not exactly true

Reading List 2021

2021-03-07T17:42:00.007+00:00

May 2021

40. Boy Parts, Eliza Clark. Crash feat. Laura Mulvey. Top stuff.

39. Line, Niall Bourke. 1984 meets The Scheme for Full Employment meets the City of London.

38. War & Peace, Leo Tolstoy. Been reading this for four months - complete!

37. Lunch Poems, Frank O'Hara. Can't beat a classic.

36. *The Hard Crowd, Rachel Kushner. Essays, memoir, lit criticism - the works.

35. *Trauma: Essays on Art and Mental, Health, ed. Thom Cuell & Sam Mills. Excellent and diverse.

34. Second Place, Rachel Cusk. Thought-provoking as ever.

33. The Art of Falling, Danielle McLaughlin. Novel about art, gender and trust.

32. Set Me on Fire: A Poem For Every Feeling. ed. Ella Risbridger. Beautiful and eclectic anthology.

31. Lean Fall Stand, Jon McGregor. Just as outstanding as the last one.
30. At The Time of Partition, Moniza Alvi. Fantastic and deeply sad poetry collection.

April 2021

29. *The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls, Mona Eltahawy. Superb essays.

28. His Favourites, Kate Walbert. Didn't get into this as much as I thought I might.

27. The Topeka School,. Ben Lerner. A re-read for work. Even more impressive the second time round.

26. Sunday at the Skin Laundrette, Kathryn Simmonds. Poetry. Great stuff.

25. Reservoir 13, Jon McGregor. Outstanding.

24. *Corpsing, Sophie White. Excellent nonfiction.

23. The Dispossessed, Ursula K Le Guin. Outstanding political novel.

22. Tales of the City, Armistead Maupin. Hilarious.

21. Permafrost, Eva Baltasar. Sharp, short, bleak and funny.

20. Don't Let Me Be Lonely, Claudia Rankine. Formally fascinating as usual. This collection looks at death, at loneliness, at poetry as communication.

March 2021

19. *The Brain-Dead Megaphone, George Saunders. Great essays - some feel a little dated now but still excellent reads.

18. Exciting Times, Naoise Dolan. Really, really funny.

17. *The Disconnect, Roisin Kiberd. Review to follow.

16. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark. Reread for work; always a pleasure.

15. My Absolute Darling, Gabriel Tallent. Intriguing portrait of abuse.
14. My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell. Compelling, though a bit too on the nose.

February 2021

13. Kitchenly 434, Alan Warner. Review here.

12. Bright, Burning Things, Lisa Harding. Review here.

11. Under the Blue, Oana Aristide. Review here.

10. Transcendent Kingdom, Yaa Gyasi. Review here.

9. Mouthpieces, Eimear McBride. Review here.

8. The Rules of Revelation, Lisa McInerney. Review to follow.
7. Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri. Beautiful stories.

January 2021

6. The Abstainer, Ian McGuire. A dark and violent follow-up to The North Water.

5. Having and Being Had, Eula Biss. Review here.

4. *A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders. Review here (absolutely loved this).

3. Luckenbooth, Jenni Fagan, Review here.

2. The Death of Francis Bacon, Max Porter. Review here.
1. A River Called Time, Courttia Newland. Review here.

Reading List 2020

2020-01-04T16:31:00.025+00:00

(Non-fiction marked with *)

December (tis the season...to hide away at home)

94. Severance, Ling Ma. Apocalyptic fiction, for the year that's in it. Didn't love it.

93. *A Ghost in the Throat, Doireann Ní Ghríofa. Beautiful memoir/mediation on translation, parenthood, and lots of other stuff.

92. Winter Papers, Vol, 6. Annual arts anthology; always good.

91. There, There, Tommy Orange. Not as good as I'd hoped.

90. *On Immunity: An Inoculation, Eula Biss. Timely! Great narrative non-fiction.

89. *Men We Have Reaped, Jesmyn Ward. Memoir. Brutal.

88. *The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot. Ten years late to this - really powerful.

87. *Zami: A New Spelling of my Name, Audre Lorde. Excellent autobiography.

86. Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, Andrea Lawlor. Outstandingly clever, funny and poignant.

85. *In the Dream House, Carmet Maria Machado. Superbly inventive memoir.

84. Amy & Isabelle, Elizabeth Strout. Beautifully engrossing, as ever.

83. There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job, Kikuko Tsuruma. Review here.

November (will this year never end)

82. The Ballad of Peckham Rye, Muriel Spark. As weird and jumpy as you'd expect.

81. Should We Fall Behind, Sharon Duggal. Review here.

80. Missionaries, Phil Klay. Review here.

79. *Strangers: Essays into the Human and Nonhuman, Rebecca Tamás. Intriguing short collection.

October (Tier Three! Nothing makes sense any more!)

78. The First Woman, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi. Review here.

77. Fleishman is in Trouble, Taffy Brodesser-Akner. Loved this.

76. Cassandra at the Wedding, Dorothy Baker. Excellent.

75. *If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance, ed. Angela Y. Davis. Horribly essential.

74. Death in Her Hands, Ottessa Moshfegh. Review here.

73. Blonde Roots, Bernardine Evaristo. A work in which Blaks enslaved Whytes; brilliant.

72. That Old Country Music, Kevin Barry. Review here.

71.*Negroland: A Memoir, Margo Jefferson. Fantastic memoir/history exploring race and class and gender.

70. My Sister the Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite. A quick, fun, thought-provoking read that didn't push its themes far enough.

69. Must I Go, Yiyun Li. Review here.

September (the schools are BACK!)

68. *The End of Policing, Alex Vitale. Analysis of the problematics of the police as a state institution. Very good but kind of chickens out towards the end with not enough emphasis on abolition.

67. Such a Fun Age, Kiely Reid. Disappointing. Review here.

66. Mordew, Alex Pheby. Part one of a new fantasy trilogy. Beautifully written.

August (got out of Manchester for a bit!)

65. Parable of the Talents, Octavia E. Butler. Follow-up to no. 64. Also great (and depressing).

64. Parable of the Sower, Octavia E. Butler. Horribly prescient.

63. Zero Hours, Neil Campbell. Disappointingly sexist.

62. Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward. Oof. Stunning.

61. Mr Loverman, Bernardine Evaristo. Sad and funny.

60. Flights, Olga Tokarczuk. Excellent. If you like Rachel Cusk, etc.

59. Kindred, Octavia E. Butler. Outstanding time-travel novel exploring slavery and its legacy.

58. *The History of White People, Nell Irvin Painter. A critical (but VERY accessible) study of the construction of whiteness as a social category.

57. Not to Disturb, Muriel Spark. Not one of her best.

July (might get to go into somebody else's house soon?)

56. Strange Weather in Tokyo, Hiromi Kawakami. Absolutely beautiful - that ending!

55. *Tell Me How It Ends, Valeria Luiselli. Heartbreaking look at the treatment and detention of refugee children in the US.

54. Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay. Reminded me of Spark.

53. Sozaboy, Ken Saro-Wiwa. Brilliant use of language.

52. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid. Very cleverly constructed.

51. Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie. Good stuff.

50. The Bitch, Pilar Quintana. Review here.

49. The Disaster Tourist, Yun Ko-eun. Review here.

48. An Orchestra of Minorities, Chigozie Obioma. Really interesting use of storytelling.

47. Queenie, Candice Carty-Williams. Review here.

June (this will never end)

46. *Your Silence Will Not Protect You, Audre Lorde. Essays and poems. Deeply sad and deeply energising.

45. A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James. Difficult, but worth it.

44. That Reminds Me, Derek Owusu. Lyrical novel, almost like a series of prose poems.

43. Honeydew, Edith Pearlman. Fantastic stories; she's as good as Munro.

May (still in lockdown...)

42. Infidelities, Kirsty Gunn. Short stories; not dissimilar to Sarah Hall.

41. 253, Geoff Ryman. Interlinked character sketches. Sharp and clever.

40. Requiem For a Dream, Hubert Selby Jr. Outstanding use of voice and deeply sad.

39. Symposium, Muriel Spark. Cutting as ever.

38. *Extreme Cities, Ashley Dawson. Climate change and city life. Terrifying.

37. *Revolting Prostitutes, Juno Mac and Molly Smith. Marxist feminist dissection of sex workers' need for labour rights.

April (still in lockdown...)
36. The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead. Savagely unflinching look at slavery, though I wasn't entirely convinced by the form.
35. *Notes From an Apocalypse, Mark O'Connell. Nonfiction. Just as good as his first book.
34. *Trans Like Me, C.N. Lester. Nonfiction. Essays on being trans; essential reading.
33. The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel. Not enough superlatives...review here.
32. *New Dark Age, James Bridle. Nonfiction; scary as hell.
31. Handiwork, Sara Baume. Nonfiction: reflections on making. Lovely.
30. May We be Forgiven, A.M. Homes. Hilarious, sad, beautiful (though tres middle class).
29. The Magician, W. Somerset Maugham. Occult shenanigans. Not really my thing.
28. The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Emily M. Danforth. Excellent YA novel about gender and sexuality.

March (guess which month the COVID-19 lockdown kicked in, eh?)
27. Memento Mori, Muriel Spark. Death stalks a group of elderly folk. Sharp as ever.
26. Adults, Emma Jane Unsworth. A really fucking worthy follow-up to Animals.
25. *When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi. Really contemplative and poignant.
24. The Fermata, Nicholson Baker. Pretty bizarre, pervy in a funny way, weirdly sweet.
23. *The Uninhabitable Earth, David Wallace-Wells. Absolutely terrifying. Everyone needs to read this.
22. Hallam Foe, Peter Jinks. Not as good as the movie, but entertaining, especially in the latter half.
21. The Lying Days, Nadine Gordimer. Her first novel: political/moral awakening in Apartheid S.A. Excellent.
20. A Brilliant Void, ed. Jack Fennell. Anthology of Irish science-fiction covering several hundred year. Really interesting.
19. This Sporting Life, David Storey. Man, this is bleak (and very powerful).
18. Theft, Luke Brown. Fantastically readable and brilliant on Brexit. Top stuff.
17. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark. Reread for work. Still great.
16. Weather, Jenny Offill. Review here.
15. Last Ones Left Alive, Sarah Davis-Goff. Captivating feminist dystopian novel set in Ireland - can't argue with that!

February
14. Strange Hotel, Eimear McBride. Review here.
13. The Shapeless Unease, Samantha Harvey. A memoir/essay/hybrid text about a year of insomnia. Fascinating.
12. The Odyssey, Homer (obvs). This was for work - it's a long time since I've read this and the translation was new to me. Odysseus is an asshole, guys.
11. Lowborn, Kerry Hudson. Nonfiction account of growing up in poverty in the UK - a scathing indictment of the government's lack of care for out most vulnerable and the way the poor have been demonised.
10. In Search of a Distant Voice, Taichi Yamada. Surreal account of a man's (possible) breakdown.
9. The Gustav Sonata, Rose Tremain. First novel of hers I've read (I've read her stories here and there). Good stuff.

January
8. Actress, Anne Enright. Excellent book - review here.
7. Arlington Park, Rachel Cusk. A savage look at marriage and the British well-to-do suburbs.
6. The Night Brother, Rosie Garland. Enormously engaging historical novel about gender.
5. Olive, Again, Elizabeth Strout. Excellent sequel.
4. My Biggest Lie, Luke Brown. Publishing, Borges, heartbreak (and lots of lying).
3. Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout. Reread because it's been too long.
2. Bina, Anakana Scholfield. Oblique and poignant.
1. Winter Papers, Vol. 5, ed. Kevin Barry and Olivia Smith. Annual anthology - always worth a read.

O. Henry Prize 2019

2019-05-16T21:29:00.004+01:00

Interrupting normal service (i.e., the exhaustive and rather pointless listing of everything I read) to report that I've only gone and bloody well won an O. Henry Prize! My story 'Bad Girl, which first appeared in LitMag, Vol.1, will appear in the 2019 anthology, which is also the 100th anniversary edition, and will be published in September. It's all mega-exciting. Woop!

Reading List 2019

2019-01-04T22:48:00.003+00:00

Another year, another list! (The TBR pile never gets smaller.)

December
84. Patience, Toby Litt. Phenomenal book.
83. Constellations, Sinéad Gleeson. Beautiful essays.
82. The Life and Times of a Tea Boy, Michael Collins. Funny & violent & sad.
81. The Pen Friend, Ciaran Carson. Tender and (obv) poetic.
80. The Siege of Krishnapur, J.G. Farrell. Booker winner from 1973. Fantastic.
79. The Heather Blazing, Colm Toibín. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, as ever.
78. Endland, Tim Etchells. Review here.
77. Winter Papers, Vol. 4. Just in time for Vol. 5 at Christmas! (Lost this one in the house for MONTHS.)

November
76. The Topeka School, Ben Lerner. Really compelling and astute. My favourite of his so far.
75. Ducks, Newburyport, Lucy Ellmann. I've been reading this for months and feel bereft now. A phenomenal achievement.

October
74. Girl, Edna O'Brien. Review to follow.
73. Tinderbox, Megan Dunn. Totally bonkers non-fiction about Ray Bradbury and the closure of the Borders chain of bookstores and what it's like to fail as a writer.
72. Trans, Julie Jacques. Memoir - interesting stuff.
71. Girl, Woman, Other. Bernardine Evaristo. Fantastic book. Review to follow.
70. Angel Caging, Martin Reed. Flash fiction, some longer pieces. Great stuff. Here's a taster.

September
69. The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner. Really absorbing.
68. Notes Made While Falling, Jenn Ashworth. Cannot praise this highly enough. Memoir/essays about health, writing, trauma, memory, embodiment. My friend Thom described it as 'lacerating' and that's spot on.
67. O. Henry Prize Stories 2019. Vested interest - I've got a story in it. But it's a great collection and has introduced me to several new (to me) writers.
66. Selfies, Sylvie Weil. Innovative memoir, exploring image & self-image, memory & exile. Review to follow.
65. The Red Word, Sarah Henstra. Powerful novel about rape culture. Review here.

