Petroglyph's 2017 TBR challenge

Authors from countries I have not read (enough of)

1. India: Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand. Finished: May 2017
   A day in the life of a Dalit in a fictional town in 1930s India.


2. Soviet Union: Memories of the future by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky. Finished: December 2017
   Krzhizhanovsky wrote in the 1920s-1930s. I loved his The letter killers club when I read it a few years ago -- zany, joyful and experimental, and a little anti-establishment, too. I'm looking forward to reading more of his work!


3. Malaysia: The garden of evening mists by Tan Twan Eng. Finished: October 2017
   My first Malaysian author. A 2014 SantaThing present, so it's about time I got to it. I know nothing about the book, so I'll be going in cold.


4. Afghanistan: The kite runner by Khaled Hosseini. Finished: October 2017
   A 2014 SantaThing present. About time I got to it.


5. Estonia: Estland berättar: Hur man dödar minnet by Klement Kalli. English title: Tales from Estonia: how to kill memory. Finished: December 2017
   My first Estonian authors. An anthology of short stories by Estonian authors translated into Swedish that I picked up for precisely this challenge.


6. Ghana: Our sister Killjoy by Ama Ata Aidoo. Finished: December 2017
   My first Ghanan author. A recommendation by my SO, who specializes in African literatures, this book apparently blends prose and poetry in interesting ways.

"Classics"

1. Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo. Finished: September 2017
   This is my Big Doorstopper Book for this year. I’ll be reading this in the Project Gutenberg version, probably over the summer.


2. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Finished: October 2017
   Never read her. This book has stood unread on my shelves for over eight years now, and it will do as this year’s Big 19thC Classic.


3. Daphnis and Chloe by Longus. Finished: October 2017
   Ancient Roman novel from the 2nd century CE. Part of an effort to read more by the Ancients.


4. Persuasion by Jane Austen. Finished: November 2017
   I’m working my way through Jane Austen’s bibliography, in chronological order of publication. This one is next on the list.


5. Röda rummet by August Strindberg. English title: The red room. Finished: October 2017
   A giant looming large in Swedish literature, but I have never read him.


6. Syv fantastiske fortællinger by Karen Blixen. English title: Seven Gothic Tales. Finished: December 2017
   A holdover from the 2015 challenge. Comes warmly recommended by several Danish friends of mine.

Read more French/German

1. Homo Faber by Max Frisch. Finished: January 2017
   A 2015 Christmas present, as well as a carryover from last year’s challenge. Appears to be a 20thC classic.


2. Le voisin by Tatiana de Rosnay. Finished: January 2017
   A petty quarrel between neighbours turns twisted. The synopsis was enough to prompt me to give it to a friend who was going through a quarrel with their flatmate, but I thought I’d better read it too. And when I came across a second-hand copy for 1€, I couldn’t resist.


3. Pandora et autres nouvelles by Gérard de Nerval. Finished: June 2017
   Three short stories, French, mid-19thC. De Nerval is apparently one of the Big Names. That’s all I know.


4. Die Kelten by Alexander Demandt. Finished: November 2017
   A short overview of the archaeology and history of the Celts, in the style of Very Short Introductions. Serves as a memory refresher.


5. Riquet à la Houppe by Amélie Nothomb. Finished: December 2017
   I love Nothomb's quirky little novels full of spirited dialogues and off-kilter perspectives. This is her latest and one of the few I haven't yet read.

General Owned-but-Unread

1. The fifth season by N. K. Jemisin. Finished: November 2017
   A 2016 SantaThing present. It won the Hugo and was nominated for the Nebula, so I’m expecting this one to be pretty good


2. The bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald. Finished: January 2017
   I really enjoyed her The blue flower, and Fitzgerald seems like an interesting author. So why not read more by her?


3. The power and the glory by Graham Greene. Finished: July 2017
   Gotta get to it sometime.


4. Under the volcano by Malcolm Lowry. Finished: December 2017
   I’ve had this for almost eighteen years. If I don’t read it soon I never might. And that’s a shame, because the first chapter impressed the hell out of me as a fresh-faced, easily-impressed teenager!


5. The three-body problem by Cixin Liu. Finished: May 2017
   A 2016 SantaThing present. Winner of the Hugo. All I know is that it's from China and that it's supposed to be hard science fiction.


6. The towers of Trebizond by Rose Macauley. Finished: May 2017
   Semi-autobiographical travelogue of a group of Brits through mid-20thC Turkey on camelback. Sounds fun enough.


7. Wij en ik by Saskia de Coster. English title: We and I. Finished: December 2017
   A holdover from the 2015 challenge. Flemish family saga by an author I know for their experimental style.

In compiling this year’s reading challenge, I decided to set up four sets of six books, instead of two sets of twelve. These represent four areas in which I ought to read more, shaped and constrained by three general reading goals: 1) to read more by women and POC; 2) to read something in the languages I do not use every day; and 3) to keep chipping away at the number of Owned-but-Unread books.

To prevent me from burning out, I’ve tried to keep things diverse, including classics and contemporary books, short stories and doorstoppers, fluffy and heavier literature, some sf and litfic, and even a little non-fiction (I could have done better there.).

What a great idea! Happy reading and good luck with your challenge :)

And we're off. Started Homo Faber on the train to work earlier. No idea what the book is about, really (I think it's one of those reperspectivization-of-life books?), but it opens with a desultory plane ride that ends in an emergency landing on the east coast of Mexico. Alright, then!

Some titles here from my TBR pile that didn't make it on my 2017 list, so I'll see whether your reviews move them up/down the pile. :)

I like your category idea. I just kind of randomly look around the house. (I used to get titles from my memory of what I have, but then sometimes I couldn't locate the book in all the stacks. I don't do that anymore, at least.)

And another list with The Kite Runner on it! Here I thought I was the only person left who had never read it. Hope we all get to it this year so we can compare notes.

>3 Narilka:, >6 billiejean:
It just made sense to me to do things this way. Dividing books into a "main list" and "alternates list" always happened more or less haphazardly (I sometimes read more from the latter than the former), because I see this as a 24-book challenge, not a 12-book challenge. So I thought I'd make my selection reflect my goals more overtly. I'm not good with sticking to the rules on the main Group Page, I'm afraid.

