Ersatz TLS discussion

Here we have a spot to discuss your favorites reads of 2022. Feel free to include your least favorites as well!

This topic will stay open until the end of the first week in January.

Happy New Year, all!

And to you:)

Lljones wrote: "Here we have a spot to discuss your favorites reads of 2022. Feel free to include your least favorites as well!

This topic will stay open until the end of the first week in January.

Happy New Ye..."

Happy New Year. With icy streets all around, I may cull my TBR file before year's end.

Well I am probably cheating here but I'll kick off any way.

I'm afraid that of the worst I have probably deleted several from the list of my books because I didn't finish them:

Amongst those I didn't was Who Killed Christoper Marlowe by M J Trow. The book was boring and we knew the answer in the first chapter, The rest of the book consisted of the (possible) story of his life.

Along with several others here, I found Andrea Camilleri's final books Cook of the Halcyon and Riccardino, a big let down, definitely a case of jumping the shark.

I have read and liked very much Written in Bone by the forensic pathologist Sue Black, very informative but not always an "easy" read. Painting the Dead first in Jack Gatland's Elly Reckless series. The third in Robert Fabbri Alexander's Lagacy Empty Throne gruesome, informative and at times tongue in cheek.

The two favourites are - fiction the recently read Khan by Heath Gunn for which I put up a review on WAWR just this week and non-fiction Fatal Colours by George Goodwin, the history of the Wars of the Roses leading up to an including the Battle of Towton.

Series I have discovered and enjoyed this year are:

DCI Thatcher by Oliver Davies, even allowing for a lack of proof reading;

Marwood and Lovett by Andrew Taylor, set in the reign of Charles II

Sorry if this is a bit of a messy and longwinded post, but hopefully some might be tempted to read (or avoid!) some of the books I have mentioned.


I mention for anyone who may be interested and has not noticed that Prof Sue Black is delivering the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures this year, starting 26 December on BBC4. I have set it to record, but probably won't be watching while eating a meal!

Lazy Boxing Day (not a holiday here in France, though I suppose it's less and less of one in the UK) — seemed a good time to think about the best books of the year...

Several non-fiction :
Biography - The Man in the Red Coat by Julian Barnes
Travel - The Border: A Journey Around Russia Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway and the Northeast Passage by Erika Fatland
Around WWII - Love and War in the Apennines by Eric Newby and Iris Origo, A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary 1939–1940 and War in Val D'Orcia: A Diary 1943-1044.. Also her autobiography, Images and Shadows: Part of a Life.
Lives of Houses edited by Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee
The Bookseller's Tale by Martin Latham

Fiction :
NOVELS
French Braid by Anne Tyler
Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker
After the Party by Cressida Connolly
in French Le Doorman by Madeleine Assas

SHORT STORIES
The Stories of Jane Gardam
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories and The Moons of Jupiter by Alice Munro

SERIES
E C R Lorac, Inspector MacDonald -Golden Age Crime
David Downing, the Berlin Station series - spying, WWII. I've just got one left to read, the prequel: Wedding Station.
A light read — Frances Brody, the Kate Shackleton series. A young woman widowed in WWI becomes a private detective.

Total 2022 (with a few days still to go ...) 265

I see that Gpfr has read 265 books (!)... I feel as if I read a lot, but will only reach about 20% of that total, if that...

My own best and worst of 2022, all with the proviso "New to me" - I have read few (if any) books published in 2022. There is often a lot of unjustified hype about this or that book - they are frequently disappointing. So, then:

Best entertaining series

The Slough House/Slow Horses series by Mick Herron, dealing with the semi-failed spies relegated to the tender mercies of sadist superspy and almost-codger Jackson Lamb. I bought book 1 on 6 September and book 8 on 28 November, so read the whole series (to date) in 4 months or so. Addictive? yes!

Best Historical Series

David Downing's Berlin-set 'John Russell' series in which a journalist in the 1930s gets pulled into the world of espionage. More serious and less topical than Herron - the characters grow and age before our eyes. I bought book 1, 'Zoo Station', on 19 March and have read 5, with book 6 'Masaryk Station' waiting.

Best literary novelist (new to me)

Juan Marsé - this Catalan/Spanish author has enchanted me with his tales of adolescents growing up in Barcelona in the 1940s-50s. Only God himself could disentangle the fiction from the frequently autobiographical elements in this obsessive investigation of memory and imagination. I have read four of his novels, starting with The Snares of Memory and have one waiting - Golden Girl

Worst book by a reputed novelist

Where Angels Fear to Tread by EM Forster

I bought this at a 'bargain' price of 99p, but wished I hadn't bothered. It is (initially) the tale of a young and privileged English widow who escapes her overbearing (ex-) mother-in-law by taking a trip to Italy, where she unwisely marries a local chancer. The English are class-conscious, snobbish and (mainly) contemptuous of 'foreigners'; the Italian is cynical and happy to sponge off his new wife's money.

