After all the cheerful, happily ever afters (and not so happily ever afters) in my Valentine’s Day post I thought I’d bring the tone of this blog back to a place I’m more comfortable – with some good old stabbings in the back.
There are of course a lot of massive spoilers to follow so proceed with caution. Continue reading “7 books with absolute grab-you-by-the-throat punch-you-in-the-gut betrayals”
The other day I worked out that almost a third of the books on my shelves I have yet to read. At the beginning of summer it was only a quarter and it’s not as if I’m a slow reader. Which means that I have bought A LOT of books. So I think it might be time to get my book buying addiction under control.
My answer to this, as with so many things, was to write a list. A list of books that I am allowed to buy and that I must not deviate from!
It’s still a really long list. It’s not as if I’m making myself go cold turkey or anything. And this may be my third draft because I kept thinking of more authors who needed including. But it’s a start.
This should keep me going until the end of year. Hopefully. With my insistence that all my books be second hand balancing my desire for nothing but beautiful editions on my shelves it can take me months before I purchase even a single book (or I could tick ten off my list on one day).
I’ve been hunting for a nice copy of this for a while as I hear such great things about it and I don’t read enough dystopian fiction.
2. Agnes Grey, The Professor, Villette or Shirley by Anne and Jane Bronte
Much like with Jane Austen I imagine that just because these books aren’t as famous as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights it doesn’t mean there won’t be a gem in there.
3. The Diary of a Provincial Lady by EM Delafield
I’m after this book mostly because it comes in the same series as my beloved copy of Valley of the Dolls.
4. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
This ones purely because I read it as ebook so I now must own a physical copy!
5. George Eliot
I’d like to say Middlemarch but it’s just so damn long! But I enjoyed Silas Marner so much that it seems silly I’ve never read anything else by her.
6. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
This plot of this makes it sound like my ideal book – about a woman writing her thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot. And I very much enjoyed The Virgin Suicides.
7. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Another one that I’ve read but don’t own my own copy.
8. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
I keep seeing this book mentioned places at the moment so I’m taking it as a sign that I should be reading it.
9. The Other Queen and The Taming of the Queen by Philippa Gregory
These are the missing puzzle pieces from my complete collections of the Cousins’ War series and The Tudor Court Series. The Other Queen shouldn’t be too hard to find but The Taming of the Queen is still very new.
10. Thomas Hardy
One of my favourite authors of all time and yet I only own one of his books! This needs correcting.
11. The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
I got a bit nosy on the train at what the man sat opposite me was reading and it turned out it was this. And a quick google told me that I desperately need to read this book. I love anything that bashes neoliberalism.
12. Phillip Larkin
I really enjoy poetry but my knowledge is limited to the classics. So I’m trying to introduce some more contemporary poets into my collection too.
13. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks by E Lockhart
This one might be a long time in the coming but I really want to read it.
14. A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin
I’m slowly building up my collection of paperback George RR Martin’s but I’ve still got a long way to go (I currently have two of the seven).
15. Moranthology by Caitlin Moran
I borrowed this off a neighbour when I read it but now must have a copy of my own.
16. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
I need this for my mission to read lots of New York based books. And although I’ve come across several copies, I’m holding out for the perfect edition.
17. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Another for the New York collection.
18. The Love Machine and Once Is Not Enough by Jacqueline Susann
Because I loved Valley of the Dolls too much not to read more by her.
This is post two in my little blogging series about seriously hyped books. The first was the five that didn’t disappoint, this is the five that really did. Actually there are a lot more than five that I could have included (something I can’t say for the last lot – I’m such a miserly reader) but I’ve picked the five worst offenders.
1. A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin
The only reason I’ve made it through all six books and am waiting desperately for the next one to be released is that the TV series has brought the characters alive. Without the TV series I would say it has far too many characters, the plot is overly complicated and it’s incredibly badly written. The women are awesome though.
2. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
I just found this a bit bleugh. Not terrible but not amazing either. There wasn’t really enough of a plot to keep me hooked. And I didn’t really find myself connecting with the characters either.
3. Agatha Christie
These books just seem so dated every time I read them. I haven’t read the really hyped ones – Murder on the Orient Express or And Then There Were None and although I intend to the ones I have read have really put me off.
4. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Give me Jane Eyre any day. I found this such a struggle to get through what with the overly long descriptions and ridiculous use of the northern accent. So even though there is a great plot hidden under there there’s was too much wrong with it for me to properly enjoy it.
5. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
I don’t know if this book really classes as ‘hyped’ but my mum recommended it most highly to me. And I suppose I would have liked it alright, despite the unnecessary extra characters, but the woman researching her family history took the biscuit and I just lost all interest.
When I’m reading a book the most important factor for me isn’t the characters or the plot development or the quality of the writing; it’s the ending. I hadn’t really realised this before I wrote my first post of My Month in Books. Every review I was writing I was focusing on how satisfactory I found the ending. I could have really enjoyed the journey but my overwhelming memory will be the destination. And if that lets me down then it corrupts my memories of the book as a whole.
Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan was a prime example of this. I loved the book as I was reading it. And although the ending was clever (albeit eerily reminiscent of the ending of Atonement – get some new material, Ian) it just wasn’t enough closure for me. What was her answer?! That will bug me every time I see that spine on my shelf.
The Casual Vacancy on the other hand I didn’t enjoy too much for the bulk of it but I was so impressed with the gritty ending that some how managed to satisfactorily solve everyone’s problems that now I think of it as a generally good book. Actually the longer it gets since I read it the more fondly I remember it.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been so suprised by this. This is what JK Rowling does best. On my first back-to-back read through of Harry Potter I wrote myself a list of the hints that are left throughout the books (yes, I know, I’m a massive geek) – why does Harry think he recognises the barman in The Hogs Head? Why does Dumbledore look triumphant when he’s told that Voldemort used Harry’s blood? And by the end of the series all of these were answered. The intricate plots of all seven books are tied up in a neat little bow.
The prospect of the ending makes me nervous every time I read books from the A Song of Ice and Fire series. In the same style as JK Rowling there are little hints left throughout the book – prophecies and flashbacks and subtle illusions – and I’ve been keeping a little (actually, very long) list to check back through at the end. And if they’re all explained then I’ll be able to marvel at George RR Martin’s genius. But if not I’ll feel betrayed. Actually betrayed. After committing however many hours of my life to reading those massive building bricks of books, waiting impatiently for decades for him to get around to writing the next installment, I want to be truly impressed. Astounded at his ability to weave such a neatly crafted narrative through however many thousands of pages. Not left with unanswered questions and unresolved plot lines.
I like to finish a book and feel like I’m done with that world. I’ve lived those lives, I know those people and by the time I turned the last page it was wrapped up and done with and left nothing hanging. All was well (or close enough).
The prize for the most frustrating ending I have ever come across goes to The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster. I was recommended this book by an ex, forgetting that our taste in books overlapped not at all. I like my books to have a good story; he likes his to be pretentious and arty. If I didn’t know that then I would have assumed that he’d told me to read it as some kind of torture. Because to me that’s what the ending of City of Glass (the first book in the trilogy) amounted to. Torture. I started it full of hope and expectation – all this craziness must be setting up one hell of an ending! But as I got further and further through that story I started to doubt it. When there were only twenty pages to go and I still had no answers I was forced to accept that I wasn’t going to get my ending. Paul Auster had wimped out and explained nothing. NOTHING! I was so frustrated I actually refused to read the next two stories. It remains the only book I have ever started but not finished.
As Augustus Waters says in The Fault in our Stars –
There is this unwritten contract between author and reader and I think not ending your book kind of violates that contract
I know he’s referring to An Imperial Affliction which literally doesn’t end (and I can only imagine just how angry I would have got if I’d read that book) but to me, leaving questions hanging is just as reprehensible. I don’t want mystery, I don’t want to be left asking questions. An author creates a world, fills it with people and events, and they owe it to me to give it a comprehensive conclusion.
Oh look, it’s a new posting feature for me to start, change multiple times, and then abandon. This one is a monthly roundup of why my bank balance looks so pathetic – all my money has been spent on books. Although I was pleasantly surprised that I’ve only bought ten. I must have shown some restraint. Only three of them have been read so far though but it’s investment for the future. But now I think about it, seen as I’ve always got about ten books (if not more) waiting to be read and the moment I finish one I buy another (or two more) in it’s place I’m going to die with ten books I never got round to reading. That’s a depressing thought.
1. The London Train – Tessa Hadley
I’d very recently finished The Girl on the Train when I came across this so I picked it up purely because it had train in the title. I like the idea of two separate but interlinked stories so I bought it. But because I know so little about it it will probably be months before I decide to start it.
