thanks for stopping by!

Kambrogi, Heartbreaking is the word to describe An Elegy for Easterly (annoying there's no touchstone!) Thinking about it now, many of the characters were relatively well off, professionals who were well educated and had had a reasonably good standard of living previously. Terrifying to think of those who had very little to start with.

Of course, the most disturbing thing is that this is all so contemporary!

Yes, the heartbreak in Zim is ongoing. You are quite right -- the plight of the poor is even more desperate. We visited there once, and even large grocery stores were practically empty.

The books I've read recently and haven't had time to review:

Loved...

Molly Fox's Birthday- Deirdre Madden
The Telling - Jo Baker

Liked...

The Heavens may Fall - Unity Dow
The Spoilt Kill- Mary Kelly
A Household Guide to Dying - Debra Adelaide
The Flying Troutmans - Miriam Toews
The Birds of the Innocent Wood - Deirdre Madden
The Post Office Girl - Stefan Zweig

Tolerated...

Nocturne - Graham Hurley

>99 Soupdragon:: Soup, I heard something good about Molly Fox somewhere ... but if you loved it, I'm pretty sure I would, too! I'll have to make a note of it.

ETA: The "will you like it" thingy says I will love it!

I want to read The Flying Troutmans because I loved A Complicated Kindness but I'm "told" that I will only like it whereas I will "love" Molly Fox's Birthday. Hmmm, maybe I should try an experiment... Or I could just go with a real person's enthusiasm for a book--yes, I think I'll go with that! :-)

Hi you two!

Molly Fox's birthday was one of those very "reflective" books, looking at the inner world of the narrator and her relationships with those closest to her. I thought it was cleverly written and very emotionally and psychologically believable. Absolutely my sort of book though I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. Lindsacl, I do recommend it to you!

Bonniebooks, go with the one that is calling you! The Flying Troutmans is a fab read too, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Except you exactly described my kind of book (reflective, looking at the inner world of the narrator and her relationships...). No matter, I've got them both on my list! :-)

In that case I recommend them both, to you too, bonniebooks!

Molly Fox is also clever in the way that you get such a deep understanding of the characters from what the narrator doesn't say as much as what she does.

Hmm, I'll have written a review on this soon if I'm not careful :-)

Hmm ... I got a "will love" rating for Molly Fox's Birthday, too, for the first time on any book so far. Even my favorite book doesn't rate that. However, "reflective," as defined by Soupdragon, would be right on the nose for me, too. Must wishlist it.

Soup - I read your review of The Crowded Street as I was about to listen to the Radio 7 production. I am so impressed that I thought I would share the link with you. It was originally on the Virago thread. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b009z922

Oh Thank you, Juliette, somewhat belatedly! Was it really well done then? It's probably too late to listen now but I will check out the website to see.

I've only just caught up with LT as I've been on holiday in a cottage in Shropshire with no internet access. Also things had got particularly manic before I went away, making the holiday very much appreciated!

Posting here makes me feel guilty for the books I've read and not reviewed! Here's another list. I've finally finished my first category, Virago Modern Classics.

Stunning:

The Love of a Good Woman - Alice Munro
Love Me Tender - Jane Feaver

Good Stuff:

The Mistress's Daughter - A M Homes
The Birds of the Innocent Wood - Deirdre Madden
Remembering Light and Stone - Deirdre Madden
No Fond Return of Love - Barbara Pym

OK but I've read better by these authors:

Dusty Answer - Rosamond Lehmann
The Grave Tattoo - Val McDermid

Welcome back, Soupdragon! I was just thinking of you the other day & realizing I hadn't "seen" you here in a while. Hope internet-less Shropshire was fun and relaxing!

Thank you Laura! Yes, Shropshire was relaxing. The best thing was getting my ability to read back. I'd got to the stage where my brain was so fried I wasn't able to fully concentrate on my reading which as you'll appreciate was SO frustrating!

And now I've had time to give this thread a quick dust. I'm back at work tomorrow so we will have to see how long I can continue in my newly chilled state of mind....

The Importance of Music to Girls by Lavinia Greenlaw

Greenlaw evokes the feelings of childhood and then adolescence using the music around her as a backdrop. I found this particularly powerful when she gets to her teenage years when music becomes part of her identity. The memoir is told in a series of extracts which seem to correspond with particularly significant times in her life, or at least times which seemed significant at the time. I could imagine her using her teenage diaries to prompt her with these.

Overall I got the sense that Lavinia was telling us with perfect prose, exactly how it was and how she felt without trying to analyse why.

This book gave me shivers at times as I read it. It brought back my youth in the way putting on your old vinyl records (or listening to them again on Youtube!) does.

This was partly Greenlaw's evocative prose but also because our teenage years were actually quite similar. We both grew up as middle class white girls, with a tendency to dream and withdraw, in Essex villages apparently rather close to each other, within a few years of each other. There were many moments in the book when I thought "yes, that's how I felt". Because of this I'm not sure how it would come across to someone with a completely different life experience!

Wings over the Watcher by Priscilla Masters

Rather average, genre fiction. DI Joanna Piercy solves case of missing woman with help of hunky colleague Mike Korpanski in small English market town. Actually I was quite absorbed with the story initially and it kept me turning the pages but only recommended if you're looking for an easy read.

The Blood of Flowersby Anita Amirrezvani

A coming-of-age novel set in 17th century Iran/Persia. This book had it's charms and kept me turning the page but... it lacked in depth and wasn't particularly well written. Another issue I had was the rather 21st century entrepreneur angle. I'm all for women setting up in business, losing the need to be dependent on men...but in 17th century Persia?

