Can You Recommend… Books Based in Yorkshire

Well, when I say Yorkshire I actually mean York or Harrogate (alas not when the festival is on). Let me explain… I was hoping to get some winter sunshine abroad in March, hop on a plane and hot the beach with a few books nothing too fancy. However I decided to spend some of the money, and indeed some of the time, on having a (rather literary) tattoo instead. All is not lost with getting away, and who knows maybe there could be some sun involved, as I am going to have a break elsewhere in the UK.

Each year myself and three of my closest friends, Polly, Michelle and Dom, like to have a long weekend away together somewhere in the UK, often somewhere rather random. We went for the thrills and spills of Alton Towers last year and then the most random plastic log cabin near a very odd pub – people stared at the strangers in the village much to our giggles.

We were plotting Whitby this year, however as those naughty monkeys all live in the south it’s a bit of a mad trek for a weekend (we might do a week next year) so instead we have two options – possibly one by the time you read this – which are places on the outskirts of York…

Or the outskirts of Harrogate…

Either way we will be in some of this country’s most beautiful countryside and near a wonderful town and city with lots and lots of bookshops to explore hopefully. So what I was wondering, as all four of us are rather bookish geeky folk, if you knew of any books set in York, Harrogate or Yorkshire at all? As we may just pick one and have a little book group while we are there, or at least have some books to turn to if it rains and we all get bored of each other, ha! Let me know…

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Book Notebooks, Keeping Up With Tradition

Isn’t it weird how sometimes things seem to crop up at just the right time, or a memory pops into your head unbidden that then means a lot at a later point? I had a serious case of this over the weekend, which in its own way has rather a bookish twist.

I was just off to the post office to finally send Marieke Hardy a Chris Ware inspired pen pal parcel (if you are reading this – unlikely – Marieke I am sorry it has taken so long, I have written loads of excuses in my parcel) to Australia. As I waited in the never ending queue, and mourned the days of the post office being in the now closed local bookshop, I spotted some notebooks which instantly sent me off into the past. Bright red Silvine notebooks.

I can vividly remember Gran having these notebooks in which she kept all sorts of notes. Be they shopping lists, random things to remember or of course notes on what she was reading, in to these books they would go – those or some weird notebooks she inherited or possibly stole when she left her job. Initially I thought nothing of it, though it seemed apt I spotted them as I had really been missing her that morning, weird how random days can just get you the little buggers. But I bought one, popping a note about the memory of them in it, and included it in my parcel bound for Oz.

Anyway, as I said I didn’t think much of it after that. Until after having taken my old iPhone off to be sold, I went to catch up with my varying impending reviews and realised all my ‘bookish notes’ had failed to transfer from phone to phone. I was distraught, weeping almost happened, vexation hit. Awful.

Well after an hour blethering about it, moaning about it on twitter and then remembering I backed those notes up to Gmail – goodness only knows how, I can’t blinking remember. I came up with the idea that really I need to have hard copies of these notes, somewhere reliable and so I made a special trip up the road and came home with these…

Yes, four of the notebooks that Gran used to use. Four may seem excessive but at 59p a go you can’t go wrong can you, so how could I not? I have a wanton craving for stationery at all times and this sated it in the lead up to pay day. Most importantly though I liked the idea that a tradition of bookish sorts has been passed down the family line and now when I write my bookish notes I can think of Gran as I do so, not that she wouldn’t flit through my mind anyway, as it’s almost like I can write the notes to her as she’s not on the end of the phone.

Do you have fate filled moments like this? Have you gained any bookish hand me down traditions? Where do you keep your book notes? And one of the biggest mysteries of all (ha, how to hype a question) why is it people who love books also really love stationery?

Jawbone Lake – Ray Robinson

Finally, time to catch up with writing some reviews of some of the books I have managed to get through while work has been bonkers. I thought I would start with one of the books I read at the beginning of the year and one of the releases in 2014 I was also most looking forward to, Jawbone Lake by Ray Robinson. Having been a huge fan of Forgetting Zoe I was looking forward to entering another possibly rather dark world of Robinson’s creation, even more so as I knew a lot of it was set in the Peak District which is my home turf and where I spent more of last year than I did at my new adoptive home in Liverpool.

William Heinemann, hardback, 2014, fiction, 320 pages, kindly sent by the publishers

Joe Arms receives a call over New Year and learns that his father, CJ, has been in some kind of accident. On leaving London and returning to the Ravenstor in the Peak District he finds that his father somehow lost control driving and veered off a bridge into the frozen lake nicknamed ‘Jawbone Lake’. Unbeknownst to Joe, but not to the reader, local girl Rabbit witnessed the incident on a stroll and saw not only that it wasn’t an accident but indeed that there was a man there who has seen her. Here the strands spilt very cleverly as we follow Joe as he discovers more about his father’s past as things come to light after his death and also follow Rabbit as she copes with and tries to forget everything she has seen.

The term ‘literary thriller’ seems to be a fairly new one and is one which has been used by those who have read Jawbone Lake and I am about to join them. For the first hundred or so pages, clichéd as I know this will sound, I simply could not stop reading the book (I was on a train to London and the two hours flew by) as I was completely hooked by both the prose and the mystery at the books heart. I found the relationship between Joe and CJ, which becomes established by small glimpses into the past really interesting to watch unravel. It was the same with Rabbits situation, which I don’t want to give too much away of, with her aunt and after a dark time in her recent past plus all she has to deal with. They are also interesting lead characters with interesting ticks and quirks, for example Joe with his desertion of the north and Rabbit with her obsession with numbers as a coping mechanism.

He had become The Man Who Stared Out of Windows, a bored, thirty-five-year-old software designer, watching doughy faced office workers making their way between the tall buildings outside, envisaging what their lives were like, wondering if theirs could possibly be as thankless as his.