So - no-one is likeable, but that is not a deal-breaker: what is, is that they are all boring. This could perhaps have been rescued by good writing - but this ain't it. Sometimes, it feels as if Forster wanted to parody the snobbery he describes, but he fails to do it; it's a 'have cake and eat it' piece of writing in which he doesn't commit to straightforward description, or to Waugh-like piss-taking. Although I knew the wheel would turn - having read the summary (as one does, sometimes) and discovered that the widow herself is despatched in childbirth around the midway point - I totally lost interest around 1/3 way in (and I was being patient by my usual standards) and quit.

Now, Forster is highly thought of by some people whose views I respect. This either shows how we all differ significantly at times in our reactions to individual authors, or maybe Forster improved (an awful lot) as he gained experience. Whatever - after this experience I do not intend to give him another go.

Best books Non Fiction

Super Infinite - The transformation of John Donne Katherine Rundell
An Immense World Ed Yong
Shadowlands. A journey through lost Britain Matthew Green
The Golden Mole Katherine Rundell
Time is the thing with Feathers Emily Dickinson
The Poetry of Pablo NerudaΑ
Winters in the World; a journey through the Anglo Saxon year Eleanor Parker

I read Pablo Neruda too, after reading A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende, and both of those are on my best reads list.

scarletnoir pointed out that his selection is 'My own best and worst of 2022, all with the proviso "New to me" - I have read few (if any) books published in 2022.'

In case anyone has any doubts, the idea here is the best/worst of the books we've read in 2022, no matter when they date from, not like the newspaper lists of those published in the year.

CCCubbon wrote: "Best books Non Fiction..."

I want to read Super Infinite, Shadowlands and Winters in the World.

CCCubbon wrote: "Best books Non Fiction

Super Infinite - The transformation of John Donne Katherine Rundell
An Immense World Ed Yong
Shadowlands. A journey through lost Britain Matthew Green
The Golden Mole Kath..."

Gpfr I have got those two on my tbr "pile" so glad CCC liked them.

They each gave me something special.
I read an article yesterday about the Donne book and Katherine Rundell mentions the poem Love’s Growth so I have posted it over on poems. Somehow sh manages to make Donne understandable with all his faults and why he wrote his poetry.

I had a very scrappy year readingwise. I started a lot that I didn't get very far with and it took me a good while to work out what it was that I needed. I got there in the end, and best of the year was:

The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
Mick Herron's Slough House series
The White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov
Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Ethel and Ernest by Raymond Briggs
Actress by Anne Enright
Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout

My book of the year is The Transit of Venus. Dud of the year is Marple: Twelve New Stories; not unremittingly bad, you understand, just that none of the writers is Agatha Christie and you'd think that they would have had the intelligence not to display their inferiority. The book I wish I'd kept going with is Out of the Sun: Essays at the Crossroads of Race by Esi Edugyan. Saddest book-related news of the year was the death of Hilary Mantel, whom I'm still mourning.

Books from other lists that I have my eye on are Rundell's Super Infinite and Parker's Winters in the World. My Christmas present to myself was Next to Nature: A Lifetime in the English Countryside by Ronald Blythe.

Almost everything I read this year was an ebook, something I could never have imagined even a short while ago. The knock on effect is that my actual shelves are still full, so my 2023 resolution is to read more from my own shelves - so as to free up space for more book buying! And related to that last point: I loved the Tom Gault Books of the Year cartoon in the Guardian. Did anyone see it?

Wishing you all a very happy 2023.

70 books read in 2022, with very little dross

Best classic novel: Southern Steel by Dymphna Cusack ('50s) AUS
Best modern novel: 18 by Bankokvskis (2010s) LATVIA
Best non fictio: The Iran Iraq War

Only real stinker was the awful Cohen novel "The Netanyahus"

Anne wrote: "I had a very scrappy year readingwise. I started a lot that I didn't get very far with and it took me a good while to work out what it was that I needed. I got there in the end, and best of the yea..."

I've also enjoyed Bulgakov's The White Guard. There was a much-praised stage version in London a few years ago, which made me wish that I had a window to London.

Hello! It was a bit of an odd year for me. Lots of reading done, but I had profound sense of distraction. It was really very difficult to maintain any concentration very long on any one thing (I do wonder if that otherwise inocuous touch of COVID had longer reaching effects).

The best of the year was a 2 way tie between:

Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies (Maddie Mortimer)

Pricksongs & Descants ( Robert Coover)

With Saramago's The Double and Kadare's Chronicle In Stone coming in just behind.

The only bomb of the year was Magda Szabo's The Door.
Happy New Year folks!

Best of 2022
(My reviews at the links - not yet, but tomorrow..)

