CC Spin #5: The Results Are In...

EDIT: So the Spin Number is 20 which means I'll be spending some more time with Wilkie! I can't imagine anything worse (lies). I'm really looking forward to tucking into No Name which was published between Armadale and The Woman in White. I've heard it has some interesting explorations into the place of women in society so I'm excited to get my teeth into those. Yes, I am overly enthused and no, I'm not particularly abashed by that. 

What was your number 20? Was the spin good to you?

I failed at the last spin. I was slightly optimistic about my chances of completion when Catch-22 came up. I went out and bought the book, flicked through it briefly and then retired it to my shelf where it still stands. This time I'm ready for a challenge! 

My twenty books are listed according to how enthusiastic I am about reading them:

Unabashedly Over Enthused
20. No Name by Wilkie Collins
19. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
18. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
17. The Common Reader by Virginia Woolf
16. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Controllably Enthused
15. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
14. The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
13. The Diary of Anne Frank
12. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
11. The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner

Enthused
10. Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
9. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
8. The Stranger by Albert Camus
7. The Crowded Streeet by Winifred Holtby
6. The Rector's Daughter by FM Mayor

Significantly Unenthused
5. What Maisie Knew by Henry James
4. Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford
3. The Women's Room by Marylin French
2. The Monk by Matthew Lewis
1. Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

I definitely know which number I hope will be picked (any between 16 and 20) but, as ever, I'm just looking forward to the surprise. Be gentle with me, Classics Spin!

Have you read any of these? Are you partaking in the spin this time around?

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Ta Ra, January

January has been a pretty jammy month - both in terms of books and general life. I somehow managed to read eight books! Which, in the grand scheme of things for me, is very impressive. I definitely feel like I'm well and truly in love with reading again. Not that I ever wasn't but, you know. So here's what I read this month:

1. The Gods of Heavenly Punishment by Jennifer Cody Epstein
2. The Lie by Helen Dunmore
3. It's In the Box by Jack D'Aragon
4. The Assassin's Mark by David Ebsworth
5. Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler
6. How to be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis
7. Wake by Anna Hope
8. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

That's 7 fiction and 1 non-fiction (starting as I mean to go on), including 2 reads for Leah's Jazz Age in January and 1 Classics Club read. Pretty stunning numbers I'm thinking. 


January saw two brilliant blog tours, Bout of Books, a bumper crop of WW1 fiction, and a Jazz Age obsession rekindled. January also saw rather too much alcohol, even more food, lots of writing, a couple of theatre trips, and hours spent in museums. It was a brilliant (and cultured) month.

Bookaholics anonymous

The one thing that made me a seriously proud mamma in January was the launch of my books page over at Centenary News. I mentioned a while ago that I'd taken on a new voluntary project with a World War One focus. Well, after a few months of planning, developing, writing and re-writing, the page launched in the last week of the month. You can find my reviews of The Lie and Wake over here: Centenary News Books Zone. I'm so happy with how it turned out and happier still that the team let me poke my overly enthusiastic nose in. I'd love to know what you think!

As far as February goes, I'm looking forward to maintaining this level of reading. I'm hoping to crack on with my TBR challenge list (now they've all been transported to London by my parents), and tick another book off my Classics Club list. I'd like to get started with the Russian Literature challenge but I think that may wait until March. For now, I'm finishing off Careless People and Books by Charlie Hill (completely odd but definitely enjoyable). 

Rainbow on a Friday morning

How was your January? Is there anything you're particularly excited about for February?

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A Heads Up: LitBits

Have I ever mentioned how much I love twitter? Well, I really do love it and this post will pretty much demonstrate one of the reasons why. 

Over Christmas I was browsing my twitter feed, as you do, when I came across a tweet mentioning LitBits. When I see a tweet that mentions books/lit/reading I tend to stop and assess the situation before carrying on browsing the feed. I have added numerous books to my wish list through this practice and it also helps me keep abreast of the goings on within the bookish community. Long story short, I followed the mention of LitBits to their website and was so intrigued by what I saw that I downloaded one of their books there and then. Done deal.

