Apple Tree Yard – Louise Doughty

I do love a book where a character does something completely out of the ordinary and chases a whim for a split second which then changes their lives forever. Louise Doughty uses this device in her latest novel Apple Tree Yard and creates a gripping and thrilling (for oh so many reasons) tale of a women’s fall from grace that leads her from respectability to being on trial at the Old Bailey. It makes for a very, very compelling read.

Faber & Faber, paperback, 2014, fiction, 448 pages, from my own personal TBR

‘You are familiar, aren’t you?’ says Ms Bonnard in her satin, sinuous voice, ‘with a small back alleyway called Apple Tree Yard.’ I close my eyes, very slowly, as if I am bringing the shutters down on the whole of my life until this moment. There is not a sound from the court, then someone from the benches in front of me shuffles their feet. The barrister is pausing for effect. She knows that I will keep my eyes closed for a moment or two: to absorb this, to attempt to calm my ragged breathing and buy myself a few more seconds, but time has slipped from us like water through our fingers and there is none of it left, not one moment: it’s over.

From the start of Apple Tree Yard we know that Yvonne Carmichael, a married 52 year old highly successful geneticist, is on trial for something horrendous. What we don’t know is what that is, how she may or may not have been involved and what may have led her to that situation. Louise Doughty already has you hooked, I mean with a start like that and all those questions how could she not. What is brilliant is that as the tale goes on she keeps the pace cracking along, and the twists a coming round the corners of every chapter, as we learn of a moment when Yvonne met ‘X’ and in a split second decided to be reckless and ends up having sex with him in a public place and starting an affair built on thrills and risk. Yet the risk, it turns out, is going to be far greater than Yvonne could ever have imagined.

There are several things that make the book so thrilling to read. First there is Yvonne herself. As we read on, going backwards, and find out about her life we learn how all the people around her, herself included in fact, would say she was the last women they could imagine having an affair. From the outside she seems to have the perfect life. They would say she is happily married, has two wonderful children, is highly respected in her job – of course facades can be just that and also do we always really know how happy we are? You cannot help but be compelled to learn more about Yvonne and what makes her suddenly do something so out of character and reckless. There is also the lingering question, how reliable is Yvonne and the side of the story she is giving us?

The structure of the book also makes it very twisty and all the more readable. Louise Doughty sets the book is set into parts first we have the prologue; which feels like it is the end at the start but actually isn’t, then we have X & Y; letters that Yvonne writes to her mystery lover X about how they met and how things spiralled, A T C & G; looks at her family life and what lies behind the façade before things start and the lies she tells afterwards, then finally DNA which is the trial.

Each section is gripping in its own way. In X & Y we have the start of the affair and the illicit sexual nature it takes on. So what about all the sex? Come on, we all do it (well unless there are some Nuns or Monks reading in which case I apologise) and if we all admit it we can’t help but be fascinated/titillated by it. The sex between Yvonne and her lover is really what keeps their affair going, mainly out in public areas this too is completely out of character for Yvonne. Doughty looks at sexuality frankly and, rather bravely, explicitly without it ever being gratuitous or smutty.

In A T C & G we get a look into another subject that fascinates us all, family secrets and cracks in the domestic life. You might thing the Carmicheal’s are the perfect family but are they really? Doughty takes a very interesting look at marriage and child and parent relationships whilst also making sure there is a brooding atmosphere and sense of everything being about to smash into pieces. Domestic drama, we love it don’t we? This culminates in the reason why Yvonne and her lover are on trial, which I had forgotten about so thrilled had I been. This of course leads to the final section DNA, where we have the trial. Now I don’t think I like a courtroom setting but I was gripped by this as witnesses come to the stand Doughty throws in a few more twists for good measure.

What is also brilliant about Apple Tree Yard is the questions it asks. Why is sexuality for people over 50 almost seen as a taboo? Do we fool ourselves into thinking we are happy? Why do women tend to be judged more harshly in terms of sexuality or wrong doing? (This really reminded me of the brilliant Did She Kill Him? only with a different subject and in the modern world not in the Victoriana of that true court case. These two would actually make great companion pieces. Just saying.) All this whilst being a cracking yarn and a wonderfully written and plotted thrilling tale.