>6 billiejean:
Come to think of it, my selection process this year was mostly digital. Several of the books on this year's list I bought on various trips -- I don't get baubles or plushies or stuff like that as souvenirs, but books -- so I had a browse through my tag acquired abroad to see which trips I hadn't read any/enough souvenirs of. Hence the French/German subgroup, and four or five other selections. I really need to start limiting myself to one book per trip! Maybe two. Or perhaps one per city/location visited?

>7 LittleTaiko: so we can compare notes
Sure!
I know nothing about the book, really. I've formed the vague impression that it's a coming-of-age tale combined with a isn't-war-terrible backdrop covered in melodrama sauce, but I might be completely off -- either way, don't tell me. Anyway, that means I'll get to it soon, as my second or third book, because I anticipate a reluctant reading process. But as I said, I might be entirely wrong about the book. I hope I am!

And that's three done already, and halfway through a fourth.

Homo Faber
The bookshop
Le voisin aka The neighbour

Reviews are on the way!

You are really zooming!

Congratulations! You're doing great! :)

Nice list, I like your set-up! I sort of do something a little similar with part of mine but without distinctions; I have certain authors I always include, and a stack of African books I work through, as well as Russian, and then general classics, and I try to make sure there's a little nonfic... basically I have my little set of criteria that I go ticking off as I pluck books from the shelves lol.

I will be rather curious to see your Kite Runner thoughts. :P

Hoo boy, have I been neglectful of this thread, and this group in general. Better get to it!

Homo Faber by Max Frisch



Why did I choose to read this?
A 2015 Christmas present, as well as a carryover from last year’s TBR challenge. Appears to be a 20thC classic

Review
This one was a relatively quick read, and one that I very much enjoyed. Many other reviews exist of this book (even on LT) so I’ll just focus on the things I particularly liked.

Much of the book reads like an account of care-free, leisurely tourism through Mexico and Europe. The main character has trouble engaging with art, emotions and non-calculatable motivations that drive other people. Usually, these characters get stereotyped into unrelatability, but here I thought the main character’s confrontation with other humans, art and sunrises through mid-life crisis romance felt fairly genuine and sometimes even endearing (YMMV though).

Another thing I liked very much is the way that the layering of focalizers added to the characterization. Normally, the accumulation of occasional meta-comments and the choice of what the narrator focuses on or introduces would read like a clumsy omniscient narrator failing to conceal their set-up of the big twist, a joke with the punch-line set up telegraphed way too obviously. But since the book is framed as the main character retelling their experiences after the fact, the clumsiness comes across as self-delusion, a blindness to certain areas of life that are entirely in line with the kind of person the main character is.

I’m glad I read this. It’s a pity I didn’t get to it sooner.

Le voisin by Tatiana de Rosnay



Why did I choose to read this?
A petty quarrel between neighbours turns twisted. The synopsis was enough to prompt me to buy it to a friend who was going through a quarrel with their flatmate, but I thought I’d better read it too. And when I came across a second-hand copy for 1€ in the original language, I couldn’t resist.

Review
This book was ok, and fairly memorable despite its flaws. It starts off feeling like middle-aged chick-lit, turns into a decent psychological thriller around a quarter in, and keeps up the momentum until the end, where it loses the pedals of credibility a little bit. Not to the point where it ruins the book, but to my mind it’s the most obvious flaw of a perfectly acceptable novel.

It’s competently written, and ploughs along at a steady pace. I’m not averse to picking up another of de Rosnay’s books in the future.

The bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald



Why did I choose to read this?
I really enjoyed her The blue flower, and Fitzgerald seems like an interesting author. So why not read more by her?

Review (also posted here.)
Penelope Fitzgerald is rapidly becoming a new favourite author. In The bookshop, she presents the story of a small English village and its response to the opening of a bookshop -- and especially to the lady who runs it. The focus lies not so much on the quirky villagers that tend to populate these kinds of books, but rather Fitzgerald’s no-nonsense understanding of human flaws as filtered through social negotiations around how to handle irrational pettiness and whether or not to indulge in it. Social commentary through refusing to overtly comment on social issues: a very memorable book.

One thing I absolutely have to mention, though, is the humour, which is so dry, so sneaky and so tongue-in-cheek that you might miss it: Fitzgerald’s voice tends to the matter-of-fact tone and her humour sometimes required a double-take. Definitely one of the standout features. Another is the ending, which, oh dear, is absolutely perfect, and I won’t spoil it for you. (If your copy has an introduction, read it last!)

I thought The bookshop was a marvellous, brilliant book. Probably one of the best I’ll read this year. It has only strengthened my resolve to read more by Fitzgerald.

Sounds great. I've had The Blue Flower on my radar for a while.

>18 Cecrow:
I thought The bookshop was better, though more traditional in how it develops its characters. But The blue flower is pretty great, and a little more unconventional. Do give it a read!

Pandora et autres nouvelles by Gérard de Nerval



Why did I choose to read this?
Three short stories, French, mid-19thC. De Nerval is apparently one of the Big Names. That’s all I know.

Review (also posted here.)
I liked this collection of three tales: they were quite varied, offering up three different nineteenth-century genre in a short, easily-digestible format.

The first tale is the Romantic Love story, featuring a nearly-bankrupt artist pining for the woman who, of course, merely toys with him. The second, and longest, story I’d class as Weird Fiction: a Parisian everyman (well, every-bourgeois) tempted by gypsy magic -- except the magic comes in the form of something straight out of a late-medieval courtly romance, and gets taken to even more outlandish uses. The final story is the Ghost Story, told almost as a fairytale parody.

What I liked best about these stories is their quiet meta-awareness: de Nerval winkingly employs the tropes of the trade of a Serious Romantic Artist, and wants his readers to know that he, too, knows that his tales are slightly ridiculous. (Has it taken me this long to realize what “Romantic Irony” really means?)

>17 Petroglyph: That sounds interesting. I may need to put this on my wish list.

The three-body problem by Cixin Liu



Why did I choose to read this?
A 2016 SantaThing present. Winner of the Hugo. All I know is that it's from China and that it's supposed to be hard science fiction.

