2015 in review

 Hi all! Sorry (again!) that I haven't updated my blog for a couple of months. I took November off in order to focus on NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which was a bit of a struggle in places but I managed to hit 50 000 words on day 29! Since then I've been working most of the time. I've got some posts I'd like to write (or finish writing) between Christmas and New Year, including my review of the new Star Wars film, a review about Booker nominee A Little Life which I liked most of the way through, but which left a bad lingering impression (which is why I haven't finished the review) and a post about updated adaptations of classic literature, such as BBC's Sherlock, all the rom-coms based on Pride and Prejudice, and the two webseries inspired by Anne of Green Gables. But for now I'm going to review my reading year with the help of Jamie The Perpetual Page Turner's annual end-of-year Survey. (Thanks Jamie!)

Number Of Books You Read: 139

Number of Re-Reads: 19

Genre You Read The Most From: General/literary fiction (40 books.)

1. Best Book You Read In 2015? 

The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett. If the Discworld books must end, as all things must, this was as close to a perfect rounding-off of the series as you could hope for. Yes, I cried.

2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?

Needful Things by Stephen King. I really love some of King's books, (The Shining, 11/22/63) but others leave me unmoved (Cell.) Needful Things had an excellent premise: the new shop in town with the sinister proprietor, who will sell you your heart's desire - at a price. But by the end, the body count was so high that I stopped really caring. It's a shame.

 3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read?  The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfeld, which was surprising in a good way: a book about books, mysteries, a crumbling old house and a great plot twist. A really intelligent and gripping book.

 4. Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read (And They Did)? I handed Bex a copy of How The Marquis Got His Coat Back in Waterstone's, but I don't know if she's read it yet. And I bought my friend Paul Ready Player One when I found it in a book sale, and lent his brother John my spare copy of Neverwhere, but again, I don't know whether they've had time to read then yet (this was only a couple of weeks ago.)

 5. Best series you started in 2015? Best Sequel of 2015? Best Series Ender of 2015? I don't read many series books, but I did begin Robin Stevens' wonderful Wells and Wong mysteries. The best sequel was "How The Marquis Got His Coat Back" by Neil Gaiman, a short story/novella really, long-awaited sequel to Neverwhere which is my absolute favourite book of all time (perhaps second to Anne of Green Gables.) As for the best series ender: see my answer to #1.

 6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2015? Ali Smith. Her name had been on my radar for a very long time, but I'd always felt a little intimidated by her experimental prose. But The Accidental was very readable and thought-provoking, and I do not intend to leave it so long again before reading more of her work.

7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone?

The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth (language and linguistics.) It examines good writing at great detail, exploring all the techniques Shakespeare, for example, used, and shows exactly why his plays have lasted for centuries.

 8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?

Possibly Mr Mercedes by Stephen King - not one of the horror novels which he's best known for, but a detective story that keeps you guessing.

 9. Book You Read In 2015 That You Are Most Likely To Re-Read Next Year?

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami.

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2015?

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan. Reminds me a bit of the cover for The Night Circus which is another favourite.

11. Most memorable character of 2015? Harriet Manners from the Geek Girl series, Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong from the Wells and Wong mysteries, and poor Jude from A Little Life.

 12. Most beautifully written book read in 2015? The Accidental by Ali Smith. Pure poetry.

13. Most Thought-Provoking/ Life-Changing Book of 2015?

The Year I Met You by Cecelia Ahern. It encourages you to have compassion even for some of the more unlikeable, unsympathetic people you come across in life. Or Elizabeth is Missing, whose protagonist's mind is slowly being worn away by dementia; she is so clear on some matters and yet cannot keep new things in her head all the time. 

 14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2015 to finally read? 

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. I didn't love it, but I'd had my eye on it for years.

 15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2015?
"It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else." Catherynne M. Valante - The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship of Her Own Making.

16.Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2015? Longest: probably Cross Stitch (better known as Outlander) while the shortest would have been the Happiness Is... book, which although it was quite thick, had only a couple of words on each page. That, or some of the Penguin Little Black Classics, which were about 50 pages each.

 17. Book That Shocked You The Most

(Because of a plot twist, character death, left you hanging with your mouth wide open, etc.)

The ending of Dexter's Final Cut. I know there's another book to follow it in the series, but I don't know whether I want to read it. Dexter's Final Cut had an open ending, but one that says "this is where it all changes." 

18. OTP OF THE YEAR (you will go down with this ship!)

(OTP = one true pairing if you aren’t familiar)

*shrug* Nothing springs to mind. I did reread Anne of the Island though, which has a more romantic focus, and Anne and Gilbert are a lovely couple. But the rest of the romances, I can just take or leave.

19. Favorite Non-Romantic Relationship Of The Year

Maybe Jude's friendships in A Little Life. The ending of that book has soured my memory of it, but I did find some of the relationships in it really heartwarming, especially between him and his adopted father, and another friendship that turns into love later on (but I am counting it here rather than "OTP".)

20. Favorite Book You Read in 2015 From An Author You’ve Read Previously

Reaper Man, Wintersmith and The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett.

21. Best Book You Read In 2015That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else/Peer Pressure:

HHhH by Laurent Binet, which Hanna put into my hands when we found it in a charity shop in Chesterfield. 

22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2015? None really. Maybe Jamie from Outlander.

23. Best 2015 debut you read? The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan

24. Best Worldbuilding/Most Vivid Setting You Read This Year? Also The Gracekeepers.

25. Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read? The Wells and Wong Mysteries (Arsenic for Tea was my favourite) or Nunslinger. A nun on the run in the Old West. What's not to love?

26. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2015?

The Shepherd's Crown. Of course.  

27. Hidden Gem Of The Year?

Vintage Girl by Hester Browne - a really happy book. 

28. Book That Crushed Your Soul?

A Little Life by Hanya Yanigihara. I've had a half-finished review in my drafts folder for about two months which - when I get to finish and post it - will explain in great detail why. But I can't quite bring myself to think about that book enough to finish writing about it.

29. Most Unique Book You Read In 2015?

The Gracekeepers, probably.

30. Book That Made You The Most Mad (doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t like it)?

A Little Life again. 

1. New favorite book blog you discovered in 

2015?

I - I don't think I've actually followed any new blogs this year, unless Erica at The Bookshop Around the Corner was a 2015 discovery. I thought I'd been following her longer though. Hers is a bookshop blog, rather than a book review site, and I've found lots of new shops around the country thanks to her recommendations.

2. Favorite review that you wrote in 2015?

The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett.

3. Best discussion/non-review post you had on your blog?

The Atticus Problem, a discussion on different ways to understand the differences between To Kill a Mockingbird, and Go Set A Watchman, which was published this year, more than 50 year after its prequel. 

4. Best event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, memes, etc.)?

Meeting up with various friends that I've made through blogging: Laura and Bex (twice together, plus Bex once) and Ellie and Hanna in Chesterfield. 

5. Best moment of bookish/blogging life in 2015? Although March was a very sad time in the geek world, with the death of Sir Terry Pratchett, it was heartening to see so many people come together to celebrate his life and work, and share why he was so well loved by so many.

6. Most challenging thing about blogging or your reading life this year?

Getting back into blogging after taking a month off for NaNoWriMo (which turned into two months and ended with this post here. I've got three or four posts I'd like to write before the new year, and hopefully 2016 with bring plenty more wonderful books and blogging events to get me back into the swing of things.

7. Most Popular Post This Year On Your Blog (whether it be by comments or views)?

My "In Memoriam" post for Terry Pratchett got a "+10" on Blogger, which is not a thing I knew even existed. Other than that, I only get a few comments on each post, and that if I'm lucky. 

8. Post You Wished Got A Little More Love? Well, I always appreciate comments. Nice to know people are reading things I've worked hard on.

9. Best bookish discover (book related sites, book stores, etc.)? So many bookshops! Some that stand out are the Little Apple in York, (small, bright and friendly) Babushka Books in Shanklin (rather Black Books-esque in a way, but with typewriters for the customers to share their creative powers, and a little poetry nook) and Persephone in Bloomsbury. 

10.  Did you complete any reading challenges or goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of this year?

I usually aim to read 100-120 books a year, and this year I went up to 139 (and still a few days to go.) My main challenge was to buy two new books for every three I read, in order to work through my to-read shelf. I let that slide in October and November, but still have 28 books (including three loans) on my shelf compared to 38 at the beginning of the year. (I know that's pathetic compared to a lot of my blogger friends who have entire libraries of unread books. But I want to buy only books I'm actually going to read, and older titles do tend to get pushed aside in favour of the shiny new ones.

I'm not going to answer the questions about 2016 releases, for the reason that I don't really know of many books that are coming out next year, and I don't request proof copies from the publishers for review. So my main hope for 2016 is that I will be pleasantly surprised many times over by books and authors I currently don't even know to anticipate. 

Merry Christmas to you all, and I hope to be back to blogging on a more regular basis in the new year.

Sunday Summary: What is the use of a holiday without a bookshop or twenty?

I know, I've been terrible - both at updating the blog, and because of all the books I've bought and otherwise acquired this past month. But up to the end of September, I did pretty well, keeping to my "Read 3: buy 2" rule and getting my to-read shelf down, briefly, to under twenty books. And then I realised I didn't like having such a small selection of things to read (not counting rereads) and they were almost entirely sci-fi or fantasy. But not to fear: my birthday was in October, and I have lots of friends and relations who know me well, as is evident if you've read my birthday post a couple of weeks ago. Then, at the end of the month I had two weeks off from work, which included a trip with my friend Sharon to Hay-on-Wye, the town on the Welsh border that is famous for its quality and quantity of second-hand bookshops. The following weekend I met up with Bex and Laura, for my last book-splurge of 2015. Anything I see that I want, from now on, can go onto my Christmas wishlist.

So, with no further ado, let me present to you a gratuitous "Look at all the booooooooks!" (and bookshops) post.

The White Horse Bookshop, Marlborough

It was really nice to travel with a friend who drives; no stress about changing trains, worrying about who sits next to you, or carrying your luggage to the station. We took the car ferry from Yarmouth to Lymington, and driving through the New Forest the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. The trees were in bright shades of autumn colours - much more impressive than we have on the island. When the signs warned us to look out for animals on the road, I did not appreciate just how many times we would have to slow down to let ponies, donkeys, sheep and cows wander into our way without a care in the world. We stopped off for lunch at Marlborough, a decision that may or may not have been cemented by me noticing an independent bookshop called the White Horse, which stocked new titles across three storeys (although I think the basement was for art materials.) After a lunch at the Polly Tearooms, which was recommended by a passer-by overhearing us discussing where to eat, we spent a little time in the White Horse, which had a good range of fiction, a friendly bookseller, and two rooms upstairs for non-fiction: one for travel, and the other had a wide, cosy window seat if you want to spend lots of time browsing. I treated myself to The Bookshop that Floated Away.

