The Book Tower
debut novel coming soon

From Booking Through Thursday:

The books that you start but don’t finish say as much about you as the ones you actually read, sometimes because of the books themselves or because of the circumstances that prevent you from finishing. So . . . what books have you abandoned and why?

If I could define a meaning for the expression that sinking feeling it would be the mood of resignation I fall into when I abandon a book. When I start something I feel obliged to finish it, especially when I’ve had such high expectations. This year I have abandoned several highly acclaimed novels. Why is this? Is it me? Snow by Orham Pamuk was an early casualty, followed by The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. There are others, but I feel ashamed to mention them. And these are just recent novels; that sinking feeling becomes that sunk and underwater feeling when I give up on a classic. A Tale of Two Cities did nothing for me, and neither did Sense and Sensibility. Visitors sometimes comment on the rich selection of books on my shelves. They do not know that some of them are abandoned…

I excuse my behaviour as natural spillage. After all, I do read a lot so some books will get left by the wayside as I journey on. There comes a point where you have to give in to your instincts. Snow had some great reviews, some from fellow bloggers, but I was peering over the pages and looking at the next book on the top of my pile and dying to read that. And when that happens it’s time to give up. With Philip Roth it was a similar experience, but my treatment of classics is less easier to explain away. I think I have perhaps become a little lazier in my reading, and possibly subconsciously relate the harder books to being a student. Reading becomes as task rather than a pleasure and I’m compelled to make pencil jotttings in the margins of my Dickens and Austen…

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Jack Pickard has tagged me for this bookish meme. I realised we did something similar almost a year ago with Jack’s Literary Meme, although it’s always good to revisit old themes (I mean memes).

Total Number of Books Owned

Jack estimates his own book collection as bordering on 1500. I’ve arrived at my own estimate based on the number of books on a typical shelf in my house which is 50 (possibly even more because we have taken to double-stacking our books). Using this as a guide I calculated roughly 200 books on the shelves at the top of the kitchen stairs alone. Add another 200-300 for the rest of downstairs and allowing for the books in the bedroom and those packed into the two spare rooms in the loft I could also comfortably estimate 1500. This is shelf space on three sets of floor to ceiling shelves put up by my good self and five bookcases.
Disclaimer: this meme does not equate for the amount of books in my daughter’s bedroom, which probably also fits the 50-on-a-shelf rule, and the boxes of old comics and papers that also fill our spare rooms.

Last Book Bought

As mentioned a few posts back, this was Darkmans by Nicola Barker. It’s an 800 page hardback, so will take up more shelf space when I’m done with it. The rucksack I take to work with me, which usually contains some bits of paperwork, a mobile phone and two pairs of specs, has just increased in weight tenfold.
Darkmans is part comedy part weird ghost story. I really can’t say any more than that at this stage because it’s taking its time to develop.

Last Book Read

One I can guarantee you’ve never heard of: Portrait of Soper by Donald Purcell. Researching my family tree last year I dicovered I was related to the socialist and pacifist Donald Soper. He caused some controversy when he accused Margaret Thatcher in her heyday of being un-Christian in her policies. Ian Paisley also famously threw a Bible at him.

Four Books That Mean a Lot to Me

I recently discovered the fiction of Cormac McCarthy and have read a few of his books this year, although the one that has had the most affect on me was his latest novel The Road. It’s a very dark and thought provoking story about a man and his young son on a journey across a post apocalyptic landscape. Not quite science fiction or horror, although many readers have certainly found it horrific. I was quite moved by it, and can’t really add much to my original thoughts.

This year I also reread Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut when I heard that he’d died. Don’t call me a meme cheat, but my original thoughts still stand on this one too. Sci-fi elements again, but not really sci-fi.

Mentioning Sebastian Faulks earlier brings Birdsong to mind, and this is a book I find myself always mentioning to people both online and off. This book couldn’t be more different to Slaughterhouse Five, although its anti war message is just as strong.

Another book I ought to recommend to people but forget to is Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. It has one of those endings that creeps towards you, punches you in the chops and then saunters off. It’s all been so brief but yet so dense and multi-layered. You’re left in a daze, thinking “eh?” or “but..” and have to go back to read it all again.

Four People to Tag

I don’t normally tag because the people who always spring to mind never do memes. So if you’re reading – and fancy a go – consider yourself tagged!

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Although I’m only about 100 pages into Nicola Barker’s Darkmans I’m enjoying the ride immensely. And, at over 800 pages, it’s going to be a long one. But it’s already shaping into a very readable and satisfyingly strange novel.

Darkmans is 5/1 to win this year’s Booker Prize. Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach is 3/1, and although it’s a book I really enjoyed – and although McEwan is a writer I love and respect – I would really really like Barker to win.

I like a book to challenge, I like it to provoke and I like a book to be – sometimes – unusual. So far Darkmans is pushing all the right buttons…

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From Booking Through Thursday:

Do you need the light just right, the background noise just so loud but not too loud, the chair just right, the distractions at a minimum?
Or can you open a book at any time and dip right in, whether it’s for twenty seconds, while waiting for the kettle to boil, or indefinitely, like while waiting interminably at the hospital–as long as the book is open in front of your nose, you’re happy to read?

If I’m engrossed in a book I can just about read it anywhere; queueing to check in at the airport, waiting for my daughter to decide on which pair of shoes to wear, that moment between pouring the hot water over the tea bag and pausing to take it out of the mug. The best book can almost possess you, so that it is with you at every waking moment – if you are not reading it in all of your spare minutes you might as well be because it will be occupying your thoughts anyway.

With a less enchanting book the distractions can give you excuses to not read it. The television in the next room isn’t really that loud, the cat doesn’t really want your attention, the choice of shoe isn’t really that unsuitable but they all combine to somehow release you from a dull book. The weaker read will fail but the best books will always overcome everything that’s buzzing around you.

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Something called Airport Exclusives turned my holiday reading schedule upside down. This is a scheme where UK hardbacks are sold as exclusive paperback editions only in airports. And only in airport space or when you have gone through security or whatever the correct term is. Anyway, this year I was overcome by temptation and bought Engleby, the latest by Sebastian Faulks, and The End of Mr Y, a strange novel by an author called Scarlett Thomas.

Engleby was excellent and I’m going to come back to it at a later date to do it justice. The End of Mr Y came with blurb by Philip Pullman and Jonathan Coe. If it’s good enough for them it’s good enough for me – although I finished the book somewhat perplexed. Nethertheless, I’m also going to deliver full and honest justice at a later date.

By the way, I also finished The Honorary Consul which was marred slightly by the fact that I couldn’t get Michael Caine and Richard Gere out of my mind from the film version. But at a later date … okay, you get the drift.

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