13 Best Books of 2013

You know it’s that time of year when all of the ‘Best of’ lists start appearing… I love browsing the lists, getting ideas on what to read next, ideas for gifts and just generally having a nosy to see if some of my favourite books of the year feature. I thought it would be lovely to do my own as I haven’t done one before – since I’ve read 53 books so far this year, a bit of a record for me, I’m having trouble narrowing down my list of favourites… So, with this in mind, I’ve gone for my 13 favourite books read in 2013 (in no particular order). I’m hopeful that next year I read as many wonderful books!

Top 13 of 2013

Click on the links to see my original review

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

How could this not make my list? I absolutely loved it, and found it equally gripping and infuriating with all of its twists and turns! I read along with my book group, and have since lent my copy to many people, all of whom have really enjoyed it. It’s an intelligent thriller – hopefully I’ll find something as good to kick off next year with as big a bang as this felt like in 2013.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

I absolutely loved this book as well, the way Atkinson had structured her novel, giving main character Ursula repeated attempts at life, events repeating and changing thanks to the tiniest details and circumstances. I love the way it highlights how changeable life can be, and how each small moment can have a great effect on later events. It’s on a lot of the ‘Best of’ lists I’ve seen so far and I certainly think it deserves its place.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

This book was part of a very good run of audiobooks I listened to in the autumn, a début novel set in Iceland in the 1800s. It describes the last few days of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last woman to be executed in Iceland. I thought it was really evocative, and I loved listening to it as I think the narrator did a wonderful job capturing the tone of each of the characters and the pronunciation of all of the Icelandic names and places. I look forward to reading her next book!

The President’s Hat by Antoine Laurain (Paperback)

This was such a charming book, all about former French president Mitterand’s hat, and how it was found by a stranger and started to have a magical positive influence on his life. The hat flits on to other holders and casts its same spell on each of them – it’s such a lovely evocative story of France in the ’80s – I’ve passed this on to several family members and each one of them has been as charmed as I was!

Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussman (Paperback)

I adored this book, it was one of our book club choices and I think everyone really enjoyed it. It was part family saga, part murder mystery and I thought it’s sense of time and place was so evocative – I really felt as if I was back in the ’50s, sipping cocktails on a moon-drenched lawn. Another great Book Club read from 2013 – I’m not sure what 2014 has in store for the Book Club next year yet but I’m hoping there’ll be some more gems.

The Humans by Matt Haig

The Humans tells the story of an alien sent to earth to assassinate a mathematics professor who has just discovered the secret of prime numbers, by an alien species who don’t think humans are quite ready to handle that information. What follows is a series of hilarious events as the alien tries to understand human culture; a love letter to what it means to be human and observations on just how ridiculous we really are. It’s warm and funny and intelligent and I would recommend it to all fellow humans.

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

I read this as part of my Evelyn Waugh Month, as a way to get to know the work of a particular author I hadn’t read much by before. This book was everything I wanted it to be and more – it’s a comical, light-hearted satire of the young and beautiful of London in the ’30s. I think it’s my favourite of Waugh’s books and it had me giggling away to myself. I’m thinking of doing the same again for next year with a different author – I haven’t decided who that will be yet so please watch this space!

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Yes, it took me years to get round to reading this, and no, it did not disappoint. Most people know the story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy but Jane Austen’s prose is the best way to discover it. It’s a witty classic, and one that deserves its place on best read lists. A book I imagine I will read again and again throughout my life and never tire of.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Book Thief is all about Death, and his grip on people as the events of World War II unfolds. It’s such an original way to tell the story and I became quite attached to the characters, even though I knew all could not end well. This book had me wailing, one of just a handful of books to affect me so. The film adaptation is coming out at the end of January next year so I will be looking forward to seeing it!

Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi

Set in Lisbon in the late ’30s, this novella demonstrates how even the most unassuming of people can have the courage to disagree with what is going on around them. There is an undercurrent of menace in the novel, as the effects of the Spanish Civil War and the onslaught of World War II make their presence known, that Tabucchi builds and builds into a tense and devastating moment. One of those books that stays with you long after reading.

The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan

I have praised this book to practically everyone who has asked what my favourite book of the year was. It’s a sharp, intelligent and warm account of young offender and foster child Anais, who is moved into a home for troubled teens, known as The Panopticon. The language in this book rings out and Anais is such a compelling character, who has experienced far too much already in her 15 years, leaving her jaded and cynical. I can’t wait to see what Fagan writes next.