I sit in the dock. And I listen to this story. And it comes to me that all you need for a story is a series of facts that can be strung together. A spider sometimes strings a thread from a bush to a fence post several feet away, quite implausibly it often seems, but it’s still a web.

The above quote, from Yvonne as she sits in the docks, wonderfully summarises Apple Tree Yard. Louise Doughty is, if you will allow me, a genius spider spinning an intricate and deft web. A truly original, gripping, slick yet slightly grubby (in a good way), thrilling tale which – cliché alert – I found very, very difficult to put down. I thought it was brilliant. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Not only one of the best thrillers of my reading year so far, one of the best reads full stop.

Who else has read it and what did you make of it? Which of Louise Doughty’s books should I get my mitts on next?

Other People’s Bookshelves #41; Pamela Parks

Hello and welcome to the latest in Other People’s Bookshelves, a regular series of posts where you get to have a nosey at other book lovers bookshelves. This week we head over to Tasmania, apt for ANZ Literary Month, to join the delightful blogger Pamela Parks (for more violet crumbles, Tim Tam’s and jarra tea) to have a gander through her shelves which have a theme… Pamela really, really, really likes Penguin Books. So without further ado let us find out more about Pamela and then have a route around her bookshelves.

I am retired, collect vintage first published Penguin books from 1935 – 1970 and ride through Tasmania on a 350 cc Italian Scooter. I grew up in Michigan where I learned to read during long winters and have since moved to Tasmania, Australia because they had a shortage of speech pathologists. Working for 40 years in that field I retired to collect books, rescue injured wildlife of where there is no end for a sanctuary and ride with a motorbike club. I am ageing disgracefully. I have spent the last several years collecting Penguin books in USA, England and South America. My husband and I have 3 dogs and 2 cats though they don’t know they are animals. We haven’t told them.

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?

Any book can live on my shelves. People give them to me, I buy too many, mainly because their covers appeal and the stories look good. I converted a bedroom into the Penguin room. There are probably 4500 books in that room. There is Penguin ephemera tacked to the closet doors and a Penguin art deco reading chair and lamp. I have no system except a bit of overkill.

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?

As you walk in the Penguins are on the left wall floor to ceiling. On the right wall the non Penguins live alphabetised by title. The boxed sets live on the very top shelves. The reference books (books about books, literature and reading) live in the bookcase in the bedroom. The John Steinbeck, Jack London and Ernest Hemingway first editions live in the hallway out of the light on their own bookcase.

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

The first book I ever bought was a 59 cent copy of Trixie Belden who I adored when I was about 9 or 10 years old in the late 1950’s.   There was a little section of children’s books in the 5 & 10 cent store in mid-Michigan where I grew up. I had to spend a lot of time talking my mother into it. After that I would steal quarters from my mother’s purse to buy sequels that came out in that series. Then I branched out in Nancy Drew. The town I lived in was very small (5000 people) and books were in short supply.

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?

No I would not be embarrassed by types of books but I am embarrassed by how many books I have that are not read. It really is shameful and I keep buying more, both Penguins and non Penguins (mainly reference books about books and literature). I really do need to lock myself into my house with locks on the outside of the doors and not go out until I read them and move them on.

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?

I have a copy of The Night Before Christmas that belonged to my mother in the 1930’s, a few first editions of John Steinbeck which I love and a very large two volume set of first edition books by Jack London’s wife. I also keep a collection of old dog adventure stories from the 1800’s to 1950 with illustrations by Albert Payson-Terhune and Cecil Aldin. I collect them for the art work in them of dogs, horses and cats. I also have about 2400 vintage Penguin books from various series before 1970 when Allen Lane (the publisher) died. If this house catches fire I probably will be too busy getting my pets out to worry about books. I love the books but the furry balls of love come first.

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?