Hay-on-Wye

We took a roundabout way to get into the town centre from our bed and breakfast, and it wasn't until I checked on the map app on my phone that I realised how close we were to the first bookshop - it was quite literally about two minutes' walk away. Our first stop was the Hay-on-Wye Booksellers, a proper, traditional second-hand bookshop with lots of rooms and corners, where you can get lost in L-Space and potentially find yourself in another city. The shop had only just opened, and one of the booksellers was still hoovering, but made us very welcome as she darted around the shop. The children's section was wonderful, full of the sorts of paperbacks that would have been for sale in the '80s and '90s. I spotted Adele Geras' The Tower Room - the first in a trilogy of fairy-tale retellings I remembered from middle school, before modern fairy-tales were the big thing they are now. I did not buy that one, but immediately broke my "one book per shop" rule and picked up a very jolly old school story called The Girls of the Rose Dormitory, and another called Jane's Adventures In and Out of the Book, about a little girl who finds a book in her family's castle which is a portal to many weird and wonderful worlds. Then, upstairs, where Sharon went in search of a book about fashion through the ages, and I buried myself in the little science fiction and fantasy nook (naturally!) I added Young Rissa to my pile, because second-hand bookshops are wonderful for cheesy old sci-fi.

Next up, we stopped at a gorgeous stationery shop, Bartrum's, where I told Sharon to keep me far away from notebooks - I have a bad habit. We sighed over fountain pens and every colour and brand of ink imaginable - except for the one I actually decided I wanted to buy. There were some really dinky little ink bottles for about two or three pounds, and I did end up with one of them in a gorgeous bright green (to make a change from my usual purple.) I also bought a red leather pen-case which fits two fountain pens and a crochet hook quite nicely, and is more convenient than a full-sized pencil case to keep in a handbag.

The handsomest bookshop...

But genre fiction is exiled to
the basement.
(I kind of loved that.)

Richard Booth's Bookshop was up next, which Sharon described as "the handsomest bookshop." It was a mixture of new and used, with fancy painted wooden signs above each section, and covered three floors. Upstairs was a Folio Society reading room, and on the ground floor was a cafe (although it was closed at the time, so alas no cake break. Naturally I went to the children's section to see how many editions of Anne of Green Gables there were - enough to be counted as a respectable bookstore. But I had a particular fondness for the basement. Yes, it was austere, somewhat gloomy, with very poor lighting in the clearance section, but there were rows upon rows just dedicated to the science fiction: pulpy paperbacks from decades past, TV-tie-in novels for Star Wars and Trek and sci-fi shows long since forgotten. Crime and romance were also down here. So, again, I found another cheap and cheerful, battered old book which could be really bad and could be a hidden gem. There were also some publishers' remainders going cheaply, and I was drawn to a book called Speak about an artificial inteligence being whose personality and memories were made up from different people over the years, unable to do anything but tell their story.

We could not find all the shops on the map, and suspect that some may have closed down or relocated. We went into two branches of Addyman's bookshop - three, if you count Murder and Mayhem, which appears to be a separate building for their true crime and crime fiction. We didn't spend very long in there. Sharon worked for the police from the age of sixteen up until a couple of years ago, and as such has little taste for reading about the worst of human nature in the name of entertainment. I like a good thriller, but have trouble knowing where to start when faced with an entire section, or shop, in the genre. The main Addyman's shop was a treat, sprawling and interestingly decorated - I think the walls came from the interior of a church somewhere, in blue and gold. The entrance of the science fiction room is guarded by a life-sized cardboard standee of Captain Kirk (opposite the Star Trek tie-in books, and a couple of cast autobiographies, but no Leonard Nimoy, I checked.)  Captain Picard stood at the centre of the room itself, giving an odd sensation of being watched if I caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye. There were mostly second-hand books, but again, some well-discounted new; I saw stacks of Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things collection, which I've already got, and I also saw a big hardback of The Art of Neil Gaiman, which I do not own, but I was getting towards the end of my day's budget. I did buy a copy of The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, who I've long been meaning to read more from.

We must have gone into about ten bookshops during our day in Hay, returning to the B&B in the early afternoon to drop off our first batch of purchases, before heading out for more. Other notable mentions were Rose's Books, which specialises in collector's editions of classic children's books. There were a few Chalet School books in there, but well out of my price range. There is a huge cinema converted into a bookshop, and you could probably spend all day in that shop alone - and there were big cases outside, which a very eclectic selection, all going for a pound. I found myself dithering over one book, The Last of her Kind by Sigrid Nunez, before deciding that, if I keep on going back to a book, I'm clearly meant to have it. (I just hope it's good, after that.)

We also stopped off at Hereford on the way home. At the HMV

I bought another copy of Neverwhere - a lending copy, and How

The Marquis Got His Coat Back from the Waterstone's, which got

an approving look from the bookseller.

Bloggers' bookshop mini-crawl

You'd think a weekend in Hay-on-Wye would satisfy my book-buying urges, but if you think that, you obviously don't know me very well. The following Saturday, I met up with Bex and Laura in London, and had a practice run for Bex's planned bookshop crawl early next year. I met Bex first, at St Pancras, and, once she'd passed her children over to her mother's care, we wandered over to the British Library, where she'd seen some advertising for an Alice in Wonderland exhibition, but it turned out that wasn't due to open until later in November. We had a good look in the bookshop, however, where she bought a book and I added to my bookish tote bag collection. Well, I couldn't very well not!