Just Kids by Patti Smith

This was one of the first audiobooks I listened to this year and it was the perfect introduction. An autobiography of Patti Smith’s younger years in New York with lover and struggling photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, this was narrated by Smith herself and it was so moving. You could hear the emotion in her voice as she read certain passages – if you are planning to read this at some point, I would highly recommend the audiobook.

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

I remember watching the BBC adaptation of this book a couple of years ago and being blown away by a new take on Victorian fiction, with its gritty detail. The book is even better, leading you through the London streets as you follow Sugar from brothel to ale house to higher places. You can practically smell what is being described. Sugar is an unforgettable character and I loved diving into her world. I have just finished reading Michel Faber’s début novel Under the Skin which was also brilliant – hopefully a review of that to follow soon.

For a full list of all of the books I’ve read this year, have a peek at my Books 2013 page.

We Love This Book have been asking book bloggers for their pick of 2013 books – read all of their recommendations here! What are your favourite books read in 2013? Anything you’re looking forward to in 2014? I’ve still to read The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Aside from that, I will be sweeping my bookshelves and reading what I already own as well as getting stuck into my Non-Fiction Reading Challenge, to expand my horizons a little and read one non-fiction book a month. Does anyone else have big plans for their reading next year?

Evelyn Waugh Month Round-Up

So I have finally come to the end of my month of reading books by Evelyn Waugh and have enjoyed the books and the challenge.

I had plans to read more but I ended up reading four of his books, reviews of which can be found by clicking on the titles:

Scoop
Vile Bodies
A Handful of Dust
The Loved One

Each of these books was very different to the next, although they did have a similar stye to them. Ever-present is Evelyn Waugh’s satirical view of the rich and fashionable mainly in the period between the two World Wars. I thought he was so adept at capturing that lost generation, something that was summed up so succinctly in The Loved One that the characters “came of a generation which enjoys a vicarious intimacy with death”. I think Vile Bodies was my favourite of the four as it was such a hoot to read and was a bit of escapism, telling you about the crazy lives of the Bright Young Things.

I noticed that The Loved One is dedicated to Nancy Mitford. I don’t know why I never put these two writers together before – I’d only read Brideshead Revisited by Waugh and The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Mitford so perhaps I wasn’t in the most educated position. Their writing styles do have similarities, a certain eccentric wit that runs through the prose, dropping little in-jokes that are later alluded to and you feel like part of the in-crowd. If you are a fan of Waugh I’d suggest that Nancy Mitford might be a good author for you to read next.

I actually did a class in my final year of university called Literary Snobbery which was how I discovered Mitford. It was a brilliant course which I thoroughly enjoyed and one which exposed me to a lot of writers I hadn’t come across before. What I’m wondering is, where was Waugh on the course list? I think he would have fit in rather well!

I was joined in Evelyn Waugh Month by Heavenali, who read and reviewed Vile Bodies to coincide with my month of reading Waugh and I also stumbled across a review of another of Waugh’s books Decline and Fall over on Book Snob which was rather timely and has of course added another book to my list of books to read.

I really enjoyed doing this and hope to do the same in future with a different author – it’s such a great way to get to know an author, to read books by them in close succession. I have in my head W. Somerset Maugham or Graham Greene in mind but would love to hear any suggestions. Is there any particular author you would like to have a go at reading for a month? Perhaps someone whom you have always meant to read but have just never gotten round to it?

Book Review: The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh

The last of my picks for Evelyn Waugh Month was The Loved One, a novella set in L.A. in the early forties, which follows the fate of a young Englishman Dennis Barlow and his attempts to acclimatise to America and to court a young corpse beautician Aimée, whom he meets whilst arranging a funeral for his friend. Dennis himself works in a mortuary, although nothing quite so grand as Whispering Glades where Aimée works, a land of archways and gardens and every kind of possibility to make sure that the ‘loved one’ is ushered from this world in style. Dennis deals with funerals for pets, and his occupation is something of a worry to the local ex-pats who commune at the cricket club to discuss English interests and the sorts of jobs suitably respectable for an English gentleman in America.

