100 books in a year. 26 - 30.

 Evening all. You join me on a mighty quest, the like of which no mortal can comprehend. I'm reading 100 books this year, and I'm ruminating on the process here, in these pages.

OK. some of you might easily read more than that many books, every year. But for me it's a heroic endeavour, so please be impressed.

Here's books 26-30. 

The Transgender Issue  - Shon Faye

We'll start with one that makes me look clever and thoughtful, before we collapse into the usual morass of spaceships and murders. I was leant this by a friend at work, possibly in response to the confused look that creeps across my face whenever discussing transgender stuff. 

I am, at least in my intentions, an ally to transgender people. If I was famous, the Daily Mail would call me 'woke', and I'd be perfectly fine with that. I am also, however, an idiot who gets things wrong all the time, and I would very much like to be better informed about this stuff, rather than just parading around shouting about how pronouns are good, and should be free on the NHS. 

It's a complicated business, and so I was delighted to read this book. Faye does two things which I really like in a book. The subject matter is divided nice and clearly, each chapter dealing with a specific issue. Secondly, there's real character to the writing - it's not a dry, academic exploration, it's a warm blooded, passionate take, backed up with facts. Oh, and thirdly - sorry I said there were two things, I was lying - thirdly, there's lots of stories and examples. 

So it was a great read. But my predominant emotion throughout was rage. This is a book about injustice, and the cynical manipulation of public opinion by people in positions of power. All at the expense of a vulnerable group, in a complicated position. Yes, the answers to some of the questions might not be clear cut. But a lot of the time people aren't even trying to answer them, hiding instead behind disingenuous rhetoric and fear. Thanks to this book, I feel a little better equipped to join the discussion.

Doctor Who: Scratchman - Tom Baker and James Goss

Aaaaand, we're back in 'silly science fiction nonsense'. You see, I don't stay focused on the real world for long. 

This book was also put my way by a work colleague. This time they gave me it to keep, as they were having a clear out, and they know that I'm a massive geek. Amazingly, I didn't already have it. It was on the vague 'read it one day' list, along with all the other millions of Doctor Who books that get published every bloody week. 

This is really good. It isn't an adaptation of a TV story. Rather, it's an idea that Tom Baker had, back in the 1970s when he was Doctor Who, and he's finally got round to writing it. Well, I say writing it. I rather get the impression that James Goss, cruelly neglected on the book cover, is the real engine behind the work here. I imagine James sat and did the writing, while Tom just sat on the sofa working his way through a bottle of wine, laughing and saying things like "Make Doctor Who shout at a scarecrow" and "Include more cows!"

It does have Tom Baker's delightfully weird vibe, especially in the writing of Doctor Who himself, and there's the general feel of his era of the TV show. I had a lovely time reading it, though that might be more about nostalgia than quality. But I'll take happiness wherever I can get it. 

The Fox - Frederick Forsyth

For the most part, my journey through the forest of books has been a joy. I've found something to love in everything, from the classics to the pulp nonsense. However. This book is total, absolute horseshit. 

Let's start with the plot. The concept is like someone asked a confused old man to ramble incoherently about 'the modern world'. There's this super-tech-wizard kid who is just the best at computers ever, and he can hack into anything in the whole world. You'll be amazed to learn that he's autistic too. The British government are delighted to discover this badly written stereotype child, and promptly set him to work, hacking into the computers of foreign goverments.

The plot then appears to have been given to a violent, racist ten year old boy. The foreign governments are annoyed about all the hacking, so they send Bad Foreign Assassins to England to murder Autism Child. These are the most amazing assassins ever, and we spend a lot of time being told about what kind of guns they use. But then, even more amazing British agents spring a brilliant trap on them, and shoot at them for ages, and kill them all. This happens three or four times, each time featuring villains from a different Evil Country. Then we're done, and the book ends, hurray for the motherland.

The prose style, meanwhile, is somehow even worse. As I was reading, I was wondering why I wasn't engaging at all with the plot. Yes, it was basic and daft and wildly xenophobic, but I can often find joy in that kind of thing regardless. But I was just bored. After a while I realised that it was the prose style. Forsyth doesn't describe anything. It's like he wrote the notes for the basic plot, and then forgot to develop them into actual scenes. Whole chapters will unfold like this: "He went to see the Prime Minister and asked for some planes. She wasn't keen, but he was so brilliant, he won her over." Horrible! 