Bex's "Not-Google" map app led us then to Housman's, a political bookshop (political as in passionate about issues, not as in biographies of shiny Etonians.) I kept on being drawn back to the graphic novels and graphic memoirs, and both Bex and I found ourselves making shortlists. I decided on Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, as I haven't been able to find it on the Isle of Wight and keep on nearly-buying it whenever I'm in London. A lack of communication meant that we were heading back to Waterloo station to meet Laura while she was coming to find us elsewhere - and when one tried to phone the other, they'd be on the Underground and without signal, of course. But we found each other eventually, and made for an all-you-can-eat buffet in Chinatown to catch up on all the news.

Our next stop was the big Waterstone's at Piccadilly, where Laura tried to put all her favourite books in our hands, but I was being very well-restrained, only buying books I really wanted and was too impatient to wait until Christmas. I came away with George by Alex Gino and Welcome to Night Vale, the novel tied in with the popular and surreal podcast (which I really need to catch up on. I think I'm only up to about episode 30.) Then, as book-shopping is exhausting work, we had our first cake break.

 

Then it was Hatchards' turn, with its many rooms and staircases, an awesome kids' books section, where, on learning that Laura was unfamiliar with I Want My Hat Back, I proceeded to read aloud to her. (It is a really great book.) Here, I also found a Folio Society edition of Anne of Green Gables which I kind of whimpered at, but did not buy, because any more than my three reading copies (which is a good number of reading copies, for every purpose) and I will have to go all out and start a proper collection, and I really don't have the space for that at the moment. But oh, it's so pretty. And illustrated. And pretty.

I did, however, buy Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, which is tied in to her novel Fangirl. It is sort of the Harry Potter-inspired fanfiction Cath writes in her book, but sort of evolved out of that into a stand-alone Simon Snow novel. Then it was time for another coffee-break, and then up to Forbidden Planet, to look longingly at all the movie and TV merchandise (Pop Vinyl figures of Firefly characters! I have only one Pop figure, of Spock, and would rather keep him as one special figurine, rather than being part of a collection. But on the other hand... Firefly figures! Kaylee! Wash! Jayne!) Downstairs, in the books section, I got very sad at the "In Memory Of" posters in the Discworld and Star Trek sections - I'm still not over it and will not be for a while. Laura and Bex bought various comics and graphic novels, and then it was time to go to our various homes or homes-of-relations.

I spend the next day with Hannah, one of my friends from university, and her husband Paul. I don't get to see much of them any more, and I wondered if their birthday present to me was meant as a subtle hint about writing more - a Harry Potter stationery set, with a journal, paperweight, letter paper and envelopes, and a proper seal and sealing wax. How awesome is that?! (Yes, Hannah, I will try to write more. Promise!) The Sunday was a quiet day at their home, and Monday Hannah was working from midday, but we drove out to Richmond Park for a short walk, although it was so foggy we couldn't see very much at all. But we had a wander around the Isabella Plantation, which I'd last seen back in February, so it was interesting to contrast it at the beginning of spring with the latter half of autumn.

NaNoWriMo

Once I came home, I spent the rest of last week making a start on my NaNoWriMo project, before starting back at work this afternoon. My plan is to get into a habit of writing 2500 words on days when I'm not working, so that on the days when I am at work, I only need to write 1000, and that'll leave a bit of "wiggle-room" for emergencies. Yesterday I was struggling. I hit my personal word count, and beyond, and yet I had that familiar feeling of "this is rubbish, this story is going nowhere." So I decided to break out of the linear story-telling, and jump ahead a bit to where the plot really gets going, as well as introducing some different characters' perspectives with backstory and subplots. It seems to be successful; I'm feeling excited about the story again, and becoming unstuck in the places where I felt myself getting bogged down. So that's what I'll be doing for the rest of November. I hope to have some time still to read - and that I'll beat last year's grand total of four books in November, of which, if I remember correctly, two were children's stories. But I expect it'll remain pretty quiet on the blog for the next month.

Mini-Reviews: The Gracekeepers, How the Marquis Got His Coat Back

The Gracekeepers - Kirsty Logan

In a future flooded world, just about recognisable as our own after a great disaster, there is a division between the "landlockers" and the "damplings" who live on ships at sea. After all, humans will always find ways to draw lines between each other. North is part of a floating circus, with a manipulative ringmaster, his scheming wife, and his ruthlessly ambitious son, to whom she is engaged but does not love. Her only real companion is her performing bear, and they live and work together as friends, but he will never truly be tame. Callenish lives alone on an island, where she performs the funeral rites for those lost at sea: a mysterious ritual involving a kind of bird called a grace. When the floating circus comes to Callenish's island, her life and North's are tangled together; their paths take them on separate journeys: of escape, for North, and of redemption for Callenish, but always the sea will bring them back together.

The Gracekeepers is a compelling fairy tale set in a strange but believable story world, richly developed, wild, dangerous and hypnotic as the sea itself.

Read if you like: The Night Circus by Erin Morganstern

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin.

How The Marquis Got His Coat Back - Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman has been promising other stories set in the world of his first novel Neverwhere for a very long time. "How The Marquis Got His Coat Back" was originally published in the book Rogues, edited by George R. R. Martin, and also, I believe, in the latest US edition of Neverwhere, and last month it was published on its own in a mini paperback format. 