To make this as fair a review as possible I do have to admit that I did have one issue with the book, not to the point of it being ruined or not liking it, yet it is one that probably wouldn’t bother many of you it’s just something I don’t like as a subject in books. Without giving any spoilers away I will say that I have an issue with any books, thrillers or otherwise, that go into any of these elements (so which this one does you will have to read and find out, clever eh?) gangsters, hit men, drug dealing, money laundering or business fraud. They simply don’t do anything for me and illicit a big groan before I invariably put the book down.

In all fairness when one or two of any of these possible outcomes (see, still not giving anything away) came up I did feel slightly disappointed yet to Ray’s credit I carried on in ground that would normally completely turn me off. This was because of a) his writing and b) the world he had created in the Peak District which for me was where the heart of the story lay, and where my interest as a reader was focused because they were bloody marvellous.

He went over to the window and watched the snow fleck the valley. In the distance, the white peak of High Tor looked vivid in the fading light. Snow lay heavy across the rectangles of higgledy-piggledy rooftops descending into the valley below. Cars progressed beneath the orange stars of street lights, familiar constellations snaking between the mass of hill, tor, fell.

Being from that area I am sure that knowing the area makes me bond with a book all the more yet (as when I read Edward Hogan’s wonderful The Hunger Trace) Robinson really captures the atmosphere of the Peak District which is at once incredibly beautiful and also dangerous and ominous. This ripples through the book and often informs the mood over the characters even if they don’t know it. I loved all this. There is a modern gothic nature to all of this, along with an earthy element that works wonders for me and I think Robinson is brilliant at. I also loved tales of the uninhabited quarries and underwater villages (both real, both part of the landscapes history and folk lore) that he picked up on. More than that I loved the life of the people. I could have read endless pages with Rabbit at work in the ice-cream factory and trips ‘down t’pub’. There was something so real about it all that it chimed with me.

Jawbone Lake nicely picks up on the term ‘it’s grim up north’ (or ‘oop north’ as we Derbyshire folk might say) and delivers a deliciously dark literary thriller overall. Personally I could have done without the trips to Spain and to Hastings as it is in Derbyshire where the magic of the prose, characters and atmosphere really meet. It has reminded me that I really need to get to Robinson’s back list of books while I await whatever he comes up with next.

Other People’s Bookshelves #32; Clare Axton

Hello and welcome to the latest in Other People’s Bookshelves, a weekly series of posts where you get to have a nosey at other book lovers bookshelves. This week we are back ‘oop’ north in England in Nottingham (which will instantly have you thinking of Robin Hood) where we join Clare and get to have a nosey at her shelves not a million miles from my old hometown of Matlock Bath. So grab a cuppa and a few biscuits which Clare has kindly laid on and have a rummage through her shelves…

My name is Clare and I live in Nottingham. I have a great and very deep love for books and even more so for bookshops my long held dream to be the owner of one. I think I can trace my love for books back to my Great Grandad who had a wonderful library in his home that I loved to spend my time perusing. I am also a collector of original Penguin books and copies of Punch magazine, the oldest I have is 1908. The best way I can think to spend a day is finding somewhere nice for tea and cake then bookshopping of course. I am currently discovering London and it’s bookshops too also love Lincoln and it’s wonderful bookshops.

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites?

I have recently had a sort of my shelves so now I do have sections for my favourites especially for example my Penguin originals together and classics together. I normally carry a book or two with me for those moments when I can find a quiet spot,the table next to my bed holds one or two or maybe more of my favourites which usually have bookmarks trying to remind me to finish them before I start another.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way?

Only very recently before it was very haphazard but now I hope there is some sort of structure to my shelves. I do like the spines of one author to be together especially when they are a classic author for example I have my Dickens all together and including the very lovely spine of a Sketches By Boz edition of 1904.

What was the first book you ever brought with your own money?

I think that would be Charlie and The Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. We had a wonderful bookshop in my village when I was little and a lot of my pocket went on Dahl and Beatrix Potter Books which are all still happily on my shelves.

Are there are guilty pleasures on your bookshelves?

Maybe Lady Chatterley’s Lover obviously considered such a scandalous books at the time of its trial it does feel like a very guilty pleasure although Lawrence is one of my favourite writers.

What is the first grown up book you brought?

Well the book was actually on my Aunt’s shelves and it was “Forever” by Judy Blume. I felt very grown up when I read it in my teens and now it does have a special place on my shelves.

If you love a book but have borrowed it do you find you have to then buy the book?

I have found many wonderful books through the library first, for example my love for Thomas Hardy started when I borrowed Far From The Madding Crowd read it at least three times before it went back then quickly visited the nearest bookshop to buy it and many more of his novels and poetry.

 

What was the last book you added to your shelves?

I think it would have to be two books… Where’d you go Bernadette by Maria Semple and On The Road by Jack Kerouac both wonderful novels. My next purchase needs to be The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt which I have seen people raving about and I’m very much looking forward to reading.

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

I have always wanted a complete set of novels by Nancy Mitford a writer whose life and family I find fascinating. Also original penguin copies of Lucky Jim and the James Bond books these I hope to find on my next London Trip.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste?

I think they would see my book tastes as quite eclectic and I hope they would find something on each shelf that they would enjoy too.

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A huge thanks to Clare for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves, who is off with me to go and have a hunt through the caves under Nottingham Castle before heading to Sherwood Forest?  Don’t forgot if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Clare’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that she mentions?

Catching Up With Myself & Then Catching Up With You…

Once upon a time, in a far away land ‘oop’ North, there was a man with a big beard who loved books and to blog about them…

Oh where have those days gone, as they do currently seem to have been a million billion trillion years ago. In reality it has only been a week or so since I last blogged yet to be honest since the new year, since starting a new and full time job (which I know, I know, I have mentioned before and you all have them and I should just get a grip) my reading and blogging has all felt a little bit out of my grip as I am working like a nutter on a brilliant yet bonkers project. Particularly in the last month, when I have been working on two parts of the project with a very tight pair of deadlines, when I have worked in the office till late or come home with work and worked till late or over the weekend.