August
64. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut. A reread for work; great on time, trauma, etc.; depressingly terrible on gender.
63. Sudden Traveller, Sarah Hall. Stunning and heartbreaking collection. Review to follow.
62. Franny and Zooey, JD Salinger. Reread. I loved this as a teenager and I love it for different reasons now: what a takedown of the Average White Guy.
61. Perfidious Albion, Sam Byers. Satire on Brexit-esque politics and technology - sharp but characterisation felt very much secondary to plot. Preferred Egger's The Circle on tech.
60. Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld. Pride & Prejudice redux. Uninspiring; don't get the fuss.
59. The Wall, John Lanchester. Brexit meets Waiting for the Barbarians. A quick, good read.
58. The Quelling, Barbara Barrow. Creepy twins and their way creepier psychiatrist...

July.
57. Home Remedies, Xuan Juliana Wang. Stories set in China, the US and France. Review here.
56. Leonard and Hungry Paul, Rónán Hession. Tender and optimistic and savage funny (screw the 'up-lit', you want to read this.)
55. The Transmigration of Bodies, Yuri Herrera. Romeo & Juliet reimagined, plague and all.
54. Clever Girl, Tessa Hadley. One person's life-story - like a better William Boyd.
53. Everything You Know, Zoe Heller. Sharp and funny.
52. Convenience Store Woman, Syaka Murata. Sweet and bizarre. Great ending.
51. The Green Road, Anne Enright. Fantastically voiced family story.
50. Sweet Home, Wendy Erskine. Excellent short story collection set in Belfast; review here and my podcast interview with the author here.

June
49. Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng. The plotting was way too deliberately laid out.
48. The Largesse of the Sea Maiden, Denis Johnson. Fantastic stories. Apparently meandering but really taut and compelling.
47. Ghost Town, Patrick McGrath. My first of his - I've definitely been missing out.
46. Night Boat to Tangier, Kevin Barry. Review to follow.
45. Minor Monuments: Essays, Ian Maleney. Brilliant essay collection. Review here.
44. Kintu, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi. Muktu-generational Ugandan saga. Compelling.
43. Common People, ed. Kit de Wall. Anthology of Working class writers. Diverse and interesting non-fiction pieces. Review here.

May
42. Normal People, Sally Rooney. A very clever dissection of two students' relationship.
41. Murmur, Will Eaves. Confoundingly beautiful. Review here.
40. Quarantine, Jim Crace. Tense novel set in the desert near Jericho, starring a dude called Jesus... I admired it more than I enjoyed it, which is often how I feel about Crace's work.
39. Noctuary, Niall Campbell. Poetry again; this time about parenthood and home.
38. Us, Zaffar Kunial. Poetry, in part about growing up with a dual heritage.
37. Wetlands, Charlotte Roche. Interesting (Julia Kristeva would have a field day here) but the ending was a total cop-out.
36. The Children's Hospital, Chris Adrian. Also a reread. Totally bizarre and totally compelling and very sad.

April
35. We Were Strangers, ed. Richard V. Hirst. Excellent story anthology based on Joy Division's album Unknown Pleasures.
34. Gob's Grief, Chris Adrian. A reread for work; love it just as much as when I first read it five years back
33. Trust Exercise, Susan Choi. Clever stuff. Review to follow.
32. Gingerbread, Helen Oyeyemi. Disappointing. Review here.
31. How To Break Up With Your Phone, Catherine Price. Yeah, not my usual genre. But depressingly useful.
30. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers. So moving.
29. Charlie Savage, Roddy Doyle. Review here.

March
28. Number One Chinese Restaurant, Lillian Li. Grew on me as it went along.
27. Supernatural Tales, Vernon Lee. Old-school creepiness.
26. The Surface Breaks, Louise O'Neill. Feminist reimagining of The Little Mermaid. Pretty didactic (it's YA) but powerful stuff.
25. Ghost Wall, Sarah Moss. Incredible. Review here.
24. Lanny, Max Porter. Creepy and lyrical and nicely scathing. Review here.
23. This Paradise, Ruby Cowling. Debut story collection - fantastic stuff.
22. Ironopolis, Glen James Brown. Reread. Still fantastic: intricately plotted, beautifully descriptive, fiercely political.
21. Slip of a Fish, Amy Arnold. Innovative and disturbing (that's my bag).
20. Let Me Be Like Water, SK Perry. Novel about grief and mourning: a sneaky hard-hitter. Very moving.
19. Allegiant, Veronica Roth. Well, I can see why these were so popular: massively simplistic morality systems, cutout characters, awful dialogue, a ridiculously convoluted plot... oh, hang on. (I did not enjoy these books.) (I read them for work-related reasons.)
18. Insurgent, Veronica Roth.
17. Divergent, Veronica Roth.
16. The Butcher's Wife, Li Ang. Feminist Taiwanese novella from the 1980s. Gruesome but compelling.
15. See What Can Be Done, Lorrie Moore. Great collection of reviews and essays; review here.
14. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon. Re-read; still very good.

February
13. You Know You Want This, Kristen Roupenian. Stories: some great. Review here.
12. Rules, Cynthia Lord. Kids' novel about disability, autism, inclusion and acceptance.
11. My Coney Island Baby, Billy O'Callaghan. Novel about a long-term love affair. Review here.
10. X, Vona Groarke. Superb poetry collection.
9. Chess, Stefan Zweig. My first Zweig (and the second novel I've read all about chess obsessives?!); compelling and terse novella.
8. Paralogues, Evan Jones. Poetry collection by a friend, colleague and fellow Manchester PhD alumna.
7. Firestarter, Stephen King. Frequent and casual misogyny aside (grr), a good old page-turner from an old reliable.

January
6. Where Reasons End, Yiyun Li. Incredibly moving meditation on a writer's son's suicide. Review here.
5. Jellyfish, Janice Galloway. Reissued story collection. Review here.
4. For The Good Times, David Keenan. Novel about an IRA member. Superb. Review here.
3. The Mental Load, Emma. Graphic essays on feminism and socialism. Excellent. Review here.
2. Mongolian Travel Guide, Svetislav Basara. Very odd novel in the vein of Flann O'Brien (but more sexist). Review here.
1. The Gunners, Rebecca Kaufmann. Coming-of-age novel (sort of). Definitely not for me. Review here.

Reading List 2018

2018-01-04T21:38:00.004+00:00

In 2016 I finished my PhD, moved house and renovated the house, got married, and, oh yeah, had a baby. In 2017 I... did none of those things, and yet I only read four more books than in the previous year. I'll blame the baby/toddler for that. (He's pretty decent, though, so we won't bear a grudge.) I have an abysmal track record at keeping resolutions (apart from the year I stuck to my vow of reading one graphic novel a month - that was good, if a little pricey), so I'm not making any grandiose 2018 reading promises, except that: I need to be strict about alternating reading books for review, new/current books, and books that have been lingering on the shelf for years. To that end I've kicked off with a new one (David Keenan - amazing) and I'm following it up with an old one (Ivy Compton-Burnett). Also I found I read more non-fiction than usual last year, and I'd quite like to keep that up too, but we'll see how I get on with the dusty old pile first.

December
68. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver. A great way to end the year - what a fantastically absorbing novel.
67. Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, David Eagleman. Very clever and lovely collection,
66. The Other Irish Tradition, ed. Rob Doyle. Anthology of Irish experimental fiction.
65. Asking For It, Louise O'Neill. A reread for work. Still so powerful.
64. Milkman, Anna Burns. This year's Booker winner, and what a choice!
63. Travels in the Scriptorium, Paul Auster. Meh... (is that heresy?)
62. Way More Than Luck, Ben Wilkinson. Poetry collection centre around depression, football and running - can't recommend this enough (even if, like me, you're massively indifferent to football!).
61. Foster, Claire Keegan. Long story/novella; really poignant.

November
60. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. A reread for work. Great prose, rather dodgy on women...
59. The Political History of Smack and Crack, Ed Edwards. Play-script. Fantastic.
58. The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson. As creepy as you'd hope for.
57. Notes From the Fog, Ben Marcus. Stories - review to come.
58. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr. Reread for work; still excellent.

October
56. Melmoth, Sarah Perry. Reworking of Maturin's 18th century text. Review to come.
55. The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker. Rewriting of The Iliad. Review to come.
54. The Commitments, Roddy Doyle. A re-read for work.
53. Ship of Fools, Katherine Anne Porter. Razor-sharp observations and characterisation here. Big thumbs up.

September
52. Alma Cogan, Gordon Burn. Superb. I hadn't enjoyed Fullalove very much but this was amazing.
51. The Heart Goes Last, Margaret Atwood. Disappointing.

August
50. The Uncoupling, Meg Wolitzer. Interesting topic but not a very interesting book.
49. Malarky, Anakana Schofield. Funny but very poignant novel.
48. A Struggle for Fame, Charlotte Riddell. Sounds like publishing hasn't changed too much since the 1850s...
47. Notes To Self, Emilie Pine. Excellent essays.
46. Lake Success, Gary Shteyngart. Entertaining but not his best.
45. Crudo, Olivia Laing. Everyone else loves this but I thought it was pretty slight.
44. The Prestige, Christopher Priest. Saw the movie ears ago but had forgotten the details. Unimpressed at first but liked it a lot by the end. Clever and creepy, if not very feminist.
43. Ironopolis, Glen James Brown. Absolutely brilliant novel set on a soon-to-be-demolished Teesside estate.
42. The Water Cure, Sophie Mackintosh. Good old feminist rage - can't beat it.
41. Days of Awe, A.M. Homes. Stories. A mixed bag, but the better ones are great.

July
40. His Bloody Project, Graeme Macrae Burnet. Historical murder story/courtroom drama. Excellent.
39. Rita, Sue and Bob Too, Andrea Dunbar. Playscript. The issue I have (not linked because it's very much out of print) also included The Arbor and Shirley. They're all fantastic, and RS&B is way better than the (very good) film.
38. The Unforeseen, Dorothy Macardle. Loose sequel to The Uninvited, but you wouldn't really need to have read the first. Also brilliant! Tramp Press have played a blinder (as ever) reissuing those two.
37. The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, Holly Ringland. Holly was my MA classmate and now she's an international bestseller - stay in school, kids! And what an evocation of the Australian landscape.
36. The Uninvited, Dorothy Macardle. Brilliant ghost story set on the Devon coast.
35. Attrib., Eley Williams. Very clever, lovely stories.
34. The Circle, Dave Eggers. A bit worrying close to the bone. Might throw my phone in the bin?!
33. My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh. Novel - review coming soon!

June
32. Martin John, Ankana Schofield. Brilliant novel - what a stylist!
31. Aliens & Anorexia, Chris Kraus. Complicated but interesting.
30. Unthology 10. I'm biased because I've got a story in this, but it's a great anthology.
29. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin. Cracy that I've only just read this. Brilliant.

May
28. The Mars Room, Rachel Kushner. Excellent.
27. Shift, Mia Gallagher. Excellent story collection.
26. Follow Me To Ground, Sue Rainsford. Creepy and original.
25. Problems, Jade Sharma. Brilliant novel about addiction.

April
24. Jude: Level 1, Julian Gough. Satirical Irish novel - funny.
23. The Overstory, Richard Powers. Excellent stuff - brings out my inner eco-warrior.
22. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman. Didn't like this much at all.
21. The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann. Very long! Loved parts, found some sections a drag.

March
20. Break.up, Joanna Walsh. Meditation on online relationships.
19. The Interestings, Meg Wolitzer. Another great one, all about friendship and envy.
18. The Vagrants, Yiyun Li. Outstanding novel. I'd enjoyed her short stories before but this was phenomenal.
17. History of Wolves, Emily Fridlund. Didn't get on with this one.
16. Room For a Single Lady, Clare Boylan. Really funny & sharp - if you like Muriel Spark, etc.
15. Anything You Do Say, Gillian McAllister. Crime / guilt / relationship drama; puts you off shoving people down the stairs, that's for sure.

February
14. Sorry To Disturb The Peace, Patty Yumi Cottrell. Odd, funny, bleak: really enjoyed it.
13. Outer Dark, Corman McCarthy.Well, that was bleak as hell. Maybe don't read if you have a little baby?!
12. Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado. Short stories - very thought-provoking.
11. Feel Free, Zadie Smith. Essays and reviews. Pretty long but very good.
10. The Cone Gatherers, Robin Jenkins. Fantastic Scottish novel; gutted I've only come to it now.
9. The Minister and the Murderer, Stuart Kelly. Non-fiction. Review to follow.

January

8. Changing My Mind, Zadie Smith. Essays. Some excellent, some (the film section in particular) not so much.
7. Homesick for Another World, Ottessa Moshfegh. Stories. Very Flannery O'Connor-eqsue.
6. Honoured Guest, Joy Williams. Story collection. Great stuff. If you like Lorrie Moore, etc.
5. Swing Time, Zadie Smith. Great take on two girls' long friendship (Cats Eye va Elena Ferrante).
4. The Earlie King & the Kid In Yellow, Danny Denton. Debut novel from an Irish writer: totally mad, very exuberant.
3. Nightwood, Djuna Barnes. I appreciate the cultural significance and modernist innovation but I didn't really get much out of it which was a shame (and isn't anything to do with the quality of the book, obviously).
2. Winter Papers, Vol. 3, ed. Kevin Barry & Olivia Smith. Irish arts annual. Favourite bits were stories by Anakana Schofield and Cristín Leach.

1. This Is Memorial Device, David Keenan. Took me a little while to get into it, but then, bloody hell: astounding stuff.

Reading List 2017

2017-01-06T22:01:00.001+00:00

Does exactly what it says on the tin, right? I managed three whole blog posts in 2016; I might try for four in 2017. Aim high, eh. And I couldn't help but feel a little irate that I only read 72 books last year - I used to easily top a hundred - but then, while the previous three years had the PhD as a limiting factor, 2016 had finishing the PhD, renovating a house, submitting the PhD, having another baby (a boy one, this time), the viva (the horror), our wedding and the PhD corrections (thankfully minor). So I guess I shouldn't feel too bad. Anyway, let's see how 2017 goes. I've got a huge pile of books that have been accumulating for years and if I get through even a quarter of them, plus review books and new buys, I'll be happy.

