Captainsflat will be well, be well, all will be well in 2021

Failed 2020 - by half. Shall try again and fail better.

1. Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The scariest book I’ve read this year!

Any amount of reading is never a fail. Happy new year! (curious about Discipleship now.}

>2 lamplight: thank you, I know, some days any amount or even quality of words help.
Re Discipleship- it was a flippant statement - but I went and read the context of when it was written and who it was written for, which helped. On the other hand, I love reading things with no context and being disoriented and unsure, so I robbed myself of that sitting with the mystery.

2. Nocturnal Animals by Austen Wright

Just okay. Haven’t seen the film. I did like the half finished thoughts style of writing. But ponderous was the word I was left with.

3. Pig’s head by David Owen

Really, really enjoyed this Hobart set Krimi.

4. The White People by Arthur Machen

So delicious. Weird Tales give me life.

5. Stasiland by Anna Funder

So sad that this feels really now - they’ve picked up the how-to and run with it. It is behind glass, but it is not over. Are all stories just about different forms of courage?

6. The Air-conditioned Nightmare by Henry Miller

7. White Eagles Over Serbia by Lawrence Durrell

Putting nearly everything aside, I really enjoyed this. The descriptions of the mountains made my heart sing. I know that landscape. And it had fanciful enough moments to not just be boring spy and army cliches.

8. The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry

I’m kind of disappointed in the resolution. Family drama hum drum when it could have been something else.

9. Pelagia and the Black Monk by Boris Akunin

10.Death In Brunswick by Boyd Oxlade

Like an early work of styles read before. Good old Melbourne.

11.A Mind To Murder by P. D. James

A bit of fluff for Minischool.

12. The Key and the Fountain by John Pinkney

Swallowed in one happy gulp.

13. The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuscinski

Poetry, but nightmare style.

14. North of Nowhere, South of Loss by Janet Turner Hospital

What I love about this, is her writing is not about eyes and seeing. It is about how things feel in the body. And, of course, end of the line Queensland.

15. Heap House by Edward Carey

The language and names are delicious.

16. My Friend Mr Campion and other mysteries by Margery Allingham

Soothing.

17. The Naive and The Sentimental Novelist by Orhan Pamuk

18. Living in Hope by Frank Byrne

19. Kulinmaya by Mike Mumu Williams

20. Hot Lead, Cold Iron by Ari Marmell

Audiobook.

21. Growing up Disabled in Australia by Carly Findlay.

22. Practical Demon Keeping by Christopher Moore

Light and forgettable.

23. Black and Blue by Ronnie Gorrie

Powerful. Memorable.

24. The Girl with the Dog by Anna Funder

25. Dubious Deeds by Philip Ardagh

26. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

27. The Ghost of Love Street by Veneto Armanno

Short, good, suitably weird.

28. Animal Farm by George Orwell

With the boys, then we went and saw it on stage.

29. Tinkers by Paul Harding

I liked it a lot, the descriptions of how Howard sees the world.

30. The Boggart by Susan Cooper

The weather changed very fast, in his old boggart heart.

31. The Snow Was Dirty by Georges Simenon

32. Vixen by Hoa Pham

Really enjoyed it.

33. Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin

34. My father’s moon by Elizabeth Jolley

Wow. The aching loneliness. The not understanding. Clutching all the wrong things.

35. The Gentlewomen by Laura Talbot

Really good dialogue.

36. The Broken Bridge by Philip Pullman

Pullman really has a thing about absent mothers, mothers choosing not to be. The madness of the grandma was well done. The tenderness of Joe Chicago. I just like the way he writes.

37. The Last Painting of Sara De Vos by Dominic Smith

No depth at all. But some nice details.

38. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

39. The Illuminator by Brenda Rickman Vantrease

Everything is a smooth, interesting read except for the few totally emotionally illogical oversights that really got under my skin.

40. A Long Time Dying by Olga Masters

A shiver of recognition.

41. Barking Dogs by Rebekah Clarkson

She is very good at details - but all the emotions are really fuzzy, like when you’re tired and don’t want to think about it. I don’t want more fuzziness when I read, I want someone to spell it out, discovery, connections I didn’t notice.

42. I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes

Unlike Dan Brown, I finished this eventually. So he is definitely a better writer. But the cliches! The totally uninteresting ideas and values and world and psychology! Just why? Why did I read it?

43. Teacher Misery by Jane Morris

44. The Life-changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo

I read it like a little poem, a love letter to things.

45. Burying Aunt Renie by Kate Walker

A nice collection of short stories for upper primary readers. I love the characters - “people who are totally themselves”.

46. Practising Breathing by Jean Kent

Poetry. Solidly enjoyed her alliteration.

47. Uninvited Ghosts by Penelope Lively

A dash of properly English ghosts.

48. Three Mages and a Margarita by Annette Marie

Dipped my toe into fluff. Audiobook.

49. The Tilted Cross by Hal Porter

I loved the descriptions, the gothic landscape, and gee, Hobart hadn’t changed much. My first thought was, is this what Nick Cave was reading? I enjoyed it in spite of the characters.

50. Malvolio’s Revenge by Sophie Masson

It was an enjoyable, take you along read, but there were lots of things wrong.