The Unpopular Opinion Book Tag

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I was in a mood to answer some questions about my reading, and I decided to have a google and see if I could find some such questions. That turned out a bit harder than anticipated, largely because the word ‘meme’ has changed a bit since I first started blogging. Anyway, I stumbled across a set of questions that are probably aimed at romance readers, but here we are and there’s no turning back? I guess?

1. A popular book you didn’t like

I don’t know if it’s exactly popular, but it did win the Pulitzer Prize – the first one that came to mind was Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See. It’s not often I finish a book and think “what was the point?” – but I did with Doerr’s doorstopper. Or Doerrstopper, if you will.

2. A book series that everyone hates but you love

Why would they commission a series if everyone hates it? This is a weird question. Also, I have read very few book series – and the ones I have read are pretty widely liked (Harry Potter, Narnia). If I ignore the ‘series’ bit, I will say Ivy Compton-Burnett – on the basis that three-quarters of people who read her will loathe her, and the rest of us are devoted for life.

3. A love triangle where the main character ends up with the person you didn’t want them to end up with

This was where I started to wonder if this was for romance readers. Anyway, Jane Eyre. Rochester is trash, and St. John is – well, not exactly romantic, but at least he has morals. (She should really have ditched them both and run away to sea or something.)

4. A popular genre you rarely reach for

I have all sorts of prejudices when it comes to genres, which aren’t really prejudices because they are based on long-suffering experience. Particularly with historical fiction. There are exceptions, but generally I’m not a fan – I’d much rather read what the people from that time wrote.

5. A popular character you didn’t like

Besides my disliking for Mr Rochester, Lord Peter Wimsey is one of the most annoying characters I’ve ever come across, and I can’t see how anybody can find him non-annoying.

6. A popular author you can’t seem to get into

I shan’t turn this into a Dorothy L Sayers bashathon, so I’ll turn to my usual whipping boy of Iris Murdoch.

7. A popular trope you’re tired of seeing

It’s more a structural thing than a trope, but I find it really hard to get on with books that start with one scene in the present, then go immediately back into the past and lead chronologically up to that scene. It happens a lot, and I find it gives the whole novel a sense of anticlimax.

8. A popular series you have no interest in reading

Again with the series! More or less any of them – His Dark Materials, Lord of the Rings, Fifty Shades of Grey. Take your pick.

9. Which movie do you prefer to the book?

I love The Devil Wears Prada (movie), but the book was terrible.

There were only nine questions in this quiz, which was quite unsatisfying, so I have added a tenth myself:

10. Which character do you love whom we were probably meant to hate?

My sympathies were entirely with the kind-but-dull husband in Frenchman’s Creek. Kindness is a more important quality than swashbuckling, Daphne du Maurier, and that is a lesson we should all take with us.

***

Please do join in and do the meme/tag/quiz if you’d like to! Pop a link in the comments if you do.

My 2019 Reading Project

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Having said that I wasn’t sure what I’d do for a reading project in 2019, I have a brainwave the other day. I am still thinking of informally joining in with Karen’s very popular Back to the Classics challenge (many thanks to those who recommended it!) but I also have a more idiosyncratic project of my own: books with people’s names in the title.

I think this features in a few other challenges as a category, but I’ve decided I’ll read as many as I can this year. At the moment I’m not setting a concrete target – I initially thought I’d aim for fifty, but then I decided to use it as a guiding principle for selecting my reading, rather than a fixed goal.

I’ve been through my unread books and, at a rough count, I have 145 candidates on my shelves. And that’s just fiction – there are obviously quite a few more if I like at my biography shelves.

Why do I like this project? Well, it answered several things I was looking for post-A Century of Books:

  • I need some structure! Coming off ACOB straight into unbridled reading felt too loose.
  • I can read from my shelves.
  • There’s lots of choice, and a lot of variety – no pre-determination about what the books are likely to be like.
  • It’ll make me pick things off my shelves that might otherwise have been neglected.

So, watch this space! You might not notice it’s happening – just that a preponderance of people’s names turn up. Or I might set up a separate page, we’ll see.

And if you want to join in, please do! And feel free to add suggestions and recommendations, though I’ll be trying to do it from my shelves as much as possible.

Tea or Books? #67: Books as Gifts: Yes or No, and Little vs Alva & Irva

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Edward Carey and books as gifts – happy new year; we’re back!

 

We had a bit of a longer break over Christmas, but we’re back and raring to go with a post-Christmas discussion about whether or not we like giving books as gifts and receiving books as gifts. Which transforms into giving vs receiving at some point. We’re nothing if not flexible.