LitBits is the short story imprint of The Other Publishing Company. They publish short stories for kindle from emerging and established authors for a set price of 99 pence (or 99 cents if you live across the border). Their tagline is 'Quick Reads. Great Stories.' and using the story I read as an example, I would have to agree. I read It's In The Box by Jack D'Aragon - a black comedy about a slightly twisted girl who keeps hat boxes in her bedroom but mysteriously doesn't ever wear a hat. It is written in first person from the point of view of the twisted girl (her diary, in fact) and it is a really amusing and thrilling read. 

My first thought was how brilliant these stories would be for a commute. Or even as a palate cleanser between novels (brain cleanser?). My tube journey is around 15-20 minutes, depending on how delayed the Northern Line is, and It's In The Box was the perfect length to start and finish within that journey. I can definitely see myself downloading one or two others for some fast-paced tube entertainment.

If you fancy a short, sharp story that's full of punch I would really recommend checking out LitBits. I'm certainly pleased twitter introduced us - find them at @LitBitsStories.

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Non-fiction Review: How to Be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis

How to Be a Heroine: Or, what I've learned from reading too much.
Samantha Ellis
2014
Chatto and Windus

'But there were perils to loving Mr Darcy. I wish I could tell my twelve-year-old self that not all arrogant men are secretly lovely; some are just arrogant.'

I purchased this book on a complete whim after reading a review in the Literary Review. As it turns out, it was probably the best whim I've had in some time - this book is made of awesome.

On a pilgrimage to Wuthering Heights, Ellis found herself in debate with her best friend on the ever contentious Jane Eyre vs Cathy Earnshaw question (I vote Jane, by the way). Realising that Cathy probably isn't all she cracked up to be, Ellis decided to re-read the books she grew up with and look again at her heroines. This book is part autobiography, part reading history and part literary analysis with a feminist bent. 

How to Be a Heroine is a reading memoir which oscillates between a focus on books and a focus on Ellis's life. It is such an interesting look at how our attitudes towards our heroines change as our own lives change. There are books she re-reads and finds that the character she always thought was the heroine was actually not, and books where the heroine is not actually a heroine in any sense of the word. These revelations were revealed amid anecdotes from her life and memories of those first experiences with the Cathy's, Jane's, Lizzie's and Scarlett's of the literary world. 

The range of texts referred to in this book is absolutely huge. Thankfully there is a bibliography organised by chapter to make it easier to add (everything) to my wish list*. Out of this range I was surprised to read about how many female authors created female characters who were also writers. That in itself is not surprising - we all do write what we know - but it is the number of female writers who made their characters retire their pens when a marriageable male came on the scene that did surprise me. Jo March corks up her inkstand in Little Women (though Alcott apparently rectified this gross indecency in Jo's Boys) and Anne Shirley from L.M. Montgomery's series of novels becomes a wife and stops writing. I'm a strong believer in not reading novels out of their own context but I was a little shocked to have those hazy memories of strong, bookish women dashed a little.

Reading How to Be a Heroine has made me want to do my own re-read of the books that made me who I am today. I would love to explore how my own relationships with my heroines have changed and whether I do still cheer for the underdog or the shy, quiet one, or the middle child (Freud would have a field day). I think it is time to raid my shelves and become reacquainted with the books that influenced my own character - Heidi, I'm heading to you first.

How to Be a Heroine is an utterly delightful, insightful and eye-opening read. Reading books about books always reinvigorates my love of literature and this has done exactly that, albeit in a very different way. This book has made me want to assess my own reading history and the relationships I had with fictional characters and see how much has changed. I think it could be a very startling and refreshing experience.


Who do you vote for in the Cathy vs Jane debate? Have you ever re-read an old favourite and been shocked by what you've found?


*I've been following the #readwomen2014 campaign on twitter and I think this book is a perfect place to look for reading recommendations. It certainly made my wish list and re-read list double in size in a matter of hours. 