I read this novella in one sitting on a Saturday morning whilst eating a rather yummy plate of scrambled eggs and pastrami on toast. I may have been a little distracted by that! Sometimes when I read a book very quickly I feel like I barely take it in, I get a sense of it but I really just don’t get to know the characters or care about them too much. This is what happened with The Loved One – I read it and enjoyed it and found it to be quite different to other books by Waugh that I’ve read this month – the voice is there but the subject matter is different. The humour is very dark (not surprising when a lot of it takes place in funeral homes) and the characters are all a bit despicable in their own way. This is the first of Waugh’s books that I have read which is wholly set abroad and this is indeed one of the central issues explored, that of the difference between the Brits and the Americans, both equally exposed to Waugh’s satirical observations and descriptions. Its subtitle is in fact An Anglo-American Tragedy so that is not that big of an observation on my part!

The descriptions of Americans focus on their consumerism, shown by the gaudy commercialism of funerals, the ads for peaches and the slogans used by Dennis and Aimée in their funereal workplaces. Added to this was something that Waugh just cannot resist – journalists and how they influence people’s lives. Aimée writes to an agony uncle in a local newspaper when she is trying to make up her mind about her possible suitors – Mr Joyboy (the skilled mortician of Whispering Glades). Even when she does not wish her letters to be printed in the problem page, she still appeals to them for answers to her personal predicament, taking their advice as gospel and following it, which has tragic consequences. When her heart is broken this is not seen as particularly noteworthy as “it was a small inexpensive organ of local manufacture”, another commodity to be traded and disregarded.

What also stood out for me was this sense of the effect the Wars had on the characters, something that I had also felt when reading A Handful of Dust. Dennis seems quite apathetic to everything that goes on around him, even the cremations that he performs on a daily basis, highlighted perfectly by this quote after finding his friend dead:

“Dennis was a young man of sensibility rather than of sentiment. He had lived his twenty-eight years at arm’s length from violence, but he came of a generation which enjoys a vicarious intimacy with death. Never, it so happened, had he seen a human corpse until that morning when, returning tired from night duty, he found his host strung to the rafters. The spectacle had been rude and momentarily unnerving; but his reason accepted the event as part of the established order.”

This proximity to the horrors of the Wars results in a numbness, and an inability to really feel much sympathy for anyone or anything, in stark contrast to the portrayal to his customers that he cares about their loss. This was a funny little book, and if you like your humour dark and beyond the pale then this may be just the ticket for you, it was something a bit more light-hearted to end my month on!

Book Review: A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

Continuing on with my month of reading books by Evelyn Waugh, last week I was reading A Handful of Dust. I seem to remember that it was the title of this book which appealed to me – which in fact was taken from T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘The Wasteland’. This feels like a much more serious book, and I think I was ready for that after the heady abandon of the characters in Vile Bodies. That’s not to say they aren’t reckless in their own way, but they are slightly older, with more commitments in the way of family homes to run and children to care for. This makes their actions all the more shocking I think – there’s nothing particularly alarming about young singletons going out on the ran dan, but when it is done with a lack of regard to a family they have built up and are required to care for that is another matter altogether.

The story revolves around husband and wife, Tony and Brenda Last, who live out in the country in the Gothic manor that Tony has inherited. They spend their mornings lolling about, leaving their young son John in the care of a somewhat uncouth stable-hand, then reprimand him for using naughty words and saying rough things about those he meets. There is a listlessness to the Lasts – they don’t seem to do very much and it is not much of a surprise to me that Brenda becomes bored. She embarks on an affair with the dull John Beaver, who is never quite at ease in the Bloomsbury set, always waiting on last-minute invitations to dinners and events as he is known for being a single man and a readily available space-filler if someone cancels at short notice.

There were elements of this book which reminded me a little of Anna Karenina – a bored woman seduced by a young man and giving up a lot to be with him. Brenda is bored with her life, and escapes to London, spending more and more time away from home ‘studying’ and fobbing Tony off with excuses as to why she cannot come home. She completely abandons her child and it is clear that she doesn’t care much for him. It’s really hard to have much sympathy for any of the characters in this novel as they are all very flawed but they are so vague that they don’t even notice their own failings. Writing this review I almost feel that this novel left a strange feeling of malaise hanging over me, drawn in as I was by their stories.

That’s what Waugh does so well, capturing this generation between the wars that doesn’t know what to do with itself. The characters are from a slightly older generation than in Vile Bodies but the sentiments are the same; a listlessness and feeling of unreality.

After the frivolities of the Bright Young Things in Vile Bodies, and the farcical comedy of errors that is Scoop, this came as something of a shock. It’s serious, but still retains a lot of elements which can be held up to ridicule. I almost would have liked for this book to be more realistic, more serious and grown-up, much as I’d like its characters to take a bit more responsibility. It’s almost as if nothing can be taken seriously again after the horror of the First World War. The beauty of what Waugh does in this book is to create these characters that are so affected by the War but they don’t even realise how affected they are.