2. Ian McEwan – Black Dogs
I’m on a bit of a mission to read everything Ian McEwan has ever written. So far, out of the 14 I mean to read, I’ve got 3 still to buy and only 6 actually finished. But it’s only April, I can easily have it done by the end of the year.
3. Let it Snow – John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle
I picked this up purely because I’ve jumped on the John Green hype. It’s one of the few of these that I’ve actually already read (and reviewed if you’re interested). In a nutshell – not great.
4. Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
I know, I know, I’m painfully behind the times not having read this yet. I found it second hand, unfortunately in this rather garish shade of orange. It just looks ridiculous on my bookshelves. I’m really looking forward to reading it after I enjoyed Girl on the Train so much but I’m waiting until I’ve got a lot of free time and something happy and lighthearted to do after I finish it.
5. Collection of Thomas Hardy poetry
I’ve been on the hunt for a collection of Thomas Hardy poetry for a while. It had to include my two favourite Hardy poems – Drummer Hodge and The Man He Killed. I finally found one (not the one in the picture, the one I’ve bought doesn’t seem to exist on the internet). It’s second hand and has an inscription inside ‘To Dad, on your 70th, Love Louise’ so it’s pretty much as good as I could have hoped (I love second hand books with inscriptions and margin notes).
6. Woman Much Missed – Thomas Hardy
It was 80p, how could I say no?
7. Clash of Kings – George RR Martin
I’ve already read the ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ series and am impatiently waiting for the next book. But I read them all as electronic copies so now I’m slowly building up a collection of paperback copies. Not that I really have room to spare on my bookshelves for those seven massive tomes.
8. Girl Reading – Katie Ward
Another one that I’ve actually read and reviewed! It was a classic case of judging a book by it’s cover. But in the end I’m glad I read it so it won’t stop me doing it again in the future.
9. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
There are certain topics of books that just don’t interest me and The Holocaust is one of them. I think school destroyed any interest I might have had in that period of history. But I’d walked all the way across town in the rain to get to this bookshop, they had a massive selection and I just couldn’t find anything that caught my imagination so I got desperate and was reading the blurb of every book I picked up, hoping to find one I wanted. And once I got to the bottom of this blurb and discovered the book was narrated by Death I was sold. I love a book with a sense of impending doom. Becuase it’s so long though it will probably languor at the bottom of my TBR list for a while.
10. Where’d You Go, Bernadette – Maria Semple
And then, like buses, once I’d found one book I immediately found another. I thought once I finished The Book Thief (which I know nothing about but I’m assuming it’s going to be depressing because of the miserable cover) this would be a good antidote (because of the cheerful cover).
With the recent return to vogue of feminism (and having just finished back to back reading of books by Caitlin Moran) I’ve been thinking a lot about the women in books who I admire. The women who step up, be awesome and don’t even care, don’t think twice about it. I doubt it’s a coincidence that a lot of the books that fall into this category also happen to be some of my favourite books. I just wish there were more male authors who’d made the list. Although a scan of my bookshelves suggests maybe I’ve just read a lot more books written by women than men.
Nothing on this list is particularly ground breaking or controversial. Just solid writers with female characters who have more to them than household chores and finding themselves boyfriends.
And yes I use the word awesome a lot. It happens in real life too but it’s just a great word and makes me feel like a stoned surfer at Venice Beach rather than a straight laced office worker in the Midlands.
Jane Austen
Pretending for a minute that Mansfield Park, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey don’t exist (great stories but not exactly strong lead females) and she really could write a woman. Not only are Lizzy Bennett, Marianne Dashwood and Emma Woodhouse fully three dimensional characters but they’re also waaaaay ahead of their time.
In general I’m not a great fan of Emma but she was at least a go-getter with a pretty fun hobby (although it backfires slightly). If Hello magazine existed back then then it would be run by Emma Woodhouse. Lizzy Bennett is witty and nonconformist and recognises that there is a world beyond finding a husband. My personal favourite though is Marianne Dashwood. With her over the top emotions and couldn’t care less attitude to maintaining an untarnished reputation she was a truly modern character. In today’s more accepting society she’d fit right in and could probably write a pretty good tell-all in her later years when she’d settled down and realised Colonel Brandon was the one for her. Though I don’t altogether buy this marriage. I imagine a divorce would come soon after when Marianne realised one bout of flu doesn’t change your character forever.