We didn’t have many books in our home and once I’d read everything I could in the town children’s library we weren’t allowed to check out adult books. We had librarians that never married and ruled the books with a hickory stick. You couldn’t touch adult books if you were a child. It’s too bad really because I would be a lot better read if I could have read more books by American authors. It was the midwest America and censorship was rife. Now I have many classics on my shelves, the Penguin books which are a real social history of many authors and is probably why I collect so many books. I couldn’t get many as a child.

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?

No, once I read a book from a friend I seldom feel the need to revisit it. There are some reference books though that I will buy if I see something I like in a bookshop.

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

Outside of a Russian Penguin book (all in Russian in the main series) it would have to be a couple of art journal books. Wonderful books about journaling your trips or you daily life with lots of drawings and sketches through them. They are called An Illustrated Journey and An Illustrated Life. Every page is crammed with drawings by pencil, pens and paints. Great fun.

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

There sure are. Mainly a book of birds by James Audubon or John Gould. I love those early exploring natural history books from the 1800’s. Sadly I can’t afford them unless I hit the lottery. All the books I really love cost tens of thousands of dollars. Oh to be rich. I would also like a copy of every John Steinbeck American first published book ever published. Already they have become too expensive especially Grapes of Wrath. (While I’m dreaming I’d have them all signed too.)

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

They’d absolutely think I was the most well read person in the world and be awestruck and inspired. They wouldn’t know that so many of them have not yet been read. I won’t tell them though.

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A huge thanks to Pamela for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves. If you would like to find out more about her and the books she loves make sure you head to her blog Travelling Penguin. To find out more about ANZ Literature Month head here. If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander 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 Pamela’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that she mentions?

If I Were A Book – Jose Jorge Letria & Andre Letria

I am possibly preaching to the converted however to not tell you a wonderful book all about the power of books (which of course you all know) would really to be cheating you and cheating myself and that could lead to some dark times. What will lead you to wonderful happy times is the delightful ‘picture book for adults’ (though not in an ‘adult’ adult way) If I Were A Book by Jose Jorge Letria, illustrated by Andre Letria.

Chronicle Books, hardback, 2014, non-fiction, 64 pages, kindly sent by the publisher

There is no way, and no need, to jazz If I Were A Book up. Very simply it is a book which in a mere 64 pages puts into words, and indeed images, all the power that books can have – whilst of course doing all those things itself by proxy, very clever! Each page opens using an illustration of a book, or sometimes two or ten, which itself illustrates just what a book can do. You need an example don’t you…

Or maybe another one…

Or another…

I don’t know how the magic happens with this book, it must be the mixture of the words along with the imagery, but it somehow creates a wonderous sense of nostalgia about what the best books you have read have done or where they have taken you be you a youngster or a reluctant grown up. As I was reading along I was thinking of all the books that have done just what the narrator says they would do ‘If I were a book…’ It is such a simple idea and yet one which really makes you think and, if my experience was anything to go by, makes you go and strong your books spines just to say a small thank you.

It has also really made me think about how much I take my books for granted. In reading it for the tenth or twelfth time, to remind myself of its powers before I wrote this review, I had been almost griping how a big massive book I was reading, and completely loving, was stopping me from reading all the other books out there. Then with one simple image it made me rethink and tell myself off…

Books shouldn’t be rushed, they should be treasured – yes even the ones you don’t really love that much. It takes books like If I Were A Book (which also reminded me of the same lesson Ali Smith’s Artful teaches you) to remind even the most devoted of readers just how lucky they are. I also think a book like If I Were A Book might just be the ideal gift for anyone who… no I will just leave it as the ideal gift for anyone. It is the perfect book about books, joyous!

The Landscapes of Literature

In one of my posts whilst Guest Editing for Fiction Uncovered last month which you can read here, I promise I won’t mention it too much more but it was such a big deal for me on a personal level, I talked about the importance of landscape within literature. Now this was a piece on the  British landscape so I was talking about how bored I am of British books being featured in London so much as there is so much else outside of the capital that you should be reading about, as I suggest. However what about the places outside the UK?

One of the (many, many) marvellous things about books is how in just a few pages we can be completely transported to another place, even another planet however I like to stick to earth overall. So having thought about the landscape of the British Isles I had a pondering of the places that I would like to read about that I haven’t as much as I might like, if at all.