World Fiction

5 - Hunter With Harpoon by Markoosie Patsuaq - translated from the Inuit by Valerie Henituik
4 - The Sky Above The Roof by Natalie Appanah - translated from the French (Mauritius) by Geoffrey Strachan
3 - Of Saints and Miracles by Manuel Astur - translated from the Spanish by Claire Wadie
2 - Impossible by Erri du Luca - translated from the French by NS Thompson
1 - Strega by Johanne Lykke Holm - translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel

Published This Year

5 - Nazaré by JJ Amaworo Wilson
4 - The Colony by Audrey Magee
3 - Mercia’s Take by Daniel Wiles
2 - Spies in Canaan by David Park
1 - Kick The Latch by Kathryn Scanlan

Older Books

5 - I am Jonathan Scrivener by Claude Houghton
4 - I Who Have Never Know Men by Jacqueline Harpman
3 - Naked In The Garden Hills by Harry Crews
2 - The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman by Angela Carter
1 - O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker

Non-Fiction (no order)

Empire of Ice and Stone by Buddy Levy
The Golden Mole by Katherine Rundell
Wild Fell by Lee Schofield
Treeline by Ben Rawlence
Shadowlands by Matthew Green

Short Stories (no order)

The Man In The Boat by Per Olav Enquist - translated from the Swedish by Ted Hodgkinson and from the collection The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat
Cordoba by Stuart Dybek - from the collection Ecstatic Cahoots
Moon Lake by Eudora Welty
The Swords by Robert Aickman - from the collection Cold Hand In Mine
The Willows by Algernon Blackwood
Lily Wilt by Jess Kidd - from the collection The Haunting Season

Films (from 2022)

7 - Memoria
6 - You Won’t Be Alone
5 - Amulet
4 - The Quiet Girl
3 - Hit The Road
2 - Decision To Leave
1 - The Banshees of Innershin

TV

8 - Severance
7 - Reservation Dogs
6 - Slow Horses
5 - Top Boy
4 - Better Call Saul (series 6)
3 - The Bureau (series 5)
2 - We Own This City
1 - The Bear

Robert wrote: "Anne wrote: "I had a very scrappy year readingwise. I started a lot that I didn't get very far with and it took me a good while to work out what it was that I needed. I got there in the end, and be..."

i saw the stage version at the National when it was on, very good indeed, i had read the novel, not the play, but was impressed wiith it, Kiev in another very difficult time in history

A little plea to make following comments easier by selecting the relevant part of what one's replying to ... thanks 🙂

Gpfr wrote: "A little plea to make following comments easier by selecting the relevant part of what one's replying to ... thanks 🙂"


Yes, G, I try to do that by a dint of copying, deleting and pasting, otherwise the answer I make does not apply to the abbreviated part of the original.

Best of 2022

Fairly modern fiction
Penelope Fitzgerald – The Gate of Engels
Elizabeth von Arnim – The Enchanted April
Alan Bennett – The Uncommon Reader

New good-read type fiction
Sarah Winman – Still Life

Golden oldie
George Eliot – Silas Marner

Short stories
Jhumpa Lahiri – The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories

Non-fiction
Anna Dostoevsky – Reminiscences
Adam Nicolson – Power and Glory: Jacobean England and the King James Bible

Fairy tale (one strongly suspects)
Colin Clark – My Week with Marilyn

Quite a few, out of a total of about 50, were in some respect unsatisfactory but I don’t want to nominate any of them for the Worst of 2022, as none was truly terrible.

Angels!

Russell wrote: "Best of 2022

Fairly modern fiction
Penelope Fitzgerald – The Gate of Engels..."

Haha! I've learned something there - never knew that Fitzgerald was a Marxist fellow-traveller, despite that book she wrote set in Moscow.

Best books were 'Fathers and Sons', Turgenev, a lumpy experience at first, as a I nearly gave up on it twice as I felt a bit alienated by his descriptions of women in the beginning, but was very glad I persevered as it came right in the end. (Led to entertaining dream about Nihilist vivisection techniques!...)

Adrian Tchaikovsky - Doors of Eden. He lightened up a bit here, compared to previous one's that I have read, and had a fun SF romp which I enjoyed.

Over half of 'Piranesi' - by Susanna Clarke. I can see folks saying that a half book doesn't count. Well I read it all, and I thought the last third or so was rather disappointing but the atmosphere and imagination were brilliant to begin with, and inspired one of my most entertaining dreams of the year.

Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan. Just a lovely simple story about a humble ordinary man, doing something extraordinary, because its the 'right' thing to do.

Others came and went but were nothing special. Disappointed in rereading Susan Sontag's Under the Sign of Saturn. Too much rather sycophantic praising of older male art critics, somehow, in several of the essays, with implied suggestion somehow that they deserved to play the field with seducing their most attractive students! Made me rather wonder about her. She has been quoted as saying that she was only attracted to young men of 26 or younger. They would never get away with it in these 'me too' type days.... to my mind. She was good on photography though... when I was an art student.

Elizabeth Taylor - A View of the Harbour, a relaxing, playful Christmas read, just right for someone still under the weather from a holiday acquired lurgy...

Book to read in the New Year 'The Story of Art' by Katy Hessel. She has rewritten Gombrich's ' The Story of Art' but now including all the women artists that Gombrich left out. 'The Story of Art', as a standard 'Art School' text book, has been regularly updated over the years. Sad to say, apparently, in wasn't until the 2016 edition that the latest Gombrich version actually included one woman artist!... So this is an historical 'rebalancing' act. Somethings take a very long time it seems...