Reading List 8

A relatively gentle 44 books for the second half of the year brings my yearly total to a neat 104, or two per week.

Algerian

Memory in the Flesh — Ahlam Mosteghanemi
What the Day Owes the Night — Yasmina Khadra
A History of Algeria — James McDougall
The Plague — Albert Camus
The Harkis: The Wound That Never Heals — Vincent Crapanzano

Moving to a new country required some literary and historical preparation. The Plague was wonderful, but it was hard to avoid the absence of a single Arab, let alone Berber, character. Memory in the Flesh was _very_ Arabic: passionate and high-flown, and clearly from a completely different literary culture.

Non-fiction

Landmarks — Robert Macfarlane
If This is a Man / The Truce — Primo Levi
Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor
Figure 120 — J. H. Alexander
Gut — Giulia Enders

Shakespeare

The Winter’s Tale — William Shakespeare
Cymbeline — William Shakespeare
Pericles — George Wilkins and William Shakespeare
Antony and Cleopatra — William Shakespeare
Edward III — Thomas Kyd and William Shakespeare
The Two Noble Kinsmen — John Fletcher and William Shakespeare
Timon of Athens — William Shakespeare
Coriolanus — William Shakespeare
Sir Thomas More — Anthony Munday, Henry Chettle et al.
The Merchant of Venice — William Shakespeare

The Shakespeare reading project started off with the odd ones.

Austen

Pride and Prejudice — Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility — Jane Austen
Emma — Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey — Jane Austen
Persuasion — Jane Austen
Mansfield Park — Jane Austen

All(ish) of Austen….

General Literature

The Afterlife — John Updike
The Dressmaker — Beryl Bainbridge
The Tidal Zone — Sarah Moss
Dear Reader — Paul Fournel
Under the Jaguar Sun — Italo Calvino
Its Colours They are Fine — Alan Spence
Comfort Zone — Brian Aldiss
We Have Always Lived in the Castle — Shirley Jackson
The Year Of The Flood — Margaret Atwood

Comfort Zone was a tribute to Brian Aldiss’s departure: a very odd book, but of Headingtonian interest. I’d enjoyed Oryx and Crake, but The Year Of The Flood was very clunky.

SF/F

Conrad’s Fate — Diana Wynne Jones
Excession — Iain M. Banks
The Atrocity Archives — Charles Stross
The Drosten’s Curse — A. L. Kennedy
Galactic North — Alastair Reynolds
The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes — Neil Gaiman
Riddley Walker — Russell Hoban
The Adjacent — Christopher Priest

The Drosten’s Curse was tremendous fun, and reminded me to go back and read some of Kennedy’s ‘real’ books. The Adjacent was typical Christopher Priest, whom I 90% love and 10% want to give a good shake. Riddley Walker was stunning.

Gutenberg

The New Spirit — Havelock Ellis

Just one Gutenberg book finished this time, as I’m mainly doing thick multi-parters these days. This one was completely batty, but stimulating.

And next time? All the Brontës; more Shakespeare; more Algerians; some German; another Culture re-read; the last Chrestomanci; and some more Kennedy, Priest and Atwood, to start with.