George R R Martin
This is said without thorough research as like most people on the planet I have only read A Song of Ice and Fire and never delved further back in his bibliography. But that’s excusable because seen as only the most ardent readers of fantasy fiction had heard of them they probably weren’t any good. Anyway, for a book with so much gratuitous sex there really are quite a lot of truly awesome female characters. There’s the classic ‘women beating men at their own game’ women in the form of Brienne of Tarth, Ygritte and Arya to name but a few. There’s the ‘women who have somewhat accepted their position but are still going to make as much progress as they can within their means’ women represented by Catelyn. And my favourite, ‘the politically manipulative who are not above using everything they have, sex appeal included, to get what they want.’ In the books this is Cersei but the TV series adds Margaery (who is so far a little underdeveloped in the books though there’s suggestions she might live up to the TV version) and Ros although (spoiler alert) that didn’t turn out so well for her.
Philippa Gregory
I’ve only read the Tudor Series so far as after I binge-read them all last autumn I’m needing a bit of respite from historical fiction and sticking to purely modern books for a while, but of what I’ve read she’s certainly got a knack for taking well known females and making them seem far more assertive and powerful than in reality they probably were. Though all my knowledge of history comes from Wikipedia pages so what do I know.
Catherine of Aragon was my favourite character in the series. Raised to never doubt that a woman could be a man’s equal she took it in her stride (pretty much) when she discovered England wasn’t quite as forward thinking as Spain and she would have to settle for second best. But she did manage to do some good and did a bit of a Margaery in getting Henry VIII to ignore his advisers and marry her anyway. Again though, didn’t end great for her (if that’s a spoiler than you really need to complain to your primary school teacher. Henry VIII had SIX wives you know) but she tried her best and was just no match for Anne Boleyn.
Anne Boleyn really took the bull by the horns, decided she wanted to be queen and then did some pretty immoral things in order to get there (employing a witch is ok, sleeping with your brother is a step too far). Perhaps, on reflection, she took the whole feminist attitude a bit too far.
Mary had potential to be amazing but gave in to pressures to marry and spent all her time instead trying to overcome her sexual frustration by killing Protestants (or something like that). But Elizabeth, who from everything I know about her I would have expected her to win hands down, was pretty average really. Though I suppose I can’t really pass judgement as I haven’t read The Other Queen yet (I got put off by the first person narrative very early on) and from what I remember from history (watching the Cate Blanchett films) she doesn’t get awesome until a couple of years in to her reign.
J K Rowling
What can I say? Awesome books, awesome women. Hermione Granger is my idol and I have a very hard time remembering that she isn’t real. In fact I’m much happier thinking she is a real person because it just makes the world a better place. I also forget that Emma Watson is a separate person. But I bet Hermione would have been all for making speeches about feminism to the UN. I just love a girl who’s so unapologetically intelligent, doesn’t feel the need to hide it at all. I was the complete opposite and wish the books had come in to my life earlier so I could maybe have used her for inspiration. It’s not just Hermione though. Ginny is also awesome. Luna even better. And Bellatrix Lestrange is an incredible character in a terrifying, messed up way. Mrs Weasley is a bit of a sticking point though. It’s never really clear whether she ever actually did anything for the Order of the Phoenix beyond making them dinner and keeping headquarters clean – aka ‘women’s work.’ I suppose I can understand it at the time in the books as the poor woman does have seven children, two of whom are Fred and George; she’s allowed to be retired. But what about in the first instance? Maybe if I spend more time on Pottermore (good idea, Lizzy, more potential procrastination) I’ll find an answer.
Meg Cabot
The majority of teen fiction I read when I was growing up (or is it YA fiction? I’m not at all sure on what the difference is. If there is one) was based around girls fancying boys, talking about boys, making fools of themselves in front of boys and finally going out with boys. If they were put to the Bechdel test (if two female characters have a conversation about something other than men) they would comprehensively fail. But I didn’t mind. Actually I loved these books. Hell, I could probably have single-handedly keeping the industry afloat. But Meg Cabot was doing something a little different (and I think from a quick flick through a few books would have passed the Bechdel test with flying colours). My examples here are the Princess Diaries books and All American Girl. In The Princess Diaries Mia was learning how to rule a small country. In All American Girl Sam threw herself on a would-be assassin and saved the life of the president. Pretty damn awesome stuff. And yes they did both discuss boys quite regularly during the books but in all fairness I doubt a real life teenage girl would pass the Bechdel test for two days put together.
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I'm All Booked
“Real life was something happening in her peripheral vision.”
The world is an open book and it's up to us to discover the magic in its pages
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