Archive for January, 2012
Moby Dick Part 2
After two weeks of devoted evening reading I reached the halfway point of Moby Dick at the weekend! It’s taken me till now to organise my thoughts and write them down. It feels like a real achievement because I have to admit that, despite my best efforts to like it, this is not a book [...]
Eliminating the Review Guilt
It may have escaped the notice of any readers of this blog, although certainly not mine, that I am rather behind in reviewing books. In fact, I’m still writing reviews for books that I read in June of 2011. I recently counted up the number of books read last year that I have left to [...]
Review: ‘Liza of Lambeth’ by W. Somerset Maugham
If you were, hypothetically, to have your train delayed by over four hours one evening, taking your total journey home time from a little over two hours (which now seems almost reasonable by comparison) to six and a half hours, you’d definitely need a book or two with you to keep you sane. Ideally, you [...]
Review: ‘American Gods’ by Neil Gaiman
When I came to select a book to read after finishing Anderby Wold, I don’t think I could have picked something much more different than Neil Gaiman’s had I been trying deliberately to do so. The former is provincial, understated, realistic and oh so English, while the latter is sweeping, outrageous, mythological and (despite its [...]
Moby Dick Part One
Moby Dick may be a classic of American literature. It may (apparently, so I’m told) have one of the most famous opening lines of any novel. None of that prevented me from coming to this book knowing almost nothing about it and from being faintly baffled when I opened it to the words ‘Call me [...]
Review: ‘Anderby Wold’ by Winifred Holtby
When I was sent a copy of the beautiful new edition of South Riding by Virago at the beginning of 2011 and was introduced to the writing of Winifred Holtby, it didn’t take me long to fall in love. I was fascinated by the dextrous way she handled such a large cast of characters, making all [...]
A Classics Challenge – January Prompt
If blogging has taught me one thing it’s that I don’t respond well to book lists. I love creating lists of books that I’ve read, arranging them according to theme or author nationality or date, but if I try to read from a list of set books I know I’m doomed to failure. This (and [...]
2012 Reading Resolutions
Now that I’ve officially brought 2011 to a close on Old English Rose Reads, it’s time to look forward to 2012 and all the delightful reading which can take place this year. It seems only appropriate to make a few reading a blogging resolutions at this time of year, although (in the words of Pirates [...]
2011 Wrap Up
The new year got off to an inauspicious start yesterday, when the Old English Thorn and I found ourselves unexpectedly on a coach from Edinburgh to Heathrow after gale force winds meant that the aeroplane we were supposed to be on was unable to take off. What should have been a one hour twenty minute [...]