Review (Also posted here.)
Meh. I had to force myself to stay with this one, until the final quarter or so, which is the point when the various plot points and themes meet up and the plot becomes interesting. Incidentally, it’s only then that you find out what kind of story this is: it is a first contact story. I can’t decide if that is a good thing (measured buildup) or a bad thing (sudden genre shift).

Overall, I felt this novel suffered a little from two serious defects. One is that there is too much telling instead of showing. The other is a certain monotony: the various plotlines, flashbacks and game worlds felt a tad too separate to me (they come together only towards the very end), but their respective main characters and/or focalizers are not different enough as characters to make the various lines feel all that different. The result is a sense of tedium.

In fact, the main characters themselves are a good example of why this book didn’t do it for me: they all felt pretty much like the same person -- observant, reticent and cautious science geniuses who, we are repeatedly told, are exceptionally brilliant / good at what they do, but who are seldom actually shown to be so. Instead, they wander around their plotline, listening to exposition and reacting to what happens to them, until they make one plot-impacting decision. There’s very little in the way of actual characterization to differentiate these almost-but-not-quite characters. And that, writ large, made me feel pretty meh about the book as a whole.

I don’t think I’ll be reading the other books in this trilogy. This first instalment gained some real momentum towards the end, and introduced a couple of neat ideas that really appealed to me, but I don’t think I feel up to the slog.

Bummer on the most recent one. The Bookshop sounds interesting though, will have to put that on my someday list! ;P

>22 Petroglyph:, yeah, for all the attention it's gotten I hear a lot of mixed signals about it. I knew about what you hid as spoiler from almost first hearing of it, interesting that it doesn't emerge until the end. A spoiler and I didn't even know, lol.

They can't all be winners ;) It's a prize-winning book from a genre I do enjoy reading, so I'm not sad about having tried it. I'm hoping to enjoy the next books more.

>21 Narilka:, >23 .Monkey.:
The Bookshop is, imho, definitely worth reading. And it's pretty short, too (a little over novella-length, I'd guess), so it wouldn't interrupt any reading schedules too much.

For me it's less about schedule than why I'm in this group (well originally, anyway, now I'm in this group half because it's fun & motivational, half because of the folks in it :P) - a million books on my shelves already needing to be read and sadly not a million lifetimes to read them and all the rest of them I'll continue acquiring LOL.

>26 .Monkey.:
You're describing my own library, lol. They just keep coming in and I won't live long enough to get to them all.

I've also finished The power and the glory, and impressed as I am by the writing in that one, I'm now keen on reading more by Greene (dammit, even more books to buy!).

I've been meaning to read that one.

I'm reading Greene now and liking his style.

>30 Cecrow:
He did have a way with words. Definitely reading more by him: I've added him to my "maybes" for next year's list.

Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

Why did I choose to read this?
This is my Big Doorstopper Book for this year. I’ll be reading this in the Project Gutenberg version, probably over the summer.

Review (also posted here)
This was a fun read. I was unfamiliar with most of the story or the politics, not having seen the Disney version (a lacuna now filled), and came to it mostly spoiler-free. Notre-Dame de Paris was this year’s Big French Classic (following Thérèse Raquin and Le comte de Monte-Cristo), and I’ve enjoyed working my way through this delightfully dark, if melodramatic, Gothic Novel. It felt very filmic in the way it set scenes and gathered momentum for its spectacle through imagery, and I mean that as a compliment. And of course, it featured an awesome villain -- entirely believable in his zealous self-righteousness and post facto rationalisations.

Even so, a few portions of this 1831 book were a slog to get through. Not Hugo’s digressions on what 1480s Paris looked like, or his tract on Architecture vs the Printing Press, or the Alchemy subplot that went nowhere -- I was mostly on board with those. The incredibly obvious setups for later "reveals", on the other hand, did make me check the pagecount. The intervening two centuries or so of media and storytelling do make a difference. I wasn’t too keen on the cheap melodrama, either, or the Manic Pixie Dream Girl -- a trope I tend to shun.

Most of what I disliked about the book can be chalked up to its age (melodrama, unsubtle setups for reveals); and most of what I liked (opinionated author, the setting, the spectacle, the villain, and the surprising darkness) I feel are good features to have in novels. Two thumbs up!

The power and the glory by Grahame Greene



Why did I choose to read this?
Gotta get to it sometime: it’s been on my shelves for over nine years.

Review (also posted here)
I really liked this book. It was set in an epoch I was unfamiliar with -- Communist, religion-banning Mexico in the 1930s -- and its portrayal of a self-doubting whiskey priest on the run from zealous priest-hunters and his own demons alike was nothing short of enthralling.

What I’m sure I will remember most about this novel is just how very well written it was: Greene definitely has a way with words and images that makes his prose feel so absolutely right and impeccably assembled that no other words or images could really be acceptable substitutes.

This was my first Grahame Greene, but it will definitely not be my last.

Nice reviews! And of two books that I hope to read one of these days.

>34 billiejean:
Thank you! Both are well worth reading (especially The power and the glory.

The kite runner by Khaled Hosseini



Why did I choose to read this?
A 2014 SantaThing present. About time I got to it.

Review (Also posted here)
TL;DR: Starts out okay, but devolves into lifeless melodramatic dreck: an unimaginative soap opera plot padded out to book length.

---

I wanted to like this, I really did. But my tolerance for cheap melodramatic tricks is fairly low, and this book had exhausted my supply of it by the halfway point, and then it kept getting progressively worse. The closest parallel I can think of is unimaginative, lazily written daytime tv movies.

The kite runner starts as regular popular litfic: a middle-aged writer struggling to cope with Issues From His Past. The writer in question is Amir, an Afghan-American who emigrated when the Soviets occupied his home country, and his Issues From The Past stem from the guilt from how horribly he treated the servant boy he grew up with.

Throughout his childhood in Kabul, the main character’s relationship to his servant-cum-playmate Hassan is asymmetrical: Amir is literate, wealthy, sleeps in a house, and feels self-righteous and generous in lording all this over Hassan only subtly and occasionally, essentially treating him as affectionately as a pet. Hassan, by contrast, offers displays of friendship and loyalty that are almost comically exaggerated. During one such self-sacrificial display, Hassan runs afoul of the neighbourhood bully, who rapes him, while Amir watches from hiding, too scared to intervene. It is Amir’s guilt that later drives him to have Hassan sent away on false charges and to the aforementioned Issues From His Past.

