Chloe's 1010 list

Coming to this late, but here goes - I'm hoping this will stretch me a bit.
This may be hard, so I'm going for 5 per category and then I will move on to the next 5.
10 categories:
1. New detectives (i.e. 10 detective novels each featuring a detective I've not read yet).
2. Books in French (self explanatory,to try to improve my French reading fluency)
3. Books about, or set in, Egypt and the Middle East (because I'm going there on holiday)
4. Books about, or set in, Yorkshire (because I live there)
5. Science fiction (because every time I read some I like it and then I forget)
6. American classics/contemporary classics (because I don't think I've read enough American fiction)
7. Books my students recommend to me (to keep me young!)
8. Books about lawyers (to help me with the course I teach)
9. Magical Realism (because I've always liked it)
10. Books picked up at random in bookshops which I know nothing about before I pick them up (to encourage random bookshop browsing)

You're not late, we've barely begun. I like your categories and look forward to seeing what you read. In regards to your tenth category; do you need encouragement?

Thanks!
I do need encouragement, really. I want to stop thinking that going to bookshops and spending money is a time (and money) sink and move to thinking that it is a Good and Proper thing to do. I get too many books from Amazon being very targetted about what I want, which is great as far as it goes, but a bit more spontaneity would be good!

New detectives
1. Raymond Chandler "The Big Sleep"
2. C.J. Sansom "Dissolution"
3. Rhys Bowen "Her Royal Spyness"
4. Elizabeth Peters "The Crocodile on the Sandbank"
5.

Books in French
1. Residence Secondaire: Isabelle Motrot
2.
3.
4.
5.

Books about, or set in, Egypt and the Middle East
1. The Dark Side of Love by Rafik Schami
2. The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany
3. The Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters
4.
5.

Books about, or set in, Yorkshire
1. If only they could talk by James Herriot
2.
3.
4.
5.

Science Fiction
1. Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
2.Foreigner by C.J.Cherryh
3.
4.
5.

American Classics and contemporary Classics
1. The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. by Washington Irving
2.The Pit and the Pendulum: The Essential Poe by Edgar Allen Poe
3. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
4.
5.

Books my students recommend to me
1. The Killing Floor by Lee Child
2.
3.
4.
5.

Books about lawyers
1. Dissolution C.J.Sansom
2. Old Filth by Jane Gardam
3.
4.
5.

Magical Realism
1.April Witch by Majgull Axelsson
2.
3.
4.
5.

Books picked up at random from bookshops
1. The Dark Side of Love, by Rafik Schami
2. The Strange Cases of Magistrate Pao by Leon Coomber
3.The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
4.The American Boy by Andrew Taylor
5.

I do like your categories and will be keeping an eye on what you read (even if you do live on the wrong side of the Pennines).

Taking a while to get onto my category books - although I have a long wishlist I don't have much of a physical TBR pile and am disciplined about finishing books before I buy new ones, but I'm nearly ready to go.
Anyway, my first book in French is finished: Residence Secondaire by Isabelle Motrot. Very easy going story about a group of people and their various second homes in Normandy - well-drawn female characters and a wonderful section where the swimming pool being dug for the very elegant Catherine and Pierre turns up a miraculous well which infertile women used to bathe their genitals in....

I like your categories, I've read a few this year that I'd recommend and would fit into yours.
SF - The Swarm
MR - Everything is Illuminated - not strictly MR but close :-)
books about lawyers - Old Filth - A retired Lawyer from HK. Wonderful book.

Ooh - thank you. Old Filth in particular looks exactly my sort of thing!

Chloe

C.J. Sansom's Dissolution is the first book in the Shardlake series - my first encounter with this particular detective. It won't be the last - I enjoyed the book very much. A bit Name of the Rose-y - not just because it's set in a monastery but also because of the mix between theology and detection and, to an extent, the questioning of the impact of that theology, and the politics which surround it, on real people. Recommended.

I read that last year and enjoyed it also. I haven't yet continued with the series but I do have Dark Fire lined up for sometime this year.

My first American book and I decided to go back to the beginning, with The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. by Washington Irving. I must confess to having chosen it because The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is one of my favourite films ever.
Not what I expected, but very interesting. I think I shall return to this time and again, as I find his style and subject matter rather calming. It's a series of essays, some of which narrate stories but in a rather understated way - although some are clearly fantastic and imaginative. One thing that occurred to me was that if it were written today, it would be a blog.
I liked his take on the English and think much of it would continue to stand up today. I enjoyed his discussion of the American Indians and their history.
Overall, given that one of the points of that category was to understand America better, it was a good place to start.

The Dark Side of Love by Rafik Schami. I'm counting this as an Arab book and also as a book I picked up randomly in the bookshop.
Not strictly true - I circled it several times in the bookshop, unconvinced as to whether I really wanted a 850 page saga of forbidden love over 3 generations. I enjoyed it. I didn't really get the 'forbidden love' bit and was much more interested in the politics and society - but given that I wanted to read more books about the Arab world, that means it was perfect. As I've written over on my 75 thread, I was also a bit cheated by the blurb on the back which implied some kind of mystery/suspense thing which would perhaps have made it a bit more dynamic. But good, on the whole.