December
76. The Good Immigrant, ed. Nikesh Shukla. Essays on being BAME in Britain today. Just as brilliant/powerful/heartbreaking/invigorating as everyone's been saying.
75. Nasty Women, various. Collection of essays on living as a woman today with a particular focus on the Trump era: this was a massive crowdfunding success.
74. Women & Power: A Manifesto, Mary Beard. Adapted from her LRB lectures. Excellent.
73. Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward. Beautiful and brutal. Review soon...
72. City of Mirrors, Justin Cronin. Satisfying conclusion! The trilogy isn't as good as the first book but it's still a very engrossing read.
71. The Twelve, Justin Cronin. Not as good as the first one, but compelling all the same.

November
70. The Passage, Justin Cronin. Read this a few years ago and now I've re-read it in advance of checking out the sequels. Really good, literate, post-acopolaptyc gore.
69. The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro. Not bad. I enjoyed it but probably won't re-read.
68. A Natural, Ross Raisin. Really compelling and astute novel about football and masculinity. A fantastic read.
67. Transit, Rachel Cusk. Excellent and really psychologically acute.

October
66. Sputnik Caledonia, Andrew Crumey. Totally wierd and compelling sci-fi/political/bildungsroman/astrophysics mash-up of a novel. Really enjoyed it though not sure about some of the gender politics.
65. Blood and Guts in High School, Kathy Acker. Pretty mental stuff. Admired more than enjoyed.
64. Smile, Roddy Doyle. Loved this up until the last few pages. Doyle's so good on men and Dublin and with dialogue.
63. Hotel, Joanna Walsh. Non-fiction/auto-fiction; thoughts on hotels, home, marriage, Freud, language. Really interesting.
62. They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Horace McCoy. Intense and depressing: good stuff!
61. Conversations With Friends, Sally Rooney. Debut novel; interesting.
60. Dinner at the Centre of the Earth, Nathan Englander. Novel. Review coming soon.
59. Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay. More essays, mostly on feminism and race. Excellent.

September
58. Shrill, Lindy West. Feminist essays: quick, funny, and very good.
57. Protest: Stories of Resistance, ed. Ra Page. Story anthology - well worth a look. Review here.
56. Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit. Essays on feminism (a brilliant read).
55. The Faraway Nearby, Rebecca Solnit. Essays about illness and landscape and change.
54. Chernobyl Prayer, Svetlana Alexievich. Non-fiction about the reactor disaster in 1986. Horrific. Should be required reading everywhere (especially in government offices...)

August
53. Karate Chop/Minna Needs Rehearsal Space, Dorthe Nors. A collection and a novella: I especially enjoyed the novella (Minna).
52. So Happy It Hurts, Anneliese Mackintosh. Epistolatory novel.
51. The Idiot, Elif Batuman. Debut novel. Review here.
50. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy. Review coming.
49. The Tsar of Love and Techno, Anthony Marra. Intense, funny, sad, and set partly in Chechnya, which is a new one for me. Review here.
48. Home Fire, Kamila Shamsie. Excellent novel. Review here.

July
47. Flaneuse, Lauren Elkin. Non-fiction about women and cities. Mixed feelings about this one. Review here.
46. Green Glowing Skull, Gavin Corbett. Totally mad novel. Flann O'Brien, Chris Adrian, Kelly Link and Pynchon meet The Three Tenors. No idea what was happening by the end but loved the journey!
45. Madame Zero, Sarah Hall. Fantastic, powerful story collection. Review here.
44. A Horse Walks Into A Bar, David Grossman. Very, very intense. Review here.
43. My Shitty Twenties, Emily Morris. Brilliant, funny memoir about single parenthood. (Disclosure: Emily's my friend, but the book really is a great read.)
42. Room Little Darker, June Caldwell. Story collection. Review here.
41. The Tryst, Monique Roffey. Erotic novella. Interesting (though not my usual thing!). Review here.

June
40. The Power, Naomi Alderman. A cracking, thought-provoking read.
39. No Harm Done, Jean McGarry. Intense story collection.
38. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy. Mad complicated but worth the effort. Review here.
37. Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh. Fantastic. Shirley Jackson-esque.
36. The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial, Maggie Nelson. Memoir. Great stuff.

May
35. Torpor, Christ Kraus. Loose prequel to I Love Dick. Loved it. Review here.
34. A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara. Late to the party with this one. Totally blew me away.
33. The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry. Captivating.
32. To Be A Machine, Mark O'Connell. Fascinating non-fiction look at transhumanism. Review here.
31. The Dogs of Inishere, Alannah Hopkin. Story collection; review here.

April
30. The Portable Veblen, Elizabeth McKenzie. Nails the whole family/in-law dynamic. A lot better than I expected after the first couple of chapters.
29. The Iron Age, Arja Kajermo. Deceptively brutal story of a Finnish childhood. Review here.
28. The Living End, Stanley Elkin. The Inferno, sort of updated. Mostly very funny; one unfunny rape joke. Hmm.
27. The Night Visitors, Jenn Ashworth & Richard V. Hirst. Properly creepy ghost story.
26. The Blood Miracles, Lisa McInerney. A reread for research. What book!
25. Making Space, Sarah Tierney. Debut novel. A girl adrift falls for a hoarder. Review here.
24. The Glorious Heresies, Lisa McInerney. Interviewing Lisa soon, so this was a research reread. Still brilliant!
23. The Lauras, Sara Taylor. Road trip novel. Good stuff on gender but didn't grab me much otherwise. Preferred The Shore.
22. The Wake, Paul Kingsnorth. Totally fantastic. Brutal and inventive and compelling, and man, an object lesson in characterisation and the intricacies of first person narration and voice.

March
21. Cold Water, Gwendoline Riley. Second time in a row - wanted to get the nuances before I taught it.
20. Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders. Pretty odd, quirky, sad - I prefer his short fiction but I did enjoy this.
19. Cold Water, Gwendoline Riley. Short but intense; very Mancunian.
18. NW, Zadie Smith. A reread for teaching purposes; just as good as I remembered. Still her best, though I haven't yet read Swing Time.
17. The Embassy of Cambodia, Zadie Smith. A good story but packaging as a hardback book is a bit cheeky imo.
16. Hangsaman, Shirley Jackson. Horrendously realistic and tense (as you'd expect).
15. The Witchfinder's Sister, Beth Underdown. Fantastic first novel - literary historical, massively tense and beautifully written. Prize nominations ahoy, I reckon.
14. Veronica, Mary Gaitskill. Interesting, but not my favourite of hers.
13. Rockadoon Shore, Rory Gleeson. Captivating debut novel about a bunch of teenagers on holidays. Funny but very sad, too.

February
12. Grief is the Thing with Feathers, Max Porter. Just as sad as I expected it to be, but hopeful too.
11. The Notebook, Agota Kristof. Chilling story of wartime.
10. The Blood Miracles, Lisa McInerney. Fantastic second novel; review here.
9. Leaving is my Colour, Amy Burns. Really funny debut novel; especially great on family tensions.
8. Hame, Annalena McAfee. Very, very long novel; the history and writings of a fiction Scottish poet on his island island. Review here.
7. A Line Made By Walking, Sara Baume. Her second novel; clever and sad. Review here.
6. Orange Horses, Maeve Kelly. Super collection. Review here.
5. The Nix, Nathan Hill. Really entertaining, a great read, but not the Most Amazing Book Ever as per some US reviews... My review here.

January
4. Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi. Fascinating novel if you're interested in black history and the slave trade (read it!) or if you like family sagas. Review here.
3. Chelsea Girls, Eileen Myles. Fabulous novel-slash-memoir. Loved it.
2. You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine, Alexandra Kleeman. Very weird but captivating novel. Review here.
1. The Outrun, Amy Liptrot. Memoir about alcoholism and recovery, but really great when it comes to talking about Orkney and island life/history.

Reading List 2016

2016-01-03T23:14:00.001+00:00

Man, looking over the last few years' versions of this list (see sidebar for links) I'm reading about thirty books fewer a year since I started this PhD - not counting academic texts - which is pretty depressing, really. Anyway, new year, new books. This year's resolution (I have a terrible track record of sticking to these things - still haven't read all of Proust, for instance) is first, to clear the shelves of books that have been building up for years and years, and at least keep the lag to 'within eighteen months of purchase', and second, to get back up to a two-a-week average. What are the odds? Minimal, I reckon - 2016 is chock-full of life-insanity (more details to come, etc. blah blah). Well, still: let's go... [Edit: hey, bet you can't spot when in the year I finally got the thesis submitted, eh?!]

December
72. The New World, Chris Adrian & Eli Horowitz. Not as mind-blowing as The Children's Hospital, but a lovely and complex portrait of marriage and its commitments.
71. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates. Just as below. An absolute must-read.
70. Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine. Savage, depressing, enraging, invigorating.
69. Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff. Didn't live the upper middle-class-ness of it all but it was ultimately incredibly compelling.
68. The Twelve Poems of Christmas, Vol 8, Carol Ann Duffy. Lovely.
67. I Love Dick, Chris Kraus. Amazing study of female subjectivity & the patriarchy.
66. The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson. Fantastic memoir-ish book.
65. You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine, Alexandra Kleeman. Weird but compulsive novel.

November
64. Hearing Voices/Seeing Things, William Wall. Brilliant story collection.
63. The Sellout, Paul Beatty. Booker winner. Impressive but I didn't love it.

October
62. Ferenji, Helena Mulkerns
61. Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood. Disappointing adaptation of The Tempest.
60. The Tempest, William Shakespeare. Good, innit?
59. All the Rage, AL Kennedy. Stories. Some I liked, some I didn't.
58. Serious Sweet, AL Kennedy. Interesting but not quite for me (reviewing coming on Bookmunch).

September
57. Commonwealth, Ann Patchett. Brilliant account of a messed up family.
56. The Lesser Bohemians, Eimear McBride. Superb. Outstanding. All the good adjectives.
55. Beautiful Pictures of the Lost Homeland, Mia Gallagher. Ambitious and brilliant novel: worth its 500 pages.

August
54. Fullalove, Gordon Burn. My first of his. Masterful and fascinating, but tiring in a sort of Will Self kind of way.
53. People in Glass Houses, Shirley Hazzard. Linked stories set in a multinational corporation. Brilliant.
52. The Emerald Light in the Air, Donald Antrim. Stories. Good stuff as usual from Antrim.

July
51. Wild Quiet, Roisín O'Donnell. Multi-cultural Ireland finally reaches the short story.
50. All Quiet on the Orient Express, Magnus Mills. Quietly insane, like all his books. Loved it.
49. The Shore, Sara Taylor. A short story cycle set on a trio of islands off the coast of Virginia. Grew on me and by the end I was really hooked.
48. The Wallcreeper, Nell Zink. Bonkers novel about environmental campaigns and a dysfunctional marriage. Snappy, witty, really engaging.
47. The Loney, Andrew Michael Hurley. A horror story set in Lancashire (cheery summer reading, eh?). If you like The Wicker Man, etc.
46. Fell, Jenn Ashworth, Ghost story set in Lancashire. Lovely writing.
45. The Story of the Lost Child, Elena Ferrante. Last one. Addictive reads, so intricate and thought-provoking. Got to buy her earlier books now...
44. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, Elena Ferrante. Part three. Great!

June
43. The Story of a New Name, Elena Ferrante. Part two - compulsive read.
42. The Vegetarian, Han Kang. Weird, fascinating novel.
41. My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante. First of the series. Pretty compulsive; sort of like a classy soap-opera-slash-crime-family-saga.
40. Harmless Like You, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan. Debut novel.
39. June, Gerbrand Bakker. Thoughtful Faulkner-esque novel about a Dutch family.
38. The Abundance, Annie Dillard. Superb essays.
37. Iron Council, China Mieville. Even looser sequel to the other two. More North and South than sci-fi; politically right-on (for me) but hard to engage with. Wasn't keen.
36. The Scar, Chin Mielville. Loose sequel to the below. A little slower to kick off but equally page-turning.
35. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville. a reread. Creepy and vibrant and weird as hell.

May
34. The Mandelbaum Gate, Muriel Spark. Good, witty as ever, but not my favourite of hers.
33. Solar Bones, Mike McCormack. Stunning second novel.
32. Object Lessons, ed, Lori Stein. Story anthology from The Paris Review. Really interesting.
31. The Way In, John McAuliffe. Poetry collection I've been reading on and off for ages. Brilliant stuff by my friend and colleague and former lecturer.
30. The BBC National Short Story Award 2013. Shortlisted/winning stories. Short but good.
29. The Long Gaze Back, ed. Sinead Gleeson. Collection of stories (new and old) from Irish women writers. Some really fantastic entries - as usual I loved Lisa McInerney's contribution.
28. Forensic Songs, Mike McCormack. Story collection. Decent.
27. Silent Spring, Rachel Carson. Non-fiction classic. Brilliant (if terrifying).
26. Blind Water Pass, Anna Metcalfe. Good collection.
25. Selected Stories, Mary Lavin. Very powerful selection from across Lavin's career.
24. The Magician's Land, Lev Grossman. Final part to the trilogy. Loved them all.
23. The Magician King, Lev Grossman. Sequel to the below; also great.

April
22. *The Magicians, Lev Grossman. A reread; they call it Harry Potter for adults. Gripping and utterly page-turning with great prose. (A post-PhD-hand-in treat; one of several to come!)
21. The Bed Moved, Rebecca Schiff. Short story collection.
20. Black Water, Louise Doughty. Sort of a spy thriller slash love story, but not really: compelling.
19. Hot Milk, Deborah Levy. Intriguing novel about parents and kids.

March
18. The Sunlight Pilgrims, Jenni Fagan. Beautiful novel about the (potential) end of the world.
17. The Panopticon, Jenni Fagan. Grim as fuck novel about a teen in care - really great though.
16. Unthology 8, ed. Ashley Stokes, Robin Jones. Story anthology - decent stuff.

February
15. Pleasured, Philip Hensher. Intertwined lives in Berlin just before the Wall comes down.
14. My Romance, Gordon Lish. Slightly weird meta-fictional text: novel or sort-of-memoir? Not my favourite of his, anyway (Dear Mr Capote takes the top spot, I reckon).
13. The Book of Revelation, Rupert Thomson. Disturbing, thought-provoking.
12. American Housewife, Helen Ellis. Energetic, but a mixed bag.
11. Barbara The Slut, Lauren Holmes. Excellent story collection, very funny.
10. Light Box, K.J. Orr. Short stories: interesting.
9. Where Love Begins, Judith Hermann. Creepy story about stalking in German suburbia.

