Nickelini Reads Her Own Books 2018

I'll play again. My reading plummeted in 2017 and I expect it will stay low in 2018 too. For 2017, I read 31 books, set a goal of 20 from my TBR pile, and read 25. So in 2018 I aim for 20 again.




In 2017, I bought or brought into my house 58 new books. Three of those were strictly reference books, and of the 58, I read six. That brings me down to 49 books. In 2017 I read 31 books. Therefore, in 2017 I increased my TBR pile by 18 books. For someone with a TBR pile of 900-1000 books, 18 is a modest number. Still, I really would like to see a year when I read more than I bought. But at this point, I can't read much, and still take great pleasure in acquiring books, so there you have it.

Books read:

1. The Detour
2. The Shape of Water
3. The Hidden Life of Trees
4. The Little Stranger
5. Isobars
6. Touch
7. Mental Traps
8. Gorsky
9. My Brilliant Friend
10. At Hawthorn Time
11. Just My Type
12. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4
13. Heat and Dust
14. Up at the Villa
15. For Solo Voice
16. Summer of the Bear
17. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
18. A Fraction of the Whole
19. Perfume
20. Island Beneath the Sea
21. The Dark Heart of Italy
22. The Cruel Stars of the Night
23. Reindeer People

Welcome back, and happy ROOTing through 2018!

Good luck with your ROOTing in 2018.

Glad you're back!

Welcome back and have a great reading year!

Happy New Year, Joyce.

Happy reading is 2018, Joyce!

Happy New Year and Happy Reading!

Good luck with your ROOTs this year! :)

The Detour, Gerbrand Bakker, 2010, translated from Dutch by David Comer


Cover comments: I think this is pretty awesome

Comments: A Dutch woman retreats to an isolated farm house in Wales with only hints as to why. Did she ruin her marriage and career? Is she just working on her academic paper? Is she ill?

This is a highly atmospheric book, and for most of it I enjoyed it very much. But somehow by the end I started wondering what the point of the whole thing was.

Why I Read This Now: I tend to read a lot of British books, and I was in the mood to read something from another part of Europe, so I picked up this book from a Dutch author. Ha ha jokes on me -- it was set in Britain.

Rating: for most of the book I thought it was 4 - 4.5 stars, but in the end I gave it 3.5. This is low compared to most reader ratings.

Recommended for: people who like quiet novels.

I love it that you choose a Dutch writer. Never read anything by him, but you did!

The Shape of Water, Andrea Camilleri, 1994, translated from Italian by Stephen Sartarelli


Cover comments: I like it a lot

Comments: This 1994 book has nothing to do with the current popular movie of the same name.

First in the Inspector Montalbano mystery series, it's a murder-mystery set in Sicily. I really have nothing to say about this, other than it was was a dud and I'm not sure why I even finished it. At times I thought the problem might have been the translation, but there were too many times I thought "what?" that it can't possibly all be the tranlator's fault.

Why I Read This Now: I want to try to read more mysteries this year. I hope they're not all like this.

Recommended for: people who want to read books set in 1990s Sicily.

Rating: 2 stars. There was an occasional scene or paragraph that was interesting.

Sounds terrible if this happens to you when you want to get more into thrillers. I hope the next book you try is much better

>12 Nickelini: I've got that one on my TBR shelves too - I'll keep my expectations on the low side. Do you have more of the series?

>14 LauraBrook: Thankfully I don't have any more in my TBR stacks

The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben, 2015, translated from German by Jane Billinghurst


Cover comments: delightful

Comments: Non-fiction books usually have a subtitle, but this one has two: The Hidden Life of Trees; What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World. And that pretty much sums of what you'll find in this book. In brief, trees have amazing networks that they use to help each other, which is one of the reasons why a lonely tree planted in the middle of a parking lot usually looks sickly. It doesn't have its plant peeps to help it out.

Trees play the long game-- their decades are our hours. The way they've developed and adapted over millions of years is fascinating.

Recommended for: anyone interested in trees (although the focus is Central Europe where the author is a forester, and North America, where he has professional ties to the rain forests of Western Canada. If your particular thing is South American trees, or Australian, it's not quite as pertinent).

Rating: 4.5 stars. At times it was a bit of information overload, and somewhat repetitive, but I read it bits at a time over several months. Not a perfect book, but enjoyable.

Why I Read This Now: I'm a great lover of forests -- not sure there's anywhere I'd rather be, so when this book shot through the best seller lists in 2016, I had to have it.

Fun fact: This is Pando, a grove of Aspens in Utah, and one of the oldest and largest living organisms in the world. Each of the 47,000 trees in the grove are genetically identical and grow from one massive root ball that is at least 80,000 years old (some scientists think much, much older than that). Scientists also say that it's dying. I've been to Utah a few times and didn't know this existed, but if I ever go back, it's on my list.

>16 Nickelini: I bought that book last month, and am really looking forward to it!

The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters, 2009


Cover comments: love, love, love this cover. The colour is similar to my favourite red pencil crayon: Faber Castell Polychromos Pale Geranium Lake, with same colour edges. It's an odd choice, however, because I think it makes this look like a girly book, and it most definitely is not a girly book. This edition is one of the Books Are Beautiful series published by Vintage Anchor Emblem Canada especially for Chapters & Indigo bookstores:



It also has a pleasing texture and opens nicely, unlike the visually similar Vintage series that came out of a Britain a few years ago-- their colours weren't as nice, the covers had an oily texture, and the tight binding made the books stiff to open. I like how this publisher took Vintage's idea and improved all aspects of it.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Comments: I finished this a few days ago and have struggled with what to say other than "I really liked this."

Set in 1947 Warwickshire, the narrator Dr Faraday tells of attending to a house call at Hundreds Hall estate -- a place where his mother had once worked as a servant, and where he had visited on Empire Day as a child. This is a nuanced and clever novel of his deep attraction to the house, and it's crumbling demise, and the demise of the genteel family and their class in post-war Britain. Also, there's a poltergeist. Or is there?