So far, so litfic. But it is at this point, when the Taliban take over Afghanistan from the Soviets, and when Amir and his fellow Afghan-American wife are unable to conceive, that the book started to lose me. It turns out that -- dramatic chord! -- Hassan and Amir are … brothers! It also turns out that -- more dramatic chords -- while Hassan was killed by the Taliban, he has … a son! Who needs to be liberated … from the Taliban! Who looks … exactly like his father! A middle-aged writer could not have asked for a better way to atone for his past self’s misdeeds.

Of course, in the tradition of by-the-numbers daytime TV movies, The kite runner shamelessly moves from one dramatic chord to the next. The Taliban leader who has taken the little boy for a sex slave turns out to be … the childhood bully who raped Hassan! And, very filmically, after his heroic extraction operation, Amir will forever sport a scar on his upper lip -- to parallel Hassan’s harelip! And then, because the adoption process may not go through, … the kid tries to commit suicide! But then a well-connected family-member-ex-machina pulls some strings, and … the adoption goes through anyway. Finally, at the end, as the middle-aged Amir engages Hassan’s son in a game he used to play with Hassan, the little boy … shows signs of happiness! I could not help but picture a soap opera’s dramatic zoom at each of these revelations, and each time I was a little more disappointed in how low this book had sunk.

On top of that, the prose takes pains to explicitly point out all of the parallelisms and echoes that so melodramatically accentuate Amir’s journey to atonement, as though we, the readers, cannot be trusted to see these things for ourselves. Daytime TV levels, indeed.

This book exasperated me: as it limped along Cliché Road, each new melodramatic chord and unimaginative plot point felt like it was actively trying to annoy me. None of the dramatic chord moments I listed are there because of things like well-rounded characters, thematic relevance, or attempts at a convincing plot: they are so transparently a hack writer’s tools to make a main character’s atonement as emotional as possible. The kite runner has only one trick: it’ll tug at that one heart string in whatever way is the least imaginative and the most overdone.

I will not be reading another book by Khaled Hosseini.

Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand



Why did I choose to read this?
A day in the life of a Dalit in a fictional town in 1930s India.

Review (also posted here)
A day in the life of a single Dalit and the ways in which he secures food and tries to accommodate his mixture of yearning and resignation with those of his family and those of the castes above him.

Feels much more modern than what I expected from a 1930s book. Beautifully written. Concerned with the plight of the Dalit and their slave-like existence on the periphery of Hindu society, but does so not through melodrama or preachiness, but by presenting their lives as-is. Attitudes and viewpoints are contrasted, not by setting up straw characters to serve as mouthpieces for political views, but by having nuanced characters clash in nuanced ways. Life as she is lived makes an excellent case for change, better than authorial filibustering ever could. The one speech that does make it into the book is admittedly anvilicious, but even that is tempered by how its effects on the main character are different from the ones intended. Even so, the book left me wonderfully conflicted. Nicely done!

Great reviews! I haven't read The Kite Runner but I remember how big it was a few years back--interesting to see it hasn't held up to the hype over the years.

I've added Untouchable to my list! Sounds like an incredible read.

>38 iamFOXFIRE:
Thank you!

Untouchable was an adult book: it did not talk down to me, nor did it feel the need to. I liked it a lot!

I went on a Hugo streak in university, including that one, and noted at the time it bore no resemblance whatsoever to the Disney version, lol. I have The Power and the Glory on my next year's list almost for sure. I can see the clichés you're talking about in the Kite Runner, but I was still glad to see that part of the world being popularized and humanized at a timely point in its history. Untouchable sounds fantastic, I've read plenty of fiction set in India but don't know that one.

Untouchable sounds like a great read. It's going on my wish list.

Yay! I'm winning converts for Anand!

>40 Cecrow:: I saw your review of The kite runner, which echoes a number of other reviews I've read -- at least, the sentiment that the place and time the book deals with are important for Westerners to know about. I agree in theory; I'm merely disheartened that the flag-bearer for the plight of the Afghani in popular fiction had to be (imho) such a bad novel, qua novel. I don't think that that aspect of the book excuses what I see as failures.

Daphnis and Chloe by Longus



Why did I choose to read this?
Ancient Roman novel from the 2nd century CE. Part of an effort to read more by the Ancients.

Review (Also posted here)
Written in the 2ndC CE, this pastoral romance struck me just by how naively uncynical it was. Charming, and interesting more than engaging, I thought. But it’s a short read, and well worth having read it.

A goatherd and a shepherdess (each abandoned as babies by their wealthy parents) fall hard for each other, but since they have no idea what love is (much less sex), their emotions confuse them, and they fumble about, kissing and hugging like there’s no tomorrow. And someone had to explain even kissing to them. Various mishaps happen to either half of the couple, and in a world where capricious Gods and Nymphs can turn against anyone for almost any reason, a harmonious outcome is never guaranteed. The only thing that the text takes pains to assure the readers of remains inviolable is Chloe’s virginity.

What I’ll remember most clearly from Daphnis and Chloe is its almost pathological naiveté: sarcastic, snarky little me is not used to being served uncynical charm unless its purpose is later subversion. This ancient tale , though, is so … wholesome! As though cynicism had not yet been invented. I’m not sure what to make of that, really.

Also, it’s eye-rolling just how much importance is attached to female virginity. The “loss” of female innocence is presented as unthinkable in ways that male innocence would not even qualify for. But yeah: the past is a different country.

Do give it a try: even with its insistence on innocence, it’s an interesting view into an ancient society and the kinds of tropes and tales it apparently appreciated.

Incidentally, I'm chuffed to find out that The Princess Bride (the movie) was partially inspired by Daphnis and Chloe.

Yesterday I started reading The red room, and I'm pleasantly surprised: it's delightfully mischievous in its poking fun at bourgeois self-importance.

The towers of Trebizond by Rose Macauley



Why did I choose to read this?
Semi-autobiographical travelogue of a group of Brits through mid-20thC Turkey on camelback. Sounds fun enough.