I found the ending a bit odd and unbelievable. Like most people I’m sure, I thought that Tony was a bit wet and all too easily fooled by Brenda’s indiscretions. The moment that he finally does stand up to her feels like a big moment for the reader but leads on to him going on a strange journey into the heart of South America. I’d like to discuss this more but don’t want to give too much away! There is a particular part which Waugh had originally written as a short story called ‘The Man Who Liked Dickens’ – it’s quite creepy but I think led Waugh down a well-trodden road of being slightly absurd. I really enjoyed this episode and found it absorbing and quite unsettling, but I’m not sure about how well it fit in to the story.

Evelyn Waugh Month: The Loved One

Apologies on the delay on posting this week – it has been rather hectic with a lot going on and I feel like my reading and blogging mojo took a leave of absence. I’m finishing up my review of A Handful of Dust which I’ll post soon and I have one more little book to squeeze in on Evelyn Waugh Month – although I know it’s May already!

The final book I’ll be reading by Evelyn Waugh for my month of reading, is The Loved One. It’s quite a short one at 128 pages so I don’t think it will take me as long as A Handful of Dust. I also have a sneaking suspicion it will not be quite as serious!

The blurb:

“Following the death of a friend, poet and pets’ mortician Dennis Barlow finds himself entering into the artificial Hollywood paradise of the Whispering Glades Memorial Park. Within its golden gates, death, American-style, is wrapped up and sold like a package holiday. There, Dennis enters the fragile and bizarre world of Aimée, the naïve Californian corpse beautician, and Mr Joyboy, the master of the embalmer’s art …

A dark and savage satire on the Anglo-American cultural divide, The Loved One depicts a world where love, reputation and death cost a very great deal.”

I think it will be quite a surreal little book, and somewhere closer to Scoop in its absurdity than the other books I’ve read this month. Looking forward to it! After this book, I’ll post my review and do a little round-up on my thoughts on Evelyn Waugh Month overall.

Book Review: Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

Vile Bodies was the second read for my month of reading books by Evelyn Waugh and again it was an absoute hoot. I know I have mentioned this several times but it was the film by Stephen Fry that made me want to read the books (and others by Waugh). Vile Bodies was originally named Bright Young Things but that phrase became much too passé and so it was renamed, although this was used by Fry in his film adaptation. It is slightly catchier after all:

 

“Ooooh what’s that shiny thing, it’s hurting my eyes.”
“Sorry, that’d be me, I’m a bright young thing. Avert your eyes lest they be burned from their sockets.”

Set in the 1920s, the book follows the progress of young novelist Adam Fenwick-Symes who has the bad luck of having the manuscript of his first novel confiscated by customs on his return to Britain from France. With this disappears any hope of an advance for writing the book without which he will not be able to marry his sweetheart, Nancy Blount, as she simply could not marry a man who is poor. What follows is a series of parties and events – Adam is on the fringes of a group of young people trying to find their place in a post-Great War world, a group named by the papers as ‘Bright Young Things’. They live in a whirlwind of parties, sashaying to and fro following whatever took their fancy and not taking much heed at all of what was going on around them.

Just like in Scoop, journalists are never far from the action. It shows the beginning of the tabloids, snapping pictures at parties and writing gossip articles. There are a few very funny scenes in which Adam is writing a gossip artice and making up celebrities and inventing fashions and watching as the world talks about them as if they were real. Adam does tire of the parties, as does Nina who describes them as ‘a bore’, listing all of the various events:

“…Masked parties, Savage parties, Victorian parties, Greek parties, Wild West parties…parties in flats and studios and houses and ships and hotels and night clubs, in windmills and swimming-baths,…all that succession and repetition of massed humanity…Those vile bodies…”

I loved the character of Agatha Runcible as she really does sum up what the Bright Young Things were all about, and she definitely gets some of the best scenes in the book. She is always at the centre of the fun and her speech reflects her different view of the world – when she is stripped at customs it is “too shaming”, drinks are “better-making” and she merrily goes along with everything in the pursuit of fun. There is a vulnerable side to her, dealt with rather comically, that reveals how much Waugh is ridiculing the way of life of some young people at this time. Even when spending some time in hospital, Agatha is surrounded by friends from her ‘set’ who laugh, listen to music and drink cocktails with the nurses. She sums up the experience of living in the public eye:

“D’you know, all that time I was dotty I had the most awful dreams. I thought we were all driving round and round in a motor race and none of us could stop, and there was an enormous audience composed entirely of gossip writers and gate-crashers and Archie Schwert and people like that, all shouting to us at once to go faster, and car after car kept crashing until I was left all alone driving and driving – and then I used to crash and wake up.”