Many people describe this book as super creepy, but I'm not easy to creep, so I'd describe it more as "atmospheric."

I found the book long, and a bit slow -- although I was always happy to pick it up and read it -- I just sometimes thought "nothing is really happening here." But it was a purposeful slow build, and the last third was excellent. The last paragraph of the book explains the "who" of the mystery, but now I feel I have to go back and reread it to learn the "how."

Recommended for: a reader looking for an intelligent state-of-the-nation type story set in a decaying spooky mansion. The writing is also lovely.

Why I Read This Now: I've been meaning to get to this Booker and Orange prize nominated book for ages. I also love novels set in country houses.

>18 Nickelini: oh, lovely series of books - clever ploy to encourage buying a 'set'! Great review too.

5. Isobars, by Janette Turner Hsopital, 1990


Cover comments: love this cover that uses "Blackboys at Brampton Island" by Aussie artist Anne Graham. Also love the typeface used for the title.

Why I Read This Now: this was in a pile of books I was moving, and I flipped open to the centre and read the short story "The Chameleon Condition," which I really enjoyed.

Comments: This book has fifteen short stories in 177 pages, which makes for the length of short stories I usually like (as opposed to the 60 and 70 page short stories that are closer to novellas).

An uneven group of stories, mostly set in Australia with a few in Canada. Has some interesting things to say about racism, sexual abuse, bad mothering, and grief. A few of the stories, like "the Chameleon Condition," were magical realism, which I found fun. Most of the stores weren't MR. Even with the realistic stories, quite often I found myself feeling baffled.

Jeanette Turner Hospital is an Australian author who has spent enough time living in Canada that she often is included in CanLit "best of" lists. I learned about her through a book on writing and she was noted as a fabulous writer who aspiring writers need to read and learn from. Hmmmm. M'okay, maybe. I really liked some of what I read here, some of it came across as trying too hard to be literary, and some was gibberish. I felt that my bachelors degree in English literature wasn't enough and perhaps I needed a masters degree to really get this book. There certainly is lots to study and unpack, but first she needed to make me care.

Rating: A few of the stories I really liked, a few I couldn't finish, and that makes for a solid 3 star read.

Recommended for: someone with a masters in Australian literature?

Touch, Adania Shibli, 2010, translated Arabic by Paula Haydar


Cover comments: simply gorgeous and perfect in every way

Comments: This collection of vignettes tells the story of a little girl living in Palestine. The novella is made up of the sections "colors," "silence," "movement," "language," and "the wall," and those sections are further broken down into numbered sections. The writing is highly evocative and often sumptuous. All together though, I found it cold and distant. Beautiful, but not really my thing at this time of my life.

Recommended for: readers who love poetic, literary work.

Why I Read This Now: I've wanted to read it for years.

Rating: 3 stars.

Mental Traps: the Overthinker's Guide to a Happier Life, Andre Kukla, 2006


Cover comments: solid cover for a book of this subject

Why I Read This Now: This is actually a reread for me. I read it right when it was first published,and took copious notes. But 12 years later, I don't remember where I put those notes, so I bought a copy and reread the whole thing.

Comments: The old saying "never put off until tomorrow what you can do today" can be absolutely horrible advice, and it was the only thing I remembered from reading this book before.
"Mental traps are habitual modes of thinking that disturb our ease, take up enormous amounts of our time, and deplete our energy, without accomplishing anything of value for us or for anyone else in return." So goes the theory of philosophy and psychology professor Kukla. In summary, he identifies these traps:

1. persistence - continuing to work on projects that have lost their value, throwing good money after bad

2. amplification - perfectionism - not every task demands 100% effort

3. fixation - worrying falls into this category

4. revision - focus on the attainment of missed goals - that ship has sailed

5. anticipation - the trap of starting too soon, over work, working in vain

6. resistance - holding on, the 'let me just' disease

7. procrastination - the burden of unfulfilled agendas

8. division - multi-tasking

9. accelerations -- rushing through things

10. regulation - routine without reason

11. formulation - believing something only because it seems true

Obviously there is a lot more to each of these -- I'm just making notes for myself here.

If you don't want to read the book but learn how to escape mental traps, the answer is living in the moment.

Rating: 4 stars. I've marked up my copy, so when I want to think about his in the future, I just need to pull the book off the shelf.

Recommended for: people interested in this sort of philosophy-psychology

8. Gorsky, Vesna Gopldsworthy, 2015


Cover comments: Hmmmm. Fine, although it doesn't really describe the book. Looks like ChickLit, which it isn't at all. I do like the turquoise thread that is in the shape of the River Thames where it winds through London. A nice gesture.

Rating AND Why I Read This Now: 4 stars. This is exactly what I needed -- I was reading a novel and a non-fiction book, and enjoying both, but at the same time struggling with them and feeling like I was in a boat with a weak motor trying to go against a strong current. I just needed a break with a readable, interesting book. This fit the bill.

Comments: On a one level, and it's a big one, Gorsky is a retelling of The Great Gatsby. This time, the story is moved to recent-day London, and Gatsby has become Gorsky, a Jewish-Russian oligarch. The narrator is Nikola "Nick" Kimovic, a Serbian intellectual who moved to England in the early 1990s rather than be pulled into the civil war. He finds a job working for a floundering bookshop hidden in the side streets of Chelsea, where he meets Gorsky, and the Daisy-inspired Natalia, a beautiful Russian woman from Gorsky's past who is now married to the very English Tom Summerscale, who is also a cad. So many Great Gatsby parallels, but other stuff too. London is also a character itself here, and Goldsworthy has some fabulous bits about the city, especially its weather, especially the Novembery bits (which appear to be identical where I live in Vancouver).

Gorsky was nominated for that women's prize -- the one that was called The Bailey and before that the Orange, and who knows what it will be next.