January
8. Master Georgie, Beryl Bainbridge. Beautiful prose. Sad, elliptical story.
7. Asking For It, Louise O'Neill. Powerful YA novel about rape/consent. Should be required reading for everyone, boys and girls.
6. Dinosaurs on Other Planets, Danielle McLaughlin. Excellent story collection.
5. Daughters of the House, Michèle Roberts. Beautiful, biting prose.
4. MaddAddam, Margaret Atwood. Wasn't too keen; too much summary, not so much on character or forward-moving plot.
3. *The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood. Reread before I hit the final volume of the trilogy. Great stuff - better than I remembered.
2. Falling In Place, Ann Beattie. Fantastic writing but I took too long over it; started to lose interest.
1. Kid, Simon Armitage. Poetry (unusual for me). Quite enjoyed it.

Reading List 2015

2015-01-05T15:50:00.001+00:00

Well, so last year it seems I read substantially fewer books than usual: that's the grim side-effect of the PhD, once again. Who knew research was that time-consuming? But also maybe it's to do with my lessening patience for bad books; I started quite a lot of books that I abandoned after fifty pages - Fay Weldon, Hanif Kureishi, I'm looking at you - which makes for a sizeable amount of 'wasted' time. And my 'project' (cue sheepish expression) of reading all of Proust? Well, I got two books in. That's good, right? I will read the rest, I swear. But, this year? Eh, I want to start clearing off the scary pile of unread books so that I can reclaim some shelf-space upstairs - I made a start at this in November, when I was off sick for a couple of weeks - but that's about it. The plan is to submit my PhD in September, so I don't really need any more resolutions on top of that. I'm still reviewing and I'm still in my local book club, so that accounts for a fair bit of my reading anyway. I've already started the year well, with Skippy Dies, so that's either a good omen of things to come or a very early pinnacle...

December
80. Winter Pages, Volume 1. Excellent new arts anthology from Ireland.
79. The Devil I Know, Claire Kilroy. Not bad.
78. Lila, Marilynne Robinson. Intense and very moving.
77. Paulina & Fran, Rachel B. Glaser. Intense novel about female friendship/
76. Cockfosters, Helen Simpson. Decent collection, but preferred her earlier work.
75. Getting it in the Head, Mike McCormack. Short stories. Pretty gruesome, definitely interesting...
74. The Spinning Heart, Donal Ryan. Really strongly voiced.
73. spill simmer falter wither, Sara Baume. Stunning debut novel - descriptions to die for.

November
72. Congregation of Innocents: Five Curious Tales. Ghost stories! Particularly liked Richard Hirst's contribution.
71. Short Fiction Issue 9: Awful Plumage. Short story journal, art by David Shrigley.
70. The Best Small Fictions 2015, ed. Robert Olen Butler. Anthology, mixed, some stellar pieces.
69. Undermajordomo Minor, Patrick deWitt. Wasn't keen, but still want to read The Sisters Brothers.
68. The Mark and the Void, Paul Murray. Really funny; a banker and a novelist meet in the midst of the Irish financial collapse.
67. We Don't Know What We're Doing, Thomas Morris. Story collection from the editor of The Stinging Fly. Great stuff.

October
66. The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert. Fascinating, if very depressing, non-fiction read about how humans are making everything extinct...
65. The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton. Fantastic: so sharp, witty and sad.
64. American Gods, Neil Gaiman. I guess this is heresy online, but I was half-hearted. I love Stephen King and Terry Pratchett, etc, but this never really took off for me.
63. The Making of Zombie Wars, Aleksander Hemon. Disappointing.
62. We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson. Creepy, compelling, brilliant.
61. *Accidents in the Home, Tessa Hadley. PhD reread. Great book.

September
60. A Kind of Compass, ed. Belinda McKeon. Short stories. Very diverse.
59. The North Water, Ian McGuire. Brutal, haunting, and visceral historical thriller on a whaling boat. Ian's my PhD supervisor, so I'm biased, but this is a fucking brilliant book.
58. The First Bad Man, Miranda July. Oddball, funny, very moving novel.
57. The Girl Missing from the Window, Paul O'Reilly. Short stories. Deceptively powerful.
56. Beatlebone, Kevin Barry. Pretty odd, great prose, not sure about structure.
55. Noonday, Pat Barker. Last book in the Life Class trilogy. Pretty good.

August
54. Clemency Browne Dreams of Gin, Órfhlaith Foyle. Story collection.
53. This Party's Got To Stop, Rupert Thomson. Another memoir, also great.
52. Giving Up The Ghost, Hilary Mantel. Memoir. Beautiful and sad. There's no beating Mantel, dudes.

July
51. The Book of Strange New Things, Michel Faber. Weird. A missionary in an alien world.
50. All Over Ireland, ed. Deirdre Madden. Story collection; not a patch on Town & Country, its predecessor from a couple of years back.
49. Bird By Bird, Anne Lamott. I'm not one for inspirational manuals, but this is a bloody excellent book on the frustrations and rewards of writing.
48. Howards End, EM Forster. Much funnier than I expected.
47. Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?, Dave Eggers. Interesting/funny portrait of a disenfranchised madman, but something of a one-trick-pony throughout.
46. Only Ever Yours, Louise O'Neill. Gripping dystopian novel that totally dissect male/female sexual power relations.
45. For The Love of a Good Woman, Alice Munro. Brilliant (of course).
44. Indiana Review, 37:1.
43. The Age of Wire and String, Ben Marcus. Completely mental story collection.

June
42. The Incarnations, Susan Barker. Really gripping story/stories of China thorough the ages.
41. Waiting for the Bullet, Madeleine D'Arcy. Short stories. Terse, funny, sharp.
40. About Grace, Anthony Doerr. Beautiful prose. Family, fate, fear.
39. Unthology 7. Short story anthology - a mix, a couple of great ones.
38. Hope, Laura Hird. Short stories. Pretty grim.
37. Ground Control, Anna Minton. Non-fiction about the control of public/private space in New Labour Britain (and beyond): super-depressing!

May
36. Nora Webster, Colm Toibin. Very tender. Took me a while to settle into it; worth the effort. Great dialogue.
35. Outline, Rachel Cusk. Though-provoking.
34. Family Life, Akhil Sharma. Good - better than I expected.
33. In Search of Solace, Emily Mackie. Disappointing.
32. All The Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr. Amazing. Beautiful, beautiful prose.
31. Pond, Claire-Louise Bennett. Short stories - if you like Lyda David, Jenny Offill, Renata Adler, Nicholson Baker, then you'll like this. Top stuff.
30. In Real Life, Chris Killen. Funny stuff.
29. Lives of Girls and Women, Alice Munro

April
28. The Wolf Border, Sarah Hall. Good stuff, though not quite my favourite of hers.
27. H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald. Superb non-fiction account of grief and falconry.
26. The Hennessy Book of Irish Fiction 2015-2015, ed. Dermot Bolger, Ciaran Carty. Some brilliant stories in here.
25. All My Puny Sorrows, Miriam Toews. Tragic and a half. Very good.
24. The Long Falling, Keith Ridgway. A family drama played out against the backdrop of Ireland's X Case in 1992; not my favourite of his books.
23. History of the Rain, Niall Williams. Didn't enjoy it at first, but was captivated by the end. The style is very...exuberant.

March
22. On the Edge of the Cliff: Selected Short Stories, VS Pritchett. Great stuff.
21. An Evening of Long Goodbyes, Paul Murray. Brilliant - A Confederacy of Dunces meets Brideshead Revisited meets Dan & Becs.
20. The Isle of Youth, Laura van den Berg. Again, fell a bit flat for me.
19. Aquarium, David Vann. Disappointing.
18. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell. Kinda dull, then excellent second half.
17. Get in Trouble, Kelly Link. Very good short story collection.

February
16. The End of Vandalism, Tom Drury. Liked it better as it went along; very dry, low-key wit.
15. The Miniaturist, Jessie Burton. For my book club. Twee. Very book-club-tastic; not my style.
14. Sunstroke, Tessa Hadley. Short stories. Sharp, precise, incisive.
13. Accidents in the Home, Tessa Hadley. Excellent: parenthood, affairs, families, all very non-cliched.
12. Ghost Story, Toby Litt. A couple struggle after they lose a child in late pregnancy. Wasn't keen.
11. The Glorious Heresies, Lisa McInerney. Brilliant début.

January
10. How to Speak Money, John Lanchester. Excellent non-fiction book on money/economics.
9. Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill. Again, interesting: aphoristic novel about a marriage.
8. The Stinging Fly, Issue 27, Vol. 2 (Spring 2014). Interesting selection.
7. To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, Joshua Ferris. Not my favourite of his, but it shows again the breadth of his range - amazing.
6. Twenty Under Thirty-Five, various. Story anthology from 1988 - very, very mixed bag.
5. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, ZZ Packer. Superb story collection.
4. A Song for Issy Bradley, Carys Bray. Beautifully sad. Reminds me a lot of Ann Patchett.
3. Poor Souls' Light, Curious Tales. Scary Christmas stories. Tom Fletcher's and Richard Hirst's tales were SUPER creepy.
2. SHORT FICTION 7, various authors. Especially liked Frances Gapper's and Jenn Ashworth's pieces.
1. Skippy Dies, Paul Murray. Superb - great plot and characters and fantastic style. High five, Paul!

Reading List 2014

2014-01-09T13:45:00.002+00:00

Another bloody year, eh? Honestly, they don't stop. Here's my Reading List for 2014. I'll link to this post in the sidebar and if you're at all interested in what I've been reading, you'll be able to keep up to date. So, same deal as usual: I'll include only books I've finished (these days I'll give it fifty pages and if it's not doing it for me (with the exception of review books or work-related stuff) I'll toss it on the refuse/charity shop pile), with a little (e) to denote e-books (I still have the Kindle and I still rarely use it), an * for a reread, and I'll also generally mention if a book is something I've read for my PhD. I'm not including lit journals, unless I've read them cover to cover, or academic text-books. Oh, and also I've joined a local book club, so I'll note what books are for that. Last year I vowed I'd read a graphic novel each month, which I did, and which was a resounding success that has resulted in a change in my reading habits that I'm really happy about; I've still got a bunch of books left to read on the list a couple of friends compiled for me, but I won't be so consistent as to do one a month this year because I've got a lot of other stuff to get through. Still, every other month, at least. This year (partly motivated by my research) I'm going to read Proust, one volume a month, so I should have nailed it by the summer. I didn't get as many books read as usual last year (105, which I know is a lot, but I do usually read more) and I think that's from a combo of studying and child-wrangling; the studying will probably be even more time-consuming this year, so I expect it to be a slow-ish year, books-wise. Anyway, enough preamble. In reverse chronological order, the books I have read in 2014 are:

December
85. 10:04, Ben Lerner. Novel about poetry, reality, the future - more readable than I'm making it sound!
84. Telegraph Avenue, Michael Chabon. Took me a while to get into it, but then loved it; unexpectedly brilliant on midwifery!
83. Shelter, Jayne Anne Phillips. She's a great stylist but this one dragged for me.

November
82. Haweswater, Sarah Hall. Heartbreakingly brilliant. (A lot better than The Electric Michelangelo.)
81. Nervous Conditions, Tsitsi Dangarembga. Really excellent novel about a Rhodesian family struggling under colonialism.
80. The Lottery and Other Stories, Shirley Jackson. Great collection.
79. The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared, Jonas Jonasson. Book-club read. A Swedish Forrest Gump minus the sentimentality. Overlong.
69. The Electric Michelangelo, Sarah Hall. Interesting idea/setting but the story didn't grab me.
68. Eat the Document, Dana Spiotta. Novel about former Vietman-era terrorists. Not as interesting as I'd hoped.
67. Shiloh, Bobbie Ann Mason. Stories - not as good as the others of hers I've read.
66. Academy Street, Mary Costello. Beautiful, sad novel.
65. Feather Crowns, Bobbie Ann Mason. Fantastic novel about the parents of quintuplets in Kentucky in 1900. Really slow but brilliantly evocative of the era. Out of print, which is such a massive shame.
64. We Need New Names, NoViolet Bulawayo. Not bad; a bit predictable, but a good ending. For my book club.

October
63. Memory Wall, Anthony Doerr. Outstanding stories, beats the Mantel (shock!).
62. Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel. Again, flawed but interesting. And disaster books/films are always worth a go!
61. Greetings, Hero, Aiden O'Reilly. Stories. Flawed but interesting.
60. The End of Alice, AM Homes. Very intense. memorable, but can't say I found it very interesting.
59. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler. A really interesting topic, though not sure the book itself, style-wise, is all that memorable.
58. BBC National Short Story Award 2014. Short anthology. Interesting.
57. The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, Hilary Mantel. Stories. As good as you'd hope.

September
56. Davy Byrnes Stories 2014. Anthology of winning/shortlisted stories for a very fancy Irish story prize. Very good indeed.
55. David Boring, Daniel Clowes. Excellent! I love Dan Clowes.
54. Speedboat, Renata Adler. Very fragmented novel; this one was just as good as the hype.
53. The Shock of the Fall, Nathan Filer. Decent but not brilliant; the fuss seems unwarranted...
52. Someone Else's Skin, Sarah Hilary. Crime novel that challenges gender norms. Good stuff.
51. *A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Connor. Pretty much impossible to beat.
50. For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, Nathan Englander. Didn't like his novel, but really liked most of these; the title story is excellent.
49. Stranger Things Happen, Kelly Link. Good, though more predictable (fairy-tale rewrite stuff) than her later work, which I much prefer.

August
48. Best British Short Stories 2013, ed. Nicholas Royle. A mixed bag, generally good.
47. Their Lips Talk of Mischief, Alan Warner. Great stuff on relationships and guilt.
46. The Possessed, Eif Batuman. Non-fiction, about Russian literature: fascinating and funny.
45. A Better Angel, Chris Adrian. Short stories. Brilliant.
44. Gob's Grief, Chris Adrian. Completely mental, but worth it.
43. The Zone of Interest, Martin Amis. Awful stuff. Review here.
42. The Truth Commissioner, David Park. Excellent look at post-conflit issues in Northern Ireland. Beautiful prose.
41. The Children's Hospital, Chris Adrian. Huge and sort of sloppy, but completely heartbreaking.