Well, fingers crossed the deadlines were both yesterday and now things will be busy but a more normal and manageable level of crazy. I might even leave at a normal time and come home with time to blog AND read, even just reading has been grabbing the briefest of time slots, though it has interestingly forced me into the reminder of how special reading slowly can be – more on that in the next few weeks.

I am trying to think of any news I have and the only ones I can think of are firstly some dreadful news and secondly some much nicer news. The bad news, let us get it out the way, is that my local book shop (which I went for a wander to for the first time in a month, unheard of) has shockingly closed down. I am beyond gutted and if anyone would like to buy me it I am open to offers. Seriously though, I am devastated.

Second news is that I am currently lost in one of the most wonderful books I have read in some time. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki is a book I meant to read all of 2013 and have finally got around to reading – its bloody marvellous. I have been begging many people to join in and read it (if they haven’t already) so if you are interested do pick it up as I am not racing through it just slowly loving it and will be tweeting about it lots. Just speaking about it makes me want to go off and read it, so I shall for a while before I get a crack on with commenting back to you all from posts since the dawn of time of 2014 and reading some of your blogs over the weekend too.

While I am doing that, what is your news and what have you been reading?

Sophie’s World – Jostein Gaarder

There are many, many books out there that are on my periphery ‘to read one day’ yet that often need a nudge to actually get them into my hands. Sophie’s World, has been one such book – as is Sophie’s Choice which I often confuse one for the other. Not now though, as after the lovely Rita chose Sophie’s World for book club and so, after initially having been very excited and run to the bookshop to buy it, I have read it. All I can say initially was that it was definitely a reading experience unlike any other I have had.

Phoenix Books, 1991 (1996 edition), paperback, 448 pages, bought by myself for book group

Fourteen year old Sophie Amundsen never gets any post. However one day on the way back from school she finds something for her when she collects the latest items from the mail box. She has two notes, one which asks her ‘Who are you?’ and another which asks ‘Where does the world come from?’ This creates several puzzles for Sophie, firstly who on earth is suddenly sending her post and secondly what on earth are the answers to all of these questions which in turn create even more questions. Soon enough more parcels arrive and it seems someone wants to teach Sophie all about philosophy and its history. Yet why suddenly is she also receiving postcards addresses to Hilde care of her? Who is this Hilde girl and how are all these mysteries linked?

There are a lot of questions there before we even really come to any of the actually philosophy that is intertwined within the book. I have been known, on a good day, to be sat looking at the sky and suddenly realising/remembering that I am on a big spinning piece of rock that is spinning through space and time and really we have no idea why it does this or what the point of it all is. I will think about it, possibly contemplating what it might be like to visit the moon, see the earth from space or if there may be aliens out there, and then my head hurts or feels it may implode and so I have a nice cup of tea and a biscuit and pick up a book. This book was making my head hurt a little bit by page eight…

Where does the world come from?
She hadn’t the faintest idea. Sophie knew that the world was only a small planet in space. But where did space come from?
It was possible that space had always existed, in which case she would not need to figure out where it came from. But could something have always existed? Something deep down inside her protested the idea. Surely everything that exists must have a beginning? So space must sometime have been created out of something else.
But if space had come from something else, then that something else must also have come from something. Sophie felt she was only deferring the problem. At some point, something must have come from nothing. But was that possible? Wasn’t that just as impossible as the idea that the world has always existed?

I have no issue with a book making me think hard, or about things I have never thought about before. Indeed this is what I often really like about books. Nor do I have issues with books informing me of things that I might not have known before. From the premise of the book I thought I was going to find a really clever twisting and turning mystery, a sort of tale of adventure that would also teach/inform me of philosophy, its ideas and the philosophers behind it at the same time. Instead, overall, I got a book which was a rather clumsily and clunkily (is that a word?) written text book of the history of philosophy which was padded out by an initially rather repetitive and thinly constructed story. A very thinly veiled text book too.

You see for the first hundred or so pages all we get is Sophie walking to and from the letterbox to her house, or two and from the letterbox to some bushes where she has her hide out. In between this riveting (yes, that’s sarcasm) storyline we get chunks of text book like quotes (I actually thought these were either from a very dry text book or that Gaarder had written a text book which was turned away from publishers so added a sprinkling of story and kerching) about philosophers since the beginning of time. Here, had it not been a book club choice, I would have easily given up. Bad prose, dull academic non-fiction, no thank you very much.

Interestingly the book did then take on a very strange and unexpected twist which did in fact save it for me, albeit briefly. I can’t say what the twist is as there may be many of you mad people out there who want to give Sophie’s World a try. What I can say is that it made me think about fiction, writing, books and characters plus the boundaries between the real and the imaginary that was for a while rather fascinating and diverting. Then the book goes all out bonkers, seriously the comparison to Alice in Wonderland is slightly understandable as Gaarder seems to suddenly go off on some ‘trip’ into the utterly bizarre. Ruining the good, if short lived, high point of the book. Well for me at least, though most of the people at book group (who actually managed to finish it, several didn’t) agreed.

Odd then that by the end of it, though I had pretty much loathed or been bored to tears by 80% of it, I was quite pleased I had conquered Sophie’s World, even if only because it was over and I could say I had indeed managed to survive it. It did also do what I guess all philosophical books aim for, it made me ask lots of questions. Sadly these were; how on earth was this a classic, how can people say it is a novel, how would I ever get that time spent reading it back again, how on earth was it a book for teenagers and young adults and could I ever believe anyone who said they ‘loved it when I was 12/13’, how did they even understand it or not get bored out their minds? Food for thought though, ha – and at least I can laugh about it now.

Note – I am joking about people who loved it when they were younger. You are just cleverer than me and I am bitter! Ha!

Other People’s Bookshelves #31; Elizabeth Paulk

Hello and welcome, to the latest Other People’s Bookshelves, a weekly series of posts where you get to have a nosey at other book lovers bookshelves. After quite a few weeks sticking to the British Isles we are fleeing the apocalyptic storms and floods and heading all the way to Texas to have a gander at Elizabeth Paulk’s shelves. I was going to say I will be near these parts in August when I come to Asheville for Booktopia but then looked at the map and realized it’s a million miles (well not quite) away. So quickly glossing over my lack of geography, let’s hand over to Elizabeth and Futz the cat.

