As I cough and splutter my way through New Year’s Eve, I would like to come up with some pithy, wise things to say about the year that’s ending, but mostly I’m counting down the time until I can take more Sudafed, so apologies if this a bit rambly.

This year I read 71 books. I set myself three challenges, of which I completed two. Honestly, I am fine with that. I read some great books this year. My favourites have been:

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones
Transmetropolitan, Vol. 5: Lonely City by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson
An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hell by Deborah Levy

Looking at that list, I’m pleased with how varied it is. There’s lit fic, popular science, translated fiction, a graphic novel and poetry. Completely unplanned, I swear!

On the non-reading front, I’ve also had some fun new experiences this year. I went to Amsterdam (and instantly fell in love with it), saw Cirque du Soleil live (which was a total surprise planned by Tim – best surprise ever!), successfully grew chillis (in fairness a friend did the difficult first part and gave me the seedling, but I’m still happy I didn’t just kill it) and I knitted stuff (Tim’s mum taught me to knit at the end of 2013 but I didn’t knit any actual things until this year and I’m super proud of myself still every time). Oh, and we finally finished watching Battlestar Galactica, which may not sound like much of an achievement but we bought the box set five and a half years ago, so I’m totally counting it. It’s a great show, I don’t know why we took so long!

Right now, I think it’s time for another cup of tea and one of my new Christmas books (which I’ll post pictures of another time). Happy New Year everyone!

Is it really December tomorrow already? Time really does seem faster every year. It looks like I have read way more than usual this month because I read seven graphic novels/trade paperback collections of comics and let’s face it, they tend to be quicker reads than your average non-graphic novel. I read them for Graphic Novel Week and wrote short reviews of them all here.

This week I took Tim (as a late birthday present) to see one of his favourite authors, William Gibson, speak in Bath at an event arranged by Toppings bookshop. It was a slightly odd evening, in that Gibson just did a reading from his new book then a short Q&A and implied that the main point of it all was the book signing. Every other author event I’ve gone to has had either an interviewer or the author giving a short talk, but I don’t go to that many so perhaps I’m just discovering late in the day that author events vary quite a lot!

I suppose I expected something more because this year it’s 30 years since the publication of Neuromancer, Gibson’s first novel, which has achieved legendary status and had major influence on the world that reaches far beyond those who’ve actually read it (which I had done in preparation for the event). I had seen on the Internet that Gibson was doing/had done some events specifically about Neuromancer this year and therefore expected it would at least get a brief discussion. As it was, it was only mentioned by audience members in Bath (who, incidentally, had some very intelligent questions that provoked some interesting debate between Tim and I as we waited in the cold and wet for our delayed train home).

Certainly it was different at the David Mitchell event earlier this month, at which an interviewer helped Mitchell discuss his new book and past work for a good half hour before the Q&A and signing. It’s a style I much prefer, even if it did mean I took an hour and a half lunch break that day! But then I’m pre-disposed to prefer an event with an author I’m a big fan of, whose work I have read all of (or at least all the novels, I believe there are short stories out there I haven’t read).

Books

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (review here)

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell (review here)

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Transmetropolitan Vol 1: Back on the Street by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson

Transmetropolitan Vol 2: Lust for Life by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson

Transmetropolitan Vol 3: Year of the Bastard by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson

Transmetropolitan Vol 4: The New Scum by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson

Transmetropolitan Vol 5: Lonely City by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson

Serenity Vol. 4: Leaves on the Wind by Zack Whedon and Georges Jeanty

Ex Machina Vol. 1: The First Hundred Days by Brian K Vaughan and Tony Harris

Short stories

“Can’t and won’t” by Lydia Davis (Selected Shorts podcast)

“If at the wedding (at the zoo)” by Lydia Davis (Selected Shorts podcast)

“The party” by Lydia Davis (Selected Shorts podcast)

“The two Davises and the rug” by Lydia Davis (Selected Shorts podcast)

“The egg race” by John Updike (Selected Shorts podcast)

“Camilo” by Alejandro Zambra (New Yorker, May 26, 2014)

“The right sort” by David Mitchell (Twitter, collected together here: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/14/the-right-sort-david-mitchells-twitter-short-story)

“Sheherezade” by Haruki Murakami (New Yorker, available online: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/scheherazade-3)

“Here’s the story” by David Gilbert (New Yorker, June 9 & 16, 2014 )

“The adolescents” by Rachel Kushner (New Yorker, June 9 & 16, 2014 )

Happy December, folks!

I finish most of the books I start reading, but every couple of months something comes along that I realise I’m just not enjoying or I’m finding too slow/hardgoing to get into. So I stop.

I’m happy with that choice, but then I’m faced with the decision of what to do with the book. Do I just get rid of it, strike it off the to read list forever? (I’m pretty sure Tim is nodding furiously at this one, as we’ve already had to add another bookcase to the library!) Or do I keep hold of it for another time? Sometimes the answer is clear, but sometimes there really can be a right time and a wrong time for a particular book, and I’d hate to miss out on something wonderful because I made a snap decision when I was in the wrong mood.

With that in mind, here are the last three books I gave up on part-way through. These aren’t exactly reviews, because I read less than 100 pages of each. Have you read any of these? What did you think of them? Do any of them deserve another chance?

The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery
translated from French by Alison Anderson

This had been recommended in several places so I thought it was a great find when I spotted it in a charity shop. The synopsis – Parisian concierge strikes up an unusual friendship with a 12 year old in the building who has secretly decided to kill herself on her 13th birthday – sounded interesting, and I usually love stories set in Paris. Not so this one. More than anything I am reminded of Sophie’s World – it seems to be a series of short essays on philosophy and the arts (and not particularly good ones) with a thin veneer of story. The two alternating narrators are both intensely annoying. The concierge is obsessed with hiding the fact that she is cultured and loves to read, because apparently no-one would expect that of the working class. (I mean, really? Wasn’t that the origin of Penguin Books back in the 1930s? Perhaps it’s a French thing.) The 12-year-old rambles on about how clever she is and really has raised not one iota of sympathy in me. An unfortunate event has just happened (on p80 or so) so maybe it changes from here on in, but it would have to be a radical change to keep me reading.

Published 2008 by Europa Editions.

Ghana Must Go
by Taiye Selasi

Almost the opposite of the Barbery book, this is beautifully written and there’s plenty of story happening. I loved the language and was marking favourite passages constantly, but I kept losing track of the story. The book opens with the death of Kwaku Sai, a Ghanian doctor who moved back to Ghana after many years in America and has married a younger woman his children (now grown and still living in the US) don’t approve of. His death is slowly drawn out, filled with the memories of his life that he lingers on as his heart fails. There’s a whole life to tell, so it doesn’t feel dragged out, but I did sometimes get confused about past versus present. While I loved the language, I found it hard work and wasn’t drawn into the story. But I think I’d like to give this another try.

Published 2013 by Viking.

A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionised the Cosmos
by Dava Sobel

I wanted to like this book, I really did. I loved Sobel’s breakout hit Longitude, which doesn’t deal with an obviously interesting to me subject, but Sobel made it fascinating. In this case there’s again a historical setting – the 16th century – plus the added interest of how Copernicus balanced his life as a priest with his growing interest in astronomy. I didn’t get as far as his controversial observation that the Earth is not in fact the centre of the universe. I didn’t even get as far as the fictional play script in the middle of the straight biography (which to be honest I was wary of). I’m afraid I was bored. Perhaps it’s an artefact of there being few primary sources of Copernicus’s life to draw on, but I didn’t feel that Sobel brought the period or Copernicus alive for me.

Published 2011 by Bloomsbury.