Being a complete hypocrite I instantly thought of some of the capital cities I have yet to go to fictionally, I won’t start thinking about all the cities I have yet to physically visit for fear of weeping. The instant ones that spring to mind were Buenos Aires, Vienna, Helsinki, Seoul, and Moscow… I could go on. I noticed though that my main fictional destinations were in three places. Northern Europe (Sweden, Finland, Norway, Estonia, Latvia) then Russia and then North Asia (both North and South Korea, China, Mongolia, Japan) and so I think I would not only like to read about the main cities out there but also the countryside.

I am learning that as I get older the countryside calls to me more. I am not talking wild jungles, or remote deserts or wild lands, though they can be fun, more the countryside where villages and towns sporadically appear as that is where you will find some of the best stories as whilst in cities people can do and get away with pretty much anything, there is something fascinating about the countryside with the fact secrets are harder to keep (people twitch curtains so much more in the countryside, it is true don’t pretend it’s not) and also there is the insider vs. outsider mentality which I find fascinating!

So can you help, can you recommend any books that cover the cities, the countryside or even both in the places that I mention above? I would be most grateful. If you want a list of books that you might like to try that uncover some of the areas outside London in Britain do have a gander at this. Also do let me know which landscapes in your home countries and abroad really intrigue you, we may all have recommendations for each other!

Going Under The Radar; A Mini #ReadersRevolution

How do we find the books that for varying unknown reasons go under the radar? Initially this seems like a really simple question to answer, and as it was one that a listener of The Readers asked recently I thought it would be pretty simple to come up with some suggestions. Well more fool me, oh silly Simon of Savidge. As I then discovered when I had to think of some handy hints it is a lot harder than I thought. After all if we all knew where all the great undiscovered gems were they wouldn’t be so, well, undiscovered would they?

My first, almost automatic, response to a question like that is ‘ooh, you must go and check out Fiction Uncovered’. Those of you who are frequent visitors to this blog will know that I am a huge fan of this initiative, and indeed have just been its very first guest editor, which selects eight books every year by British authors that for some unknown reason seem to have missed out on the accolades that they deserve. This has put some marvellous books in my reading path and ones that I would have been unlikely to discover otherwise. Yet Fiction Uncovered only choose eight books a year and is not an initiative that runs in every country, even if it should. Some countries do initiatives and prizes for unpublished manuscripts but what about all the books, and there must be loads and loads and loads, all over the world that go without the notice they should and are frankly bloody marvellous? I know ‘the big’ prizes throw up a few, but again what percentage is that of amazing lesser known works worldwide? Ooh it makes your head hurt a bit.

Second option is if you come across books which you have read and loved and seem to have gone under the radar tell EVERYONE about them. That most powerful thing, word of mouth. After all isn’t it great to tell people about a new to them author that you love and are desperate for them to go and try? I have probably mentioned some certain titles/authors to you on here (or in person) over and over and over again. But it is because I think they are marvellous and think you should read them because you may well think they are marvellous and do the same. In fact I have done a list of ten British books you really should uncover for Fiction Uncovered, do have a gander as each one is an absolute corker. Oh and as well as telling everyone about amazing lesser known books, don’t forget to ask them back be it online, in book groups or at the library or your bookshop.

Weirdly enough The Beard came up with the third response, as is my want I wander around the house pondering, musing and muttering, when he said ‘why don’t you just ask the publishers?’ This was a very good question, the answer being I am not sure. I guess you would have to put it rather carefully, you don’t want to say ‘Erm excuse me lovely publishers but as well as sending all your Catton’s, Amis’ (well…), Tartt’s and your Mantel’s, could you do me a favour and send some of you lesser known authors that you think are genius but might not actually publish again if their book sales don’t pick up?’ You may offend a few publishers, their houses and their authors and never be spoken to, let alone emailed, again. Yet publishers are a good place to go a hunting, especially the more independent or left field, so I would recommend a good mooch on their websites.