I am English – grew up in Bedford, UK — and now live in the Texas Panhandle, home of Buddy Holley and the Crickets. I came to the U.S. a long time ago to go to a Division One university on a swimming scholarship, and ended up staying in the States (which had been my goal all along). I am a professional technical writer, an avid reader, and a freelance photographer.  I still have strong ties with England, family and otherwise, and do occasional voice-overs for electronic telephone menus (“Press One for…”) for businesses in England and other places. My blog is at www.ravingreader.wordpress.com (Just One More Page).

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

No, I don’t feel the need to keep every book that I read – luckily, or the house would be over-run with paper! I do keep one or two here or there if they’re particularly strong reads or are nicely produced or otherwise special in some way, but that is not the common practice. I generally try to maintain a “One In, One Out” strategy, although it’s mostly “Out” until March 31 as I’m participating (unofficially) in the TBR Challenge. Probably about 75% of the titles on my shelves are TBRs.

Do you organize your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

I have two separate bookcases in the back room: one 5-shelf bookcase with mostly NF, and one 3-shelf with mostly F. (There might be a pile in front of the bookcases every now and then if I hadn’t the time or inclination to put the books where they are supposed to be, but I try and keep the total number of books to what fits in the shelves themselves.) 

NF vacillates as to how organized they are. I recently rearranged the books (including a slight cull) and took them out of a particular order and put back into a random method. (I’m such a rebel.) This gave me the feeling that I had a load of new books (since they were in higgledy-piggedly order) and moved some forgotten titles into the spotlight a bit more. The same goes for the F shelves actually – just shelved in a random order mostly. (This is most unlike me to be all unorganized, book-wise, but I was trying something new, and with the TBR Challenge in progress, this brings books bought long ago to the fore which is fun.)

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

Gosh. The first book I ever bought? (Long time ago!) Perhaps a Ponder and William book? I do know that I frequently thumbed through a survival book as I was fascinated with the idea of that. (Not that this event was at high risk of happening to me. I lived in a Victorian house in the middle of a market town in England and never went camping!) However, I liked the idea of being prepared. (Still not a big fan of camping!) Oh, and Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers series – the descriptions of boarding school, midnight feasts and ginger beer would make me deliriously happy.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

I really don’t have any books that I would be embarrassed about. I read a wide range of books (both fiction and non-fiction), and don’t feel I would have to worry about anyone who was browsing the shelves. (In my teenager-y past, there may have been some titles that would mortify me now!)

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

My most prized bookish thing would be a carefully curated photo album of my family going back more than a century. I grew up in England, and have collected these over the years – it even has an index of sorts. Who would be interested in this stuff when I’m dead and gone? No one, I would expect, but it’s fun for me, and if someone finds this in a charity shop one day, at least they might have an idea of who’s pictures are inside.  If we are being very strict about how we define “book”, then I would say that my childhood acquisition of “The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast” by  William Plomer is near the top of cherished titles. My edition has the most fantastic illustrations by Alan Aldridge which held my attention for ages at one time when I was young.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

My siblings and I had a fairly free and unsupervised reading life so whatever we were curious about, the odds were that we could find it one way or another, even if meant sitting on the floor of the bookshop for hours at a time.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy, do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

Whenever I find a book that intrigues me, I usually start with checking our library, then the inter-library loan program, or, if I’m desperate to own it, go on-line and order it. As mentioned, most of my bookshelves are TBR, so since I’m in the middle of that TBR challenge, I’m sticking to what I own and can find in-house at the moment.

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

The last title I bought was a NF called Samba by journalist Alma Guillermoprieto about the year she lived in Brazil learning samba and preparing for Rio’s annual carnivale parade. (I am no dancer, but I like to learn about things it’s highly unlikely that I will ever experience in RL.)

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

Not really. I’m very lucky to be in the position of having lots to read with more choices in the future! I don’t really yearn for first editions or similar although I appreciate them. I’d rather have a book that I’m not afraid of ruining, really, as I can be somewhat accident-prone.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

Hmm. I’d like to think that I have a title somewhere on the shelves that would interest most people, regardless of who they are, generally speaking. I don’t have any romance, horror, or mass market, but apart from that, I think it’s quite a big spread of topics and fiction titles from which to choose. I think it would be clear from the number of books on the shelves that reading is important to me, although it might be quite puzzling that most of these books have not been read yet!

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A huge thanks to Elizabeth for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves, and for Futz making a special appearance at the end!  Don’t forgot if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Elizabeth’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that she mentions?

The Best Love Stories Ever Told…

So before a week of reviews next week (well maybe a week of mainly reviews as I have become terribly behind with them all) I thought I would ask all of you lovely readers out there a bookish Valentine’s Day, for that is what today is, question. No, it isn’t will you marry me, ha. What I would really like to know is which are the best love stories ever told?

You see earlier in the week when myself and Thomas were gearing up to record the latest episode of The Readers we wanted to talk about love stories but realised we hadn’t really read any. I could think of three; Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles, Jojo Moyes Me Before You and David Nicholls One Day. All of these I have loved (pun intended) but have to say they don’t all end in the most delightful of ways, yet maybe that is what I think the nature of love is set to end like? Anyway, my old faithful response of Rebecca didn’t seem right and Jane Eyre is debatable as Rochester is a bit of a bastard really on occasion. Oh and of course I haven’t read Pride and Prejudice.

So I would love (did it again) some recommendations of old and new books that are love stories, yet aren’t so saccharine I might vomit in my own mouth. There I have thrown the gauntlet down, do your worst 😉

An Afternoon with Armistead…

More and more often I literally have to pinch myself at what a lucky young man (I nearly said boy but those days are long gone) I am, and all the joy that a love of books have brought me. Would the 15 year old me ever have thought that he would meet one of his literary idols sixteen years later? Never! Yet that is what happened yesterday when I got to see, and indeed meet, one of my bookish hero’s Armistead Maupin who’s Tales of the City series have been a comfort, a friend and a place I can escape to for all those many years.