Great categories! Your "lawyer" category looks interesting. I'm currently reading Old City Hall, a legal thriller set in Toronto written by a former lawyer, and I'm enjoying it so far.

>24 mathgirl40: I just finished Old City Hall. Loved it, gave it 4 stars.

Thanks for the recommendation! Looks intriguing - I shall put it on my list.

The Dark Side of Love sounds really interesting. I'm going to add it to my list. Thanks for the review.

The Yacoubian Building, by Alaa Al Aswany. My first book about Egypt and my second Arab book (The Dark Side of Love is set in Syria). Much hyped, and recommended to me by my father. Personally, I enjoyed it. It is a book about a place - Cairo, and more generally Egypt. The story is told through a series of intertwining and alternating vignettes about different characters living in the Yacoubian Building, representing different aspects (and challenges) of Egyptian society. It's not a book about people, and his characterisations are weak, to be honest. But as a subtle critique of a corrupt, violent and prejudiced society it works very well.

2 more.
I've been struggling a bit with Yorkshire books - there are a few detective series I can work with, but I've read many of the classics. So James Herriot felt like a bit of a cop out. But I really enjoyed If only they could talk. I I identified a lot with the man coming in from outside and falling in love with the place. It's very gentle and entertaining and I look forward to the rest.
April Witch is a different kettle of fish. I enjoy magical realism, but, to be honest, I was hoping for a bit more magic and a bit less realism. What I got was a rather harrowing, but nevertheless thoughtprovoking, story about Desiree, who uses her magical powers to escape from her severely disabled bodies, and the women who Desiree's mother fostered, who have had their own challenges in life. Motherhood, and the extent to which the state can know what is best for us, are important themes.

I suppose if you're going to make a start on sci-fi, Iain M Banks is the perfect place to start. Consider Phlebas has a richness to it born of his underlying creation - the Culture - about which I want to learn more. So I will read more of these. I got a bit bored in the fights - that happens to me with sci-fi a bit. And I didn't care that much about the people - but I don't think I was supposed to. I think he might be saying something quite important about human progress and I look forward to exploring his ideas further.

Her Royal Spyness was my first encounter with Lady Georgiana, Rhys Bowen's upper class sleuth, 34th in line to the throne etc. I'm not sure I'll seek out further encounters - it was a bit bland and the language and context didn't really appeal - it all seemed a bit forced.

Back after a hiatus - holiday, work trip, volcano-induced extension to work trip, recovery...
Not as much reading done as you'd imagine to be be honest. But I've updated my categories.
I did enjoy Old Filth a lot, so thanks for the recommendation.

Random book -The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani. Picked this up in a sale in Waterstones (yay!) Really enjoyed it - beautiful, sensuous and sad - about a young female carpet maker in 16th century Iran, the sacrifices she has to make and the beauty she sees around here.

American book - The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. Loved it. Like Washington Irving, I found the elegance of the writing style very engaging and am looking forward to reading more of her. What was particularly interesting, in terms of reading American literature to understand more about America, was the world she portrays. Not only is it socially conservative, formal and elitist, but it perceives itself as more so than Europe - so European aristocracy (including British) are somehow looked down on because they don't obey the right social rules. Somehow, by the end, she has shown us a world which has changed - Newland Archer is the last generation with these types of attitudes, but it's a perspective on the development of America that I don't see much elsewhere.

Random bookshop book - another from the Waterstones sale. The American Boy by Andrew Taylor. Very enjoyable and I'm glad I read it. I picked it up because the blurb on the back said it was an imagining of what might happened to Edgar Allen Poe during his childhood stay in London. It turned into a nicely macabre, thrilling and layered early 19th century mystery set in London, with failing banks, freed slaves and uncertain wills. Enjoyed it very much and will be looking for more by teh same author.

I have a copy of The American Boy, picked up because of some recommendation or other. Good to see I'll enjoy it.

Egyptian book = Our Horses in Egypt by Rosalind Belben. It's easy to forget that the First World War had cavalry. This novel tells the story of a horse, Philomena, who is requisitioned by the army at the start of the war and taken to the desert - to Egypt and Palestine - to fight. Interspersed with that story is the story of her owner, Griselda Romney, a complicated and not altogether likeable character who nevertheless heads off to Egypt with her daughter to try and find Philomena, after the promise made by the government to send the horses home is broken.
I can't in honesty say I enjoyed this book. If you love animals, it's painful at times - just as painful, if not more so, as some of the great literature about human experience in the First World War. Of course, it is about human experience as well, and about the devotion that the cavalry soldiers had for their horses, and the disillusion as their visions of heroism are crushed in the miserable reality of it all.
But it is an extraordinary book and needs to be read. It's not perfect - the dialogue drove me nuts at times. But, as well as the power of the story, what is notable is the unsentimentality of its telling. At the start of the novel, Griselda, whose husband was killed in the war, is accused all round of over-sentimentality - horses, after all, are just animals. But there is no attempt here to anthropomorphise by giving horses human emotion. The story is simply told, and we feel what we feel.
Highly recommended, but perhaps not one for the beach.....