Vesna Goldsworthy immigrated from Yugoslavia to England, via France. She wrote this novel in English, her third language.

I'm pretty sure I learned about his book from Simon at Savage Reads. His recommendations are pretty good.

Recommended for: I recommend this widely, because I really enjoyed it and it was a breezy read while still having some good writing and not being too light. Readers who give it poor reviews seem to be big Gatsby fans, which I definitely am not. I read "it doesn't inform the earlier novel," and I get that, but because I'm not a Gatsby fan, I don't care. The other caveat I have is for people who don't like to read about the useless indulgent uber-wealthy. They can be a bit exasperating. I'm sure the narrator, Nick, would agree.

>22 Nickelini: If my husband was a reader I would immediately buy this book for him to read. I think he almost fits in all the categories.

My Brilliant Friend, Elena Farrente, 2012


Cover comments: a google search will show you how much this cover has been discussed. Of course, yuck, but I'm not going to say anything else because it's all been said before. I love Europa Editions, but they have some ugly covers.

Rating: This is a fine book that I just didn't much care for: 3 stars.

Comments: Perfectly readable, but I found the beginning to be disturbingly violent, and then I got pretty bored and came close to not finishing it. I forced myself to read the last 70 pages, and I have to admit the final scene was very good.

Why I Read This Now: I was in search for a book that had some flow and after abandoning two others, this one clicked. It certainly isn't a difficult read.

Recommended for: I thought everyone loved this, but looking at reviews I see opinions are all over the place. So I'm not sure. I certainly know people who loved it, so give it a try.

Will I read the sequels? I almost never read series, even when I like the first book. So it was never likely that I would continue with these, but I did want to know what happens to characters so I looked up the synopsis for each future book -- definitely don't want to read them. They sound like a soap opera.

10. At Hawthorn Time, Melissa Harrison, 2015


Cover comments: one of those covers that I like the more I look at it.

Rating: a solid 4.5 star read. I expect this will make my list of best books of 2018.

Comments: Jack walks the back roads of England, picking up day jobs on farms when he can. He has spent most of his life outdoors and although completely harmless, his unconventional life is seen by a threat by most people. Having recently done a spell in prison for apparent trespassing, he's determined never to be confined again. Jaimie is a young man who still lives with his parents in the small village of Lodeshill, where he works indoors in windowless warehouses. He appreciates his deep roots to the land and the people of the area, but is aware of the changes going on around him. Kitty and Howard have recently retired-- their two adult children are off on their own and so they left their life in suburban London to follow Kitty's dream of living in an English village. She develops as a painter and makes friends in the village, while Howard makes a half-hearted effort to satisfied -- they don't agree on much. The novel opens with a car crash and then goes back over the month of May leading up to the accident, jumping between the characters and their backstories.

I liked this a lot. It had a familiarity to it that was comfortable, but was also strongly different from anything I'd read before. The main difference from other books is how the author brought in nature elements to everyday scenes. I loved these. She also brought in historical elements and how people living in Europe today are treading paths historical and ancient. I live in a corner of the world where the oldest buildings are maybe 130 yrs old, so I delight in this aspect when I visit Europe, and I like how Harrison gave nods to the ever-changing uses for the land. There's a lot going on here, and I'd like to read it again because I'm sure I missed some interesting connections.

At Hawthorn Time was nominated for the Orange/Bailey's/Women's prize and the Costa award. This is yet another excellent recommendation from Simon at Savidge Reads.

Why I Read This Now: Because it was hawthorn time (May, here in Vancouver and in England in the story).

Recommened for: people who like books with strong nature elements will love this, but there's a lot going on if that's not your thing. If you need a straight forward linear storyline, this won't be for you.

>26 Nickelini: I hadn't realised that Melissa Harrison had written a fiction book. She has written nature-related non-fiction which is really lovely.

>27 Jackie_K:
This was her second novel and I think she has another on the way. I will be looking for them

11. Just My Type: A Book About Fonts, Simon Garfield, 2011


Cover comments: very nice design when viewed up close

Comments: When I started this book I found it fascinating, but about half way through I found it bogged down -- too repetitive, too much info on the font designers and not about design, and the organization was a mish-mash. There were some fabulous bits that unfortunately in my mind been overtaken by the bits where I thought "what is the point?"

Some bits that I liked: the chapter "We Don't Serve Your Type," was a nice surprise. It was about Comic Sans, and everyone knows that Comic Sans is the worst. I was expecting the regular hate on for this font. But it isn't, in fact, terrible when used for its designed purpose. The problem with Comic Sans is that it's been misused.

I like how between chapters he did a piece on one particular font--those were always interesting. There was even one about an old typeface called "Dove" which is named after a pub in Hammersmith that I've been to -- those sorts of connections always tickle me.

Rating: 3.5 stars. A solid "okay." There were lots of illustrations, but it actually needed a lot more examples of what he was talking about.

Why I Read This Now: I've wanted to read this since I bought it in 2013 but never found the time. Now I was working on my latest online photo album (I use Picaboo, but Shutterfly is a more common company), and I was going through the font selection to find one that said "Switzerland." Well, that's obvious, isn't it? Helvetica! Or maybe Swiss? Geneva? What was it with the Swiss and their dislike of serifs? I Googled, but came up blank. Then I remembered this book, and looky there: a chapter titled "What Is It About the Swiss?" It's like he was writing for me. From his conversation on Helvetica: "So what is it that sets Helvetica apart? On an emotional plane it serves several functions. It has geographical baggage, its Swiss heritage laying a backdrop of impartiality, neutrality and freshness (it helps at this point if you think of Switzerland as a place of Alps/cow bells/spring flowers rather than Zurich and its erstwhile heroin problem). The font also manages to convey honesty and invite trust, while its quirks distinguish it from anything that portrays overbearing authority. . . " and later he notes "People who use Sans Serif fonts like Univers tend to value their safety and anonymity." Hmmm. He might be on to something.

