More of our guests tell us what they're planning to read next - and our final round-up, or rather the first of 2020, will appear next Monday.
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Paul Magrs: All I can think of is the fact that there's a new Anne Tyler out early next year! It still feels like a huge treat - and the fact that her last two have been so wonderful adds to the anticipation. Next year marks exactly thirty years since I read my first Anne Tyler. She had just won a big award for Breathing Lessons and I was with my first boyfriend Gene in the middle of 1990. He was in the UK for a year and started me off reading Tyler and Armistead Maupin, Margaret Atwood, Carson MacCullers and Amy Tan, among others. He gave me If Morning Ever Comes and I was hooked forever.
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Graeme Fife: In a deluded time, as we confront an indefeasible
tangle of misprision, misleading promise and fantasy arithmetic, exacerbated by the dumb stupidity of prime nitwits posing as keepers of wisdom, it seems a very apposite choice of reading to turn to Don Quixote. Misconceit and misadventure, tilting at windmills, forlorn escapades in a bonkers scenario? Bullseye.The Road to Wigan Pier next, another apt read against the current backdrop of blurred reality. Orwell’s unflinching truth-telling and masterly prose. And Lara Maiklem’s Mudlarking for the stories attached to the vast gallimaufry of trouvailles washed up by the waters of old Thames.
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Linda Newbery: Here are two enticing writers I feel ashamed to have neglected till now. In recent months I've read two novels by Jane Rogers, Conrad and Eleanor and the earlier Mr Wroe's Virgins, both of which confirm her as a writer of exceptional talent and versatility. Her new novel, Body Tourists, promises to be very different again. Ann Patchett, for some reason, I haven't read at all, but have seen such glowing reviews of her work from people whose judgement I respect that I'm going to plunge in with her latest, The Dutch House.
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Pippa Goodhart: Awaiting when I have time to snuggle by a fire and wallow in these book treats are: Mr Godley’s Phantom by Mal Peet. Mal Peet was a writer of such fresh, fun, sometimes shocking skill, who died too young. Here’s a new book, his last, glinting with gold on its cover and promising a ‘part ghost story part crime thriller’. And: a second-hand copy, bought from wonderful David’s Bookshop in Cambridge, of Daphne Du Maurier and Her Sisters by Jane Dunn. The sub-title is The Hidden Lives of Piffy, Bird and Bing. Lots of photos of posh Edwardians. Yum!
Linda Sargent: Fifty years ago when I was a “young adult” there were few books aimed precisely at my age group and consequently I read mostly from the adult shelves of our tiny village library. Among my favourite authors were Mary Stewart, Jean Plaidy, Mary Renault (must re-read her too), and Elizabeth Goudge. Recently I've been tentatively re-reading some of Goudge’s books, and have unearthed my battered paperback of Green Dolphin Country, first published in 1944 and set in the Channel Isles and New Zealand. At fifteen I was captivated, hoping that one day I might visit both places, but as is so often the case, travelling vicariously through strongly crafted stories can be almost as satisfying and Goudge’s vivid and detailed descriptions never fail here. And while there may be some aspects of her writing that feel a little out of step with modern sensibilities, as a friend of mine remarked, we should perhaps approach this body of work in the same way as we would that of – say – Dickens, Trollope et al, writers who, like Goudge, are products of their times. Meanwhile, I look forward to my travels in Green Dolphin Country ...
Celia Rees: I intend to read books I already have. If I don’t like the book, it goes to Oxfam; if I do like it, I’ll read then take to Oxfam. Slow speed de-cluttering. I’m starting with The Muse by Jessie Burton. I bought this because it had a pretty cover and sounded interesting. Next, The Raven King by Marcus Tanner. I loved the title and knew nothing about Matthias Corvinus, fifteenth century king of Hungary and his fabled lost library. Finally:Now All Roads Lead to France – The Last Years of Edward Thomas, by Matthew Hollis. I love Edward Thomas’ poetry, but I haven’t read this because I know what happened to him and it will make me sad.
Paul Dowswell: Having greatly enjoyed Craig Brown’s Princess Margaret hatchet job Ma’am Darling, I think I might have developed a taste for royal biogs. Edith Sitwell’s Victoria of England is sitting in a pile by my bed and a cursory glance through the pages suggests it will be a fascinating read.