July
40. The Great Night, Chris Adrian. Fantastic. A Midsummer Night's Dream by way of Kelly Link.
39. Tabloid Dreams, Robert Olen Butler. fantastic short stories. Surreal, but beautiful and gritty at the same time. Am annoyed I'd had this for months without reading it.
38. Harvest, Jim Crace. Elegiac and brutal novel about the enclosing of the commons in an isolated village. Not so sure about how he portrays women, but the language is stunning.

June
37. *Hawthorn & Child, Keith Ridgway. PhD re-read. Stories. Good stuff.
36. Any Other Mouth, Anneliese Mackintosh. Linked stories: brutal, funny, semi-autobiogrpahical. Well worth a read,
35. Caribou Island, David Vann. Pretty bleak stuff; great descriptions of scenery, but not as compelling as Legend of a Suicide.
34. Oblivion, David Foster Wallace. Stories. Have been dipping in and out of this since last July. I think I might be Walllaced out for the time being.
33. Apple Tree Yard, Louise Doughty. Not my usual thing but recommended by friends Excellent crime thriller - brilliant discussion of the gender politics of sexual abuse.
32. Ten Things I've Learnt About Love, Sarah Butler. Beautiful examination of love and loss.
31. Burial Rites, Hannah Kent. For my book group. Historical murder story. Wasn't keen initially, utterly gripped by the end. Beautiful imagery throughout.

May
30. The Flame Alphabet, Ben Marcus. Viscerally brutal. And madly clever.
29. Stoner, John Williams. John McGahern meets Marilynne Robinson meets Richard Yates in a campus novel. Very sad, beautiful prose, a fairly staid story-arc.
28. The Radetzky March, Joseph Roth. A family saga, sort of, set before WW1: satirical and touching and very funny.
27. Dear Life, Alice Munro. Good - not entirely up with her best, but with some standout moments. The last five pieces were fantastic.

April
26. Our Kind, Kate Walbert. A PhD read, but very unimpressive. First person plural stories.
25. *As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner. Brilliant, of course. My favourite of his (so far). I should reread this more often.
24. Flash, Vol. 5, No 2. Flash fiction lit journal. So-so. Some great stuff, some bland.
23. Animals, Emma Jane Unsworth. Excellent. Dirty and funny and full of brilliant writing.
22. Sonnets to Orpheus & Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. Again, not quite my thing, but interesting - the letters more so than the poems themselves. (Fell free to disagree...)
21. Orpheus: A Version of Rilke, Don Paterson. Sonnets. Not really my thing, but interesting.
20. How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Julia Alvarez. PhD read. Good. One of the best last lines ever.
19. House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski. Well. That was creepy. Don't read it alone at night or in a corridor.
18. In Search of Lost Time ,V.2, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust, trans. James Grieve. For my uni reading group. I preferred volume one and wasn't keen on some of the translation.

March
17. Rebel Cities, David Harvey. Non-fiction critique of how capitalism has determined urban/common spaces. Excellent.
16. The Driver's Seat, Muriel Spark. April book club read. As weird and pithy as I expected...
15. Emerald City, Jennifer Egan. Short stories. Good, but not Goon Squad good.
14. The Invisible Circus, Jennifer Egan. A girl tries to find out about her sister's last days. Took a while to get going, but latter half was really engaging.
13. The Palace of Curiosities, Rosie Garland. Book-club choice. Not bad - a bit flowery for me, but interesting, especially the second half.
12. A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing, Eimear McBride. Astounding. Formally innovative, brutal with the subject matter, and really, really hard to read without crying. Best and most interesting book I'll read all year (she says, in early March. Still, though.)
11. Original Bliss, AL Kennedy. Hmm. My ambivalent relationship with ALK continues ambivalent. I didn't like the shorter stories here, but the novella at the end drew me in against my will.

February
10. Triangle, Hisaki Matsuura. Baffling.
9. The Crow Road, Iain Banks. Just about the most tedious coming-of-age novel I've ever read, and pretty misogynistic on top of that. Thumbs down!
8. Thirty Girls, Susan Minot. An American writer travels to Africa to cover kidnappings in Uganda. Disappointing.
7. Ulysses and Us, Declan Kiberd. A sort-of analysis of Joyce and how his work relates to everyday life, not the elite few... Academia-lite.
6. The Safety of Objects, A.M. Homes. Story collection - some really excellent pieces.
5. Little Failure, Gary Shteyngart. Excellent, poignant, hilarious memoir (and I don't generally like memoirs).

January

4. In Search of Lost Time ,V.1, The Way By Swann's, Marvel Proust, trans. Lydia Davis. A much more enjoyable read than I expected.
3. Lightning Rods, Helen DeWitt. Funny workplace satire, but didn't ultimately go anywhere.
2. A Tale For The Time Being, Ruth Ozeki. January's book club read. Very good stuff, and a fortuitous connection to my Proust plans. Deserved Booker shortlistee last year.
1. A Place of Greater Safety, Hilary Mantel. Very long, but very engaging book about real folk during the French Revolution. Especially interesting as a forerunner of her later technique with Wolf Hall, etc.

Reading List 2013

2013-01-04T22:58:00.005+00:00

Christ, it's already time for a new list! That last year went fast. So, here we go: below will be a list of all the books I've read (and finished) this year. Incompletes don't make the cut, nor do literary journals unless I've read them cover to cover, and I'm not going to include academic textbooks, because that would be dull as all hell, right? As usual, an asterix means it's a re-read and an (e) means it's an ebook. I thought about some sort of 'I read it for my PhD' code, but screw it, it's complex enough without that. What else? This year I want to get into graphic novels, so I've asked a couple of friends to recommend me some and now I've got a massive list of titles to get through, which is rather exciting. I don't really make New Year's resolutions, but I do have a sort of plan for my 2013 reading: each month I want to read at least one graphic novel, at least three books from the enormous and ageing TBR pile, and at least two PhD-relevant books - and, if I have a large to-be-reviewed stack, at least one review book a fortnight. I'd like to do more reviewing, but it's getting hard to keep the pace up. The PhD book quota ought to way exceed my two book minimum, but that's why it's a minimum. Finally, it's been a year since I got the Kindle, and if you check my 2012 list, you'll see I really didn't use it much. It's a fantastic tool for reading Word docs and PDFs, but so far it's very much a second class citizen as regards fiction. I intend to read some weighty 18th/19th century tomes on it this year, though, since last year's Middlemarch adventure wasn't half bad, in the end. So!

December
105. It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken, Seth. My December graphic novel. Thought-provoking.
104. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt. Outstanding. Better than The Little Friend, maybe better than The Secret History (I'd have to reread it to tell). Anyway: fantastic.
103. Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link. Short stories. Magic and creepiest and genius - Link's one of the best story writers I've read.
102. Bad Behaviour, Mary Gaitskill. Fantastic (and very sordid!) stories.
101. Open Secrets, Alice Munro. Short stories (of course), and very good ones (of course).
100. *For Esme, With Love and Squalor, JD Salinger. (aka: Nine Stories) You really, really, really cant't beat this stuff.
99. Nail and Other Stories, Laura Hird. Scottish short stories, pretty sordid, sad and funny. Ace.
98. The Longest Night: Five Curious Tales. Five genuinely scary stories. Limited edition print run, and a beautiful book.

November
97. Sammy the Mouse, Vol.2, Zak Sally. Part two of what all be four. The (bizarre) plot thickens...
96. Sammy the Mouse, Vol.1, Zak Sally. Kinda odd comic about a mouse. Great drawings.
95. Look At Me, Jennifer Egan. PhD read. Appearances, identity and memory all in a massively smart and entertaining novel.
94. Perdido Street Station, China Mielville. Mervin Peake-esque steampunk sci-fi. Brilliant.
93. Because of What Happened: The Fiction Desk Anthology 5, ed. Rob Redman. Meh.
92. Epileptic, David B. My October graphic novel (a bit late). Brutal memoir.
91. *Dubliners, James Joyce. PhD reread of a book that just gets better and better. And funnier, too.
90. The Moomins and the Great Flood, Tove Jansson. Lovely.

October
89. The Literary Conference, César Aira. A mad scientist clones Carlos Fuentes! Love it.
88. An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, César Aira. Mutilation in the desert!
87. Ghosts, César Aira. Ghosts on an Argintinen building site.
86. (e) The Tiny Wife, Andrew Kaufman. Honestly have no idea why people raved about this.
85. The Final Solution, Michael Chabon. A mystery story. Enjoyed it much more than I expected.
84. Ballistics, DW Wilson. Novel. Pretty flawed. Review coming soon on Bookmunch.
83. Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, Grace Paley. Short stories. A PhD-related read. Excellent.
82. Equilateral, Ken Kalfus. Interesting, though flawed, novel about 19th century astronomers and engineers.
81. Moy Sand and Gravel, Paul Muldoon. Poetry. Fascinating.

September
80. Young Skins, Colin Barrett. Interesting story collection.
79. The Scheme for Full Employment, Magnus Mills. Funny and clever.
78. The Comforters, Muriel Spark. Excellently witty.
77. V for Vendetta, Alan Moore. Pretty hardcore - more so that the movie.
76. Two Girls In A Boat, Emma Martin. A really, really excellent short story collection. Read the title story here.
75. The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton. Superb. My Booker money's on this one.
74. A Modern Family, Socrates Adams. Funny - especially if you, like me, hate Top Gear...

August
73. *Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad. Do I like it? Can't ever really decide.
72. Life of Galileo, Bertolt Brecht. Smart and depressing and generally great.
71. *Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen. Brilliant, funny. It's twenty years since I first read this. Freaky.
70. *King Lear, William Shakespeare. Tragic! Who'd have expected?
69. We The Animals, Justin Torres. Good, but not hype-worthy. (It was very hyped.)
68. Hey, Wait..., Jason. Very sad graphic novel. Beautiful. (My comic for August).
67. The Guts, Roddy Doyle. Sequel to The Commitments. Mixed feelings.
66. Psychotic Episodes, Alan McMonagle. Short stories.
65. The Professor of Poetry, Grace McCleen. Very disappointing.

July
64. Ethel and Ernest, Raymond Briggs. This month's graphic novel. Moving, funny.
63. Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace. DT Max. Interesting.
62. The Ask, Sam Lipsyte. A very funny and odd sort-of-campus-novel. A bit Delillo-esque.
61. Milk, Sulphate & Alby Starvation, Martin Millar. Really funny and mad.
60. Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes. Excellent and really sad. Totally get why SF folk love it.
59. What Becomes, A.L. Kennedy. Stories. Some I liked, some I didn't.
58. The Keep, Jennifer Egan. Decent. Not as good as Goon Squad.
57. The Secret Knowledge, Andrew Crumey. Intriguing and peculiar mystery story. With added philosophy.
56. The Tale of One Bad Rat, Bryan Talbot. June's graphic novel. Also excellent.
55. Ghost World, Daniel Clowes. Better than the film, and I love the film. My belated graphic novel for May.
54. Call It Dog, Marli Roode. A bit of a brutal read, by my friend Marli - one to watch...
53. Grand Hotel, Vicki Baum. PhD-related, only turned out not to be useful - but a good read all the same.
52. A Night At The Movies, Robert Coover. PhD-related. Pretty insane story collection, as you'd expect.

June
51. Revenge, Yoko Ogawa. PhD-related. Not vefy impressed. Though I really liked her two novels.
50. *Machine Dreams, Jayne Anne Phillips. PhD-related reread. Chronicle of an American family. Brilliant.
49. *The Accidental, Ali Smith. PhD-related reread, though not actually relevent in the end. I've definitely gone off poor Ali.
48. *The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan. PhD-related reread. Good stuff.
47. *Hotel World, Ali Smith. PhD-related, again. Increasingly going off Ali, the more I reread her.
46. *Anagrams, Lorrie Moore. Another PhD-related reread. Good stuff.
45. *A Visit From The Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan. PhD-related reread. Still brilliant.
44. HHhH, Laurent Binet. Interesting self-aware study of the Czech resistance in WWII.

May
43. Town & Country: New Irish Short Stories, ed. Kevin Barry. Mixed.
42. A Hologram For The King, Dave Eggers. Really good. Way better than I expected.
41. Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists 4. Mixed bag.
40. Ghosts and Lightning, Trevor Byrne. Squalor on a Clondalkin estate. Beautifully evocative.
39. Binocular Vision, Edith Pearlman. One of the best collections I've read.
38. The Parts, Keith Ridgway. Amis-esque sort-of-crime novel set in Dublin. Not convinced by it but I do like Ridgway's writing a lot.
37. Well Done God!, BS Johnson. Prose anthology. Interesting, if repetitive.

April
36. The Complete Maus, Art Spiegelman. My April graphic novel. Stunning.
35. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien. Interlinked Vietnam stories. Excellent. I love Tim O'Brien.
34. Ayiti, Roxane Gay. Short stories by one of the USA's up-and-comers.
33. Spellbound, Joel Willans. I've been dipping in and out of this for weeks. Ace collection by my writing colleague, Joel.
32. Go Down, Moses, William Faulkner. Complex, but very good.
31. Albert Angelo, BS Johnson. Amazing. One of the most inventive, fascinating novels going.
30. *Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry, BS Johnson. Reread. As funny as last time.
29. House Mother Normal, BS Johnson. Totally NSFW. Great stuff. Structurally fascinating.
28. Trawl, BS Johnson. Solipsistic rambling on a trawlership. Excellent.
27. The Stinging Fly, Issue 24, Spring 2013. Literary journal.

March
26. The Stinging Fly, Issue 23, Winter 2012. Literary journal.
25. Where You Find It, Janice Galloway. Great story collection.
24. Black Hole, Charles Burns. Pretty gory graphic novel set in 1970s Seattle.
23. Tenth of December, George Saunders. Stories. As good as ever.
22. Imperial Bedrooms, Brett Easton Ellis. Sequel to below. Felt tired: more of the usual.
*21. Less Than Zero, Brett Easton Ellis. Reread. Depressing.
20. The Hundred Brothers, Donald Antrim. Equally insane. Incredibly weird.
19. Elect Mr Robinson For A Better World, Donald Antrim. Mad, brilliant, horrible.
18. The Imperfectionists, Tom Rachman. Linked stories. More blunt in form than I'd hoped.
17. Building Stories, Chris Ware. Amazing and beautiful. My Feb graphic novel (running late already).
16. Wise Men, Stuart Nadler. Dull and too long.