I've always found Helvetica to be a snore, but for this project, clearly I can use nothing else.

Recommended for: You know who you are.

>29 Nickelini: sounds interesting but maybe not worth buying? My first proper job in the late 70s involved graphics work and we used stencils with Rotring pens and sheets of Letraset for text. So I confess I'm a typography and infographics fan. There are some great typography posters around just now, sparked I think by Scandinavian interiors websites. I offered to buy my daughter a letter 'g' poster (her initial) but she looked at me as if I'd lost my mind.

>30 floremolla: - Bah, what do kids know? If you read this book, you'll know letter g's are special (especially lowercase). See if you can get it from the library or get a used copy.

>31 Nickelini: I shall take your advice on getting hold of a copy - and yes, letter 'g's do tend to be special! ;)

12. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4, by Sue Townsend, 1982


Cover comments: a fine cover for this 1994 edition

Comments: An entertaining look at one confused young man's look at growing up in Thatcher-era Britain. Adrian fancies himself an intellectual, but is cringingly naive with his misinterpretations of the world. As he acknowledges near the end of the novel, "I am an intellectual but at the same time I am not very clever."

The Secret Dairy of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 is on the Guardian 1000 list under Family & Self.

Recommended for: a wide audience. For those who sniff dismissively that this is a YA novel, I point out that a lot of the humour will be missed by the younger reader as it takes a certain level of maturity and life experience to get it all. But you definitely need a sense of humour to enjoy this book.

Rating: 4 stars

Why I Read This Now: This year I've been making my way through the very long A Fraction of the Whole, and although it's very good, I just can't stay in its world every time I want to read, so I have to spell it off with something else. At page 40 of Adrian Mole I realized that they are very similar books. So now I need a new book to break with . . .

13. Heat and Dust, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala


Cover comments: The individual elements are lovely, but the arrangement is lacking. The main purple colour is very nice (my book is a perfect shade, but my screen shows almost black), and I think there just aren't enough purple books. The painting is fabulous, and was done by the author's husband, C.S.H Jhabvala.

Comments: This beautiful short novel tells the story of Olivia, a young English wife in 1923 India, who is terribly bored and hot while her husband works long days, and who takes up with the local prince, called the Nawab. Woven into this story is another one set in the 1970s, where the granddaughter of the jilted husband visits India to find out more about her step-grandmother, and who's own story mirrors that of Olivia.

The country of India is itself a character in this novel, and the I particularly liked the critique of the western counter-culture travellers who descended on India in the 60s and 70s in search of enlightenment.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was to Polish parents in Germany, and escaped to London when she was 12. In 1951 she married an Indian architect and lived in India for more than 20 years before moving to New York City.

Heat and Dust won the Booker Prize, and the author is the only person ever to have won both the Booker Prize and the Academy Award, which she won twice for her work with Merchant Ivory as screenwriter for the film versions of A Room With A View (one of my all time favourite movies) and Howard's End (also an excellent film).

The year Heat and Dust won the Booker, 1975, there was only one other book short listed: Gossip From the Forest by Thomas Keneally. Apparently of the 83 books submitted, these were the only two that were prize worthy. Hmmmm.

Why I Read This Now: I think the title appealed on a hot day, although this has been in the top 50 of my TBR pile for a while because I adore Merchant Ivory.

Rating: 4.5 stars -- some readers have commented that this is hardly memorable, and it may not be, but I was always happy to pick it up and I found it rather enchanting.

Recommended for: readers who like books set in India and don't mind that the main characters are English. Probably politically incorrect in 2018, but I won't tell anyone if this is you.

Note: The author wrote the screenplay to the Merchant Ivory film of the same name, with Julie Christie playing Anne (the 1970s traveler), Greta Scacchi as Olivia, Christopher Cazenove as her husband, and Sashi Kapoor as the Nawab. I'm off to watch it now . . .

14. Up at the Villa, Somerset Maugham, 1940


Cover comments: this whole book design is lovely, and it even feels nice. The painting used on the cover is "the Villa Scassi, Genoa" 1904 by Maxfield Parrish. Fits perfectly.

Comments: Set specifically in the summer of 1939 just outside of Florence, this is the story of the young English widow Mary and what can happen after one bad decision. Highly readable, and a very quick 209 pages. This is my first Somerset Maugham* and a pleasant surprise. (*touchstone being bizarre)

Rating : 4.5 stars, perhaps an extra star there because this is exactly what I was in the mood for.

Why I Read This Now: it's been in my TBR for 9 years, and it wouldn't wait any more. Maybe because I'm dreaming of summers in Europe . . . if I can't be there, at least I can read about summer in Europe.

Recommended for: hmmm, not sure. It's a breezy read without being simple and predictable.

Note: The last book I read, Heat and Dust, was made into a film, with a screenplay written by the author. It was different from the book, but stuck close to the story. I now see that Up at the Villa was made into a movie in 2000 with the beautiful Kirsten Scott Thomas, and Sean Penn as the cad. I'm going to watch it now, but from the trailer I can see that they changed the book and it looks like they turned the story into a moral lesson. Hmmm.

>33 Nickelini: *sniff* I read all of those, several times, and I always read them for the first time when Adrian was about my age, into his early 40s. When Sue Townsend died, the next book half-written, Adrian died with her. I miss them both....

Just small spoiler for the series abut the character development They get less funny with time, and Adrian and Pandora move into very different directions on the "annoying" scale for a while especially with Adrian turning into too much of a loser, but in the last book they slowly found back to their old selves. All books have their special moments though, that's why I never gave up on the series.

>35 Nickelini: Sounds great! I'm not on the ROOTs thread for new BBs, but what can I do? :)

>36 Deern: Interesting about Adrian Mole. I don't read series, but these sound pretty good. If I come across them I might have to pick them up.