Armistead was in Liverpool to do an event at the Museum of Liverpool in conjuncture with the wonderful Homotopia which celebrates queer arts and culture – I must talk to them about bookish stuff. Homotopia has an amazing exhibition on April Ashley at the moment. April was one of the first people who underwent gender reassignment, rather like the fictional Anna Madrigal, and so Armistead coming to celebrate The Days of Anna Madrigal seemed perfection – and it was. The audience loved him and he made us laugh, get a bit emotional and most of all think.

Then, being a very lucky little so and so, once all the signings were done I got time to sit and chat and interview him all by myself. Well, by myself with his wonderful publicist (of several decades) Alison Barrow and of course The Beard who had made special Anna Madrigal themed cupcakes* (Anna loves her garden and a joint, the joint isn’t real but is filled with popping candy – fantabulous) which proved a wonderful talking point…

And talk we did. I have to admit I went into utter fan boy momentum for a few minutes and then managed to regain some kind of cool. We chatted about Tales of the City, how much it means to people (how much it meant to me at 15 and now) and also some rather naughty bits and bobs. I won’t say anymore, you will have to wait for You Wrote the Book next week.

I can say it was, after the nerves went, an utter joy. I wanted to pinch myself to check that it wasn’t some kind of crazy dream. However I have proof in the pictures and also in the, erm, proof. Yes that does say ‘a great interview’ – head explodes with joy!

So all in all it was one of the most amazing afternoon’s ever, and ended with myself, Armistead and The Beard not only discussing Armistead writing something racy under a pseudonym, but also his possible one man tour. We have offered to be his back up dancers/singers/luggers or maybe even become a new boyband…

…The thing is, what would we be called? Anyway, I thought I would share one of the biggest bookish highlights I have had yet. See, books are brilliant, so are blogs.

*Note not all authors I meet get specially made book themed cakes, though I have told The Beard that there could be a marvellous business in this!

The Folio Prize Shortlist 2013; What Do We All Think Then?

This afternoon the inaugural Folio Prize, which was the prize that the Folio ‘Academy’ started after the Man Booker was deemed too readable (is that a bad thing really?), unleashed its first ever shortlist and it’s a rather interesting bunch…

• Red Doc – Anne Carson
• Schroder – Amity Gaige
• Last Friends – Jane Gardam
• Benediction – Kent Haruf
• The Flamethrowers – Rachel Kushner
• A Girl is a Half Formed Thing – Eimear McBride
• A Naked Singularity – Sergio De La Pava
• Tenth of December – George Saunders

Now amazingly I had heard of all of them bar one, which is Red Doc by Anne Carson and is poetry so would be why it might be off my radar as I am not known for my poetry prowess. Amazingly I have also read one of them, A Girl is a Half Formed Thing is an incredible debut by Eimear McBride (who you can hear talking to me about it on You Wrote The Book) which is unlike any book I have ever read or am likely to read again. It’s a marvel.

The rest of the list I have all heard of. Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers has had a rather mixed response, people either saying it is the best thing ever or saying its completely overrated, I haven’t bothered with it shamefully because I don’t like either of the covers and think it has motorcycling in it which makes me inwardly groan. Maybe I should look into it more? Another book I was sent and didn’t read was Amity Gaige’s Schroder which I have no real reason for not reading, I think the cover (again, sorry) put me off as it looked like it might be a heart breaking tale of a child being abused or a father losing his daughter – no idea why the cover makes me think that but it does. Another to possibly find out more about?

Jane Gardam and George Saunders are two authors I have heard wonderful, wonderful things about and have been meaning to read so I might just get my mitts on those in the next few weeks. I also own two of the other books which I have kept to read at some point. A Naked Singularity I do have on my shelves and am rather fascinated by because no one would publish it for ages, then it did quite well self-published before a small press did and then it exploded. I have held off because it’s HUGE, like mammoth, so maybe a book to take on holiday. Kent Haruf is an author I have heard the most wonderful, wonderful, wonderful things about and have three of his books which make the trilogy that Benediction finished so I am going to dig out Plainsong and read that pronto. I am not sure I will read all three before the winner is announced, but then again I am not sure when that is from all the reports I have read… so maybe I will, ha!

So what are your thoughts on the Folio Prize Shortlist 2014? Do you think it knocks ‘readability’ on its head? Which ones have you read and what did you think? Which should I make sure I read? Any thoughts on who will win? I have fingers crossed for Eimear as I think everyone should read that book! Let me know your thoughts.

Artful – Ali Smith

Ali Smith is one of my favourite contemporary writers. She is one of those writers who, and I am hoping that we all feel this way about a few authors, I love reading even when occasionally something goes completely over my head or I am not quite sure what she means, another one of these I have is Nicola Barker. I have read quite a few of Ali’s novels and There But For The and Girl Meets Boy are two of my favourite books released in the last decade. That said I have to admit that her latest work Artful, being a mixture of fiction and four lectures she gave was one I was worried I wouldn’t ‘get’. So I chose it for the Hear…Read This! so that I could chat to Gav, Rob and Kate about it. Turns out though, despite the discussion being wonderful, I didn’t need the back up, I got exactly what Ali Smith was trying to do with this one… I think.

Penguin Books, paperback, 2013, fiction 240 pages, kindly sent by the publisher

Imagine one day, not long after their death, your partner suddenly returns from the dead. Is this a figment of your imagination? Could it be that you are being haunted by a real ghost? Is it grief playing a cruel trick on you? Could you be going mad? This is one of the many themes which Artful looks at in one of its many strands as Artful is a book that has as many layers as it does ways you could take the story and read it.