February
15. The Pastures of Heaven, John Steinbeck. Great read, as always.
14. Benediction, Kent Haruf. Lovely sequel to Plainsong and Eventide.
13. The Land of Decoration, Grace McCleen. Great début novel.
12. The Round House, Louise Erdrich. Her new one. Not as convinced by this one, despite the US fuss.
11. Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich. Fantastic short story cycle. Stunning prose and characters.
10. The Garden of Evening Mists, Tan Twan Eng. Me. Interesting, if not very exciting.

January
9. Alice, Judith Hermann. Linked short stories by a German author. Thoughtful and delicate.
8. Breath, Eyes, Memory, Edwidge Danticat. Shame it's taken me so long to finally read Danticat. Excellent.
7. Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner. Difficult, not very likeable, but technically fascinating novel.
6. The Giant, O'Brien, Hilary Mantel. Interesting, but more as a curiosity piece; not my favourite of hers.
5. Lost In The Funhouse, John Barth. Depressingly, brilliantly clever, and very funny.
4. The Friday Gospels, Jenn Ashworth. Now, Jenn might be a friend of mine, but this really is excellent. A clever, clever plot, really nuanced treatment of a tricky subject, and wonderful characterisations. Read it.
3. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. My first graphic novel of the year. Ace!
2. Period, Dennis Cooper. As horrific as all Cooper's stuff. And dead confusing. But good!
1. Snake Ropes, Jess Richards. Compelling new voice in literary fantasy - reminded me of Patrick Ness crossed with Angela Carter.

Reading List 2012

2012-01-01T18:06:00.003+00:00

Here's what I've been reading in 2012. As usual, an asterix means the book was a reread. Like with the books, I'll include a literary journal or magazine only if I read it the whole way through. I got a Kindle for Christmas in 2011, so this year I'm going to note which books were ebooks - I'll mark them with an (e). The plan, at first, is to use the Kindle to catch up on my classics, since I'm generally more of a modern lit person, and there are so many free out-of-copyright titles for download from Amazon. First up is Middlemarch, but I suspect it'll take me ages - who knew it was so long?? In the meantime:

December
113. The Museum of Atheism, Laura Ellen Joyce. The first of my MA classmates to publish a novel!
112. Shall We Gather At The River, Peter Murphy. New Irish novel. Wasn't keen. Liked his debut.
111. Fame, Daniel Kehlmann. A novel in stories. Excellent stuff from a German author to watch.
110. Eventide, Kent Haruf. Sequel to Plainsong. Just as wonderful.
109. Tea at the Midland, David Constantine. Excellent story collection.
108. Monkeys. Susan Minot. Linked stories. Very sparse. Family trauma. Very good.
107. Sweet Home, Carys Bray. Really good short story collection.
106. The Ravenglass Eye, Tom Fletcher. Horribly gory and very creepy horror. Great stuff!
105. Raised from the Ground, Jose Saramago. Dull.

November
104. Trilobite, Breece D'J Pancake. Short stories. This came recommended, and though I really admired the writer's style, I found it hard to really enjoy the stories themselves.
103. My Mother Was An Upright Piano, Tania Hershman. Interesting collection of very short fictions.
102. Plainsong, Kent Haruf. Beautiful writing. Not sure about the overall structure but still loved it.
101. Divisadero, Michael Ondaatje. Lyrical, but didn't really engage me.
100. Both Flesh And Not, David Foster Wallace. New posthumous essay collection.
99. *The Beautiful Indifference, Sarah Hall. Reread. Excellent collection - even better the second time.
98. *Legend Of A Suicide, David Vann. Reread for the PhD. Still massively depressing!
97. Come To Me, Amy Bloom. Short stories, some of them linked. Okay. Not very memorable.
96. Chronic City, Jonathan Lethem. I wasn't initially keen on this (though I'm a Lethem fan) but I was hooked by the end. Very long, mind.

October
95. Cathedral, Raymond Carver. Classic story collection.
94. The Stinging Fly: Issue 22 (Summer 2012). Great Irish literary journal.
93. (e) Three Men On The Bummel, Jerome K Jerome. Not as funny as Three Men On A Boat.
92. The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil / In Persuasion Nation, George Saunders. Novella and stories - brilliant, witty, weird.
91. Julius Winsome, Gerard Donovan. Amazing novel about love and revenge.
90. The Stone Thrower, Adam Marek. Great collection of short stories.
89. The Children's Book, AS Byatt. Very evocative. A little too long, maybe. But still great.

September
88. This Is How You Lose Her, Junot Diaz. Excellent short story collection.
87. Boneland, Alan Garner. Sequel to below, but for adults. Not entirely convinced.
86. * The Moon of Gomrath, Alan Garner. Sequel to below. Also great.
85. * The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Alan Garner. Excellent classic kids' fantasy.
84. Train Dreams, Denis Johnson. I'm a big fan but I didn't love this as much as the Pulitzer committee did.
83. (e) Coconut Unlimited, Nikesh Shukla. Coming of age novel with Asian teen rappers.
82. NW, Zadie Smith. Ambitious new novel. More interesting than her others.
81. The Inheritors, William Golding. Interesting. About Neanderthals.

August
80. The Dogs and the Wolves, Irene Nemirovsky. Boring and disappointing.
79. The Unnamed, Joshua Ferris. Excellent, Cormac McCarthy-esque novel. Very bleak.
78. Capital, John Lanchester. Maybe the most dull book I've read this year.
77. The Lighthouse, Alison Moore. Excellent novel on this year's Booker longlist.
76. Walk The Blue Fields, Claire Keegan. Absolutely brilliant collection of short stories.
75. Pangea: An Anthology of Stories from Around the World, ed. Rebecca Lloyd, Indira Chandrasekhar. Some great stories in here.
74. (e) Shut Up/Look Pretty, various authors. Flash fiction, short stories and a novella. Mixed.
73. Mother America, Nuala Ni Chonchuir. Decent short story collection.
72. Flatland, Edwin A Abbott. Mathematical/social fiction from the 1880s. I loved this as a kid - geek ahoy.
71. (e) The Spectacular, Keith Ridgway. Another story from the world of Hawthorn & Child. Didn't like it quite as much as some of the others, but it's very good all the same. Only on Kindle.
70. Try, Dennis Cooper. Disgusting! Needless to say, I loved it. One for Easton Ellis fans.
69. Leaving The Atocha Station, Ben Lerner. Clever and funny short novel about an American poet abroad.
68. Absurdistan, Gary Shteyngart. Candide meets Catch 22 meets A Confederacy of Dunces - in Russia.

July
67. Hawthorn & Child, Keith Ridgway. Brilliant. Novel/stories sort of about a pair of detectives. Brilliant.
66. Close Your Eyes, Ewan Morrison. Didn't like it. Unimaginative prose, dull.
65. Blow Your House Down, Pat Barker. Excellent. A community of prostitutes group together. Loved it.
64. The Man Who Wasn't There, Pat Barker. Quirky short novel, not massively memorable.
63. Emma Hearts LA, Keris Stainton. Sequel to below, really enjoyable. (Makes me want to go there...)
62. Jessie Hearts NYC, Keris Stainton. Smart and funny YA novel.
61. Americana, Don DeLillo. Great (I love Don) but I still prefer White Noise and Underworld.
60. Boxer Beetle, Ned Beauman. Cool, idiosyncratic set-up, but didn't like how it panned out.
59. Galapagos, Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut is always good.
58. (e)* Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce. Third time round, still don't like it.
57. (e) 31, Calum Kerr. Flash fiction from the director of NFFD.
56. (e) Housewife With A Half-Life, AB Wells. SF romp by my twitter pal, Alison.
55. Best British Short Stories 2011, ed. Nicholas Royle. Good collection with some gems.
54. A Sport And A Pastime, James Salter. Great prose, and clever, but not really my thing.

June
53. (e) Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma, Kerry Hudson. Grimy and frantic and full of optimism and colour. Great debut.
52. Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout. A novel in stories - amazing stuff. Loved it.
51. The Hat You Wear. Anthology of readings from the 2012 Manchester Book Market.
50. Life Class, Pat Barker. WWI, artists - good.
49. Ancient Light, John Banville. Meh. Bet it'll win prizes.
48. Lionel Asbo, Martin Amis. Excellent. Funniest thing I've read in ages.
47. Toby's Room, Pat Barker. Another WW1 novel - decent. Sequel to Life Class.
46. Granta 119: Britain. A mixed bag, but there's soe really great stuff in there.
45. The Insult, Rupert Thompson. Interesting, though I didn't like the second half.
44. Kaffeklatsch, Vol.1, No.2. Lovely poetry journal. (Get me, all poetic-like!)
43. Resurrection Of A Hanged Man, Denis Johnson. Excellent, excellent.
42. Bring Up The Bodies, Hilary Mantel. Stupendous sequel to Wolf Hall. Read of the tear, thus far.

May
41. Why By Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Jeanette Winterson. Compelling memoir about the author's adoption.
40. 50 Stories About Sting, Benjamin Judge. Beautiful and hilarious little chapbook.
39. The Deadman's Pedal, Alan Warner. Another good one by Mister Morvern Callar.
38. The China Factory, Mary Costello. Fantastic short stories by an Irish writer worth watching.
37. The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern. Really imaginative.
36. Sawn-Off Tales, David Gaffney. Brilliant very very short stories.
35. Beirut 39: New Fiction from the Arab World. Interesting anthology.

April
34. There But For The, Ali Smith. Did not like this one bit. Far too much punning (amongst other sins).
33. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins. Hunger Games sequel. See below....
32. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins. Hunger Games sequel. Not bad. Action-movie-esque.
31. A Week In December, Sebastian Faulks. Awful. Massively dull.
30. I Burn Paris, Bruno Jasienski. First English translation of a 1928 French/Polish classic. Good stuff!
29. The Passage, Justin Cronin. Brilliant epic sci-fi vampire book. Just as good as The Stand. Loved it.
28. Dark Lies The Island, Kevin Barry. Outstanding short story collection.

March
27. Gun, With Occasional Music, Jonathan Lethem. His first, and not his best, but I have a soft spot.
26. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins. Battle Royale for YA. Entertaining enough.
25. Reality, Reality, Jackie Kay. Engaging short story collection.
24. Five Boys, Mick Jackson. Entertaining, but not a patch on The Underground Man.
23. There Are Little Kingdoms, Kevin Barry. Unbelievably good short stories.
22. Homesick, Roshi Fernando. Great collection of linked stories about Sri Lankans in London.
21. The Tiger's Wife, Téa Obreht. Fantastic prose, but structurally dissatisfying.

February
20. Care of Wooden Floors, Will Wiles. Odd, funny novel.
19. Somewhere Else, Or Even Here, AJ Ashworth. Fantastic, sad, beautiful short stories.
18. Ten Stories About Smoking, Stuart Evers. Entertaining stories thematically linked by, well, smoking.
17. (e) The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Not sure this counts as a whole book?
16. (e) The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte. Not bad, though the epistolary format was daft.
15. An Invisible Sign Of My Own, Aimee Bender. Waaaay too twee for me.

January
14. Everything's Fine, Socrates Adams. Reminded me of Gordon Lish's work. Brilliant.
13. (e) Jeff In Venice, Death in Varanasi, Geoff Dyer. My first Dyer - liked it a lot.
12. Dark Eden, Chris Beckett. SF novel. Not bad.
11. Vox, Nicholson Baker. Literary phone sex. Baker is an odd chap!
10. U & I, Nicholson Baker. Baker's paean to Updike. Funny.
9. (e) Present At A Hanging, Ambrose Bierce. Short stories. Not bad.
8. (e) Middlemarch, George Eliot. A monster, but liked once I got stuck in.
7. A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore. A brutally sad novel - really excellent.
6. The Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker. Very funny meandering thoughts of an office worker.
5. Haggadah, ed. Jonathan Safran Foer. Jewish text for the Passover Seder. Poetic. Interesting.
4. This Isn't The Sort of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You, Jon McGregor. Interesting story collection.
3. Room Temperature, Nicholson Baker. A man's thoughts wander while he's feeding his baby. Lovely.
2. Cadenza 16, ed. Zoe King. Ditto (though I preferred number19.)
1. Cadenza 19, ed. Zoe King. Cadenza doesn't exist any more, but I got a couple of copies from Zoe back in 2009. Nice short set of poems and stories.

Reading List 2011

2011-01-04T09:00:00.073+00:00

Another year, another list! Here's what I've been mostly reading (excluding isolated stories in journals, online, etc, and the occasional panicky delve into a baby name tome) in 2011, with the most recent conquests at the top. This year I'm going to split it into months, mainly because I've got a nerdish fascination with statistics. If a book is listed in a particular month, that means I finished it that month - I might have actually started it waaaay back when. Oh, and while in previous years, an asterisk meant it was an MA text, this year I've graduated (whoop!) so I'm using asterisks to indicates re-reads. Without any more ado:

December 2011
111. Hey Yeah Right Get A Life, Helen Simpson. Fantastic short short collection. Almost perfect.
110. A Fraction Of The Whole, Steve Toltz. Very long, but very entertaining.
109. Trout Fishing In America, Richard Brautigan. Surreal and funny.
108. Being Dead, Jim Crace. Interesting and very observational. Not sure I liked it, though.
107. Waiting for Sunrise, William Boyd. Disappointing. Bad characterisation. Daft plot.
106. Pretty Monsters, Kelly Link. Brilliant short story collection. Creepy, magical, sad, funny. Loved it.
105. Whoops!, John Lanchester. Non-fiction account of the credit crunch and the banking system. Excellent and terrifying.
104. The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides. Trite, overlong, over-hyped.

