The Penguin Celebrations set: How I Live Now by Meg Rossoff (already got), Coe's What a Carve Up! (already got), Nick Hornby's How To Be Good (might be OK, not my usual taste), Marian Keyes' The Other Side of the Story (never heard of it), Ali Smith's The Accidental, Any Human Heart by William Boyd, Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated, Matthew Kneale's English Passengers, Lewycka's A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, Heller's Notes on a Scandal, Hari Kunzru's The Impressionist, Barker's Regeneration and Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction.
So they're all very middlebrow and I've read a few of them, but they're all worth a go - and they look great in their uniform, retro designs.
What else came? Nicola Barker's odd Darkmans, Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty (mostly for the politics), Marjorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses (good agitprop) and finally Eugenides' Middlesex.
7 comments:
Nick Hornby, after all the flak I got. The one you have is one of the weaker ones in my opinion. I bought 2 books today, cost me £21. Disgusting, really.
Trivia: I went to university with Sue Townsend's son - the one, whom, reputedly, Adrian Mole was based on (my ex went through school with him too). Also had a nice chat with Sue when her son got done for 'obstructing the police in the course of etc' and all his mates turned up at court(he still got fined though) and I used to play cards occasionally with her ex husband at a mutual pal's house, although I didn't know who she was at the time (and she probably hadn't written anything then). I also used to live close to her. I love her plays and essays too; solid lefty stuff including a brilliant long essay on Leicester's tramps, all of whom I remember well (and most now sadly gone to the park bench in the sky). Poor lass isn't that well nowadays so I hear. One of the best things to come out of Leicester. Along with the 60s/70s band Family. And me of course.
She is a good lefty - you're sprinkled in stardust, Zoot.
Merciless - it was an all or nothing deal. I'll read the Hornby solely because it's a book, but it'll be at the bottom of the 1000+ pile of unread books.
Merciless - what books were they?
I blogged about them a bit. One was thanks to you. The next book will definitely be the Vonnegut one you put forward.
Mmmmmm darkmans. So good. I am still getting the odd moment where things connect that I had previously missed. Read it next.
Middlesex is a great book - we were given an excerpt of it about Fordism to read/discuss as part of our Organisational Behaviour module on the MBA, and I was hooked and had to go out and buy the whole book, and I wasn't disappointed. Fascinating insights about the life of the immigrant in 1930's America, and of course a rich exploration of identity, so put that one near the top of the pile too!
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