In the second half, we’re uncharacteristically modern – with two novels from the 21st century! Edward Carey’s Alva & Irva and Little go head to head.

You can support the podcast on Patreon, view our iTunes page, and subscribe to the podcast via your usual podcast provider. We’re always keen to hear ideas from people, so do get in touch.

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

Stoner by John Williams
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
Iris Murdoch
Baltasar and Blimunda by Jose Saramago (who is Portuguese, not Brazilian!)
Blindness by Jose Saramago
Milan Kundera
Old Baggage by Lissa Evans
Their Finest Hour and a Half by Lissa Evans
The Sweet and Twenties by Beverley Nichols
Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker
Young Man With Horn by Dorothy Baker
The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne
Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson
I’d Rather Be Reading by Anne Bogel
The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
Out of the Red, into the Blue by Barbara Comyns
The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
Robert Galbraith
Greengates by R.C. Sherriff
Bricks and Mortar by Helen Ashton
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Familiar Studies of Men and Books by R.L. Stevenson
Christine Orr
Inside Black Mirror by Charlie Brooker
Terms and Conditions by Ysenda Maxtone Graham
In the Dark Room by Brian Dillon
Yellow by Janni Visman
Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey
Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Proper Place by O. Douglas

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My dear friend Emily and I often watch sitcoms together – we have recently named ourselves ‘sitcommoisseurs’ – but don’t really share a taste in reading. But you know who does largely share my taste? Emily’s relatives – her mum and, as it turns out, her late great-grandmother. Mrs S very kindly thought of me when divvying up the library of her mother, which included books from her grandmother – who was a fan of O. Douglas. I’ve only read one but I really liked it, so gratefully received a little pile of them (thanks v much!) – and over Christmas I read The Proper Place (1926).

As I’ve mentioned before, househunting and moving house are things I love to read about (even though they are a world of anxiety in real life), and the opening pages of The Proper Place are all about it – which is why it was the one I got off the shelf.

The Rutherfurd family are leaving their family seat in the Scottish borders with its twenty bedrooms, no longer able to live up to such grandeur because they are so diminished in size: there are now only three Rutherfurds: Nicole (sprightly, cheerful), her orphaned cousin Barbara (realistic, wry), and her mother Lady Jane (resigned, dignified). They have lost relatives in World War 1, and must start anew – Nicole displaying bright optimism about their future and Barbara, if not dour, then not delighting in the prospect.

“How many bedrooms does that make?”

Mrs. Jackson asked the question in a somewhat weary tone. Since her husband had decided, two months ago, that what they wanted was a country-house, she had inspected nine, and was frankly sick of her task.

The girl she addressed, Nicole Rutherfurd, was standing looking out of the window. She turned at the question and “I beg your pardon,” she said, “how many bedrooms? There are twelve quite large ones, and eight smaller ones.”

They were standing in one of the bedrooms, and Nicole felt that never had she realised how shabby it was until she saw Mrs. Jackson glance round it. That lady said nothing, but Nicole believed that in her mind’s eye she was seeing it richly furnished in rose-pink. Gone the faded carpet and washed-out chintzes; instead there would be a thick velvet carpet, pink silk curtains, the newest and best of bedroom suites, a rose-pink satin quilt on the bed. 

The new occupants are from the nouveau riche – Mr and Mrs Jackson, leaving their community in Glasgow to buy their way into the aristocracy, in the hope that it will be a bright new future for their son. Mrs Jackson is disarmingly realistic about her own shortcomings and how unlikely it is that she’ll fit into her new life, making sacrifices for that adult son (who is fond of her but not all that engaged). The meeting of the Rutherfurds and the Jacksons is not the clash of cultures that you might think – Douglas is amusing, but not at characters’ expense. Mrs Jackson is eager, Lady Jane is kind. There is pain and anxiety on either side, but not immeasurably.

The title comes from a Hans Christian Andersen story that I’m not familiar with – to quote the novel: “at a dinner-party, one of the guests blew on a flute made from a willow in the ditch, and behold, every one was immediately wafted to his or her proper place. “Everything in its proper place,” sang the flute, and the bumptious host flew into the herdsman’s cottage”. I’m not sure how relevant it ends up being, because there is no moral attached to these characters’ house moves, though they are certainly changing places. There is even a suggestion at one point that the Jacksons and the Rutherfurds will swap houses, though the Rutherfurds instead move to a harbourside house in Kirkmeikle, Fife. It’s the sort of downsizing that is a house far beyond anything I’ll ever live in, of course. (You can see where it was based in Katrina’s investigative post!)