The story, as the title explains, follows one of the most charismatic characters of Neverwhere, The Marquis de Carabas, on his quest to retrieve the coat that, he feels, makes him who he is, which was taken from him after an unfortunate but necessary run-in with the terrifying Mister Croup and Mister Vandemar. His quest introduces a new cast of characters, friendly and (more often) malevolent, to the inhabitants of London Below, most of whom may sound familiar to anyone who has examined a London Underground map - but none are quite as they seem. We finally get to see the mythical Shepherds of Shepherds' Bush. ("There are shepherds. Pray you never meet them.") It is safe to say that, as is often the way in the works of Neil Gaiman, they were nothing like I expected, but afterwards could be nothing else. Yes, I said to myself once more, that makes perfect sense.

Read if you like: Neverwhere, of course.

Sunday Summary: Belated Birthday Post

I've been doing pretty well this year at reducing the number of books on my to-read shelf, until it got down to about sixteen, and I thought I didn't actually like having that few books on the pile. Luckily, my shelf is looking nice and bright and full again, since my birthday, and after relaxing my book-buying rules.

I had a really lovely birthday, which began after work on the day before, when I went out to Pizza Express with a small group of friends, and then on to the cinema to watch The Martian, which hadn't been due out until November, but while I was rereading it during Bex's Rereadathon, I checked the release date to find it had been swapped with another movie (can't remember which) and brought forward to the weekend of my birthday. Nice.

The Martian was a really brilliant adaptation of an excellent novel. It doesn't bog you down with science (my only struggle with the book,) but it shows you what you need to know; it is a smart, tense and very fun thriller, true to the book with just enough changes to keep you guessing even when you know the story. The soundtrack (disco!) was well-chosen with some hilariously apt songs at certain moments, and it was gloriously geeky. Definitely to be recommended.

I had a pleasant surprise to receive a birthday present from my work colleagues (normally we just do cards, but this was a "big" one.) I had planned to keep it until the actual birthday before opening it, but I was surrounded by friends, so I gave in: I had a bottle of wine, a big box of chocolates, and a book token, which lasted a whopping three days, until I bought Man Booker Prize shortlisted A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I'm reading it at the moment; it's the story of four friends who spend their adult life in New York, focusing in particular on the enigmatic Jude. It's rather harrowing in its subject matter - there are reasons why Jude refuses to talk about his past - but it's written in such a way to make you emotionally invested in the characters and want happiness for them. I've an ominous feeling that a happy ending is not on the cards and it will be hard-hitting and devastating. I hope I'm wrong.

From Judith, I had an assortment of things: scented candle, chocolates, Watchmen T-shirt, and the book version of Neil Gaiman's Make Good Art speech, delivered to graduates of the University of Arts in Philadelphia. It's a speech that really spoke to me as an unpublished author, and I keep it on the shelf over my desk for encouragement and inspiration.



Jamie bought me Neal Stephenson's The |Diamond Age, which he'd recommended to me before as one of his favourite (non Terry Pratchett) books of all time.

From Jenny, my sister: a game called Geek Battle - a sort of Trivial Pursuit emphasising science, science fiction, comic books and video games, as well as random geekery - and they are not all my areas of expertise, so her predictions of me winning every time are not likely to come true. I've only played one game, but not properly as you need at least three players and there were only two of us at the time. She also sent me Fun with Kirk and Spock, a spoof learning-to-read book a la Janet and John or Biff, Chip and Kipper, poking fun at some of the tropes of Star Trek. (Somehow she seems to have got the impression I'm a nerd, don't know how she arrived at that conclusion...) Also, from Jenny, the latest book (for adults) by Judy Blume, bestselling and best-known author of teenage fiction when we were growing up.(Just as Long as We're Together will always have a special place in my heart.) My parents bought me a dress and two more books: Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne (special thanks to Jess Hearts Books for her recommendation) and a history book about The Bletchley Girls.

Parcels continued to arrive all through that week. Continuing the Bletchley theme, Ellie sent me The Imitation Game and another DVD, a film called X+Y about an autistic boy who enters an international mathematics competition, which was sweet and funny and moving. Bex sent me the third and fourth books in Holly Smale's Geek Girl series (again, noticing a theme?) Clare, one of my best friends from university, bought me Faulks on Fiction, the book tied in with a TV series Sebastian Faulks presented a few years ago, taking different character archetypes from novels down the years, showing how concepts such as Hero or Villain have changed, and how they have stayed the same. He had some very odd ideas at times (Mr Darcy suffering depression? It might be one way of reading the character, but I don't see it, and Faulks just seemed to take it for granted that it was an integral part of his character. And if Harry Potter and Dan Brown don't fall into the category of "mainstream fiction," then what exactly does? Still, it was a really interesting read, and added yet more books onto my must-read list.

Faulks on Fiction not pictured.

Laura sent me The Three, as well as a DVD of The Incredibles - one of the greatest superhero films of all time. And I had more parcels from Bex: The Book of Strange New Things which was not a birthday present, but a prize from a giveaway I hadn't really been aware I'd entered when I took part in her rereadathon challenge in September. She also sent me a pair of earrings which had a certain quote from the film Serenity in teeny-tiny print inside them. Thanks to you all for your wonderful presents! I really shouldn't have any need to do much book-buying for the rest of the year. (Never mind that I picked up two books in the British Heart Foundation shop last week - they were new books, not even in paperback yet, and only £3 each! And never mind that I'm off to Hay-on-Wye next week, the town that is renowned for being full of bookshops.)