As a long-time writer of non-fiction I have a deep admiration for Bill Bryson – his History of Nearly Everything was excellent. So his recently published The Body looks unmissable.
Finally, I have just spent a week touring Italian schools and the people I was with have been working with the YA author Melvin Burgess and tell me he is brilliant. So I must give one of his a read.
Michael Lawrence: Ever keen to read about photographers and painters, having been both in my time, one of my 2019 reads was Francoise Gilot’s Life with Picasso. She was with him for ten years and in the book details his working methods along with some descriptions of him that did not please him, for it’s said that he never spoke to her again after its publication in 1964.
I also re-read, for the first time in about 40 years, Emile Zola’s novel The Masterpiece, published in 1886, which is full of information about the lives and difficulties of the Impressionists, and in particular Zola’s friend from childhood Paul Cézanne who (guess what) ceased to speak to Zola after its publication.
The book that I’m most looking forward to is a debut novel, The Age of Light by Whitney Scharer, given to me by my friend Julia Wills. I’ve only read the opening paragraphs of the prologue so far (I’m saving this book for just the right mood – mine, that is), which are so beautifully written that I might have wanted to read on even if it hadn’t been about the youth of American photographer Lee Miller, whose work I’ve always admired.
Adele Geras: Like millions of other readers all over the world, the book I’m most looking forward to next year is The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel. That’s coming in March and I have pre-ordered it.
Other than that, I am excited about Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (recently reviewed here as the choice of Orb's Bookshop of Aberdeen) by Olga Tokarczuk, the Polish writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. I was attracted to it for its title, which is a quotation from William Blake and I downloaded a sample of the book on to my Kindle. I liked what I read very much and bought the book. This feature, which isn’t much talked about, is one of the things I love about reading on Kindle. It prevents a lot of terrible mistakes. I have sampled quite a few dreadful books and saved myself a lot of money! Merry Christmas to all our readers and hoping for lot of wonderful books in the New Year.
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Celia Rees: I intend to read books I already have. If I don’t like the book, it goes to Oxfam; if I do like it, I’ll read then take to Oxfam. Slow speed de-cluttering. I’m starting with The Muse by Jessie Burton. I bought this because it had a pretty cover and sounded interesting. Next, The Raven King by Marcus Tanner. I loved the title and knew nothing about Matthias Corvinus, fifteenth century king of Hungary and his fabled lost library. Finally:Now All Roads Lead to France – The Last Years of Edward Thomas, by Matthew Hollis. I love Edward Thomas’ poetry, but I haven’t read this because I know what happened to him and it will make me sad.
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Paul Dowswell: Having greatly enjoyed Craig Brown’s Princess Margaret hatchet job Ma’am Darling, I think I might have developed a taste for royal biogs. Edith Sitwell’s Victoria of England is sitting in a pile by my bed and a cursory glance through the pages suggests it will be a fascinating read.
As a long-time writer of non-fiction I have a deep admiration for Bill Bryson – his History of Nearly Everything was excellent. So his recently published The Body looks unmissable.
Finally, I have just spent a week touring Italian schools and the people I was with have been working with the YA author Melvin Burgess and tell me he is brilliant. So I must give one of his a read.
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I also re-read, for the first time in about 40 years, Emile Zola’s novel The Masterpiece, published in 1886, which is full of information about the lives and difficulties of the Impressionists, and in particular Zola’s friend from childhood Paul Cézanne who (guess what) ceased to speak to Zola after its publication.
The book that I’m most looking forward to is a debut novel, The Age of Light by Whitney Scharer, given to me by my friend Julia Wills. I’ve only read the opening paragraphs of the prologue so far (I’m saving this book for just the right mood – mine, that is), which are so beautifully written that I might have wanted to read on even if it hadn’t been about the youth of American photographer Lee Miller, whose work I’ve always admired.
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Other than that, I am excited about Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (recently reviewed here as the choice of Orb's Bookshop of Aberdeen) by Olga Tokarczuk, the Polish writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. I was attracted to it for its title, which is a quotation from William Blake and I downloaded a sample of the book on to my Kindle. I liked what I read very much and bought the book. This feature, which isn’t much talked about, is one of the things I love about reading on Kindle. It prevents a lot of terrible mistakes. I have sampled quite a few dreadful books and saved myself a lot of money! Merry Christmas to all our readers and hoping for lot of wonderful books in the New Year.
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Another great round-up. So many books! So little time...
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