Much of the novel looks at this new community – including (somewhat surprisingly) Simon Beckett, who was recently climbed Everest and is writing a book about it. Very little that happens among this new throng of characters is of especial note, but it is all the gentle, enjoyable happenings that are so fun to indulge in reading about. Nicole is such a lovable character, helpfully offset by Barbara’s clear-sightedness, that it was all good fun.

We don’t see as much of the Jacksons later in the book, but I think I preferred those sections. Mrs J’s anxieties about her position, together with a certain over-the-topness, made for good-humoured comedy. And the families do meet again, as Nicole and Barbara sequentially go back for visits – these were my absolute favourite sections, as it was the meeting of the families that I thought worked best. Happily for me, there is a sequel (The Day of Small Things), which I can keep an eye out for.

(I had to skip a few pages of Scots dialect, but far fewer than when I read Pink Sugar.)

 

Others who got Stuck into it:

“Unputdownable & with characters I care about. I loved the feeling of gentle melancholy that is evident in so many books of that post-war period.” – I Prefer Reading

“O. Douglas is a very fair-minded author; she always allows her characters the grace of a deep enough glimpse into their lives and thoughts to allow us to place their words and actions in full context; something I fully appreciated in this story.” – Leaves and Pages

“Her books are as sweet as home-made toffee, but they’re always mixed with sadness somehow, which makes these comfort books of hers more true to life.” – Pining for the West

Reflections on A Century of Books (and looking to 2019)

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Well, my third attempt at A Century of Books was my second success! In 2014 it rather petered out, but in 2012 and 2018 I managed to read a full century of books, finishing in the final days of December. The full list is here, and it’s probably too similar to my overall reading stats to warrant a whole new set of stats, but here are some reflections. At the bottom of the post are my plans for 2019…

It made me read some books I wouldn’t otherwise have read

And that’s been good and bad. There are some excellent books from my shelves that I wouldn’t have read unless I were doing the challenge – notably Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver – and some rather uninspiring ones that I probably wouldn’t have finished if I didn’t have a year to tick off (e.g. Harold Ross’s letters).

It was surprisingly easy this time

Reading 153 books this year meant that I didn’t struggle too much to fill my century. Last time I successfully completed ACOB, I read 136 books – also rather above my usual average. So maybe ACOB encourages me to read more? (The time I failed, I read 98…)

Audiobooks are your friend

And specifically Librivox – quite a few of my earlier titles were unabridged audiobooks from the free audio site Librivox. Though that did clutter up the beginning of the century, because they had to be out of copyright.

The 1920s went quickly

Because of course they did They also included reading some books I’ve been meaning to get to for many, many years – like David Lindsay’s Sphinx and Edith Olivier’s As Far as Jane’s Grandmother’s.

Shifting the century helped

Last time, I read 1900-99. This time I read 1919-2018, and that really made the process much easier – partly because I found the pre-WW1 years quite hard last time, and partly because I missed the post-1999 years. Doing the previous 100 years is definitely how I’d do it again another time. (Though I’d be sad once I’m chipping into my beloved 1920s!)

Buddies helped 

Quite a few people were doing ACOB this time – either in one year or spread over several. I don’t think I quite matched up with the buddy system Claire at the Captive Reader and I had back in 2012, but it was good to know that others were doing it alongside.

Reading the zeitgeist was quite rewarding

Last time, I sort of cheated a bit by reading lots of 1980s and 1990s books that were about earlier periods – author biographies, etc. This time I still did that a little, but I almost entirely read books that reflected the 80s and 90s. I think ACOB counts either way, for sure, but there was a nice feeling of authenticity to it this time.

Iris Murdoch didn’t come along to scupper my plans!

Last time, The Sea, The Sea almost proved my undoing – being enormously long and completely baffling. This time around, I don’t remember any particular blockers. One of the longest books I read, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton, was pacey enough that it didn’t hold me back.

So, yes, I’ll probably pick it up again in 2020. Watch this space!

As for 2019…

Coming off the back of ACOB, I do feel rather unstructured at the moment. The two books I’m reading right now are for podcast and book group, so I’ve yet to feel wholly unleashed on the infinitude of literature – but I do wonder if I should put in some parameters.