And that's the other thing I hated about this stupid book. Almost every single character is a man, and he's the best man, and everyone respects him and thinks he's great. Even the bad guys are astonishing men, tall and muscular and super great at murder and crosswords and sex. There are two women in the whole story - the Prime Minister, who is there just to go "Yes, you may murder people on British soil, because you are so handsome", and the mother of the autistic coder kid, whose sole function is to fancy a soldier and do sex with him. 

Frederick Forsyth has a long and distinguished career as a novelist, so I'm wondering if this is atypical? I intend to check out some of his earlier novels. Maybe this was ghost written? Or he was old and going mad? I don't know. The good thing that's come from reading this is that I now know, in my own writing, what not to do. Which is this: Don't do mad, racist, vaguely written bollocks with a stupid repetitive plot. 

Eucalyptus - Murray Bail

Another borrowed book, this time from a friend who loves reading and has a quite sensitive, thoughtful approach to literature. "Oh no," I thought. "That's basically the opposite of me."

This is lovely, and I mostly enjoyed it. The overall plot is about a man who sets a challenge whereby you can only marry his daughter if you can name loads of different types of eucalyptus tree. Many men come to do so - apparently the daughter is so hot that her foxiness outweighs the tedious, stupid nature of the task. And then one man comes, and he sort of does the task, except that mostly he just tells her little stories about love and romance. 

I liked these little stories a lot. They are all wildly different, vividly sketched, and instantly engaging. I like that. I'm not very good at having ideas. When I sit down to write a story, I'm often flummoxed when it comes to thinking of original, interesting settings and characters. What people exist? Where do people live? They can't all be frustrated novelists living in the North of England. Can they? What else is there? 

The answer, it seems, is that there are many cool, interesting ways for people to meet and fall in love, and this book is full of them. So I was impressed and inspired, and will be stealing these ideas presently. What I didn't enjoy so much was the 'describing trees' bit. There's an awful lot of that, and I did not like it one bit. Turns out I don't care about being told, in detail, what trees look like. Boring. Stop doing it. 

So, a book of two halves. If you like romance, you'll definitely enjoy that. And if you also love to be told what different trees look like, you'll have a blast. 

Life, The Universe and Everything - Douglas Adams

My journey through the works of Douglas Adams continues. This is the third Hitchhikers book. I read this many times as a teenager, and as I recall I found it less satisfying than the first two. There's a proper sort of plot, and it weighs things down somewhat. The light, fluffy madness struggles under the requirements of conventional narrative structure, and the experience is a little harder going. 

Coming back to it years later, I found it less bothersome. I mean, it's certainly not as good as the first two. It feels like the energy of Adams's first flush of inspiration is losing momentum, and he's trying to work out what to do with these great characters he's created. But there's still plenty of ideas at work, and a beautiful silliness to how things unfold. And his prose style remains constantly funny and inventive. 

I suppose, as well, I'm now reading from the perspective of knowing that Adams is gone, and didn't really write all that much. So this represents a significant chunk of his finite, irreplaceable genius. And that makes it feel like gold-dust.

That's your lot for now. If you are craving more of my insights and wisdom, look:

Here's what I wrote last time, about books 21 to 25. 

100 books in a year. 21 - 25.

 It's my year of 'reading loads of books'. The target is 100. Here's how I got on with numbers 21 - 25.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

Reading new books is tiring. You have to learn all the character names and key yourself into the author's writing style. And sometimes there's a load of world building to take account of, and you have to remember the rules and priorities of the universe you're in. Exhausting.

All of which is to excuse myself for going back to a book I've read dozens of times, and know like the back of my hand. I decided to read all the Hitchhikers books again, on the very reasonable grounds that I hadn't read them for a while, and they would make me happy. 

Hitchhikers is a foundation text for me. I think I saw the TV show first, when I was very young, and was instantly won over by its mad stream of big ideas, outlandish characters and clever humour. Not to mention that it started with the outrageous idea of destroying the Earth in the first episode.

Then came the book. I think my mum lent me a copy, which she had in turn borrowed from someone else. And that's the one I've still got, more than 40 years on. So if that's yours, I'm very sorry. I'm not sure you'll want it back - it's sort of falling apart. And that's because it's been loved so very, very much. 