For Solo Voice*, Susanna Tamaro, translated by Sharon Wood, 1991

* No touchstone suggestions for the English or Italian titles.


Cover comments: At a glance, it's a fine cover. However, it's entirely misleading to the contents of the book. This cover says "nice story" & "quintessential women's fiction" and that is just WRONG. So, despite being aesthetically pleasing, it's a bad cover.

Comments: The five short stories in this collection all share unreliable narrators (a favourite of mine) and an unflinching look at trauma. Apparently Susanna Tamaro is a popular author in Italy, but these stories could be set anywhere.

This collection starts powerfully and then slides to a wilted ending. The first story, "Monday Again," was the best. A children's book publisher sees life as a happy fairytale. Obviously, she missed the real meat of the Brothers Grimm where parents abandon their children in the forest to be abandoned by wild beasts, or Cinderella's stepsisters hack off pieces of their feet to fit the glass slipper. In her cheerfulness she attempts to cover the brutal reality of her life. (*5 stars*)

The second story, "Love," is an intense story of a young girl taken by gypsies to work as a street thief. Horrific but fascinating. (*4.5 stars*) The third story, "A Childhood," is the coming of age tale what happens to a boy raised in neglect, abuse and perhaps mental illness. A bit too rambling, but still excellent. (*4 stars*)

The author lost me on the last two stories, however. "Beneath the Snow," was the most traditional of the lot. It's about a woman looking back on her life when she had been a 16 year old in WWII who fell in love with a deceptive American soldier, and then had her baby taken from her at birth. (*3 stars*) The final story, "For Solo Voice," was a long stream of consciousness tale of whoa and regret from a Jewish Italian who had survived repeated trauma throughout her life. But had she survived? I had to sift through a lot of words to find anything of interest or meaning in this one. (*1.5 stars*)

Rating: 3.5 stars. Too bad about the last two stories.

Recommended for: brave readers who can look at the raw wounds of life. If you're looking for a book that fills your craving for a literary trip to Italy, move on because Italy isn't even mentioned in the the first three stories, and is almost non-existent in the others.

Why I Read This Now: I had a stack of possible books, and read page one of each. This one grabbed me.

Hi Joyce, catching up on threads and seeing what you have been reading.

Summer of the Bear, Belva Pollen, 2010


cover comments: I rather like it for itself, but it doesn't really describe the book

Comments: It's the summer of 1979, and Letty is reeling from the sudden death of her soulmate and husband, and struggling to hold her family together -- there is sensible late-teen Georgina, who is going through new feelings her mother is clueless about; Alba the angry middle child who rebels against everyone and everything; and innocent 8 year old James who has some unnamed cognitive disorder that makes him understand the world in a literal and odd way. So Letty flees with her children to the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland, her lifelong safe place.

Her husband worked for the British government in Bonn, and had constant secret dealings with East Germany. His death by fall from a building is viewed with suspicion. Did he commit espionage and then suicide? Was he murdered? How did he come to fall to his unexpected death?

And what about the escaped from the circus grizzly bear on the island? How is it speaking to young James? Is his lost father inhabiting the bear?

Short chapters and shifts between threads keep this story moving to a satisfying ending that wraps them all together.

Rating: Somewhere between 4 & 4.5 so I'll tip up to 4.5 stars.

Recommended for: people in the mood for a good story more than stunning prose and deep thoughts.

Why I Read This Now: A good friend recommended this, so I ordered it from England as it was a bit of an unusual book to find here on the west coast of Canada. I haven't heard of it or the author anywhere else. When I thanked her for it, she said that she stumbled on to it too but didn't say how (I'll ask her next time I see her). She spent some time in the Orkneys a few years ago so maybe she picked it up in Scotland.

17. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Paul Torday, 2007


Cover comments: lovely. What's not to like about this?

Why I Read This Now: my copy is physically small --- one of the few mass market paperbacks I own. I needed a book I could tuck into my backpack now that I'm commuting to work.

Comments: I picked this up years ago for free and I'd heard vague comments that it was good, but I wasn't especially interested in read it because I know enough about salmon to know they don't belong in Yemen and in fact, the whole idea of that is just dumb.

Silly me! That's the point of this satirical novel. Dr Alfred Jones lives a small, quiet life as a fisheries scientist in Britain. He finds himself coerced into assisting a wealthy Yemeni sheik with his pet project of introducing salmon fishing to the Yemen. Seeing potential for political gain in this, the prime minister gets involved too. The novel is told through emails, memos, reports, PR releases and diary entries. This technique can be fun to read, but is never truly realistic in terms of what people actually write in diaries, reports, etc.

For some reason, I was particularly amused by the correspondence with his wife Mary about their loveless marriage. I don't know why I liked this because Mary was a completely one-dimensional character, with that one dimension being "unrelentingly unpleasant."

The novel started out strong, then got flabby and a bit boring in the middle, and then finished with an interesting flourish.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Recommended for: a reader looking for a bit of a light break and some humour in a story.

18. A Fraction of the Whole, Steve Tolz, 2008


Cover comments: My edition has a slightly darker olive cover. This is part of the 2012 Books Are Beautiful series published here in Canada. Lovely to look at, delightful to hold . . . but in this case there is text-dense pages with narrower margins and smaller print.

More from Books Are Beautiful:


Comments: Some of my favourite books are Big Books --- Anna Karenina and Bleak House, for example. And I read Stephen King’s The Stand at least four times. So when I say “I hate big books,” clearly I don’t mean ALL big books. Just most of them. I appreciate a tightly written 200 page novel, 300 if the author wants to ramble a bit. My main complaint with long books is that I usually just don’t want to be in the world the author created for that many hours, especially now since life has cut back on my reading time. I like to get into a book, enjoy it, and get out, and then bring on to the next one. The other problem with every long book is full of filler that shows the lack of a strong editor. The upside is that with A Fraction of the Whole, I discovered more about myself and my distaste for long books.