It was the idea of mooching, which I do so love to do, that gave me the third option which really should have been the first and most obvious… Have a mooch in your local library/secondhand bookshop/independent bookshop/high street bookshop. This shows the power of having somewhere, library or bookshop, that you can just go and peruse the shelves at your will (well between 9am and 5pm at least) eyeing the spines and picking up books at whim you may or may not fancy. Once I had stumbled upon this most obvious answer I got very excited on the episode before last of the Readers (yes I have been meaning to blog about this for two weeks) and came up with a cunning plan that I think we should all do… Yes, ALL of us, yes you included.

We should all go to our local library and take out a selection (be it two or three, or be it ten or twelve) of random books we have never heard of before – and there will probably be a fair few unless you are the biggest book buff ever – which after having mooched and perused the shelves for quite some time we then take home and try out and, if you can or want to, then share. You can tweet them, blog them, email them, whatever. Just share them. Thomas has already been and done it, such a swat, and now I have recently been and done it to coming home with all of these treats…

• Fup – Jim Dodge
• Cold Water – Gwendoline Riley
• Disquiet – Julia Leigh
• A Modern Family – Socrates Adams
• Nothing to Fear – Matthew D’Ancona
• Today – David Miller
• Everything I Found on the Beach – Cynan Jones
• Drowning Rose – Marika Cobbold
• Catch – Simon Robson
• The White Woman on the Green Bicycle – Monique Roffey
• Do No Harm – Carol Topolski
• The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai – Ruiyan Xu

Some of them I am sure some of you will have heard of however they are all new to me and books which I just thought ‘well why not give that a whirl’. So here I am sharing them with you. It’s like a mini reader’s revolution, though being booky it’s very calm and lovely – and rather quiet if you are at the library.

So now what I would really like you to do, again as Thomas has done so marvellously, is go off and pop to your local library (because they need you) or bookshop and pick out some titles that are new to you which you would quite like to give a whirl (they can be classic or modern, I stupidly forgot to go to the classic section, fiction or non – basically books which you wouldn’t have picked up otherwise) and share them on your blog linking back to here so we can all come and have a nosey and spread the word. If you are thinking ‘well I don’t have a blog’ why not post them on Twitter or Facebook with the hashtag #ReadersRevolution or email them to me and I will do a compilation post or two as and when they arrive, what do you think? Reviewing them could be done the same way… So go on, do please, please give this a whirl (gosh I hate it when I beg, ha) as I think we need to give voices to those lesser known books.

The Rosie Project – Graeme Simsion

Some books need to be read at just the right time, sometimes whim chooses its moment and others it feels like fate has stepped in slightly. I have been meaning to read Graeme Simsion’s debut novel The Rosie Project for ages and ages, since it came out in fact and had lots of glowing reviews from its home turf of Australia, indeed even being featured on The First Tuesday Book Club. Yet for some reason I was never quite in the right mood… and then Adam at my book club chose it and so it seemed fate had intervened. This I should add was back at the end of February but I thought I would hold off reviewing it until Kim of Reading Matters (who shared her shelves with us all yesterday) delightful ANZ Literature Month which runs throughout May.

Penguin Books, trade paperback, 2013, fiction, 352 pages, kindly sent by the publisher

Professor Don Tillman is a man who is going to get married, to who, well he doesn’t quite know yet. What he does know is less who she might be but much more who he doesn’t want her to be. Don has actually gone the extra mile and designed a questionnaire to find his ideal partner which he calls The Wife Project. This he feels will be a winner, yet the options for a possible wife don’t seem to be very forthcoming. Occasionally he does get a first date, alas there always tends to be some slight issue that throws Don off kilter and rather off his date. Don, we soon discover, is very particular character from liking to spend exactly 94 minutes cleaning the bathroom to being very sure that anyone and everyone should know the difference between an apricot sorbet and a peach one.

Cycling home, I reflected on the dinner. It had been a grossly inefficient method of selection, but the questionnaire had been of significant value. Without it, and the questions it prompted, I would undoubtedly have attempted a second date with Olivia, who was an extremely interesting and nice person. Perhaps we would have gone on a third date and a fourth and fifth date, then one day, when all the desserts at the restaurant had contained egg, we would have crossed the road to the ice-cream parlour, and discovered they had no egg-free pistachio. It was better to find out before we made an investment in the relationship.