And yet, except for the club years that Karen and I run – 1965 Club coming up in April! – I haven’t made any reading commitments. The nearest I’ve got to it is a determined effort to read more from shelves, which I say every year – but this year I’m backing that up with a vague resolution about… not buying books? I guess? (Exceptions for going on special bookshop trips – e.g. I am going to Hay-on-Wye in a few weeks’ time.)

I’ve done Project 24 a couple of times and it’s been hard but good – but also means being on constant look out for which books might make the grade. If I do a more blanket ban, then I’ll stay out of temptation’s way. Riiiiight?

And if anybody knows of any reading projects like ACOB or like club years – i.e. some structure but a huge amount of choice therein, and able to be completed with books I already own – then let me know!

Becoming by Michelle Obama

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I think it’s fair to say that my reading isn’t the most zeitgeisty. I usually only read a small handful of books published in the year I’m reading them, increasingly new non-fiction. But when I had audiobook credit towards the end of last year, I decided to spend it on one of the year’s bestsellers – Michelle Obama’s autobiography, Becoming (2018). All 19 hours of it.

Those 19 hours were read by Obama herself – which was one of the reasons I was keen to get it, as I love her voice. And, yes, she reads very well; I’d certainly recommend this way of experiencing the book.

The book takes us from Obama’s earliest memories through to leaving the White House and the inauguration of Donald Trump – and the most amazing thing about it is her astonishing powers of recall. Steadily, step by step, she takes us through every stage of her life – seeming to remember vividly what she experienced and thought at each part. She gives the same rigorous attention to (say) watching her father suffer with MS, or her path to getting into law school, as she does the minutiae of her husband’s rise to the White House. It is all-engrossing, and throughout she reflects with wisdom, thoughtfulness, and clear-sightedness about her own journey – and how this has been influenced by being a black woman.

Clear-sightedness is, indeed, the hallmark of Obama’s writing. My favourite parts of the book were probably her view of the first election campaign – as Obama fought first for the Democratic nomination and then for the presidency. While obviously wanting her husband to win, and believing he would be the best choice for the job, she has no illusions about the downsides of campaigning and the way opponents and the press manipulate everything. She says at the beginning and end of the book that she is not a political person and has seen nothing over the past ten years to change her mind – no, she isn’t going to run for president – and my heart ached with sympathy for somebody thrust into this position she would not have chosen. With her blessing, of course, but not with joy.

Anybody interested in how politics works in America will find the campaign trail section extremely interesting, and I can’t imagine anybody else has written about it from quite her perspective (or, frankly, with her humanity and wisdom). The same is true for life as First Lady – from how she wanted to use the role for the nation’s good to how she tried to ensure that her daughters’ lives were as normal as humanly possible.

It closes with her hopes for the future. She is refreshingly open about her disdain for Donald Trump (which dated back to his endangering her family’s lives through his ‘birther’ attacks, which led to a gunman attacking the White House) – like many of us in and out of America, she couldn’t believe that America had seen him for what he was and chosen him.

The book is certainly long and every anecdote is thorough and detailed, even when it adds only background detail. But it works – all the details come together to show you who Michelle Obama is. And the only mystery I leave with is that somebody so modest, selfless, and unbombastic came to be persuaded to write an autobiography at all. She suggests it is to show other young black women what they can achieve. Well, I’m very pleased she did – and I think the book will continue her good work.

2018: some reading statistics

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I always like to do a round up of some reading stats from the year – last year I somehow didn’t manage it until April, so I’m certainly doing rather better this year. What does this tell us about my new powers of efficiency and determination? Probably nothing, but let’s keep going.

Number of books read
A rather surprising 153! I usually read just over 100, so this was unexpected. Partly it’s because I did the 25 Books in 25 Days challenge, partly it’s because I’ve got more into audiobooks. And living alone continues to give me more reading time.

Male/female authors
I read 85 books by women and 68 books by men – i.e. about 55% by women. I think it’s usually around that number, or a bit higher – certainly I’ve always read more books by women than by men since I started doing these stats.

Fiction/non-fiction
97 fiction and 56 non-fiction (for a slightly deeper dive – 52 fiction by women, 45 fiction by men, 33 non-fiction by women, and 23 non-fiction by men). So – just over a third of the books I read were non-fiction, which is a lower percentage than last year. But still much higher than it would have been ten or so years ago.

Books in translation
I read six in translation last year, and eight in 2016 – this year I fell in the middle, with seven: The Reader on the 6.27 by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent (French), The Murderess by Alexandros Papadiamantis (Greek), Silence in October by Jens Christian Grøndahl (Danish), Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto (Portuguese), The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera (Czech), Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras (Spanish), and The Misunderstanding by Irène Némirovsky (French). Only one language repeated!

