‘Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness.’ Virginia Woolf.
Some recent journeys
Child of all Nations – Irmgard Keun
So Long, See You Tomorrow – William Maxwell
Get a Life – Nadine Gordimer
On Chesil Beach – Ian McEwan
Blaming – Elizabeth Taylor
Everything Passes – Gabriel Josipovici
The Chateau – William Maxwell
The Brief Wondorous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz
The Clothes on their Backs – Linda Grant
Stone Angel – Margaret Laurence
Lust, Caution – Eileen Chang
Let the northern lights erase your name – Vendela Vida
Divisadero – Michael Ondaatje
Starbook – Ben Okri
Judgement Day – Penelope Lively
Leaving Home – Anita Brookner
Castrop – Pawel Huelle
Snow – Orhan Pamuk
The Gathering – Anne Enright
Voyage in the Dark – Jean Rhys
The Other Side of You – Salley Vickers
The Gift of Rain – Tan Twan Eng
Crossing to Safety – Wallace Stegner
The Woman Who Waited – Andrei Makine
The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
Notes from an Exhibition – Patrick Gale
This book will save your life – A.M. Homes
Truth and Consequences – Alison Lurie
Life Class – Pat Barker
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
Paradise – A.L. Kennedy
Travels with Herodotus – Ryszard Kapuscinski
Tender is the night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Dreams of Speaking – Gail Jones
In the fold – Rachel Cusk
But Nobody Lives in Bloomsbury – Gillian Freeman
Where angels fear to tread -E. M.Forster
Collected Short Stories – Clare Boylan
Careless – Deborah Robertson
The Discomfort Zone: a personal history – Jonathan Franzen
The Great Fire – Shirley Hazzard
The flâneur: a stroll through the paradoxes of Paris – Edmund White
The Longest Journey – E.M. Forster
The End of the Affair- Graham Greene
Old Filth – Jane Gardam
Tete-a-Tete: The Lives and Loves of Simone de Beauvoir & Jean-Paul Satre – Hazel Rowley
Mother’s Milk – Edward St Aubyn
The Emperor’s Children – Claire Messud
The Secret River – Kate Grenville
A few short notes on tropical butterflies – John Murray
I loved some of these books, and have a couple other on my to-do list.
I think Mother’s Milk is one of the best things I have read in years (read it last year) and also LOVED Careless and In the Fold. Was also a big fan of the Kapuscinski, the first one of his I’ve read.
What did you think of The Emperor’s Children? (Have almost started it then had to put it away to read something else for work, intrigued to hear what you think.)