The relationship between Adam and Nina is touching – and they clearly do care for each other quite a bit despite the game they try to play of pretending otherwise when their financial situation isn’t working out. There are many telephone conversations written down between them and I wonder if this is some commentary by Waugh on documenting something that would have otherwise been lost. Nina and Adam are so very modern and although they do send the occasional letter and telegram, they communicate mostly by telephone.

The narrative is peppered with comical dialogue, ridiculous names, farcical misunderstandings and misadventures. Everything is so over-the-top and melodramatic, and the dialogue in this book is what really stood out for me. There are moments which make it stand out from me – I loved the description of how ‘The topic of the Younger Generation spread through the company like a yawn’ – how it is something involuntary and that they feel compelled to discuss it, although much like the young ones themselves, there is an apathy about everything that they don’t have the energy to overcome.

The film poster for Bright Young Things

Finally, a note on reading this after having watched the film Bright Young Things as usually I read the book beforehand. This was a strange experience as the film was very true to the book, dialogue and all so I felt like I knew exactly what was happening and already had a clear vision of the characters in my head. That said, I really did enjoy reading the book and the extra detail it provided – I think the book and film are quite complementary!

Have you read Vile Bodies, or even watched the film Bright Young Things? How would you compare them?

Heavenali has also written a review of Vile Bodies this month which you can read here.

Evelyn Waugh Month: A Handful of Dust

I have been a little slow on my reading this month – I can’t believe it’s almost May already! I’ll finish off Vile Bodies today ( I would have finished it last night if I hadn’t left it in my desk at work!) and post my review this evening. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to the next book I’ll be reading by Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust:

“After seven years of marriage the beautiful Lady Brenda Last is bored with life at Hetton Abbey, the Gothic mansion that is the pride and joy of her husband, Tony. She drifts into an affair with the shallow socialite John Beaver and forsakes Tony for the Belgravia set. Brilliantly combining tragedy, comedy and savage irony, A Handful of Dust captures the irresponsible mood of the ‘crazy and sterile generation’ between the wars. The breakdown of the Last marriage, is a painful, comic re-working of Waugh’s own divorce and a symbol of the disintegration of society.”

I think this sounds just wonderful and highlights what I’m really enjoying about reading lots of Waugh books together – they all complement each other so well and although the stories are different of course, there are common themes running throughout. Really looking forward to starting this one – tonight if I’m lucky!

Read more about what I’m reading for Evelyn Waugh Month.

Book Review: Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

As you may have noticed by now, I am having a little bit of a month focused on one writer: Evelyn Waugh. Scoop was the first on my list and one that I found to be very funny. It is full of wit and is a comedy of errors to lose yourself in.

The novel begins with a visit by author John Courtenay Boot to lady of high society, Julia Stitch, whom he asks to convince newspaper mogul Lord Copper (of the newspaper The Beast) to hire him as a foreign correspondent in the fictional African country of Ishmaelia. The press have caught wind of a story there and of an imminent civil war – John Boot isn’t so much interested in that as running away from a woman who has become over-desirous of his attention. After a few errors and misunderstandings, the foreign editor of The Beast hires a Mr William Boot as their foreign correspondent, wines him and dines him and introduces him to the world of journalism and sends him off to Africa with a ridiculously large pile of luggage. What follows is a rather comical account of Boot getting caught up in the hunt for a story.

The main things that I enjoyed about Scoop were its wit and satire of the press. I was laughing out loud at this book as some of it is rather farcical but somehow you could quite believe that these things could have happened. William Boot is an unsuspecting journalist and falls into it – he lives a sheltered life with his family in the country and really doesn’t often venture very far. He is learning the ropes as he goes along and it is through his eyes that the reader gets to gaze in wonder at the ridiculousness of the press in their search for a scoop. He teams up with another correspondent out there who tries to show him the ropes:

‘Corker looked at him sadly. ‘You know, you’ve got a lot to learn about journalism. Look at it this way. News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read. And it’s only news until he’s read it. After that it’s dead. We’re paid to supply news. If someone else has sent a story before us, our story isn’t news.’