November 2011
103. Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Vol. 4. I've been dipping in and out of this for months. Lovely stuff.
102. Friction, Joe Stretch. Brett Easton Ellis hits Manchester in this one. Horrible and funny.
101. The Onion Stone, Mandy Pannett. Novella speculating on Shakespeare's true identity.
100. The Carhullan Army, Sarah Hall. Dystopia; an army of women in the Lake District; excellent!
99. Falling Sideways, Thomas E Kennedy. Large cast, interlocking lives, Copenhagen. Great.
98. The Sense of An Ending, Julian Barnes. Enormously underwhelming. Hardly Booker-winning quality, but what do I know?
97. Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels. I keep reading Holocaust stuff lately. Sad. Didn't like it as much as people seemed to think I would.
96. The Beautiful Indifference, Sarah Hall. Short stories. Great stuff.
95. How To Paint A Dead Man, Sarah Hall. Four intertwined narrative. Really vivid. Melancholy.
94. Point Omega, Don DeLillo. I like DeLillo, but I wasn't too keen on this. But I'm also not a huge Douglas Gordon fan, so go figure.
93. Wonderful, Wonderful Times, Elfriede Jelinek. Sharp, funny, shocking.

October 2011
92. Jennifer Government, Max Barry. Comedy/thriller/satire on consumerism. Brilliant!
91. 1Q84 Book 3, Haruki Murakami. Again, too drawn out, but better than Bk1. Overall - meh.
90. 1Q84 Books 1 + 2, Haruki Murakami. Not massively keen. Waaay too long. But picked up in Bk2.
89. All these Little Worlds: Fiction Desk Anthology Vol 2, ed. Rob Redman. Entertaining stories.
88. Never Never, David Gaffney. Light relief after Levi. First novel from flash-fiction maestro Gaffney.
87. If This Is A Man / The Truce, Primo Levi. Sobering, but brilliant.
86. Everything Beautiful Began After, Simon Van Booy. Hated this. A pseudo-insightful bore of a novel.
85. Ragnarok, AS Byatt. Retelling of Norse mythology. Excellent.

September 2011
84. Good Offices, Evelio Rosero. Excellent little novel by Columbian writer. Black humour.
83. Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, Yiyun Li. Short stories set in modern China. Interesting.
82. Mrs Darcy Versus The Aliens, Jonathan Pinnock. Funny Austen spoof.
81. BBC National Short Story Award Anthology 2011. Five great stories - nice and simple!
80. Any Human Heart, William Boyd. Really enjoyed it. Old fashioned, kinda epic.
79. The Blue Book, AL Kennedy. Disappointing.
78. The World's Wife, Carol Ann Duffy. A rare foray into poetry for me (read it to the baby!) Great stuff.
77. Coraline, Neil Gaiman. Brilliant, scary, smart children's horror. Better than the film.
76. Father! Father! Burning Bright, Alan Bennett. A short story masquerading as a book. Meh.
75. Looking For The Possible Dance, AL Kennedy. @writerer's first novel. Liked it very much.

August 2011
74. Now That You're Back, AL Kennedy. Short stories, a couple of brilliant ones in there.
73. The Pale King, David Foster Wallace. Clearly unfinished, flawed, but vast and interesting, still.
72. Ballistics, Alex Keegan. Short story collection. Polished and all, but left me cold.
71. The Book Of Other People, ed. Zadie Smith. Excellent short story anthology.
70. Pricksongs + Descants, Robert Coover. Horrible, hilarious, brilliant short stories.
69. True Murder, Yaba Badoe. Eleventear-old girls get caught up in murder and divorce.
68. The Cat's Table, Michael Ondaatje. Interesting novel about a shipboard murder.
67. Room, Emma Donoghue. Moving, but less convincing as it went along.
66. Villa Pacifica, Kapka Kassapova. Uninspiring creepy story set in South America.
65. Comes The Night, Hollis Hampton-Jones. Flawed story of a teenage girl's disintegration.
64. The Other Hand, Chris Cleave. Brutal story about a Nigerian refugee. Fantastic book.
63. Pigeon English, Stephen Kelman. Booker longlistee; child narrator; immigrants; a good read.
62. A Visit From The Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan. Funny, readable, interesting set of linked stories.
61. Then, Julie Myerson. Pretty hardcore emotional dystopia, to coin a genre.

July 2011
60. Is This What You Want? Asham Award Anthology, 2007. Nice diverse collection, all by women.
59. The Testament Of Jessie Lamb, Jane Rogers. Thought-provoking near-future dystopian stuff.
58. The Outcast, Sadie Jones. Moving, very sad, but a little predictable.
57. The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman, Bruce Robinson. Funny coming-of-age story.
56. On Canaan's Side, Sebastian Barry. Another lyrical, but very sad, tome.
55. Spoiled, Heather Cocks, Jessica Morgan. YA light relief from the Fug Girls! (Cheers, Orla!)
54. The Secret Scripture, Sebastian Barry. Very depressing, beautifully written. Not sure if I like it or not.
53. The Stranger's Child, Alan Hollinghurst. This really grew on me. Interesting look at storytelling.
52. State of Wonder, Ann Patchett. Excellent novel set on the Brazilian Amazon.
51. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck. Amazing. Stunning. No wonder he got the Nobel.

June 2011
50. The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin. Fascinating look at Aboriginal culture in Australia.
49. Hungry, The Stars and Everything, Emma Jane Unsworth. A rollicking love-story; immensely readable.
48. Various Authors: Fiction Desk Anthology, Vol 1. Mixed bag of short stories.
47. The Thing on The Shore, Tom Fletcher. Creepy horror story set in a Cumbrian callcentre.
46. The Nimrod Flip-Out, Etgar Keret. Fantastic short stories. Hilarious and weird and sad.
45. The Vintage And The Gleaning, Jeremy Chambers. Impressive Australian debut. Very bleak!
44. The Invisible Bridge, Julie Orringer. Epic, brilliant novel about Hungarian Jews in WWII.

May 2011
43. Realms of Gold, Margaret Drabble. Good solid storytelling, and very funny.
42. Cold Light, Jenn Ashworth. Dark tale about teen friendship, bioluminescence and flashers.
41. Baltasar and Blimunda, Jose Saramago. Normally a fan, but couldn't get into this at all.
40. The Subject Steve, Sam Lipsyte. Funny and odd, but liked it less as I went along.
39. The Rain Before It Falls, Jonathan Coe. Boring, boring, boring.
38. Perfume, Patrick Suskind. Excellent; very funny and rather horrible.

April 2011
37. The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters. Massively creepy ghost story. Excellent read.
36. Badlands, Cynthia Reeves. Very sad, beautiful account of a marriage and a woman's death from cancer.
35. Poppy Shakespeare, Clare Allan. Sub-par Cuckoo's Nest. Didn't like it.
34. The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam, Lauren Liebenberg. Novel set in the last days of Rhodesia. Some beautiful imagery but the plot wasn't up to much.
33. Piggy Monk Square, Grace Jolliffe. Didn't like this at all, prose too simplistic, plot lacked tension.
32. The Man Who Walks, Alan Warner. Surreal, beautiful language - as always.
31. Strangers, Taichi Yamada. Creepy Japanese ghost story.
30. Born Free, Laura Hird. Dysfunctional family life in Edinburgh. Graphic and gritty. Love it.
29. Legend of a Suicide, David Vann. Really, really beautiful.
28. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer. Great. And incredibly sad.
27. The Pregnant Widow, Martin Amis. I've rarely been so bored. Repetitive, misogynistic crap.
26. Diamond Star Halo, Tiffany Murray. Rock'n'roll and incest in Wales.

March 2011
25. The Birth of Love, Joanna Kavenna. Nice exploration of childbirth, love and creativity.
24. How I Lost The War, Filippo Bologna. Disappointing Italian novel.
23. City of Bohane, Kevin Barry. Surreal, poetic and savage novel.
22. The Coincidence Engine, Sam Leith. Pynchon-esque maths conspiracy thriller thingy. Meh.
21. The Last Werewolf, Glen Duncan. Excellent supernatural thriller.
20. Hotel Iris, Yoko Ogawa. Resonant Japanese novella about an S/M relationship.
19. Spurious, Lars Iyer. Funny, odd novel about Kafka, mould and man-bags.
18. Great Days, Donald Barthelme. Strange little stories, just like you'd expect.
17. Monsters Of Men, Patrick Ness. Final installment of the Chaos Walking trilogy (see below).

February 2011
16. The Ask and The Answer, Patrick Ness. Sequel to below. Still excellent.
15. *The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness. Excellent YA stuff, massively readable and scary.
14. Breathers: A Zombie's Lament, SG Browne. Really funny zombie rom-com.
13. Burley Cross Postbox Theft, Nicola Barker. Epistolary novel. Didn't like this at all.
12. The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease, ed. Sarah Eyre, Ra Page. Some excellently creepy stories in here.
11. Delusions of Gender, Cordelia Fine. Brilliant debunking of the pseudoscience supporting the gender inequality status-quo. Everybody should read this.
10. Sunnyside, Glen David Gold. I really enjoyed most of this and I'm not even a Chaplin fan. Poignant.

January 2011
9. 6S, Vol 2. Flash fiction anthology. I'm in this and I only finished reading it now, after two years. Shame.
8. Some Rain Must Fall, Michel Faber. Nice, diverse collection of short stories.
7. Darkmans, Nicola Barker. Confused the hell out of me and I thought it was over-long, a la Zadie Smith.
6. A Widow's Story: A Memoir, Joyce Carol Oates. Veeery long.
5. Voice of America, EC Osondu. Short stories about Nigeria and Nigerian emigrants. Meh.
4.* Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood. Re-read. One of my all-time favourites, it blows me away every time.
3. We Had It So Good, Linda Grant. Excellent novel. Go get it.
2. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy. Can't say I loved it, but parts of it were downright hilarious (and sad).
1. Granta 113: The Best of Young Spanish Novelists. Interesting anthology; see if you agree with the choices.

2010 Reading List

2010-01-01T23:27:00.096+00:00

Here we go. Again, an asterisk denotes a required text for the MA. In 2010 I've mostly been reading:

114. Neuromancer, William Gibson. Classic sci-fi techno-thriller. Impressive, but I didn't love it.
113. Us, Martin Malone. Disturbing novel about family abuse, multiple narrators. Good.
112. The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story, ed. Anne Enright. Interesting and very large anthology.
111. The Behaviour of Moths, Poppy Adams. This really grew on me as it went along. Nice psychological drama - slightly reminiscent of The Remains Of The Day.
110. Hullabaloo In The Guava Orchard, Kiran Desai. Really entertaining but the ending let it down.
109. The Courage Consort, Michel Faber. Disappointing short novel.
108. Checkpoint, Nicholas Baker. Dialogue about George W. Bush and the Iraq War. Interesting.
107. BBC National Short Story Award 2010 Anthology. Great little collection.
106. Insignificant Gestures, Jo Cannon. Great debut story collection from a GP-turned-writer.
105. Ordinary Love, Jane Smiley. Two novellas, the second I particularly liked.
104. Generation A, Douglas Coupland. A fun read, but not hugely brilliant/memorable.
103. Regional Geometric Novel, Gert Jonke. Odd novel about bureaucracy- more interesting than enjoyable.
102. Christie Malry's Own Double Entry, BS Johnson. Bizarre and very funny short novel.
101. The Birth Machine, Elizabeth Baines. Excellent book about birth and science and fairy tales.
100. Less Than Zero, Brett Easton Ellis. Nihilistic and depressing as ever. Now to get the sequel!
99. Pereira Maintains, Antonio Tabucchi. Fantastic Italian author writing about Portugal in 1938. Excellent.
98. Sharp Sticks, Driven Nails, (ed) Philip O'Ceallaigh. Anthology from The Stinging Fly. Interesting mix.
97. The Warrior Who Carried Life, Geoff Ryman. SF thingy by my old MA tutor. Strong in places.
96. Free Love, Ali Smith. Meh. Short stories, not as good as some of her later work.
95. Crash, JG Ballard. I know people love this, but it really bored me.
94. Pan, Knut Hamsun. A strange tale of a couple of dysfunctional folk courting. Dark and funny.
93. The Method and Other Stories, Tom Vowler. Excellent new story collection.
92. Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson. Beautiful and sad.
91. No and Me, Delphine de Vigan. Excellent story about a French teenager and her homeless friend.
90. Walking To Hollywood, Will Self. Crazed psychotic memoir ramblings - not my thing.
89. Freedom, Jonathan Franzen. Solid family epic, but I didn't enjoy it as much as The Corrections.
88. Forgetting Zoe, Ray Robinson. Horrible but beautiful story about an abduction.
87. Logicomix, Apostolos Doxiadis + Christos Papadimitriou. Graphic novel on Bertrand Russell. Great!
86. Ease, Patrick Gale. Very mannered, with an incredibly annoying and unconvincing main character.
85. The City and the City, China Mieville. Brilliant science-fiction detective story.
84. The Girl In The Flammable Skirt, Aimee Bender. Wonderful, quirky short stories.
83. Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart. Excellent futuristic techno-comedy apocalyptic love story!
82. Mirrors, Eduardo Galeano. Immense, thought-provoking, beautiful history book.
81. The Elephant's Journey, José Saramago. Funny, but too gentle for me. I prefer his harder stuff.
80. The Escape, Adam Thirlwell. Excellent writing but it dragged and the plot was useless.
79. The Finkler Question, Howard Jacobson. Booker longlistee 2010 - not impressed.
78. The Thing Around Your Neck, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Excellent short stories.
77. Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Volume 3. Starring me! Really fantastic stories, though, for real.
76. Thinner Than A Hair, Adnan Mahmutovic. A Bosnian refugee turns to prostitution.
75. These Demented Lands, Alan Warner. Sequel to Morvern Callar - pretty trippy, very strange.
74. Morvern Callar, Alan Warner. Reread. I LOVE this book.
73. Circus Bulgaria, Deyan Enev. Flash fiction; not very varied, though, and a little too long.
72. American Genius: A Comedy, Lynne Tillman. Strange, almost stream-of consciousness novel. Interesting.
71. Home, Marilynne Robinson. Sequel to Gilead; heart-breaking.
70. Joe Speedboat, Tommy Wieringa. Coming-of-age novel that doesn't really deliver.
69. Girl With Curious Hair, David Foster Wallace. Effervescent short stories.
68. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson. Gorgeous, beautiful, peaceful, moving, wise, profound, brilliant....
67. In The Country of Last Things, Paul Auster. 1984 meets The Road. Sad.
66. Peru, Gordon Lish. Excellent - as usual with Lish, made me feel like people are all wrong inside.
65. Something Beginning With, Sarah Salway. Funny and light; enjoyable with a few really lovely bits.
64. Gone Tomorrow, P.F. Kluge. Meh. Campus novel disguised as mystery investigation thing.
63. Nourishment, Gerard Woodward. Not his best, but entertaining.
62. Plague 99, Jean Ure. This gave me nightmares as a child; still good and quite scary.
61. The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery. Meh, but got better as it went along.
60. Grendel, John Gardner. Brilliant - short, fierce, poetic, sad.
59. The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, Jonathan Coe. Pretty dull but funny when read aloud. Bad ending.
58. Not So Perfect, Nik Perring. Beautiful (perfect!) flash fiction collection.
57. Deloume Road, Matthew Hooton. Poetic and tragic; very beautifully written.
56. Beautiful Blemish, Kevin Sampsell. Short stories; a mixed bag.
55. Black Boxes, Caroline Smailes. A suicidal woman remembers an abusive relationship. Cheery!
54. Love Me Tender, Jane Feaver. Disappointing collection of interlinked stories.
53. Consider The Lobster, David Foster Wallace. Intelligent and manic and fascinating essays.
52. The Leaping, Tom Fletcher. Excellent gory old-fashioned scary horror. And I really do mean gory.
51. Solar, Ian McEwan. Dull and far too 'worthy.'
50. Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, Robert Shearman. Very funny and accessible short stories.
49. The Last King of Scotland, Giles Foden. Meh. I much preferred the film.
48. *Falling Man, Don DeLillo. MA reread. Not his best, but still a good read.
47. The Housekeeper & The Professor, Yoko Ogawa. Gentle and sad, though a little too muted for me.
46. The Theory of Light and Matter, Andrew Porter. Really beautiful story collection.
45. Dear Everybody, Michael Kimball. Everyone raved about this, and it's great - sad, touching, funny.
44. The Stars In The Bright Sky, Alan Warner. Sequel to The Sopranos - also excellent.
43. The Sopranos, Alan Warner. Reread - one of my most favourite books, ever.
42. Ask Alice, DJ Taylor. Flawed novel without much of a plot, but absorbing anyway.
41. The Good Man Jesus And The Scoundrel Christ, Philip Pullman. Interesting fable.
40. Remainder, Tom McCarthy. Reread for an essay. So soon since I read it first, feels like Groundhog Day.
39. If It Is Your Life, James Kelman. Disappointing short story collection.
38. The Road To Wanting, Wendy Law-Yone. Meh - quite interesting, nothing special.
37. How Late It Was, How Late. James Kelman. Miserable yet hopeful. Great voice.
36. *The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai. MA reread. Beautiful descriptions, if very, very light on plot.
35. John The Revelator, Peter Murphy. Atmospheric, great characters, ropey plot, but absorbing.
34. Let The Right One In, John Ajvide Lindqvist. Creepy bloody vampire thriller - yay!
33. The Cement Garden, Ian McEwan. Just about as icky as I expected.
32. Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, David Shields. Really thought-provoking, even for this inveterate novel-lover.
31. *Diary of Bad Year, JM Coetzee. Fiction/non-fiction mash-up. Interesting.
30. *Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell. MA reread. More gimmicky than I remembered. Meh.
29. Death Is Not An Option, Suzanne Rivecca.A hit and miss collection, very insightful in places.
28. The Solitude of Prime Numbers, Paolo Giordano. Gentle, touching.
27. *The Night Watch, Sarah Waters. Liked this much more than I expected. So sad!
26. Let The Great World Spin, Colum McCann. This impressed, but didn't enthral me.
25. Sucker, Lana Citron. Fast-paced multi-voiced tale of love and sex and booze. Not bad.
24. *Austerlitz, WG Sebald. MA reread. Kinda arduous; can't say I'm a fan, despite the hype.
23. The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy. Interesting, but sooo long and depressing.
22. Everything Ravaged Everything Burned, Wells Tower. Short stories. Well written, some very strong.
21. Remainder, Tom McCarthy. Charlie Kaufman meets Sartre. Strange and fascinating.
20. Glover's Mistake, Nick Laird. Deeply disagreeable main character; horrible tale of revenge.
19. Juno & Juliet, Julian Gough. Uplifting and sad and hopeful and very, very funny.
18. Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel. Vast and gorgeous and fascinating.
17. Lark & Termite, Jayne Anne Phillips. Evocative, mesmerising. Loved it.
16. Even The Dogs, Jon McGregor. Bleak, beautiful, brilliant.
15. Orphans of Eldorado, Milton Hatoum. Anti-mythologizing mythic tale. Not keen on this.
14. *The Sea, John Banville. MA reread. Still beautiful, though maybe a little too studied.
13. The Shaking Woman, Siri Hustvedt. Exhaustive but detached look at the history of nervous problems.
12. Thaw, Fiona Robyn. Less literary than my usual fare, but absorbing tale of a woman's depression.
11. And This Is True, Emily Mackie. Disturbing tale of family relationships, memory, loss. Good stuff!
10. The Paris Review Interviews, Vol 2, ed. Philip Gourevitch. Fascinating interviews.
9. This Book Will Save Your Life, A.M. Homes. Light but entertaining, real page-turner. Engrossing.
8. The Nightmare Filled You With Scary, Shane Jones. Short, beautiful, and, yeah, kinda scary chapbook
7. Heliopolis, James Scudamore. Ballard meets Easton Ellis in Sao Paulo - great read.
6. The Sorrows of an American, Siri Hustvedt. Un-engaging, dry, overly self-conscious narrative. Dull.
5. Under The Dome, Stephen King. Epic and entertaining as ever. Time-consuming though!
4. Personal Velocity, Rebecca Miller. Tired, predictable prose.
3. Light Boxes, Shane Jones. Beautiful and sad fable. Also looks like my copy's now worth a bit!
2. Nazi Literature in the Americas, Roberto Bolaño. Very funny pseudo-dictionary of fictional writers.
1. The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett. Classic detective novel - very dry, very entertaining.

2009 Reading List

2009-02-23T21:50:00.076+00:00

What I was reading (when I probably should have been working) in 2009. An asterisk means it was required reading for my Creative Writing MA.

108. After The Fire, A Still Small Voice, Evie Wyld. Very strong writing but never really came alive for me.
107. The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood. Not bad, entertaining, but not breaking new ground.
106. Air, Geoff Ryman. Brilliant SF-ish novel about change and time and villages and all sorts.
105. Incredible Bodies, Ian McGuire. Massively entertaining campus novel, made me laugh out loud.
104. Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives, Brad Watson. A mixed bag of stories.
103. The Heaven of Mercury, Brad Watson. Really disappointing.
102. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood. Reread before I get the new one at Christmas. Bit heavy-handed.
101. *Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Alan Sillitoe. MA reread; enjoyed it again.
100. *The Girls Of Slender Means, Muriel Spark. MA reread. Does this count - twice in one year? Still great.
99. The Ticking Is The Bomb, Nick Flynn. Very powerful look at Abu Ghraib, etc. See review.
98. Consider The Lilies, Carol Fenlon. Interesting novel looking at feral children.
97. The Last Days Of The Dog Men, Brad Watson. Amazing and poignant short stories - beautiful.
96. An Experiment in Love, Hilary Mantel. Strong contender for my Read of the Year.
95. Nobody Move, Denis Johnson. Hmmm. Great, but was more of a stretched-out novella.
94. *By Night in Chile, Roberto Bolano. Good, but I still prefer The Savage Detectives.
93. *Goodbye, Columbus, Philip Roth. My favourite of his, I think.
92. Small Memories, Jose Saramago. Memoirs of his childhood. Funny & entertaining.
91. Mysteries and Manners, Flannery O'Connor. Essays, mainly about writing, region & religion. Good.
90. *Labyrinths, Jorge Borges. Interesting stories.
89. *A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess. MA reread. Horrorshow!
88. Madame Verona Comes Down The Hill, Dimitri Verhulst. See my Bookmunch review.
87. Jesus' Son, Denis Johnson. I'll say it again - I love Mr Johnson. Great stories.
86. When It Changed, ed. Geoff Ryman. Great new SF collection from Comma.
85. *The End Of The Affair, Graham Greene. Reread for MA. Wonderful; really bitter-sweet.
84. *Mrs Dalloway, Virgina Woolf. Reread for MA. Still love it, and so sharp.
83. The White Road and Other Stories, Tania Hershman. First full collection of flash fiction I've read.
82. *The History Man, Malcolm Bradbury. A reread for the MA; funnier than I remembered it being.
81. *On Writing, Stephen King. Half how-to book, half memoir; entertaining and useful.
80. *White Noise, Don DeLillo. A reread, and a great one.
79. The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin. A short and easy read, but tense and chilling.
78. The Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall. Thrilling and clever. Total recommendation. Read this.
77. *Madame Bovary, Gustav Flaubert. An MA re-read. I'd forgotten how funny this is.
76. Scorch Atlas, Blake Butler. Horrific, nightmarish, brutal - excellent!
75. *Aspects Of The Novel, E.M. Forster. Fancy, yeah? Oddly, not so facinating.
74. *The Girls of Slender Means, Muriel Spark. Very acute and funny. Good old Muriel.
73. *Austerlitz, W. G. Sebald. Interesting, very quick read for quite a long book too.
72. *What Maisie Knew, Henry James. Kind of difficult to follow, tbh.
71. The Broom Of The System, David Foster Wallace. Brilliant brilliant brilliant brilliant etc
70. This Is How, M.J. Hyland. Good, but petered out by the end, I thought.
69. Girl Meets Boy, Ali Smith. Lovely. Smith's prose is beautiful.
68. Bid Me To Live, H.D. Bit too flowery and impressionistic.
67. The Rehearsal, Eleanor Catton. Interesting technique, but didn't do it for me.
66. The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga. Very overrated, methinks. (Hey - 66 - Almost satanic.)
65. Angels, Denis Johnson. I love Johnson.
64. Quicksand, Jun'ichiro Tanizaki. Enjoyed it. Very quick to read.
63. The Day of Forever, J. G. Ballard. Some great stories, some left me cold.
62. Candide, Voltaire. Very funny - why didn't I read this years ago?
61. The Fatal Eggs, Mikhail Bulgakov. Meh - some very funny bits but not all that amazing.
60. In Search of Adam, Caroline Smailes. Brilliant voice, incredibly moving.
59. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt. Perfect.
58. When We Were Bad, Charlotte Mendelson. This grew on me as it went along.
57. The Restraint of Beasts, Magnus Mills. Funny.
56. The Right Hand of Sleep, John Wray. Well written but very stiff.
55. Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys, Will Self. Great stories.
54. Waiting For The Barbarians, J. M. Coetzee. Understated, powerful, horrific - as advertised!
53. Man Gone Down, Michael Thomas. Maybe a little too loose.
52. Death at Intervals, Jose Saramago. Thought-provoking as ever.
51. Europeana, Patrik Ourednik. Cool!
50. Family Matters, Rohinton Mistry. Very moving.
49. Words From A Glass Bubble, Vanessa Gebbie. Very strong collection of shorts.
48. The Year Of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion. Sensitive analysis of mourning & grief.
47. Brace, ed. Jim Hinks. Comma Press short fiction anthology. Good stuff.
46. Day, A.L. Kennedy. Astoundingly good. I adored this. Amazing.
45. The Golden Gate, Vikram Seth. Really inventive.
44. Bed, Tao Lin. Didn't like this. Repetitive, rambling, simplistic.
43. Cannery Row, John Steinbeck. Funny, gentle stories.
42. My Revolutions, Hari Kunzru. Drew me in as it went along.
41. We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful. Anthology by former Manchester MA students.
40. [REFUGE]E, Adnan Mahmutovic. Stories and poems about Bosnian refugees.
39. Instruction Manual For Swallowing, Adam Marek. Very entertaining, great narratives.
38. The Information, Martin Amis. Better than advertised - a lot like London Fields.
37. A Book Addict's Treasury, ed. Lynda Murphy, Julie Rugg. Fun collection of quotes etc.
36. I Remember, Joe Brainard. Beautiful, evocative.
35. The Worms Can Carry Me To Heaven, Alan Warner. Not as good as the Scottish books.
34. *The Good Soldier, Ford Maddox Ford. Fascinating narrative structure.
33. Postcards, E. Annie Proulx. Beautiful.
32. *On Beauty, Zadie Smith.
31. American Short Story Masterpieces, ed. Raymond Carver, Tom Jenks. Actual masterpieces.
30. Balancing On The Edge Of The World, Elizabeth Baines. Some lovely stories here.
29. More Pricks Than Kicks, Samuel Beckett.
28. 2666, Roberto Bolano. This took me forever; not really convinced by it, annoyingly.
27. Dear Mr. Capote, Gordon Lish. Genuis.
26. A Kind Of Intimacy, Jenn Ashworth. Fantastic. Read it, read it, read it.
25. The House Of Spirits, Isabelle Allende. Epic.
24. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson. I liked the film, but the book kicks ass.
23. God's Own Country, Ross Raisin. Great voice.
22. In Watermelon Sugar, Richard Brautigan. Amazing.
21. Arthur and George, Julian Barnes. Boring. It looked boring; not sure why I bothered.
20. A Fool's Alphabet, Sebastian Faulks.
19. What Was Lost, Catherine O'Flynn. Didn't enjoy this; very over-hyped.
18. Union Street, Pat Barker. I love Pat Barker.
17. The Secret River, Kate Grenville.
16. The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness. Great. But now I have to wait for the sequel.
15. Ever, Blake Butler. Confounding. (see review)
14. Netherland, Joseph O'Neill. Duller.
13. The Coma, Alex Garland. Dull...
12. The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolano. Fantastic.
11. The Bird Room, Chris Killen. (see review)
10. The Enchantress of Florence, Salman Rushdie. Better than the last one.
9. The Dreamfighter, Ted Hughes.
8. Last Exit To Brooklyn, Hubert Selby Jr. Brilliant.
7. Johhny Panic & The Bible of Dreams, Sylvia Plath. A regrettable re-read. Bad stuff.
6. Heart Songs, E. Annie Proulx. Great. I love her - except Accordian Crimes - hated that.
5. The Innocent, Ian McEwan. Surprisingly horrible and totally underrated.
4. Jill, Philip Larkin. Boring.
3. Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson. Love it, love it.
2. The Optimists, Andrew Miller. Meh.
1. Suite Francaise, Irene Nemirovsky. Number one of '09, thumbs up!