You see Artful is a very unusual hybrid of a book, originally taken from four lectures that Ali Smith delivered in Oxford back in 2013. These lectures (On Time, On Form, On Edge and On Offer and on Reflection) look at books, words, language, pictures, poems, basically all forms of art and how we as people take them in, react to them or sometimes don’t. If it sounds like it is going to be dry it really isn’t, it is a warm narrative that will (if you are anything like me) often feel like Smith has the same thoughts as you, only you couldn’t quite put it into words before and need to go and have a think about it. It will make you rethink how you read, and maybe even how you treat, books. For example it has certainly left me wondering if I appreciate books enough and if I give them the time that they deserve and was one of the reasons I decided to slow down with all my reading this year.

Books themselves take time, more time than most of us are used to giving them. Books demand time. Sometimes they take and demand more time than we’re ready or yet know how to grant them; they go at their own speed regardless of the cultural speed or slowness of their readers zeitgeists. Plus, they’re tangible pieces of time in our hands. We hold them for the time it takes to read them and we move through them and measure time passing by how far through them we’ve got, what the page-edge correlation (or percentage, if we’re using a digital reader) between the beginning and the end is. Also, they travel with us, they accompany through from our pasts into our futures, always with their present-tense ability, there as soon as they’re opened, for words to act like the notes heard in music do, marking from word to word the present moment always in reference to what went before, what’s on its way, in a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph, a section, a chapter.

What also stops the book from making your head explode from the cleverness of Smith (never smugly clever let me add) is the way the lectures are interwoven as we join an unnamed narrator after the death of their unnamed partner whose ghost suddenly turns up. The lectures we read, though in a few cases not the whole lecture which I thought was interesting, were written by the recently departed and have not long been found by the grieving one left behind (neither character is given a gender, I felt it was two women though I can’t say exactly why). What is also a ghost story is indeed a very intimate and often incredibly moving picture of grief.

It was you except for at the eyes. Where they’d been, a blue like no one else’s, there were now black spaces. It looked like your whole eyes had become a pupil. You stepped into the room like you were blind. Leaving a trail of rubbly stuff very like what I’d had in my hand when we all stood round  and I threw the urnful of you up the Roman road in the wood on the path that’s lined with beech trees, you went through and stood in front of your old desk, all the papers piled on it pretty much the way you left them.

What is also a ghost story is indeed a very intimate and often incredibly moving picture of grief mixed up with a wonderful sense of being a love letter to that person and also Smith’s own love letter to all art forms, though there is a sense of words and language being at the very heart of this book.

Look at its curves, though, its lovely jerky slopes. Look at your y’s and your g’s. Look at the way you ran ing at the end of representing into a pencilled line with no discernable letters in it at all. No one had handwriting like it. It could only be your hand.

Artful is definitely a book for book lovers but, as Ali Smith seems to point out throughout, it is not a book that is designed to simply be read and forgotten about. There is work to do here and when you work at it the rewards, like all good things in life, are great. I started off trying to read it as a novel, then finding the lectures slowing everything down while my brain tried to process it all. That isn’t the way to read it, you need to re-read paragraphs here and there. You need to go off and look things up on the internet, grab the dictionary or reserve a few books in from the library. You need to have space from the intelligence and the questions it asks you, you need to have some space to contemplate the grief.

It is a book that requires time and yet makes you make time for it and around it. It is quite unlike anything I have read before and left me thinking, which is of course what I love most about all of Ali Smith’s work. I have also come away with so much more to read in the future, always the gift of a wonderful book. I only hope I have done it justice.

Other People’s Bookshelves #30 (Part Two): Kate Neilan

Hello and welcome, to the latest in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves which sees the series of posts turning 30! So to mark this special occasion we are heading to the delights of Essex for a big old party (grab your streamers, some cupcakes, a glass of fizzy and a paper hat) as we are hosted by one of my favourite bookish couples in the whole wide world. Today we join Rob and Kate from Adventures with Words, who I have the pleasure of joining along with Gavin every month to make Hear… Read This. Less about me, and more about them as I hand over to Kate (breaking the tradition of ladies first as I let Rob share his shelves earlier as they haven’t merged shelves yet, I am not judging their relationship on this basis though… much!) to introduce her lovely self and her shelves and all other bookish shenanigans…

I’m Kate – you might know me as @magic_kitten – and I’ve always been a huge reader ever since I can remember, and even before that if you believe my parents.  I work full time as Head of Citizenship and PSHE at a secondary school in Essex, although I originally trained as an English teacher at Cambridge, after doing my English Lit degree at Durham.  While I was there, I took the (very popular) Children’s Fiction module, which reignited my love for Young Adult books, to the extent that I wrote my dissertation on His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. I’m now one half of Adventures With Words, alongside Rob Chilver. He began the blog to discuss books, films, games and stories in general and in 2012 we started recording a weekly podcast too. Recently, I’ve branched out with my own ‘Young Adult Edition’. Do go to www.adventureswithwords.com and have a look.

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

I’m a dreadful hoarder and, until recently, I kept every book that I bought, even if I’d read it and not really thought much of it.  My book collection fills three ‘Billy’ bookcases and more; I’ve got two boxes of books that have yet to be unpacked since Rob and I moved in together over a year ago. Lately, though, I’ve had to be more ruthless.  We now have a ‘To go’ pile of books where books I know I’m not going to read again go, although, as yet, they’ve not actually gone anywhere yet! If I’m being honest, these aren’t even all my books. I still have a shelf in my old bedroom at my parents’ house full of all my Point Horrors and teenage reads. I’m thinking about retrieving them but where would they go?!

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

Before my most recent house move (I worked out recently I’ve moved more than ten times, taking into account university, teacher training and various flats and houses since moving out), I had my bookcases very carefully organised. I had three big red ‘Billy’ bookcases, one ‘half’ bookcase with three deep shelves, and one totally non-matching white one. That one housed my (excessive) CD and DVD collection, then my half-bookcase was for YA, and one large bookcase housed my university books (a mixture of textbooks, anthologies, Complete Works of Shakespeare/Chaucer etc and various novels, plays and poetry). The other two bookcases were organised roughly by genre, then by author; you could glance at the shelves and easily see the Tolkien, Iain (M) Banks, Isabel Allende and so on.

