Books I've read this year

[brokenblossom]

Listed more or less in the order in which I've read them. Well, as far as I can remember it, anyway, and as many books as I can remember too, for that matter. I only started keeping a written list about a third of the way through 2007, so I may well have missed out a few from the beginning of the year. God knows, reading lists weren't the most

Comments

[brokenblossom]

Ohhh, goodness, how lovely! What delightful memories of someone to have. Thank you for writing of them :-) It's funny what we end up remembering about things once they're gone.

I hadn't read any of Mary Wesley's books before, but had enjoyed hearing her interviewed on Woman's Hour (and specifically remembered hearing her talking about clothes, so it's wonderful that you mention her dress here! I think it must have been this interview I recall; I shall have to listen again), and had been fascinated by the biography of her that I heard serialised on Radio 4 a couple of years ago. Since getting digital telly I'd twice caught the first few episodes of the dramatised version of The Camomile Lawn in repeats on ITV2 (or 3, or 457, or something), and twice failed to see the concluding episode, so sought out a charity shop copy of the novel, and was pleasantly surprised at just how much I enjoyed it. I passed it on to my sister after finishing, and she reported much the same response

[classytart]

What did you think of The Kite Runner? It's my stand out book of the year. Made me WEEP, mind.

trying to avoid spoilers here, so apologies for non-specificness/roundabout references!

[brokenblossom]

I have mixed feelings about it. I really enjoyed and appreciated all the detail about Afghani culture and history that I picked up through the course of the book - it was always really interesting and eye-opening, and never felt like overdone or trowelled on 'local colour' as can sometimes happen with novels set in times and places that are comparatively under-represented in English fiction. Man, that's a clumsy sentence, but I guess you know what I mean? That aspect of the book was thoroughly compelling and engaging, but didn't get in the way of the storyline or overshadow the characterisation

[brokenblossom]

close of one scene...was the end to a memorable day, and though it hadn't been the easiest of times, I felt proud and glad to be x, and doing y.

But this feeling wasn't to last for long. Because little did I know that... or For as it turned out... or In a terrible irony, the next day...

That sort of hackneyed structure seemed to be terribly overused, and made me wince every time it came up.

My final bit of whinging (and I know that this is terribly petty, snobbish and mean-spirited of me, but I might as well admit it, 'cos it's probably glaringly obvious anyway) is that - whether it was something I got from the book itself, or whether I'd just soaked up too much publicity and 'book group readers' choice!' media talk about it by the time I read it - it felt irritatingly worthy, smugly aware of its own groundbreaking status as a taboo-smashing popular success. But that could well just be me projecting.

Sorry, you probably weren't all that interested in what I thought of it :-)

[classytart]

Actually, I was that interested. :)

And I agree with what you say. I didn't notice (or remember I noticed) the all is well/little did they know structure thing, but I know exactly what you mean by that sort of thing jarring.

I care about characters and locations and moods more than events, I find (often my favourite bit of a film is before the plot starts), and that was so very well done in The Kite Runner that I was probably its ideal audience. I can also see what you mean about the shared blood thing - it would have been just as nice if they'd been good to that character because they should be, not just because of the blood tie.

When did you read it? It was a January book for me, so maybe I missed some of the hype on timing, or maybe my cultivated ignorance of popular culture (in certain ways) helped with the hype for me - I never read reviews of anything, at least until I've read or watched the thing, because that way I am going in blind, and will experience it as me, without the voice of another telling me what to look out for.

[mrs_leroy_brown]

Good list! My reading has been appalling in the last few months, so best buck up, self!

[brokenblossom]

I was totally tempted to read as many picture books as I owned in the last couple of hours of 2007, just to be silly and whack the 'number of books read' count up a bit :-) But was sensible and did the washing up instead.