While all of these foreign correspondents are chasing a story, the people of Ishmaelia are benefiting from the revenue that this sudden influx of men living on expenses brings – hotels are doing the best business they’ve ever done and office workers are taking time off their jobs to be runners for the journalists, charging them extortionate fees of course. And the politicians are having a rare time playing the journalists off one another and sending them on wild goose chases which make for some hilarious scenes!

The bits featuring the foreign editor Mr Salter and his boss Lord Copper were very funny, as they constantly misunderstand each other, accidentally on Lord Cropper’s side and willfully on Mr Salter’s. I love this little anecdote which really sums up their relationship:

‘Mr Salter’s side of the conversation was limited to expressions of assent. When Lord Copper was right he said, ‘Definitely, Lord Cropper’; when he was wrong, ‘Up to a point.’
‘Let me see, what’s the name of the place I mean? Capital of Japan? Yokohama, isn’t it?’
‘Up to a point, Lord Copper.’
‘And Hong Kong belongs to us, doesn’t it?’
‘Definitely, Lord Copper.’

I think I might borrow ‘Up to a point’ for future use!

The press aren’t averse to making up stories, or adding a little ‘colour’ as they describe it. There is even an incident where a member of the press describes a Russian spy arriving by train to the capital of Ishmaelia. It turns out the man is actually a ticket collector and not Russian at all – however, instead of retracting this story, the journalists let the public continue to believe so as not to shake their belief in the press. It makes me very wary of believing anything I read in the papers as you just never know!

One downside for me was that there are some parts of the dialogue and even the narrative that can be a little racist in their word choice and comments that grated on me a little but I had to remind myself of the time this was written, back in 1939. Aside from that I really enjoyed this book and I’m looking forward to reading more!

March Reading Round-Up & April Preview

March wasn’t a particularly busy reading month but I did read some really good books and ones that were quite different from each other too. I think my favourite book this month has been The Search by Geoff Dyer as I got really drawn into it.

Books from March are:
The Sea Road by Margaret Elphinstone
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
The Search by Geoff Dyer
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

I also published a review of The Cone-Gatherers by Robin Jenkins which I read back in November last year.

I’m really happy with my blogging this month as I feel like I am finally getting the hang of it and being a little more consistent in putting up reviews soon after I’ve read a book. It’s taken me a while to get to this stage and I find that I am enjoying it more and more. I started a new Wish List page where I aim to put links to reviews that have inspired me to read something that I hadn’t heard of or just hadn’t fancied before. So far I have Life After Life by Kate Atkinson on there which I will hopefully get my hands on soon!

I’m really looking forward to what’s in store in April as I have embarked upon something a little different by reading several books by Evelyn Waugh all in one month. I started reading Scoop yesterday which I’m already finding very funny, and after that I’ll be reading Vile Bodies and A Handful of Dust. Another of Waugh’s books, The Loved One was recommended to me by Fleur Fisher of the Fleur Fisher in her world books blog – I don’t have a copy but I’m planning to borrow one from my local library and add it to my list. If I have time, I may even re-read Brideshead Revisited! I might try and catch up on a few Waugh films too – I’ve seen the 2008 film version of Brideshead Revisited but didn’t rate it highly and I’ve heard the TV series with Jeremy Irons from the ’80s is far superior so I’ll see if I can find that. The film version of A Handful of Dust has also been recommended to me so I’ll try and track that down, as well as watching Bright Young Things after I have read Vile Bodies (the book on which the film was based).

Finally, I have also looked out Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck to re-read as I was reminded of it so much when reading The Cone-Gatherers and fancied reading it again. So I have a busy month ahead of me and potentially 6 books to get through – looking forward to it!

Evelyn Waugh Month

Image found on http://badcatholic-eclecticreader.blogspot.co.uk

This coming April, I have decided to give myself a challenge to read three Evelyn Waugh books in a month as there were quite a few of his books I wanted to read. I read Brideshead Revisited a few years ago and just loved it, and I have to admit that I was also inspired by Stephen Fry’s wonderful film Bright Young Things which was inspired by Waugh’s Vile Bodies. If you fancy joining in at all please do let me know!

The three that I have on my shelves are:

Vile Bodies
A Handful of Dust
Scoop

I plan to start with Scoop and will be reading this in the first week of April if anyone is up for a read-a-long. I’m also happy to take suggestions if there are any other books by Evelyn Waugh you think I should be reading.

P.S. Isn’t the incredibly writerly photo of Evelyn Waugh just exactly what you would expect of him?