All this lovely system was completely destroyed when we last moved house; putting two sets of things into one house just doesn’t fit, so I gave up my white bookcase…and so it began! As I mentioned earlier, I’ve got two boxes of books that haven’t even seen the light of day yet – there wasn’t any urgency as they’re mostly university texts – but I’m sure I’ll want them one day… Eventually, during as summer holiday, I’ll take all these lovely stories off the shelves and rearrange them. I promise. We do have a “Blog TBR” bookcase (because piling them on the floor was becoming a little impractical) and some of these will graduate onto my own bookshelves after being read, reviewed and enjoyed.

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

Short answer? No, I’m really not sure, although I did spend quite a lot of my summer holiday aged 12 buying Point Horror books for a couple of pounds each from the second hand book stall in Norwich covered market… Still got them!

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

I have very varied taste in books – I read literary fiction, lots of genre fiction and Young Adult – and I’m not really embarrassed about any of my choices; as far as I’m concerned, it’s fine to read something that’s a bit cheesy or clichéd as long as you enjoy it. I do own the entire Twilight series (and have read them all) and I’ve got The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. No, they’re not literary masterpieces, but yes, they were enjoyable in their own ways.

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then given to me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

I have a lovely set of Tolkein’s fiction with matt black covers and a small picture on the front of each one, which I really love, and a fantastic set of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy in hardback, all first editions. These were from my parents and they’re very precious to me. I also have a very well-loved secondhand copy of Feersum Endjinn by Iain M Banks, my favourite of his science fiction novels, which was sent to me by the wonderful Gav of No Cloaks Allowed, The Readers and Hear Read This. He found it while browsing, opened up the cover, and saw that it was signed. After buying it, he tweeted about it and I jokingly tweeted back saying it would make my day (life) if I’d found it, and he sent it to me! What a lovely guy. Finally, I have one of only eight comb-bound preview copies of the final Artemis Fowl book, Artemis Fowl and the Last Guardian. Rob knew I’m a huge fan of the series and managed to get hold of it, without letting on; as you can imagine, I was absolutely thrilled.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

A bit like me, my parents have a house full of books, so I always remember them being there. One of the first “proper” books I read was Jane Eyre, aged 11, but I swiftly graduated to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and then The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which is absolutely hilarious when you’re supposed to be asleep but in fact you’re reading about sweary robots under your duvet using a torch…

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

Neither a borrower or a lender be! Well, I’m not, anyway. I have a bit of a ‘thing’ about pre-read books; library books always have that slightly funny smell to them, other people crack the spine or turn over the corner of pages, a habit I managed to kick. I’m a huge recommender to others, especially my mum, but she buys her own copy rather than borrow mine because she doesn’t want to give it back in less than pristine condition! I’m very aware that this is all a bit weird; libraries are brilliant, they’re just not how I read. Plus, the last time I lent a book (a first edition hardback of the first in Isabel Allende’s YA trilogy) I didn’t get it back… #fuming

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

Funny you ask that, Simon – you may recognise the titles I’m about to mention.  Only earlier today, Rob came home from work with a lovely bookish goody bag for me. My newest acquisitions are Magda by Meike Ziervogel, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra, The Language of Dying by Sarah Pinborough and The Gigantic Beard The Was Evil by Stephen Collins. I’ve also got a fantastic little Reading Journal. I find, when I’m reading, that I’d like to jot down ideas but I don’t fancy ‘texting’ them into my phone, so I’m looking forward to using this from now on. Hopefully, it should improve my reviews, too!

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

To be honest, I think I’m extremely lucky when it comes to books; there are very few that I don’t have but do wish for. I’d love a hardback copy of Philip Pullman’s Grimm Tales for Young and Old and I’m awaiting the arrival of All the Birds Singing by Evie Wyld, but, other than that, it’s books that haven’t been published yet. I know they’re coming, because they’re part of series I’m reading: the final Heroes of Olympus book by Rick Riordan, and the next book in Charlie Higson’s The Enemy series, not forgetting the conclusion of Tom Pollock’s Skyscraper Throne trilogy and James Dawson’s new book, Say Her Name.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

I’m sure they’d think I’ve got very eclectic tastes – there’s a little bit of everything – but hopefully I’ve picked some great books from every genre, and hopefully they’d see things they’d love to try themselves.

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A huge thanks to Kate for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves, though she really had no choice! If you haven’t go and visit Rob’s shelves, imagine all those books in one house, here! Don’t forgot if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Kate’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that she mentions?

Other People’s Bookshelves #30 (Part One) – Rob Chilver

Hello and welcome, to the latest in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves which sees the series of posts turning 30! So to mark this special occasion we are heading to the delights of Essex for a big old party (grab your streamers, some cupcakes, a glass of fizzy and a paper hat) as we are hosted by one of my favourite bookish couples in the whole wide world. Today we join Rob and Kate from Adventures with Words, who I have the pleasure of joining along with Gavin every month to make Hear… Read This. Less about me, and more about them as I hand over firstly to Rob (breaking the tradition of ladies first) to introduce himself and his shelves (as Rob and Kate haven’t merged shelves yet, I am not judging their relationship on this basis though… much!) and all other bookish shenanigans…

I’m Rob and you may know me as @robchilver on Twitter. I’ve always been an avid reader, something which my parents and grandmother encouraged from an early age. This love of books led me to studying for an MA in English Literature, developing a fondness for Salman Rushdie and Michael Chabon over the years. The day after I finished my Masters I applied to be a bookseller and buyer for Waterstones, a position I still hold today. I talk about books all day as part of my day job but I continue this outside of work, reviewing books on AdventuresWithWords.com and co-hosting a weekly podcast with other half Kate Neilan. Added to this Hear… Read This!, a monthly podcast with Gav from No Cloaks Allowed and a certain Mr Savidge and a forthcoming event at Essex Book Festival. With all this going on, it’s actually been quite hard finding the time to read lately while the books keep on building up…

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

I wish that I was either organised enough or had enough willpower to implement a one in, one out system but sadly I’m a hoarder! It’s the collector mentality in me that means that I keep all the books I read and very rarely get rid of any. I suppose if I’ve loved a book enough to finish it, who knows when I may wish to return to it or even lend it out to someone? At the moment we have a whole bookcase dedicated to our ‘to-be-read’ pile that we need to review for the blog along with research for our forthcoming event. This is conveniently placed in our living room, ensuring it’s a constant reminder that it is there! With my comic books, they are currently in a pile on the floor of our guestroom, awaiting to be boarded and boxed in chronological order. So while it may look like an unorganised mess, there is a method to it all somewhere!