-from charity shop

A Long Way from Verona by Jane Gardam

Jane Gardam is one of my favourite authors, yet I wasn't sure what to expect of this as it was her first novel and originally aimed at young adults. I needn't have worried. The book was absolutely perfect. Gardam has that wonderful English woman of a certain age sensibility combined with wit and an occasional subversive streak . A Long Way from Verona features a misfit schoolgirl who dreams of being a writer and whom readers of Bilgewater will find familiar. Recommended.

-bought new from Waterstones

The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

A nice, middle-class mother's protective instincts lead her into dealings in a seedy underworld. LibraryThing reviews have compared it with black and white noir films and that's probably the best way to enjoy it.

-from Amazon marketplace

Ok... * takes deep breath* I am officially giving up the 999 challenge. I feel quite disappointed about doing so but 2009 turned out to be a year with greater challenges of other kinds than I'd anticipated. I have got to the point where I don't have much time for reading and when I do, I want to choose what I can read. I'm feeling obliged at the moment to read short stories and memoirs when I want to read something long and escapist! Also I know I won't get around to any more reviews which was part of the plan. I still think the 999 challenge is a great idea though and may go for it again...possibly in my retirement!

Here's how far I got...

Counselling books. Read 3. 9 was always ambitious but thought it might motivate me for the course I was doing!

Virago Modern Classics. Read 9. Actually more than 9. This was easy as I love VMCs.

Orange Prize nominees. Read 7. Could have probably finished this one as lots of these still on my TBR.

Childrens/YA. Read 9. Most of these I read to my 11 year old son at bedtime so this was another easy one!

Crime. Read 7. I didn't think this would be a problem as about once a year, often when I've been unwell I usually go through a crime novel phase. It didn't happen this year and it was actually a struggle to read 7.

Short Story collections. Read 6. They were all good but I want to get into a big fat novel right now!

Memoirs. Read 4. This seemed like such a good idea because I read some amazing memoirs last year. This year I'm either not in the mood or not finding the right ones.

WWi and WWii. Read 9. Some fantastic books here. So glad I chose this category. Still some classics that I intended to read but didn't get around to. Have just read the first two novels in the Regeneration trilogy so thank you, Kambrogi for reminding me about those! BTW, I found Regeneration stunning, The Eye in the Door didn't hold my interest in quite the same way.

Women Writers that don't fit into any other category. Read 9. Well that one was always going to be easy.

Perhaps I should go and start a "I failed the 999 challenge" thread (:

ETA: the books I've read but not written about are recorded at the beginning of this thread.

I'm with you on short stories vs novels. Escaping into a story is my favorite part of reading and I just can't do that with a short story. I would have "failed" my 999 challenge too, but I just kept changing and broadening my categories until I was done. In reality, I was just more willing to cheat than you are. ;-) I'm glad I did it, but it sure has been nice to be able to read whatever I want without worrying which category it was going to fit in. Happy reading!

Thanks Bonnie. I did think about "adapting" my categories but it seemed a bit late in the day (year)! I am looking forward to choosing my next book without thinking about categories.

Hey there Soup, don't be so hard on yourself! I keep re-reading #116 and trying to find the "failure". Yeah, OK, so you didn't read 9 of all 9. But you came pretty close to my way of thinking. And I don't blame you for wanting some freedom. I was a challenge nut for a couple of years, and it got to where I was planning my reading months in advance. This year I eased up and while I have goals, I'm reading much more based on what I want to read now, vs. what I HAVE to read.

Thank you Laura! I think I might have enjoyed the challenge of getting those last trickier books read if it hadn't been for other pressures in my life. Reading is one of the main ways I relax and escape and it suddenly seemed a bit daft to have self-imposed restrictions there too!

Well said!

Hey Soup - you can *still* carry on reading and why not refine one of your categories - call it 'relaxing and escaping' and then carry on doing just that? It sounds to me as if the Viragos are your escape and relax so simply re-assign some of those and then keep adding all the other reads this year to that category. No one here (if I have anything to do with it!) should be judging anyone else and you will know how you have been doing - you are not a failure! Check out my list if you think you are - that should cheer you!!!!

I'm well adrift too. What I thought I would read has turned out to be nothing like what I've wanted to read as the year progressed.

You have read some fabulous books, so forget the word failure. At the risk of stating the obvious, reading the right books at the right time is so much more important than hitting targets.

Thank you all for your encouragement and wise words!

I probably could carry on with the challenge with a little tweaking and it is characteristically lovely of you Julie to be considering how I could do that. But I think I really will bow out. By the way, I've just finished a wonderful book called Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker (from the new Bloomsbury group series). It wouldn't have fitted any of my categories but was wonderfully eccentric and entertaining. Recommended for Persephone and Virago Modern Classics readers although the female characters aren't very sympathetic except for Miss Hargreaves in a strange kind of way.

I've taken the touchstone away from the book's title because it gave me a choice of 100 Mr Man books! The touchstone on the author's name takes you to the book though.

Hello Soupdragon

I've not been able to check out LT for quite a few days and have only just come across your message. I think that sometines its easy to get carried away with the challenge and forget that the essential thing is to read for pleasure - I think the 999 challenge is a great way to focus on books we wouldn't normally make a beeline for, but its impossible to predict months ahead what we'll feel like reading. I recently spent several days casting around for something to read and not finding anything that quite appealed. Eventually I realised that I'd become fixated on reading very quickly to get through the challenge and that I didn't want to do that any more. I'm still reading in my categories, but I've let go of the need to reach the magic number of 81. It must be something to do with the autumnal weather, but I've started reading some of the Barsetshire novels of Trollope - perfect with a large mug of tea by the fire on an autumn afternoon.

Happy seasonal reading

Sue

Thank you Sue. I've been enjoying reading your 50 book thread but don't remember seeing your 999 challenge. Will go and look for it now!