Most-read author
Nobody got above three this year – and on that level are Alan Ayckbourn, Margery Sharp, and Betty Macdonald.

Re-reads
Last year I re-read six books, and this year I re-read 11 – which might be the most of any year. Eight were for the ‘Tea or Books?’ podcast, two were children’s books, and one was for book group. Which goes to show that I seldom re-read adult books without a purpose.

Audio books
All the Betty Macdonalds and Alan Ayckbourns were audiobooks, and I listened to a whole bunch of others – 15 in total this year. (And yes, I do count them on my list if they’re unabridged.)

New-to-me authors
Usually about half the books I read are by authors I’ve not read previously – this year it was only 60 (i.e. 39%). Let’s say it’s because I’ve read nearly all the authors now (but, actually, I don’t know why this has changed.)

Shortest book title
Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala, with honourable mentions for Naked by David Sedaris, Sphinx by David Lindsay, and Little by Edward Carey.

Most disappointing book
There were a few duds, sadly and as usual, but I really disliked The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West. It’s left a horrible taste in my mouth, because the characters – and, in this case, seemingly the author – have such unpleasant opinions and ways of treating people.

Longest wait on the shelf
I’m really pleased I finally read The Pooh Perplex by Frederick C. Crews, which I bought around 2002. I wasn’t even an adult when I bought it! And I’m also so glad I waited to read it – this spoof of literary criticism and literary theories made a lot more sense post-degrees than it would have done beforehand.

Most confusing is-it-a-pun title
The internet was divided on whether or not The Plague and I by Betty Macdonald is intended to rhyme with The Egg and I. ‘Plague’ and ‘Egg’ don’t rhyme in British English. They might rhyme in American English. I asked the internet, and the internet could not answer.

Animals in book titles
There are always some! And this year there seem to be a lot of birds again… The Birds by Frank Baker, The Lark by E. Nesbit, Girl With Dove by Sally Bayley, Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban, The Cat’s Cradle Book by Sylvia Townsend Warner, The Shrimp and the Anemone by L.P. Hartley, Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver, Ride a Cockhorse by Raymond Kennedy, and, if we’re counting mythological animals, Albert the Dragon by Rosemary Weir and Sphinx by David Lindsay.

Strange things that happened in books this year
Birds started attacking and killing people, a magical garden appeared and disappeared, a fantastic contraption showed dreams, two schoolgirls turned into angels, a talking cat ruined a dinner party, a vegetarian dragon befriended a boy, someone was doomed to repeat the same day until they solved a murder, an author conjured his creations to life, voluntary mute twins started fires, and an artist impersonated his dead butler.

Top Books of 2018

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One of my favourite bookish activities each year is going back through my list of books read and choosing my top 10. This sometimes spills over into 12 (…or 15) but I’ve been strict with myself this year – even if it means leaving out quite a few brilliant books. This year, I ended up putting my list together around 1.30am, when I couldn’t sleep. Not ideal, but the list still reflected my thoughts in the morning!

My usual rules apply – no re-reads, only one book by any one author, and they are numbered because I love a numbered list! These rankings might shift on another day, but not too much. The title links through to the review in each case. Ok, from #10 to #1…

10.) The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979) by Milan Kundera

Nobody but Kundera could have written this novel – a patchwork of seemingly disparate events in Czech people’s lives, from fantasy narratives about angels to being stalked by government agents. Its held together by his astonishing ability to draw parallels, and that wonderful writing (translated by Aaron Asher).

9.) Buttercups and Daisies (1931) by Compton Mackenzie

I’ve only read two novels by Mackenzie, and both have ended up on my Best Books of the Year lists for their respective years, so I’m definitely going to have to read more. In this one, idealistic Mr Waterall drags his long-suffering family off on an ill-fated attempt to get back to nature.

8.) Two Lives (2007) by Janet Malcolm

I read this hoping to find out more about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas – the ‘two lives’ of the title. I did that, but more importantly it introduced me to the odd, innovative, and bold world of Malcolm’s writing. I read two other books by her this year, after Two Lives, but the one that introduced me to her remains my favourite.

7.) A Lost Lady (1923) by Willa Cather

My 25 Books in 25 Days project was great fun, and introduced me to this spectacular novella – a portrait of Mrs Forrester from the vantage of a younger man, whose idolisation of her falters when he realises she has feet of clay. Beautifully written.