Before we go further, I’ll say that there was a lot to love about A Fraction of the Whole. There were sentences and paragraphs that were among the most beautiful and clever that I’ve ever read. There are sections that tell a great story ---one that is both heartfelt and entertaining. Whether you read critical reviews or reader reviews, you’ll see that people love this book, and deservedly so. But for me, it was just too much. I read and read and read and didn't feel like I was getting anywhere. I’ve been reading this book since March. That’s 7.5 months.

What It’s About: Jasper Dean, living sometime recently in Australia, tells his story growing up with his manic father Martin, who’s lived his life in the shadow of his criminal brother Terry. Terry Dean is the most popular criminal in Australia since Ned Kelly. Individually, these three characters continually try to improve the lives of those around them by gambling on some off-the-wall scheme, but it always turns in to bad (sometimes tragic) unintended consequences.

What I liked: as I already said, great writing and storytelling.

Why I Struggled:
1. The singular voice—definitely my biggest problem with A Fraction of the Whole. Some parts are told by Jasper, some by Martin, but they both have the exact same voice. And it’s always slightly frenzied. Although the voice could be very, very funny, overall, I found it tedious. Note to self: perhaps for long novels, look for 3rd person narration and a variety of characters.

2. My edition was only 561 pages long due to formatting, but normal editions are well over 700 pages. It’s rare that a book needs to be that long. This should have been divided into at least three novels, maybe four. Further pain ensued because the various breaks are random—this book has 7 numbered sections of length varying from 200 to 50 pages. Within these sections there are randomly spaced subsections. Long sections always make any book a slog, in my experience. Give the reader’s eyes and brain a bit of a breather, and often we can’t wait to jump back in. Don’t make us wade through wet concrete.

3. I was around 100 pages in before we heard from a female character. That just bores me. Also, at one point, Jasper and Martin have girlfriends, and I was several pages into a vignette about one of them and thought I was reading about the other ---I came up short when there was a comment about her being in her 30s, and I was all “hold on, she’s 17!” I had to go back and reread with the other character in mind, and I realized that they were basically the same person with a different hair colour. Was this part of the theme of the son reliving the father’s life in every way?, or was it the author’s complete inability to write real female characters? I’m going to say the later.

4. The characters were always desperate for money, but somehow they managed to eat and have a home to sleep at every night without really saying how. I don’t know, maybe Australia just has a robust welfare system. I don’t actually believe that.

Other Things to Say: A Fraction of the Whole was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, which is pretty damned impressive for a first novel, especially when the author isn’t British (no slag against British writers, but instead an observation that we colonies don’t make the list every year, so all the better. Good job, Steve Tolz!).

Rating: Mixed. 3.5 stars. I think that it took me most of the year to read, but that I still finished (I abandon books in a heartbeat), says something. Not sure what it says, but something.

Recommended for: Reviews tell me most people like this more than I did, I despite my protests, I’m not sorry I read it. I just would have been satisfied at any 200 page section.

Why I Read This Now: I had just finished the longish Books Are Beautiful The Little Stranger and thought I’d tackle another long book from that series. I had to take a lot of breaks and read other things in between.

19. Perfume, Patrick Suskind, 1986. Translated from German by John E Woods


Cover comments: Pretty good, I guess. It's the movie tie in cover, which isn't awful as those go. Doesn't really capture the feel of the book, but does capture the meaning.

Rating: 4.5 stars.

Comments: Well, this was different. I liked that.

Originally written in German, but set entirely in 1700s France, Perfume is the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenoulle, who mother birthed him into a pile of fish guts and immediately abandoned him. He has no scent at all himself, but a supernatural sense of smell, being able to discern scents from even a distance and to store them in his memory. Rising out of the stench of 18th century Paris, he attaches himself to the perfume trade. But his lack of personal smell mirrors his lack of humanity. Smell is all and everything for Jean-Baptiste.

The only thing I have to add is that the whole bit about sultry young virgins having magical scent was sort of ..... ugh and snore at the same time. Obviously written by a man. Do better, male writers! But then again, this was 1986, so ....

Readers who don't like description probably won't like Perfume, but I thought there was some fine writing (and translating). Two of my favourite parts, from the first chapter:

"In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. The streets stank of manure, the courtyards of urine, the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlours stank of stale dust, the bedrooms of greasy sheets, damp featherbeds, and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber pots. The stench of sulphur rose from the chimneys, the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneriers, and from the slaughterhouses came the stench of congealed blood. people stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth, from their bellies that of onions, and from their bodies, if they were no longer very young, came the stench of rancid cheese and sour milk and tumorous disease. The rivers stank, the marketplaces, stank, the churches stank, the stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces. The peasants stank as did the priest, the apprentice as did his master's wife, the whole of the aristocracy stank, even the king himself stank, stank like a rank lion, and the queen like an old goat, summer and winter. For in the eighteenth century there was nothing to hinder bacteria busy at decomposition, and so there was no human activity, either constructive or destructive, no manifestation of germinating or decaying life that was not accompanied by stench.

And of course the stench was foulest in Paris ..... "

(I'm betting that the author read the opening of Dickens' Bleak House). I also love:

"...Grenouille's mother, who was still a young woman, barely in her mid-twenties, and who still was quite pretty and had almost all her teeth in her mouth and some hair on her head and--except for gout and syphilis and a touch of consumption--suffered from no serious disease, who still hoped to live a while yet, perhaps a good five or ten years ..."

Why I Read This Now: Many readers describe this as "creepy," and it's also classified as a crime novel, two things I like to read in October. Didn't really scratch my creepy itch, and not what I think of as a crime novel. YMMV.

Perfume is also on the 1001 and Guardian 1000 lists, and while I'm not actively reading those, I do like to check off some books now and again.

Recommended for: hard to say-- one of those polarizing books with readers at both ends of the scale with valid points. If based on the above bits, you think it sounds good, and you like dark, give it a try.