Reading it again, I was startled at how well I knew the text. My brain ran ahead of the words, autocompleting the lines from memory before my eyes had caught up. Adams's prose seems so light and effortlessly witty, which is testament to the real work he must have put in - it's not easy to make things look that easy. It's also suprising, coming back to the book, how many deep, clever ideas explode from the pages, in among the daft wordplay and frivolous nonsense. It's an amazing piece of work, and part of my soul forever.

The Bullet That Missed - Richard Osman

Another fun one. I love Osman's writing style, and yummed this up in no time. This is the... third, I think, of his Murder Club books. I was initially reluctant to read them, I recall. Insanely, I think there was a kind of snobbery at work in my thinking. "Why would I want to be like everyone else and read these immensely popular books?" As if I was some daring, independently minded reader who read nothing but the most esoteric and unusual things. 

Well, his books are good. He has a great ability to quickly sketch interesting, memorable characters. Which is good, for me, because when I'm reading I tend to instantly forget who everyone is and why they matter. Also true in real life, if I'm honest. I'm not what you'd call 'focused'. But yeah, Osman's characters are a delight, and I think it's down to his great eye for small quirks and details. 

I'm currently writing a book, and one of the things I'm interested in is, 'how much description is too much?' Like, should I be constantly describing the way characters move and speak? Will it help to establish them in your mind if I give a running commentary on how they fumble unwrapping a packet of Digestives, or enjoy the chorus of  This is a Low by Blur, or shift in their chair trying to get comfortable? Is that fun? Or is it maddening fluff that slows things down and gets in the way?  Agatha Christie seems to do none of it, and I didn't have the first clue who her characters were, which suggests I definitely should do it. But Charles Dickens, conversely, goes on forever, waffling about minute details, and it made me so furious and bored that I threw his stupid book across the room. So there's clearly a point where it becomes too much.

Anyway, the answer is 'do it as much as Richard Osman does it', which is to say, a small, perfectly judged amount. This book is great and I loved it. 

Invisible Women - Caroline Criado-Perez

This book has been sitting by the bedside for quite some time, on the special shelf called 'Things to read when you have the concentration span'. Well, it turns out I basically never have the concentration span, so the only thing to do is read it anyway and hope for the best.

This is a really good book which does an excellent job of arguing that the world is designed by men, for men, and while that's excellent if you are a man, there's are apparently all these other non-men who are having a terrible time. The book looks at all sorts of areas, from medicine to employment to the way we test seatbelts, and shows how the standard of 'normal, regular design' is in fact very lopsided. 

So I liked this, because I'm very into learning about our blindness to ingrained assumptions, if only so I can be more pedantic when arguing with Doctor Who fans on the internet. Plus I suppose I am, by definition, part of the problem - creating the world around me in my image and thinking 'what a very fair and normal place'. 

I did find, however, that I wasn't very engaged with the data itself. I'm fascinated by the idea that the statistics underpinning social struture are flawed, because the methodology used to gather them is inherently one sided. And I'm interested in what needs to be done to rebalance that. But the numbers themselves... I'm afraid to admit my mind started to slide off them. Turns out I'm more interested in ideas than facts. Please try to forget this character flaw, and just remember that I'm an amazing feminist, and very sensitive, and ever so brave.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Look at this! Proper literature. Like I should have read on my English degree. Or read before I started it, probably. I seem to remember my lecturers often making reference to famous, classic novels, on the quite reasonable assumption that people signing up to a degree in literature would have read them. And everyone in the class would nod and say things like, "Ah yes, typical of the themes to be found in her other works" and I'd just chew my pen and think, "Please don't ask me anything. Marillion did not write  a song about this one."

So, here we are with my first Austen. And it's good, isn't it? Even though it's a book, and not on TV, and it's quite long, and it's set in the past when things were more boring. Am I being flippant? Only a little. I have always avoided these books, with a quite lazy prejudice that assumed they'd be slow, unrelatable and reliant upon incredible levels of concentration.

What I found, of course, was an incredibly human story, populated by very recognisable characters. Their world is utterly unlike mine in many ways, but the psychology of the characters is instantly recognisable. There's an incredible wit to the writing that made me laugh out loud, and a pulsing energy to the conflicts, difficulties and victories the story throws up. At one point I gasped, out loud. "What's happened?" asked the wife, expecting some kind of zombie based event or explosion. I tried to explain: "Old Auntie Evil Tossface had demanded that Elizabeth Whatsername be quiet, and Elizabeth has said no! Amazing!" 