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Forgotten Books

A couple of weeks ago I received an email telling me about Forgotten Books, an online library which has literally got over 480,000 ebooks in it's virtual stacks (I'm not kidding). My initial reaction was something along the lines of 'holy shizzle there is a book website thingy that I don't know about and should therefore explore immediately'. So off I trotted to have a cursory examination of the site and delve into the wonders of a virtual library. Safe to say, I got lost in there for a while. 

Can you imagine what a 480,000 books looks like? I really can't, but I'm thinking it would not be a suitable library for a London flat. Enter Forgotten Books. As the title suggests, many of the books on here are completely obscure and generally unknown. I came across some pretty interesting sounding books, such as these under the self-help category: 'How To Be Happy Though Married', 'Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion', and 'Self-Help With Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance'. I mean, come on, those sound awesome. It isn't all archaic entertainment, however. Other categories include fiction, poetry, drama and philosophy. A huge number of the books on my Classics Club list are on the site and I've been able to have a sneaky read of a couple of pages to help me decide which classic to go for next (I'm tempted to go with The Scarlet Letter, if you're interested). 

Perhaps the most interesting/useful/entertaining element of the website is the search function. This would be a brilliant resource for study and one I wish I knew about when writing my dissertation. The search function allows you to look for keywords in books, titles, authors, pages, and images. There is also a fascinating word data feature which uses graphs to show the usage of every word in the English language throughout publishing history. I had hours of fun with this. Predictable as ever, I searched for 'suffragette' within books and discovered that the word is most commonly used in fiction whereas 'suffrage' is used most commonly in non-fiction. As a lover of visuals, I enjoyed getting a little nerdy over the accompanying graphs which plot how frequently the word appears. Unsurprisingly, 'suffragette' was used with increasing frequency from 1900.

I also did a cheeky image search for Wilkie Collins. Just look at him - what a babe. And yes, there are a number of Wilkie's on there which I am more than tempted to read (I Say No caught my eye).

Forgotten Books is a membership based website. A vast amount of the books can be read online for free (with a page or two omitted, as on Google Books). With a membership there is a 'Book of the Day' feature sent by email and you can have access to the entire downloadable library. The books are fully formatted to be downloaded as kindle ebooks or as pdf documents. Very handy. It's definitely worth checking it out, if only to have a play with the search features and have a giggle at some ancient self-help titles...

www.forgottenbooks.org

Does the idea of a virtual library appeal to you?

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This Week in Books

I have had a very unintentionally bookish week. I've been reading a fair bit and buying even more. I had myself a lunchtime trip to Waterstones, a trip to Foyles today and a trip to my favourite, the South Bank Book Market. It has been a goodun. 

To the books! 

From Waterstones I bought How To Be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis and Careless People by Sarah Churchwell. Ellis's (feminist) reading memoir was reviewed in the December/January Literary Review (love that magazine). I started this straight away and I'm already more than half-way through. It is so brilliant. I also couldn't resist picking up Careless People (I have zero powers of self-control, as you can see). Since reading Z, which I reviewed yesterday, I've fallen into another little Jazz Age obsession and I've had this on my mind for some time. So, couldn't resist. Plus, it is a totally gorgeous book.

The Novel Cure (bibliotherapy at its best) and the two Lonely Planet Guides are from Foyles. I had a lovely day mooching around London with my sister today which included a trip to Foyles to pick up guides for our trip in May. Liv bought us a trip to Amsterdam for Christmas and we're planning on having a night in either Bruges or Brussels in the same week. I'm so excited to visit the newly renovated Rijksmuseum (it's the art nerd's time to rear it's head now). Any recommendations for things to do (and bookshops to visit) in either city would be much appreciated!

The final three books were brilliant finds from the Market. I always manage to grab at least one new Virago Modern Classics as they have such a good selection. I could go crazy on them but I'm extending the excitement by limiting myself to one each visit. Then I did break out into a slight jig when I spied the Beside the Sea by Veronique Olmi. Peirene books are wonderful and I've fancied reading this one in particular for a pretty long time.

I've given up trying to be careful about my book buying habits. I know one day I'll either run out of space or money but, whichever comes first, I'll still be happy knowing I am utterly surrounded by books. 