>43 Nickelini: 1986? So long ago? I remember the hype and therefore shunned the book. I may reconsider now... thanks for the review.

>42 Nickelini: text-dense pages with narrower margins and smaller print.
argh, a major peeve for me.

Do I remember you have an interest in Mormon topics? If yes, have you read Educated by Tara Westover? About many topics, it's harrowing and inspiring and I loved it.

>45 detailmuse:

Funny you mention Educated. I haven't been able to read much the last couple of years so I'd stepped out of book club, but I'm trying to go back this year. Educated was supposed to be our November book but it's so popular that the library copies all had long waiting lists. We've put it off until later in the year (bookclub year is Sept-June). Sounds like a good one!

Island Beneath the Sea, Isabel Allende, 2010 (translated from Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden)


cover comments: I love this cover--gorgeous piece of art by Ana Juan. It wraps around the back and the cover flaps--I especially adore the blue dragonflies that you don't see on the front. One of my favourite covers of the books I've read this year.

Why I Read This Now: I love to read books pertinent to where I'm travelling, and "1700s Haiti" was the closest I could find to "2018 over-the-top mega resort in the Bahamas".

Comments: A work of historical fiction that follows the life of Tete, a slave, and her owner Toulouse Valmorain. The first half of the book is set in what is now Haiti, in the late 1700s and the time leading up to the Haitian Revolution and slave rebellion, and the second half is after they escape to New Orleans.

I studied the Haitian slave rebellion at university and it's a fascinating episode in history. I would have liked to have seen a bit more about it in the book, rather than just these characters who are in the periphery and flee fairly early on.

This novel was an easy read, but it took me a whole month to get through it as I'd get bored and wander off to do something else or fall asleep.

Rating: Island Beneath the Sea is one of those books that readers rate much higher than the critics. I'm with the critics on this one -- it's a good book, but not great. It seems to me that Isabel Allende has her ardent fans and I'm just not one of them. I know my book club loves to read her (we have one coming up in January that I'm skipping). This is my 4th Allende, and I will go back and finish House of the Spirits, but then I'm absolutely done with her.

Recommended for: readers who like straight-forward historical fiction and readers who know nothing about the Haitian Revolution.

For some reason, Isabel Allende books always end up with "magic realism" tags on LT, which drives me nuts. None of the 4 Allende books I've read have had any magic realism. So if you're one of those people who avoids MR, don't shy away from her writing. Yes, House of the Spirits is a key MR text, but that doesn't mean everything she writes is magic realism. Sheesh! (stepping off my soap box now).

OK, I love to read books pertinent to where I'm travelling, and "1700s Haiti" was the closest I could find to "2018 over-the-top mega resort in the Bahamas" really made me laugh!

I can't say Allende's fiction has ever held any appeal for me either. Having said that, Paula, which is her memoir of caring for her dying daughter, was really lovely and is well worth a read.

>48 Jackie_K:
Paula is one of the 4 I've read and it didn't do much for me. I think the best of the 4 was Ines of My Soul. But one day I will get back to House of the Spirits, which I do expect to like.

Why I Read This Now: I love to read books pertinent to where I'm travelling, and "1700s Haiti" was the closest I could find to "2018 over-the-top mega resort in the Bahamas".

Brilliant sentence and brilliant reason to read a book.

And you have reached your goal!

21. The Dark Heart of Italy, Tobias Jones, 2003


Cover comments: perfect for this book

Comments: Jones is a Brit who moved to Parma where he teaches at the university and now has an Italian family. This is a look at the real Italy -- not the Italy that tourists see -- and why it is the way it is. Much of what he discussed was familiar from my 4 trips there, and my husband's conversations with his Italian family and friends. He loves Italy with all it's festering boils, and shows that it is bureaucratic, frustrating, marvellous, corrupt, historic, confusing, beautiful, and has incredibly interesting people.

There's an fascinating and lengthy section on Silvio Berlusconi, and I was amazed at how much was said here where you could replace "Berlusconi" with "Trump" and make a true sentence. Except before their political stints, Berlusconi was actually wealthy, and owned a winning football team and owned and controlled media. So not as much of a loser as Trump, although at the time we couldn't imagine anyone worse.

Recommended for: anyone moving to Italy, or who thinks they'd like to live in Italy.

Rating: A worthwhile book, but many times there was simply too much detail for me, and some chapters had lengthy sections in italics (I never did find an explanation for those); this resulted in my doing some skimming here and there. 3.5 stars.

Why I Read This Now: I started reading it months ago and I can't remember why I picked it from all my Italy books, but in general I'm reading books about Italy to prepare for my trip there in 2019.

22. The Cruel Stars of the Night, Kjell Eriksson, English translation 2007, translated from Swedish by Ebba Segerberg


cover comments: Not great, but it does suit the book

Comments: I don't know when the Scandi-crime thing took off, but when the English translation was reviewed in the Vancouver Sun in 2007, this is the first book I had ever heard of in the genre. I was intrigued. Since then, I've only ever read Smila's Sense of Snow, which I 3/4 hated and 1/4 thought was pretty cool. So I'm late to this Nordic Noir thing.

The Cruel Stars of the Night got off to a bit of a choppy, slow start. Too many characters and I didn't really know who they were or what they were doing. It was clear very early on who the serial killer was -- not because I'm a brilliant detective, really any reader is going to see this. Then the last 100 pages or so got really page-turningly good. Yeah, Ann Liddel, the protagonist did not one but two really stupid things (and several other minor stupid things), but I cringed and just got swept up in the story. But then the ending just sort of ended. I mean, I can guess likely outcomes, except maybe the serial killer got away. We don't know..

The part that was good was indeed very good. And I loved the Uppsala, Sweden setting. I'll definitely read more in this genre.

Rating: Hmmm, not sure. A lot of it was 3.5 stars, then the last good bit was 4.5 and the ending was back down to 4 tops.