It takes quite some writing to make me realise that an act of disobedience, in this social circle, is basically the equivalent of Darth Vader throwing the Emperor down a shaft in Return of the Jedi. Bravo.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams

The second of the Hitchhikers books is also great. It's more or less the same book, really, based on the same source material as the first, that being the initial radio shows. 

There's a little bit more of a sense in this book that Adams is trying to work towards something of a plot. Which is not his strong point. He's much more of an ideas person than a 'plot' or 'character' person, and the book feels a little more laboured as a result. 

It's still incredibly enjoyable, though. Reading it again became a kind of archeology into the layers of my personality. Arthur Dent was a good figure of identification for a young adolescent. As he wandered around the galaxy, clad in his dressing gown and wondering why nothing made sense, I was wandering into my teenage years, wondering much the same thing. 

And, yes, sometimes I actually went wandering round the streets in just my pyjamas and dressing gown. In my satchel were a peculiar collection of items, including, of course, my towel. Through the city I'd go, marvelling at the alien world opening up. Because of Adams, it was OK that it made no sense. That was all part of the fun. It didn't need to. You could just accept things on their own terms, and try to have fun, and love everything.

Ahhh. What books. What a man. 

That's your lot for now. I know, it goes so fast, doesn't it? But look - 

Here's what happened last time, with books 16 - 20. Why not read that?

100 books in a year. 16 - 20

 For some reason I've decided to read 100 books this year. I don't know why. Maybe there's a prize?

Last time we look at books 11-15. Here's what I thought of the next five.

Call for the Dead - John Le Carre

Here's another of those authors everyone talks about, but whom I'd never read. I'd seen the film of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and found it utterly incomprehensible, so my hopes weren't high. I went in expecting a labyrinth of complicated plotting and esoteric references to the world of espionage. 

I was pleasantly surprised. There was a clear, enjoyable plot, with lots of action and surprises. Best of all, I could follow what was going on. You hear that, Agatha Christie? It turns out it wasn't my fault I didn't understand your bloody overcomplicated nonsense. It was you. Read some Le Carre! Take notes!

This was a fun, witty read and made me want more. It feels like a clear ancestor of the Slow Horses books, which I just adore, so that's pleasing. 

Doctor Who: The Romans - Donald Cotton

As previously mentioned, the first books I truly loved were Doctor Who books. 

Back in the early 80s there was no way of revisiting old TV stories: no streaming, no DVDs, not even video tapes. Which made being a young geek a difficult proposition. How could I bore my family with detailed accounts of Doctor Who's activities, without adequate source material? Well god bless these novelisations - brisk accounts of nearly every television story, written for my very demographic (weird young boys with overactive imaginations and no friends).

All very lovely, you might be thinking. But come on, you're a lot older now. And DVDs do exist. And surely you've got some friends by now? Well yes, all good points. And I don't tend the revisit these Doctor Who books very often. They live, stacked three deep in a shelving unit, rarely disturbed. I can't throw them away, obviously, but I tend not to read them.

I dug this one out because I write a Doctor Who blog, and I wanted to talk about this story. Yes, I do another blog - it's here if you're interested. Like one isn't enough. Anyway, this was basically research. Plus, bonus, it's very short. 

But lest you think I'm being all defensive and am in any way embarrassed about the inclusion of this, a children's book, let me set you straight. This was an absolute bloody joy. Witty, engaging and really well written. Not all the novelisations stand up to scrutiny, but this one really does, and I have no shame. 

Pay the Piper - George A. Romero and Daniel Kraus

Was this a present from my brother? It seems like the sort of thing he'd send my way. We're both very into the zombie films of Mr. Romero, and my brother is good at finding interesting, unusual things that I'd like. And also stupid, boring things I don't want at all, that I don't care for and I've no idea why he he thought I'd be interested. This is why I have a wishlist, Dan. Stick to the wishlist.

Except, if this was from him, it was a win. So, whatever. Stick to the wishlist except for interesting horror novels, I guess. I had a great time with this book. I don't know how much of this Romero actually wrote, and how much of his credit is just to get people like me interested. But the prose style is great, with loads of gloopy, tangible atmosphere. It's a horror tale, very much in the style of Stephen King, with a well drawn community slowly coming under the influence of an unspeakable evil. Lots of people die, horribly, and it's properly unsettling. 

If Dan didn't buy me this, and you did, and you're currently furious that I forgot you gave me such a thoughtful present... um... well, I'm sorry. I hope the satisfaction of knowing I loved it mitigates against your feelings of betrayal.