However things change slightly when Don’s friend Gene, a man who is currently doing his own project on the differences between sexual intercourse with women from every country, a project we are never sure he has been fully honest with his wife about, steps in. He sends Rosie in Don’s direction, she is almost everything that Don wouldn’t want yet she needs some genetic help in finding her real father (another project) which slightly begrudgingly Don agrees to, leading him on a journey of detective discovery and one of self-discovery too.

I will admit that it does all sound a bit cute and schmaltzy, and at times it often is. It all sounds rather predictable and you can probably guess what is going to happen, even the twists and turns that come along, with all the characters and the genetic hunt (though with the latter I was rather wrong footed) yet even a big old cynic like me found himself enjoying it rather a lot as I was reading on.

The main reason for that is Don himself. Initially I didn’t think I was going to get on with the narration because it is (and this is a good thing but it could put some people off) very unique. Don is a professor in genetics which has rather an irony as, we assume as it is never made official, he has some form of Asperger’s Syndrome which is one of the things that he himself deals with but cannot spot in his own, very precise, behaviour. This makes his narration initially seem very matter of fact, quite distant and sometimes rather cold. As we get to know him though we see it as just a quirk in his personality which warms us to him and we often find ourselves laughing at the honest way in which he will view a situation or person. Simsion does something very clever here as we never laugh AT Don, we just laugh at the way his thinking highlights some of the ridiculous ways in which we behave as people. It’s a difficult balance to create without making Don the joke of the book, Simsion does it deftly.

Then she interrupted my thoughts. ‘Anyhow, I’ve got a genetics question.’
‘Proceed,’ I said. I was back in the world I knew.
‘Someone told me you can tell if a person’s monogamous by the size of their testicles.’
The sexual aspects of biology are regularly in the popular press, so this was not as stupid a statement as it might appear, although it embodied a typical misconception. It occurred to me that it might be some sort of code for a sexual advance, but I decided to play it safe and respond to the question literally.
‘Ridiculous,’ I said.
Rosie seemed very pleased with my answer.
‘You’re a star,’ she said. ‘I’ve just won a bet.’

I have to admit as the book went on I did have a few wobbles with it. My first question was why the book had to go to New York, which isn’t a spoiler as I haven’t told you why? It seemed a bit unnecessary and was the first time that I felt like it was a screenplay which had been turned into a book to then make a film, which is apparently how the book came to fruition. It had that slight ‘must appeal to Hollywood and the American market’ rather than actually being needed for the story I felt. The second thing was that Don starts to change, again I won’t say why or in what way, yet this too didn’t feel quite right, the whole point of the book to me (and what makes it so quirky and original in the genre it is in) was about how Don was different and how we should celebrate it, I couldn’t quite decide if in the end that was the case.

Either way, I enjoyed The Rosie Project. It made me think about how we perceive and judge people in a nice easy way – if that sounds patronising I don’t mean it to. Sometimes we need books you don’t have to think too much about (not in a snobby way) you just simply read them for the enjoyment and, in this case, the giggles (I laughed out loud at a scene involving a full sized modern skeleton) that they provide along the way, being entertained as you go.

Other People’s Bookshelves #40; Kim Forrester

Hello and welcome to the latest in Other People’s Bookshelves, a regular series of posts where you get to have a nosey at other book lovers bookshelves. This week I have a special guest as we hit the big 4-0 mark with this series, more of which you can find here, with Kim who you all all know from Reading Matters. Kim’s was one of the first book blogs I started following avidly. Lucky old me through her wondering about a London book club, and spookily finding out we were working on the same street in London, we became mates and no trip back to London seems quite the same without a pint (or two) on the Southbank with her. This week saw the start of Kim’s ANZ Literary Month and so I begged her to share her shelves and in honour she has put out a wonderful spread of violet crumbles, Tim Tam’s and jarra tea. So let’s settle down with a cuppa and a treat and find out a little more about her…

