Bloggery

Thursday 22nd Sep 2011

Juliette Bottomley

Mrs B's Reading Diary

So everyone was gearing up for their reading challenges in January, and despite spending more time at home looking after little Miss B, I was determined to get involved!

My ‘challenge’ was to read books that had been recommended by you, the customer. We’ve found some absolute gems through personal recommendations and long bookish chats over the counter, and so I thought this could be a perfect opportunity to unearth some more. My first book, “All my Friends are Superheroes”, was actually ordered in by a customer who keeps buying it as presents for friends, he loves it that much. Other books I was encouraged to pick up included “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter” by Tom Franklin, “Old Filth” by Jane Gardam and “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D.Salinger (by a customer who was justifiably astounded that I hadn’t yet read it).

I confess though that the lure of all those brand new boxes of books was too much and I strayed a little from my “challenge” of just customer recommendations and was tempted by some new releases as well as recommendations from my colleagues.  

Swayed by Ed (as many are) I have been delving a little into pulp and hard-boiled detective/spy fiction with “The Blackbirder” by Dorothy B Hughes and then Eric Ambler’s “Journey into Fear”. Great page turners. I then tried a couple of advanced reading copies – the first (I didn’t get on with that well) was Anne Enright’s “The Forgotten Waltz” but the second one I very much enjoyed, namely Julian Barnes’ new (now Booker short-listed) “The Sense of an Ending”.

On the basis that everyone seems to love him, I had to read some Patrick Ness and thoroughly enjoyed the fast paced young adult book “The Knife of Never Letting Go”. I then treated myself to the absolutely fantastic “The Lonely Polygamist” by Brady Udall. Having loved his other novel “The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint” I thought maybe this wouldn’t match up but I thought it was superb – funny, warm, moving, gripping and quirky. I must try his short stories too “Letting Loose the Hounds” which I’ve ordered in for myself from the U.S.

Talking of quirky reads, the most bonkers book by far this year has been “The Waterproof Bible” by Andrew Kaufman (author of “All my Friends are Superheroes”). Funny and clever but truly quirky. By contrast I gave up on “Monsieur Pain” by Roberto Bolano. Despite it being a tiny read I just couldn’t get into it at all. I very much enjoyed Petra Hulova’s “All This Belongs to Me”, a sweeping family saga set in Mongolia and I’m now halfway through “Alone in Berlin” by Hans Fallada, a superb tale of life and resistance in Berlin under the Nazis.