Review (also posted here.)
Most of the book is a travelogue, in which a trio of upper-class British twits (for various degrees of twittishness) travels around mid-20thC Turkey to gauge the feasibility of converting the local women to High Church Anglicanism. There’s the no-nonsense, no-consideration Aunt, the self-congratulatory Priest, and the narrator, who thinks of herself as a characterless hanger-on, but who over the course of the book develops her snarkiness into some degree of coherence and thoughtfulness. Towards the end a little bit of sudden seriousness encroaches, but it isn’t too jarring.

Large parts of this book felt like they had almost been written to cater specifically to my tastes: they’re whimsical, colourful, indulge in the joys of largely obstacle-free travelling, and the characters are archaeology-obsessed know-it-alls who are over-educated in Classical European History and who enjoy their little discussions about random points of Christian theology. It’s all very cute and amiable, and the novelistic parts, lightweight as they are, do not interrupt the travelogue too much.

While the troupe of Brits are presented as too smug even to think of themselves as foreigners when travelling through another country, their twittishness is presented with a dollop of self-irony, and paired with a largely sympathetic portrayal of the people behind the class, a mixture that makes the whole thing much more palatable than it would otherwise have been.

All in all, an easily digestible, whimsical period piece: a pleasant and smooth read through a book that has no real pretensions to profundity. If my review has whetted your appetite, the book is probably for you; if not, it likely won’t be.

>46 Petroglyph:, definitely intend to read this some day.

It's been quoted at least three times in the memorable first sentences topic:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/11079

That sounds like a rather amusing read. I had never heard of the book before but will definitely be on the lookout for it now.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell



Why did I choose to read this?
Never read her. This book has stood unread on my shelves for over eight years now, and it will do as this year’s Big 19thC Classic.

Review (also posted here.)
If Jane Austen and Charles Dickens’ books had babies, this is what they would be like.

The title refers to the different backgrounds of the main character and her love interest: the idyllic, agricultural English South versus the smoke-spewing, industrialized North, as well as the concomitant politics and class distinctions and the societal upheaval that accompanies the power dynamics between them. Most of the plot and subplots of North and South have their characters confront each other over those issues -- in addition to a romance plot, of course.

I found much to enjoy in this one. The main character, Margaret Hale, is one of the main draws: she has a lot of individuality to her, is unafraid to speak her mind, and she bends but refuses to break. Several plot developments or character moments surprised me by not taking the eye-rollingly hackneyed turn I had been expecting. I particularly liked the way Gaskell resolves Margaret’s Great Moral Issue of Having Told A Lie.

That said, my main reference points while reading this book were Austen and Dickens. Compared to Austen, North and South is a more down-to-earth book, concerned with people of a lower class than Austen usually deigns to write about, with a royal helping of sometimes romanticized grittiness of industrialization and poverty: people die, workers’ conditions are dire, diseases are rampant, manufacturers and workers clash violently in strikes. In Austen’s books, the dramatic moments are those in which decisions with big emotional impacts are taken, announced or relayed; North and South pairs those with actual action (albeit brief, and with a decidedly tell-don’t-show quality). Surprisingly, the main characters are even involved in dangerous and illegal activities (harbouring a convicted mutineer)!

Compared to Dickens, it isn’t just the men who get to have character arcs and 3d-qualities: the main characters gives as good as she gets. North and South is less preachy, less anvilicious. It’s more sedate, perhaps, as discussions of the type “who is better: agricultural conservatives or industrial progressives” do tend to resolve in some form of golden mean, but it has a bite to it, and it reads less like a soap opera.

I really liked this one! North and South may at times be less elegantly written, but I felt its avoidance of both Austen’s cheerfulness and Dickens’ soap operas made the whole thing more engaging than much of what I’ve read by either author. I wish I could think more about this book on its own terms, and less in how it differed from Austen and Dickens, but there you go. That constant comparison, though, did make me realise that I think this book stands out more clearly than other books I’ve read from the same period and/or genre. I’ll remember this more distinctly than, say, Mansfield Park or Emma.

It's spent a couple of years on my shelves now too, hopefully doesn't make it to eight! Interesting Austen/Dickens comparisons. I've still some 18thC to catch up on, will probably queue it up after that.

>47 Cecrow:, >48 LittleTaiko:
If you're interested in The towers of Trebizond, it is a relatively quick read -- not just in length, but because it is so smooth and funny. I just happened across an older copy in a second-hand shop, but it's also appeared as a reissue in the New York Review Books Classics.

>50 Cecrow:
Ah, the joys of unread books on your shelves. My tally hovers around 300, and whenever I'm itching for something to read, I always have numerous books that "I've been meaning to get to."

Röda rummet by August Strindberg



Why did I choose to read this?
A giant looming large in Swedish literature, but I have never read him.

Review (also posted here.)
Röda rummet (or in translation The red room; I read this in Swedish) is one of the biggest classics of Swedish literature.

A funny, satirical look at 19thC bourgeois attitudes, The red room presents a loosely-connected group of counter-cultural artistic types and has them confront their counter-cultural and progressive ideals with those of conservative, mainstream society. Most of them are poor (well, poor bourgeois types), making ends meet by pawning each other’s possessions and taking on hack work that’s beneath their dignity. Their goal is to be recognized as master-level artists by the stodgy mainstream, without having to give up their anti-mainstream ideals.

Strindberg wrote funny observations of people and attitudes, and the situations he throws at his characters are frequently entertainingly absurd. Unfortunately, The red room will go no further: the book is more a loose collection of scenes featuring one or more of the main characters than a plotted novel, and I found its satire had a hard time rising above the level of the individual scene. Early chapters are great, but the lack of a solid central plot makes its flightiness annoying.

And then there’s the fact that the book is now (in 2017) almost 140 years old (it appeared in 1879): I found myself unable to appreciate it as a satire, but could only read it as poking fun at the mores of a society that no longer exists -- a historical artefact more than a novel.

So yeah. I’m glad I read this, but I won’t be reading it again.

>49 Petroglyph: North and South is a classic that I wasn't very interested in. Until now. From your review it sounds pretty great. I think I might give it a try in the future.