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

Despite living together, Kate and I still keep separate bookshelves that are now both overflowing with books. As you can see from the photos, it is getting to the stage where things are getting out of hand and I can’t actually get to one of my bookcases as Kate has boxes of books in the way! When I can get to them, I do try to keep my hardbacks together at the bottom of the shelves and gather books by the same authors together but other than that, it’s a bit of a disaster! Some weeks around 5-10 books can arrive so very quickly things have got out of hand. I think some of the shelves are actually bending under the weight of some of the books.

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

I’ve a very vivid memory of my first book purchase. It was going downstairs at Red Lion Books in Colchester, a great independent bookshop still going strong, to their science-fiction section and buying a hardback of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series (when there was still four stories in the trilogy.) Coming from a family who always wrote dedications to one another when gifting books, I thought I was being ‘funny’ when I wrote a dedication to myself.  I still cringe when people see it on my shelves.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

I’m not one that believes in guilty pleasures as at the end of the day, if someone is reading at all, we shouldn’t really be one to judge. Saying that, I do have a soft spot for some John Grisham, who has a habit of writing the same sort of books over and over and yet I still end up devouring one over a holiday.

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

As well as collecting books I do try where I can to get copies signed. On recent trips to Latitude Festival half of my rucksack has been filled with copies of books waiting to be signed. If the flames were threatening them, then my signed Michael Chabon, Sebastian Faulks and Carlos Ruiz Zafon books would be following me. Then I might go back for a few of Kate’s…. 😉

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

Despite being brought up on a diet of Bond films, my Mum steadfastly refused to allow me to read the original Ian Fleming novels. Ignoring the copious violence, it was the prospect of the sex scenes that upset her and was the cause of her blanket ban. Imagine my surprise/disappointment when I had snuck them off the shelves, Fleming effectively does the ‘fade to black’ when Bond and the Bond girl get intimate. Of course I couldn’t correct my mother’s opinion without revealing that I’d read them! That aside, I now have my Dad’s yellowed and battered Pan paperbacks on my shelves and have collected different ones with numerous covers.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

Oh I’d have to have it! If it’s a book I love I want to keep it and I’m even worse if it’s a hardback. Looking over the shelves I’ve collected books in proofs, hardback and also in paperback if it is one that I’ve enjoyed. If I were to lend a book out though, it would have to be the paperback! I am in the lucky position to be given books to consider buying through work or copies to review which is fantastic but I will buy around the same quantity myself using my work’s discount.

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

Ignoring titles given to me for work or for review, I had a bumper crop of books given to me for Christmas. Two of the highlights were S, by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst, which is a love letter to the book itself, and a gloriously large hardback of The Making of the Return of the Jedi which indulges my love of Star Wars, filmmaking and gloriously large hardbacks.

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

As I’ve said before, I’m a collector so I do look at the shelves and have a desire to fill in the gaps in series or in an author’s back catalogue. I can get a bit particular about collecting the same editions of books, something I’m frequently asked to do at work, so I at the moment I’m on the lookout for certain editions of Asterix that I want to complete the copies I had growing up.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

If they saw past the haphazard shelving, I hope they’d see a mixture of books that cross a number of genres. I’d hope that they’d see that I’m found of literary novels that remind me of my studies but also enjoy a good gripping page turner.

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A huge thanks to Rob for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves, though he really had no choice! Keep your eyes peeled for Kate’s shelves later today! Don’t forgot if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Rob’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that he mentions?

Multiple Reading of Multiple Books in Multiple Slots; Multiple Madness?

I never used to be someone who could more than one book at a time, let alone three, yet weirdly that is the situation that I have found myself in. What has lead me to this unusual, for me at least, situation? Well, in the main, it is circumstances. Firstly there is the fact that work is so bloody busy (I know, I know, Simon sounds like a stuck record at the moment, but it is true) and then there is also what I am reading.

With work being rather bonkers (the small side effect of being on a project team running a £15million two month event with the aim of creating £100million in UK business, no pressure) at the moment I seem to be finding less time to read; grabbing mini reading moments (which I have to say I don’t like as I invariably need to re-read whatever I had read) or reading in stints of an hour or two when I get in, an hour after tea and/or an hour or so before bed.

Now normally this would just be valuable stints to read my way through just the one book, but because of what I am reading these have become stints to juggle three books. Two books of short stories (Sherlock Holmes as I started them for a nostalgic read, Oscar Wilde short stories for next week’s Hear… Read This!) and the latest choice at book group Sophie’s World which I am reading in bits as I am struggling with it – it feels like a very thinly veiled text book on philosophy if I am honest, so I am reading it in bits to get through it as I don’t like to give up on a book group book.

Weirdly, though I wouldn’t choose to do this normally, I am not struggling with it all. I am not even getting mixed up with the two sets of Victorian tales, not that they are the same genre but you would think that might happen. It is even helping me get through Sophie’s World in a way. If I am a bit philo’sophie’d (see what I did there?) out then in my next reading stint I turn to Sherlock or Oscar and they get me through.

Do any of you do this with books? Especially if you are struggling with one and are determined to finish it. Or do you just do this anyway, swapping between books between reading spaces or commuting and home etc? I would be very interested to know, as I would if Sophie’s World might actually be worth all the hard work in the end. Cough.