My charity-shop finds

The Accidental - Ali Smith

Ali Smith is one of those authors who, until now, I had repeatedly not read. How To Be Both has been on my radar for a while, highly acclaimed and alluring, but somehow a bit intimidating too. And, when I finally bought The Accidental from the Books for Syria table at Waterstone's last week, and read the blurbs for Smith's back list,I recognised the strangely-incomplete titled There But For The as another book I'd picked up many times but never quite brought home with me. Smith has a reputation for being very clever and lyrical, but somewhat experimental in style, which had slightly frightened me for a long time. But this was for a good cause - a charity donation that gets you a free book, right?

The Accidental focuses on the Smart family: two parents and two adolescents, all of whom have their own struggles and unhappinesses. Astrid, aged twelve, is a lonely teenager, trying to make sense of her world through her video camera. Magnus, who is about sixteen or seventeen, is eaten up with guilt after his involvement in an incident at school with tragic consequences. Their stepfather, Michael, is a creepy college professor with a midlife crisis and lots of affairs, while their mother, Eve, feels the weight of unhappiness of her family, her marriage, and her career as a writer.

Into their lives comes Amber, a strange woman who shows up at their house one day. Everyone thinks she's here with someone else, but who is she, really? Each member of the family perceives her differently, either finding what they long for or need in her, or perhaps projecting their wishes onto her. She is the narrator, probably, of the first-person passages interspersed with the Smart family point-of-view chapters, yet we don't really know much about her. She doesn't quite seem real. Some of the characters think she must be an angel, but if so, she is an unstable, maybe even dangerous one. At the end of part one, she starts to give you a few answers - surprisingly early on, I thought - until: "Well?" she said. "Do you believe me?" I didn't think to do otherwise until that point, but the question throws it all into doubt. But that's all the answer you get.

The Accidental is a story about story, structured tidily into three parts: beginning, middle and end. About how stories grow and change in the telling, mutating and shaping the perception of truth. We see this expressed in different ways throughout the novel, for example in Eve's book series called "Genuine Articles," in which she takes real stories from history, but rewrites them to give them happy endings and "what ifs."

The language is lyrical, poetic - one section being made up of actual poetry, in Michael's "middle," the changes in form showing his world and his mind unravelling somewhat as the style turns from conventional sonnets in the Shakespearean rhyme scheme, to a frantic, disjointed style, to words just apparently thrown at a page. For Michael, Amber represents an incorruptible purity, and is the woman immune to his attempts at seduction. And his sense of entitlement can not deal with rejection. He is a repulsive creature.

Ali Smith's narrative contains some stream-of-consciousness, luring you to read on, but also to take your time thinking about her word choices. I found The Accidental engrossing with lots of food for thought, and I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. She's not necessarily a new favourite author, but definitely someone I want to read lots more from in the future.

Month in review: September

Hello. Sorry I haven't posted much recently. I'm expecting it to be quiet for another couple of months here on the blog, as I'm trying to focus on my novel-writing, and next month being NaNoWriMo I don't expect to get a lot of reading done. But I've been reading lots and plan to at least do some mini-review posts over the next few weeks. I've also got an idea for writing about modern adaptations of classic novels, in book, film and webseries formats, so watch out for that.

I've managed to carry out my read-2-buy-3 rule up till the end of September, getting my to-read pile down from 38 books to 21 (22 if you count what I'm reading at the moment.) But this month, being my birthday and having scheduled a couple of book-shopping trips, I don't expect to keep to it. (I know that's another £20 I owe to the Beanstalk fundraiser, Bex. I'll pay that next month. I'm keeping track.) November and December I don't intend to buy any books for myself, due to NaNoWriMo and Christmas, so hopefully it'll balance out by the end of the year.

What I've bought:

I've been quite restrained with my book-buying over the summer, I think, but last month I've had a bit of a splurge and brought home the following:

• You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) - Felicia Day
• The Gracekeepers - Kirsty Logan
• The Teahouse Fire - Ellis Avery
• Love in Idleness - Charlotte Mendelson
• The Children who Lived in a Barn - Eleanor Graham
• The Girl Who Couldn't Read - John Harding
• All of the Above - James Dawson
• Finn Fancy Necromancy - Randy Henderson

And today, I bought The Accidental by Ali Smith from the Waterstone's Books for Syria table. Guilt-free book-buying, as it all goes towards helping your fellow human beings.

What I've read:

• You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) - Felicia Day
• Goodnight Beautiful - Dorothy Koomson
• The Shepherd's Crown - Terry Pratchett
• The Martian - Andy Weir
• First Term at Malory Towers - Enid Blyton
• 11.22.63 - Stephen King
• The School at the Chalet - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
• Charlotte Sometimes - Penelope Farmer
• The Girl in the Blue Tunic - Jean Ure
• Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
• First Term at Trebizon - Anne Digby
• Cell - Stephen King
• Miss Brill - Katherine Mansfield (a Penguin mini classic)
• All of the Above - James Dawson

I haven't made a to-read pile for October, as it's my birthday on Sunday and I expect I'll get some more books to add to my list (at least, I hope so.) But I'm excited about reading The Gracekeepers, which the bookseller I bought it from raved about, and which I've had my eye on for a while. Ali Smith is an author I've kept coming across in the past few years, but I've never actually had any of her books until now. And I'd like to read some more of the proper sci-fi and cheesy sci-fi I've picked up over the last year, mostly second-hand.

I'll be turning thirty this weekend, which I've been dreading for a long time. When I left university in 2007, I consoled myself with the thought that it might be a struggle figuring out what I was going to do with my life, but by the time I was thirty I'd surely have things sorted. And the years passed by, quicker and quicker, and I still have no idea what I'm meant to be doing after all. But in the last few months I feel more at peace with that, My life may not be where I thought it ought to be at thirty, but I'm seeing the good in my situation. I work part-time - but that means I have more time which I can focus on my writing. I am writing again, and that means I feel like I've got back in touch with who I'm meant to be. No, I'm not published yet, but I'm walking back towards what Neil Gaiman referred to as my "mountain" - I'm heading towards of my goal. It might be a long way off still, but I'm walking in the right direction again.