>54 Narilka:
It didn't particularly appeal to me, either, which is why it spent so many years unread on my shelves. Yay for pleasant surprises!

Started two more books, one yesterday (Wij en ik), and one today (Persuasion), and I'm about one fifth into either. I might actually clear this year's list!

I remember the first time I did it, I said as little as possible in case I cursed myself, lol. I was sure a rock would fall out of space on my head if I spoke too soon.

And that's The fifth season wrapped up!

I've got three books left that I have yet to start reading -- Our sister Killjoy, Riquet à la Houppe, and Estland berätter, and six others that I've at least started; at least three of those I will have finished by the end of this week. That leaves me with three books off this list that I should get through in December. Should be possible!

I will live vicariously through you this year, lol. Pretty sure I'm leaving six on the pile for next year.

The garden of evening mists by Tan Twan Eng



Why did I choose to read this?
My first Malaysian author. A 2014 SantaThing present, so it's about time I got to it. I know nothing about the book, so I'll be going in cold.

Review (also posted here.)
This book was not bad at all. The first few chapters made me doubt its quality but once I got into it, I enjoyed it for what it was trying to do instead of feeling annoyed at its flaws, so I guess it won me over.

The garden of evening mists deals with Yun Ling Teoh, a retired Malaysian judge who retreats to her dilapidated Japanese garden somewhere in the highlands to contemplate her life and settle her affairs in anticipation of sudden early-onset aphasia. As a result, large parts of the book are about the protagonist’s earlier experiences in the region, in the 1950s, when she struck up a hesitant mentor-apprentice relationship with a wealthy Japanese man, who is ever so slowly constructing the garden the book is named after. That relation is hesitant and complicated, because it carries too many connotations of her World War 2 years spent tortured and exploited in a Japanese internment camp. These sections also contain more traditionally exciting elements, such as violent Communist militias and rumors of hidden Nazi Japanese gold.

Tan Twan Eng does a good job of bringing his readers along while he explores the themes and the relationships that such a setup provides him with. At times, though, the writing leaves something to be desired, especially in the early chapters: Eng tends to over-write his descriptive passages, in the sense that he crams in too many details and tries too hard with the unconventional verbs ("Hens trailing lines of yolky chicks"; "Lightning convulsed over the mountains"; "[the mountains] had broken out of the earth three hundred miles away"). But the novel’s qualities more than outweigh its negatives, and I found sticking with it soon rewarded the effort.

The fifth season by N. K. Jemisin



Why did I choose to read this?
A 2016 SantaThing present. It won the Hugo and was nominated for the Nebula, so I’m expecting this one to be pretty good

Review (also posted here.)
This was pretty good. The fifth season is the first volume in a fantasy trilogy set on a seismically overactive continent that may or may not be located on a far-future earth. Civilizations on this continent are planned around their readiness to weather earthquake seasons and blossom in the intervals. Those of its inhabitants that are Orogenes, people sensitive to seismic activity who can cause (or prevent) earthquakes at will, are treated with fear, revulsion, lynching and taming -- a clear parallel to various kind of real-world xenophobic attitudes. Of course, the main characters are all such Orogenes.

The worldbuilding reminded me of Tanith Lee’s, what with its purposely handwaved magic, its intentional choice of making dark-skinned people the default and white-skinned people the weirdos, and its main character that’s some flavour of inhuman with god-like powers. Jemisin’s worldbuilding is, of course, a lot more deliberate, though it never gets preachy: for all intents and purposes, this is a book about identity and self-worth, and how to develop those as members of lowest-caste undesirables. In fact, it is because the undesirables in question have god-like powers that the social-justice themes remain interesting and don’t veer into anvilicious territory. (I would think that the book’s casual mention and casual acceptance of trans people would do more to trigger the anti-SJW types who objected so much to it.)

I liked this one. I’ll definitely pick up the next volume in the trilogy.

It's on my "read this someday" list, as opposed to actually on my TBR pile at the moment, but I'm interested.

"anvilicious" is now my word of the day! I reach for "didactic", didn't know this one.

>60 Petroglyph: - How funny, I received this one as a 2015 LT Santa Thing gift and still haven't read it. Maybe next year. If not, then it'll most likely end up on my 2019 TBR list!

>62 Cecrow:
"Anvilicious" is a term I learnt at tvtropes, and it feels so descriptively right that I've adopted it. It gets the job done wonderfully.

>63 LittleTaiko:
The good thing is, the trilogy is now complete and it has a proper ending (so I've heard). No impediments!

And that's Jane Austen's Persuasion wrapped up as well. It may be my favourite Austen! (after P&P of c)

Die Kelten by Alexander Demandt



Why did I choose to read this?
A short overview of the archaeology and history of the Celts, in the style of Very Short Introductions. Serves as a memory refresher.

Review (also posted here.)
Demandt succinctly walks us through the history of the Celts, from their archeological reality and their appearance in ancient sources, through their gradual absorption by Greeks, Romans and Germanic tribes, and finally their reappraisal in more modern eras. A bit too succinct as a first-time introduction, perhaps, but excellent as a refresher. This book does what it says on the tin, and does so professionally.

One of Demandt's minor but admirable concerns is countering a tendency to (mis)use an image of Celtic Tribes for propaganda or various other political gains -- both in the ancient world and in more recent centuries. He’s very sober about Arthuriana, 20thC Druids and books about Mystical Celtic Wisdom.

More maps would have been welcome. I have no idea where most of the German or French rivers and towns that Demandt references are, and that makes following the text harder than it ought to be.

Persuasion by Jane Austen



Why did I choose to read this?
I’m working my way through Jane Austen’s bibliography, in chronological order of publication. This one is next on the list.

Review (also posted here.)
This may be my second favourite Austen novel (after P&P). Most of it plays out like a normal Austen book -- set among the lower gentry and their courting rituals, a will-she-marry-mr-right plot, a nice guy who turns out to be a Nice Guy -- but the fact that Persuasion’s main character is in her twenties does much to push this book beyond her other works. Austen’s other main characters sometimes seem improbably mature for sheltered teenagers, but this one needed no suspension of disbelief in that respect. The story of an eighteen-year-old and her first and second heart-throb carries different overtones than that of a twenty-seven year old and her first and second heart-throb -- a welcome change.

