This year, for the first time, I kept some statistics on the books I read. I didn’t go out of my way to read differently, I just recorded what I felt were the key details, with a view to looking at them at the end of the year. Well, here we are. So what have I learned…
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
by Fannie Flagg
This was a book club pick and I thought somehow that it would be light and fluffy and girly, possibly because that’s how I remember the film (though on rewatching the film this week I discovered it’s not really those things either). It’s certainly an easy, enjoyable read, but it covers a lot of issues without labouring the point and has some very interesting things to say…
Stop What You’re Doing and Read This!
by various authors
Slightly meanly, I think, the publisher has not credited anyone as the editor of this collection of essays on the topic of reading. Even the introduction is simply signed “Vintage Books, 2011″. I bought this book on a whim at the same time as The Library Book, as they were both pretty and colourful and contained essays by interesting people…
The Restraint of Beasts
by Magnus Mills
I was sent this book by an old friend in a book swap and I can see why he chose it. It’s a comedy of a pretty niche sort and I think you’d have to know someone well to confidently recommend this to them. I was amused, so thanks Matt…
Seducing Ingrid Bergman
by Chris Greenhalgh
When I spotted this title in the Penguin Press Newsletter it wasn’t so much Bergman’s name that attracted me – though she was a great actress and some of her films are deservedly classics – but that of the other half of this brief affair – war photographer Robert Capa. Photography interests me as a hobby and as an art form and I was interested to see how that would be handled within a novel about one of the medium’s legendary names…
Saplings
by Noel Streatfeild
This is one of those books that I wished didn’t have to end, though in a way I was glad that it did because it’s the tale of a downward spiral. It’s also a beautiful book physically, being my first (finally!) read from Persephone Books…