Rereadathon 2: Epilogue

Apologies that this blog went silent after about the first week of the rereadathon. I've been keeping up my rereading, fitting it around work and writing, but haven't been making notes as I went along. But it's been a great fortnight of rediscovering old and more recent favourites, and although I didn't get through my entire pile, I read the books I realistically expected to.

Final Stats:

Number of books read: 8

"Big" novels: 3

Which were: The Martian - Andy Weir

11.22.63 - Stephen King

Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

School stories: 5

Which were: First Term at Malory Towers - Enid Blyton

The School at the Chalet - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

Charlotte Sometimes - Penelope Farmer

The Girl in the Blue Tunic - Jean Ure

First Term at Trebizon - Anne Digby

Total pages read: 2402

Favourite reread: 11.22.63

A few last thoughts.

It was an absolute joy to reread my two favourite books from last year, and one which I reread a couple of years earlier. Of these three "big" books, 11.22.63 was the one which kept me every bit as gripped as on the first reading, and has probably earned itself a place in my top five books of all time. I wanted to read The Martian again before the film was released, not realising it's coming out at the end of next week - just in time for my birthday! It's a really believable science fiction novel, a tale of survival, and a celebration of human creativity and spirit against incredible odds. I'm really looking forward to seeing it on the big screen. Fingersmith is a mischievous adventure full of scoundrels and rogues, skulduggery and double-crossing, although on a second reading I was a little bit more critical than the first time around, noticing in a few places when the plot was just a bit too contrived. But it's a lot of fun, nonetheless.

On boarding school stories

I read through a range of boarding-school stories in preparation for my NaNoWriMo project for this year, written between about 1926 and 1997. It's interesting just how many books and series in the genre begin with the protagonist being a new girl in her class, when everyone else has settled into school for a few terms and got to know each other - four of the five books I read conformed to that pattern, and in fact I intend to use it myself this November. Harry Potter, while drawing on the grand old tradition of British Boarding School literature, is unusual for introducing an entire new class at the same time - there are never any new kids or transfer students at Hogwarts, except for the first years each September.

Three of the books were conventional school-stories of lessons, games and pranks, while two had a fantastical or supernatural plot to them - ghosts and time-travel, the latter of which (Charlotte Sometimes) has a similar premise (in reverse) to my planned story, of a schoolgirl finding herself in a different time period and having to adjust to an alien way of life, while being mistaken for someone else. I was struck by how short the books were - most of them under 200 pages - and am aware that this is going to be a challenge for me, as I have a tendency for rambling on. My current work in progress is at nearly 100 000 words and only just past the halfway mark. I'm starting to grow concerned, although I expect to cut a lot in the next draft. If my NaNoWriMo target is 50 000 words in a month, I want to reach that word count without having too much more left to write afterwards.

What to read next?

Since this year, I've been sticking to a "read 3, buy 2" rule, which has lasted eight months, but now my to-read shelf is looking sadly empty, so I've decided to relax that a little. I'm certainly overdue a good old book-shopping spree, and in October I'm going to Hay-on-Wye and all its bookshops, as well as, hopefully, Stratford-upon-Avon with some of the other bloggers. (Is that still going ahead, guys?) I've picked out a few books for the rest of September, but that is, as ever, subject to my moods and whims. It does look as though I need to buy some books that aren't from the science fiction, fantasy and horror shelves, though!

Not pictured: Wintersmith and Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, borrowed from my dad, and 3 of the 80p Penguin Mini Classics books.

Rereadathon 2: part 2 Wednesday 9th-Friday 11th September

Hello! I haven't had an awful lot of rereading time in the last couple of days, as I was at work Wednesday and Thursday. Tuesday night, for some reason, I just could not get to sleep, and by the time about 2.30AM rolled around, I decided to get out one of my books to help wind my brain down. I finished The Martian on Tuesday evening, and so for that stupid o'clock read, I picked up Elinor M. Brent-Dyer's The School at the Chalet. 

The Chalet School series is one of the longer-running girls' boarding school series, running to about 60 books, begun in the 1920s and ending in the '60s. As you might expect, it changes a lot over the course of the books, and this week I decided to go back to where it all began. 24-year-old Madge Bettany decides to start an English girls' school in the Austrian Tirol, near a lake a little way from Innsbruck. Her first pupil is her twelve-year-old sister Joey, who is a bright spark, with a big heart and a passion for life, but whose physical strength does not match up to her boundless enthusiasm. There are only nine pupils on the first day of term: as well as Joey, there is another English girl from the same school, Grizel; Simone Lecoutier, the shy and clingy niece of the French mistress and deputy head, and six Austrians from the nearby village, ranging from nine to sixteen. It's been a long time since I went right back to the beginning, where there is a really cosy, intimate setting, and you get to know all the characters really well. The school grows and grows, and before long Madge leaves the school to get married, but new teachers come in, and pupils from across Europe and beyond. (Although entirely white, except for one Indian girl in one book, despite a couple of the books having misleading titles. I wanted A Chalet School from Kenya to be about an actual Kenyan girl, not an English child whose parents worked abroad!)