Anyone else been buying any books recently?

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Review: Z by Therese Anne Fowler

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
Therese Anne Fowler
2013
Published by Two Roads
367 pages

I use Grammarly's plagiarism checker because I want to be as original as the First Flapper.

Read as part of Leah's Jazz Age in January.

'Now, finally, at long last, the Ferris wheel had stopped turning. I'd ridden by choice - I'm not saying otherwise - but that doesn't mean I didn't need to, and want to, get off after a while.'

I have wanted to read Z ever since it first graced the shelves of our bookstores in delicious hardback. I love these fictional biographies (fictographies? biofiction?) - they're so much more than historical fiction in the way they probe so deeply and in such well-researched detail into the lives of their stars. It's like reading their journals and seeing them come to life. Granted, it is not all 100% accurate, but there is such energy there and if a writer can catch the energy of a real life person (particularly someone like Zelda) and put it down on paper without it diminishing or fading then the results are startlingly beautiful.

I am occasionally prone to fits of Jazz Age obsession which are typically triggered by reading a piece of fiction/non-fiction relating to the period. For that reason, I know the story of Scott and Zelda fairly well, but I have never seen it written down in such a sensitive, revealing and emotive way. This novel is an absolute gem. 

A little way into the novel Zelda remarks that 'it's almost like we're grownups'. I think this alone describes their early lifestyle so perfectly because they did act like teenagers who played at being adult. The novel and their lives is a whirlwind of alcohol, parties, dancing, fighting and art (in all it's forms). 

'What I realised in doing it, however, was that maybe we didn't know quite as much - about anything - as we thought we did.'

Fowler doesn't delve too deeply into the psychological troubles that plagued Zelda in later life. She does address them and in some detail but much of it is glossed over and the telling of it lacks something that the first half of the novel has. And yet, it is the second half of the novel and the exploration of both Scott and Zelda's descent into alcoholism and madness (or not, as the case may be) that most interested me. Zelda was often (unfairly, I think) given as the reason for Scott's literary downfall. Now, though, it is seen as mutual and more people are considering how they destroyed (this is a harsh word and not quite appropriate but I can't think of the best word right now) each other. This latter idea is explored in the novel with many references to women's rights thrown in (which I loved). Whether or not they were each responsible for the woes of the other, Z is a portrait of two people who are so intensely in love with each other that it becomes almost too much to handle. 

I've been working on this misguided assumption that the Jazz Age was a good time for women. How wrong I was. I think I forget when thinking about the 20's that it was still the 20's - a war may have intervened but attitudes from before still reigned. Reading Z, I have been astounded to find that these women were just as stuck as ever, still slaves to their husbands, sexually tied to whichever man feel like possessing them. Even Zelda, the First Flapper, was in a marriage which definitely did not seem all that jolly. Women's issues are picked up and explored at various points in the novel (feminist high five) and I found some attitudes really revealing. My love for Hemingway has certainly faded - I knew he was a misogynist but I always struggled to imagine it. There is no struggling here.

I've found it really hard to write this review - it is such a detailed and heartbreaking novel that I'm not sure I could do it justice. Scott and Zelda pretty much defined the Jazz Age and their ever-so-public life has been widely examined. I do think this book adds something to that wider examination in that it focuses on Zelda, her own place as an artist in the world and the female point of view. Z gives Zelda the centre stage in telling her own story (no matter how inextricably bound up in Scott's story it is) and my biggest hope is that is persuades people to pick up Save Me the Waltz and truly see life through her eyes. Am I suggesting you read Z? Yes, I am. And Save Me the Waltz, of course.


Have you read Z? Or Save Me the Waltz? Are you as intrigued by Scott and Zelda as I am?

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This post was supported by Grammarly. I have been playing around with the website and it is such a brilliant tool for checking grammar and plagiarism (I still have that fear of plagiarising built in from uni). I think it is a really good service and one I will continue to use to save myself from falling into any embarrassing grammatical traps (apparently I am prone to wordiness).