Plus, this book features a solid bout of leisurely travelling as well as a more detailed account of the financial troubles plaguing the main family. Those really are unimportant details from the book, but I enjoyed their inclusion nonetheless.

You are doing a great job crossing items off your list!

Dickens and Austen I think are worthwhile reading completely. Haven't made much headway with Austen yet but I pick them up gradually, this one's still ahead of me. Glad to hear it's one to look forward to.

>68 Narilka:
I am! To be fair, a bunch of books were just a few chapters from being completed, and I managed to finish those in the last few days. I've made good headway in four of the seven remaining ones, and none of the three as-yet-unembarked-upon books are likely to take me much time. I might make it this year!

>69 Cecrow:
I'm not all that fond of Dickens, so I won't be reading his collected works. Next year, after my final Austen novel (Lady Susan), I'll be looking for my next 19thC author to be completist about. I'm thinking George Eliot or Thomas Hardy. That said, I've got Great Expectations as a "maybe" on next year's list...

Riquet à la houppe by Amélie Nothomb. English title: Riquet with the tuft



Why did I choose to read this?
I love Nothomb's quirky little novels full of spirited dialogues and off-kilter perspectives. This is her latest and one of the few I haven't yet read.

Review (Also posted here)
Like in Barbe bleue, Nothomb tackles another of Perrault’s fairy tales, this time Riquet with the tuft. For those who don’t know, it’s a Beauty and the Beast type story where Beast is clever and Beauty is dull, and eventually they get to share each other’s gifts. In this book, the Beast is Deodat, an ugly and almost hunchbacked ornithologist; Beauty is the naive and reticent Trémière, who becomes a famous model.

If you know the fairy tale, this novel won’t throw any surprises at you. In fact, Nothomb has little to say about the subject matter aside from a few intrusions by the Omniscient Narrator. Disappointingly, Nothomb has penned a very slight novel, both in terms of length and content: I found little to keep me engaged here.

A minimal effort by this author. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone other than Nothomb completists, or avid collectors of Retold Fairy Tales.

Under the volcano by Malcolm Lowry



Why did I choose to read this?
I’ve had this for almost eighteen years. If I don’t read it soon I never might. And that’s a shame, because the first chapter impressed the hell out of me as a fresh-faced, easily-impressed teenager!

Review (Also posted here)
Detailing the final hours of a lucid drunk, Under the Volcano takes place over the course of a single day. Its main character, Geoffrey Firmin, is a British ex-consul to Mexico in the 1930s, and on his last day he’s at the end of a years-long journey towards near-constant inebriation, a process in which he’s lost his job, his wife, and his coherence. The day opens with his wife returning, ready to give it another shot, and takes the reader through the Garden of Eden, musings on comparative mythology, a bus ride interrupted by a dead, police-beaten Indian, a bullfight, and a wander through the jungle. All of it takes place on the Day of the Dead, and all of it is drenched in sweaty delirium tremens and unrelenting psychosis, punctuated by blackouts. The text veers wildly across the pages, from memory to hallucination to overheard dialogue to inner self-strangulation -- the prose is a veritable frenzy. Coherence and understanding are kept at arm’s length. Stretches of rule books, tourist folders, radio announcements, letters and street signs are incorporated into the prose without warning, and fragments of memories and dialogue are given in multiple untranslated languages (especially Spanish, but also French and German. I love that kind of thing, but I can imagine not everyone does).

This was not a pleasant read, nor was it intended to be. Lowry’s depiction of the inner life of a long-term alcoholic is very impressive, and it is worth reading.

I’m only giving this three and a half stars, though, because I thought Lowry overdid things in other aspects of the book. The many ways in which he tried to throw in Kabbalistic elements, or Biblical references (and Goethe, and various philosophers, etc.), I felt, were a stretch: they did not work for me. Then there was the insistence on grandeur and universality that the book wants to lend its story. I thought was overdone, too: Under the Volcano is the story of a wealthy Western drunk in Mexico: there really is no need to pretend this is particularly poignant among the poverty, the oppression and the corruption regularly at display in 1930s Mexico. I think what I disliked most about this book is that Lowry seemed to be aware that he was writing a masterpiece and tried to make it An Important Book -- hence the literary references and the grandeur.

Taking stock.

I'm midway through two short story collections; the third I only have read one story from.

One novel I'm also halfway through. A second novel I haven't even started -- but it's only 132 pages long.

So yeah: I might make it this year.

Do I need to read every short story in a collection for it to count as "read"?

I can never decide I'll read Under the Volcano or not. Hasn't made it to my TBR pile yet. Didn't know it takes place on Day of the Dead, that adds something.

Short story collections, personally, I either read or give up on each story of the collection before I call it done. And I can't remember the last time I gave up on one, bad as some were. But that's just me, you get to make your own rule. :) Like, if you've read enough to be satisfied you'll never revisit that collection again, that could work.

Our sister Killjoy by Ama Ata Aidoo



Why did I choose to read this?
My first Ghanan author. A recommendation by my SO, who specializes in African literatures, this book apparently blends prose and poetry in interesting ways.

Review (Also posted here.)
This is a fiery book. The main character, “our sister” or Sissie for short, travels from Ghana to Europe, and comments on her life as “the african woman” amongst the white natives.

The portions set in Bavaria and London are the angriest: Sissie is deeply, intensely angered at the natives’ patronizing attitudes (intentional or otherwise), their cluelessness, their rationalizations, their happiness, the size of German food portions, the juicy plums that are so delicious. It’s an anger stemming from centuries of injustice that lashes out and that is confused in settling on targets but that is too wild and too real and too just to be anything else.

The final portion of the book, a letter to an ex-lover, I felt was the best part of the book. It’s where Sissie’s anger is turned on African immigrants whose post facto justifications for not helping the mother country is infuriating to her. This section, too, is confused and not always reasonable, but it provides more of an explanation for why Sissie feels the way she does, and that explicit insight into a deeply angry person’s motivations unlocks an appreciation for the character that wasn’t there for me in the earlier parts.