Kim Forrester, also known as kimbofo, was born in Australia. She has a Masters in Journalism and after a few years working on local newspapers, she came to London in 1998 to try her luck in the magazine industry — and never went back. She’s always been a book obsessive and spent her childhood with a nose in a book. All these years later, not much has changed. She’s been blogging about books at Reading Matters since 2004, although the site also features reviews dating from 2001, which were originally published on a personal website. She tends to only read literary fiction, preferably from Ireland or Australia, but also enjoys crime, translated fiction and narrative non-fiction. She can’t remember a time when she wasn’t adding new titles to her always-growing TBR and wishes she could give up the day job (she’s a freelance copy editor) so she could make a dent in it.

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 simply don’t have the space to keep every book I read, so I tend to keep only those that have really made an impression on me. Most are passed on in some way: to Oxfam, to friends, family or work colleagues. I do, however, collect certain imprints — namely “silver” Penguins and “white” Penguin Modern Classics — so these are never given away!

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?

Once-upon-a-time all my shelves were arranged alphabetically, by author surname, but I found I could cram more books on my (limited) shelving if did away with that system. So now I fill each of the “boxes” in my Expedit shelves three books deep according to a theme: I have a section for Commonwealth fiction, another for translated fiction, one for crime and another for British. Meanwhile the top of my wardrobe is filled with fiction from Ireland and Australia. And, just to be really controversial, the books in my TV unit are arranged by colour just to make it look prettier. Please don’t judge me!

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

I couldn’t possibly remember what book I bought with my own money, but I suspect it may well have been one from the Trixie Belden girl detective mystery series, which I adored in my early teens. The volumes used to be sold in the local supermarket (I vaguely remember them being about AU$1 each) and as soon as I’d read one, I’d be saving up my pennies to buy the next. I no longer have any of them, and I suspect my mother chucked them out long ago!

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?

Afraid not. I don’t think anything I read is embarrassing. If I was to name a guilty pleasure, it would be psychological thrillers of the Nicci French variety, but I need to be in the right mood to read them.

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?

This is a good question. I’m not much of a material possessions person and as much as I love books, I always figure you can buy or borrow them again if you need to — even ones out of print can usually be tracked down via the wonders of the internet. However, I have to be honest and confess I’d be terribly upset if anything happened to my small collection of John McGahern paperbacks, simply because I have such fond memories of discovering his fiction in the summer of 2006, or any of the hardbacks I’ve had signed by various authors at book events, because I’d never be able to replace them.

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?

I think the first proper “grown up” book I read was probably Virginia Andrews’ Flowers in the Attic. However, I didn’t spy it on my parent’s shelves or the library; I saw it at my best friend’s house. It was her mother’s and I was allowed to borrow it. It then did the rounds of almost every teenage girl in my school. It was quite a raunchy book at the time; I suspect it’s pretty tame by today’s standards. I then went through a Beatles phase and read loads of biographies about the band, including Philip Norman’s biography about John Lennon, one of the most memorable non-fiction books I’ve ever read. I never owned any of these books — they were either borrowed from my friend or the local library — so they’re not on my shelves today.

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?

No.

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

At Easter I bought an interesting French novella called Moon in a Dead Eye, by Pascal Garnier, about a gated community plagued by problems, which sounds suitably dark and Ballardian.

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

Well, I have possibly the world’s longest wishlist thanks to all the many recommendations I glean from book blogs, GoodReads and Twitter, so yes, there are a lot of books that I wish I had on my shelves. I’m particularly partial to the lovely bound volumes in the Everyman’s Library and dream of one day treating myself and buying the whole lot. I’m not sure I have the space to keep them though.

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

They would probably wonder why I’ve got so many unread books in my house, because about 90 per cent of my collection is actually my TBR. They’d probably also think my tastes were fairly eclectic — and they’d be right. Some may raise their eyebrows at the lack of pre-20^th century classics, but I’m a modern and contemporary kind of reader — and am not ashamed to admit it.

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A huge thanks to Kim for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves. To find out more about Kim’s ANZ Literature Month head here. If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander 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 Kim’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that she mentions?