6.) Pigs in Heaven (1993) by Barbara Kingsolver

I might never have taken this off my shelf if A Century of Books hadn’t come along, and 1993 hadn’t proved so difficult to fill. Thank goodness I did – this sequel to The Bean Trees looks at the effects of an adoption of a Native American child – as a Native American lawyer seeks to return that child to her community.

5.) The Gipsy in the Parlour (1954) by Margery Sharp

I’ve read a few Sharp novels this year, but this was the most immersive and wonderful. Not at all comic, as some of her books are, it looks at how the arrival of a new bride to a close-knit family can totally and insidiously transform it – all from the perspective of a young relative who is an occasional visitor. Melancholic and extraordinary.

4.) This Little Art (2017) by Kate Briggs

Who’d have thought a non-fiction book about translation could sustain such momentum, have so much intrigue, and be so endlessly fascinating? Quirkily structured, it feels both stream of consciousness and meticulously planned – you won’t read anything else quite like it.

3.) Cassandra at the Wedding (1962) by Dorothy Baker

I’d read one Baker novel previously (and another that turned out to be by a different Dorothy Baker), but I wasn’t prepared for how brilliant this is. Beautifully written, Baker gradually unfolds the lives of Cassandra and Judith – twins alienated and now reunited for the latter’s wedding. It is now top of my list of authors writing about twins, which she does with astonishing understanding for an only child.

2.) The Devil’s Candy (1992) by Julie Salamon

Proof that reading outside your comfort zone is a good idea sometimes – I couldn’t have imagined I’d love a book about the making of The Bonfire of the Vanities movie so much, particularly since I’ve never seen the film. Salamon’s book is so brilliant because of the even pacing and total immersion in the world she reports.

1.) The Sweet and Twenties (1958) by Beverley Nichols

For the second year in a row, my favourite book of the year was by Beverley Nichols! This time, it’s his retrospective of the 1920s that Karen and I discussed when she was a guest on ‘Tea or Books?’. From the Thompson/Bywaters case to the fashions of the period, it’s historically rich and fascinating, as well as being soaked in Nichols’ inimitable style. A total delight!

 

A Tale of Two Families by Dodie Smith (finishing #ACenturyOfBooks!)

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Hurrah! On 29 December, I finished A Century of Books – with 1970’s A Tale of Two Families by Dodie Smith. I was a bit ahead of schedule as December started, and got very casual about the whole thing – reading a fair few books that didn’t cross off requisite years. And then I realised that the deadline wasn’t very far away… but thankfully I’ve finished with a little time to spare. You can see all 100 books here, and I’m sure I’ll do a retrospective at some point soon – and watch this space, because I’ll probably try A Century of Books again in 2020 or 2021.

Anyway, the Dodie Smith was a fun book to finish on, and I’ll write about it quickly. It was written twenty years after her most famous novel, I Capture the Castle, and I can’t decide whether or not I think it shares hallmarks of the same writer. The two families in question are a sister pair who married a brother pair – June married Robert and May married George. (Yes, the sisters are called May and June.) George is a bit of a philanderer, and May’s novel solution is to move them both to a large house in the countryside – because apparently this will make it less likely that he will cheat.

June doesn’t think all that much of the house – too large, too cold, too old-fashioned – but is somehow prevailed upon to move with her husband into the small cottage adjoining it. She tries to bury the fact that she has been rather beguiled with George ever since her sister married him.

Throw in a whole cast of other relatives – the women’s mother Fran and the men’s father Baggy; a bunch of children who are unadvisedly dating despite being cousins; Fran’s sister Mildred – and you have the tapestry for this complex group of people. To be honest, the youngest generation weren’t particularly interesting and I think the novel would probably have been better without them – but I enjoyed all of the interactions between the husbands/wives and brothers and sisters. And Fran and Baggy were both treated very poignantly, contemplating the trials and novelties of old age; it comes as no surprise to the reader that they are approximately the same age that Smith was when this was published (74). Their perspectives certainly felt the most real and emotionally resonant.

The plot is basically a series of set pieces, and seeing how this family deals with their new predicament. There’s also a bunch about househunting, which we know is my favourite thing to read about – and perhaps the most memorable meal I’ve ever read in a novel. It stems from the idea that there is never enough asparagus or strawberries when they are served as a course – and the whole meal will consist of them.

Does it have the same magic as I Capture the Castle? No, of course not, but it was still a very enjoyable read – and even has a dalmatian. Smith knew what the people wanted. It was definitely a fun way to finish A Century of Books!