Dealing with centuries of systematic oppression is not an easy thing to do: no-one who proclaims a simple solution comes off looking good. Very nicely done!

Syv fantastiske fortællinger by Karen Blixen. English title: Seven Gothic Tales



Why did I choose to read this?
A holdover from the 2015 challenge. Comes warmly recommended by several Danish friends of mine.

Review (Also posted here)
The stories grouped together in Syv fantastiske fortælligerare cleverly barbed, often male-centric narratives that deliver a usually female voice at the centre, filtered through various genres, anecdotes, and lengthy monologues. The stories seem uninterested in sticking with a single perspective, or narrative thread -- characters tell, overhear or imagine each other their adventures at the drop of a hat. They manage to feel slightly picaresque while maintaining a clear view of their own coherent goal. That goal may not always be clear to the reader until very late in the story, but even with all the weird digressions, I never lost the feeling that I was in the hands of a capable author who knew what they were doing, and I was only too happy to cut Blixen all the slack she needed.

An unusual reading experience, but one I was glad to be along for.

Wij en ik by Saskia de Coster. English title: We and I



Why did I choose to read this?
A holdover from the 2015 challenge. Flemish family saga by an author I know for their experimental style.

Review
I've posted a proper review in Dutch here.

For the purposes of this thread, I'll briefly say that this may be one of the most Belgian books I've read: it walks that fine line between resentment at navel-gazing, self-important Flemish society and a tender though unpitying understanding of the stubbornly provincial people in it. If this were that one book that everyone supposedly has in them, De Coster could be justly proud of this one; fortunately she has proven there are many more where this one came from, and I'll gladly pick up more of her works.

Taking stock, one last time.

Once I've finished the longish novella in Krzhizhanovsky's Memories of the future, I'll be done with that book. And I've two (I think) stories left in the anthology Estland berättar (I've been reading them out of order). If I manage to read those before the end of the year, I'll have successfully completed all 24 items on my list in the OP.

That said, I'm so ready to attack next year's books that finalizing the last few stories feels like a chore. And it shouldn't: they're interesting! But so it goes: the shiny new toy seems more appealing. But that's why I got this list: to prevent me from fluttering aimlessly between all the things I'd like to have read.

Estland berättar: hur man dödar minnet by Klement Kalli



Why did I choose to read this?
My first Estonian authors. An anthology of short stories by Estonian authors translated into Swedish that I picked up for precisely this challenge.

Review

I’ve posted a proper review in Swedish here.

For the purposes of this thread, I’ll just say that this anthology of fourteen Estonian short stories was way too homogeneous to entertain or even interest me. I have a low tolerance for jingoism and nationalism, so maybe it’s me, but every story in this collection dealt with Estonian independence -- either directly or symbolically. And after three or for stories, that gets really old, and it made picking up this book to read the next story into an unpleasant chore I had to force myself to do. Every single one of the stories in this anthology was tied to themes of nationalism, independence, renewal, and Estonianness, and now I never want to read another one of those again.

This bundle was published to introduce a Swedish-speaking public to Estonian literature, and I hope they’ve failed. Surely, contemporary Estonian short stories are not all about themes of nationalism and dealing with the Soviet past? Surely, the goal of this anthology could not have been to put people off Estonian authors?

Congratulations on a great reading year!

You (practically) did it! Congratulations, it does get especially tough towards the end when you're thinking ahead to all the great things in store for next year while still finishing the last of this year's list (which is usually last for a reason, lol).

>77 Petroglyph:, this is a book I want to read in future. When you say "male-centric narratives that deliver a usually female voice at the centre", I guess this means most of the characters are male but the story is female narrated? Its title instantly brings to mind Walpole's Otranto thanks to my recent reading, but that doesn't seem to be what's at play here with Blixen's much more modern work.

Memories of the future by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky



Why did I choose to read this?
Krzhizhanovsky wrote in the 1920s-1930s. I loved his The letter killers club when I read it a few years ago -- zany, joyful and experimental, and a little anti-establishment, too. I'm looking forward to reading more of his work!

Review (Also posted here)
This is a collection of weirdly imaginative, usually surreal, and always interesting tales. Written in the 1920s by a slightly subversive author whose stories couldn’t be published until after his death, these tales are darkly whimsical reflections on Soviet society: Existential despair in a room that gets bigger on the inside, everyday Literary Criticism on a city bench, a vagrant table-to-table philosopher who sells aphorisms and totally original systems of thought for a living, a Time Traveller struggling to build and rebuild his machine after the war.

Several of these are very entertaining in an off-beat, slighly unusual kind of way, as though they were written in a culture with perceptibly different standards, tropes and expectations. Some would do very well in collections of Early Science Fiction. Most of these tales would appeal to those with an academic interest in Literature or Criticism, because they are explicitly about writing, reading, engaging with literature, and confronting themes with Theories. This is why I’d recommend spacing these stories out a bit: they’re very different tales, but the approach gets a bit samey after three or four in quick succession.

If you’d like your Borges with more black humour and set in Moscow, less everything-and-the-kitchen-sink and more focused, then give Krzhizhanovsky a try.

>81 billiejean:
Thank you! It got a bit rushed at the end, but I managed. Looking forward to my selections for 2018!

>82 Cecrow:
No, I did it. I've been remiss in updating this thread, but I'm doing so now.

The last pages of the Krzhizhanovsky book I had to read at a friend's place, excusing myself for a few minutes from the preparations for the New Year's Eve party, but I finished the book before seven pm on the 31st.

When I say "male-centric narratives that deliver a usually female voice at the centre" I mean that the focalisers are usually male, but there often is a female character who gets to speak for herself, against the man's narrative. It's subtle: I don't think Blixen was drawing attention to it, but several stories feature a female character, major or minor, who disagrees with the focaliser or challenges their presuppositions in such a way that both parties have a valid way of looking at things, it's just that you've suddenly been made aware that other interpretations can be provided, too, and that the new one is perhaps preferable.

I've had those moments too, some years, where I have no good excuse anyone is going to understand for closeting myself and getting this done except my own self-satisfaction. So yes, distinction appreciated: officially and correctly finished!

I don't foresee Blixen in my near future, but I hope I remember your insight when I do get there.