Why I Read This Now: It's been on my TBR since 2007, I like to read books from northern places in winter (although this book was set in autumn, so there goes that plan).

Recommended for: Who knows? Reader reviews tend to be similar to mine. Not fabulous, but a good read. If you're stuck somewhere with nothing to do and this book is there, you'll love it.

The Reindeer People: Living With Animals & Spirits in Siberia, Piers Vitebsky, 2005


cover comments: a somewhat uninspired cover, although not awful or anything. Based on the info in the book, I can imagine something better.

Why I Read This Now: I read a glowing review of this book when it was published, and it immediately went on my wish list. I found a copy in 2008 and never got around to it because it's size was daunting. Do I really want to read 400 pages about reindeer herders? I started it on winter solstice, and figured if I wasn't in the mood to read about reindeer over Christmas, the mood would never strike.

Comments: Piers Vitebsky is an anthropology professor at Cambridge, and probably the world expert in indigenous people of Russia. This book covers what he learned from getting special permission to live with and study the Eveny people during the last 5 or so years of the Soviet era, up to around 2002.

The first thing I noted is that 3000 year old carved stone shows reindeer in flight. I've long been fascinated by the ancient and buried origins of the folklore, fairy tales and even Biblical stories that our culture thinks are just what we know. So while Santa and his flying reindeer seem to be only with us for 100 years or so, the flying reindeer didn't just pop out of nowhere.

I've long been fascinated by the indigenous people of Russia (and also Japan), and also am interested in the archaeology of this region (the later not covered in this book). The Reindeer People explores a specific minority, and definitely covers more than I need to know on the subject, but over all it kept my attention, I learned a lot, and it was mostly very interesting. By the time the author got to study these people, they had already gone from thousands and thousands of years of life with only gradual changes. to the Soviet era with drastic cultural change. He was with them through the fall of the USSR with even more change and this text was published in 2005. I wondered what was happening with these groups now, and at one point quite late, one of his Eveny guides says something along the lines of "when this is read in 2020 and we're all gone ... ," as if it's a given fact, or as noted in another spot, "The Eveny are a footprint in the snow, and when the snow melts they will disappear." I read this in late 2018 and now I need to know.

For a non-fiction book of somewhat academic purpose, it's highly readable. I particularly loved this description of a forest he visited: "...sheltered in a grove of huge larches rising vertically more than 150 feet above shallow roots which splashed over the permafrosted earth like knotted veins. The lower 100 feet of each trunk were almost bare. The breeze, imperceptible at ground level, was picked up and amplified by the feathery branches which swayed and brushed against each other in the top third. Their movement sometimes rippled down to the base, but on the ground it was completely still between their enormous, shuddering trunks and we walked like insects between stems of grass while an agitated climate hissed above us. Larch needles, reddish beige int he dull light, fluttered down like clouds of small insects. Each stone rising up out of the stream to meet them was encrusted around the brim with little splinters of ice."

Another bit I found amazing was this: "Tolya, too, had a brush with death by radiation as a child. One day in the 1950s the sky went red all day long, as if it were on fire, and a strange grey snow fell on the ground. A group of children played with this 'snow', which did not melt. Later, they became burned where it had touched their bodies. The other children died, but Tolya, with his extraordinary life-energy, lived and still has the marks today. This must have been fallout from Soviet atomic bomb testing, but this was not known until the late 1980s."

Recommended for: anyone who thinks this might be interesting.

Rating: 4.5 stars

And that concludes 2018. As with 2017, my reading is way down due to life changes. I read 29 books in total (down from 75-100 books in the decade previous), but 23 came from my TBR pile, so that's good. I added 34 books to my TBR, but a sold and donated some too, so I think I'm close to even.

And so the year ends, with a sad 29 books read. Lowest number since I've been keeping track (early 2000s). Gone are the years of 70 - over 100 books. Mostly because I'm now working outside the home full time. Also, smartphones and our ever-exploding news cycle. And finally, I think I actually managed to read more this year than last, but I read quite a few books that were significantly longer than what I usually choose, so that makes a difference.

Here are my stats

Total read: a sad and paltry 29

Fiction: 72% (21 books)
Non-fiction: 28% (8 books)
This is a fairly typical split between the two.

Female authors: 48% (14 books)
Male authors: 48% (14 books)
mixed/unknown: 4% (1 book)
This is a change, as I usually read from 55%-65% female writers.

~~

Nationality of authors:
UK: 44% (13 books)
Italy: 10% (3 books)
Germany: 10% (3 books)
Canada: 7% (2 books)
Australia: 7% (2 books)

1 book each (3%) for:
Netherlands
Palestine
France
Chile
Sweden
Mixed
I usually read mostly UK books, so that's usual, but then the next 2 highest percentages are Canadian and US, and then Ireland. In 2018 I read only 2 Canadian authors, and no USA or Ireland authors. (My first read in 2019 is Irish, so fear not)

~~

New to me authors (writers who I've never read before--let's explore fresh voices!): 25/29 (86%)
Different authors - 100% (I didn't read the same author over and over again)

Most Memorable Reads

At the end of the year, I like to look at the books that stuck in my mind. Maybe I gave them a so-so review, but I remember them vividly. And then there are the books I don't remember so well, other than a nice memory of reading them. So the usual star rating system is ignored here.

Looking back over my reading year, I would recommend the vast majority of what I read. Because my reading time is so limited, if a book is not working for me I move on quickly. Therefore, I read very few I don't recommend. But if there is one book that stands out this year, it should be A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz, because it took 6 months out of the year. But it's not-- for some reason, the most outstanding book when I think back over the year was The Battle of the Villa Fiorita by Rumer Godden, which I generously gave 4 stars because despite everything, I liked it. And somehow, my semi-hate reading it is my best memory of 2018, but obviously there was something there.

Nice Stats, Joyce! I was surprised you read a book by a Dutch writer so I scrolled back and noticed I did comment on that earlier. ;-))