Filterworld - Kyle Chayka

Yeah... this was fine. It's a well researched exploration of how algorithms work and how they are changing culture, and that is interesting. It's also written in a clear, fairly engaging style. 

So why am I being meh about it? Well, it's an issue I've had with a number of these books. I spend the first quarter of the book going, "Oh, this is all fascinating, and offers a different perspective on the world." And then I spend the rest of the book going, "There's that new perspective again. And again. And... yeah, it's just this one idea, isn't it?"

There's plenty in here to like. But maybe either have more ideas, or write shorter books. Either will do me fine. There's no shame in a short book. If anything, they make me happier. 

Oh, one last thing. This book was recommended to me by Amazon because I buy other books on a similar topic. The irony of this is not lost on me.

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

I've owned this book for many, many years. Very occasionally I have picked it off the shelf, teasing it with the prospect of me finally reading it, only to dash its hopes by shaking my head and putting it back, too lazy to engage with what I assumed would be a bleak and difficult read. Sorry, book. If it's any consolation, I have also made many women feel this way, and most of them went on to form happy, successful relationships. 

Well, having finally got beyond the 'dithering by the bookshelf' stage, I can report that yes, Brave New World is bleak. But no, not especially difficult. There's a lot of worldbuilding, which isn't always my favourite thing. I don't yet understand this world, the one I live in. How am I meant to also understand a new, pretend one? I don't care how brave it is. 

The learning curve is made easier, however, by the fact that this book clearly inspired a massive amount of sci-fi that came afterwards. And by that I mean films and television. Don't go jumping up and down about all the literary science fiction I've failed to consider. I haven't read them. That's why we're here, remember?

This is clearly a hugely influential work, and it was pleasing to see early expressions of ideas that became commonplace tropes. But I'll tell you what, I wasn't expecting as much Shakespeare. I mean, I know the title is a reference. It's even from a play I've read. What are the odds of that? But the book really gets into its Shakespeare, to the extent that massive swathes of the later chapters are basically characters shouting bits of Hamlet at each other. 

Anyway. This was good and I enjoyed it. And I've a sneaking suspicion that it's one of those that appears on 'books you should have read' lists, and usually they leave me feeling wretched.

That's all for now. See you next time for books 21 - 25.

Or you can leap backwards, to see how I found books 11 - 15.

100 books in a year. Eleven to Fifteen.

Great news, it's me. Here to share with you some of the books I've been reading this year. 

Last time I told you what I thought of books six to ten. And, as sure as maths is maths, here come the next five. 

Ban This Filth - Ben Thompson

This is good. It's about Mary Whitehouse, the mad old woman who spent her life crusading against moral filth wherever she saw it. Which was pretty much everywhere, but particularly on TV. 

I can't remember a time when I didn't know Whitehouse's name. She was a ubiquitous presence in the media as I was growing up, always railing against some new perversion which was going to ruin the minds of the innocent. And of course I loved all the perversion and stuff, and was very excited about having my mind ruined. So by extension I hated her. And I was looking forward to this book ripping apart her idiotic, puritanical ideas.

Well, to my annoyance this turns out to be a thoughtful, well researched book which takes a balanced, fair approach to the mad old battleaxe. Thompson has unearthed an massive amount of correspondence, primarily between Whitehouse and the BBC, which shows the development of her campaigns through the years. The letters themselves are fascinating - full of middle class passive aggression and sexual tension - but the real gold is in Thompson's dissection of the battles.

He has a very dry wit and pulls no punches when it comes to addressing Whitehouse's more unreasonable panics. But he also takes pains to look at her motivations and finds that, even though her actions might often seem mad and bizarrely naive, she was at heart a good woman who observed the power of the media, and worried about its effects. Damn you Thompson. I didn't come here to have my prejudices challenged. But well done anyway, I guess.

Murder at the Vicarage - Agatha Christie

If you've followed my reading journey from the start you won't be at all surprised to find that this was my first Agatha Christie. Yes, I know - she's one of the best selling authors ever. How have I avoided it? Well, by cunning, stealth and misdirection, that's how. I'm sneakier than I look.

Anyway. I didn't like it. Stupid bloody book. Why is she so popular? And don't go saying, "Because she's great and you're wrong and I bet you weren't even paying attention properly and kept checking your phone to see if anyone had clicked 'like' on that picture of you in a hammock."