Of course, when Elinor Brent-Dyer started writing her school stories in the mid-1920s, she had no way of knowing that real-world events would force the plot to take a drastic turn if it were to continue in 1939, resulting in the excellent Chalet School in Exile. This is outstanding, not just in the series, but in the literary canon in general, as a contemporary account of Austria during the Anschluss, as seen from Britain. It's a hair-raising tale of adventure and courage, as well as sadness, as Madge and Joey, who, although this point are no longer part of the Chalet School, are still attached to it, have to close down their beloved school which they'd built up from one chalet and a handful of children, and escape and start again. On Guernsey, for a little while, then onto the Welsh border for the duration of the war.

I suppose there are three main segments of the Chalet School series: the Austrian years, mostly when Joey is a schoolgirl, then the war years, during which the school moves around several times, and then, finally, returning to Switzerland for the rest of the series. By this point, Joey is married, and the focus moves onto her eldest daughters, triplets called Len, Con and Margot - as well as an older girl called Mary-Lou, who readers either love or hate. I find her a bit too good to be true. She gets away with more than her contemporaries, has to make a project of "improving" any new girl who doesn't quite fit in, and is far too familiar with the teachers, but this is excused because "it's not cheek, it's just Mary-Lou." She really takes the biscuit in one of the books when she is made head girl of the school and her response is "oh, no, I couldn't possibly" after being the unelected leader of the senior school for years. And then, the very next chapter, she gets a special award for - I don't know - being Mary-Lou. "Oh, no, I couldn't possibly." Stupid or false modesty just comes across as stupid and false.

The other book I've been rereading is Stephen King's excellent 11.22.63 which I'm just about used to writing the date the wrong way round now. The hero, Jake, is currently living in 1950s Derry, Maine, in the aftermath of IT. Now I've read IT, the setting is even more eerie and unsettling, and I'm able to appreciate all the references to the previous novel. I haven't got as far into it as I'd hoped, as I spent this morning having a writing session (forsaking my usual local coffee shop for Starbucks - I am ashamed!) and then wandering around the town, looking in the other bookshops and admiring the autumn fashions, with their turning-leaf colours and chunky knitted jumpers. I've bought some wool to make myself a hoodie, in multi-coloured blue and purple shades, and I've also just started teaching myself to crochet with a new magazine partwork, each one teaching a new stitch or two, and with a pattern for a different kind of granny-square which will join together to make a patchwork blanket. I don't intend to buy the entire series - I've no idea how many will be in this series - but enough to make a variety of blanket squares. But I can't crochet and read at the same time, so I'll start knitting the hoodie this evening.

This weekend is the Bestival festival, at Robin Hill Country Park a few miles from my house. I always kind of dread this festival. the Isle of Wight music festival is closer to home, but at least the music stops at about midnight. It's not been unheard of for Bestival events to keep me awake until 4 in the morning with thumping bass on a Friday night. And I have to get up at half past 7 for work on Saturdays. Ugh ugh. So I'm prepared for a long reading night tonight, although I might also take my duvet downstairs and sleep on the sofa, as I don't think it is as audible from the front room. We'll see.

Bex's Rereadathon Challenge

Last time, Bex asked which is the one book you reread over and over again. This time, she wants a list. Book bloggers love lists, right?

• Anne of Green Gables. C'mon, you know me better than to expect me to omit this one! I'll reread at least one of the Anne books pretty much every year. Not necessarily the entire series, but I can't go very long without spending some time with my favourite redhead: Anne of Green Gables, Anne of the Island are the usual candidates, but also Rilla of Ingleside (although that is more centred upon her children as young adults.)
• The Lord of the Rings. Back in my sixth form and student days I just could not put these books down. I'd start reading every November, at first in preparation for the film adaptations, and then because it had become tradition. I don't read it quite so frequently any more, but I have read it three more times since starting my blog seven years ago.
• Harry Potter. The ultimate in comfort reading; I start getting the urge for a reread about every two years, usually in the autumn or winter.
• The Chronicles of Narnia. These have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I saw the BBC adaptation back when they used to show serialised children's classics on a Sunday night in the lead-up to Christmas, and when I was about seven, Dad sat me down and began to read: "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." I was thrilled to discover this was part of a series with my beloved The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I stuck little pictures to the back of my wardrobe and would sit in there and imagine myself away. And I always try to reread The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe before Christmas, and some of the other books in the series in the appropriate time of the year: The Magician's Nephew in spring, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader at the end of Summer (hmm... must be about time to reread that again...) etcetera, etcetera.
• Neverwhere. This was the book that made me fall in love with Neil Gaiman's writing. He created a new mythology for London, out of the names of the places, and it just made sense. It was like just scratching away the surface to make sense of a city that is, when you come to think of it, quite strange. I've reread all of his books on my bookcase at least once, I think, except for the Trigger Warning collection which only came out this year. American Gods and Good Omens should also feature on this list, as I've reread them at least three times since buying them. American Gods, in particular, I find new things on every reread (and is also on my reserve rereadathon pile) and Good Omens is just so funny.
• Discworld. With 41 books, of course I don't do a complete reread every year, but there are certain sub-series within the series that I return to most often. Top of that list are the first few Watch books: Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms and Feet of Clay, as well as the masterpiece Night Watch. Then there are the Witches books: Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies and Maskerade. Hogfather gets read a lot at Christmas, and if I don't read the book, I'll watch the TV film. And Going Postal and Monstrous Regiment are others that appear regularly. I'm filling in the gaps this year; there are now only 4 left I haven't read.

So, what about you? Do any of these books or series appear regularly on your reading list, or are your favourite rereads completely different?