Category Archives: Reading

My Year in Books (Sort Of), Part One

Posted on by
8

Another year is (almost) over. Before we flip the calendar to 2016, and start new reading lists, let’s look back at the reading year that was. I’ll share if you reciprocate in the comments!

  • How many books did you read this year? 50+. My numbers were held down by many heavy, lengthy books.
  • Which genre prevailed? Nonfiction, by miles and miles.
  • Which book was your fave? A Writer’s Diary by Virginia Woolf.
  • Least fave? If You Want to Write: A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland. My loathing for this book knows no bounds.
  • Recommend three books from your list. The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore; Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys by Viv Albertine; Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith.

PART TWO WILL APPEAR IN THE NEW YEAR!

What Are You Reading in December?

Posted on by
8

What is on your reading list this month?

Have you given yourself permission to take it easy, as the year comes to a close?

Or, as we race the clock to 2016, are you trying to stuff as many books into your brain as possible?

I am still doing the latter, albeit at a slower pace compared to November.

The other difference between this month and last is that I am currently committed to reading lighter fare.

Since 1st December, I’ve finished:

  • Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema by Tom Lesanti
  • Busted by Thomas J. Craughwell

I’m in the midst of reading:

  • Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era Edited by Lean’Tin L. Bracks and Jessie Carney Smith
  • Literary Rogues: A Scandalous History of Wayward Authors by Andrew Shaffer

To Be Read by 31 December:

  • The Life of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune, 1915-1964 by Zachary Leader
  • Effie: The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais by Suzanne Fagence Cooper
  • My Golden Flying Years by Air Commodore D’Arcy Greig
  • The Mind of the Artist by Laurence Binyon
Effie Gray Ruskin by George Frederic Watts, 1851

Effie Gray Ruskin by George Frederic Watts, 1851.

What is your favourite book this month?

Which book on your list are you most looking forward to reading?

Please share with me in the comments!

Happy reading.

What Are You Reading in November?

Posted on by
14

What is on your reading list this month?

Have you given yourself permission to take it easy, as the year comes to a close?

Or, as we race the clock to 2016, are you trying to stuff as many books into your brain as possible?

I am doing the latter.

Very much the latter.

Since 1 November, I’ve finished:

  • Holding on Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore by Linda Leavell
  • Eleanor Marx: A Life by Rachel Holmes
  • Benjamin Britten: A Life for Music by Neil Powell
  • All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays by George Orwell
  • Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby by Sarah Churchwell
  • Gloria Swanson: The Ultimate Star by Stephen Michael Shearer
  • Vintage Reading: From Plato to Bradbury: A Personal Tour of Some of the World’s Best Books by Robert Kanigel
  • A Woman of Temperament by Lucile Duff Gordon (in progress)

To Be Read by 30 November:

  • Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (the only novel on the list!)
  • Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee
  • Madcap May: Mistress of Myth, Men & Hope by Richard Kurin
  • White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson by Brenda Wineapple
  • The Mad Potter: George E. Ohr Eccentric Genius by Jan Greenberg & Sandra Jordan
  • Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only: The Life of America’s First Black Filmmaker by Patrick McGilligan

And, if I finish all of these…I have Michel de Montaigne’s essays waiting in the wings.

What is your favourite book this month?

Which book on your list are you most looking forward to reading?

Please share with me in the comments!

Happy reading.