Here's the thing. I'm willing to accept that Agatha Christie is objectively good. and that people like her for a reason. But on the evidence of this book and this book alone. I don't get it. She introduces a dozen characters, all of whom have completely interchangeable names and personalities and say things like "I say, Julian, can you make the badminton kerfuffle at the weekend?"

And then I'm meant to keep track of them all, as they wander about their complety unrelatable lives, having tea at each other's houses and occasionally dropping dead of murder. And I'm meant to work out the impossible puzzle of who was near the garden when the hen made a loud noise and such trivia. And then Miss Marple, who isn't even a detective, comes up at the end and says, "Ah, didn't you realise that Margaret took Jocasta's earring and so that means Henry couldn't have worn a hat that day and so I think Sebastian did the murder." Yeah, Miss Marple. If I had literally nothing to do all day, I'd be great at working out what was happening. But I'm not a retired old nosey madwoman, so I wasn't. 

Stupid book. 

The Hotel Avacado - Bob Mortimer

I read Mortimer's first novel, The Satsuma Complex, last year, and found it pleasantly diverting. Same with this sequel. It's mildly funny and well written, and I yummed it up, much as one might yum up an enjoyable ham and cheese pastie. It didn't rock my world, but it did keep me happy til lunchtime. 

It's a little odd reading a book by Bob Mortimer I found myself automatically trying to tune into his 'TV persona' voice, looking for absurdity and playful irony in every character and plot beat. For as long as I've watched Bob, he's been a carnival of gentle absurdity, and so I was looking for that here.

But it's not really that sort of thing. It's funny, yes, and he has some winning turns of phrase that demonstrate the unorthodox connections forged by his unique synapses. But this is a sincere, romantic tale of people trying to win against the odds. And it's quite lovely.

Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris

I have a friend called Matt who is very smart. Well, I have two or three, but let's not get bogged down in trivia. This Matt, the Matt we're focusing on, lent me a book by David Sedaris in order to stop me strutting up and down his house, drinking his wine and shouting, "What books would you recommend? I'm trying to be clever, like you."

This is not that book - this is one I sought out afterwards, by the same author. But it's more or less the same thing. A series of journalistic-ish, autobiographical-ish essays about memories and times Sedaris has experienced, with reflections on how it made him the person he's become. Though really it's just a series of hilarious, slightly bitchy stories about stuff he did. 

I'd never heard of David Sedaris before this, and am delighted to find that he has many books for me to newly enjoy. He appears to be a slightly awkward, outsidery kind of guy, who found that, in the world of prose, he's something of a badass. Love it.

Grendel - John Gardner

I've wanted to read this for years. Ever since 1987, when I first heard the very-long Marillion song of the same name. The song retells the story of Beowulf from the perspective of the monster, and it goes on for ages and has cool widdly keyboard bits and I love it. When I discovered it was based on a book, I became very excited.

"Why didn't you read it, then?" you may ask. To which I can only say... um... I'm not sure, and I've been busy, and please don't make me think about the fact that it's been nearly 40 years. I really don't think I can account for that big a gap in my CV.

Anyway. I read it this year, so shut up. It's very weird and wonderful and I had a great time with it. Grendel lurks on the outskirts of human society, occasionally breaking into their castles and biting people's heads off, then retreating to his dead to wax philosophical on the nature of being. It's a wild, vivid ride that throws notions of storytelling and morality in the air and laughs as they cascade all over the place. Dark, mad and fascinating. 

So there you go. Five books closer to the grave. See you next time, for books sixteen to twenty. 

Or you can skip back, to books six to ten.

100 books in a year. Six to ten.

I have decided to read 100 books this year. Is that far too many? Just enough? Laughably few? Let's find out together. 

Last time I talked about books 1 to 5, which you can find here.

And now - books 6 to 10. 

Berzerker - Adrian Edmondson

I've been a fan of The Young Ones since it first crashed into my life in the early 80s. It made a huge impression and I've followed its main players ever since. Adrian Edmondson is, as I'm sure you're aware, one of those players. 

And what a book. This is an absolute delight, and very quickly became one of my Favourite Things Ever. It is a wise and wonderful tale, told with compassion and wit, bristling with playful prose. One of the best things is, he doesn't tell his life story in strict chronological order. Good. I generally can't be bothered with autobiographies where we spend the first 200 pages watching them grow up in a council house. Get to the bit where you're famous, please. 

That said, I loved all the early life stuff too. He's a great writer, and there's a loose, conversational style to the whole affair that holds your attention. It's like sitting there, listening to a very funny man tell you astounding stories until the sun goes down. He has an amazing ability to demonstrate the gentle warmth and melancholy of an older man alongside the still burning flame of his earlier, crazier self. 

When I read most books, a little bit of me is watching the page count, delighting at the achievement as I near the end. Especially this year, as every book gets me one closer to my target. However. While reading this book, every page closer to the end made me a little sadder, that this beautiful, joyful book was going to come to an end.

Elevation - Stephen King

A brisk and breezy King book, which I flew through in a couple of evenings. Don't be fooled into thinking I'm a fast reader, though. I'm painfully slow. It's just that this was nice and short - practically a short story by King's standards. 

It's a relatively recent work, and the old boy seems to have lightened up somewhat. My main knowledge of King is of the early stuff - The Shining, Firestarter, It, all that lot. So I'm used to the relentlessly 'horror' fixated version of Stephen King, where the reward for being a lovely, decent character is that you suffer a horrible but extremely well described death. 

It's nice to see that the decades have mellowed him. This is positive, affirming and funny. Maybe he's been like this for years, while I wasn't looking. I guess I'll find out when I read more.

Lolita - Vladamir Nabakov

What a peculiar book. I'm very much glad I have read this, but I often wasn't glad to be actually reading it at the time. Not because it's badly written. Quite the opposite, if anything. 

As you'll probably know, this is 'that book' that Sting was singing about in his famous song "I am trying ever so hard not to sleep with this schoolgirl". It's about a man who fancies under age girls, and it's told from his point of view. Bonkers, right? But also fascinating. Not least because you spend a lot of the time thinking, "Who allowed this book? It feels like this book shouldn't be allowed. Am I allowed to be reading this book?"

The book is inherently critical of it's pervy protagonist, but that's subtext. The actual stuff of the writing is the narrator describing how much he fancies Lolita. And he's very good at describing things and making them sound sexy. Stop it, narrator. Socks aren't sexy. Except you make them sound like they are, and you're very good with words. God damn it.

Anyway, the main message is 'don't go out with underage teenage girls'. Never mind the moral issues - they sound like absolute nightmares. They'll be very mean to you, and say some very hurtful things, and mock all the stuff that you think is cool, and you'll never get a handle on their moods. 

(But also do mind the moral issues, obviously).

You Are What You Watch - Walter Hickey

I like books about popular culture and how it reflects ideologies, and how our brains make sense of stuff. So I found lots in this book to like. It's fun when books talk about television, because I've seen lots of television, and so I feel less stupid for a while. 

This is a bit of a mess, though. If it had a focus, I couldn't work out what it was. There'd be an amazing bit on how out brains interpret the visual information sent by our eyes, and how that explains how we tell stories. And then some seemingly aimless wandery nonsense about statistics that I didn't care about. 

Was it just that I wasn't properly paying attention? Well let's not rule that out. But I came away with the impression that the brief was 'write down everything that you've ever thought, referring occasionally to films and TV, until you hit the word count." If that was the brief, then well done, mission accomplished.

A Study In Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle

Another shameful omission. I had never read a Sherlock Holmes story in my life. Ridiculous, eh? I look like the kind of person who should have a big collection of all the Sherlock Holmes books, sitting on my shelf in the correct order, next to my replica pipe and magnifying glass. Well. Turns out I am as much of a nerd as you think, but also much lazier than you realised.

So I made my first foray into the world of Conan Doyle. I know about Holmes, of course. I've seen various films and TV adaptations, most strikingly the recentish Moffat/Cumberbach incarnation. All very enjoyable, but I knew they were modernised to appeal to my easily distracted brain. What would the book be like? Full of... I don't know, old stuff. Long sentences. Horses. People staring at wallpaper for fun.

Anyway, it's very good, obviously. Conan Doyle's prose style is way snappier than I'd expected. I was amazed that Holmes was every bit as weird and waspish as Cumberbatch's version. He was funny. Alert. Not the stuffy old patrician I'd expected. Also, the book takes a thoroughly bizarre turn half way through and jumps to a seemingly different story, in America, featuring totally different characters. It's as if David Lynch has taken over, and it's great. And then at the end it goes back to Sherlock Holmes saying, "So anyway that's why all the murders happened," and that's the end of the book. Glorious. 

That's all for now. See you next time, for five more books I read and at least partially understood.

Click here for books eleven to fifteen. 

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